Why I start this blog

As an investment professional, I have been approached by many people to give them advise on investment - what to invest, how to invest, what are the hottest investment tips, and what is a good time to invest.

Quite often, I am very reluctant to give them investment tips. This is because the strategy I used will be different from theirs, and therefore what make sens to me does not necessary make sense to them. Furthermore, our risk tolerance are different and therefore it will not be in their interest to invest in the same stock that I invest in. Furthermore, when I invest for my company, I took a portfolio approach rather than a piecemail approach.

Nevertheless, some questions pertaining to financial products are very interesting, and I think I can help them to clarify their doubts and also help them to understand how certian products work.

Many time, the general public just buy the products recommended by their "friendly bankers" without understanding whether the products is suitable for them, and without knowing if they are being ripped off. Sometime, the "friendly banker" have no idea how does the products work.

A case in point was a few years back, my ex-colleague asked me how to investment her money. Her objective was to beat the fixed deposit (FD) rate, and her priority was to have her capital protected and any cost. I therefore suggested that she go and buy Singapore Government Bonds. Since she is not familiar with online financial portal, I suggested that she go to the invest shop of UOB and ask the "friendly financial advisor" to help her. You can imagine how surprise I am when she return and told me that the financial advisor of UOB she saw had no idea what Singapore Government Bond was, and therefore cannot help her.

This makes me realised that there are many people out there that wanted to know more about financial products, and wanted to learn more about investment, but are afraid to take the first step, or are too shy to ask others (maybe they do not want to appear stupid in front of others). I really think that there is no such thing as stupid questions when come to matters that concrn your money. I myself are still learning about investment and financial products, and I am sure that there are many people out there that have a better understanding than me on many things.

However, I start this blog with the intention of helping people so that hopefully, they can understand what financial products they are buying. if they have something that they wanted to ask, they can email me if they think that they do not want to trouble their own financial advisor, or are afraid that their own financial advisor may have conflict of interest. there is no guarantee that I can have answer to each and every questions, but I will try. I also have friends that are managers and district managers in the insurance industry whereby I can ask for their views.

In my subsequent posting, I will start to write about various topics that I think will be of interest to readers. I saw from forum many questions being asked. That will be a good start.