Sunday, February 12, 2017

Quick Personal Update : End of CNY

Just like that CNY is over. I am hunkering down for a week of 3 mid-term exams and my blogging will slow over the next few days.

a) Personal Finances

It has been quite good for the past few weeks for income investors. We should be expecting juicy pay-offs at the end of this month and, in spite of every negative thing that has been said about Trump, his approach towards the fiduciary rule and Dodd Frank is creating some sort of rally in the markets. At the rate the rate things are going, I might actually be ahead compared to my last day of paid employment with law school with three years of expenses hardly making a dent to my total capital size.

( This is mainly because I have managed to sock away some small dividends reinvestments over the past three years. )

Some months ago,  some friend asked me why I supported Trump because his election would hurt me financially the most because he is anti-globalization. My reply is that we don't really know what Trump means for the financial markets. It takes quite a lot to be able to predict what an incoming US President can do for a 40 plus stock Singapore portfolio.

At that time, I argued that in spite of my own personal wishes, Trump might not even be elected. Even if elected, checks and balances may stop him from executing his priorities, Even if Trump gets his way, the effect on my financial portfolio is unknown. We don't even know how long he can remain elected and the length of my investment horizon might not make the election consequential at all.

Right now, the financial markets have vindicated all my investment choices so far and we are winning BIG.

Bigger if you consider that I was never very bullish on Telcos in the first place and they are not doing all that hot recently. I don't even have an objective reason to hate Telcos, I just think that every conventional yield investor will turn to them for help which makes them really unattractive as yield instruments.

But I should remind myself that a market can reverse itself rather suddenly.

Somewhat disappointing is that I liquidated my Ethereum holdings at a negligible profit to create some liquidity for the Chinese New Year only to see it go up slightly. Perhaps I can get back in later before April.

b) Law School

I am prepared for the worse this semester because I was teetering around 3.4 GPA and have a decent chance of losing a good cum laude classification. Apparently I took up some really hardcore subjects this semester because I wanted to pick up skills in M&A and Insolvency because the material may improve my investing skills. While grading for these classes are harsh, the material was taught quite well and I was enjoying the practical aspects of it.

My only consolidation is that now I already have a foot in the door for a firm and grades will matter less after some years of practice.

Hopefully.

c) Books I am reading

There are too many good options when it comes to my extra-curricular readings. I was shifting between two really powerful books.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson is something I will definitely blog about because it presents a lot of basic self-help ideas in a harsh tone which I really like !

The other book being Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian which is a harder read but has really nifty ideas to apply algorithms to live normal productive lives.

Of course, the report by the Committee of the Future Economy is now a big distraction in the news. I feel an obligation to go through the 170+ page report and figure out what this means for readers.

Unfortunately, I only have so much spare time.

Anyway, so far the Year of the Rooster has been a good one.



No comments:

Post a Comment