How did you started?

[archcherub]

Cheers mate. Unfortunately I don't have a good answer for you - unless you move into back-office at a bank or something like that? One of the things I most enjoyed about the trading job was teaching the mid- and back-office staff about what we do in the front office; they can do their job a lot better if they understand what we're doing up front. Not all traders will be like that, but if you get a good one you can learn a lot.

Seriously, though - saving 10-20% of your income and using that to invest is about the best thing you can do to set yourself on the right track.

i can work for ur PA. comes with free starbucks

actually i did apply for a few banking jobs with my economics degree. but then most banks offering me sales job, which I am shying away...

and yah i guess u r right.. unless i get a good bank job or trading position, i guess saving and investing 10-20% of my income is the stable route.

it will take a few decades to reach f**k-you money stage though. many many decades....

 

[frenchbriefs]

i can work for ur PA. comes with free starbucks

actually i did apply for a few banking jobs with my economics degree. but then most banks offering me sales job, which I am shying away...

and yah i guess u r right.. unless i get a good bank job or trading position, i guess saving and investing 10-20% of my income is the stable route.

it will take a few decades to reach f**k-you money stage though. many many decades....

i watched this youtube video that says trading ability has to be developed on ur own,and if u do have the ability to trade,u should be working for a hedge fund instead managing billions and earning tens of millions.....banks are a waste of time.

 

[archcherub]

i watched this youtube video that says trading ability has to be developed on ur own,and if u do have the ability to trade,u should be working for a hedge fund instead managing billions and earning tens of millions.....banks are a waste of time.

the truth is i know hedge funds wont hire me because I am unqualified. so i got to start from the beginning.... learn from the scratch i guess

 

[w1rbelw1nd]

everytime i read stuff by u, i wish i could have started my career doing trading or bank operations so I could have learnt a lot more than all these piecemeal i get from "schools" and "gurus".

i am 30s and in the middle of nowhere financially... short of getting 10-20% of my income to save and invest for the long term, how can I get a job where the side benefit is learning all these trading stuff?

it seems sooooo useful in life. and good to share with siblings and friends too.

thanks Shiny.

Well I have many friends working in a bank, since I am Biz admin grad. One of them is a five-figure earning trader, but he knows nothing about investing since he is a FX futures guy. Some of the other middle/back office people also have no idea about investing, at all. My colleagues in my internship actually bought endowment funds -_-"

My colleague, who used to work as a retail banker (who is supposedly in the best position in a bank to know about investing since he serves the masses), to be honest is probably one of the worst investors I have come across. His 20k portfolio makes up of 10k in Noble Group and 10k in EM unit trust.

When I ask him why does he not use SCB for lower commission, he said he is gunning for big profits, not save up on paltry commissions. When I ask him why not get an ETF instead of being over-exposed to Noble Group, he says it is "sexier" to tell pple you own an actual company rather than own a market-cap weighted index fund.

TL;DR: Working in a bank doesnt make you a better investor in my opinion. The kind of "tools" and "rules of the game" as a bank employee and as an investor is very different, and especially if you are a retail banker, you will most likely have a very very messed up idea about how investment should be done. You are probably better off not working in a bank to be a better investor

 

[icicic]

it is our business,in the world of wall street u need street cred and money is credibility.....the correct answer should be i have 500k in my roth account,i have 400k in my 401k and xxxk in my IRA account....then breakdown on what funds or etfs u hold,vanguard,barclays,ishares,emerging markets,corporate high yield,small value,large value,growth,international whatnot,tips,treasuries.

no one's asking how much is in ur savings bank,thats rude but we need to know whats in ur portfolio and ur track record and whether u has street cred and nigga's got fonk.

To me shiny is credible because the things he says make sense. Peace.

 

[wondrdoggie]

I am curious. Net worth seems to be a measure a lot of people are interested in.

How much net worth would you guys term as average, above average, rich, very rich and finally **** you rich? Singapore context of course, which includes property but less mortgage and loans.

My views:

$400-500k - average
$500k-1m - above average
$1-10m - rich
$10-20m - very rich
>$20m - FU rich

 

[wahkao3]

the truth is i know hedge funds wont hire me because I am unqualified. so i got to start from the beginning.... learn from the scratch i guess

My hedge fund is still hiring, drop me a message if you wish to know more.

http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/84124115-post1.html

yes u can join seowgao's hedge fund
make sure u perform at 20% CAGR

 

[Shiny Things]

I am curious. Net worth seems to be a measure a lot of people are interested in.

How much net worth would you guys term as average, above average, rich, very rich and finally **** you rich? Singapore context of course, which includes property but less mortgage and loans.

My views:

$400-500k - average
$500k-1m - above average
$1-10m - rich
$10-20m - very rich
>$20m - FU rich

Hey, great question. Let's stick some numbers around it.

So Credit Suisse's Global Wealth Databook for 2013 has the numbers we're after, at the top of page 101.

The important numbers: the median adult in Singapore has about $90k USD of net worth (call it $110k SGD?), and the mean adult has $250k of net worth (about $320k SGD). So if you have $100k of net assets - house, car, and bank accounts on one hand; minus your mortgage, car loan and credit cards on the other - you're pretty much normal!

Also, very roughly: 20% of adults have wealth less than $10k USD; 35% have $10k-$100k; 40% have $100k-$1mio; 5% are USD millionaires. (The reason this differs from this famous figure - that one in six Singaporean households are millionaire households - is because the CS report looks at individual wealth, not household wealth, and I'm going with that definition as well.)

So let's strap some USD numbers around this:
$50k-$200k ($60k-$240k SGD): average.
$200k-$500k ($240k-$600k SGD): better than average.
$500k+ ($600k+ SGD): top 10%.
$3mio+ ($3.5mio+ SGD): fuçk-you money.

(Why do I say $3mio is fuçk-you money? Because if you wanted to tell your boss "fuçk you" and leave, $3mio would throw off $100k a year at a conservative 3% withdrawal rate, and if you can't live on $100k USD a year you have issues.)

 

[kazejin]

got turn around story with happy ending?

Sadly, no.
Well, my "personal money" investing record is ok, but i have such a small base compared to the 300k my parents had.
So yea, if i include the money lost by my parents, and inflation over the years, my net record is deep in the red.

The experience did taught me important lessons, but was certainly way too expensive a lesson.

 

[ashethen]

started in NS. nothing to do during admin time so read up on investing and trading. during nights out me and a buddy would go to the library to borrow books on investing, and also go to the computer lab to do some research and trading.

this is one of the best things to do to spend your wasted time during ns

 

[SpeedingBullet]

basically if u can get PB account (not those wealth banking bs by UOB but the actual PB itself), u know ur rich.

 

[alexchia01]

Sadly, no.
Well, my "personal money" investing record is ok, but i have such a small base compared to the 300k my parents had.
So yea, if i include the money lost by my parents, and inflation over the years, my net record is deep in the red.

The experience did taught me important lessons, but was certainly way too expensive a lesson.

You started on the wrong note, which is common for many retail investor.

The sad fact is that investing is the most easiest thing to do compare with trading.

Investing is just looking for strong fundamental stocks at discounted price and buy them.

The problem is that many investors got confuse between investing and trading; and start doing nonsensical things.

For example... High can goes higher, therefore buy high to sell higher; is a trader's strategy. Investor don't do this. Investor will always wait for price to fall below its intrinsic value before he start buying; this could take years and lot of patience, which nowadays many young and newbie investors lack of.

When you heard it in the news and everyone is buying, it's already too late. Investor buys when nobody cares or aware of the counter he's buying.

 

[bakuten]

first i came across this vid which piqued my interest...

then i looked around and found this series...

Hidden Secrets Of Money - Free Video Series on Money Secrets

then i went out and bought physical Gold n Silver and hasn't looked back since.

 

[peterchan75]

If one can differentiate between a trading counter vs an investment counter, then one is in good shape. But if one cannot, then index ETF might be a good option. As a rule of thumb, if one sees a lot of posting on a certain counter, it's a trading counter. Horror story(not personal)... losing 700+K in the futures market that took away mom's life savings, wife's and some of brothers' and sisters'. Leverage can do a lot of damage sia....