Everything you need to know about Finance and Investing by Bill Ackman (Video)

Ever wonder what investing in stocks / shares and raising capital as a small business owner / entrepreneur is all about?

In this video, Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management (a famous hedge fund) shows you the basic concepts in finance and investing, and touch on raising capital for entrepreneurs.

Concepts discussed: 

• How income statement and balance sheet works
• Debt vs. Equity
• Raising capital for entrepreneurs
• Valuation or valuing a business
• IPO or selling to public
• Investing basics

Check out the video here: http://goo.gl/kgKGm or just click on the video below.

Barron's 10 US Stock Picks for 2013

It's that time of the year, this time Barron's is first to come up with their favourite top 10 stock picks.  Link to the article here (you will need a subscription to Barron's, sorry): http://goo.gl/lpGvT

To help my readers, I have put them into a spreadsheet for tracking over the next year. Click here to look at a live spreadsheet of how Barron's picks fare. 

Tips on looking for a Finance job in Singapore

You will definitely feel right at home while living in Singapore! (all prices in SGD)

I often get asked by friends, peers and even strangers on LinkedIn and Google+ how to prepare oneself to look for a job in finance in Singapore. So here they are, a summary of some prep I did before I came to Singapore. Note that I am writing from a UK perspective, i.e. someone living and working in UK intending to move to Singapore. This is equally applicable to everyone else of course.

1. Research, research and research

Check out the popular local job listing sites, the local financial services-oriented recruiters, get to know what skills are in demand and of course, know which banks and firms based in Singapore and are hiring. I highly recommend putting efinancialcareers.sg on the top of your list. Subscribe to email alerts and be as broad as possible with your search terms to see what’s out there. This is your big move so be prepared to spend weeks on research before buying your one-way ticket to Singapore!

2. Manage your salary expectation

Gone were the days where firms would be happy to give you relocation benefits or hardship top-ups to help you settle into Singapore. When I estimated my worth in Singapore back then, I managed my own expectation by using the latest post-tax salary as base, adjust it for the equivalent Singapore tax bracket and go from there. Truth is, you are worth not too far from this number. Your recruiters will advise you on your unrealistically high salary expectation anyway! 

Singapore Grand Prix September 2012
(view from the Singapore Flyer -- London Eye equivalent,
taken with my phone apologies for the quality)

3. Sort out your affairs and paperwork

Sort out your bills, debts and taxes before heading over, the last thing you want is to make long distance phone calls to your banks and Inland Revenue instead of networking with peers and recruiters. I would plan ahead by bringing original copies of payslips, P45’s from the Inland Revenue, degree & professional certificates and any written proof of awards or testimonials from ex-employers. Look into applying for a temporary work permit approval called a Personalised Employment Pass (PEP) months ahead so that you can focus on job searching, networking or interviewing the moment you touch down. You are an unknown quantity both to the hiring firm and to the government of Singapore, so be prepared to prove your credentials!

4. Expand your personal network

Go offensive on building up your network. Complete and enrich your profiles on professional social networks such as LinkedIn and efinancialcareer. Start reaching out to ex-colleagues, friends or acquaintances from your past that are currently based in Asia or know someone who does. The situation calls for thick skin; don’t accept no as an answer, be nice and get at least a contact or referral from them if they are unable to help. Chances are they might know someone who does!

While you are here, consider tagging along with your peers and acquaintances who are members of private recreation/country clubs or religious congregations; yes, it’s big here for reasons I can’t explain.  

5. Expand your professional network

Attend networking events or get in touch with your university alumni, professional peers or professional bodies (e.g. CFA). For example, I know someone who used to study at two universities in the States, the first thing he did when he got here was to connect with the local alumni and in turn, help connect them with his professional peers by pro-actively organising informal drinks sessions. Needless to say, his network grew exponentially in no time, with that came more connections and job opportunities!

Singapore latest foreign talent (FT) from China - 2 pandas Jia Jia and Kai Kai.
Will you be one of the FTs in 2013?

6. Hone your knowledge, freelance away your time

When I was looking for a job years back, I took up any assignments from friends or peers in order to sharpen my knowledge and more importantly, to showcase my work to potential employers, it’s a win-win situation. I also interviewed and signed up with a freelance consulting firm that parcelled out assignments. Both served to keep me sane and busy. 

7. Continue to be on your toes even after you have secured your first job in Singapore

As is the case almost everywhere in Asia, banks and companies in Singapore are pretty blasé when it comes to firing. Till this day I have email alerts everyday informing me of available openings. Once burned twice shy - I am constantly on the lookout, and so should you.

A slightly edited version of this has appeared on efinancialcareer.sg: http://goo.gl/78LnD Visit the site for more tips on moving to Asia, as you might want to look into Hong Kong, Shanghai and other more exotic financial centres in Asia.

Hear what Jim Rogers has to say at Shares Investment Conference held in Sept 2012

View from my comfortable seat

This event - the English language version of Shares Investment Conference 2012 was organised by Shares Investment magazine of Singapore (they have a sister publication in Malaysia too), held on Saturday September 1st 2012, from 9am to 7pm at the Rock Auditorium, Suntec City Mall Level 3, Singapore. I managed to get a free ticket for the morning session and paid for the afternoon session at a reduced price. After attending the conference, I thought I should write down some of the notes for the benefit of those who could not make it to the event.

First off, this is the programme schedule for the day for the benefits of those who want to know what was discussed. I was only able to attend the paid afternoon session from 2:30pm till 5pm.  Note that the Power Lunch is for those VVIPs whom have paid over the odds to have small group audience with the speakers of the day. Frankly speaking, the wisdom of crowd beats the wisdom of two on any day, I didn't feel I was missing out by not paying for the VVIP tickets.

Programme

8.00am Registration / Morning Snack 9.00am "The World Tomorrow and How Jim Rogers Sees it" - Keynote speech by Jim Rogers 11.45am Will The Bumpy Trend Continue For The Commodities Market?  - Avtar Sandu 12.30pm Panel Discussion: "2013 – What Happens Without A Euro?" (Jim Rogers, Mike Bellafiore, Avtar Sandu) 1.30pm Lunchtime Talk by SGX / Power Lunch with Jim Rogers & Mike Bellafiore Registration for afternoon session  2.30pm "Investing in Today's Crazy Markets" - Keynote speech by Jim Rogers 3.45pm "Beat the Market with ONE GOOD TRADE" - Mike Bellafiore 5.00pm Panel Discussion / Q&A with Jim Rogers, Mike Bellafiore, Avtar Sandu

Keynote Speech Session: Q&A with Jim Rogers

If you haven't already read about Jim Rogers, go and read up on him. I was a little disappointed that this session with Jim Rogers was actually an endless bout of Q&As with the audience. I must have missed a little bit of opening speech in the morning since this afternoon session started immediately with Q&As.

I have managed to capture some of the more important comments for the benefit of my readers:

Q: How should we invest in this current environment, you talked about US is likely to experience high inflation in 2 years' time?

Jim: When you have a currency debasement and inflation, you put your money in real assets. Assets that produce income, such as rent-yielding properties. However, note that even if you were to invest in properties and pay the mortgages off completely, there is no guarantee that you will be immune from the deteriorating economy - your own neighbours may not have paid off their mortgages and thus if they default or sell their houses on the cheap, your properties will devalue.

The best is to have income-producing assets, borrowing on the cheap, lock in cheap rates for as long as you could and generate above interest cost returns on the properties or yield-producing assets.

Other remarks made by Jim: 

• I have moved all my assets out of U.S. (bold statement!)
• I like to buy when people are throwing the stocks out of the window (panic selling), but I will do my homework to know whether this stock will have good fundamentals to keep growing.
• Politicians are liars, gold standard will not work and has never work for a sustainable period of time. Look at the Roman Empire, the politicians debase the gold and silver coins to the extent that each coin has 1% of silver, versus100% to start with. So currency debasement is always going to happen with the politicians in charge.
• Look to Myanmar (Burma) and North Korea for investments. The former used to be the largest economy empire in Southeast Asia in the 1940s. The latter, when combined with South Korea, stands to become one of the largest economy in Asia, utilising technology from the South and cheap labour from the North. 
• Invest in natural resources rich countries, like Canada and Australia.
• I like Chinese agriculture, can't give you names but you need to go study the sector yourself. 
• I am out of US dollars but have holdings in Hong Kong dollars as I think it is a bet on US dollars with a call option on RMB (Chinese Yuan). 
• I am shorting India given its terrible state, with debt / GDP of ~90%, historically when countries hit these levels, they will be busy paying off debt than to invest for the future. 
• I have AUD (Australian dollars) and I am not selling.

More here from his interview with Shares Investment in early August and interview with India's Economic Times in early September.

One thing that really bugged me a lot is some of the really silly questions that were put forward to Jim, such as: 

• A guy asked, "There seems to be a lot of World Wars going on all the time. Where should we invest when World War III come? " For a good few minutes, this guy is trying to argue with Jim that world wars are inevitable and he is shit-scared of the impending war which will happen just round the corner. Given this, he still want to "invest"?!
• A lady asked, "I heard that ETFs are going to blow up and it is not a recommended place to invest." On this, Jim and the audience tried to dissect what that statement meant, did the lady a) tried to paint a broad brush about ETFs being unsafe investment vehicle, or b) that the underlying indices/commodities of the ETF/ETCs are going to blow up, or c) she's talking about leveraged ETFs? Despite probing, Jim never quite get to the clarification that he was seeking. One thing is for sure, she just wasted 3 minutes of everyone's time.
• "Where would you buy properties - Miami or Singapore?" Well, given Jim is based here in Singapore and not in Miami, I think that's obvious...

"One Good Trade" - Talk by Mike Bellafiore

Next up, a talk by Mike Bellafiore on prop trading - what you need to do before, during and after every trade. It's all captured in his book (see below).

Honestly, before the session, I have no idea who Mike is. Apparently he is the founder of SMB Capital, a prop trading firm that he set up with his long-term childhood friend. Here's a Youtube video of him. 

Anyway, he wrote a book called "One Good Trade: Inside the Highly Competitive World of Proprietary Trading", available to buy here at Amazon

He started by highlighting the 7 fundamentals of trading, which I think was great place to start. I won't repeat the entire talk verbatim here but will just let you visit the various blog posts in SMB's training program or read Mike's book. 

The 7 fundamentals? They are:

1. Proper preparation
2. Hard work
3. Patience
4. Detail trading plan
5. Discipline
6. Communication
7. Replaying your important trades

FYI, his book costs a rather uncool undiscounted price of S$78 at the event, which is over US$50. A search on Amazon gives me a price way below that…

Other Happenings

After Mike's session, I could not stomach another session of Q&As starting from 5pm. It will be a colossal waste of my time and I'd much rather go online and read up on other trading, finance and economics bloggers or gurus about their thoughts, in addition to Jim's and Mike's. So I left.

There were the usual investing-related stands outside the auditorium, with the brokerage house Philips Capital and several other providers touting their trading platforms, brokerage accounts, features and whatnots. A bookseller was of course on hand to offer the usual over-priced trading and investment books with 20% discount (trust me, with this 20% discount, you will be getting the books here in Singapore priced at the same price as they do in the U.S., it goes without saying that it is rather expensive to buy books in Singapore. I suggest you buy from U.S. on a normal day, even cheaper if you buy secondhand  and/or bulk-send use a mail forwarder like Borderlinx and vPost).

My Thoughts

The event was held at the Suntec shopping mall, with the ever-so-popular computer and gadgets sales COMEX 2012 IT products show going on, which obviously have a lot more visitors (last count at 800 thousands, which I think is too high) than this 300-odd attendees day-long seminar. For the price of the entry ticket, at S$168 (undiscounted) for a full day and S$50 for my half-day at a special rate, it is rather disappointing.

Here's why:

• Nothing really new or revolutionary - we have two speakers, one Jim Rogers that you almost inevitably will probably hear enough of on CNBC, Bloomberg, mentions from other bloggers or financial news reporters as well as his own blog. The other is Mike, co-founder of a prop trading firm that train up traders and provide training courses to anyone willing to pay for the training materials and online support, things that you can pick up from the company's marketing material and blog posts online.
• Admittedly I have to say that it's nice to hear from the man himself in person but I don't think Jim Rogers thinks, let alone acts like a retail investor like us average Joes. He's worth tens of millions, if not hundreds, he has the ability to diversify across multiple asset classes, geographies, investment quantum and investment horizons. He can park some capital in Myanmar and North Korea via means that retail investors can't, primarily due to his connections, wealth and size of investment. I just don't want to be the ones buying when he's ready to sell.
• Having a pep talk by Mike was refreshing if you do not already know about prop trading. I traded badly before so it was great to have Mike talking about the fundamentals again, reminding me that I need to be discipline in my trading. I feel Mike should be replaced by a local and more experienced fund manager, probably someone more in tune with the Asian markets and running a long-only equity/bond investment fund. I know trading is geography- and market-agnostic but this event is investment-focused, not day trading-focused.

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