Questions before you invest

As an investor, you should ask yourself these 3 questions before you start investing.

1. Investment Horizon
2. Risk Appetite
3. When you want to be Financial Freedom?

Investment Horizon is the very first question you should ask yourself. The length of investment ties with your age. If an investor who is 62, his investment horizon will probably be 20 years. The type of investment he should choose is passive income investment to protect his capital and get dividend income for his daily expenses or allowances. If an investor who is 25, his investment horizon is 50 years or more. The type of investment he should begin with is investment with growth then follow by passive income investment once he had built up his pot of gold. Of course, if he is not a high risk taker and time is on his side, he could opt for passive income investment and let compounding do the work.

The second question you should ask is your risk appetite. What I mean by risk appetite? If your investment is too huge until you cannot sleep at night and keep on thinking of your investment. You are probably not knowing why and what you are investing. Investment should give you a peace of mind after you had put in your money. If you are a low risk taker, you probably want to choose index investing as a form of investment. Remember, every investment is a risk. As long as it is a calculated risk, we should be fine with our investment.

The last question is when you want to be Financial Freedom determine the risk you going to take for your investment. If you intend to be Financial Freedom by 35, you are likely to take on a more risk approach toward investment. If you intend to be Financial Freedom by 55, you can take on an investment that have a combination of both growth and dividend investing given the more time you want to be Financial Freedom.

Let's assume you already know your Fundamental Analysis and Technical Analysis. Do you agree with me on these 3 questions to ask yourself before investing or there are more? Share with me if there are more as I also want to learn.

1Q 2017 Portfolio Update

Stock Name	No of Shares	Current Price	Total Value
M1	9000	$2.17	$19,530
Sembcorp Industries	4000	$3.20	$12,800

Capital Invested	$30,965
Current Market Value of Portfolio	$32,330
Total Dividend Collected 2017	-
Total Capital Gain 2017	$1,372.03
Total Investment Gain 2017	$1,372.03

The 1Q of the year had been rewarding for me as I had made a realised capital gain of $1,372.03. The projected investment gain for my portfolio in 2017 is $2,250.43 and I had already achieved more than half the value. If I include the unrealised gain of the current market value of my portfolio gain of $1,365, the total investment gain would be $2,737 which had already surpassed my projected gain for 2017. Looks like this year will be a good year for me as I will be expecting more returns into my portfolio.

Last month, I received my performance bonus and was really happy that it is a good bonus among my peers. This bonus added up is equivalent to 30.8% of my annual income. With more income, I will be able to save more money and pump into my investment portfolio which translated into more passive incomes. All in all, 2017 is a good year for investors as compare with 2016. STI had achieved a positive gain of more than 10% since the beginning of the year. Let's see the positive sentiments can last how long. Probably in May whereby investors start selling and go for holiday in June.

Potential sale of M1

M1 biggest key shareholders Malaysian telecom firm Axiata Group (28.54%), Keppel Telecommunications & Transportation (19.23%) and Singapore Press Holdings (13.38%) announced on 17 March that they are evaluating selling their combined stakes worth more than $1.14 billion. This triggered a sharp spike in M1 trading yesterday to a high at $2.19 per share, representing 7.88% increase before trading halt at 4:30pm.

M1 is the smallest telco among the 3 in Singapore. With the announcement of the 4th telco last year, share price of M1 had been dropping madly from a high of $4 to $2. I had been monitoring the situation since last year and decided to add more positions into M1. It was deeply undervalued and with a decent dividend of at least 6%, I am more than gladful to buy and wait for it to reach its fair value. As M1 is my biggest holding currently, I am looking forward to hear more good news and hopefully the sales will go through.

Welcome 2017 and New Year Resolution

Happy New Year everyone, a brand new start to the beginning. It's the time to pen down my thoughts on what I hope to achieve for the coming year.

1) To save at least S$10k in 2017
I did not manage to save S$10k for last year due to the commitment of raising our children. We had put them in a childcare from 8am to 7pm as both of us need to work. The childcare fees in Singapore is not cheap, costing about $1,200 per month for one children. Lucky, my elder daughter had gone to primary school, if not it will cost us $2,400 per month. Our mortgage loan was taken care of by CPF. According to Fed, there will be an increase of interest rate for 2 to 3 times this year, this will certainly impact on our mortgage repayment loan. We also had an outstanding of car loan to pay for another 2.5 years. During school holiday, we also bringing our children oversea for holidays, a typical Singaporean family lifestyle. In order to achieve this goal, first, my income has to increase and second, I must lower down my expenses. Income from my day job is rather quite fixed. A typical 3% increment yearly if no promotion. Hence I have to look for other alternatives to grow my income, but this should not compromise my time to spend with my children and the family.

2) To run a total of 250km in 2017
I had run a total of 194km for 2016. I want to stretch the number to 250km for this year. So more times have to set aside for regular exercise and run to maintain a healthy lifestyles. As age is catching up, we odd to exercise more. As the saying goes, health is wealth. Without health, we are unable to enjoy the harvest we had reaped.

3) To participate 3 charity events in 2017
I had participated 2 charity events in 2016. One is at Thong Teck Home For Senior Citizens, whereby I helped to distribute lunch packets to the old folks on wheelchairs and also chat with them while they had their lunch. The other one is at Old Saints Home, whereby I participate in a workshop with the old folks to use ornament to decorate and soil plant in a small box. A rather unique experience with the old folks.

4) To read 6 books in 2017
I had bought 5 books recently but have yet to read. The books that I bought are Alibaba - The House That Jack Ma Built and 4 books from Teh Hooi Ling, $how Me The Money. I will finish it by this year and get another one when I had completed the 5 books. Any good recommendations?