Strategies for Successful Investing: Seedly Personal Finance Festival 2024 Highlights

When it comes to personal finance, investing often takes centre stage as the pathway to growing wealth.

However, getting started can be challenging due to the steep learning curve and market fluctuations’ emotional highs and lows.

No matter where you are on your investment journey, heed the wisdom of seasoned investors who shared their experiences at Seedly Personal Finance Festival 2024.

Remember, investing is a marathon, not a sprint—take your time and make thoughtful decisions.

Keep reading for more insights! 👇🏻

TL;DR: Investing Strategies for the Head And the Heart

All three discussions emphasised the importance of managing risks through diversification. This includes balancing investment portfolios across various asset classes (such as gold, property, and other investments) and using strategies like stop-losses to protect against significant losses.

• Building Wealth Through Property: Eric Chiew (Founder, Credit Savvy), Marko Goh (Founder, Marko & Friends) & Tri Wira Efendi (Business Development Manager, SingSaver)
• Shining Wealth: Unveiling the Power of Investing in Precious Metals: Christopher Wong (Executive Director, FX Strategist Global Markets Research and Strategy, OCBC Bank), Timothy Goh (Business Journalist, The Straits Times) & Dinesh (co-founder, Dollars&Sense)
• The Psychology of Great Investors: Christopher Forbes (Head of CMC Invest, Singapore), James Ooi (Chief Market Strategist, Tiger Brokers) & Justin Oh (Content Strategist, Seedly)

Disclaimer: The information provided by Seedly serves as an educational piece and is not intended to be or does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation offered or endorsed by Seedly or any other company. Investors should always do their due diligence before investing in any investment products or adopting any investment strategies.

Building Wealth Through Property

During the panel on building wealth through property investment in Singapore, participants gained valuable insights from Marko Goh (Founder, Marko & Friends) and Eric Chiew (Founder, Credit Savvy). They stressed the importance of capital appreciation, strategic planning, and risk management.

Shining Wealth: Unveiling the Power of Investing in Precious Metals

In a panel moderated by Dinesh (co-founder, Dollars&Sense), Christopher Wong (Executive Director, FX Strategist at OCBC Bank), and Timothy Goh (Business Journalist, The Straits Times) explored why gold remains a favoured investment choice. Its appeal as a tangible asset and safe haven during economic instability and geopolitical tension was discussed.

The panel covered different ways to invest in gold, including physical gold, ETFs, and other investment products. Timothy shared his preference for investing in physical gold, particularly buying it in ounce increments.

This reminded me of when my relatives rushed to buy gold before Chinese New Year, as this year is the Dragon Year—a mark of prosperity and fortune. This spurred more people around me to buy gold, as they thought its value would increase.

Besides this, Christopher provided an analysis of gold’s recent performance and outlook, covering the impact of shifts in global monetary policy, central bank gold purchases, and geopolitical events on gold prices.

This is what he shared:

“So if we were to consider various episodes of gold performance, if you look at past episodes of Fed rate cut cycle and past episodes of after the Fed finished hiking rates, that period where before the cut rates, essentially what we are today, since July of last year,you actually notice, if you look at a column which I overlaid out, gold amongst the three or four different asset classes have been on a bull run, even, in the process of whether Fed has already gone into cutting rates or even before the rate cut cycle actually started.

So to some extent is a notion that when Fed is done tightening, that relief is here. And then potentially, as the rate rates starts going down, the opportunity cost of holding gold also goes down. And then perhaps, when you look at some of the asset classes, because when all your interest rates are on the rise, you might also wonder whether you want to buy more gold, unless there’s geopolitics.

We had geopolitics that is driving up gold prices, but because of all, if we take away the geopolitical drivers, then if you were to look at some of the cycles where Feds rate was actually on hold, and before they actually cut, most of the asset classes rally, including gold itself.“

The experts emphasised gold’s role in diversifying investment portfolios and offering stability during market volatility. They also noted gold’s historical annual return of 7.70% since 1971, surpassing inflation and proving its value as a long-term investment.

The discussion concluded with the panellists reflecting on gold’s performance across various currencies since 2001 and its relevance in investment portfolios.

If you’re interested in investing in gold, here’s a guide for you:

The Psychology Of Great Investors

This panel featured Christopher Forbes (Head of CMC Invest, Singapore) and James Ooi (Chief Market Strategist, Tiger Brokers), moderated by Justin Oh (Content Strategist, Seedly). The discussion explored the art of investing, managing emotions, and developing a structured process.

The panellists highlighted the need to manage psychological challenges, maintain discipline, and avoid overreacting to market fluctuations. These were key points throughout the discussions.

Furthermore, they emphasized the importance of long-term investing, low portfolio turnover, and risk management through diversification and stop-loss strategies. James outlined the traits of successful investors, such as buy-and-hold strategies and controlling portfolio turnover ratios.

Some tips he shared included the need to study stock patterns and trades, understand maximum drawdown and recovery times, and assess one’s risk profile to ensure suitability for specific investments.

He stressed the need to stay invested and benefit from compounding returns.

Christopher added to this by emphasising the need for a process or even a playbook when it comes to investing; much like going to the gym for a routine, there should be one for investing. He further added that learning from history is also important.

The panellists also discussed common behavioural biases such as herd mentality and anchoring bias, advising investors to conduct thorough research and avoid blindly following trends. They acknowledged the familiar concept of FOMO (fear of missing out). They suggested that, while it can prompt learning and research, it should be approached cautiously to avoid impulsive market decisions.

Overall, the panel concluded that, despite the psychological challenges of investing, a disciplined, long-term approach is essential.

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