Blog – Page 5 – Greg Fok Advisory

Embracing volatility in investing

January 18, 2022January 18, 2022
by Gregory Fok

Given the recent years, it has been a volatile ride throughout the period from 2017 all the way till now in 2022. With the fresh start to 2022 with a volatile period, this is a stark reminder again that markets will go through volatility from time to time and it is part of any normal market cycle. Trying to predict markets in the short term will yield little fruition and even add on frustration. Focus instead, on our longer term goals and objectives, without trying to time the markets. Continuously add on to your investments over time and diversify globally to reduce our risks towards idiosyncratic risks which can never be predicted.

If a person had stayed invested and kept the course over the past 5 years, we can see that the markets only continue to grow and increase over time just by sheer patience. Speak with us and we can show you what the markets have resulted in a double digit growth over the past 5 years. Understanding how capital markets work helps us in our decision making for the longer term. We all know widely diversified portfolios will grow over time, as evidence based over almost a hundred years.

Going back in history

So we need to remember that over the past hundred years, our world has gone through depressions, world wars, financial and economic crisis, oil embargo and many unprecedented crisis. In some instances, the phrase, “This time, it is different.” comes up. The latest being the health crisis which almost caused the whole world to pause their lives. However, we have always emerged with a stronger returns of the equity markets due to innovation, stronger global demand and an ability for the human race to adapt and change for the better in all senses.

So let us remember why we are investing, sit tight, understand how capital markets work and embrace volatility to get to your goals in a smart way through proper diversification and asset allocation.

If there is someone whom you think will appreciate getting them to their goals in a way that reduces risks and increases wealth, without the need to speculate, we will be happy to have an initial chat with them.

Financial Planning

What products can get me the highest returns?

December 30, 2021December 30, 2021
by Gregory Fok

Commonly, in my conversations with clients, this question seems to pop up quite a lot. And as I delve further into the conversation with them with a few more questions, I find that what the client really wants is peace of mind, stability, reduced risks and getting them to their goals in the safest way possible.

Then why is it that the question starts off with what can get them the highest returns? It is unfortunate that this is how the human mind compartmentalize and thinks without the understanding of human behaviour behind investing. And that is the reason why many investors actually lose money over their experience of investing and they say that investments do not work for them, so the safest option will be to keep money in the bank.

Instead, we turn the question around and ask what is it about money that is most important to them? At first, this might seem like an unimportant question to them. However, as we continue the conversation, it takes away the focus on products and shifts the focus towards life and their personal goals and achievements.

Your life plan sets the direction for your financial plan.

When we start to uncover what they really want to achieve in their lives and why it is important to them, safety and reduction of risks begin to appear stronger in the conversation. And most of the time, they come to a realization that they do not need the highest returns. What they really want is to get to their personal goals and objectives using strategies that are evidence based.

Reduce risks, higher expected returns without speculation

After a person learns about how markets work, they start to think about how to reduce risks significantly especially for very large goals of retirement funds and tilts their entire portfolio towards the areas of higher expected returns without the need to time the markets or speculate.

Create a Spending plan

In a recent case we were working on recently, they started off by asking what is the product that can give them the highest returns. Most of the time, that is not their personal objective. Due to smart and proper planning, they actually were able to create a plan to spend more than what they are doing right now. The best part is that they do not need to take excessive risks and they only need to take on a measured approach. And with a differentiated approach (with us) towards getting them to their own goals, they came out of the meeting with much more clarity and confidence of their future.

Deep education, deep conviction

The process of education takes time and a reshaping of the way we think when a person looks at wealth management. I probably went through at least 10-15years of trial and error, going through many mistakes before I finally came to a conclusion that I will not be able to do this on my own. And I have to acknowledge that there is smarter way to invest and grow wealth which is the change of strategy for myself over the past 3-4 years. This helped me to ease my burden of tracking markets constantly and focus on my personal life goals instead. Volatile emotions are removed and the value of wealth through investments has grown by more than 10x over time.

So in summary, what clients really want is not which products that can get them the highest returns, but they want to be able to get to their own personal goals, with no need for speculation and reduce their risks to the bare minimum, especially when you are going to be growing wealth to at least 7 figures.

If you would like to find out more, you can have an initial chat with us, at our cost to see if there is a fit. Not everyone appreciate our value in the work we do, but if there is, we can continue the conversation further if there is a match.

Financial Planning

Why does it pay to have a good financial…

December 11, 2021December 11, 2021
by Gregory Fok

John had just started his investment journey money with a robo-advisor at the end of 2019 before the covid-19 crisis occurred after seeing that the markets had grown well through in 2019. What was unexpected was that no one saw the health crisis coming along the way. What happened within the next year was an extreme roller coaster ride.

In the depths of the health crisis in March 2020, fear gripped him. The whole world was in uncertainty and turmoil and many of his friends had shared that the crisis would turn out to be even worse. He was shocked that the markets had dropped quite significantly (almost 30%) so he sold all the investments out.

After realizing the loss of 30%, the markets recovered very promptly, again unexpectedly. He knew that he needed to invest the money as the interest rates in the banks was miserable. He thought he would try again to try to invest, with another attempt. So in the last quarter of 2021, he decided to go back to invest into the markets just before the US elections. His investments actually did pretty well and grew about 10% during that period when he invested. Fear gripped him again at the end of 2020 as his investments had grown well and he read in the papers that markets are at ATH (all time high). And having experienced that dramatic loss early in the year, he decided to sell out and wait for the markets to correct again.

What was again unknown to him is that the markets continued to rally almost another 20% from the beginning of the year.

Instead, if a person had stayed invested throughout the entire time frame from the end of 2019 to Dec 2021, the investments would have grown by almost 40+% throughout the same period.

What are the lessons learnt for Deep Education?

It is very hard to time the market

Even if a person may get it right once or twice, he has to get it right multiple times with many entries and exits. In the short term, it is almost like gambling because it is very hard to know what the markets will turn out to be in the short term. However, we do know from evidence that markets had grown on a upward trendline since 1920s and will continue that path in the long term as long as there is innovation and constant desire for human consumption for a better life. However, there is going to be expected volatility in the short term.

Appreciating and embracing volatility

If a person expects that investments are going to be straight line upwards, he will be in for a rude shock. Whilst it is true that investments markets go up over the long term, it is going to be peppered with unexpected twists of ups and downs. So just like sitting a roller coaster, it is best to stay seated throughout the entire ride and not try to jump off along the way which is the most dangerous. Wait till the end point when it comes to a stop and you will be in safe hands.

Structure your investments according to your goals and time horizon

However, it is noted that some goals may be realized in the shorter time frame and if that is the case, we help you to design your asset allocation according to your personalized objectives. Volatility can be reduced significantly by reducing the equity exposure and inserting a higher allocation to bonds to dampen the swings. The shorter the time frame available, the lower the risk appetite should be taken.

Journey with an experienced advisor

Despite having known all the above steps, when the markets go crazy, which it will from time to time, people will continue to make emotional decisions as we are swayed by human behaviour. What you want is not the highest returns but you want to be able to achieve your goals safely with a strategy based on evidence and with someone who is experienced enough to hold your hands through. And in some unique cases, a person may not even need to invest or he has to find a way to spend more money, give more money to his charity or family members while he is still around.

Let us have an initial conversation to see if there is a right fit to get you to build CORE portfolios of 7 figures and above without the need to speculate and to use an evidence-based approach.

Insurance

How do I be smart about transfer of wealth?

November 26, 2021November 26, 2021
by Gregory Fok

There are families we know who want to leave a legacy behind for the next generation or their specific beneficiaries. This can be very useful for families who already have some reasonable amount of wealth and they want to be even smarter. However, this only applies for clients who want to leave behind a legacy with their extra money. Do you know you can be very smart about how you want to design the gifting to them by planning smart?

Use discounted dollars

For example, if you plan to leave $1mil behind for your beneficiaries, do you know that you do not need to park that $1mil in cash just lying in wait? Depending on your age and health, you just need to set aside as little as $200k as a lump sum (if you are younger). This figure that you need to set aside will increase with age, depending on when you start the plan. The earlier you start planning, the lesser you need to fork out and the smarter you become. Or if you pay it out over a period of time, it could even be as little as $2k a month to ensure that the same $1mil goes to your family. Every scenario is different so please have an initial chat with us before you look into the figures. No matter how you do the calculations, it will always be more cost effective than having to set aside that $1mil on your own.

Use the power of compounding effect and growth

Whilst the amount of money is being set aside, it will continue to compound over time as well. Depending on how you structure the plan, the wealth of that $200k will grow over time and you can have some access to it at a much later age. If you be very smart about it, it can have a very significant doubling effect as well.

Guaranteed event

One day, all of us will end up going to heaven, so that $1mil will go down to our beneficiaries. This is an unfortunate event that will happen in ALL our lives for sure. It is just a matter of whether it happens, earlier or later.

To sum up, insurance was designed by the wealthy, for the benefit of the wealthy, for them to continue to be wealthy. If you want to be smart about your wealth and finances, let us have an initial chat to be able to multiply your wealth from all angles!

Financial Planning

What are doctors most worried about?

November 20, 2021November 20, 2021
by Gregory Fok

You have worked hard in the early years of your career to master your expertise. Now you finally see some light at the end of the tunnel when your hard work pays off with a reasonable income and you have amassed a decent amount of wealth.

As a doctor, you are most worried about the things you have no control over. What are they and how should you plan to minimize the risks?

You want to protect your income against unexpected health risks.

As a doctor, what can potentially derail your cashflow significantly could be an unexpected health risk. As we all grow older, you see patients and even friends and relatives with medical issues like cancer, stroke, heart attack. And these issues could create a cashflow gap in between now and recovery some time later. And some could take many years before a full recovery could be made while others may affect for a lifetime. Be smart about it and transfer that risk out to a financial institution and you will be surprised how cost effective such solutions could be. It could be as cost effective as 1% of the amount of risk you want to transfer, depending on age and health.

You want to ensure that your wealth and investments will never become zero.

Your expertise and time best spent is with your patients as that is what pays for the bills. As such, you will have no time to track and monitor the markets and you do not want to be speculating with the stock market either. Just imagine, if want a surgeon to be operating on your parent, would you want a junior doctor who spends time on the internet learning about how to be the best surgeon or would you rather have an experienced surgeon who has been doing this for the past 16 years and do this on a daily basis? We are that experienced surgeon you may just want to reach out to.

Using an evidence-based approach that goes back as far as almost 100 years, we are able to design and create a portfolio for you, using low-cost globally diversified instruments, that can withstand the many decades of crisis and wars which allows our clients to reach their goals with the least amount of risk and the highest chances of success.

You are concerned over litigation and reputation risks.

You could be a renowned doctor and are established in your field for many years. You have also created a certain amount of networth with your experience and years of work. However, all it takes is a patient who happened to sue and all the reputation built over the years as well as your efforts of building wealth could just disappear almost overnight. The years ahead could also be quite daunting when reputation is tarnished for your practice.

Being smart to transfer some assets out of your name into a trust or a close family member could be a way to mitigate some of these risks as you never know what could go wrong down the road especially if you have already built a certain reputation and networth.

What do you do next?

We do allow an initial consultation together with us at our cost to allow you to explore and see if there is a fit in what you are looking for and if we are able to add value to you through our many years of experience working and specializing together with doctors.

Financial Planning

Reframing your investment perspective

November 6, 2021November 6, 2021
by Gregory Fok

Usually, when a person invests, they try to get the highest possible returns in the shortest possible time. And market timing and stock selection seems to be the way to go – well, that is at least how the whole investment industry is wired to get people to take action regularly to trade in order to. But is that really the right way to go about investing?

The Process

The focus on the news is to sell and cause people to trade. Even the news on CNBC which shows an economist speaking on TV everyday is to cause emotional movements within your body to think about buying or selling. The typical process starts with product (usually a stock), then it goes to what is the time frame for an overconcentration risk, over the next 3-6 months and then finally, you see how that fits into your overall plan. This causes emotions of greed and fear which usually derails us from our financial plans (if you have a written one in the first place).

We reframe it by starting with the reason “Why do you need to invest in the first place? What are you actually trying to achieve?”. Through conversations with people we meet, many of them are not even clear why they want to invest. They just want to find something that gives them better than the banks. What is the purpose of the grand scheme of things and we help you structure it into a written financial plan for you? With that, we look into what time frame each objective carries along together with it. Some may be 3-5 years. Some could be 10 years and others could be above 15 years and longer. Next, we build a CORE^TM portfolio together that comprises an appropriate mix of bonds and equities (according to your time frame) widely diversified across the world with more than 10,000 companies to minimize risks and increase the highest chance of achieving your goals.

Discipline and the evidence

With the daily movements of the markets and attractiveness of trying to get outsized returns, it can be very hard to stay disciplined. Imagine this, you are driving and you see the other lane go faster than your current one. You probably will be tempted to switch lanes. You might go faster for a while but may come to a roadblock where the original lane now goes faster. Once again, you feel the need to justify the need to switch again. The process of switching lanes causes the higher chance of an accident which is what we want to avoid. In a car accident, the worst is you lose the car. In an investment accident, you could lose your lifetime of savings. This whole process goes on very often in our personal investment world, as there will be the next shiny object that will make us cause us to change our investment strategies when a fellow neighbour or colleague gives you a tip on the next big thing.

Instead, what we focus on is evidence of the history of markets, how markets work, culminating to almost hundred years, with the science of investing with Nobel prize winners on investing strategies, back by research and what the data tell us. And what we do is diversify across ten thousands of companies, tilting it everyday to the areas of evidence of what makes sense. If you would like to know the evidence, we will be happy to share with you.

It takes deep education, deep conviction and lots of effort with many rounds of trying to understand how to apply these principles in practical steps. My biggest takeaway is that I do not need to know how to time the market or stock in order to have a successful investment experience.

Human behaviour is our stumbling block

And the next part is the most difficult to do, which is to stay invested, according to our risk profile and stick to the discipline, even when it becomes very volatile and emotional along the ride because there will be expected uncertainties (like Tech bubble, Lehmann Bros and covid 19 just to name a few) in the years of investing. The best way is to focus on your financial plan and what does it say and work with an expert to hand hold you through. But do note that the human behaviour is the biggest downfall for most investors as temptation will set in.

At the end of the day, what we want for you is to sleep well at night, keep to a discipline to allow your portfolio to capture the full market returns and give you the best chances in your wealth building plan without the need to speculate or time the markets.

Business

Plan smart in your business with partners

October 26, 2021October 26, 2021
by Gregory Fok

Do you like to be forced to sell your personal assets at the wrong time to buy over your partner’s shares? I was approached to raise funds for a couple of million dollars for a partnership and they were distressed and were not able to think clearly ahead.

Background

2 partners came together to start a company more than 30 years ago and had built a thriving business together. About a year ago, they were given some advice to do a buy sell agreement in the event of death of either of the partners. However, the outstanding problem was that it was not a “funded agreement”.

When Partner A passed recently, there was an agreement for Partner B to buy back the shares. This allows the family of A not to get involved in the business that they did not understand. Partner B was able to continue the business and they do not need to share the profits of the future business. But the problem was that Partner B had no cash on hand to buy over the shares immediately.

“Having a reluctant partner can be like cancer that grows and potentially creates lots of problems in other parts of the body”.

Action was required immediately. So they are forced to liquidate cash, sell investments and properties almost on an immediate basis. We also know that it takes some time before the money is collected from the sale of the property, if they actually can get a good price.

“This is a costly exercise!”

Even if they are able to raise $2M, would you as Partner B want to pay $2M full in cash for this exercise of transfer of funds when there are other options? What is the alternative? If they had funded their buy sell agreement in advance with discounted dollars, they do not need to come up the full amount. In fact, depending on how you structure it, it could cost as low as 1-3% per year of the $2M and the full amount of cash will be available immediately without the need to sell your best assets at the wrong time.

There are also many other considerations with regards to business planning but this is important if you have a partnership together with another party.

If you are a business owner or know someone who is in partnership with another, I will be happy to have an initial conversation to see if there is a fit on either sides to journey together and be your trusted advisor.

Financial Planning

Most people invest the wrong way

October 18, 2021October 18, 2021
by Gregory Fok

Many studies have shown that most investors on their own typically lose more than half of the actual market returns over the long term. These studies can be found from the Dalbar studies. From the same research body, you can also identify that the average equity investors widen that gap during and after any particular crisis. The reason is that there would have been movements to shift the investments in and out of markets, caused by emotional behaviour of fear and greed. In some cases, over the short term, some investors actually outperform the market due to luck, not skill. However, once you see that over a much longer period, the studies would once again show that the average investors underperforms poorly.

So how do we overcome this problem?

One of the things you can do is to start getting yourself educated and create confidence and conviction over the findings. This can take a fair amount of time to understand and explore, but through working with a trusted and experienced advisor who has gone through multiple crisis in their careers, that can be of great help.

The other thing you can do, is to know why you want to invest. What is your objective and your end goal. I am not talking about the numbers but the why behind the numbers. What drives you? What gets you to financial freedom and why is that so important to you? A financial coach is not just one to get you to your goals, but who understands the background reason to why that is so important to you. When you have that better understanding for yourself, through discovery with an experienced financial coach, you will have a better handle of how you want to manage your financial plan.

Being smart

Once you find out your why and have your retirement plan, it is all about implementing and sticking to the designed asset allocation strategy together. Your total portfolio will give you an overall total return rather than trying to do a little bit here and there in a way to diversify your portfolio. We create a CORE strategy together with you. So there will be a way to reduce anxiety, preserve wealth and grow it at a meaningful pace so that you will be comfortable with it. In the midst of the process, the education and conviction process is also important to continuously add value to you to give you confidence about planning ahead.

If you would like to explore finding a way to invest in a way with a total portfolio that is reliable, sustainable, provide you peace of mind with reduced anxiety of speculation, I will be happy for an initial meeting with no obligations on either parties.

Business

The process of Growth

September 30, 2021October 1, 2021
by Gregory Fok

When I was a young man in my 20s, I wanted to be successful. I was told to read “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, written by Robert Kiyosaki. I read it back then and never fully understood what it meant to my life until today, when I had a clear revelation…

What I picked up from the book was that I had to go from employee to being a self employed, which allowed the growth of wealth to manifest. The next level of growth was a be an investor and then to eventually build businesses.

I took the first baby step of faith to step out of my comfort zone, from getting a standard regular paycheck every month to starting my career in insurance back in 2005. And yes, indeed, it got me to the next level of growth as an individual and my finances. But it only got me to a certain level of growth.

The next step was to be an investor. Well, I was investing in a very haphazard way, trying to make a quick buck in a very short period of time (like how most people want it). I had my hits and misses but all it took was one wrong investment and that would have brought me back to where I first started off. Timing the market was another big mistake I learnt along the way. I always thought I was able to be smarter than the market and most people, since I worked in the industry and I studied my life for this. But I was WRONG…

And I thought, there must be a better strategy than what I am doing that is less speculative and less emotional. That was when I really did my research and wanted to find a way to get me to my BIG goals in life like retirement where I needed to invest reliably, sustainably in a simplified way, yet getting me the highest chance of reaching my personal goals, with the least amount of risk. That was epiphany for me sometime in 2018 when I started to build deep education, which led to deep conviction and also led to growing wealth with a “different way of thinking”.

It was hard at first, because I will go back to my old ways of investing like stock or sector or country picking. Or trying to time the market to game the system. It did not help that the financial news sells based on this approach which you can read about everyday. But shifting to becoming an educated investor allowed me to grow wealth reasonably.

But the biggest shift of trajectory happened when I know I am a business owner of the biggest, brightest and best, most profitable companies all across the world, without the need to time the company or market but to be patient as a value investor and tilt it towards the areas of higher expected returns based on almost a hundred years of evidence.

Can you imagine being a business owner to run great companies with small effort on your part, have lots of free time because you do not need to manage on a daily basis, be able to reap the profits of these companies, with hardly any risks and capturing big growth over decades? Doesn’t this make sense to you?

So I moved from being an employee, to being a self-employed, to being an investor. And today, we are building businesses within my own set of business with our salaried staff funded by me (which allows me to be more strategic – this shall be sharing for another day), and also outside my CORE business as a way to diversify and to capture growth all around as well as a business owner.

Now, our passion is all about contributing back to you and influencing you to make better decisions for yourself based on what you want to achieve. Everyone has different dreams and we respect that. Start off by writing down what is the dream you would like to see for yourself in future.

If you would like to see how you could jump to being an educated business owner and be smart about how you manage your wealth and your life experiences, whilst saving you time to prevent the costly mistakes made, I will be happy to have an initial chat with no obligations at my cost.

Financial Planning

How do I ensure a comfortable lifestyle?

September 21, 2021September 21, 2021
by Gregory Fok

Many people dream of travelling, exploring and touring the world, hanging out with friends for coffee, lunches and high tea when they eventually stop working… They also may want to be able to continue to drive a car, shop and dine wherever and whenever they would like to.. Basically, a person’s lifestyle should not end when a person stops working and retires. In fact, studies have shown that they may actually spend more than when they were working because they did not have the time to do all that.

This sounds like a dream life, and the reality is that it costs some money. And inflation and longevity is not going to make it any easier for you.

Just to give you an example, if you are now 35 years old and would like to have a lifestyle of $4000 a month in today’s context, with a projected inflation rate of 2.5%. This same lifestyle would be $8390 a month by the time you turn 65 years old! And if you do happen to live for another 20 years, that figure that you would need by the age of 65 will probably be at least in the region of a couple of million dollars because the cost of living will still continue to escalate past the age of 65. That is just unimaginable for many people! Of course, I am over-simplifying the calculations because I have not added your other assets you have built over the years, but that figure will not be too far away from the truth.

So the question is how are you going to get to that couple of million by the age of 65?

We use CORE^TM strategies that build large amounts of wealth in a way that is evidence-based, reliable, sustainable and gets you to the goals in the highest possibility of getting you there. All these are done without need for speculation and gives you an ability to grow wealth with reduced anxiety through an appreciation of risk and volatility. But it takes 2 hands to clap along this journey.

Just to give you another example, if a person had set aside $100,000 at age of 35, with an addition of $1500 a month till the age of 65, with a projected compounded effect of 6%, it will get the person to a projection of almost $2million by then with the power of compounding effect! Every person’s situation is different and we will help you plan out what is practical and possible, customized to your personal circumstance. Sometimes, it might mean starting smaller and increasing the additions as you progress with time, but we will find ways to structure something to get you there. At least, even if you do not get to the moon, you will be at least amongst the stars.

If you would like to, at least have an initial chat to share with us what your dreams, visions and fears are, we shall see if there is a fit between us. And if there is, we will journey and help you through the trust based relationship to get you there with the highest chance of achieving your dreams!