Investments – Page 6 – Greg Fok Advisory

My investment strategy is getting me nowhere

December 9, 2020December 9, 2020
by Gregory Fok

A recent conversation with a client was investing into stocks. He was trying to study and buy into companies at low prices and exit them at higher prices, shifting between various companies he has been tracking that are typically stocks in Singapore. Unfortunately, some companies have been suspended, some gone down so low that it is not even worth looking at, some have done very well but he had exited way too early.

After several years of investing, he was getting nowhere near his goals as he was always happy with that few thousand dollars that he made along the way. He will pull out from his investments as he was also afraid when the next wave of change might hit that made the company go south or obsolete as many other blue chip companies had gone in that similar direction. Some examples would have been SIA, Hyflux, Kepcorp, Singtel, SPH, Kodak etc.. When we calculated his retirement goals, it was a big amount and he knew straightaway that he had to change strategy.

Core and satellite strategy

He needed a core strategy that builds wealth in a global diversified manner across the world, not just focused only in specifics like US, Europe, China or a concentration into a few technology stocks. He needed it to remove the pain of seeing some companies go up and down with no bright future ahead as well. He wanted to be able to sleep in peace in downturns which could come in various forms. This is for a long term retirement strategy. He needed the money to be there available for retirement when he has slowed down in his income or stopped work totally. Isn’t that what most of us are hoping to achieve in our lives?

The satellite strategy varies from person to person and one needs to take a small allocation to position that in place to give the icing on the cake. I used to have this problem as well and after shifting my strategy about 5 years ago, I have managed to build a CORE portfolio of 7-8x in size from what it used to be previously.

Do you have a CORE portfolio strategy built in place for you for retirement that you can invest with peace of mind and yet achieve better than average market returns than most retail investors? Connect with us to see to share your experience and see if we can help you get you to your goals in a more comfortable manner.

Why do I need a financial advisor?

November 6, 2020November 6, 2020
by Gregory Fok

One of the common questions I was asked is to the one above. Not everyone needs a financial advisor but most people would want one if there can be value. Value to bring you limitless possibilities to design your life the way you want it.

1) I cannot see my own blindspots.

We always see what we know and plan ahead. But there are blind spots that are not within our experience to notice or look out for. Having a 3rd party see your blindspots allows for awareness and reduction of blindspots and risks.

2) We help you be your gatekeepers.

When we are emotionally charged up due to fear or greed or just affected by life, we tend to make the easiest decision which most of the time is not the wisest one. We help you to make decisions in your favour and not just take instructions.

3) We stretch your financial imagination.

When you plan on your own, you limit yourself to what you can see. When you plan with an advisor, often, you stretch your financial imagination beyond what you can even imagine. As iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another.

4) We help to put things in perspective.

When we are in our own world, we seem to be struggling in many areas of life, especially financially. But when we put things in perspective, we either have an awesome life or the small things do not matter that much.

5) We help you peer into someone else’s experience.

We learn from older folks who have gone through much of life and bring that experience into the lives of those we meet to learn from the wise and learned.

6) Wisdom of life that is not just found in money.

An experienced financial advisor does not just talk about the financial aspect but more importantly the family and emotional aspects that hold more weight in decision making.

7) Provide you insights.

Nuggets of insights brings the ability to marry money, values and emotion to bring together proper financial planning for a human being.

8) Gains you time and quality of life and not have to worry about money.

Money is probably the number 1 worry most people have in life. An experienced financial advisor minimizes the fear through prudent planning and allows you to focus on the important things that money can bring to life. Eg dignity, maturity, quality of life, stewardship.

Interview and speak with an experienced and trusted advisor to provide you some insights.

Tax optimization for doctor and high-income earners

September 15, 2020September 15, 2020
by Gregory Fok

As a doctor or a high-income earner, you eventually will reach the point of paying quite a lot of tax. The way you plan your investments will have an impact on you for your own personal financial planning.

Did you know that there is tax implications in the following areas.

ETF

Many people buy ETFs with the main intent of lowering their cost. However, when you are holding onto ETFs, you can potentially attract fairly high tax implications. And some can even be as high as almost 30%. On top of that, there can be low cost option funds that might be even lower than the cost of your ETFs which we do provide as an alternative.

Foreign shares

Holding foreign shares also attracts estate duties which can go up to as high as 40% or more in certain countries. One of the common markets where people buy shares is in the US. They adopt a buy and hold strategy. If a person had built a retirement plan through owning US shares, he will easily have built it to almost a million or more down the road. However, if a person suddenly passes on, the estate will be liable for a very expensive estate tax to the US as a non resident. And we all know that US has one of the highest estate tax in the world.

Singapore Property

As doctors, with high income ability, there is an attraction to purchase property in a country we are familiar with in Singapore. However, there are various huge tax obligations such as ABSD (Additional Buyer Stamp duties), SSD (Seller Stamp Duties), property tax and income tax. The portion that most doctors ignore is the part where you are taxed heavily based on your income. Given that the yield and income from property is already so low, having to pay an additional tax at 22% every year just makes it very unappealing as an investment option. However, most doctors and high income earners might not even be aware of this fact, or they are too busy being the expert in their field.

We specialize in working with doctors, wealthy families and high-income earners find investment options that can help you achieve the same results or better with little or no tax implications. That is where our expertise comes into play over here to value add. Can you imagine saving hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars eventually? Wouldn’t that help if you just spent 20mins of your time for an initial conversation with the expert?

Connect with us for an initial chat just to see if there is a fit.

Should I be my own doctor?

June 15, 2020June 15, 2020
by Gregory Fok

If you had an option, you could go to a part time junior doctor under going training and ask him to do a surgery on you.

Or you could go to a trusted experienced surgeon who has seen 1000s of patients and have been doing this for the past 15yrs and could immediately understand your problem, get a diagnosis and help you to draft a treatment plan.

Which will you prefer?

When it comes to family wealth planning and investing, you might unknowingly be doing the same.

We have seen consumers trying to DIY. They take an approach where they try to read the markets, trends, study companies and grow their wealth, protect their income, family and do all this part time whilst they are busy working in their main job.

At best, after all your effort you put in as a consumer, you become a part time surgeon with minimal experience to speak of.

Would you be confident to allow yourself to be operated by this part time surgeon, who does not have enough experience seeing enough patients to operate on you?

If you do not, please instead spend time to interview and look for a trusted advisor whom you can journey with on the long term and provide holistic financial advice.

It saves you lots of time, money and emotional pain. All that time and energy can be then converted to spend time with your loved ones and fill it up with your passions in life that are important to you.

Go and spend your time to live a life of possibilities!

Shall we pick the winners ever year

May 28, 2020May 28, 2020
by Gregory Fok

So often, we have tried to outperform the market by doing our homework and trying to decide where the next winner will be for every year.

Picking the winners

It reminds me of the time many years ago, when I tried to pick out the stocks as winners every year to get my hard earned savings to work harder. And after investing for about 10years or so, I realized that I could make 7 right decisions out of 10 companies, which probably is quite good, if you ask most seasoned investors out there. But all it took was one wrong move and that could wipe out all the other good decisions made through the past 10years.

Mental cap

One top of that, when investing into stocks, there was a mental cap of how much I will be willing to invest into that company. Everyone has that mental cap. You will know it yourself. When it became too much for comfort, I stopped investing and the amount just hovers around that region for many years and when market risks increased, the emotional roller coasters take over and wrong decisions are usually made. If I believe so much in the company, I should be adding on even more when companies are at a cheap. But the haunt of Kodak, AIG, Hyflux and SIA keep coming back and we know not all companies last at a previous price forever.

Buying low and selling high

It does not help with the need to make educated decisions of what to sell and who to sell when markets were soaring and which to buy in the rotation during different times of volatility. Again, this time is different is a mantra that most stock holders find difficult to understand at various periods. If you just look at the chart above, you will see that every year, different asset classes hold the pole position. It’s almost an impossible job to do to ensure that you get it right every year!

Change needed for better results and lower risks

I knew about 5 years ago that change was needed and I adopted a different approach which could relieve me of the emotional roller coaster, save me lots of time so that I can spend it on my career and family, allow me to confidently add on aggressively during a downturn without worrying about companies collapsing in front of me. With the change, I built up about 5x of investments what I used to have in my previous strategy, in half the time.

Coming back to the question, can we pick the right winners every year? If you are a seasoned investor, you know what the answer is.

If you want peace of mind with more time on hand to do things you love, why shouldn’t you have an initial chat with us to see if there is a right fit.

Our brain is wired to lose money!

May 14, 2020July 13, 2020
by Gregory Fok

Do you know that our mind and brain is designed to lose money?

Imagine this with me. You are walking happily along the streets and suddenly, in front of you, there is a huge explosion! What is your first response? Is it to stand up and run towards the explosion? Or to duck down and run away from the explosion?

The amygdala or “the alarm” part of our brain reacts to fear, danger and real or perceived threats. It was designed to protect us from threats and regulates our emotional state.

Likewise, in a market crisis and stocks are falling, your brain’s initial response is to avoid the markets. This is called behavioural finance and our natural response to market crisis.

There was a survey done on participants with damaged amygdala who were invested during a market crisis. In fact, they were able to make better decisions when it came to investing before, during and after the crisis.

In short, our human brain is not designed to help us be successful in investing.

There are seasoned investors who have invested for many years and when the amount gets very large and the market falls are significant in the later years, wrong decisions are being made at the worst of times.

However, when you have a gatekeeper to keep your emotions in check, whilst trying to achieve your own long term personal goals, this helps to minimize the likelihood of emotional decision making. We are here as licensed financial advisors, who are gatekeepers for your wealth to ensure that you make sound decisions that do not detract you from your personal goals. On top of that, we help you make great decisions in times of crisis to build you further propel you towards your goals.

Steward of wealth

April 28, 2020April 28, 2020
by Gregory Fok

Whatever we have is not ours to begin with.

When something is loaned to us, we tend to be much more careful with it.

For example, I remember when I was allowed to drive my brother in law’s Sports SLK Mercedes car, I was thrilled and excited! But compared to driving my own car, I was really very careful with it. As I negotiated turnings, I would slow down way before I reached the turning.

When it comes to wealth, it should be looked at from the same angle to achieve financial freedom and peace of mind. Whatever income or assets we have, it does not really belong to us. We are only in charge of it as stewards during that period of time. One day, we will leave this earth and we cannot bring all this wealth with us and will pass it on to someone else. Are we good stewards?

While we may be doing well and thriving in the good days, it is only wise to plan for unexpected scenarios that might come up along the way. And unexpected could come in various forms. It could be an economic crisis, a critical illness crisis or a business crisis.

Joseph in the bible shares that there will be 7 years of abundance and followed by 7 years of famine in interpreting Pharoah’s dreams. He also adviced this. In the years of abundance, we take out a fifth of it and store it away for when the famine comes, we would still have sufficient.

As one of my mentors, Benny Ong shares with me frequently, “If we don’t do good with our money, one day our money will not do us any good.”

I have been a steward of wealth over the past 15 years, helping families and businesses plan holistically in their overall financial planning.

Are we good stewards to see it from a stewardship perspective? Are we being responsible in the way we manage what is bestowed upon us at that time?

A person eventually wants to achieve financial freedom and peace of mind when it comes to wealth.

Go and spread the good news.

How much are your tomorrows worth

April 10, 2020April 10, 2020
by Gregory Fok

How much are your tomorrows worth? Most people would not have thought about this question. If a person was killed in a car accident, how much would the family sue for, if someone else had been responsible for the death?

If you owned a printing press which could print out legal, $300,000 a year for you and your family, over the next 20years, that would have been $6mil dollars. How much would you insure your printing press for?

We are all like the money machines. How much are your tomorrows worth?

I have a friend who was very fit, stayed healthy and ate with a strict diet. As he was playing basketball with his daughter one day, he suddenly had a heart attack.

The questions on the family’s mind is…

1) When will he promptly recover and get back to good health?

2) Will he be able to continue to work?

3) Who will continue to pay him the income when is not working?

4) What will happen to the total family income if the spouse takes some time off work to take care of the emotional and physical needs?

5) Will the banks come in to refinance the property and request for a top up because one spouse had stopped working and who will fund that?

The family will struggle physically and even financially.

Let someone else take care of the financial part for you. We can design your financial situation so that the above questions will be addressed and allow the family members peace of mind to know that the finances are in order. The family just needs to focus on recovering as quickly as possible with strong emotional and physical support.

Speak with an experienced financial advisor in our firm who can ask the difficult questions that most people do not wish to talk about.

Measuring the distance

March 21, 2020March 21, 2020
by Gregory Fok

With the volatility in the market, it can be very scary and unnerving at the same time.
This also leads to potentially making emotionally charged decisions – which leads to decisions based on fear or greed. That normally leads to regrets further down the road on hindsight.

The important thing to do now is to focus on your goals.
For example, if I asked you to measure the distance between Changi Airport to Jurong Point, would you take a measuring tape and stop to measure every 3 steps before you reach Jurong point? Or would you use a vehicle, chart the starting point and end point and move towards your goal. Maybe you might stop to check every 5km to see if there is a faster route available, but definitely, you do not need to check every 3 steps.

It’s the same when it comes to retirement planning. Most of the time, we invest because we have a long-term goal like retirement which is a far distance away. So it does not make sense to keep checking our investments every other day. Whenever we check it, it might just lead to stress and emotions of greed and fear take over.

At the same time, there will be opportunities for a faster way to get to your retirement. This will be one of them and you might just miss out the “Sale” that comes a few times in your lifetime. This kind of sale of this magnitude will not come very often but it will be the road less travelled.

So here are a few tips.

1) Focus on your long-term goals and not get distracted.

2) If you have extra cash over and above your 6-12 months emergency funds, you can find strategies to deploy this money during this opportunity.

3) Find risk and non-risk instruments to give you peace of mind.

4) Invest into Global CORE portfolios that are rebalanced by professionals so that you do not need to stress about doing that on your own and after you invest during this period.

5) Do NOT peek at your statements if you are already invested or going to be investing this period.

6) Finally, pls do not read the news too much. It can be mostly depressing because bad news sells. Instead, spend more time with your family and do things you love and go out into the sun more often.

If you have a doctor, business owner or senior management whom is trying to get an opinion from their wealth advisor and is not able to do so, I will be happy to connect with an initial chat.

How does lowering the Fed rates benefit you?

March 11, 2020March 11, 2020
by Gregory Fok

With the lowering of Fed interests rates by 50 basis points last week, it can be an opportunity for investors and the markets.

The Fed rate is at the lowest point in history and may continue to stay low, if the physical economy might take some time to recover with all the fear of COVID 19.

At the same time, the stock markets have gone crazy with wild swings with movements up and down like the see saw.

The question at the back of people’s mind is, “How does it affect me and what do I do with this piece of information right now?”

This period of time works perfectly well for WEALTHY families who want to grow, protect and preserve their assets through multigenerational legacy planning. Through proper allocation of assets, it can bring increased certainty with reduced risk at this time.

Speak with us who can help you navigate through your life goals, dreams and even use the current situation to your advantage.