Month of November 2021

Updated finance page.

https://drinkingspot.blogspot.com/p/finance-sharing.html

Two weeks ago, I was fretting over the aimless direction for my investments. Then, news of a mutated Covid variant dropped in from nowhere and became the focus once again in our already battered world. With experience and adapted mentality, I feel most people would have accepted this quickly and gone on with life. My guess is, this new variant will spread faster but kill lesser. That's what viruses do, infect as many hosts and find a way to cope with the changing environment. Following this, we can expect to endure another six months of discomfort during the discovery and recovery phase.

Last week, I went to Far East Flora and bought a 5ft live Christmas tree. It used to be an annual thing until last year's break. Usually, I would have gone to Island Landscape but they were sold out and only took in pre orders. Even so, Far East only had 2 trees left by the time I got there. Without hesitation, I placed the order and chose a European Noble Fir. Many of the more beautiful looking ones had already been taken. As I made payment of $155, the tree got wrapped and eventually placed in my car boot. On the way home, I was thinking it's a rather lucky day to be able to secure a tree for a decent price (previously it cost $120) though the choices were limited. After placing the tree in the living room, I cut open the wrapper net and then realized this wasn't the one I picked! It's a USA Noble Fir, 6ft tall, nice shape and had a tag attached with the name "Joseph". Well, it's obvious the packer at Far East took the wrong one. So to Joseph, thanks for the good choice you made and hopefully you are given a similar one once they rectify the mistake.

Tip: Tenuta Lavite Lucente 2017, jammy with blackcurrants and full bodied

Finance Investment Movement 15

I found it quite difficult to decide where to allocate funds during the month. Markets were in a sideways consolidation mood with cryptos spiking early before losing steam to give back all gains. Therefore, rather than spend money, I decided to save more money by setting aside cash for vacation next year. At the same time, I made some purchases of $450 for Luna and Xrp tokens with the latter sent over to Nexo for interest earning.

Unfortunately, I couldn't sort out the LPA details and will have to wait for my donee's information and signature.

Tip: Chateau Brown 2015, pencil lead with menthol, bright berries

Learning Week

In the past week, I had attended several days of events related to Singapore and China relationship, fintech and the digital space. My brain was simply overloaded with the volume of information and opinions till my eyes were straining to keep open. Don't get me wrong, the amount of new things I learnt were exciting, intriguing and certainly enlightening. New jargons such as Web3.0 and metaverse, along with hot themes like sustainability and green finance, were cross referenced and discussed repeatedly from different perspectives.

So before I forget, this post serves to jot down points that I took and summarized into a narrative.

The world has 3 major issues.

1) Climate change is a common goal that everyone has to seriously action now.

2) It may be aging but Asean's population is about 50% young people, that's a big incentive for change.

3) Covid disrupted lives but we should not be distracted from longer term goals for the future.

The key is to ensure sustainable development. Countries must come together with resolve to push agendas into actual realities. There are many aspects to work on. Part of this involves people changing lifestyles and getting out of a comfort zone. Another part is to use resources in a manner that does not over extract or pollute, yet improve people's lives with minimal wastage. Fintech is one enabler that's being highly researched. More innovations are required. The creation of crypto assets arose out of trust deficit issues from the financial crisis in 2008. A new global finance system will emerge. Likewise, new workplace and living models. Fintech embraces all of these and improves the digital world. This is the result of technology going faster and being reliable in all forms of transactions. Artificial intelligence and quantum physics stand on the cusp of a breakthrough to elevate computational capabilities. Once in place, there would be better ways to predict nature phenomenon, allocate resources, achieve logistics excellence and improve personal experiences. However, the difficulty now is to convince enough people to bear with short term pain and countries to share knowledge freely. We live in a rapidly changing world where there's no choice but to be plugged in.

Tip:  Delta Estate Sauvignon Blanc 2019, crisp grass and lemon on the palate with raspberry