Month of September 2022

Updated finance page.

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

It took a while and I finally broke the duck by embarking on a first business trip since Covid. Travelling to Jakarta with a colleague, we squeezed in an exhibition visit and eight meetings over three days. We adopted a new meeting concept where all were held in the hotel lounge so as to minimize road journey time and avoid the notorious jams. The only downside was there were not much meal options in the vicinity but we were fortunate to meet local friends who drove us out to malls and other eateries. The food experience was memorable. I tried Sup Buntut, various Nasi combinations, seafood and the all important Avocado juice. Spicy as they were, I enjoyed every bit until the payback came with a fiery toilet trip at the end of each day. Only managed to clock one gym session which meant the pants endured some buckle pressure. The airport and flight experience were smooth and felt the same as before. 

The SMEICC conference was held from 13 - 14 Sep at Suntec Convention Centre. I had the privilege to attend and hear sharings by various industry professionals on their respective views on exploring new trends and innovate towards a challenging future. The best takeaway was in regard to artificial intelligence (AI). To most people, the first impression is a complex, scary and yet exciting field of discovery. The key to manage this is to understand that AI needs good data to operate and can only manipulate what's given. The speaker offered his view on two areas which I found interesting. One, the humanoid AI robot depicted in movies is not coming any time soon because we must first crack the brain function code and that's not even close. Two, the jobs of the future cannot be scoped on manual or plain processing role such as warehouse packer or accounts management. An AI machine can compute faster and at a precision level that no humans can compete against. So we must make effort to understand machine learning, operate it and offer a creative and human touch. The biggest worry of a rogue robot comes not from its self learning but the bad actor behind the controls.

This month also saw a few meetups with old friends from secondary school, junior college and ex colleagues. People whom I have not met for six months to 4 years. Some spoke on their dealings with toddlers while some mentioned their intentions to get married. Such a spectrum of life hustles and we are mostly around the same age. One guy commented on the need to create new memories instead of reliving old ones which I totally agree. Now, there are two different groups of friends proposing an overseas trip next year. It's been such a long time since I travelled with either of them. Looks like something potentially exciting could happen!

I was about to regret my procrastination but fortunately the LKY musical dates were extended. My wife and I found a compromised schedule to spend a weekday night giving support to a local production. It was played to a packed theatre and for over 2.5 hours, we were touched by the stellar performance although we agreed the role of Mrs Lee could have been explored deeper. To end the night, we bought supper from a porridge shop in Chinatown that we had not visited for many years. The warm and velvety taste was reminiscent of our dating times while the kids were young and asleep.

Tip: Silverado Cabernet Sauvignon 2018, fresh, fruity and medium bodied. Ready to drink

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

Crypto Pause

The crypto world has been rocked by much negative news especially from government regulators such as China PBOC banning transactions involving anything related to crypto. For a month, prices have swung from drop of 50% only to recover by 20%. The technical support levels were obliterated with little resistance and I hope it has at last found a comfort level to settle.

Prior to this hoohah, I had put some money into Matic and Aave after seeing drops of 10%. But it proved to be a wrong move as they have since sunk further. Luckily the amount I put was $650 and something I can afford to lose. Therein lies the age old advice of investing only with money that you won't lose sleep over. My intention was to trade it and not keep as long term so I guess I have to keep them for a while more.

As I continue to read with earnest on where crypto lies in the minds of regulators, there are more users coming out to support this technology, the biggest example being El Salvador who has accepted Bitcoin to be legal tender. In this regard, Singapore is more forward looking and helping to create a more inclusive system that I hope will be rolled out soon.

It's still a tug of war in crypto acceptance (Binance was banned in UK and Japan) and issues of hack or missing coins continue to persist. Therefore, I will take a step back, leave my current portfolio alone and focus on improving stock picks or other investments.

Tip: Sidamo Mountain Coffee, very fragrant, floral and non acidic

The New Buzzword

If someone asks you, there is this word that either excites your senses or scares the life out of you. It has become such a prevalent verb used a lot by government officials, bosses and techies. It has the connotation that one must have a creative mind. Or there must be much resources at your disposal before an idea becomes feasible. Or it's somewhat binary where you do well or simply cannot do. There's really no in between, either you succeed or fail. The word is "Innovate".

In a recent conversation, I came away with a new perspective on how to view this. When you are given a task to innovate, often the approach is to create something new, like ditching a regular phone and in its place, make a smart phone. This is product innovation and probably most commonly heard. An "upgraded" version of innovate is to take the smart phone and find ways to produce it cheaper or add new functions to increase its appeal. This is known as process innovation. Yet another way is to improve the smart phone's sales probability by providing better marketing channels, technical support and delivery time. This is service innovation. The first two types deal with internal stakeholders while the last deals with the external.

Which of the above is the most difficult type of innovation? I think it's product innovation. I also have a feeling that most people correlate innovation with product creation. From a petrol driven vehicle to a fully electric one, this innovation leap is usually onerous and time consuming. That's what a person immediately feels upon hearing that dreaded word. He is defeated before work has even begun. I see much of this in my workplace. Hopefully, I would be able to share this new thinking with more people next time and reduce the stigma of what it means to innovate.

Tip: Masumi Sanka Junmai Daiginjo

Push Towards Blockchain

The most exciting industry to be in now is probably technology related. Within it, the domain of cryptocurrency is the most intriguing. It's been 12 years since the first creation of Bitcoin and my guess is the majority of the world is still rather clueless about this technology and its potential advancement.

The Covid situation has taught the world some useful lessons. Medical demands were well beyond planned capacities, people couldn't get out of the house and business supply chains were severely disrupted. The simple message is, "We live in an imperfect world." And this is where I believe blockchain could help resolve some of the issues. Even as the infection numbers continue to rise, researchers are racing against time and desperation grows. Among these, disinformation is a great problem. Whatever numbers we hear in news are controlled. Be it death tolls, vaccine trial successes, job losses, funds expended to sustain businesses etc. I think faith in the government systems and trust in leaders are at a deficit. It's got to do with this huge unknown that the virus brought.

But life must go on and through every disaster, humans ultimately find a way to get up. In this instance, blockchain has a role to play. What it potentially brings to the table are borderless transactions, cashless payments, verifiable information, lower fees and much more. All these seek to improve transaction efficiency, bridge information gap and bring trust back to people to the world we live in. A cryptocurrency is just a product out of this brand new ecosystem. During this evolution, pain would be felt by those who continue to resist as they are forced into a new life/work environment. That's what a single virus could do.

Tip: Ippin Junmai Daiginjo

Finance Investment Movement 3

I was a sceptic of the sky high prices of cryptocurrencies in general and did not think there was upside for something so volatile and vague. Years ago, I had dabbled into Ether for the hype and did not do much research. However, early this year, I decided to read more into this new digital asset class and trying to understand the future trend. By now, I am convinced that the blockchain technology, along with its associated currencies, are here to stay. If one was to treat a cryptocurrency as an alternative fiat currency, it's not wrong but the key is missing out on the underlying potential. There are not enough examples to show the disruptive impact of blockchain but I believe that day will come when a certain job, function or work becomes irrelevant. People will realize how real and perhaps painful that is. Thus, one of my goals was to invest in Bitcoin but the prices were persistently high around US$12k when I seriously monitored. Then, the stock market dropped last week and the cryptocurrency market followed suit. At US$10k per Bitcoin, I swapped S$500 worth of Ether into it and made my first ever move into this digital currency asset. At worst, I lose this money if Bitcoin becomes useless. But my expectation is in the many years ahead, this amount will multiply in folds beyond any asset class has to offer.

Tip: Loacker Tasnim Sauvignon Blanc 2012

4 Days of Seminars

The SMEICC is an annual event for people to learn about the general business environment and issues of the day. I attended 4 webinars and learnt much from a particular speaker, so I thought it would be good to share.

The topic was about changing business and speed up the transformation process. My prior impression was it would revolve around adopting new technologies and mindset to existing businesses. What the speaker mentioned was along those lines but presented in a numerical and simple way that caught my attention.

2 main concepts were introduced. The first was in the world's labor market, 4% was involved in agriculture, 4% in manufacturing, 4% in high technologies and the rest in services. Ever since the second world war, all countries embarked on the peaceful development model and the equilibrium led to the resultant labor allocation. With upcoming technologies (AI, data analytics, robotics, digitization),  the great upheaval would impact the 88% labor providing different services. The second concept talked about governments would not allow economic collapse and the only way was to continue money printing. This will lead to inflation and widen the wealth gap. Therefore, the global money flow must conceivably go into assets of high value such as property and stocks. The latter would then propel companies with forward looking ideas such as innovative technology. That's why many entrepreneurs eg Tesla don't mind burning money to achieve their target, mainly because the funds come from the masses who believe in them. As the level of sophistication increases, menial labor jobs would be replaced causing great unemployment. This can be seen in retail examples like food ordering on a touch screen, online shopping and hotel service robots. No sector would be spared so it's imperative that people must start thinking about their value. The areas where robots have yet to develop are emotion, cultural understanding and creativity. As jobs become automated and mechanized, the older generation will likely hang on to their positions due to better health and ability to control the situation. This is a terrible combination if businesses were pinned to where they are, without technological upgrade. Hence, the future is bleak for young people who are regular employees or have high ambitions to climb the corporate ladder. Fortunately, amid the changes, Singapore is likely to emerge stronger as the trust premium is high, business environment is sound, government is stable and workforce is highly educated.

Tip: Suntory Premium Black Malt

Upgrade Phone Plan

My mobile plan expired in January and I put off renewing any contract as my Iphone 8 was in good working condition and no promotions were attractive enough. With the onset of Covid, I guess telcos and phone manufacturers had to do something even with limited launches of new phone models.

I used the link below for comparison.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/iphone-se-2020-vs-iphone-11/

The video is really sweet and concise.

Shopping around, I narrowed my selection to Iphone 11 or Iphone SE. My needs were simple; no fancy cameras, small, light and call me old school but I like the home button as compared to Face ID security function. Ultimately, the Iphone SE is similar to the one I was using except with improved processing power.

Next, I decided to upgrade the plan from Singtel Combo 3 to XO78. For $13 more per month, I got 30GB more data, free SIM card, free home delivery but less SMS and talktime. The sweetest bit of the deal was the $18 outlay for a new 256GB phone.

The delivery was made at the appointed time, I gladly paid in cash and did the setup the next day. 3 weeks of usage later, I'm very pleased with the purchase as the phone met my expectations at a super penny pinching price.

Tip: Four Pillars Navy Strength Gin with a dash of castor sugar, mint, lime and Fever Tree Indian tonic water