“Do you play the stock market?” “Which stock are you playing now?” Do these sentences sound familiar to you? Many ‘investors’ invest (speculate is a better word..) with a gambler’s mentality, attempting to ‘play’ the market through series of buy and sell. By associating investing with the word ‘play’, investment becomes a game, [...]

Advisers are constantly bombarded with email updates and sales kits from fund houses, especially the well performing ones. The account managers are just doing their job promoting their funds. This can also be a good source of information for advisers, be it for performance ranking, latest economic conditions or even academic information. However, [...]

A couple of weeks back, I received the same sms from 2 friends on the $49 worth of free calls by the 3 telephone operators to celebrate Singaporean’s sending out 60 billion local smses. I smell a rat immediately and ask my friend:”Are u sure?”. Both gave the same reply:” No harm trying!”

The ongoing legal tussle between tycoon Oei Hong Leong and Citibank was reported in the Prime News section in today’s edition of The Straits Times. Such lawsuits have been reported in the past and more such lawsuits can be expected after the market meltdown, according to The Straits Times.

From our conversations [...]

“She rented private properties and dressed to the nines to give the impression that she was a big-time player in the oil trading and shipping industries.” writes the first paragraph of the article “$1.4m scam: Thrice-convicted cheat gets 12 years” in the May 9th issue of The straits Times. Yet another investment scam. [...]

Frontline, Mediacorp’s Channel 8 current affairs program, ran a report last Friday on how people were conned into buying speakers sold by van driving salesmen. I was actually approached, not once, but twice a couple of months back!

Their approach was identical to the one narrated on the show. These salesmen would [...]

Many a time, you can find insurance companies dangling freebies to attract customers. It is not unusual to find them at electronic and pc fairs where they will display advertisements showing freebies such as digital cameras or printers. You would have mistaken them as another electronic booth!

It is very common to find [...]

One of the biggest mistakes in investing is trying to time the market. From retail investors to the so called investment ‘experts’, you can hear them say how much you can make by buying at point X and selling at point Y. Anyone can be a perfect investor with the benefit of perfect hindsight. If it is so easy [...]

When deciding what brand of buying cookies to buy, do you find yourself going for the one with nicer and more expensive-looking packaging if you have no preferred brand? This is normal. The nice picture, the nice texture of the packaging and the exotic name gives us a impression of a delicious cookie. [...]