Investing article in Sunday Times Aug 5 2007 ME & MY MONEY

Sunday Times Aug 5 2007 ME & MY MONEY

Main points are as follows:

• Knowing what stocks to buy is not good enough

• To make money, a person must know when to buy and well as well

• When you buy, it must always be based on fundamentals. But knowing what to buy is not going to make you money. Money is made from knowing when to buy and when to sell. That's when the technical analysis part comes in

• When someone goes in to buy a stock, there are elements of greed and fear that result in a decision to purchase at a certain price. These emotions are constant through the decades and you can map the behavior and use the past to predict the future as people don't change.

There are three ways to build wealth.

 Most people will work to build wealth; but if you doesn’t have a high-paying job, you can work until cows come home and may just making ends meet. (CREATEWEALTH: Fewer people can really make it to high-paying job, how many VP, EVP, CEO are there?? BIG RAT race!!!!)

 The next group of people starts their own business. Some make it but many don't. (CREATEWEALTH: Many of us are not in this group, many of us dream of it and talk about it. If you don't dare to take some money to invest, don't ever think or dream to be in this group. FAT HOPE!!!!)

 The third group makes money work for them through investments. A decent-paying job and invest to make money work. (CREATEWEALTH: Only those with passion in investing, constantly learning from it, control the emotion of GREED and FEAR; and STRONGLY BELIEVE IT THAT IT CAN BE DONE, AND HAVE A PLAN, AND A ULTIMATE GOAL will made it, perhaps it is less than 20-30% in this group will made it, many will fail, and bang their hearts)

• Know when to be aggressive and when to be conservative. Know yourself, your level of greed and fear. (CREATEWEALTH: To be aggressive, you need to follow the stock history and company fundamental very closely, and strike at the right time by using pyramiding the investment method, you will win BIG if direction moves in your favor)


(About IPP financial advisers, investment director, Albert Lam, 45, by Writer Lorna Tan, Finance Correspondent)