Author: CheckW

AI (Artificial Intelligence) has always been a mystery for most people. We only think of Jarvis in Iron Man and what the movies tell us of sentient androids behaving like humans but way smarter. That perception is still too far into the future as we must take baby steps first.

With the arrival of big data in recent years and further technological advances in areas like Cloud Computing and Machine Learning, it is possible to build an ecosystem entity that is able to absorb unlimited information to provide responses that amaze us.

ChatGPT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT is one such recent milestone that has already started a global AI arms war to bring us to the next quantum leap. It was the fastest app to gather a million users within 5 days when it was soft-launched in Nov 2022, a mere 3 months ago.

ChatGPT was a novelty at first, it was fun to ask questions to a new chatbot and to task it to provide a simple and yet very comprehensible answer. Its responses were next-level and totally blew our minds. I started to play with it and was impressed with the answers which sounded more intelligent that the ones we are used to from Google and other chatbots.

We have reached a point where the latest chatbots like ChatGPT have most likely been able to pass the Turing test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test to make it indistinguishable from chatting with a human. One of my NUS lecturers had been toying with the creation of 2 distinct chatbot profiles from OpenAI and posted the conversations he has had with them on LinkedIn. He just published a book on this experiment called “Bedtime Stories from an AI”. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bedtime-Stories-AI-intelligence-changing-ebook/dp/B0BHNGXCH2

Soon, many enthusiastic users found new ways to utilize this tool. The more we played with it, the more users discovered its potential to seriously disrupt the way we do things. It may give wrong answers once in a while but generally, the longer responses seem like a well-thought-out writeup which is created in mere nanoseconds.

One can prompt ChatGPT to go into a frame of mind before tasking it to respond to a particular question based on the parameters given. By assigning it as a specific persona right at the start, the user can help it narrow down its search for a well-thought-out reply that is more relevant to the question asked. For example, start with: “Imagine you are an interviewer/CEO/scientist” etc. That sharpens ChatGPT’s response and provides an even more impressive answer that is specific to the needs of the user.

Just a few days ago, I asked it to help me fine-tune my LinkedIn profile. The advice was that my write-up needed to sound more professional and it reworded my intro to become more concise and impactful. A number of tips were also given for me to think about. I even suggested to my mentee to use it to help to tighten the resume cover letter as I felt it was too lengthy and not concise enough.

The sky is the limit now as other similar search engines feel threatened and want to showcase their challengers to ChatGPT. Google rolled out Bard to protect its turf as the most used search engine. Chinese names like Baidu and Alibaba are also doing the same. They do not want their cheese to be totally eaten by ChatGPT even as Microsoft is now integrating it into its Bing web browser.

There are so many more ways yet to be discovered where this new AI technology can be utilized than we can ever imagine. I had the chance to work with a firm to develop a chatbot for a Myanmar microfinance a few years back. It was tedious work trying to train the bot just to answer simple client queries on the company website. A question had to be asked in multiple alternative ways just to ensure that the machine can learn to provide a credible response to the end user.

ChatGPT has already been pre-trained and had absorbed all information up to 2021 from the World Wide Web via sites like Wikipedia and much more. Being already trained on the huge database of info, it can then be twitched and customized to any type of Chatbot requirements, be it business or leisure focus.

With so much recent hype on the Metaverse, it clicked on me that ChatGPT might finally be the missing piece that can create a virtual universe with avatars living through immortality can exist. Let me backtrack this a bit to expand on my hypothesis.

The very good dark humour British TV series Black Mirror had an episode that won many awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Junipero a few years ago. What if one can live forever in a virtual world once the physical body ceased to exist or expires? That was the premise of the plot which the star of the show had to grapple with, to stop existing when one dies or having one’s mind ported to an alternate world to live forever. She found a new love in that virtual world while test-driving and was faced with a hard decision on whether to enter it before her death.

From the many ChatGPT articles I had read so far, it seems that one can train it with one’s personal data to create an artificial “you” that will talk like you. If we combine this with a human-like digital avatar and artificial speech synthesis, we can technically create a digital alter ego that can live in a Metaverse universe. Hence, one can technically sustain one’s “digital self” or even create “digital love ones” of persons who have died. These can then be placed in the new Metaverse and live all the way to immortality with similar avatars in the simulated virtual world as it will be inhabited by similar “intelligent digital entities” of many other like-minded persons.

And where can we get enough personal data to do that, you may ask? Well, you already have a digital device that you cannot live without on your hands. Your mobile has been capturing your behaviours and life history since your first iPhone. Cloud backups ensure that it continues from an older to a newer model. Each of our personal Whatsapp accounts alone already has at least 5 to 10 GB of personal data on how you interact with all your social contacts over many years.

We can now feed all the above data from our mobiles to train ChatGPT to respond like a customized and personalized chatbot of oneself. All this looks scary and spooky but isn’t this feasible now?

This is just one of the many ways that the advent of this AI tech will help us explore new frontiers of uses we could never have imagined were possible just a few years ago. Almost 90+% of big data was only created in the last few years. Machine learning and deep/reinforced learning trains better the more data is given to them. With quantum computing, speed will not be an issue to digest more data to provide even better responses.

Whether we like it or not, Pandora’s box has been opened and we will explore the new frontier with AI evolving constantly.

I

This has been the Golden Rule passed on for generations to provide a guideline on morality. It also cultivates a sense of empathy for others. The reverse is also true: “Don’t do unto others what you don’t want to be done unto you.”

It basically means that one should treat others the way one wants to be treated. It is to walk the talk and not be hypocritical. Some think that they can do anything to others but others cannot do the same to them, a highly selfish way of behaviour that is morally wrong.

We see such behaviours around us all the time. Friends who take you for granted and assume that you can be there for them all the time but yet avoid you like the plague when shit hits the fan. Or that they lie to you all the time but yet accused you of not being honest with them when you try to avoid their negativity.

This extends to countries and their actions towards others. A particular superpower country is so guilty of it that its citizen assumes it is a God-given right for them to do anything to other weaker countries but will cry murder and retaliate viciously if the same was done to them in reverse. It is basically “Do unto others what you don’t want to be done unto you”. Or “I can do to you whatever I want BUT you cannot do the same to me” syndrome.

The hypocrisy is so obvious and mind-blowing at times that it is so blatant. Sometimes the ulterior motives are wrapped within some altruistic goals (eg. protecting democracy) which can be puke-inducing. You then need to peel back the onion to reveal its rotten core. Neutral outsiders can see through the charade and call it out. But the accused will pivot to either change the subject or threaten retaliation moves as they know that they have the upper hand.

By now you might have guessed the country I am referring to. Yes, it is the hypocritical United States of America. Why so? it has used its military might since WW2 to exert its powers to control and topple various countries for its own objectives in the name of Democracy. It is the self-designated police person of the world to protect the version of democracy it wants to roll out to others.

Just look at the latest fiasco on the air balloon that is hovering over the USA which they claimed is a China spy machine. They could have easily shot it down or captured it. But the reason given was that the debris may crash land and harm its citizens. But dude, can’t you just crash it over the desert or get a plane/drone to trap it?

It is just too newsworthy to cry murder and use it as an excuse to immediately cancel a planned USA-China meeting. One tiny balloon to scare the nation indeed. By the way, America has been using its U2 and SR71 spy planes to spy on others by flying over them for decades. We can do that to you but you absolutely cannot do it to us!!! How dare you! They finally took it down this morning over the Atlantic before it drifts beyond the American border. More “newsworthy” reporting ahead on the debris found.

America has been using its USD Swift system as a gun over the head of nations that do not toe the line for years. To cut off and deny access to the global financial system. It also encourages others to embargo the target to make it a pariah. The action cripples the economy of the targeted nation while it further encourages the Western world to join it in the fight against evil.

Why do you think China and Russia are now trying to create a CBDC system and try to use non-USD currencies to price commodities? America has been using the US dollar as an economic weapon, printing it like there is no tomorrow and holding the world addicted and hostage to this drug. It also uses its military sales to supply countries with weapons of destruction. Sending their old stock to Ukraine means that they can order more from Lockheed/Raytheon/Northrop while creating new demand from NATO to buy more.

The pot calling the kettle black is another useful term to label them. Infrastructure is crumbling and way behind the rest of the world. Healthcare costs are sky-high and a stubborn refusal to learn from the successes of others. Violent gun crime has been normalised with a gun-crazy 1st amendment right to own arms. Yet they try to call out other countries for the same weaknesses that they have.

Look at the way they are trying to stop the rise of China. China bashing is so fashionable in the Senate. They cannot let their mighty military industry collapse as they face a new competitor that does not fire a single bullet but uses soft power via economic strategies to gain influence.

The Huawei saga is one such bias attack. It has been a number of years since they “exposed” that its chips had back-door access. But I have only seen ONE article sensationalising this conspiracy. Why have no tech journals ever dissected and exposed this chip as it will be so newsworthy? Never before have I seen a superpower country concentrate all its might on a single company to ensure its demise. Imagine the EU trying to destroy Tesla for the perceived “conspiracy” of producing evil autonomous EV cars.

If TikTok was dangerous and brainwashed its citizens, what about American inventions like FaceBook and Instagram? Aren’t they doing the same on social media? Remember Cambridge Analytica and the election influence of Trump using FB data?

There is now a concerted effort by America and its allies to ban the sale of chips to China to prevent and cripple its advancement into AI. Yes, China has been stealing corporate technology and it should stop. But so has America for many years and will it stop? Just because your number one position is under threat, must one go out of its way to sabotage a rising competitor constantly?

I enjoy listening to chat rooms in Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces to understand the views of others. There are usually a majority of Americans participating. Whenever a topic concerns global issues, everyone is allowed to provide their opinions. But if it was an American-centric one, non-citizens are usually told that they do not understand the situation at all and should keep quiet. This self-righteous superiority behaviour is so repugnant and most Americans embrace it.

The Golden Rule also applies to an individual. I try to walk the talk and remove myself from any toxic relationships that give out too much negativity. Life is too short to engage in such one-sided behaviour which weakens your soul constantly. It is better to seek out new ones or cultivate positive ones than to dwell in deadbeat ones.

It was a long weekend of Chinese New Year celebratory feasts and dining in big groups that we have not had for a long time thanks to Covid.

The last time we had our usual annual CNY family gatherings was in Jan/Feb 2020 just before we went into lockdown hibernation for more than 2 years. Celebrations over Zoom became the norm as caps were placed on group gatherings. It was 2, then 3 or 5 meaning that extended families could not meet in one physical location.

This year was different. Everyone went out of their way to organize big family and friends meetups, posting group photos on social media without the fear of worrying about getting caught by the Covid police.

For me, the feasting started a week earlier with the extended family reunion dinner on 14 Jan. There was a total of 27 of us. Over the last 2 years, there were new additions to this – a new husband for my niece and a 3-month-old baby from another. My mum and dad as great-grandparents for the 3rd time were beaming with pride at this clan gathering over wine and CNY food with the required Loh Hei at the start. This group photo will be memorable. It will be the one that symbolizes that we finally declared that we are out of the pandemic for good.

The dining continued into 20 Jan, Fri for my wife’s side of the family for the next early reunion dinner. We had a steamboat meal with plenty of wine and sake to lubricate our throats. It was a mini-potluck too and there was a variety of dishes to choose from.

21st Jan (Sat) was the actual day for the reunion dinner as it was the eve of CNY. Both my parents and my in-laws joined my family for a home-cooked dinner as we kick-started the festivities into the next few days of gorging ourselves with CNY goodies and titbits.

On 22nd Jan (Sun), the first day of CNY traditionally meant many home visitations to pay respect to our elders. All of us eagerly looked forward to meeting them in person again. Masks were optional but most don’t really think about using them since there will already be multiple face-to-face interactions throughout the day. Some of the more vulnerable elderly wore masks as an extra precautionary measure.

We had a sumptuous lunch cooked by my mother-in-law before embarking on more visits and heading home to prepare for the big family party at our home that night. The partying ended around 1 am after a lot of wine, whisky and gin cocktails that were consumed together with the buffet food that was ordered.

The next morning, on the 2nd day of CNY, we took it easy and set off only in the late morning. That afternoon was at my parent’s place before a visit to my niece’s new home. Dinner was another Loh Hei followed by meals bought from various places like KFC, sushi and zhichar dishes.

On the final day of the CNY holiday (3rd day, Tue), we had a long lunch at my wife’s aunty’s home. Again, lots of food plus wine to go with it. It was non-stop feasting from Friday till Tuesday and seeing big groups of people while making merry and drinking. Tonight will be a dinner gathering of old friends who were university mates many moons ago.

It is indeed refreshing to have a normal CNY festive celebration after more than 2 years of being in a limbo twilight zone situation. All our old reference points pre-2020 are not relevant anymore. We just have to look forward to charting what a new normal will be like in the future.

I do not think there is a risk of going back to a pandemic again. But then we had SARS (6 mths), MERS (6 months) and COVID (2+ years) within a span of 17 years. Let’s hope that we have developed the tools to react faster to these problems and that the response time will be much faster now. Cheers to that!!!

At the end of the last year, there were many 2023 forecasts from banks that we have already read since Nov where economists try to predict the likely trends for the new year.

Likewise, I will try to do the same and position myself for the sake of my terrible 2022 portfolio. The stock market indices in 2022 didn’t drop much – it ended the year near where it started. But volatility was huge and a Jun/Sep collapse killed a lot of portfolios as the Fed went into an aggressive rate hike mode.

That also the popping of various asset bubbles that had been building since the 2008 GFC of low/zero/negative rates. Meme stock chasing was the first to collapse, followed by cryptocurrencies, SPACs and all assets that can only survive in a rising market propped up with cheap borrowing costs that disappeared when the Fed began to hike aggressively.

From a base of less than 1%, rates went up to the 5-7% levels in a matter of months. Highly leveraged position holders were caught with their pants down. As Warren Buffet once said, only when the tide goes down will we see who was swimming naked. It was an Annus Horribilis roller coaster 12 months ride from the get-go since Dec 2021.

By Nov 2022, everyone was so confused that even the bank economists that were putting out their 2023 outlook papers had the biggest divergence of consensus views in a very long time. The majority predicted a recession but the degree and severity of the recession were highly debatable. Inflation was still a concern and the Fed continued its strong language of wanting to defeat the inflation monster to stay ahead of the curve.

The Fed seems intent to do more 75 bps hikes into 2023 as the Ukraine war saw no ending in sight and a fear of a cold winter may cause the anti-Russia gas/oil embargo to crumble. Everyone remained pessimistic on the back of expected negative sentiments.

Into Dec, we had a surprisingly warmer winter after an initial short temperature dip in the middle of the month. European countries had also managed to stock up on gas reserves. Ukraine declared victories in capturing back its lands and Putin’s threat of the nuclear option did not happen.

Then the wild card happened. China decided to drop its zero Covid policy and allow for a transition back to pre-Covid normalcy by Mar 2023. With its huge economy unshackled, there was a high probability that it may help boost the rest of the world and further unlock stucked supply chains.

Leading inflation indicators started to show a gradual downward trend and the Fed language softened to a less aggressive hike schedule. Markets start to price in lower expectations of 50 to 25 bps hikes instead. Stock markets in Jan opened on a more positive note.

The thinking now is that we may be seeing a mild recession happening by the end of Q2. Any rate reversals or cuts are expected to only happen in 2024. From now till Jun, it is steady as she goes and a slight optimism about regaining the losses from 2022.

While there is caution in case of unexpected news erupting suddenly (eg. a sudden Putin move), markets are likely to slowly creep higher. China, India and Russia are determined to move away from USD reliance to price commodities using the CBDCs that will be developed very soon. The RMB will lead the way and Russia will adopt it to free itself from the US-controlled Swift system that has been used as a threat whenever America wants to arm twist a country to have things its way.

We had many wonderful meet-ups and celebrations for Chinese New Year so far. Starting from reunion dinners before the 1st CNY day on 22 Jan, it feels good to be returning to normal where large group gatherings are now allowed. Everyone was talking about the last time it occurred 2 to 3 years ago, pre-Covid.

The world looks to be a happier place now. The virus variants remain mild even as China opens up. We have had a relatively good start to the year. This was a marked contrast to Jan 2022 when things already seemed to go wrong the month before. No doubt we will naturally be wary after the big rate hikes and the Ukraine war that caught all by surprise and crippled the world economy.

2021 was a year of hope as the vaccine was rolled out to pull us from the abyss. That glimmer of hope was smashed when the world was turned upside down in 2022 as inflation reared its ugly head. In hindsight, this was totally expected as demand dropped off a cliff in 2020 when Covid struck the world. The lockdowns caused supply chains to break down as the demand for commerce became a fraction of 2019 levels. From a much lower base by 2021, a 100+% increase was inevitable as the world recovered, causing an inflation spike. That in turn forced the central banks to act. The by-product of the hikes was the bursting of the asset bubbles that were building up for years since the 2008 GFC.

Easy to talk about this now, that we should have positioned our portfolio accordingly as these megatrends were unfolding. Alas, things could have been better if I had just betted the house on a stronger USD and commodity prices in 2022 while selling the weak asset classes like cryptos and the meme bubble stocks. The weak and highly leveraged positions were the first to collapse when funding costs more than tripled after the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes.

For the rest of 2023, we will not be going back to the good old days as rates will remain at these elevated levels for a while. Frothy tech stocks also may only see their highs again if there are more technological breakthroughs in AI like ChatGPT. I remain committed to trimming the weak stocks in my portfolio and constantly try to assess the big-picture macros in order to get a conviction on trends.

Instead of my regular new year resolutions statements for the beginning of the year, I have decided to call them my 2023 KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) now.

I have been doing this annual goal setting for a few years now. The exercise helps me to focus on a to-do list instead of wasting the year away aimlessly. During my past work life, I had to set revenue targets and prepare for a battle plan in Dec for execution at the beginning of the upcoming new year. 01 Jan is where the clock sets the revenue clock back to zero. We then have to start all over again to hit our monthly profit targets in order to achieve the final big number for a good bonus payout.

There are also multiple mini-strategies within the team for various business segments to fine-tune the specific action plans during Dec. Finally, we will have a all-hands-on-deck Jan team startegy meeting to brief everyone on the big plan plus the sub-group strategy. Each individual will have a crystal clear idea on how they can help achieve the overall team budget and we get total buy-in of the plan. We are then laser focused as a well-oiled machine to execute the strategy.

Likewise, on a persoanl basis now, I need to have goals to drive my actions and help measure and evaluate myself periodically as the year progresses. The KPIs are fine tuned annually and they may be similar year on year with some small changes. They can also be brand new ones to challenge myself, to stry to stretch myself further. I keep to no more than 6 goals to make them manageable and focused. So here goes, my 2023 FCW KPIs:

1. To read at least 20 books – I started with 10 a few years ago, worked up to 15 in 2021 (midst of Covid with a lot of time to kill) but slagged off to 12 last year – too many distractions. There are no more excuses not to achieve it as I can read any book for free via the Libby app linked to my NLB account. They have all the latest books and I can borrow books for 21 days at a time. They even have audiobooks that I will try to “read” this year while jogging outdoors like what I have been doing by listening to blogs while running. When I finish a book, I will write a short summary on my iPhone Notes app to recap the main takeaways I had from the book. I should do more fiction books rather than stick to a majority of serious non-fiction ones this year.
2. Complete at least 10 online courses. I may not have the time to do full-time courses this year due to possible work commitments. So the next best thing for my lifelong learning journey is to access the easily available MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses). They may be from Coursera or Udemny and many other sources. I have already been constantly signing up for webinars that interest me all the time. All these resources are made so accessible nowadays from one’s des. This is the way forward to upskilling oneself in this dynamic world of constant learning to stay relevant. One cannot just sit still and become stagnant. We need to constantly remain on the treadmill of learning to exercise our minds.
3. Edit videos – I have a backlog of 2 years+ of raw video footage data from 2020 till today which I need to edit and compile to create summarized finalized shortened versions. I will aim to become up-to-date and reduce this backlog. Regardless of whether I will be using my old trusted Muvee editor (which had ceased to be updated) or picking up a newer software, I will do it. I should not waste the efforts of video editing that I have been doing for the past 20 years to create family video memories.
4. Develop my consultancy pivot. 2023 might result in a full-time job from the current consultancy project I am in, thanks to an ex-colleague. It is an exciting career path to combine various topics that interest me which I had been preparing and learning from since 2018 in FinTech. There will be more clarity as I approach Q2. So for the moment, I have decided not to actively pursue full-time learning in case this opportunity develops further.
5. To create a personal GitHub page. This KPI will be my most stretched goal as I am not tech-savvy. Besides having a CV and an online LinkedIn profile, one can also showcase one’s expertise via a GitHub page. I was impressed with a trainer during my NUS Fintech course who did this. While I may not have many tech projects to showcase, I should nevertheless try to step up to the next level and achieve this goal.
6. Finally, to constantly remind me of my life motto: to stay healthy and happy always. It is easier said than done. I have to actively work on this via regular exercises to keep fit, embrace positivity and eradicate negativity. This simple discipline will help me stay focused on my long-term halftime objective.

I watched Avatar – The Way of the Water on Monday using the uncle discount pricing of only $4.50 for those above the age of 55. It was surprisingly better than I thought as I did not even go to the toilet during the 3 hours 10 minutes movie! Chinese New Year is around the corner and I am looking forward to the many family feass and gatherings that were not possible during the Covid years. Time to go back to where we once were and return back to normalcy again 🙂

As an annual tradition for a number of years, I would put out a set of new year’s resolutions KPIs every year in early Jan. Before that, I would review my previous year’s list. This week, I look back to my year in 2022 to grade myself according to the goals I had set out to accomplish.

I had set out 6 KPIs 12 months ago and it was basically a refinement from my 2021 list with some newer and stretched objectives to challenge myself. Luck does play a part sometimes but I believe proactive planning is critical to help me track my progress periodically and measure it against a balanced scorecard of sorts.

The first one is to aim to read 20 books within 2022 after having managed to complete 15 in 2021. Using the Libby app on my iPad, I could borrow up to 17 ebooks at any time from NLB for free. Titles available are very current and I could easily find the latest bestsellers there. Sadly, I only finished reading 12 this year and missed my goal. Laziness and too much TikTok, Youtube and Netflix. I should have also read more fiction books rather than non-fiction ones. I give myself a C minus grade for this one.

The 2nd KPI was to expand and continue on my lifelong learning journey. I started the year with a bang, enrolling on the NUS Fintech 3.5 months full-time course with the School of Computing. I had to pay $2k after all subsidies. It was a deep dive into the technical aspect of coding and programming with certain topics that interested me – Algo-trading and Smart Contracts. I had a crash course on HTML, CSS and JavaScript and struggled with DevOps (Front, Middle and Back end) trying to keep up with the younger classmates who were more tech-savvy.

I also did another 3 more short courses on Excel, Tableau and even a Whisky appreciation one 😉 Finally, I tried to apply for IBF TFIP (2nd try) and BCG Rise 2.0 but these fell through and did not happen. I give myself a B+ grade here for effort.

The 3rd goal was to get deeper into Cloud Computing – Azure, AWS or Google Cloud. This was a big Fail. I did absolutely nothing here for the whole year. It was probably due to the Fintech course early in the year that put me off this topic totally. For most of the classes related to Cloud, I was usually lost by the time we were into the middle of each lesson. It was a pain for me to even try to follow coding instructions as a simple misstep would derail me, while the rest of the class moved on ahead of me.

The 4th KPI was to try harder to learn a programming language. I did not feel encouraged to pursue this as it required lots of patience and practice. Plus the fact that no-code software development and copy/paste from Github libraries seems to be more user-friendly nowadays. With the arrival of ChatGPT, one can now simply request the AI machine to code or even debug for you. I pivoted to learning to use more visualization tools like Tableau and Excel instead. Hopefully, I can leverage my past management work experience to be able to provide more in-depth and insightful data analysis and Dashboards as an additional edge against my younger competitors. I rate myself a C here.

The 5th ask was to learn and improve my video editing skills. There was an urgency here as the Muvee software I had used for the past 18 years to auto-edit my family videos stopped functioning. The software producers ceased to update it in 2018 and I was stuck in limbo. I had to find a replacement asap. I have been experimenting with various latest ones like Adobe Premiere Pro, Magix and Movavi. I find them hard to use as I was used to a click-and-create final version concept after providing all the required data and instructions.

As an interim solution, I went back to the earlier versions of Muvee that was still workable but the end results are not as satisfying as before as it is unable to optimize and save the finished product in higher video formats even though it was provided with higher 4k video raw data. It was also not able to recognise newer photo formats like HEIC. I currently have a 2 years backlog of raw videos I need to edit. I rate myself a C here. Will need more effort to buck up.

The final KPI was to always stay healthy and happy. It was a tough year with all markets going up and down (but mainly down) which swayed my emotions. Even my forward-planning action plans for training resulted in zero results for months. 2022 was also the annus horribilis year for all investments. Everything was red and it was a disaster for many, myself included. The FTX saga was also a big bummer.

The buying on dips strategy that had worked so went for the past 14 years since the 2008 GFC stopped working. It was the end of cheap money and the bursting of asset bubbles. Covid was the trigger point leading to high inflation and followed by aggressive rate hikes.

Nevertheless, I grade myself a B here as there were some highlights that made all the investment woes bearable. Through an ex-colleague, I managed to start a new consultancy contract in Oct which may result in a full-time job in 2023. I managed to regain my driving license again within 6 months of intensive lessons and tests in late Oct. I lost it in 2021 due to a stupid accident.

2022 feels like a normal year again as travel is returning back to normal. China will be opening up its borders next week too as it finally abandons its zero Covid strategy. We managed to complete 3 wonderful trips with the family, one to New York in Apr and Bangkok in Sep with each of our sons. Finally, we had a France vacation as a complete family of 4 for a year-end holiday to end the year. Other than being at home together during the Covid lockdowns, the last complete family vacay was in Dec 2019.

It felt so good to experience quality family bonding time again. Cooking our own meals in the lovely Marseille apartment and having movie nights together (Netflix’s Alice in Borderland season 2). Eating long French degustation meals and multiple heart-to-heart chats over fine food and wines. These experiences were priceless and I will treasure them forever.

Final KPI grading tally: 1. C- 2. B+ 3. F 4. C 5. C 6. B

With 2022 over, it’s time to set up my 2023 goals again very soon. What will 2023 hold for me? Come to think of it, time really passes by really fast every year. But in the midst of the Covid lockdowns, we thought otherwise and it felt like eternity… LOL

Yes, folks, we are into the last 2 weeks of the year. What a year it has been for investors. All the sins of the past came home to roost in 2022 after 14 years of excesses from the last 2008 GFC banking crisis.

What had changed? The central banks, the last defence of sensibility, took over the roles of the evil bankers and printed money like there is no tomorrow for years, inflating all asset classes. It took the Covid pandemic to eventually tip everything over the cliff and pricked the ever-growing asset bubbles this year.

Rapidly rising inflation due to an endemic reopening by late 2021 plus the Ukraine war in early 2022 finally caused inflation to suddenly shoot up. The central banks had no choice but to raise interest rates in a quick succession. The last comparable historical period was in the 1980s during Paul Volcker’s fight against inflation when the Fed temporarily raised rates to more than 20%!!!

The Fed has now raised 4.25% year to date on the back of 4 consecutive 75 bps hikes. It just raised 50 bps this week and cautioned that there could be more hikes (although it is 25 bps lower now). It means that the FED has hike rates 7 times this year. They are now basically observing future data to see if the hike actions this year have managed to tame the inflation monster.

There is some optimism that perhaps we have reached a peak> We have moved into a historical long-term level of 3-5% interest rates which is the norm. 2023 will be an interesting year as economists’ forecasts for the new year are the most diverged and different in recent years. No one really has a bloody clue where we will be going. The ongoing Ukraine/Russia war is a constant albatross hanging over our heads.

Meanwhile, year end liquidity is bad and the markets are volatile. We need to sit tight and weather the next 2 weeks and hope that the beginning of 2023 is brighter. 2022 is a year most 0of us would like to forget.

On the personal front, we had a big family gathering (finally!!) of more than 20+ to celebrate mum’s 88th birthday at my sis’s place. Good to see everyone again and also the latest addition to the family – 2 months old baby Scarlette.

I am also into my new consultancy project that could become a full time job next year. We have just completed and submitted our application for a FMC (Funds Management Company) with the authorities and hope that it will be approved within the next few months.

I also had a call with one of my mentees from the mentorship program that I have been participating for the last 5 years. He had graduated 1.5 years ago and worked for a top bracket American bank. He is now approached by another financial institution and wanted my views on changing careers and jobs. I shared with him my experience and the processes to follow plus the things to look out for.

On Fri, I had a year end long lunch with a group of good friends to celebrate the year-end. Between the 6 of us, we had 6 bottles of wine over 5 hours. Good food, great wines and fantastic company. What else can one wish for?

I am looking forward to our year-end family vacation in France starting tomorrow. Great to have both sons with us and the older one is joining us from UK. It will be Paris, Marseille, Lyon and then back to Paris. Weather looks cold but we will definitely have quality family time together.

I will take a break from writing this blog for the next 2 weeks. When I am back, it will be to review my 2022 new year resolution list to grade myself. Then into Jan, it will be to create a new list for 2023. Wishing everyone a merry Christmas and a great 2023 ahead!

Something from ex-PIMCO economist Mohamed El Erian caught my eye this week as his recent post perfectly articulated some of the points I was blogging about previously about the changes taking place around us.

Thanks to the Covid event trigger, the world is moving into a brave new world with no historical precedence or past experience to look back upon for guidance. We will remember history from now as pre-Covid or post-Covid reference points. It is either before 2020 or after 2021. Even watching youtube videos dating from 2019 days look so dated by now. And it’s only 3 years ago.

El Erian said the following: “The world isn’t just teetering on the brink of another recession. It is in the midst of a profound economic and financial shift. The first transformational trend is the shift from insufficient demand to insufficient supply. The second is the end of boundless liquidity from central banks. And the third is the growing fragility of financial markets.” https://finance.yahoo.com/news/top-economist-mohamed-el-erian-193236736.html

Starting from early 2020 when Covid struck, world demand collapsed as countries implemented lockdowns to close their borders in a desperate attempt to protect their population from the virus. Within months, we see ships stacked full of cargo stuck in harbours with nowhere to go. Everyone was told to stay at home and not step outside. It affected every living human being on the planet, something that has never happened before in our lifetimes.

Supply chains were crippled and we had to scramble for toilet paper and stock up on food. Days turned to months without anyone knowing what would happen the next day. Alpha came, then Beta before Delta, the most deadly of them all, flooded the morgues with bodies. It was a terrifying time when we all watch helplessly and wondered if the world was ending. It felt like we were taking one step forward and then having to take 2 steps backwards. And it happened multiple times.

Thankfully, the vaccines were ready by the beginning of 2021. It took months for countries to do national vaccination rollouts as supplies were tight and had to be ramped up. Working within the unknowns, this process turned political as governments worked in the dark to battle against individual rights to protect the wider community. It was a discovery journey even as the virus mutants ever so often.

By the end of 2021, Omicron finally arrived. Everyone sighed with relief that the virus had finally evolved to a milder form with lower mortality rates even though it became more contagious. It seems that the virus is determined to survive by not killing its host. Finally, the world was moving from a pandemic to an endemic stage.

This is where El Erain’s first transformational trend started to happen, a shift from insufficient demand to insufficient supply. Supply chains broke down as logistics became chaotic due to a huge surge in demand. The world started to open for business again after shutting down for almost a year. Countries were bidding against each other to secure precious resources for their citizens. Everything was out of stock and prices began to rise, causing inflation.

Coming from a lower base due to lockdowns in 2020/21, demand for most things rose a few hundred percent within weeks as one country after another relaxed their borders in early 2022. Inflation immediately went up to levels not seen in many years since the oil shocks in the 1970s. The central banks had to react with aggressive rate hikes to counter rising inflation.

Because of the 2008 GFC, central banks had supressed interest rates at a historically low level for too long. It provided cheap money for the last 14 years for investors to leverage to their eyeballs. This created asset bubbles everywhere.

El Erain’s second transformation shift was the end of boundless liquidity from central banks. The aggressive rate hikes in 2022 to counter runaway inflation burst the party bubbles. The Fed did 4 consecutive 75 basis points (0.75%) hikes that equate to a total of 3%. It had hiked rates at six straight meetings, something it hasn’t done since 2005. Not since the 1980s has the Fed raised rates by 3.75 percentage points in a single year.

Stocks started to collapse from the Covid-induced rallies of 2020. Tech names dropping 70-80% from their recent historical highs became common. Zoom, Shopify and even the big boys like Meta suffered. The 2021 “diamond hands to the moon” hype of crypto and NFT markets started to crack by early 2022.

El Erain’s third and final transformation trend is the growing fragility of financial markets which we are experiencing now. There is a domino effect that is affecting institutions we thought were robust but actually look like a deck of cards now. In a rising tide, all boats are naturally pushed higher. By the same token, a receding tide also grounds many ships. We also discover who was swimming naked as frauds surfaced.

Crypto fiasco disasters like Terra Luna and FTX are happening with increasing frequency and taking on more victims. Their interconnectivity to each other becomes a huge liability when assumed values vanished overnight with a big drop in a token’s price. Yield farming and lending out your coins suddenly became unsafe when one can totally lose your principal overnight. Counterparty risk became untenable as even the top exchanges get hammered.

We are starting to see a re-evaluation of value thanks to the post-Covid induced inflation. This led to aggressive rate hikes which trigger the reverse of loose monetary policies. Falling dominoes are starting to impact more asset classes and the growing fragility of financial markets is being sorely tested.

As we head into the end of 2022, we face an uncertain 2023. Will there be a mild recession or would we see another horrible year for investment again? Will the central banks reverse course and exercise their printing machine to “save” the economy? One thing for certain now is that China, the sleeping giant, is awakening from its zero Covid slumber. It is a double-edged sword that can re-invigorate the global economy or create a new round of inflationary upside pressure.

The optimist in me tends to see the positive side of things as we move away from the Covid years and return to a new normal. It is time to relook at everything from a different light now as a profound and fundamental economic and financial shift is happening.