Author: CheckW

Given the expected surge of Omicron cases into Feb, strict restrictions have been in place since the beginning of 2022 which limited the annual CNY celebrations this week.

All households are limited to just 5 unique visitors a day. Reunion dinners have to be called off or adjusted to work around this requirement. It was tighter than the 2021 CNY where we were allowed 8 – that was just before Delta hit us last year. Now we have Omicron occurring before CNY and version 2.0 is just around the corner.

Though the Omicron hospitalization and mortality rate is the lowest of all the variants to date, the rapid rise of positive cases have really shocked everyone even as we had assumed that the vaccines would have made the current situation much better than the last 2 years.

As we rolled into the 3rd year of Covid, virus fatigue has really affected our mental well being. A number of countries like Denmark and the UK have started to say that it’s enough and that Covid restrictions should stop. With a high vaccination rate (plus booster shots), they have decided to roll the dice and stop all Covid prevention processes like mask-wearing and social distancing measures from this week.

Many countries are also taking baby steps to reopen as the general consensus is that we must now treat the virus as an endemic virus like the seasonal flu. We should not be afraid of Covid anymore. With more data collected and newer medications available to treat it, we should cross the finishing line like what Tamiflu did to the H1N1 years ago.

The Covid shock to the world and the broken global supply chain should start to recover. It has caused a global shutdown to happen 2 years ago and forced us to go into a new normal. This one-in-a-hundred years event has shown that we have the human resilience to adapt accordingly. We pivoted and accelerated the adoption of technology to survive this new world order as the old ways of doing things just don’t work anymore.

Back to the muted CNY celebrations. We had 4 wonderful and intimate CNY dinners this week with a smaller group of family and friends due to the Omicron restrictions. It resulted in a longer interaction time filled with conversations over good food and drinks rather than the usual annual rush of visiting as many relatives as possible CNY pace.

Monday evening was our annual reunion dinner held on the eve of CNY with my parents and in-laws. We had a 3-course meal that included the required Loh Hei, followed by a soup and then steamboat. Too much food as usual, plus sides of CNY titbits and goodies before the meal and deserts after, sprinkled with bottles of vino in between.

Day 1 of CNY (Tue) was for visitations to my parents and in-law’s place to wish them a prosperous and healthy year ahead. We also popped by my wife’s grandmom’s home too. The evening was spent having dinner with my niece’s family and nephew whom we have not seen for a while. It was refreshing to see that her baby girl had grown up and is almost 5 years old now. So bubbly and full of life with the innocence of youth. She is so inquisitive of her surroundings as everything was a new exploration and adventure for her.

The 2nd day of CNY was just dinner with our usual group of good friends we have known since our uni days. We have grown up together since graduation, to getting married and starting our families while watching the kids grow up to be young adults now. The logistics were tricky as we had to split the group into 3 locations. Each household was for a different “segment” consisting of the men, the women and the children. We did a short video call to link the 3 groups when we had the Loh Hei.

Finally, on Fri last evening, my wife invited her close cousins over for dinner. We managed to polish off a lot of sake (one 1.8 L and 2 other regular 720 ml bottles) with Peranakan food and a lot of CNY titbits. We watched the opening ceremony of the China winter Olympics as well as some old family videos.

All in all, a very good week of family and friends gathering. The pace was slower but more meaningful as it was not rushed due to the Omicron restrictions. It was an adaptation into the 2nd CNY celebration in the midst of the virus and hopefully, we do not have to go into a 3rd one in 2023 to have big and noisy gatherings again.

The stock markets did a nice pullback last Friday into Monday with strong earning results from Apple and then Amazon later into the week. They are still off from all-time highs and ended Jan in the red. Inflation hawks are still worried about the possibility of faster rate hikes and whether the strong revenue results can be sustained as we revert back to a more normal situation.

Cryptos look like they are also stabilizing and forming a base here. I am waiting at the sidelines to buy more. For stocks, I am undecided if we can see more correction but volatility looks like it is here to stay. While I prefer to stay invested, I am slowly eating into my cash to buy some at lower prices.

The tough ones are Chinese names that have been whacked down by their government. No one seems to know who they will be targeting next. Some have been forced to divest or to delist and have dropped more than 50 to 80% already. There is still long term potential even as China is looking inwards as it has a critical onshore mass to support while giving the middle finger to America. But how long will they continue to punish their star new tech companies?

My macroeconomics view is that the world will start to open up again and that we are nearing the Covid finishing line soon. Supply chains will resume back to before again and inflation concerns are overhyped and could be transient. The global economy fell off a cliff in 2020 and there should be more upside and recovery as we head into 2022.

As such, I prefer to remain invested in selective companies that will benefit from this recovery. I am too tech focused at the moment and may need to fine tune my portfolio. Dips should continue to be opportunities to buy. This also applies to the top cryptos and promising ones with a strong utility function. I just need to stomach the expected greater volatility and sit tight. 2022 certainly started off with a big bang indeed!!!

I am amazed that it’s now already week 100. I started tracking the development of Covid numerically since I write my own blog on a weekly basis. I really wish that we are nearing the finishing line of this 2+ years nightmare as the whole world was turned inside out and upside down over the last 100 weeks.

Covid fatigue is seeping in everywhere and many are saying screw it, let’s try to live with it as we aim to return to a near-normal again. The UK is already making masks optional and lifting most virus restrictions next week. Or could it be Boris fighting for his political life too?

Just when you thought that it was safe to get out of the house, Omicron’s little brother (BA.2) decided to show himself. Over the last few days, Denmark had published data to suggest that it is 1.5 times more contagious than the original Omicron strain. If Omicron is 7x more contagious than Delta, doesn’t it mean that BA.2 is 10.5x (1.5 x 7) then? Are we going to see a new spike ahead?

Data so far indicates that its effect is mild and another study says that those who had the booster shot is likely to have 95% protection against this new strain. Apparently, 3 strains of Omicron were detected in South Africa last Nov and 2 were deemed to be the weaker ones that could die out by themselves. But one of them decided to turn around and now becomes a new variant of concern.

The local authorities had flagged out warnings that we have not reached the peak yet and daily positive cases can go up to 30k. As of yesterday, we have also already seen about 200+ of BA.2 cases out of a total of 5k+. It seems that it is a matter of time when all of us will eventually get Covid anyway.

Indeed, this might be the variant that sweeps across the world so rapidly that it will provide full herd immunity to all in a matter of weeks and months. Normally, a virus just wants to survive and not kill its host. Omicron may become like our common flu and travels around the world soon. This may be our ticket to the finishing line to live with a virus. It has mutated itself to become less toxic but more contagious in order to survive.

Our Chinese New Year (CNY) celebrations this year will be subdued as Omicron is expected to peak only into Feb, unlike last year when things were looking up before the Delta wave hit everyone. We will be restricted to 5 visitors per household versus 8 in 2021. Most reunion dinners cannot happen for extended families now and visitations will also have to be scaled down drastically.

The workaround would be to have fewer but more substantial meetups instead of the regular “hit as many locations” CNY tradition. My group of close friends have decided to split the annual dinner into 3 household locations in order to comply with the rules on day 3. Having smaller groups with longer get together sessions would make the interaction more meaningful as we usually only catch up once a year during these CNY celebrations.

On Wed, I attended an interesting full-day course on Sake. After the Skillsfuture subsidies, the $300+ fee was essentially free for me. We had a physical class of 18 strangers in a room listening to the trainer who introduced 8 types of Sake as part of the tasting menu. As expected, as we move into the afternoon session and many glasses of Sake later, my classmates became friendlier and rowdier. The required assessment paper at the end of the class was a party pooper though. But the trainer made it so much easier for us with encouragement and hints as we went through 7 (720ml) and one (1.8L) bottle of Sake to enlighten ourselves.

More eating and food into the next week. I can’t believe that Jan is almost over. The horrible markets did a nice recovery last night powered by Apple. I hope that it can pull back the losses suffered in the last 2 weeks as more companies are showing record profits for 2021. The easing of the supply chains will also help to lighten inflation concerns as we get used to Fed rate hikes this year.

Spoken too soon in my blog last week, I thought that it was an opportunity to buy on dips after a terrible start to the year. But the financial markets continued on its bloodbath this week. All markets were down as technical levels melt like butter within the last 24 hours after holding on for a week above key chart points.

There was so much bad news coming in one after another that there was no respite for any recoveries. First, we had Biden talking at his 1-year anniversary mark and encouraging Russia to invade Ukraine. Omicron news continues to see heightened cases as it has not reached its peak yet in many countries. Then Russia threatens to ban cryptos. An edgy market saw higher oil prices when drones attacked oil assets in UAE. Netflix and Peloton also announced weak results and led the price falls.

Everything suddenly looked gloomier. Europe and USA may retaliate against Russia if it attacks Ukraine with more sanctions. If they target and close Russia’s oil pipeline to the West, that will make oil markets even more nervous and prices higher…

The straw that broke the camel’s back for cryptos was the liquidation of highly leveraged positions when key BTC (40k) and ETH (3k) price chart levels were breached. It couldn’t have been a worst Friday ending to the week as we all have to lick our wounds into the weekend and hope for the best next week. Though cryptos are 24/7, the exchanges are probably going to take some time to assess their risk exposure and may try not to liquidate into the weekend thin market conditions.

I don’t think that the correction is done yet as it has extended into the 2nd week. Weak positions still have to be purged from the systems which in turn may drive prices lower. It was across all asset classes. The only things that moved up were oil prices and interest rate expectations. It is going to be an ugly Jan 2022 start to the new year.

Now to a lighter moment, the Laurel and Hardy show of the week. We have had comedy twins Novak and Boris entertaining us. Both showed us the meaning and truism of the Spiderman quote: “With great powers come great responsibilities”.

Tennis superstar Novak became a villain within a matter of weeks. He managed to dig a deeper hole in Australia even as he was trying to remain in the tournament. Firstly, his team managed to get an exemption for him as he was not vaccinated. Then holes started to appear in his story before he had to do a u-turn. He originally stated that he just had Covid and did not travel to other countries in the past 14 days so that he could get the exemption.

Then it was revealed that he had gone to Spain while he tested positive and even attended events without wearing a mask. There were photos of him posing with children without a mask while having Covid. This reckless behaviour was not new to him. He organized a tennis tournament in 2020 without Covid measures in place and it became a super spreader event for everyone who attended.

He is against taking the vaccination but his careless attitude created an uproar for Australians. His second appeal to remain failed and he was forced to leave the country immediately, even as 70% of the Australian citizens polled believed it was correct to kick him out of the country.

A famous person like him should know better to hold himself to a higher standard of integrity and oversight. Even if he does not want to take the vaccine, he should not lie his way through it and endanger other people with his stupid actions. Rules are made to be followed and if you do not respect the country’s process, then you have no right to stay there. Blaming your assistant for wrong application data does not cut it.

Boris was the other bozo that made his career by acting like a clumsy uncle with dishevelled hair to disguise his political manoeuvres. He supported Brexit and its lies to get a job that no one wants to do. His cavalier attitude of avoiding his own rules shows an “I’m holier than thou” attitude and a middle finger to everyone.

How can you hold a group party for up to 40 people (“Bring Your Own Booze” BYO) even as you lock down the country to stop Covid? Then when confronted, he claimed that he was not aware that it was illegal to have group gatherings? The leader is where the buck stops and claiming ignorance on a blatant abuse is inexcusable. These events were not one-offs. It even happened again a day after Queen Elizabeth’s husband died – they had another party.

What sort of credibility do you have after that? One set of rules for the commoners and another for the elites like yourself? Can the trust of the citizens be earned back again? People were not allowed to visit their dying parents at the peak of Covid and there you were having booze parties to destress?

Do we now get the worrying feeling that he is trying to deflect the heat with his latest move to bring the UK back to normalcy by stopping all Covid restrictions so soon after the Omicron wave?? Is this backed by science or are you politically desperate now and grasping at straws? Citizen lives are at stake here if you are wrong.

Even if it was based on science as Boris claims, his record of white lies is casting doubts on his motive for opening up. My son is studying in the UK and he says people have stopped wearing masks for a few months already. We have to remind him again to be cautious.

Boris is losing support and being asked to quit by fellow politicians. He is a fighter and will continue to dig his heels in. His job is so shitty with Brexit and Covid that I think no one in his right mind would want it. That ironically may be his only saving grace now.

This has been a hot topic for analysts for the last 1 month. There were various discussions that the inflation monster is finally here after waiting patiently for 13 years since the 2008 GFC (Global Financial Crisis). The markets were spooked last week when the Fed Dec minutes revealed a more hawkish stance than previously thought.

Some are now calling for 4 US rate hikes into 2022. Futures are pricing in a quicker tightening than before, as 30 years US treasuries go above 2%. Everyone is talking about how this might sink the stock markets. Are we supposed to panic now or is this a myth? My 2 cents worth below.

Let’s just take a step back and look at the build-up to today. We had the 2008 GFC which resulted in all central banks being forced to cut interest rates aggressively. This was to save the financial system as banks started to collapse under the weight of collapsing CDO debt value. The cuts were so fast and savage that very soon, we went into the unchartered ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) zone. Europe rates even went negative. There were no economic books to refer to as we had never been in this state before. And yet we stayed here for so long.

Theoretically, rates cannot stay at zero as a recovering economy will result in overall inflation raising its ugly head rapidly. But surprisingly, that didn’t really happen for a very, very long time. With cheap money available everywhere, this has translated to asset price inflation instead. Every asset class rose as hot money chased after them. Those that went full-on into debt to buy assets became the savvy heroes who made it big.

The prudent risk-averse investor lost out as the newly-crowned cowboy investors bet the house and the barnyard on anything that moves. The price corrections were seen as buying on dips opportunities. Flash crashes lasted only for a short time and new investors easily forgot the last dip.

Then Covid came. In Mar 2020, the world dropped off the cliff. Supply chains stopped working. I personally saw the Wellington harbour filled to the brim with raw materials but going nowhere during my last vacation to NZ in Feb 2020. Over a matter of weeks, world trade volumes easily reduced by 90% as we grapple with the emerging pandemic. No one had a clue what was happening as country after country decided to close their borders.

And now we are into the 3rd year of the virus. We have witnessed many start-stop actions in 2021 where the recovering economy was pushed back by the 2 new mutant strains. Supply chains are trying to get back to pre-2020 levels but multiple shocks constantly disrupt the recovery. The Fed did one of the biggest money printing exercises last year to support its citizens with a mini-UBI (Universal Basic Income) program where monthly 1.2k cheques were issued to all like candy. It is estimated that 30% of all existing US Dollars were newly created in 2021 alone.

So is it any wonder that they are now seeing food price increases by the same quantum (+30%)? US Dec CPI at +7% was the highest in decades. Oil prices also continue to face upward pressure even after Biden released some strategic reserves late last year. There are many articles predicting that inflation is being underestimated and the futures markets are now priced up to 4 rate hikes this year.

Where do we go from here? I believe that this inflation shock is transient and it may not last long. If you look at the relatively low overall inflation for the last 10+ years, technology may have played a big part in suppressing inflation as productivity soared. We had big developments in Cloud Computing, AI, Blockchain and Big Data that changed the way we worked and Covid accelerated it further.

But in Mar 2020, the world decided to stop working altogether as we figured out the one in a hundred years pandemic event. Mother Earth was given a breather as activities and trading volumes collapsed by at least 90%.

Vaccines rollout just celebrated its 1 year anniversary today. A broken-down global supply chain takes a while to get back to its former glory. The ramp-up takes time because Delta/Omicron put a knee jerk brake on the momentum.

So the tight squeeze we see in commodities like microchips and oil makes for great inflation stories. Don’t forget that after Mar 2020, we are now coming from a low denominator base. At a base of 100, a 10% increase is only 10 points. If the base had dropped 90% to 10 now, a 5 points increase from 10 is a whopping 50% jump!!! That scary percentage will surely sound the alarms for the hawks, no? Fear drives news headlines and everyone goes into a feeding frenzy of inflation doomsday scenarios.

It will take a while to ramp up the supply chain momentum again. So like Technology over the last many years, the manufacturing engines will take at least 6 to 9 months to go back to their former glory. The expected future inflation into 2022 will likely dissipate as we get back to normal. Of course, this is also dependent on how Covid progresses.

I believe that we are at the tail end of Covid. Omicron is a good signal that it is becoming like the common flu. We have more new medicines coming online to treat it, as we gather more data to study it. People are tired of the lockdowns and want to treat it like an endemic. Though the world had changed a lot in the past 24 months, resilient human nature will bounce back to fight and conquer the virus successfully.

The flavour of the month is inflation hysteria. That could fade into the background in a couple of months as the mighty global supply chain rev up towards levels seen in normal times and the virus becomes totally endemic, a way of life. A number of market watchers I spoke to are still relatively invested in stocks and see dips to buy. Even as the market stock index is currently supported by a narrow group of tech names, they see the rest of the stocks doing a catch up as the economy recovers. I should selectively look at the cyclical ones which can benefit in a rising rate environment.

Alternatively, there is the crypto market. I have increased my investments in this space. I try to stick to only the top 10 to 20 cryptocurrencies that have volumes and depth of liquidity. BTC is a HODL position for accumulation and the recent 40% correction from the new high is likely to hold at the 40k levels.

I have been recently inspired by ETH after reading the book “The Infinite Machine” on its short history and started to accumulate it again. The book gave me a better understanding of its short history and what it can be when ETH2 is launched this year as a Proof of Stake coin that consumes 99% less electricity. It might also overtake BTC in market cap this year too.

Layer 2 cryptos that try to solve the high ETH gas fees are also looking interesting as their creators are also ETH founding fathers too eg Gavin Wood (main programmer of ETH) – now Polkadot. Cardano (Ada) has Charles Hoskinson (fired ETH ex-CEO). Avalanche (AVA) and Polygon (Matrix) are also some that want to pivot to Proof of Stake and accelerate the speed and number of transactions. This will help further DeFi development.

Exciting days ahead in 2022 as I complete the first module of my FinTech full-time course this week. There is much to look forward to indeed…

The beginning of the year has been filled with a lot of volatility in the markets. One moment it was happy days again, then the rest of the week we had blood all over the floor. The Dec Fed minutes was the turning point mid-week as it showed that they were more hawkish on rates int0 2022 than previously thought. Omicron continues its infectious waves worldwide for many countries to hit new daily positive case highs.

Though Omicron results in only mild effects so far (we saw it first hand in our older son who was vaccinated), many are alarmed at the rapid rise in cases even as deaths were much lower than the Delta mutation. It was was also the 06 Jan anniversary of the Capitol riots in America this week as the GOP continues to support the big lie that the election a year ago was stolen. It became a non-event as the orange one chickened out.

Companies hoping to stop WFH had to reverse their strategy as we face potential Omicron peaks which are expected to only happen in a few weeks time. It is 7 times more contagious so it is really turning out to be a pandemic of the unvaccinated. While the Biden vaccine mandate is being stalled, big companies like Citigroup has just announced that the jobs of the unvaccinated will eventually be terminated by the end of this month. There go our CNY celebrations for early Feb too…

While we wait for Omicron to peak into Jan, people are getting weary as we enter into the 3rd year of this virus. I sincerely hope that Omicron can be the push to get more people vaccinated or to enable natural herd immunity amongst the poorer nations. Long Covid seems unlikely too as this strain doesn’t seem to attack the lungs much. Time will tell as we learn more.

I reviewed my 2021 New Year Resolutions last week and now it’s time to make new ones into 2022. I have been pondering over it for the last 7 days while reflecting and grading myself on my last 2 years of resolutions. It just needs a bit of fine-tuning and I should stretch some goals to be more ambitious now.

1. Read 20 books – I finally achieved my 15 books goal in 2021, so why not add 5 more this year? I just need to learn how to read faster. 20 pages a day is just not going to cut it, to reach my target. I seriously have to set aside at least an hour or more per day. I have curated a list of books to read in my NLB app and the trick will be to read 2 to 3 books at the same time for some variety. To do a short summary on my iPhone’s Notes app after I finish each book.
2. Expand on my lifelong learning journey – I have just started a new 3 months NUS FinTechSG course on 04 Jan. At the end of it, they have a job matching process which I hope can help me pivot into the FinTech space that will include AI, Blockchain, Cloud and Big Data. Getting a new consultancy project will be a bonus. When life serves you lemons, you make lemonade…
3. Get deeper into Cloud Computing – To embark on a study of at least one of the top 3 providers : Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud. Maybe even Alibaba if the language constrain is surmountable.
4. Try harder to learn a programming language – Python comes to mind. I did try to pick it up in 2021 but I should practice it more. Github is also a resource I should familiarize myself with. I should also pick up better dashboard visualization skills from the likes of either Tableau, Microsoft Power BI or Qilview.
5. Either learn to improve on video editing skills or to try to open an online store to gain new knowledge. Dare to try something new to get out of my comfort zone.
6. Always stay healthy and happy. It has been a trying 2 years of Covid and I believe that this nightmare will eventually end soon. To stay optimistic and smell the roses to appreciate each new day and count my blessings.

OK done. Have stated my new resolutions for the world to see. Now I am committed to getting them completed for the next 12 months.

2022 is upon us. The last 2 years have been weird for each and every soul on planet Earth. We literally compressed so many once in a hundred years events into the last 24 months thanks to Covid.

I will spend this week reviewing my 2021 New Year resolutions and give myself a scorecard before I define and state my new 2022 ones next week. I have been doing this in my blog for a few years and I believe that this exercise helps me stay focused on my goals throughout the year.

Firstly, just a follow-up to my Omicron Christmas experience from last week. All our household members were bundled up on Christmas day to a designed hotel facility to begin our compulsory 10 days quarantine. This was after my older son was confirmed with Omicron on Day 4 after his return to S’pore. It took them a few days to confirm that it was the new variant before the isolation protocol was escalated. He was already confined in his room for 3 days.

While he was moved to a designated hotel for positive cases, the rest of us landed in a hotel (for household members who tested negative) near our home as all of us had negative PCR results which were done on Christmas eve night. After spending 2 of the required 10 nights there, we were abruptly discharged on Monday afternoon. The authorities had decided that Omicron, while highly contagious, results in only mild conditions. Hence they downgraded the heightened Omicron protocol to be no different from the other variants and allow for home quarantine. It was bittersweet for us to check out from our large and comfortable suite rooms just as we were getting used to it though. Then there were another 3 days of home quarantine for all of us till 30 Dec. Son was officially “released” back to society after 10 days of isolation from the 21 Dec discovery date.

The world is now swamped with Omicron cases – in the US, positive cases resulted in a new high that was more than double of 2020’s record – it was almost 600k. Mortality rates so far seem to be low while hospitalizations are closely being monitored, especially for the unvaccinated. The expectation is that we will only hit the peak of the positive case in a few weeks time.

Below were the 2021 resolutions I set out to do at the beginning of the year last Jan: 1. Read 15 books, 2. Get a new consultancy project, 3. Upgrade video editing skills, 4. Learn a new programming language, 5. Create an online store and finally 6. Stay happy and healthy.

1. Reading 15 books – I give myself an A grade as I finally achieved this goal after 3 years. It meant that I had finished reading at least 1 book per month. Perhaps the trick is to read more than one at a time to keep the interest and have some variety to the reading. The other method that works for me was to borrow any ebook that may interest me from NLB immediately if it is available. That allows me to keep the book in mind on my virtual bookshelf with some time to vet the first few chapters to see if I will finish reading it. I may want to increase this goal for 2022. Just for my record, I have listed a short summary of the books I read below this blog as a matter of record for myself. It is also another good habit I picked up from a friend, to help me remind myself of the books I had read with a short book summary after I had finished reading each book.
2. Get a new consultancy project. I give myself a B for this. Things looked promising at the beginning of the year to get another similar Myanmar consultancy role but the military coup on 01 Feb killed it. Luckily, I had signed up for the 6 months IBM AI course which actually paid me to study full time. It amazed me that we can now use technology to have virtual classes, projects and exams without the need to meet physically at all. This was my top accomplishment of 2021. When it ended in Aug, I tried to sign up for another new full time course multiple times without success but finally found one that will start next week for 3 months at a highly subsidized course fee.
3. Upgrade video editing skills – this one is an F as in Fail. I spent some time looking a video editing software to pick up after seeing so many do it and produced great end products. Finally settled on the DaVinci/Resolve program but I never really got beyond this step. Have to try harder into 2022.
4. Learn a new programming language – a grade C for me. The IBM AI course made me realized that I was totally IT illiterate compared to all my project members. I was just a BS marketing guy trying to understand tech. The trainers encouraged us to pick up the Phython programming language as a starting point. I tried to learn more once the course ended in Aug. But programming requires practise and knowing the basics alone is not enough. One needs to roll up your sleeves to do real programming to gain experience. I was lazy and sort of tried to convince myself that this was hard and this old dog cannot do it, even though I did it for my A levels Computer Science 37 years ago. I need to buck up on this…
5. Create an online store – like point 3, I give myself an F. I initially explored a number of websites to get a feel of what it will be like to become an online entrepreneur. With this blog page I had created in 2016, I discovered that I am already partially there as I can add widgets to my page to create an online store. Then I got lazy again and was side tracked totally. This Canadian company called Shopify consistently appeared in my research, so I decided to buy the stock instead LOL. And that was it. No further online store developement after that.
6. Stay happy and healthy – I get a B+ here. With new Covid mutations stressing mental health, it is easy for anyone to get into a downward spiral funk. We just need to always look on the bright side of things and stay optimistic as all these negatives shall eventually pass. I had plenty of quality family time at home and we went for 2 cruise to nowhere vacations. We bonded as a family over home delivery meals in front of the TV watching K-dramas. Knowing that older son is safe studying in S’pore instead of in the UK for most of the year was a blessing. Then we had a last minute Spain vacation in Dec as the VTL flights opened up. I finally walked away from my Myanmar consultancy role in Dec after witnessing 4 years of work going down the drain with the Feb military coup. It is so sad and painful to know that one cannot contribute anymore to a hopeless situation that is beyond one’s abilities as things are expected to worsen. Also actively try to avoid negativity via exiting chat groups or just staying silent to minimize the aggravations of disagreements. Ultimately, I am the one that decides what works for me, to maximize my happiness. Exercising and running every day also helps me acheive my staying healthy goal.

As I complete my personal review of 2021, I will have a week to finalize my 2022 resolutions which I would pen in my next blog. My NUS FintechSG course starts on Tues and an ex-colleague had sounded me out on an interesting project that may also be useful to incorporate into my new course. More on that later as things develop. Barring any more new surprises, we should be seeing light at the end of the Covid tunnel soon.

15 books I read in 2021:

1. Too big to fail- Andrew Ross Sorkin – Amazing about the twist and turns where all the 5 investment banks Bears Stearn, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs almost failed, plus AIG fiasco, Fannie and Freddie Mac. Everyone was scrambling with the unknown and so many moral hazards abound to make “too big to fail” a reality. How GFC 2008 was a prelude to distrust with elites and the rise of Trump.
2. Firefighting : The Financial Crisis and its Lessons – Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, Henry Paulson – Review of GFC 2008 ten years later in 2018 from the 3 persons at the heart of it – More details from the 3 persons at the heart of the rescue operation that spans 14+ months as one after another from Bear to Lehman, AIG to Fannie created a domino effect. A lot was adhoc and firefighting reactions to the escalating meltdown. The summary recommends a return of more power for the regulators to react which was granted during GFC but have since expired.
3. What Retirees Want – A Holistic View of Life’s Third Age – Ken Dychtwald, Robert Morison – Book talks about mainly baby boomers. Was surprised that above 50 years old is classified as senior now and that includes me. Most of the concepts are familiar to me like life long learning, giving back to society and staying active into our second halftime. Affirmation of my current thought processes on what I should focus on for the next 10 to 30 years of my senior’s life journey
4. The McKinsey way – Ethan M Rasiel – MECE: Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive. Good tips for work life especially for a fresh grad. How to work in a stressful environment and with a team, how to be a successful consultant.
5. Fifty secrets of Singapore’s success – edited by Tommy Koh – 50 essays on various topics by different people on why Spore became successful.
6. World Travel – an irreverent guide – Anthony Bourdain and Laurie Woolever – highlights of places via his food porn shows
7. Anthony Bourdain – the last interview – various writers – interviews from 2014 till the last one a few days before his sudden suicide in 2018. Going into the mind of someone who only found success after he was 44 and it lasted 17 years. Hidden genius who found his calling late in life and left too soon and suddenly.
8. The man who solved the market – how Jim Simon’s launched the quant revolution – Gregory Zuckerman – About Renaissance and their Medallion fund, the most successful in history, making 82% in 2008 GFC. Very similar to my data science project, analyzing data for patterns and trends to exploit small and reliable gains that adds up. They started in the 1980s and computers and data have jumped by quantum leaps since then. Very interesting parallels to current AI studies.
9. Born a Crime – Trevor Noah – growing up in South Africa during the ending of apartheid and a coloured person (white father and black mother). Eye opener from his perspective while growing up in the midst of apartheid dying. His strong relationship with his mother and taking after her.
10. The Premonition- Michael Lewis – His new book on covid and people who fought it and against CDC. Joe Derisi and his Virochip, Carter and the Wolverines trying to save the country but no one would listen. That shutting down schools would be the most effective way to bring the virus transmission cycle. That testing was critical to track the virus mutation.
11. Amazon Unbound – Brad Stone – Picking up from 2010 onwards by same author till covid and early 2021 when he announced that he was stepping down as CEO. Interesting take on Bezo’s principals to run the company and also what actually happened in his affair and the blackmail episode. His mistakes and successes over the last 10 years and a willingness to bet big on future potential growth plus attacking the blackmailers of his affair episode, turning against them Amazon style.
12. Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain – I thought I had read the book before but discovered it was new to me. Feeling nostalgic to want to read his first book that made him popular and jump started his food porn career after watching his posthumous “Roadrunner” movie. Enlightening about his chef career and how he started.
13. A Cook’s Tour – Anthony Bourdain – his follow up book to kitchen confidential about places he visits for his new show, usually with friends or ex-colleagues. Then some chapters on his philosophy on life and his admiration of great chefs.
14. The Everything Store – Brad Stone – about Amazon from start till 2013, how it began. Interesting read on how it accidentally created AWS and ruled cloud computing. Bezo’s take no prisoners aggressive style creating Amazon work culture of chaos and 6 pager memos.
15. AI 2041 – Lee Kai Fu and Chen Qiu Fan – 10 interesting stories about live 20 years from now that explores different aspects of AI development with intro at the start and explanation at the end by him while the stories were written in chinese by the co-author who is supposedly the top science fiction writer in china. Interesting for me bec it highlights the AI topics like NLP and deepfakes which I had learned from the IBM course recently.

‘Tis Christmas day today and a surreal Christmas week indeed… Strange things started to happen on 21 Dec and overwhelmed my whole family as things snowballed from one event to another.

We had returned from our 2 weeks vacation on 17 Dec and started our 7 days of compulsory Covid ART testing. The first was the PCR test we booked at the airport when we landed. The negative results were posted to our TraceTogether app within 2 hours, which was pretty impressive.

Our older son had finished his first term of school in the UK in early Dec and went for a holiday with his schoolmates in Italy before a week of skiing in the French Alps. Geneva was the nearest airport for him to fly back to S’pore via a stopover at Zurich. He had done a few PCR tests and the required certified ART and tested negative just before the flight back on 20 Dec.

An idea of the troubles to come then started. He was unable to board the connecting flight from Geneva to Zurich even though his ART test was negative. They told him a more comprehensive PCR was required based on Switzerland rules even though that was not required for S’pore. In hindsight, we forgot that Switzerland is not part of the EU and hence they operate on separate procedures.

We spoke to him and discussed options we could take, to delay his flight back as he would not have enough time to get a new PCR result in time. Thankfully, the station manager there managed to get an exemption for him to vouch that he was leaving the country via Zurich. He managed to board the flights as per plan. In hindsight, maybe a delay of his flight would have been better.

He arrived in Changi at 6 am on 21 Dec and took the PCR test before heading home directly. Because the results were not out yet by late morning, we chatted briefly with him at home while exercising some social distance between us as a safety precaution. I then headed for a lunch appointment with an undergraduate who was my new mentee for this year, whom I had not met up face to face yet except for 3 video calls to date.

Then the bomb was dropped right after noon time. Son called and told me his PCR test was positive. We needed to do damage control asap. I told my lunch partner that I had to leave for home immediately. We regrouped and moved to a previously agreed contingency plan to use the 3rd floor as an isolation room for him as there was an attached bathroom.

The authorities started to kick start action plans to contain the situation. All members of our household were placed on a Health Risk Warning order. Each person received a call and SMS messages to tell us what needs to be done. We kept our distance from him as he brought all the necessary stuff to the isolation room and kept the door closed at all times. The rest of us had to submit daily self-test ART results online for the next 7 days. Only when it was negative were we then allowed to leave the house every day.

This continued for the next 3 days as we await any follow up calls from MOH (Ministry of Health). No call was a good sign but they made the dreaded call on the morning of Day 4 – Christmas eve, 24 Dec. He was informed that he had the Omicron variant and hence the containment protocol had to be escalated. He has to be transported to a designated facility immediately. On top of that, all members of the household must also be sent to another facility for a 10 days quarantine. Shits!!!

Omicron news is now creating havoc all over the world. It is 7 times more contagious. Over the last 48 hours, new data strongly suggest that symptoms are mild and hospitalization/deaths low. But our country’s protocol on Omicron was cast in stone more than a month ago before we had any data on the mutation. So no matter how we argued about having so many negative daily ART results, we were screwed. The whole family plus our domestic helper will have to embark on an enforced “holiday” staycation at a designated hotel for the next 10 days 🙁

We decided to make the best of the situation and I started to prepare the Christmas eve dinner for our smaller group, pending any “new” developments. They called at 5 pm to inform my son that the transport will arrive in 30 minutes to pick him up. I quickly did up a platter of food for him to gobble up before an ambulance with fully suited safety agents came to take him away. We were told that he will be taken to the National Center of Infectious Disease.

The 4 of us proceeded to try to have a quiet Christmas eve celebration dinner with some Spanish tapas dishes and Jamon ham. Then they called again to say someone will be here soon to give us all a new PCR test. We had an erroneous SMS earlier in the afternoon that informed all of us that we tested positive for a PCR test we haven’t had with a future date – 25 Dec LOL. They called back later to apologize for the cockup when we enquired about the confusing SMS.

Anyway, the fully suited medical personnel came over to poke our noses for the PCR test. We apologize to each other for spoiling our Christmas eve. Poor guy has to work through the festive period. As we wait for the results which would take a few hours, we knew that we could at least spend one more night at home before our enforced staycation. They were trying to arrange the logistics to transport all of us the next morning.

In late morning the following day (Christmas day, 25 Dec), the ambulance van came to take all of us to the designated facility. My neighbour who just drove home while we were being loaded up must have been shocked to see a van with masked medical personnel taking all of us away… We were told that it was a hotel nearby and it was probably for all the household members that were affected. Thankfully, another neighbour agreed to help us feed our fishes and water the plants while there will be no one at home for a while.

The evening before, we checked with our older son to find out where he was and to ensure that he was alright. He told us that he was now placed in a hotel in Novena and he was sharing a room with a complete stranger!!! We were flabbergasted that he was sharing a room with another Covid positive patient. Bloomberg had an article a day earlier that talked about horror stories of people being hijacked from their homes and separated from their partners and children. And now we realized first hand that it is true! https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-23/omicron-upends-singapore-s-travel-strategy-as-returning-residents-face-chaos?sref=TCJIUe33

I think that the authorities were scrambling with resources as the surge of Omicron cases was very sudden. The Novena area is a known medical hub and so it makes sense that they locate the quarantine hotel for positive Omicron cases there so that resources are nearby to treat patients if required. I suspect that the hotel is overwhelmed as it is not a big one – it caters to medical tourists coming to S’pore for treatment. The official reason given to my son was that it was to help the roommates look after each other and to alert the operator if health conditions worsen.

His roommate is a slightly older man whose wife is also currently being quarantined elsewhere. He is a commodities trader and my son should be able to interact well with him as they have a common interest in finance. To cement the new friendship, I sent them 2 MacDonald Big Breakfast sets the next morning 🙂

Back to the 4 of us – My wife, younger son, domestic helper and me. Our adventure continued into Christmas day late morning as the ambulance van took us to our designated facility hotel which was just a short drive from our home. Thankfully, there was only a short queue at the hotel drop off point.

We had requested separate individual rooms for the 4 of us as we do not want to infect each other if one of us got it from my older son. Also, it seems like we do not have to foot the cost of the quarantine stay as it is an enforced order for household members even though our ART/PCR test results were negative.

We were pleasantly surprised that 3 of us were given suite rooms on the 19th floor with a wonderful view. Our helper had a normal room on the 4th floor though. We tried to encourage ourselves by saying that this is a bonus staycation holiday. This will be a quiet me-time for each of us to reflect and do our own thing, thanks to the government and taxpayers 😉 The younger son has his medical exams coming up in Jan so this is a perfect environment for him to study. My wife has a full-time job to work on and also just rented some gym equipment for her room.

Me? I will try to chill and prepare for my new Fintech course that starts in Jan. This time it is much better than my first 14 nights quarantine stay in Sep 2020. It is just that the timing is super bad, heading into Christmas and the New Year period. We will probably be talking about this episode in our lives for years to come.

Where are we now on the Covid journey? Omicron has upended everything within the last few weeks and we have not reached the peak of this cycle yet. Even if Omicron is 7 times more contagious, the after-effects data so far suggest that it is mild. We are now suspecting that my older son caught it in the VTL flight back to S’pore. He had a negative certified ART test just before boarding the plane and prior to that, he also had 2 negative PCR tests during his Italy/France trip. That means that Omicron is highly contagious.

I am an eternal optimist and I think that this is an important turning point. Omicron might be the silver bullet we need to end this pandemic/endemic. Even though there is ample data to support the use of the vaccines, many still refuse to take them. Can this be the solution for them to get natural immunity? It is a tough way to get protection from the virus but for the die-hard anti-vaxxers, it is nature’s way of handing out tough love.

The way Omicron is rapidly spreading throughout the world could be Mother Gaia’s way of getting us out of this nightmare as the global vaccination rollout after 1 year is still too slow. As long as a vast majority remains unvaccinated, more new variants will develop. We had Delta, Lambda and Omicron in 2021. How many more are coming or will Omicron be the silver bullet that ends the nightmare?

Took some time off to spend 2 weeks travelling to Spain for a long-needed vacation with a group of good friends in the midst of the Omicron saga. It was personally an eye-opener for me to discover about the rich history of the country – how it become great for more than 300 years and then declined for over the last 100+ years thereafter.

The plan for the 6 of us was to spend 3 nights in Madrid, then another 3 at Seville before we do a historical tour of one night each in Cordoba and Granada. Finally, back to civilization for 4 nights at a Marbella beach resort before we head back to Madrid to take our flight back. The new Omicron mutation appeared a week just before we began our trip on 02 Dec, making us wonder then if we had to postpone the trip at the last minute. Thankfully, we decided to procced.

As we moved towards the south during our trip, I was fasinated at the long history that Spain had. It was once the top super power of the world about 500 years ago just as its most famous citizen, Christopher Colimbus, discovered the New World of the Americas with the financial support from Queen Isabella of Castile. The riches they brought back from the newly discovered lands financed Spain and it was able to wage mutiple religious wars which eventually bankrupted them when teh money ran out.

Sadly, their New World Stronghold did not last as other European countries ate into their monopoly routes. Yet their continued to spend on lavish lifestyles and more wars caused the empire to decline substantially by the 1900s. The death blow was the start of World War 2 where Franco took over and literally tore the country apart until his death in 1975 which Spain has yet to recover from.

Present Spain is but a shadow of its glorius past. It is no more a leader within the European union, now led by Germany, France and Italy. Most of its people do not speak English as we found out ourselves as we had difficulty communicating throughout the trip. Guide books also tell us not to mention the Spainish civil war (just before Franco took power) with locals as it is still a touchy subject after all these years.

We ate lots of tapas and drank sangria during our holidays. Meals were cheap and all of us can easily order multiple tapas as one portion can be shared within our group of 6. Spanish cusine had many similarities with Asian food and so there is little we need to adapt to. The weather was a bit cold for us, ranging from 5 to 15 degrees Celsius. But we were told that this is the best time to visit southern Spain as summer temperatures could go up to as high as 40 degrees.

Seville, Cordoba and Granada were amazing eye openers for us as we discovered more than a thousand years of history within the cities. The Romans and Jews came first and their methods of building (eg. use of aquaducts) are still visible now in most buildings, like using natural gravity to move water between locations via aquaducts.

The Moors came next and refined the use of water to flow through their courtyards. This was a system to cool their homes during hot summers and regulate temperature in winter, as well as provide running water for use throughout the palaces. Even the multiple fountains found everywhere do not need fishes to prevent mosquitoes as constantly downward flowing water provided the energy for movement and running water ensures that insects cannot breed.

The Christians came next and by the 12th century, they managed to marginalize the Muslim Moors before setting the Spanish Inquisition on everyone in the 15th century, displacing all non-Christains including the Jews.

At each and every location, we could see 3 layers of the cities that was being built upon. The lowest from the Roman times, followed by the Moorish designs and finally the Catholics. Mosque were turned to Cathedrals and the Muslim structures were build over. Yet we see arches and repeat print patterns in places that reminded us of the Moorish work.

The rich land ong history was everywhere around us in Seville (Alcazar), Cordona (Mesquita) and Granada (Alhambra). The mix of Muslim and Christain architecture resulted in a unique blend of styles and buildings which cannot be found anywhere around the world.

We took trains and rented cars to move around. Besides my wife and I who first visited Spain in 2014, the rest of the group members were seeing Spain for the first time. We finally managed to stay at Marriott Marbella which was the marketing model resort presented to us when we were in the Marriott Phuket beach vacation location. That prompted us to purchase the vacation week in 2006 and 15 years later, we have finally arrived here for a visit and stay. The resort week purchase was a mistake though as AirBnB came a few years later, obliterating the need to stay at the same upmarket vacation home every year as we can do so at a different location every year at a lower cost.

We did have an enjoyable vacation with very good friends whom we have known for a long time, so the scenery and rich history was a bonus. In these uncertain times of Covid, it felt liberating to be able to travel again for a vacation after almost 2 years.

Before we left S’pore, the return procedures was just a pre-flight verified ART test before boarding and a PCR upon landing in Changi. Thanks to Omicron, the testing now has been expanded to 7 days after landing, with more ART tests (self and supervised) to be done thereafter. Thank goodness that there is no need for mandatory quarantine. But after so many daily negative results, what is the use of doing them? Can Covid pop up again after 5 negative daily results???

So glad to be back home again after more than 14 days overseas. Older son is also coming back soon while younger son had decided with his group to postpone their Europe trip to Apr 2022.

I sincerely hope that we are into the tail end of this Covid nightmare for the world. Perhaps Omicron is the answer to having infected with midl effects and getting a natural immunity? This would rid the world of this dreaded virus once and for all and help the anti-vaxxers achieve protection? Only time will tell as more countries are looking at lockdowns again into Christmas as winter sets in.