On Saturday, DollarsAndSense hosted the 3rd edition of The EveryDayInvestor, and it was the largest one yet, with over 220 attendees. The ongoing collaboration with Tiger Brokers, one of the fastest-growing investment platforms, and Singapore Exchange (SGX) continues to encourage investors in Singapore to make investing an everyday habit.
The event’s speakers, as well as the DollarsAndSense team, were sporting football jerseys sponsored by Weston Corporation, Singapore’s go-to store for football kits and gear. The connection between the football theme and investing was weaved throughout the day’s events, and summarised perfectly by Dinesh Dayani in his session, in which he showed how different asset classes played distinct roles in one’s investment portfolio. Precious metals like gold, for example, played a defensive role, since it can be used to hedge against inflation.
As a relative newcomer to investing, I found each of the sessions very meaningful and educational. Here are the five lessons I took home with me from the event.
#1 Make The Most Of Your CPF Account
Every investor event in Singapore needs to start with a sharing by Mr. Loo Cheng Chuan, the founder of the 1M65 movement and a good friend of DollarsAndSense. Mr. Loo’s initial goal was simple: for him and his wife to achieve a combined $1 million in CPF savings by 65 years old, hence the term “1M65”.
Over the past 10 years, Mr. Loo’s 1M65 movement has received a growing level of mainstream attention. This is a testament to the very straightforward and down-to-earth advice that Mr. Loo has been passionate and diligent about sharing – use your CPF savings to enjoy risk-free compounding interest. Through hard work and prudent use of CPF funds, Mr. Loo and his wife were able to achieve this initial goal at 45 years old, less than 3 years after starting the movement.
But Mr. Loo admitted during his talk that, after 10 years, simply sharing the 1M65 message would not be news to most of the attendees of the EveryDayInvestor event. Therefore, he revealed that this event would be his first time sharing his “6M65” projection in public – that is, Mr. Loo and his wife now expect to achieve $6 million in combined CPF savings by the age of 65.
In many ways, this was an update to what they had previously termed the “4M65” strategy. Firstly, they hit their Special Account and Medisave Account ceilings with top-ups from their Ordinary Account. Then they channelled their remaining OA savings into globally diversified funds. Mr. Loo has long been a proponent of investing in the S&P 500. Since OA savings earn about 2.5% per annum, they use the CPF Investment Scheme to channel their remaining OA savings into global funds that can yield greater returns.
Read Also: Singaporeans’ Roadmap For Accumulating $4 Million As A Couple Using CPF By Age 65 (4M65)
Hearing Mr. Loo’s candid sharing was a great way to start the event, as he demonstrated to all investors present how powerful our CPF savings could be when paired with prudence and hard work.
#2 Approach ETFs As A Taster Menu
Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) have become a common investment option for many investors in Singapore, and their main advantage is the diversification they offer. Since ETFs seek to replicate the returns of an index, it gives investors a chance to gain broad-based market exposure. However, Timothy Ho of DollarsAndSense was quick to point out in his session that there are now so many ETFs that it is important to be aware of the kind of index it seeks to replicate – not all are broad-based, with many ETFs today replicating narrower indexes that track specific sectors or asset classes.
Read Also: [2025 Edition] Complete Guide To ETF Investing in Singapore
The strength of Timothy’s talk was the many analogies he used to help us better understand how ETFs play a role in our investment portfolio. One of these was the illustration of a tasting menu, where a chef whips up a multi-course meal of small dishes. Tim’s insight was that chefs do this to showcase what they feel is their best work, instead of preparing one main course chosen by the customer, and perhaps not being able to demonstrate their value. He asked a very pertinent question, “Why would you choose to order your own dish and risk not getting the chef’s best?”
ETFs are therefore like a chef’s taster menu, diverse small dishes that demonstrate the chef’s best skills, and perhaps therefore much more rewarding than simply betting on one stock.
#3 Take Advantage Of The Versatility of REITs
Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are another option for investors in Singapore and are gaining popularity once again as expectations that the period of “higher for longer” interest rates is coming to an end.
Building on the football theme of the event, Raphael Lim of SGX shared how REITs can act like midfielders. In the same way midfielders are versatile and take on different roles as the situation demands, REITs too can play both goal-scoring roles as well as defensive roles.
For example, hospitality REITs tend to be cyclical and reflect global economic conditions, so they can create “scoring” opportunities when investing at the right time. On the other hand, retail REITs and healthcare REITs tend to be more resilient over time, regardless of the economic cycle. These are more akin to defensive midfielders.
Read Also: 5 Things You Need To Know About Investing In REITs In Singapore
#4 Search For The Multibaggers
No football team is complete without its star strikers, stocks that drive a portfolio’s growth engine and reward taking higher risks with higher returns, as our very own Dinesh Dayani put it.
Dawn Cher, better known as SGBudgetBabe, shared in her session about choosing multibaggers. This is a term coined by legendary US investor Peter Lynch to describe equity stocks that deliver returns of more than 100%. To put it simply, companies that can multiply your investment several times over.
Read Also: Step-By-Step Guide To Opening An Account With Tiger Brokers Singapore
These are companies like Amazon, Tesla, Apple, and NVIDIA. In Dawn’s current portfolio, one of her many multibaggers is Palantir, which has seen its stock price go up by 4 times in just the past year alone.
In her fireside chat with host Feng Yi, Dawn was quick to acknowledge that it wasn’t easy to pick these multibagger stocks, pointing out that they “will not look like a multibagger when you buy them”. However, the value of choosing a multibagger stock is that just having a single, powerful stock in your portfolio is sometimes enough to make up for any other lesser-performing picks. Dawn’s personal method of choosing such stocks is simply to do the research and see which companies are “great businesses”, that is, they have competitive advantages in their respective sectors and their financials are sound.
#5 Anyone Can Be An EveryDayInvestor
The final session of the event was perhaps the most meaningful, as Tim and Dinesh shared the stage with former national footballer Illyas Lee to share his outlook on investing and life.
At the young age of 15 years old, Illyas Lee was part of the 2010 Youth Olympic team that clinched a bronze medal at the Games. He was a full-time professional footballer for most of his 20s before a back injury made him reconsider his career options.
Illyas shared how his parents gave him the confidence to push for a sporting career, which he describes as his “first love”, and how he made the tough decision to choose to leave professional football after weighing the risks of exacerbating his injury. Today, Illyas still plays football at a semi-professional level, which is less demanding and still allows him to see returns from the years of investment he’s put into the sport.
In his career as a management consultant, Illyas also shared how the investment into sport has paid off, giving him better insights into translating his leadership skills on the football field into the corporate world. After a whole day of hearing from financial experts, it was nice to be reminded that everyone has the opportunity to invest in their own lives and career in ways that will pay off in both the short and long term.
More Than Just Good Financial Advice At This Event
While the bulk of the event on Saturday was focused on the auditorium stage, this event offered different lessons for investors outside the SGX auditorium. One game challenged attendees to “time the market” by stopping a counter exactly at 8.88 seconds. Another used the popular buzz wire game to illustrate how challenging it can be to remain calm in a volatile market.
Investors could also pick up Dawn Cher’s debut book “Take Back Control Of Your Money” which she launched at the event. She should have brought more copies because they were all sold out by lunchtime.
The event was also an excellent opportunity to sign up for a Tiger Brokers account and pick up some cool merchandise! They’re not just a leading global online broker, but also one of Singapore’s most affordable.
Join The EveryDay Investors Telegram group to learn more about how to make investing a daily habit, as well as to receive the latest news about the next exciting event.
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