Den of The Lion Investor

SMART Expo is a 2-day Investment and International Property Expo that will be held at Suntec this coming weekend 11-12 October at Hall 401 from 10am - 7pm. Apart from the free seminars that you can attend, there are also many exhibitors who will be there promoting their property deals in Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand.

Not forgetting the Singapore market, there will be a panel discussion on the local property market scene.

To get your free pass to the SMART Expo event, you can register here.

Jim Rogers, co-founder of the Quantum fund with George Soros, will be delivering a talk “How I see the world today and what I am doing about it” on 13th October afternoon at the University Cultural Hall.

This event is jointly organised by NUS Business School, Nanyang Business School and Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE).

Registration is free for all NUS and Nanyang student and staff.

Members of the public can attend for $30 (NUS and Nanyang Business School alumni only $20). The first 300 paid attendees will also get an autographed copy of Jim Roger’s book titled “A Bull in China” valued at $43.80. As of last Friday, there were only 30+ books left.

You can find out more details and register for this event here:

An Afternoon with Jim Rogers

Needless to say, I have already signed up for the event.

I arrived at Suntec just before the Invest Fair started at 10am. Already, there were many people waiting for the doors to open. When it did, many proceeded straight for the seminar they had earmarked to attend.

I went to the talk by Michael Leong, titled “Investing Towards Your First Million“. Many other people had the same idea and the room was fully packed despite it being a Saturday morning.

Michael’s first slide had four points on the Alchemy of Investing:

1. Mindset change
2. Knowledge of the market
3. Personality and strategy
4. Monitoring and patience

While he didn’t really relate his talk directly to these four things, there were some other interesting things that he shared.

If you think you got money that you can afford to lose, you will lose it (in the market) somehow.

When Michael started ShareInvestor, he had very little money to invest. To bring out his survival instinct, he even took at pay cut of 60%.

When you are forced to the edge, the desire to succeed can make you very careful in your investments.

My view is that it could also have the opposite effect. With the burden around your neck, your emotions could just as well affect your trading.

Some other points that Michael shared of his own investing style includes:

• He focused only on a handful of stocks (as little as five). By taking a focused approach, he can go really indepth into the company and the industry.
• He looks for a ridiculous margin of safety. One criteria that he uses was that the free cash must be more than the market capitalisation.
• He takes a long term view to investing. There was a stock he had held for more than twenty years.
• He is after multi-baggers.
• Investing is not a game; games are usually fair.
• It’s more like a war. Like any war, you can be killed.
• Choose your opponents carefully. If you do not want to fight, choose an inhibited island.
• Prices are driven by demand and supply.

Overall, I found it a pretty good talk to start off the day. More on the rest of the day’s proceedings to come over the next few days.

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Invest Fair is an investment exhibition organised by shareinvestor and supported by the Singapore Exchange.

With over 50 seminars, a lucky draw with attractive prizes, an investment game as well as panel discussions, It is an event for you to learn and be educated on the latest financial products and services and hear from the experts.

Besides the seminars, you can also visit exhibition booths by the following companies:

• Deutsche Bank
• Edgeworth Properties
• PhillipCapital
• Rabobank International
• Société Générale
• Adam Khoo Learning Technologies Group
• BNP Paribas
• Bursa Malaysia
• CIMB
• CMC Markets Singapore
• SAXO Capital Markets
• UK Land International
• Walton International
• AmFraser Securities
• Australian Wine Index
• City Index Asia
• E*Trade Financial
• IG Markets
• Lim & Tan Securities
• MF Global
• OCBC Securities
• Land Wealth Centre
• Premium Liquid Assets
• Assetton Pte Ltd
• Fundsupermart.com
• Great Eastern
• Optionetics
• OptionXpress
• Power Up Capital
• TMT Dimension
• T3B Holdings Pte Ltd
• Universal Assets Group
• AIA
• Asia Charts
• Aulac Securities
• Aviva Ltd
• Investor Central
• IPP Financial Advisers
• Online Trading Academy
• TerraSeeds
• UBS
• CapitaLand
• Thai Beverage
• Karin

Details on the Invest Fair are as follows:

Date: 16-17th August 2008

Time: 10am to about 7pm on both days

Venue: Suntec Singapore Internation Exhibition and Convention Center, Level 4, Hall 402-403

Click here to pre-register for your tickets.

Program can be found here:

Invest Fair Seminars (day 1)

Invest Fair Seminars (day 2)

If you plan to attend one of the more popular talks, remember to go to the designated room a bit earlier otherwise you might not be able to get in. Here’s how the turnout looks like for one of the panel discussion last year:

The CPF board will be organising a talk to provide some tips for homebuyers on the selection of a home and the use of CPF monies for the financing of their home purchase. Details of the talk are as follows:

Programme Highlights:

(Registration starts from 9am)

09.30am - “Selecting A Suitable Home”
10.30am - Tea Break
11:00am -“Buying A Home with Your CPF”
12:00pm - Q&A
12.30pm - End

Date : 26 Jul 2008
Time : 9:00am to 12:30pm
Venue : 79 Robinson Road, Conference Room Basement 1,
Registration Period : 9 Jul 2008 - 23 Jul 2008
Registration Fee : S$10.00
Contact Information : events@cpf.gov.sg

You can register at this link.