Hacker trying hard to steal your hard-earned money There have been several news reports about Singaporeans losing money to online hackers/scammers. SGD1.4 trillion has been lost to scams globally. Singapore victims lost the most on average. This is a risk we cannot ignore. I will talk about the habits and practices I adopt to reduce this hacking/scamming risk. Ensure smartphone settings are set to minimize security risk The most dangerous device to be hacked in my possession is my smartphone. I guard my phone with the same level of security as I did for my rifle during National Service today. If you own an Android phone, this is the most important setting to avoid being hacked and losing money. Disable the "install unknown apps" option. It will prevent accidental installation of malware wh

In an earlier post, I wrote about how I made a stable income on FTX before the whole fraud unravelled. It is easy to learn the wrong lessons in investing because an investor can make money despite being very wrong. Customers of FTX who escaped with some profits should not gloat about it. They were wrong and should count themselves as lucky. I was lucky. Regardless of whether the outcome was good or bad, this disaster calls for post-mortem reflections. Right till the end, I never suspected Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) to be a fraud even when the bank run was intense. I was duped. Thankfully, I assumed that crypto was unsafe and was constantly on alert to look out for warning signs. I registered as an FTX customer in 2021. From t

The TerraLuna ecosystem crash this week was devastating to many crypto investors, from the small retail investors to the huge venture capitalists. No matter how smart you are, as long as you are active in financial markets, big losses from time to time are inevitable. Sometimes, one manages to escape a crash that engulfs people surrounding him. I was one of the luckier ones who got out of Anchor just in time. I am not writing this to gloat about my just-in-time escape from the TerraLuna crash, given the enormous pain suffered by so many investors. I am no better as I had my share of bad investments this year. Since I was heavily invested in UST and Anchor this year, I believe I am qualified to write an article and share so

This is a continuation of the previous post on TTM where I talked about the software I developed for observing stock indices.Stock indices alone are not representative of a country's stock market as only the big companies with large market capitalization are represented. The vast majority of smaller individual stocks are not.To give a more accurate picture of the entire stock market, I created a website which shows the stock market internals of the world's major economies.Snapshot of stock market internal statistics (https://market-observer.addvaluedonoevil.com/stock-market-internal-statistics/)The percentage of stocks listed in the country's stock exchanges above key moving averages(21day, 50day, 200day) are shown in

I am primarily a momentum investor. I seek out the strong country stock markets and pick stocks in them. A good indicator of the strength of a stock market is the country's benchmark stock index.To gauge the strength of a stock index, I use the following indicators; Moving averages 52-week high 52-week low These indicators can be used for any financial security - individual stocks, bonds, commodities, or cryptocurrencies.I created a website showing a table of global stock indices (data is updated daily) ranking their performance based on their price momentum. The indices can be sorted according to their performance with respect to key moving averages(21days, 50days, 200days), 52-week high and 52-week low. From there, you can tell which are the stronger markets.https://market-observer.addva

I bought a Russian equity fund(JRS listed on the London stock exchange) when the Russian MOEX stock index crashed over 40% in a single day after Russia invaded Ukraine. What happened a week later can best be described by this picture. Money on fire The fund lost 78% of its value from my purchase price within 1 week. I doubt anyone can beat this loss record in terms of speed and percentage loss. I am a real champion in this regard. If the market is making you feel like an idiot this year, then my champion record would be a good consolation to you. Money lost in such speed and magnitude carries lessons to be learnt. I looked back at the reasons I bought the equity fund in the first place. Odds are on my side for a quick rebound after a 45% crash in a single day. Buying when others are p