SINGAPORE – Diversifying his portfolio and keeping up to speed on his investments through research are two key guiding principles for finance professional Wayne Ko.
“My current portfolio employs a diversification strategy to include active and passive returns, high and low-risk assets, short-term and long-term investments,” says Mr Ko, chief executive of PipBox Group, which focuses on financial education and digital marketing services.
Property does the job as his long-term, relatively low-risk asset class, generating passive rental income in the process.
Mr Ko, 50, also has stakes in businesses that are considered mid- to long-term investments that generate dividends and will potentially appreciate in value.
Higher risk plays a part as well with investments in more volatile and relatively high-risk instruments like stocks, currencies and cryptocurrencies for short-term capital gains.
Mr Ko, who spent more than a decade as a finance coach, has a financial adviser who helps him with investments in unit trusts or mutual funds using his Central Provident Funds (CPF).
He regards educating himself on investments as a vital part of the process, especially with emerging assets like cryptocurrencies.
PipBox Group also focuses on financial education for the retail market, covering stocks, currencies and cryptocurrencies.
Mr Ko notes: “The Monetary Authority of Singapore is protecting the interest of the general public by putting appropriate policies and restrictions in place. Another form of protection for the general public is through education, to educate people about the risk involved and the must know before starting to invest in cryptocurrencies.
“That’s why we added cryptocurrencies as one of our education categories last year. What we are providing is purely education, and no form of investment advice will be given.”
Mr Ko started his career in the information technology division of Singapore Airlines, before becoming the head coach at FX1 Academy, a company that provides forex trading education.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Science (Computer Engineering) from Nanyang Technological University.
He is married to a housewife and has two children, aged 19 and 21.
Q: What’s in your portfolio?
A: I used to have a fair amount of investment-linked and endowment insurance policies, but I have shifted my insurance portfolio to mainly provide protection and medical coverage for me and my family. My personal portfolio spans across stocks, currencies, cryptocurrencies, managed funds, business and property.
I have independent financial advisers to manage my CPF investments in managed funds. Additionally, I trade stocks, currencies and cryptocurrencies for capital gains. I also own stakes in business and property for passive income in the form of dividends and rents.
My allocation for the various asset classes is 70 per cent to business and property, 23 per cent for currencies and cryptocurrencies and 7 per cent for managed funds and stocks. My annual returns stand at around 5 per cent to 10 per cent, as my current portfolio is heavy in property.
I usually trade local blue-chip stocks. Currently one of the stocks I am holding is that of my former employer, Singapore Airlines.
Q: What are your immediate investment plans?
A: My immediate investment plan is really to gain a deeper understanding of the blockchain industry and cryptocurrency market before I allocate more of my portfolio to it. My aim is to increase my returns by allocating more to higher yielding asset classes without taking on unnecessary risk.
Learning is a journey. It is all about managing our risk levels and being prepared for the worst-case scenarios.
Q: How did you get interested in investing?
A: I was greatly influenced by one of my good friends in college and also my colleagues when I first started work in 1995. My good friend quit his university course and started working as a stock remisier. He became successful within a few years and thanks to his recommendations, I managed to make profits even as a new investor.
Through him, I learnt that analysing a stock really takes a lot of effort and knowledge in order to be accurate in our investment decisions.
I still remember the first stock that I bought was DBS Land, a property stock. I was later introduced to currency trading in 2007 and only started to get my feet wet in cryptocurrency in 2021.
Q: What else is in your financial plan?
A: I have taken up saving plans for my children so that they will have a reasonable five-figure sum when they complete their studies. It will be enough for them to try out some things while they start work, but not enough for them to do nothing at all.
My wife and I have also put in place wills and Lasting Power of Attorney to ensure our assets are utilised and distributed according to what we want when we are unable to make sound decisions or if we are no longer around.
Q: How are you planning for retirement?
A: Once my children complete their studies in the next few years and they are able to support themselves, I want to be in a position where I choose to work and not where I need to work.
I am quite a simple person, so having a passive income of $6,000 a month and assets worth $5 million would suffice for me and my family. I will continue to work on my investment portfolio to achieve this goal, anything beyond that would be a bonus.
My ideal retirement is to remain active in adding value to people and the society.
Q: Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like?
A: My father was an electrician before he retired and my mother is a housewife. I am the only child and I was brought up in a three-generation home. I have been staying together with my parents and grandparents (until they passed on) since birth. Now, my children are experiencing the same thing, living under one roof with their grandparents.
I was brought up as a “saver” rather than a “spender”. I would save up my school allowances, my Chinese New Year red packets and birthday red packets. Now that I think back, what my parents and grandparents really taught me about money is to spend within my means.
Q: What does money mean to you?
A: Money means stability and security to me. Being the sole breadwinner in my family for the past 17 years makes financial stability and security my top most priority.
I want money to remain only as a means to get what I want or where I want to be.
Q: Home is now …
A: I am staying in a 1,000 sq ft, three-bedroom leasehold property in the Tanjong Pagar area. This is one of the most convenient places in Singapore and I can get to anywhere within 35 minutes.
Q: I drive …
A: I drove when I started working as a young professional. As life went on, my priorities changed. I decided to switch to public transport.
Best and worst bets
Q: What has been your biggest investing mistake?
A: It happened in 2007 when I was first introduced to a trading robot in the currency market. I was sceptical at first but decided to try it out with a $5,000 investment, thinking to myself “no risk no gain”.
After one month, the trading robot made a profit of around $200, which is around 4 per cent of returns on investment. I thought to myself, “this is it, I am going to retire very soon”. In my simple mind, I was even considering refinancing my property to top up my trading account to $250,000, as 4 per cent return on investment a month would mean a monthly passive return of $10,000!
After much deliberation, I decided to just invest my savings into it and delayed my refinancing plan.
The trading robot lost $50,000, which was almost all my savings, in less than two months after I topped up my trading account. It was a painful experience. Greed propelled me and I almost refinanced my property to invest more into it.
Now when I look back, it is definitely a blessing that I did not do it. I could have ended up with an additional $200,000 in debt on top of losing my savings. I trusted the trading robot without fully understanding what I was getting into. All investments come with risk, and by not knowing what we are investing in, it makes it even more risky.
Q: And your best investment?
A: I must say the best investment to date for me is one of my properties. It has appreciated by more than half a million dollars in less than 20 years. This is my largest absolute amount gained in one single investment that is relatively low risk.
Among my properties, I have a small investment in land in Vietnam. But my main properties are in Singapore. My investment property is a freehold two-bedroom unit in the Greater Southern Waterfront area.
