006 Everybody is worry of future

Everybody is worry of future

Just had lunch with my marketing manager and his friend who is a SME business owner. We want to see which of our investment products might be useful to him. As turns out, he is not keen to do any investment at the moment. He thinks the ringgit and share market is going to fall a bit.

As a business owner, he is also planning for the upcoming GST in April. He needs to plan his company to have enough cash flow. He also shares his fellow friends who are business owners as well also cut down on spending and investment.

Seems like everybody is worry about the future. Nobody has anticipated ringgit can drop to 3.6USD / 2.6SGD. Only those who work in Singapore are happy.

People do not feel the benefits from falling oil prices as well. When oil price increased, we see business is busy wanting to increase prices. But when oil price drop, we do not see prices drop.

Business are slowing down spending, ordinary people are cutting down spending. The future seems uncertain. What should we do? Do we keep all our money in savings account? Inflation will anyhow eat away the value, isn't it?

In our CEO's latest article to investors, he said "Bear sets foundation for next Bull". Every year there are challenges to our share market. He analyzed the average length of crisis, in Malaysia, was 7.6 months. As market move in cycle, after bull there is bear, and after bear there will be bull. So our challenge is we see bull or bear? Do we see "crisis" or "opportunity after the crisis"?

In the 2008/2009 financial crisis, when share market recovered, it rebounded strongly. Certain unit trust product performance surged 80% to 100% in the immediate year. For those who are in the market, the profit is theirs. For those who are timing the market, they may have totally missed it or profit cut short.

Everyone want to Buy Low Sell High, but when the time come, they are all outside. You mean, you want to Buy Lowest Sell Highest? Possible? Nobody knows the highest and lowest until it is over. Investment is for long term. We can start small and follow with monthly regular savings. I have seen my clients who invested regularly for the pass ten years, had their money double.

We do not what will happen tomorrow. We only know we need to plan something today to secure our future. Why not start now while the price is cheaper?