I am a Poly graduate and have 4k in SYFE and 5k in savings and have 1.6k a month before going NS. I wanna pick some tech stocks like AAPL, INTC. while using SYFE. Is it a good option?

Hallo,

Sorry hor, just gonna say this. The majority of our wealth when we have low net worth when we are young comes largely from earned income. To that end, I'm gonna suggest that since you already have $4k in Syfe - whatever else you want to invest now, might as well just put in Syfe. At this stage, I don't think it's worth your while to actively pick stocks just yet. Here's why:

• You're getting $1.6k a month for the five months before NS.

• Let's assume your $5k savings can also get invested. That's $13k to invest.

• Let's say you can get 50% returns annually. Anyone here will tell you that's very good.

• Let's say you do it for the two years you're in NS and another three years in university (if you plan to).

At the end of these five years, you're going to have a whopping $98.7k.

• But let's say you get a job after university and you earn $6k a month with a 13-month package.

• After one year, you have $62.4k (after CPF).

After two years at your job you have almost $125k.

The above scenario hasn't factored in expenses while you're working. It also hasn't considered NS allowance, and expenses during NS. I also didn't talk about emergency funds or insurance protection. I also assumed you'd get a $6k starting salary, which is hard. I also assumed you can get a 50% ROI from active investing, which is harder.

My point here is this: Investing early is great. I'm not sh*tting on investing. But when we are young, other than investing, our greatest potential source of wealth comes from our income. Look at the scenario I just painted. It took you five years of hard investing to make $98k but within two years, your income from your job eclipsed that amount.

Money - you can lose it, and you can get more of it again. Time - you can lose it, but you cannot get more of it.

While you're young now, think of ways to earn yourself a higher income. Your best productive years lie ahead of you. With a higher income, you have even more firepower to invest with.

People always say, "oh if Adam invested $10k today and Ben invested $10k in 10 years' time, Adam would end up with more money than Ben." They often miss out another part of the story. If Charlie invested $100k today, Charlie would have more money than Adam and Ben combined in 10, 20, or even 30 years' time.

Hope this challenges you to think about your situation a little and come up with a strategy that'll work for you.​​​

Hi Anon,

I don't see an issue with this strategy. Most people who use index funds to passively invest also pick some stocks on the side too. Overall, your plan to put your money to work and to DCA your NS allowance into Syfe is very sensible and tbh, I wished that I had thought of that in NS too hahahaha. I do think this strategy is good too as it exposes you to the market early and with small amounts of money, allowing you to develop a sense for the markets and individual stock analysis. Even if you do end up having some bad picks, it'll be a small lesson to pay to become a better investor.

Just one thing to note, for individual stocks, it may not be as wise to DCA in as individual stocks can easily become overvalued at times and undervalued at other times (vs ETFs). As such, it might be more important (and prudent) to time your entry into said stocks.

Between now and August, you can take the time to earn some extra cash to pump into the markets and/or learn more about investing such as fundamental analysis and technical analysis (if that interests you).

Other than that, I think you're good to go!