There are many schemes available NOW and very very substantial subsidies for 40 year old Singaporeans. If you have reached a stage where you are able to commit to 9-6pm workdays, then i would suggest taking a look at those schemes where employers are heavily subsidized to take you on and train you.

Whether it's a freelancer, or a business, the most important skill is your ability to get someone to pay for your services/products, in other words, getting something sold aka sales. Most of the successful freelancers i've worked with at good at the sales part of the equation: they are able to reach out to good, qualified, willing buyers (e.g. marketing), convince the buyers of their value and price (sales). Of course, you still have to be reasonably good at what you do in order to deliver a good service/product.

I suggest a small-cap ETF

Hey, awesome job! I encourage most young people to take your time to read up on the FIRE movement. While i personally dont agree with everything the FIRE movement advocates, there are some good pieces of advice there which is going to benefit you. Good luck!

Throwing in a slightly different view here - i know this piece of info "most active investors do not beat the index" has been bandied around a lot, but i'm not sure i believe it. I have not done extensive research on how the advice is derived but here's some thoughts: (1) most of the time this piece of info is promoted by people who have something to sell you (e.g. fund managers, index funds, insurance agents). Try walking into a barber and asking if you need a haircut. (2) The reality is that almost by definition (and almost mathematically), it will be highly unlikely and improbable that 50% of active investors beat the index (and 50% of active investors lose to the index). Imagine an alternate scenario: what if right now 30% of active investors beat the index - what happens? More money will flood into active funds, more fund managers will spring out, and the ratio will shift again. (2) In reality, EVEN if you buy index funds, you cannot beat the market - investment/brokerage fees eat into your returns, and if you're based in certain countries - taxes eat into your returns as well. (3) I suspect the data is derived from "fund managers" - while it's probably true that 80% of fund managers DO NOT beat the market, i dont see why individual investors should be deterred by this data. As individuals managing our own portfolios, you have no "boss" to report to on a monthly basis, you dont have to scared that your investors will start withdrawing money, you dont have to chase ridiculous returns in the fear that you will look bad if other funds do better, you can invest in small-cap companies etc etc. As smallish individual investors (say <100M), we have advantages and less constraints. Happy to hear further views on this.

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger has 4 key principles: (1) Choose a company and industry that you can understand (2) Honest and able management (3) Durable economic characteristics (4) at a sensible and attractive price.

More towards value-investing and less towards tech/growth stocks

Assuming these are logical people... A few things to note: (1) the aim is to buy low, sell high (in order to make $ - although from many people's behaviour, it seems as though they are doing the opposite). (2) on most platforms, you dont have to do it in that sequence. You can buy low, and then sell high. OR you can sell high and then buy low. When people say they are long a particular stock, for example "I'm long apple", it means that they expect Apple's stock price to go up in the future. That means they are going to buy the apple stock TODAY (when it's lower), and sell it in the future (when it's higher). So LONG = BUY When people say they are short a particular stock, for example "I'm short apple", it means that they expect Apple's stock price to go down in the future. That means they will sell the apple stock TODAY (when it's higher), and buy it back in the future (when it's lower). So SHORT = SELL

For the definitive source, try SEC's Edgar (https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html)

Really depends on how much capital you have. You can try Singlife, that's offering 2.5% on the first 10k. From a read of the website, it seems fairly liquid, with no penalties for early withdrawal, and interest is deposited in your account monthly.