For me, it was when I realised that whenever I wanted to buy anything I liked to pursue my hobby (gaming, floorball) I had to work part- time to earn money for it. So when I got really tired of doing that I realised that a much better way was to start saving little by little instead of just spending everything and working when I needed more. But saving was proving too slow, so I thought" what makes money grow faster?" and then started to go research alittle bit more about investing everyday. First was with SSBs (since it's really as good as riskless) then came the ETFs, then finally I do a few stock picks, some winning, some losing. I think it all starts from the idea that you want money to grow without needed to physically put in the hours to work for it. Once you understand the importance and the efficiency of money working for you instead of you purely working for it, I think it will come quite naturally as well and help you overcome your inertia. Don't worry about losing a little bit of money, start small first, and work your way up from there!

I think Enk Loui has provided a rather comprehensive explanation as to why firms would want to issue shares, but I would also like to add on the reason why so many firms seek to do IPOS: it materializes their piece of the pie, and puts a quantifiable value to their company. While companies remain private, exit opportunities for these private equity shareholders are painfully little and it is very hard to cash out on their hard work, but when you offer publically to the exchange, you get to easily increase the liqudity of the shares, and since each share are traded on the open market with a particular monetary value attached to each share you get to easily see you net worth, holdings value etc. This is why when firms IPO, the leaders become millionaires!

Another thing is that RVs don't use your prediction of future cash flows, they use current EBITDA/EV/PE values to evaluate whether your firm is overvalued or undervalued - so you wont be doing any prediction of future earnings there. Though it is the strength of RVs to be able to reflect the current conditions of the market, it is also its weakness when it comes to talking about whether the market in itsself is overvalued, and does not take into account future events that may grossly impact the earnings capablility of a firm today.

Diversifying across different geographies, but the same industry may not necessarily yield the appropriate amount of diversification of unsystematic risk as compared to within the same geographical location, but different industries. Why this is so is because diversification benefits are created from stocks which are less correlated to one another - buying 50 highly correlated stocks (meaning if the stock A rises $1, stock B rises by about $1 as well) will not be as good at removing risk relative to buying jsut 10 highly uncorrelated stocks, as the up of one stock cushions the down of another, and vice versa. purchasing different geographical markets but in the same industry will yield very similar performing stocks, especially in sectors that are very globalized and connected such as financial services. It is much better to buy into 1 single geographical market, and then spread out your risk over multiple industries, since this will allow you to only take on that market's systematic risk (or beta).

The idea that "laziness" and "investments" come together without the appropriate amount of starting capital is an unfortunate lie that is purported by many get rich quick method sellers. Contrary to belief, investments are not "lazy", the closest thing I can think of it being lazy is being passive, and being a passive investor will not be able to get you the investment return you need to sustain a lifestyle. If you are investing passively, you most likely will be indexing- and indexing modestly give you about 8% year;y(on average here, there will be some years you get negative return). If you put in $100 000, you only get a $8000 return - can you survive on $8000 a year? Maybe, but it will be pushing it, no doubt, if you don't pay for any insurance, bills, rent etc. and only pay for your own food. If you go and actively manage your own investments, you won't be lazing at home anymore - everyday will be a hustle to pick the right stocks and reading of annual reports in order to put food on the table. Of course, there are those that have done so, and become stay at home day traders, but the way is littered with the bodies of many who failed as well, and have ended up with nothing. What if you bought into the wrong stocks as well? A big investment into something like the hyflux incident will also evaporate your hard earned capital. TLDR: Unless you have a huge amount of capital like a million dollars for you to passively invest in an index that can help you earn 8% modestly, or for more security into bonds (at a lower return), it is extremely difficult to stay at home without a job and expect the investments to generate a good enough return for you to live comfortably. I think investments should be something that helps you supplement your basic income, and to make money work hard while idling for your retirement, and shouldn't be entirely depended on for a regular joe like me or you.

I've gotten a little bit into whisky, but that's honestly because I like to hold on to collector's items and have worked in DFS before, so I understand the underlying value behind a particular brand, age, barrel etc. Another one that I've gotten into actually is collector editions for games, untouched. I think that the value behind these game are based upon their scarcity, so I buy into their collector editions and sell them off at a auction after a few years. The value doesn't lie in the game itself, but the extra collector edition items that are within (figurines, cards, signatures) that are worth alot to the right man. But as with all these alternative investments, they aren't exactly very liquid, so you'll have to be prepared to hold them for some time without any transactions. But if you've got a passion for them, you wouldn't mind for these prized pieces to stay with you a while longer!

Below 1 TIE Ratio for consecutive years is a definite red flag for me. This means they can't even produce enough earnings to cover the interest payments owed by them to their creditors. If their assets aren't able to pay off their debtors, equity holders will get absolutely nothing (hyflux). A big big lesson to learn there is that we need to be extremely clear that private companies aren't going to be bailed out by the government because of poor management, and unrated bonds must have even higher scrutiny involved regarding financial statements to see that they can meet their obligations.

MadLad

Share price doesn't actually mean much alone, they just tell you the price of a slice of the pie that is OCBC. Though OCBC does have a smaller market cap than DBS, it doesn't mean much against if we just compare the price and market cap of these organisations alone, I think what we should be focusing on should be the relative valuation ratios such as P/E ratios PEG ratios etc. that would give a relative performance or overpriced/underpriced gauge of these firms.