A ' Kodak moment ' while taking a stroll along one of the back alleys in Tiong Bahru on the way to work.

Google has allowed staff to stay home for the rest of the year . Facebook has also allowed staff to permanently work from home . Is it because the companies are adapting to a new modus operandi or is this a subtle exercise to start furloughing staff? Tech companies probably have the best advantage in being able to pivot into this work paradigm amidst the pandemic. Most companies are also going digital and some even have business continuity procedures in place. But a large part of what makes going to the office so meaningful are its perks - the experiential factors such as having a decent and professional business-front for clients (meng mian 门面), a place to facilitate employee welfare and thoughtful engagement. Besides, have you ever tried to troubleshoot a problem on the computer with someone else through the phone? The time it takes as compared to an in-person interaction is almost always lengthier and more frustrating. So in the near term, you can say goodbye to those sleeping pods, luxurious pantries and fridges lined with free snacks, drinks and sometimes beer. Clients, visitors and employees are not going to be able to experience that feeling of taking the escalator up to the 3rd floor at the very classy looking Marina One Towers and be greeted by the uniformed concierge. Flexi-work hours long overdue? For some time now, we have been talking about encouraging work-life-balance and flexible working arrangements beyond the "9-to-5" regime, especially given how inter-connected we are with using Whatsapp, Wechat and now increasingly, Zoom, Hangouts, Webex, Microsoft Meetings... the list goes on. It seems like the circuit-breaker and lockdowns resulting from the pandemic has compelled businesses to evaluate this more seriously - not from a working preference perspective but out of necessity, given the draconian rules around social distancing in some cities. I personally prefer the office setting - I enjoy my daily (and sometimes weekend) commute to the office using the subway (in Singapore) and the morning leisurely walks from Anfu Road (when in Shanghai). Before I ventured into my own business, part of the office experience included interactions with colleagues in other departments within the same building, some times we would even brush shoulders in lifts or hang out over lunch and coffee. The cityscape and its people energizes me. I feel more productive and focused whenever I am at the office, whether alone or with colleagues. I enjoy sitting with my cup of coffee and overlooking the view outside. Can we really afford to leave all of this behind? If so, does it also imply that we are willing to accept emptier malls and offices as part of a new way of life? When the dust has settled, there will be increasingly blurred lines between work and home. Face to face meet ups will never be eradicated, but flexible work arrangements will be a permanent thing. If any, video and communication technology accelerates breaking the ice in a first meeting by encouraging more upfront interaction, albeit digitally. Studies have also demonstrated that, as humans - at the very basic level - we yearn for tangible interaction because it gives us comfort and re-assurance . Lifestyles at home over the last 2 months have definitely also changed to adapt with the circuit breaker measures. Similarly, offices will also be increasingly "re-defined" beyond the traditional cubicle and four walls. We have seen this already happening with Small Office Home Office ("SOHO") setups and more recently, the increased popularity of co-working spaces. The office used to be a place that is defined by large executive rooms with full length glass windows, fixed sitting configurations and sometimes the iconic 'Bloomberg-styled' twin computer monitors at our desks . Office is also where the action takes place - small group discussions over coffee with colleagues, board meetings, team lunches, town halls and inter-department networking. Going back home is basically a retreat into the "untouchable" sanctuary of one's personal space. In the last 4-5 years, we had successfully blurred the boundaries between work and home, by allowing Whatsapp / WeChat to also invade our personal time. As more work-for-home policies are being implemented, not only have we been 24-7 digitally available, but now also deemed to be also physically available while at home. I am not saying this is necessarily a good or bad thing, but Such a paradigm shift in lifestyle will require employer and employee to exercise self-discipline and discretion to maintain or improve the levels of productivity previously seen in our traditional work environment. Work spaces will also gradually converge with residential and lifestyle spaces. And those who prefer not to work from home may also find themselves hanging out more frequently at cafes that have stable Wifi, a good working beverage like coffee and appropriate distancing measures in place. I agree that the reopening plans for the economy " will not be a return to life before COVID-19 ". But neither do I see us retreating entirely into the digital realm. Take a step back into memory lane and read the May Day rally speech by PM Lee in 2003 : "Life will not be the same again" - 2003 May Day Rally Life was indeed not the same with additional precautions being taken, but we have certainly been through a similar situation and that did not deter us from going out. At some point of time, with appropriate flattening of the curve, more accurate testing and a stable infection rate, society will return back to normal.

In the early days of graduating, a lot of people were surprised why I went into banking from engineering. It was a huge move, and to a certain extent, looked suicidal as well given I had no prior knowledge to finance. I was far more handicapped than any fresh graduate today that was seeking entry into an investment bank. Today, after 14 years, no one saw this degree as an awkward handicap. In fact, most people that I meet today thought that the study of engineering gave me the necessary foundation to build my knowledge in the world of banking. I strongly believe so as well. Hard to imagine that I had went this far without receiving any formal education in accounting. And because of that, the way I look at financial statements is fundamentally very different. I understand most of the valuation theories but everything has to be very logical for me. Although I am admittedly a poor student when it came to grades, I credit a lot of the mindset that I have today a result of rigorous training and analytical skills acquired during those 4 years in engineering school. I chanced upon this video I took way back in 2003 (about 17 years now). It was a project in year 3 of engineering whereby students had to get into groups to build a remote controlled car literally from scratch . You were being graded on not only the basic functionality of your car i.e. whether it moves according to how you programmed the remote, but also any additional functionalities. As demonstrated in the below, we added a module that would automatically turn on the headlights of the car under low light, using a light sensor chip. The ironic part about the entire project was that: while we managed to program the direction pads correctly and even added some interesting features to the car, the live demonstration could only last no more than 5 minutes. The car ran on a single 9-Volt (6LR61) battery then. It was rechargeable, and every time we ran the tests and used up the cell, we had to go back to the lab to get it replaced. It costed $12 each time. To make matters worse, we added a finishing touch before the final evaluation, constructing the entire chassis using steel scrap bought from the streets at Sungei road , effectively doubling the weight of the car. Within 30 seconds from switching it up, it gave it all just to be able to move forward-left, forward-right, flash its headlights once and then the battery gave out. The weight of the car was just too much. I think we must have easily replaced 4 to 5 batteries that day. Engineers may not be the most commercial of people - not at first. But they try hard, learn fast and are resourceful. People give us too little credit for being practical people. When I started out my very first job (2 weeks after my last exam paper in the final year of university), I managed to snag a job working alongside the Chief Engineer at Philips Institutional TV. My main task at that point of time was to build a working prototype of how the software interface would look like on their TVs. As we were nearing completion, the Chief Engineer asked me, "Does it work?" and I replied, "Yes". And he would say, "We are engineers, if we say it work, it better work!". We passed the module eventually with a B+.

Since late last year, I had done numerous webinars. But none with a class size of 23 people. It was the largest I had ever done online. As much as I would have loved to do this class in person, safe distancing measures effectively means classroom lessons were not allowed. And I can understand why - after a full day's session to speaking, I could basically see the dried up stains left on the screens of my laptop and iPad - no joke. Imagine the intensity of the germ clouds overhanging within an enclosed space of 20-30 people. But I enjoyed it greatly, these virtual classroom lessons - You can actually learn a lot by doing webinars. After conducting numerous business and valuation classes on Zoom and hosting a couple of webinars, I grew accustomed to the feeling of speaking using the headset or earphones to a group of people I couldn't really see. Like most trainers, I am used to the traditional classroom setting with physical interaction and discussion. On Zoom, while there is still interactivity through the microphone or through the chat functions, I felt that the single most important element that was missing is spontaneity - the fun of making a random comment or remark and receive almost instantaneously, a knee jerk response from someone in class. And because the courses I conduct are largely hands-on, the difficulty level goes up a notch because if someone encounters a problem in their workings, it is more challenging to try and troubleshoot those for them as compared to just walking up to them in a classroom and doing it right there. I also hope that most of our participants were using two screens to stream the webinar - one for the presentation slides and the other for their spreadsheet workings. I can't imagine the struggle faced by those who are toggling between windows on a single laptop. But these two months had been an incredible learning process - not only on how to conduct a smooth online lecture, but also how to more effectively engage people over a video meeting. This involves constantly asking questions, shorter but more frequent coffee breaks, being comfortable in being able to laugh at oneself even though you may not be able to see everyone else's expressions, clarity of speech and many more. I'm on track to be a " Zoom master". While I can say that I'm getting the hang of doing this online, I sincerely hope that the offline workshops will return along with the easing of travel and movement restrictions.

The last few months have been colorful. From the 1MDB case, the downfall of Luckin Coffee, Hin Leong, and now Wirecard. Who dare says now that the lack of transparency and fraud only exists in emerging markets? Firms in mature economies are equally susceptible to financial misconduct, and this is even if a Big 4 firm signs off on the accounts. I've sat in a small part of an auditor's workflow many years back when I started my career in finance. It is not glamorous. But the partners and managers onsite make the entire process look and feel extremely professional. Don't get me wrong. I think audit is a decent job and an essential service for the proper functioning of all businesses globally. A lot of work goes behind organizing and presenting the 3 financial statements, and many shareholders and institutional investors often take this for granted when they download it off the company website to read or when they receive the hard copies in their mailbox. But that said, very few really know the work of an auditor or even how finance processes in companies work e.g. how an invoice is being processed and reports generated, how cash is being deposited into a bank account and the corresponding salaries and expenses paid out to employees and suppliers. Not everyone appreciates this - especially when you are an employee sitting comfortably behind a desk. As an employee, analyst or investor, you pick up the audited financial statements and you expect that the numbers to be "the Word". If the cash in bank line item on the balance sheet reads $100 million yesterday and the company isn't expecting a huge payment out to creditors today, you'd assume that there is really $100 million in the bank today. In reality, that $100 million is 'virtual' money. Unless you sight the bank accounts that contain the cash, there is no reasonable way to ascertain that this is correct. The same applies to trade receivables and inventories - have you tried walking into a manufacturing plant or warehouse to count and add up all the machines and stores? It's not so straightforward. I've counted machines on racks and also gone through the process of collating bank statements and validating the totals, ensuring that the total cash reconciles with the cash line item in the balance sheet. It's significantly under-appreciated and tedious. The rest of the world assumes that someone has gone and done this work. So whenever a fraud happens, the first thing investors blame are the auditors who sign off on the numbers. Auditors then turn to the company directors and say the disclosures aren't accurate and adequate. The whole exercise turns into a domino of a blame game, unfortunately. But that's how the world works and at the end of the day, while you can seek recourse for negligence, misconduct, etc, the damage has been done. Investors are the ones who have lost their monies. The head of the snake (possibly) goes to jail, and everyone else working across the value chain got paid, and that is the moral hazard here. Where does the blame game stop? In 2002, Enron's financial scandal resulted in the bankruptcy of long time accounting firm Arthur Andersen. While AA were the biggest casualty amongst third parties, many questioned whether or not those who played a part in advising Enron had a part to play in its downfall. "What accountability does it--or any consulting firm--have for the ideas and concepts it launches into a company? If in fact McKinsey should share the blame because of the ideas and concepts it launched into Enron, then why stop there? Perhaps you should also blame the brilliant professors at the business schools from which McKinsey recruits many of its consultants and who may have taught the same concepts to Enron executives." - Bloomberg One of the readers probably says it best: "As a longtime management consultant, I must take issue with your understanding of the management-consulting process. A company will frequently seek advice and then argue for the opposite conclusion. Or the company will partially implement your suggestions, often because it has sought advice from other professionals who provide conflicting advice. In addition, you ignore the political dimension. Frequently, the client has the right solution in-house, and the consultant merely resolves the internal conflict--with the added bonus that management doesn't have to take responsibility should things go awry." Consultants and auditors provide the appropriate check and balances required by every large organization. In good times, nobody cares. It is only when shit hits the fan that the relevant stakeholders come to light. Suddenly everyone wants to know the person who signed off on the books. So, consultants are effectively there to 'backstop' blame. If someone on the inside wants to siphon money out, these people should be really careful and not be afraid to ask the difficult questions, even if it costs them. But then again, it's hard to bite the hand that feeds you. If you owe the bank a million dollars, the bank owns you, if you owe the bank a billion dollars, you own the bank . Ditto for credit agencies and auditors. As cynical as it sounds, what this brutal cliche truth is: Be careful with your money. Most asset managers often invest using someone else's money. But that is never really the same as using your own money. Good market, you get more; bad market, you get less. Either way, at the end of the day, you still get paid. And since cash flow is the yardstick here, when an investment goes sideways, the guy who puts his money on the table ultimately gets the short end of the stick. When money talks, people will try to pull wool over your eye and show you only what they want you to see. No banker sells a lousy product, they call it a " high risk " investment (there's a reason why they named risky fixed income instruments junk bonds ). It is catchy in the world of finance and somehow for some reason, investors like the idea of dabbling in a game of probability every now and then when the stakes are high. But risk is perception based, and everyone's idea of risk is fundamentally different. It is not only a function of one's appetite to invest, but also reflects access to all available information. To make it even more complex - it is also driven by individual interpretation of that information, even if you did have access to it. Based on this definition, any investment made by an unsophisticated investor is almost always deemed high risk, regardless of the quality of the underlying investment. My high school friend who used to work in fixed income used to tell me: Everyday we flip open the papers and read exactly the same stuff in the news, yet what you and I see and what others see is entirely different. If you put your money down on the table and lose it, you only have yourself to blame. That is the only rule of the game.

I must have gotten myself in the "wrong" career 14 years ago. Last weekend, some guy called me on my mobile saying that he had gotten my contact from his friend who works at a bank. I don't know the banker but I reckoned it was passed on from one of my friends. So this person who called me operates his own business. Private company, SME, typical entrepreneur who founded, grew the business and now kind of stuck in a situation where he basically can't take his foot off the pedal. He had reached a bottleneck and was faced with the choice of either continuing to toil at his company for the rest of his life, or exit and cash out. " Why don't you hire your banker friend to find you an investor? " Apparently, his friend had felt that the deal was too small for the bank to warrant a proper M&A mandate, which is probably why he decided to called me. But the advice didn't stop there. His friend went on to recommend that he should not pay any fees for advisors who were helping him to find a buyer. "What should I do? I don't want to pay fees." I told him (through the phone) that he should hire someone, groom them to help him run the business and who could someday take over his role. I said that it wouldn't be immediate and will take some time, possibly 1-2 years. I also mentioned that he'd need to also invest time to train this person, but the upside is that he would be able to gradually take his foot off the pedal. "But then lidat it'll hit my bottom line and profits..." Good grief. You want someone to help you to do the work of finding investors but you don't want to pay them for their time. Not to forget the contacts acquired during the investor search process. You are also not willing to invest in your staff to help you with your business, yet still want to make decent profits by shaking leg? You think everything is free ah? It feels like boutique and smallish M&A shops were set up to work on deals that fall through the cracks of the large IBs - for free . The M&A fee model is broken. To understand and make sense of why this is happening, we must look back in time to the pre-2008 global financial crisis when financial advisors billed their clients based on an upfront fee, a monthly retainer followed by a completion / success fee, depending on the scope of mandate. This model was broken after 2008, when pure investment banks were rolled into less risky commercial banks as part of a global systemic de-risking process. The consolidation of the functions turned banks into a one-stop-shop for loans, leveraging proprietary industry networks and providing strategic advice for raising capital. They had started to market themselves this way, building the case for getting a foot in an M&A or IPO deal by offering loans to companies. In the post-GFC low interest rate era of 2009, this accelerated the entire process, resulting in the likes of Stanchart and HSBC emerging as the new kids on the block coming out from that crisis. Many of them even went one step further by working with the private banking side, managing the wealth of business owners, especially those who reaped a bounty from a recent sale of their business or cashed out some from an initial public offering of shares. It was a complete solution. Lend to these companies, help them to grow, acquire overseas or sell non-core businesses, find a strategic or financial investor, sell shares in the capital markets as part of an IPO and park the sale proceeds with wealth management. The banking model transformed and the larger, more established market players had figured an ingenious way of getting fees out from every single step in the process. In doing so, companies also figured they could stop paying retainer fees for sale processes (regardless of how complex the deal was) since they were already existing clients of the bank. And so, the no-retainer-success-fee-only trend just caught on. The advisory market in Asia is not only crowded but incredibly fragmented, in addition to waiving the retainers, banks started to outdo each other in a cutthroat competition of reducing their success fees. I don't blame companies for wanting to pay only success fees on M&A and capital raising deals because the large banks have been spoiling them over the last decade. The investor search process has also changed dramatically due to globalization and digitization. Most of the important work in a sale process is really about knowing where to look. Number crunching and beautiful marketing presentation decks just make the exercise look professional. Most sellers don't crave for that. Over the last 10+ years, a lot of people have been travelling across borders, discovering new markets and pools of capital overseas (not so much now due to the coronavirus). This makes it easier for both sellers and buyers across the globe to meet on their own terms. The availability of online investor databases and sensationalized media reporting has also led to sellers being more independent in their search of the right buyer. The process has gotten so dynamic that a lot of 'agents' with decent full time jobs also do "M&A work" on a part time basis, getting a cut of the fees in return. Is the pure-play M&A advisory still a good business to be in? We can all cry foul over companies not wanting to pay retainer fees, but in the most realistic sense, this is just a consolidation at play where only the bigger players with the full spectrum of banking solutions are able to be in the business. The revenue from commercial lending subsidizes the deal-advisory overheads. How will this evolve and change over the next 10 years? I don't really know. Will this be the status quo dominated by the larger incumbents? Will we see an onset of 'robo-like' advisors eventually eliminating the traditional financial advisor's role? Will companies be able to do book-building for IPO roadshows without the need to hire bankers?

There’s nothing you should regret in life - all the good things that you have today are a result of everything that has happened. Consistency has a compounding effect. You usually don’t see the results until a very long time later. Never look down on anyone because of what they do. Complain less, stop victimising yourself and move on. General knowledge, financial literacy and personal health are ultimately your own responsibilities. When traveling, take the cheapest and happiest mode of transport available. Never kick someone when they are down. Learn to give and receive compliment and feedback. Don’t ever get cocky. Ego and wealth are like items on a balance sheet. Here today and possibly gone tomorrow. Being hands-on is the simplest and purest form of leadership. Find the courage to disagree. Own your mistakes. Run your own race. Don’t ever believe that you can second guess the stock market. Pay it forward by learning to teach and mentor younger people. It is not where you work that is your source of economic power - it is your health and attitude. The media is curated by people who are biased. Everyone has a bias. Be critical and discerning, don’t believe everything you read and hear. In this day and age, a healthy digital footprint is important. Anyone who tells you otherwise is smoking you. When someone says ‘just trust me’, you really should think twice. Invest in a tailored shirt, and a good suit. Don’t cheap out on ties and a good pair of shoes. Dressing well shows that you take your business seriously. Candidates with decorated CVs and impeccable credentials do not always make the best workers. Never believe someone who says that they are purely helping you out of goodwill and have nothing to profit or gain from doing so. Be a jack of all trades and a master of at least one or two. Even in the most helpless of situations, it is absolutely critical to have a healthy sense of optimism. Treat investors’ money as your own. A fantastic career not only enables you to pay your bills but also pushes your limits, builds character and helps you to grow as a person. Never compromise on quality. Focus on creating a great product rather than calibrate quality to price. Never limit yourself by the stereotypes placed on you by others. Bell curves and rankings are just part of a game played by people with their own agendas. Just because you lack the vintage of a good school or a “bulge bracket” doesn’t give you an excuse to underperform. Not everyone who is older than you is wiser than you. Wisdom is acquired through working on the day to day chores, not age. Contrary to conventional wisdom, people don’t really change that much. There is a difference between keeping still and not doing anything. Make sure you are on the right side. You can’t see where you are going if you keep covering your eyes on the way down a rollercoaster ride. Never allow social media to define your identity or create a false sense of security. Life is not measured in terms of likes and followers. Everyone is entitled to their point of view, but only the people with skin in the game get to make decisions. Most people who are looking for your opinion usually don’t want you to disagree with them. There is no such thing as ‘I have no choice’. You always have the right to decide. Age should never be used as an excuse for not being up to date or learning new stuff. Usually, no one is incompetent. Everyone is good at something. Some people are just placed in the wrong places at the wrong time. If you can’t get to keep your money, there is no point in proving that you are right.

About 10 years ago, people were laughing, criticising and maybe even booing at the older generation of politicians for attempting to connect with the younger 4G/5G population using social media . Today, our prime minister's Twitter account has nearly 800,000 followers. Likewise for some of our other politicians. Whether this has helped in influencing the elections, no one can really say, but certainly this has helped in enabling more voices from the public - for good or for bad. Besides, there is also a host of other factors influencing popularity and voting - personal interaction, perception from other media, etc. But this number is still outstanding on any level, whether in the government / public or private sector. Not every company out there has that ability to amass that many followers. And it shows the importance of managing public relations at the digital level. So when I hear the “campaigning vans” circling our estate these few days, I think: “This must be how elections” were done in the 1960s and 70s. There was no Internet, no TVs and the only way candidates could get word out was to announce themselves over the loud hailers and door knocking. The door knocking still happens today though - and nothing can replace the human touch. But today's election rallies go beyond the door knocks. We have Facebook live videos, Zoom 'townhall' webinars, Instagram stories, etc. I am not sure if the older generation resonates with this (probably why there is still door knocking and vans still patrol the streets). Quite a few of them I know are still pretty resistant to posting stuff online, doing internet banking and making online payments. Only time will tell whether or not these have been really effective, but for now, based on the viewership numbers and the real-time comments appearing during those live feeds, these digital initiatives seem to be the one thing in this year's election that is proving to be giving the social media saavy people an edge.

So few investors / punters do due diligence on the companies they invest in. Many people jump too quickly into the bandwagon because they believe that the large and reputable investors have got it figured out . They think that if the big wigs are there, "something must be right" or they must have access to proprietary information that led to their decision. "They must see something in there that we don't" These funds have several hundred investments across hundreds of millions of dollars. If one investment goes south, they rely on the rest to keep the entire portfolio afloat. Are you diversified enough that way to take the risk? The next time you put your money into something, think again - is FOMO driving you? Are you absolutely sure about what you are getting yourself into?

Some days I just sit here and have a beer. Not on my laptop or iPad. Just sitting here, watching people go by, unwinding and decluttering my mind. The process, prima facie, looks unproductive and frivolous but it soothes and calms me. It clears the thoughts in my head so that I am able to think and make better decisions especially in situations when I do not have the luxury of time to react. I acknowledge the irony of it with the beer glass in the picture.

Tasseography is the divine art of reading patterns in tea leaves. People believe that energy is transmitted through the tea leaves during the process and the resulting arrangement gives us insights of our past, present and future. Technical analysis is somewhat like tasseography, at least in my opinion. A lot of sentiments and 'energy' are embedded in the financial markets. There are possibly at least ten major events taking place in the world at any point of time, which are likely to move the markets. Some are speculative, some are anticipated, some are premeditated. It is basically chaos theory at work. A complex system at heart. I do not believe in charts. I also have zero appreciation and understanding for the creative lines constructed by chartists and punters. I once sat in a course on technical analysis many years ago. It was intriguing and captivating. Something about the way the overlays on the candlesticks is being explained and how it nicely fits into share price trends really convinces you that with the right observations and tools, you can try to predict those stock drops and spikes. But since I have never had much luck with stocks and charts, it probably means I suck at it or am just a very lousy investor. But in times like these, I can't help but take a step back and re-look at the bigger trends that have taken place over the last two decades, which is best observed through charts. This is the DJIA from 2002 to 2005. The end of 2002 was when the full impact of SARS was felt in the market. The market probably pre-empted some of that effect a couple of months before, Within approximately 12 months, stock prices had reverted back to its pre-crisis levels. One can argue that the spread of the virus at that point of time was somewhat limited by a relatively moderate travel activity globally. And it didn't stop there. The next 5 years that followed saw one of the longest bull runs ever. Was it that the impact from SARS was less pronounced as compared to COVID-19? Was it the release of pent-up demand from consumers 2002-2003? Was it the onset of globalization and the opening up of China, one of the world's largest economies, to the rest of the world? Then the worst thing happened in 2008. In September, Bear Stearns, who had heavily dealt in the securitization of assets and liabilities, was stripped and offered as a sacrifice to one of the largest banks in the US, while Lehman Brothers was taken out in the streets and shot in the head. Yet again within about two years, the DJIA had once again recovered to pre GFC levels, with the intervention of the central banks through QE and the moderation of aggressive risk-taking by the consolidation of pure investment banks into commercial banks. In the seven years that followed, saw once again, the best bull market the world had ever seen. And this is us today. Not quite pre-COVID levels based on end 2019, not that far behind. We have come a long way. The world today as compared to 2003 is very different - globalization, connected-ness, lifestyles, China, the iPhone and Zoom calls. Were we able to foresee back then in 2003 and 2008 how the markets would have turned out? How is that different today? To analyze a "complex" system of an infinitely large number of moving parts (that we have almost no control of), we sometimes need to step back from the action and make the decisions based on the big picture. Stocks go up and down all the time. Volatility is the norm. But if you believe in the mean reversion to normalization , the long-term trend is still bullish.

Before emails became the norm at the workplace. People worked around the boundaries of the 9-to-6 work hour regime. The generally accepted convention was that: If you'd tried to reach someone after hours, there would be no one there to pick up the phone, because everyone at the office had gone home. The only way you could try to reach out to that person again was to call back the following morning. The telephone or face-to-face meetings were socially and professionally accepted protocols. First email addresses, then came the personal computer. In addition to receiving just a verbal confirmation, we then had the ability to communicate and access a wider variety of information media - lengthy text messages, pictures and sometimes videos (bandwidth permitting). This transformation gave way to many opportunities for individuals and businesses to communicate: digital e- receipts containing information that would allow us to reduce the back-and-forth phone calls, allowing us to make collective decisions in a much quicker way. Although the speed at which we conducted business increased significantly, we were still constrained by the boundaries of normal working hours as personal computers were largely used in the office and people left their workstations at the end of the day. Laptops and WiFi. We used to access the Internet by plugging one of these cards into the side of our laptops. That enabled us to surf the net wherever that was an Internet access point - at school, at work, in the cafe, at public places, etc. More importantly, with Internet on the move, we could now send and receive emails virtually anywhere. Having access to emails at home implied that people were able to continue to respond even after the stipulated working hours. Implied is the operative word here because there are no real obligations to reply a client or your boss after working hours. But think about the potential consequences that come along with this: A competitor might beat you at responding to a potential sales lead while you were " out of the office ". You might have missed that long awaited promotion at the workplace just because you failed to scratch the itch in your boss' brain on an idea for a new product launch at 1am in the morning. So, now we have started to over-step the boundaries. In the past your performance was judged based on your presence and delivery at the workplace. Today, in the digital world, you are omni-present and being judged all of the time. Responsive-ness (or in this case the lack of it) translates to missed opportunities, lower sales, and lower bonuses. This vicious cycle and frenzy of responding to emails after office hours gets propagated over the years, and clients/bosses grew accustomed to the instant gratification of having an almost immediate response from a vendor/colleague. Just think about the number of times you had felt uneasy just because a friend or a colleague didn't reply to your email "immediately". Instant gratification. Emails and instant messaging are now so cheap (and virtually free) that we are communicating and replying every minute on a daily basis. A compulsive need to reply every message. Today, my whatsapp and wechat sometimes looks like this: I used to have a compulsive need to reply to every message that comes in. The habit stemmed from years of working in a corporate finance role where every deliverable was expected to be served in double-quick real time. It was to the extent that even the mere sound of the notification (both email and whatsapp) gave me butterflies in my stomach. Half the time, it was an email coming in from someone expecting work to be done. The process was hard-wired and programmed into my nerves and I'd lived the majority of my work life (>10 years) on that instinct. It was unhealthy. Today, I am glad that I have grown out of this toxic mindset, which has obviously resulted in the consistent backlog of messages in my phone. I also do not feel any guilt for not replying someone on a timely basis. My whatsapp chat list is like my email inbox. I reply only if the matter requires my urgent attention (in which case, the person would have most likely called me), or when it is convenient for me. Email takes a back seat. The introduction of Whatsapp, Wechat, Line, etc have blurred the lines between our social and professional circles. It is the defacto go-to channel for getting things done - at home of at the office. Email is just for keeping things on the record . As COVID-19 continues to keep people at home, these communication tools will increasingly be the norm with Zoom being the latest addition to the family. It is going to feel somewhat awkward in navigating a world where nearly all business dealings are done away from the office and in an entirely virtual domain or even from home. No more visits to posh looking offices in the city area or meetings in gigantic boardrooms overlooking the waterfront bay. "It is great to meet you on Zoom. By the way, the background behind me is my study where I spend nearly most of my waking hours. This is my new suit. I'm not wearing long pants by the way. In fact, I'm probably not wearing any pants at all." It might end up becoming a new way of life. Digitization and technology makes all things possible. An example is the signing of official paper documents. Physical copies and in-person signatures might have been mandatory in the past but in today's context many companies have come to accept e-signatures as the standard. Today, we speak of work-from-home ("WFH") as if it is a separate and alternative business continuity procedure. But in years to come, the physical dimensions of what defines the office and what defines the home will be so blurred that the term WFH will no longer be relevant. The phrases: " I'm working at the office today " or " I'm working from home today ", will hold no meaning. It'll just be: "I'm working" and you will be deemed to be working ALL the time.

Zoom's share price was up 40% last week. "If we can work well together online now, perhaps it will permanently reduce the need for business travel" Work-from-home protocols, tele-commuting, webinars and virtual meetings may permanently alter business travel, which accounts for a significant portion of aviation revenues. Zoom isn't the only winner here. Given the restrictions on daily commuting, technology has become an enabler of businesses and lifestyles. Many tech-related stocks ranging from cloud computing, e-commerce to data security have benefited greatly as a result of this migration to the digital realm. Early investors in Zoom and other tech stocks were lucky. But one might wonder if it still makes sense to even buy its shares. At its peak, Zoom traded at more than 2,000 price-to-earnings, implying a dividend yield of 0.05% . “Our ability to keep people around the world connected, coupled with our strong execution, led to revenue growth of 355% year-over-year" - quote from Zoom's recent earnings call Clearly investors are not buying technology stocks for their dividends. Everyone who has a positive rating on the sector is valuing it based off the scenario that we won't be returning to our offices soon. Not at least within the next 12 months. A few months ago, people had already been speculating about a second wave. This has since emerged in several major cities - South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan. The effect of the virus is also festering down south in Australia where it is currently winter. Governments are holding their breath in anticipation of a third wave towards the year end. For now, it doesn't look like the nightmare of travel bans and city lockdowns are easing anytime soon. This virus could linger around for a few years and you could be using Zoom for a longer time than you think. Right place at the right time Using Zoom underscores the innate desire to engage in a face-to-face setting. Apple has tried to do this with FaceTime in the peer-to-peer context. Skype has video calls. Polycom even offers an immersive platform which is targeted at large corporates with the budget to invest in virtual-presence-type meetings. Doing so allows their professionals based in multiple cities to communicate in real-time without the need to fly to a single location. While these paid-for-service features have not been cheap, corporates weigh the trade-off between the cost of a business class air ticket vis-a-vis the cost of an enterprise-grade platform. Video conferencing is not state-of-the-art tech. But Zoom was caught in the right place at the right time. In a world without safe distancing and masks, demand for real-time video communications and webinar broadcasts might never have evolved into the defacto standard today. Unlike Polycom, Zoom had somehow managed to make tele-presence accessible easily and quickly for everyone across all budgets during a time where the world needs it the most . Albeit the initial security issues that surfaced as a result of its popularity, the app continues to serve its main purpose of facilitating conversations between people and it connects seamlessly. Most importantly: it just works . Take a look at Apple. The technical specifications of its products are not superior to the Microsoft or Android counterparts. In fact, Apple products are pricey . But loyal fans of Apple (including me) continue to buy the iPhones and Macbooks, happy to settle for a less than top-notch hardware. Maybe it's Apple's iCloud ecosystem, or the make of the phone. Or maybe there's something enigmatic and addictive about its minimalistic design that appeals to a certain group of users. And just like how people are drawn to the allure of Apple's simplicity, if there's anything that Zoom has gotten right, it is probably the ease of installation and use. More important than usability, the majority of governments and organizations around the world have also mandated extended periods of work-from-home procedures and no physical client meetings. Very draconian you say, but who can afford the socio-economic risk of a second lockdown? What happens when the show is over? After this pandemic is over (either through herd immunity or via a vaccine), I am guessing that most people would still use Zoom in their day to day work, but the real question is how many will continue to pay for its enterprise grade functionalities? Keeping in mind our natural instincts to engage someone else in person, and also because as humans, we will probably start to forget the pain of the initial lockdowns. People around the world will likely ditch the newly formed "work-from-home status quo" and revert to air travel, physical meetings and mass events. But in the current day where airline stocks continue to battle for survival and media reporting new cases daily, it might be easy to rationalize why Zoom can trade at 2,000 times earnings. Investors and stock watchers can be restless and impatient people. In 2013 , CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, told the media that " some really great stuff [was] coming in the fall and across all of 2014 ". This was equivalent to saying: " We've got nothing for you this year, but stay tuned next year! ". Analysts and investors listening to the briefing were unimpressed and Apple's share price took a mild beating. Like the ubiquitous smart phone, video-conferencing tools are not cutting edge technology. It remains to be seen if Zoom can really deliver on growth through innovation, transformation and create sustainable value for its customers in the same way Apple had done with the iPhone.

With so much negativity around closed-up economies, city lockdowns, finding a vaccine, one can't help but wonder why valuations - especially for tech firms - are sky rocketing . Long term over short term In any asset pricing exercise, there are two fundamental parameters to look at: future free cash flows and the discount rate. The future free cash flows of the assets are whatever anyone thinks it to be: three, five or even ten years out. The discount rate addresses the question of " what is my expected return for purchasing a certain stock vs putting my money into a safe haven such as a government bond ". If you look at consensus data over the next 12 months, nearly every analyst on Wall Street is predicting a decline in revenue and earnings, for a good reason - sluggish economic growth, deferred order books, and overall lower discretionary spending. This indirectly tells us that: The performance of the NASDAQ shows that no one is bothered with what happens over the next 12 months when it comes to valuation. Because investors are not relying on the near-term outlook for guidance, the pricing of today's tech stocks are driven by one of the two: Future cash flows over the longer term, or Just pure hokum. If you think about it intuitively, valuing businesses based on the data estimates looking out 3 to 5 years becomes a more viable alternative because no one can meaningfully price any business under circumstances today. Times are unprecedented; It is an anomaly, a black swan scenario. Applying the 1-year forward multiple to value a business just does not make any sense. This is similar in 2000 where the surge in prices of technology and Internet firms resulted in many investors rushing in to cash-in on the tremendous growth opportunities offered. Therefore the pricing observed in the current market is a reflection of investors projecting incomes based on estimates 2 to 3 years out. The DCF models are for 10-years and they are willing to pay even if the earnings today were crappy. Discount rates reflect opportunity costs Government bonds have been widely accepted as the basis for pricing assets. It is considered to be default-free and therefore commonly used as the "risk-free" rate in valuation models. All cash flow valuation models that use the discount rate are based off this simple concept. At the peak of the dot com bubble, the 10-year treasury yield - which was the benchmark for a "safe haven" and a default-free investment - hovered at between 5 to 6%. At some point of time, investors started to doubt the rich valuations of these Internet firms, and decided they were much better off putting their money in either government bonds that gave decent returns of 6.0%, or invest in the broader market, represented by the S&P 500. One thing led to another and the bubble burst. The key difference between 2000 and now is that treasury yields today are trading at 0.72% . Which means that investors who decide to cash out from their richly valued stocks get effectively next to nothing if they buy bonds or other fixed income instruments. That, in part, is what is keeping the bubble inflated today. In addition to that, city and country wide lockdowns from the pandemic have posed a serious risk for global trade and growth. Essentially, no trading = no growth. No growth = no inflation. To climb out of this economic rut, governments around the world have committed to keeping the near-to-mid-term interest rates low ( read the Fed's recent announcement in August about its inflation rate policy ). So it is against this backdrop of a grim economy, the lack of other options in putting money to work and choice of taking a much longer term view on cash flows, that many investors are dumping money in equities. As I am writing this, I do realize that there are wide ranging perspectives from different people out there, as well as numerous datasets that when aggregated and analyzed, could also be used to explain the current phenomenon. But the market is irrational, inefficient, unpredictable. And I have never been a good trader. Only time will tell if we are in the early stages of a new age of growth or if bubble will eventually burst.

Two people, A & B meet at a coffeeshop to catch up and talk about the recent state of things. A says, " Times are bad, this pandemic has really disrupted all my business and meetings. And I've lost so much money in one of my ventures". B nods in agreement and says, " Yes. It's really bad. I invested in this company awhile back and lost something like $5,000. It's really a struggle now ". A replies, " That's not a struggle man, $5,000 is nothing. My losses are in the hundreds of thousands. " Everyone's perception and threshold of money and risk are different. A thousand dollars are very different to the average person and a millionaire. Knowing that someone else lost more money than you does not make you feel better; Conversely, telling someone else that you'd lost more money doesn't make you feel better as well. Risk and reward is always equitable and pro-rata to capital contribution i.e. you cannot expect to get more than what you put in. Be rational and at peace with what you have invested and taken. A fool and his money are soon parted.

A thoughtful weekend read and a timely reminder for reflecting on all bad decisions made this year and in the last four years... "Life is tricky. It is never clear when you are at your peak (and about to head downwards into a death spiral) or at your bottom (and about to skyrocket upwards to your greatest heights). Right now, you could be sitting at the very peak of your life (or you could be sitting at the very bottom of your life), and there is no way to tell which is which. It is the scary truth for all of us. This truth applies to people, companies, and countries. Change can happen gradually over time or it can happen instantly. For me, success is the greatest imposter. In life, business, or martial arts, winning is a falsehood. It seduces smart people into thinking that they are invincible. It tricks good people into believing that they are infallible. And it robs all people of reality and truth. Don’t believe the hype. And don’t eat your own bullshit. Or you will lose everything. The only antidote to the poison of success is humility, hunger, and gratitude. Stay humble. Stay hungry. Stay grateful. And outwork everyone. Always." - Chatri Sityodtong

Full house. One weekend afternoon, we visited a cafe nearby. The store was full and as a result, we had to wait behind the glass doors at the entrance. When a staff finally came up to us, all he did was beckon at the sign that was hung at the door, saying "FULL HOUSE". No greetings, no words of " sorry we are full, please wait. " He just went " tap-tap-tap" on the sign at the glass door and walked away. We left. At Starbucks, I almost always see tables with dirty cups, wet tables and used serviettes. The tables typically remain uncleared for a long time until a customer comes along looking for a seat. In one incident, I was even told that tissue paper costs $0.30 when I asked for the tables to be cleaned before I sat down. And when it is getting late, many times, the staff would often rearrange the chairs and tables loudly, sending a subtle unwelcoming message to all their customers: " Get out, we are closed ". On another weekday evening, I made a reservation at a fairly busy restaurant. The guy taking the reservations told me it was probably going to be at least a 15-minute wait and took down my number to call me when he got a table. Seeing that it was really crowded, we decided to take a walk around nearby and give him the benefit of time, coming back 30 minutes later. And when we showed up, he said rather triumphantly and self-conceitedly, " See, I told you, 15-minutes ". I wasn't expecting to be seated but I guess a better respond would be, " Sorry, we are really packed today and I promise to try my best. " Last week, I was browsing online for a set of Marshall speakers. I stumbled upon the website of a distributor, found the product catalogue, as well as their email contact. I decided to write and ask for the stock availability before making the trip down to the outlet. However, all I got back from the business development manager was an email reply to enquire directly from their website. I ended up getting those speakers elsewhere. Maybe it’s just me and I'm particular about the little things or we are just held hostage by poor service and there’s pretty much nothing that we can do about it. Singapore has no resources, limited land and a limited indigenous workforce. But what we lack in physical commodities, we make up for in service . For many years, we have pride ourselves in being the epitome of a world-class service-oriented economy. We constantly promote our quality onboard our flagship airline. We rave about having the best airport in the world, and by all measurable terms, we claim to provide top-notch service in everything we do. Every foreigner who visits Singapore tells me it's a clean place, people are nice and good, etc. This had been my impression way back until 2004 when I made my first trip alone overseas and stayed in China for a year. I realized that good service exists in many cities in Asia. It is not unique only in developed cities but even in the emerging ones, not just in their airports but it percolates through every segment of the economy, big and small. But why is our service deteriorating? I can only narrow this down to the fact that those in the services and non-PMET industries generally don't enjoy what they do . A zero-sum culture. From my conversations with friends, co-workers and clients, I get the impression that many companies in Singapore have a somewhat ' zero-sum' business culture, i.e. For an employer, once a deal has been made to hire someone, the company has a selfish interest to squeeze as much as they can out from the employee. This means lowballing salaries, scrimping on travel and employee benefits, and even pushing staff to work beyond stipulated hours. What do employees do in turn? They find every possible means to skive, cut corners and slack off. Everyone lives paycheck to paycheck, look forward to Fridays and hate the Monday blues. They stop loving what they do and stop enjoying going to work. It just becomes a job, doing it just for the money. This percolates across the value chain in the business ecosystem. Clients often try to "suck dry" their vendors / suppliers, milking them as much time as possible. There's no more professional decency, no mutual respect for personal time and resources, just emotionless transactional exchanges. After many years, this behaviour morphs into a toxic environment whereby two parties in any business transaction will always seek to take advantage of the other. I'm not saying that all companies are like that. But the relentless and fast pursuit for profits today can be a dangerous thing at the expense of culture. From laying the tarmac on the road, sweeping the sidewalks, making coffee behind the counters, to people pushing papers in the offices - every job is still a job . How do we instill a healthy respect and a sense of pride for the people who do what they do regardless of rank and file?

Webinars and Zoom calls have now become a defacto way of life. Therefore, it should have been no surprise that Zoom launched its events marketplace last week, which involves allowing people to buy tickets for online events. I see this as a first part of a bigger plan that involves a gradual cannibalization of market share from companies such as EventBrite and XING, as well as a potential game changer for other industries such as education. Event registration and management are incredibly commoditized processes and highly competitive on pricing. While it is relatively easy for Zoom to move into ticketing, the learning curve would be much steeper for companies such as Eventbrite and XING to acquire and successfully integrate good video conferencing / webinar capabilities. The possibilities for Zoom going forward will be interesting: Ticketing & Events (launch of On Zoom). Will this cannibalize market share from Eventbrite/XING? Education (similar to Blackboard, Coursera and Masterclass). Is there a longer-term play at online learning and will this remain sustainable after recovery? Telehealth . Should Zoom make a huge move into telehealth or continue to function as the reliable connector between telehealth companies and their customers? Home electronics . Should they move into home appliances and electronics since video calls are going to be a huge part of our lives going forward? Check out Norwegian start up Neat . In each of these scenarios, the question that Zoom needs to answer is whether it makes more commercial sense to (i) acquire capabilities in this area or (ii) better off playing the role of a technology enabler to their customers (and incumbents).

Footfall has improved since circuit breaker in June. It's nowhere near pre-COVID levels but still it's better than none. Everyone is masked up except for those who are eating or having a coffee like me. The tables are now more widely spaced - which I'd always thought it should be that way. On the face of it, everyone seems to be getting used to the new normal. It's good to see some activity in the malls. It implies that the office crowd is back and that in turn drives the F&B businesses. It keeps people employed and keeps the economy running. Generally speaking, this crisis is somewhat different from the 2008 financial crisis. In theory, some jobs should only be more directly impacted than others, particularly those in the travel and tourism sectors. And savings from non essential travel should technically allow businesses to sustain operating expenses and maintain headcount. That said, as companies today have largely regional / global operations, and are significantly reliant on travel, the entire economy takes a hit. The lack of inter-city commute provides a good 'excuse' for many decision makers to withhold aggressive marketing and expansion plans, creating a further drag on revenues across the entire value chain. I imagine that the uncertainty can be unnerving. For now, let's all sit tight and I'll check back again in another three months.