And we have now just arrived into Jun. A halfway year to mark and review our plans for 2H’22. Time flies when too many global events, mainly negative, are happening all at once this year.
An eventful half-year to date that most investors would like to forget. It was the exact opposite of 1H’21 where retail meme stocks triumphed against hedge funds, while NFT and Crypto prices were going to the moon. What a difference a year has made as we weather the pandemic journey. 2022 is starting to look like 2020 all over again, except that in the case of the steep Mar 2020 crash, we had a big rally after that for the rest of the year.
This year, we had a China stock meltdown and a Ukraine war leading to more inflation fears and expected interest rate hikes. Talk of stagflation, supply chain breakdowns and record petrol pump prices sank all asset classes. If one looked back now, we would be surprised that so many well-known stocks during Covid have already dropped in price by between 75 to 90% from their all-time highs last year.
It has been a painful 6 months since Dec of suffering from volatile and wild swings in all asset classes. The general trend was down and each mini-rally is starting to look like a dead cat bounce that gets slapped down again. The strategy of buying on dips that had worked since 2008 GFC seems to be in doubt now. Do we use up our last cash reserves to average down or wait a little longer? Most have adopted a wait to lay low to try to weather the storm.
With Covid receding to the background and more people travelling into summer, I believe that we are slowing returning back to normalcy. I may want to stop my blog weekly countdown of the pandemic soon and it becomes irrelevant. Even if a new virus hits us, the response time would be even much faster now with the new biotech we have learnt thanks to Covid.
I just finished reading The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson https://www.amazon.com/Code-Breaker-Jennifer-Doudna-Editing/dp/1982115858 and am comforted that the many years of research and preparation with CRISPR and mRNA were put to good use to fight Covid. Future pandemic responses will be even faster as the world now has tools to splice DNA like never before to manufacture new vaccination solutions to new problems and even solve age-old ones in the near future.
The future looks brighter now on the biotech medical front. Oil prices should come down as supplies increase. US frackers will be attracted to come online again as prices are way above their $55 breakeven costs. Russia will fail at trying to capture Ukraine as the war drags on and it runs out of funds. China eventually becomes pragmatic again on Covid and decides that getting the economy and supply chain moving again is better than the alternative. Guess I am a natural optimist? Or maybe I am perhaps speaking from existing held positions and therefore a bit biased?
Back to my personal mid-year review and what to do next as I plan for the next half of 2022. I had managed to complete the full-time NUS FinTechSG course in Apr, went for a trip to New York and also just did a short one-week classroom training (Data Analytics for work using Excel) this week. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Excel had so many useful functions that I can apply to real-life problems with an analytical mindset and approach. It will be very useful for me to revise through the notes again to fully absorb the new Excel learnings.
My goal of being a lifelong learner has not changed and I am starting to look at more courses to sign up for in my quest for new knowledge that interest me. My timing is lucky too as the authorities had also decided to extend training funding for mid-career switch citizens. More new courses are starting to appear from this month onwards.
Two in particular that I am focusing on now are actually a repeat of what they did last year. They are planning to start a new batch in 2022 and are open for application soon. Whether I am successful or not, it is important that I try for them anyway. I plan to fail if I fail to plan.
The first is by BCG called RISE 2.0 https://bcg-rise.com/rise-2-0. It is an update of the same one that they had done before. There are 3 tracks to choose from: Digital Sales & Marketing: Learn how to accelerate business performance across the entire sales funnel, Business & Data Analytics: Learn the best-in-class tools and approaches used by digital champions in business and Digital Transformation & Change Management: Learn to lead digital transformation strategies and approaches. Since I had taken up IBM’s SGUnited AI program in 2021, I might not be eligible for this new course though. But let’s see how this turns out when they open for applications.
The other that has opened now is IBF’s TFIP program https://www.ibf.org.sg/programmes/Pages/TFIP.aspx . My first application attempt last year was not successful. Maybe my expectations were too unrealistic or that Ageism worked against me. I will have to adjust accordingly this year and optimize my past experience to help me pivot into the relevant areas which can give me a higher chance of success.
They have many tracks for application and it is a means for those interested to go into S’pore’s financial sector via the IT angle. They have increased the allotment to 700, twice the number in 2021. There will be screening rounds, apptitude tests and interviews before the successful candidate is offered a 12 or 18 months contract with participating Financial Institution with monthly allowances of SGD 4.5 or 5.5k.
Time to update my CV in order to submit my application. Closing dates in Jun while I also brush up my studies for my new driving lessons in order to earn my license again. This month should pass by pretty quickly with lots of activities and the celebration of my younger son’s 21st too. Before I know it, Dec will be around the corner and I will have to plan my 2023 New Year resolutions LOL…
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