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Ok this is for the ones who are still following my blog. Thanks for not giving up on me babehhhh~
Exam's over yet it seems like I'm busier than before. Work is certainly tiring and I have been active with church stuff.
But anyway, I'm sure everybody always writes a list of things they want to do/eat/visit etc after their exams are finished. People usually fail to complete them but I'll share my list and their current status here:
1. Finish Top Ten in our private Fantasy Football League
This screenshot was taken back in January. At one point in time I actually dropped to no.16 T__T
Fantasy Football and the stock market have alot in common. But if this was the stock market I would of been bankrupt in December.
It came to the point where I told Yong that I would be more than happy with a top 10 finish. Being the typical optimist, Yong told me to aim for the sky i.e top 4. Thanks for the support babehhh~
Well the season is over now and whad'dya know? =p
Let me clarify that I'm not posting this to lanci but rather to obtain immunity from kena lanci. So those who scored 2236 and below not allowed to lanci me kk. Oops I think I accidentally lanci-ed.
If this was the stock market, I'm Donald Trump (recovered from bankruptcy).
2. Learn about investments
People think that just because you have an undergraduate degree in Finance you know all the tricks of the trade about investments. But let me tell you something, most quants (short for quantitative analyst or researchers) in investment banks who price all the derivatives e.g options, swaps, futures do not have any background in finance.
If you have no idea what derivatives are its okay. An undergraduate in finance will know but we have absolutely no idea how to price them because its rocket science, literally. The famous Black-Scholes model that is used to price options was discovered by two NASA rocket scientists. Therefore the normal requirement for quants are PhDs but not in Finance or Economics. Most of them actually have PhDs in Mathematics or Theoretical Physics.
Thats right, crazy people like Sheldon Cooper will use crazy techniques to forecast risk and market conditions. Then the PhDs in Engineering will help them build the models. The math behind it is beyond any Finance undergraduate, or CFA holder or even Master in Finance (unless its from Princeton).
So anyway, I wanted to learn abit about investments so that I can make use of my money which was just rotting away in a bank account. But I'm no quant so there's no point trying to predict market conditions (actually the quants failed to predict the current economic crisis anyway), so I thought of a brilliant plan! Why not invest in a sure thing? Whats a sure thing you ask? There are only two certainties in life: death and taxes.
So I decided to fully invest in insurance policies. HAHAHA! Really wat. Everybody SURE die, its just a matter of time. And if you're someone like me who knows he's gonna die early (btw I just ate Burger King), its a no brainer. Insurance premiums are tax deductible too! Hehe.
Now more than half of my monthly salary is used to pay off AIA, Tokio Marine, and Great Eastern insurance premiums. Thats not even including the policies my father bought for me.
There is one tiny flaw about this plan though. You won't be one who enjoys the benefits of this investment. LOL! Since I no wife, the beneficiary is my mum.
REGRET NOT MARRYING ME NOW DON'T CHA??!!
Haiz. If I keep buying more insurance policies, when I die my mum can buy over the Taiwan drama industry (she sien of Korean drama liao).
Oh btw if your interested in becoming a quant (besides getting a PhD or Msc in Financial Engineering) you need to be very proficient in the programming language C++.
3. Learn Programming
Ask anybody who is working now and they'll tell you that only a small percentage of the technical knowledge they learnt in uni is used at office because computer software does most of the complex computations for them. Therefore learning a programming language is a definitely one for the future.
I'm signing up for a workshop in Microsoft VBA which can be used in my line of work. Its also because I want to hack into an Ivy League or Oxbridge university's website and access their lecture slides.
4. Understand Game Theory
Just discovered that MIT and Oxford actually gives free access to outsiders. Cheh! So I downloaded lecture slides on games. Don't get too excited Zhou, I don't mean video games. I mean the games based on Game Theory.
Game theory can be defined as the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers. Game theory provides general mathematical techniques for analyzing situations in which two or more individuals make decisions that will influence one another’s welfare (Myerson 1991).
Game Theory is widely applied in economics, biology, computer science, political science, international relations and philosophy.
There are all kinds of conflict scenarios or games. For example this game is called The Prisoner's Dilemna:
(click to zoom)
I'm sure you're wondering why I'm so semangat to study Game Theory. Apart from learning the interesting conflict-scenario solving techniques, I have 'nobler' intentions.
The Academy Award-winning film A Beautiful Mind is based on the true story of John Nash, who was one of the main pioneers of Game Theory. According to the movie, John Nash came up with his now famous Nash Equilibrium idea while he was at a bar with his friends. They were all trying to hit on a hot blond. But John Nash thought of a way so that all of them could 'score' with a girl. Do you see where I'm going with this?
I'm studying Game Theory so that......
WE DON'T DIE ALONE!!!
Told ya I had 'noble' intentions. You guys can thank me later.
I better get back to studying! Still stuck on Lecture 1 gg.
