‘Learn to invest in stocks properly’

PETALING JAYA: Money games, GameStop frenzy, the constant rise and fall of crypto, to the untrained eye, these seem like the way to “invest”.

Adrenaline-pumping with a false promise of insane returns by the very next day as well as the constant monitoring of charts and graphs, it’s not for the faint-hearted and certainly not for everyone.

Amid all these fleeting trends, investment scams and market noise, millennial investor, Alex Ng, goes about his daily life calmly, collecting passive income and watching his investment double or triple in value.

But he wasn’t always like this.

He started dabbling in the stock market at 19. He got sucked into trends, chased short-term profits and bought whatever stocks his broker recommended.

And by 21, he had lost two-thirds of his parents’ retirement fund from investing haphazardly.

“It was a huge wake up call for me. It made me realise that what I was doing wasn’t investing. I was gambling in the stock market. Higher stakes and worse damages than if I would have gambled in the casino,” he said.

However, his saving grace was his fortitude.

He knew the importance of investing, if done properly. Growing up in a middle-class household, that was his ticket to afford himself and his family a good life.

“With just RM3,000 of my own savings, I found some mentors and learned the proper way to invest,” said Ng, who was a self-made millionaire by the age of 29.

Having been through that harrowing experience and turning his life around, he wants to make sure that no one makes the same mistakes he did.

He’s now a master trainer and speaker at VI College, the region’s leading financial education provider, helping aspiring and uninformed investors to develop the proper skills, knowledge and strategy.

The safe and consistent way of investing gets easily drowned out and might seem boring in contrast to the stock bros’ mantra of “high risk, high return” or the excitement and overinflated egos in the likes of The Wolf of Wall Street.

“Investing safely and consistently doesn’t mean you can’t get handsome returns. It just means that even if you start small, with consistent effort, your returns will multiply and compound,” he said.

In VI College, Ng and his peers have designed the programmes with beginners in mind. After VI College’s five-day bootcamp, even those who come in with zero knowledge can venture into their investment journey with confidence.

“In fact, many of my students with prior investing experience also saw the programme as a total eye-opening experience,” said Ng.

Students are added into the VI Community after the programme with support and guidance from trainers, coaches and peers.

VI College has also developed its own stock analysis tool, VI App, to make investing smarter, faster and easier.

“With VI App, you can easily check the risk rating, the overall health and performance of the company in just a few seconds,” he explained.

8BIT, the FinTech entity behind VI App, is licensed and regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Singapore’s central bank.

Check out VI App at www.vi.app.

“At the end of the day, we want to empower as many people as possible with financial literacy.

“That’s why our programme and tools like VI App are all designed to make it simple for everyone to start investing,” he said.

Join Ng to discover the right and safe way to invest in the “Discover Secret Stock Investing Techniques Webinar” on June 19.

Organised by Star Media Group together with VI College as the Education Partner, this free two-hour masterclass is designed to teach individuals across all age groups to generate safe and consistent returns from local and the US stock market.

To register, please click into http://bit.ly/stockinvestment2021