Businesses have a responsibility towards the whole of society
Singapore celebrated our 56th National Day this month with a parade at Marina Bay. Happy Birthday Singapore. Thank you for being a beautiful country – one that allows us to live, work and play in a safe, progressive and prospering environment. Thank
How Rising Demand For A Fairer System Is Fueling Election Trends
In addition to kicking off a new quarter at iSTOX, July saw us through a closely fought election here in Singapore. While the ruling party won once again, the opposition Workers’ Party made historic gains by taking an unprecedented 10 seats in parlia
Winners & Losers in The Post-COVID-19 Economy
The Lockdowns May Be Ending But The World Has Changed. What Does It Take For A Financial Services Business To Succeed? Across Asia, Europe, America and the rest of the world — including here in Singapore — lockdowns are now either winding down o
Looking Ahead: On Reform, iSTOX And COVID-19
Over the last past month or so, we have witnessed unprecedented events in the financial markets that wiped more than US $5 trillion from global stock markets and caused massive economic dislocations that will take months, if not longer, to recover fr
Trump and Technology
In the late 1990s, the crazy pursuit of internet investments led to the huge influx of capital into internet bandwidth investments that ultimately led to the collapse of many internet infrastructure companies. This also laid the groundwork for the ra
Newsletter
Market moves in cycles and always self-corrects, although it can take very long to do so especially with too much liquidity from the years of QE sloshing around in the system. Many financial market participants were “shocked” by the post Trump market
Quick Thoughts on Trump
Hi All, So much to read and digest with so much news analysis on this, see below my very simple read. Trump is a businessman, and to understand him, you need to think like a businessman. In business, the key is to use your size to control the criti
January 2016
Hi All, Its been since 5 years since my last annual newsletter. After sending the last note on 2010, ICH went into a very quiet mode. We have been slowly but actively investing in technology-driven companies and funds again from 2012. The double tai
China and The GFC (Global Financial Crisis)
Welcome to ICH, Starting out as Internet Century Holdings 15 years ago, we have reinvented ourselves many times, from incubator, consultancy to financial advisory to fund management and direct investments. We have changed our names along the way, to
The Polarisation Spreads
Hi all, An update on current market views. We have used the april bounced to raise cash level to highest level since 2008. Risks are abound. On top of the headline news mentioned in my email sent out in mar, I notice 2 disturbing trends: 1. The fe
Happy New Year ’11 – Say Bye to Low Rates in 2011?
Dear All, Happy New Year. Once again, thank you all for making 2010 a decent year. Our view for 2010 has panned out nicely, and the hold till Nov 2010 trades turn out to be a good call. (For those wondering, we did take profits on some of the stoc
Some Thoughts on Market for the Next 6 Months
For the last 12 months we have witnessed first a huge rebound from pricing in a catastrophic meltdown, to a deep recession, extreme over deleveraging and now modest/sluggish growth. From a historical valuation perspective, the market is not over val
Major Life-Changing Event
In 2003 or 2004 (cannot recall, must be tired from the trades this week), when china announced rmb appreciation the world reaction was initially very muted. I bot china life then at 5.6 and made a bundle selling it at 30 (too early I guess as china l
Happy New Year
Dear All, Would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for bearing with me for yet another year. Would like to thank Yahoo!, thank Alibaba, Advanced Holdings, OSIM, LiNing, Biosensors, Gold, Energy, Nikkei, China Life for making our year a b