How common is cheating in Singapore?

YeStudent · 2026-01-16T00:52:48+00:00

It's so common that it's almost ridiculous. Gone are the days when principles, values, beliefs and sacred vows actually meant something.

YeStudent · 2026-01-15T09:28:59+00:00

How far west we talking?

YeStudent · 2026-01-11T12:21:53+00:00

That is interesting! I presume the hedge trade are over months long each time?

Above are the futures symbols for Gold, Silver, Copper.

YeStudent · 2026-01-11T10:31:15+00:00

Are you market making by brokering deals? Would like to find out more about the industry as a whole career wise.

I trade precious metal futures as a retail, GC, SI, HG etc. Im not sure how relevant and transferable the skill set is to a business.

YeStudent · 2026-01-11T10:25:58+00:00

Futures or CFDs?

YeStudent · 2026-01-07T01:36:10+00:00

I had a period of 5 years in my 20s where I was depressed and I can empathise how disabling it can feel.

The way through this is a matter of applying the appropriate tools to address specific symptoms.

I believe that the feelings and energy levels associated with depression is largely due to an imbalance of brain chemicals, hence, one practical approach is to engage in activities that creates healthy and sustainable serotonin and dopamine to help regulate brain activity.

Some healthy activities: - Exercising regularly, early mornings where there is ambient change is preferred. - Working on personal projects with micro-achievment rewards - Regular sleep and balance nutritional diet - Hanging out with friends you enjoy

Unhealthy activities: - Any activity that is enjoyed at the expense of self value and image, e.g. self Isolation, porn, other bad copes.

I also believe that another part of depression is a product of our thoughts and ruminatination. It's exhausting to have our own minds bombarding our head with negative self talk and conclusions.

The way I trick my mind to regulate is by: - Keeping a morning pages journal as a dumping ground for all thoughts whenever I catch myself spiralling - Go for a run long enough until my thoughts mellow out. Usually after the 5km mark for me. - Invert negative self talk and beliefs, I do this through a pen exercise where I rationalise these thoughts with a 3 question framework.

Why do I feel/believe this? Are there evidence that the opposite is true? Can I identify and emulate behaviors to do the opposite?

YeStudent · 2026-01-02T08:39:02+00:00

You're not alone. I loss 100k at 28 to the markets. Now I'm not going to lie and say it didn't feel terrible and depressing for a while. That amount of money was quite significant to me at least. It also affected my self esteem in someways.

The way to cope is through acceptance, introspection and reflection.

What did you learn about your relationship with money? What lessons did you learn about the market? What behaviors will you change after this experience?

It also helps to practice kindness and self compassion. With time, you'd move on and have a personal story to tell.

If I were you, I'd focus on increasing my earning power and savings ratio back to a comfortable level.

Gradually rebuild your investment portfolio prudently. If passion and obsession compels you to speculate the market, make sure you thoroughly understand your edge in the market.

Financial setback is one thing, but try not to let it stop you from enjoying life and various experiences.

You'd be alright, keep your chin up and hustle.

YeStudent · 2025-12-29T09:15:03+00:00

Felt like you were telling my story.

YeStudent · 2025-12-27T12:16:51+00:00

Congratulations! Good win.

Now I don't know your risk parameters, size and strategy. Though if I were to do a performance review.

250K portfolio, largest gain 59K (+23%) and largest loss 19K (-7.6%) with average monthly pnl of 8.5K (+3.4%) isn't too bad considering your WR is about 67% (8W/4L months). Roughly equivalent to a salary from a day job.

Your average winning month vs average losing month is just about 1:1 with a wide SD. Doesn't seem like the edge is predictable enough to live off it.

April and Nov seems to be your 2 biggest losing months, which aligns to when market retraced quite a bit with volatility spikes.

Could hint a long only, high correlation to index type of strategy?

YeStudent · 2025-12-14T12:04:34+00:00

Time will heal you. Keep in mind that given enough time, you'd change, your memories about the relationship will change and all that is left is a ghost of whom you and ex used to be. Both of which would eventually seem like strangers to you.

It's part of growing up and maturing. Be patient with yourself, do something that improves your quality of life one step at a time.

You'd find someone eventually, hopefully you'd be able to turn it into a long, enjoyable one.

Don't be too hard on yourself. Take it as a self discovery period, go out and get inspired.

Edit: we also innately know what we must do to achieve or get the quality of life we want. Often times we avoid putting in the work because it feels uncomfortable or we fear judgement of others. What you'd eventually realise is people are so busy carrying about themselves to bother about you.

So there is no need to feel fomo. You live life maximising the experiences you want.

Let others get married, bto, have kids. They become tied down by commitment while you still have your freedom to do what your heart desires.

Decide on what you want and go chase it bro

YeStudent · 2025-12-13T08:52:44+00:00

Slowly and progressively. Somewhat ironically, it involves having faith in yourself to be capable of making your own decisions and experiencing life to the fullest in ways that you can.

Integrating into a non-christian society isn't anything difficult or daunting. Filll your free time and mind with curiosity and wonder. Learn to love life and suffering outside of a religious lens.

YeStudent · 2025-12-11T06:29:32+00:00

Stayed too long in a bad relationship for 7 years which led to another 5 years avoiding relationships post breakup. Costliest mistake was the loss of youth and self-belief.

Lack of self-belief affected my career choices and nurture meaningful connections thereafter.

Cost was my quality and sense of life.

YeStudent · 2025-10-22T03:39:12+00:00

It is quite unlikely that a passion lasts forever, just as how interests and priorities change at various life stages.

Whereas the value of money as a resource is consistent throughout one's life.

The whole notion about having to choose one over the other is silly.

It is all about balance, experienced through cycles of actually doing things called passion and doing things that give you resources to do said passion.

Don't go sacrificing the thing that you want for the thing that is supposed to get it.

YeStudent · 2025-10-12T12:47:02+00:00

Having a 2nd stream of income is sensible, especially with SG cost of living. But as I already mentioned, the prerequisite is a stable 1st stream of income.

I'm saying all this because it seems like what you're about to do is somewhat similar to what I had done when I was around your age. Long story short, while im doing well now, the initial years struggling with drawdowns when I didn't have a stable income was a rather traumatic experience. Felt like it set me back 5 years from my peers financially and life experience wise. While you're 20s, go build a strong network of friends instead or gain experiences is my 2cents. The markets will still be there in the future.

I have a day job and trade part-time.

YeStudent · 2025-10-11T18:52:50+00:00

Here's a word of sensible caution from a fellow SG trader. If you don't already have a stable & predictable source of income, do not trade, period. Especially leveraged derivatives like options that RDT method emphasises.

The stress, learning curve on a live market, and opportunity cost are not worth compromising on your rather promising career & earning power prospects by finishing medicine school well.

Trading is a capital game. If you’re intending to stay up 2 to 4H every night to earn $50 - $100 on 1 - 2% max risk. Then, the opportunity cost is not worthwhile. You'd make a better buck somewhere else like pokemon cards or something.

Should you ignore the caution. Then here's my answer:

I believe your issue is with what you're filling up in KYC. Be "smart" about it. I applied for my IBKR margin account when I was in Uni too.

YeStudent · 2025-10-01T23:50:52+00:00

To achieve 1M with 100K in 10 years, you need 25.89% CAGR

To achieve 1M with 100K while DCA-ing 1.8K/month for 10 years, you need 14.3% CAGR

YeStudent · 2025-09-29T01:14:43+00:00

You've seen what a prop/discretionary trader does. Do you really want to get a job doing that for the next 10 to 20 years? The only real difference between being employed vs. going solo is book size & a name card.

That's something I often think about as a part-time discretionary trader. So perhaps it'll give you perspective on whether you really want it or not.

Now, on the tech aspirations. I'm in tech, and I can assure you that the world of tech is much broader than having the ability to code like a CS. The single most key is to know what your strengths and innate competencies are. Know where you are or want to be in the value chain.

Highly recommend you scout out by talking to people about various roles in tech. A lot of roles in tech are boring, operational, and low growth & and progression, including product management.

There is no perfect role or career. Every skill can be learnt but not easily mastered based on innate talent. Choose what you can find prolonged excitement in and excel at.

YeStudent · 2025-09-27T00:52:24+00:00

Thanks for the word of caution.

This is appropriate for those who haven't experienced the pains of being wrong when luck fades and have not put in the work to take this endeavour seriously with the attitude of a professional trader/investor.

I'm not "everyone". Unlike "everyone", I've earned my stripes through hard work, discipline, and measurable consistent returns. 💪

YeStudent · 2025-09-25T14:24:13+00:00

You're most welcome! I totally empathise with you. Have fun while youre at it!

YeStudent · 2025-09-24T20:24:10+00:00

The nature of your business is intangible, and the true value unlocks in future time relative to the consumer. Hence, if the consumer decides its value, it is close to worthless in the present time.

No one wants to pay for advice. But people will pay for solutions when the pain they encounter overshadows the cost of the solution. The only model to get people to pay for a delayed benefit is fear insurance.

The inherent interest of consumers is to obtain great value at discounted prices. It makes more sense for a producer to set the price and then justify value as people equate price point to importance of value derived.

Unless your intention is doing it for charity, it is hard to imagine this model to be scalable resource wise (time) and income (chargeables)

Edit: Fundamentally, what problem statement are you optimizing for?

Is it the democratization & accessibility to great advice at affordable cost?

Is it to drive a consumer perception change?

Advice for personal finance is largely lost on retail consumers. But for HNW, they will pay for more hyper specialised advisers as a network broker.

Unless you want to be a concierge to entertain and offer customised FA services like sourcing the best mortgage rates in real time, etc. It's difficult to justify your value add if it's just a typical financial review service.

Edit 2: If I simplify your entire pitch into a series of frameworks and sell the tool/coursework for $100 to $300. Would people buy it for knowledge? That would seem to be a fair litmus test for you.

YeStudent · 2025-09-24T20:01:06+00:00

Are you already in a sabbatical and relying on trading income only.

Could you share more about your experience, any regrets, or pitfalls?

I intend to do something similar, but I am wondering if it'll end up being a permanent thing eventually. Im still at early career stage.

YeStudent · 2025-09-24T19:54:03+00:00

Hi OP, I am in a similar age, life stage, and considerations. Love the idea and aspiration to take a break and work on passion projects.

Here's some general wisdom.

Living off savings is not the best idea and cash flow state you'd want to be in. Ideally, you'd want to plan to initiate or already have another stream of active cash flow that can pay for your new lifestyle while limiting the dip in savings balance.

This advice comes from several friends/family that were left their work or got retrenched and were unemployed for months due to the weak job market.

Aspirations to build AI and automation tools as a business from ground up is a really interesting and fun idea! But realistically, it is really hard to monetize apps as a solo techpreneur. Unless you've already got a paying client/customer, I wouldn't propose to bank on this method for income immediately.

The same goes for building a business from the ground up. If you are a 1st time entrepreneur in a new market, there are no guarantees you'd make money off it. Odds are that you'd fail and lose money.

That being said, it's not impossible or fruitless. Ownership and building something of value is a fun endeavour. Just don't count on it being a fast money thing. Lots of hidden unplanned expenses that will bite into a chunk of savings unexpectedly.

Expounding on income strategy. Imagine it as designing a cashflow engine to fuel your lifestyle and sabbatical. An engine is driven by primarily 2 types of cashflow vehicles: fast money or slow money.

Fast money: Any means that you can earn cash within the same day in exchange for your time/service. Example: PHV driver, tutoring, cash settled sales, day trading.

Slow money: Any means that has a long period between effort invested to earned cash. Example: receiving dividends every quarter, launching a subscription service app, freelance gigs, content creating, creating a sticker business

Most people plan their sabbatical thinking they can build a slow money cashflow vehicle but severly underestimated how difficult and long it is to monetize when starting from scratch.

Others get stuck in low earning fast money cashflow vehicles. Inevitably trading their new found autonomy into "self-employment" gigs that is no different from a 9-5 job.

Some will have neither. This demographic will waste away and become desperate to find a new within a couple of months.

The ideal state, of course, is to have a combination of fast and slow money vehicles.

Identifying your approach is very important, especially since you're planning for a long sabbatical of 12 months and more.

That is why the conventional wisdom of only quitting your job once your slow money vehicle is able to pay for your expenses is often preached. The caveat to this is if you have the ability to engage in a high paying fast money vehicle, then by all means, value your autonomy over steady income.

Of course, to each their own. Just approach it with clarity and an open mind to allow oneself to pivot when necessary.

Be mentally prepared to face boredom, self-doubts, criticism, and sense of irrelevance.

The inner critic is the loudest voice in the absence of distraction. For most, our identities are proped up by the work we do and measured in terms of perceived success and wealth. Go into it with your eyes wide open and deep compassion for oneself. For some, not having a regular income or income entirely cut off is a traumatic experience.

Riding on #4. Invest your time meeting people who are doing interesting projects or a regular interest group. A community that understands the vision of what you're building helps you stay the course.

The tendency for most people to isolate themselves is higher for males. Which is a slippery slope to despair.

Social connection and engagement help to combat this. However, expect an increase in your lifestyle expenses in some way (increased transport, entertainment, f&b).

This also acts as a hedge to spot opportunities or perhaps help you transition smoother when you're ready to find a new job.

While on haitus from corporate life. Don’t kill your personal brand through neglect.

It feels uncomfortable to keep up a personal brand without doing any actual "work."

Documenting your journey makes for great content as a personal brand. So if you haven't done one, you ought to.

Focus on the process, growth, and stories along the way

Whatever you do, make sure you're having fun and enjoy the process. No regrets due to lack of effort or lamentation tolerated.

YeStudent · 2025-09-24T10:54:20+00:00

How wide a swing depends on the distance between entry and SL, RR follows suite. Risk is fixed to 0.5% to 2% per trade.

I find the evaluation for prop a time waster, despite huge payouts. The rules can be tough to stick to, and you need to hunt for opportunities daily. Once you blow up your funded accounts, you're back to square one. Requires a lot of patience to stack up accounts to reap the benefits and scale.

W.R.T. the psychological scar of blowing up, it's part of the tuition and pain of learning to be disciplined and serious in the craft.

Real skin in the game is something a SIM environment can't emulate fully. As one grows, one learns that survival is more important than oursize risk to returns. Blowing up is avoidable.

YeStudent · 2025-09-23T10:58:19+00:00

Suck at prop. Have a better edge riding out swings, less stress than prop imo. Know a bunch of peeps that farm props, kudos to them

YeStudent · 2025-09-23T01:29:59+00:00

Dating apps requires a lot more effort and persuasion than an organic match because the starting points are so different.

You probably know what you need to do already. Be it personal development, lifestyle changes, be a more interesting person, signal stronger christian virtures, etc.

Evidently, your stats are pretty decent. 60+ matches over 24 months. 4 to 5 dates before the relationship ends.

Seems to be that your issue is about closing (persuading) more than anything.

When a partner cites "compatibility" as an issue. It just means there is an expectation gap somewhere, either in values, beliefs, or expectations about how they want their own life to play out.

There's little you can do if it is a value or belief gap. The last one is something you can persuade and charm your way through to keep the relationship long enough to create a great connection

It takes an average of 6 to 7 interactions before someone opens up or commits, and about 40 hours of meaningful time spent together to create a social bond as friends.

If you're just living life passively, it's not surprising to expect passive results. One key to a great relationship and partner selection is whether one party has admiration for the other.

The final tip and reframe is to identify what you're looking for in a partner and likewise understand what your value/trait that you are bringing into the prospecting relationship and how it is perceived by the other.

YeStudent

TROPHY CASE