Written by Teresa Chan

We were honored to have Mr. Teddy H. Tsai, the chairman of Markis Capital Ltd., deliver the investment basics speech on April 1st. Held on April fool's day, we aim not to be fooled in the investment field. “Money can actually work for you.” Mr. Tsai said. Instead of being stressed because of money, investing can multiply it. In the beginning, Professor Jeeyeon Kim introduced the speaker and IBMBA 1st-year student Sapna Goyal (葛莎娜) was the host of the event.

Mr. Tsai is a professional investor with over twenty years of experience in investments, research, private equity, strategic planning/consulting, and operational management. Apart from that, he is a versatile person who joined a band in highschools (and owns a music company now), started an earlier career in marketing research, and is also a “BDI shipmaster.” He is the example of “FIRE,” which means “financial independence, retire early;” he retired at 35 when his son was born.

Mr. Tsai asked, “Why do we invest?” as a hook to trigger participants’ thinking to start the sharing. One participant considers investing as financial freedom achievement, and another thinks of it as a secure future. Mr. Tsai introduced investment concepts, tools for financial planning, financial products, and final tips and warnings to commence investment. Based on the idea of risks and returns,he said “Investing has risk; there are no ‘no loss’ investments.” However, it is not likely to invest with low risks. To lower the risk and make money work for us, we shoul better allocate resources and diversify our portfolios which stands for allocation between different investment products.

As for the time value of money, a rule of thumb ‘Rule of 72’ is applicable to estimate the time to double our money. In addition, to deal with the depreciation effects, gold is an inflation hedge that is easy to buy in Taiwan. Money will lose its value, and cars will depreciate, yet gold will not. Given that a sum of money is worth more now than the same will be at a future date, we must invest as early as possible. “Don’t overthink,” Mr.Tsai encouraged participants to invest every month consistently. The power of the average dollar will demonstrate its ability. We also conducted the test for our risk tolerance during the workshop, a tool for our financial planning. For those under 30, Mr. Tsai suggested investing as soon as possible and taking aggressive investment actions since young people can bear risks.

“The workshop helped me view the investment as a long-term strategy and clarified that we should invest quite a big part of our income monthly if we want to see significant results. I also found out that stock selection is not as important as asset allocation and regular investment. We also got to know about various assets that we can invest in and discussed their advantages and disadvantages. At the end of the workshop, we were recommended to invest more aggressively when we are young and still have time to gain back the potential losses.”
— Participant feedback from Thomas Kejha (康樂思; GHRM MBA 2nd-year)

The investment workshop ends with the Kahoot game to examine how much participants learn about the investment concepts. The top three players who won the NT$100 Family Mart vouchers are Erin Ashley McCoy (穆苒苒; IBMBA 1st-year), Nick (林威修; IBMBA 1st-year), and Sunny (范友慈; IBMBA 1st-year). There were also waffles provided for every participant. It was an excellent opportunity to attend Mr. Tsai’s investment speech for new investors. “Good investing is knowing when you are wrong and learning from your mistakes.” The SA hopes that everyone acquired something from the event.