The article was first appeared on CPF Board's IMSavvy Blog Corner: http://www.cpf.gov.sg/imsavvy/blog_post.asp?postid=410028623-190-948406457

Professionals such as doctors, accountants, dentists and businessmen often face the risk of bankruptcy. This could either be due to negligent or simply due to the part and parcel of business risk. With a comprehensive approach to financial planning, it is possible to mitigate the financial devastation of such risk. What are the tools used for asset protection and how to use them? You'll be surprised how simple some of these tools are. In this issue of INVEST magazine for April 2010, Wilfred Ling writes an article on this topic.

You can read about it by clicking HERE.

In this latest article for INVEST magazine, I wrote about two real cases of clients who wrote nonsensical Wills. Although their Wills were valid but the contents were peppered with problems which the clients did not realized. Many people treat estate planning too lightly. Majority do not even care about it. Those who do bother got a raw deal by not considering many practical issues.

You can read about it by clicking HERE.

It was just not too long ago when many consumers were wondering whether their insurers will be collapsing. The days of long queue of people wanting to surrender their insurance policies were like just yesterday. In February 2010 issue of the INVEST magazine, Wilfred Ling was interviewed on his opinion on the situation now. He also provide his comments on MAS' latest proposal on the Policy Owners' Protection Fund (PPF). The PDF softcopy of the cover article is available HERE.

Everybody looks at the price movements of their investments. Some have the bad habit of doing so everyday while others only look at it once in a while. There is another part of investment that is unseen which have a far greater impact on the total return. In this article written for INVEST magazine Dec 2009 issue, Wilfred Ling examines the sources of profit in equity investments and why many investors are not benefiting from these. The full article can be downloaded HERE

Many people do not differentiate between value and price. Price is what you pay and value is what you get. For financial services, one must determine the value of an advice otherwise any price you pay (whether in fees or commissions) will be exorbitant. From my experience, most Singaporeans do not understand this and as a result make two serious mistakes: either (1) Paying for worthless advice through gigantic commissions or (2) penalizing professional financial services by not paying for it despite their capability of creating high value. Consistently rewarding worthless financial advice and penalizing valued advice only degenerate the industry further. From empirical observation, majority of Singaporeans have never experience valued advice but only worthless one. I wrote this article - which first appeared in INVEST Oct/Nov 2009 issue – that examines the difference between value and price. You can download this article HERE

A professional financial planner/adviser has 4 qualities namely:

(1) One who possesses specialized knowledge not generally understood by the public;
(2) one who has qualification which acts as a threshold entrance requirement;
(3) one who has a sense of altruism; and
(4) one who subscribes to code of ethics.

What are these qualities and why most financial advisers and planners not able to fulfill these qualities? Read the full article written by Wilfred Ling publish by INVEST magazine HERE.

Upon graduation and finding a job, the first thing a new graduate would like to spent is their first paycheck. However, is this the right way to do? We advocate that the young person starts making a financial plan. For young graduate, financial planning need not be complicated. In fact, it is quite simple. In this issue of INVEST FEB/MARCH 2009 edition, Wilfred Ling tells us how young graduates can make simple but effective financial plan for themselves. The full article can be downloaded HERE.