Is the market too high now? Maybe, the charts don't look very good. New investors investing a large lump sum for the first time ought to be worried about investing at the peak. For my customers who are going to invest a large lump sum, this "worry" becomes my worry. That's the beauty of engaging an investment adviser. I have devised a way which guarantees that the entire lump sum will NOT be invested at the peak of the market.

I got a gut feeling that returns this year will be a single digit return for global equities. Double digits returns might be found in more concentrated bets like Singapore, Malaysia and Technology. Since these concentrated bets cannot be 100% of one's portfolio, it will not matter that these are double digits anyway.