729 - Mark made 15% to 54% from ISRG in 3 months In the last 3 weeks, I lost 4.4 KG. How? - I fasted. Fasting is about not eating (exercising restraint) for 16 hours and eating within an 8-hour window. This allows your body to rest and also lowers your insulin level. ​By combining fasting with eating hard-boiled eggs (2 eggs) for one of the meals, I lost 4.4 KG. Why it works? Fasting lowers your insulin level, allowing your body to rest and consume fat instead of the food you're eating. If you are always eating​, your body can't consume fat. Eating 2 eggs for one of the meals allow your body to absorb protein with low oil content (instead of pan-fried eggs which I love). This ​is an example where you feed yourself good food first instead of fast-food. After doing a lot of analysis, fasting is similar to how I invest. For my investing strategy to be successful, I hold cash 38% of the time in the market. Of course, everyone makes money during the bull market. Thus, investing is about avoiding and taking advantage of bear markets. Holding cash is not a bad thing as it allows you to rest (similar to fasting) and re-enter at the best time. To understand how powerful timing is.... ​​ If you can avoid one bear market, you can double your return.​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Cheers, Eric ---- Eric Seto Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) Chartered Investment Manager (CIM) Founder of 5MinInvesting.com Free webinar - how to get 30%: https://5mininvesting.com/free-case-study/ In May, my goal is to help 10 people without a financial background to master investing. Investing Accelerator is designed for people without a financial background. The goal is to achieve 30% return per year. In the first phase, you will learn long term investing and targeting 30% for tax free compound growth. This will help accelerate your overall wealth. In the second phase, you will learn monthly passive income to provide a more predictable cash flow (target 30% per year) which can cover your expenses. This will help accelerate your retirement goals.

I’m looking to start a trading company soon that can potentially manage your capital and provide a decent return. I value the feedback in this community and wanted to know what works best for you. Which option do you prefer the most? Please vote and let me know! 1. 3-5 year Bond with a fixed 12% interest rate investing in the trading company. So you get 1% interest income monthly. If the company goes IPO one day, it can be converted into shares. The return for a bond is the most certain. 2. Preference shares with a dividend between 12-24% investing in a fund. So you can get 1-2% per month depending on the fund performance. During down months, the return will be closer to 1% per month. The return will fluctuate between 1-2% per month. 3. Managed account - No fixed return but volatile based on the strategy (and market). The fee for such managed account will be 2% per year + 20% of the profit (similar to a typical hedge fund).  The money will not leave your account but this will only be available to Canadian investors (for now). This is also the most volatile option. The goal is to aim for 30% return before fees (likely around 25% after fees). Possible to lose 20%. For #1 and #2, there's no fee as the return is predetermined. For #3, the return can be volatile but the fee is predetermined based on the formula and percentage. If you have any suggestions/alternatives, let me know as well Cheers, Eric

My wife will be giving birth soon. So I will be slower in terms of responding in the community. As we welcome a new member into our family, ​it is good to consider the plan for the next 20 years, especially university tuition. ​I expect the tuition cost will increase by at least 2-10x in the next 20 years (due to inflation and competition). This is why I plan to invest early when the child is between 0-5 to cover the university tuition when the child is 18. ​Based on my calculation, if I can put away $10,000 per year for the first 5 years of the child's life, it will take care of the university education and housing cost in the future using my long-term strategy. For such long-term strategy, you want to ensure it is a set-and-forget strategy. You want to ensure that the long-term average return meets your expectations (For example - I aim for 15-30% per year) While timing helps, it is more important you have the discipline to contribute early on ​and let compound interest work for you.​​​​​​​​​​ Are you thinking ahead for your children's future?​ Cheers, Eric ---- Eric Seto Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) Chartered Investment Manager (CIM) Founder of 5MinInvesting.com Free webinar - how to get 30%: https://5mininvesting.com/free-case-study/ In May, my goal is to help 20 people without a financial background to master investing. Investing Accelerator is designed for people without a financial background. The goal is to achieve 30% return per year. In the first phase, you will learn long term investing and targeting 30% for tax free compound growth. This will help accelerate your overall wealth. In the second phase, you will learn monthly passive income to provide a more predictable cash flow (target 30% per year) which can cover your expenses. This will help accelerate your retirement goals. If you are interested, then let's hop on a call to see if you can benefit from the strategies in Investing Accelerator and get 30% per year.

Recently, someone in the free Invest & Retire community asked about whether it makes sense to invest in commodities. Here's the 200-year return for stocks vs bonds vs commodities (You can refer to the source here) What you will find is that stock makes around 6-10% which outperforms bonds. Stocks also outperform commodities as a whole. My theory is that the commodities supercycles led to big swings in the commodities prices in the last 100 years. ​This means that the best investment class is stock if you are able to withstand the volatility (and not panic) What about gold? ​​ Having said that, you may wonder if you can narrow it down to GOLD alone and see if it would be a positive return (since gold is limited right? It used to be the standard currency in the world) Gold price - inflation adjusted: Source​ 1915 - $600 ​2020 - $2000 This represents an annual increase of 1.5% in the last 105 years. This means investing in stocks still outperforms gold (5-10% > 1.5%) Having said that, it doesn't mean you can't make a positive return with commodities. I've successfully made 30% or more with gold companies, copper/zinc companies as well. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The key takeaway is that if you plan to invest in commodities-driven companies, you need to be better at timing the market and riding on the commodities supercycle in order to profit. It's not that you can't profit with commodities. It is that you need to be smarter and more careful.​ Cheers, Eric Seto, CPA, CIM --- In December, my goal is to help 20 people without a financial background to master investing Investing Accelerator is designed for people without a financial background. Here's the link to the webinar: https://bit.ly/3i9QT1V We focus on developing financial independence, where you have the ability to invest to earn a higher return.