Tam Ging Wien

My name is Tam Ging Wien; most people call me Wien for short. I have been investing for the last 15 years – or perhaps you could better say I was gambling in the early days as most of my early years of stock investing experience have been lost making. I could not understand why I kept losing money while people around me prospered. I did not understand how some people could consistently pick winners while I kept holding on to losers.

I couldn’t take it anymore, my hard earned money was like sand slowly draining away; slipping through the gaps my fingers. The more I tightened my grip, the more I lost. I finally mustered the courage to admit that I did not know what I was doing. I sold all my holdings and mentally wrote-off my losses.

I avoided the stock market for a number of years; but not because I fear losing money, but because I knew I first had to learn the right skills. I started seeking out mentors who could guide me on the right path. I attended any free talks and seminars that I could find on money management and stocks. I went through many books on investments. I surfed the internet for learning resources.

In 2012, I met Kenny Loh (aka Marubozu) through his course entitled “How to Pick Singapore REITs for Dividend Investing“. I had little capital then and could not afford expensive courses offered in the thousands. Kenny’s course was affordable and I decided to sign-up for the full day course.

To my surprise, despite the affordability his course has, it was not short on content. His class was engaging and easy to understand – he has a way of distilling down complex concepts so that a beginner like me could easily understand and immediately apply the concepts in my own investments.

Throughout the course, Kenny was very generous in his sharing and has always made an effort to answer all my queries. I certainly had many! He was patient and made sure every student understood the question before answering it. In fact, I even had questions after the class – sometimes many months after attending his course and Kenny still answers them even till today! Sometimes when I felt I needed a refresher, I would sign-up for Kenny’s course again.

Thanks to Kenny, I finally acquired the foundational skill set and gained the confidence I needed to restart my investing journey. Using the techniques I had learnt from Kenny and scraps I put together from my savings, I finally made my first investment after many years of avoiding the stock market. And what was the REIT I invested in? First REIT at a price of $1.05!

I was fortunate enough to have caught an uptrend wave when I invested – just months after my initial investment, the price soared netting me significant gains including the dividends earned. Again, using the same techniques Kenny thought, I concluded the REIT was overvalued and I sold close to the high. Fortunately, for me, a major correction soon ensued in the REIT markets. Again, with the skill sets I acquired from Kenny, the confidence I gained and the increased capital available, I reinvested them all back into various REITs in 2013 and 2014. Many of the REITs I still hold today came from the investments made during the period and repeatedly taking advantage of corrections to increase my shareholdings.

In 2016, I decided that I have gained enough knowledge and experience in REITs and decided to contribute back to the society by sharing my knowledge openly. I started documenting the numerous skill sets I have learnt both from Kenny and from my own experiences and eventually published my first investment book entitled “REITs to Riches: Everything You Need to Know About Investing Profitably In REITs” (ISBN 978-981-11-43182) in 2017.

This whole experience thought me that when it comes to anything in life, including investments in stocks and REITs, the first thing that really matters is the desire, attitude, mindset and a dedicated mentor to guide you towards your goals.

With the right mindset and a dedicated mentor, the rest still follow. And best of all, it doesn’t matter what your background is; you don’t need to be financially trained. If I myself have no formal education in finance; yet able to learn these investing skills from Kenny so can you.

I hope that my investing journey has inspired you and hope that you will join me and numerous others who have already benefited many times over from the invaluable lessons that Kenny has to offer.

God Bless!