Well, now there is a solution – BiKN. No, that is not a spelling mistake, that is the name of a new product that has been in development and has finally moved into distribution. BiKN (pronounced bee’-kin) is a new type of iPhone case – at the moment it is not available on Android, but these are on the way – which allows you to find the things that you hate to lose, or to make sure you never lose them in the first place. It has been created by Treehouse Labs in Austin, Texas, and it has already been named 2012 International Consumer Electronics Association Design and Innovation Award Honoree.

The BiKN case works in association with a number of ‘tags’ that you can attach to the things you want to keep track of, such as your keys – or even your children, if perhaps you are in the park for example – and using the App that has been specially developed for the purpose, you should never lose anything again.

How it works

There are three different settings that you can use to make sure you know where your tagged items are at all times: Find The BiKN smart case allows you to create a wireless network that will keep tabs on whatever you have tagged, such as your bag, your cat or your camera, and you can track it on your iPhone screen.

Using the Find setting, you will be guided to the spot that the item you have tagged is located.

Leash

This setting is particularly useful if you are with your children in the park, as it prevents you from losing something in the first place. For example, if you place the tag on your child’s clothing somewhere, you can set a distance limit on your phone, so when your child goes further than your limit from where you are, an alarm will notify you that he or she has exceeded that limit.

Page

The Page service is useful to get in touch with a number of ‘tags’ at once. The example BiKN gives is that you are with a number of people in a shopping mall all wearing a tag, and you have no mobile reception – but you need to let everyone that it is time to leave.

The Page service will enable you to ‘tell’ all of the tags at once that you need to leave.

Choosing the colours that suit you

You can choose a variety of colours for both the BiKN smart cases and the tags, and the first stage of choosing is to pick the type of iPhone you have. You would then choose your base colour – either black or white – and then choose your highlight colour from white, black, grey, blue, purple or green.

As a starter deal, there is a special offer of getting the case plus one tag for $99.99, or two tags and the case for $119.99. The BiKN App is available from the iTunes App Store for free.

You can find out more about BiKN at www.bikn.com, where you can buy the products and have them shipped to Asia from the USA.

To do this successfully, you need to understand a little more about how this works, so here we explain the basics.

So what is contrarian investing?

Contrarian investing is where you take a position which is the complete opposite of the generally accepted wisdom or trend within the market. You have to have the courage of your convictions to undertake this strategy, as you are setting out on a course where you are swimming against the tide. It is a high risk strategy, but the rewards can be worth the risk.

Why on earth would I be looking to take an opposing view to the majority of investors?

Good question, and it is one you should ask yourself every time you look to take a contrarian position to be honest. It is not something you should do lightly, because there is an argument that the majority of investors cannot be wrong. However, markets run on rumours and sentiment, and there are times – especially when they go to extreme highs or lows – when perfectly good, solid companies or sectors fall out of favour for no other reason than people ‘think’ they are worth less than they are.

Of course, it works in reverse too. When markets and sectors are overvalued and investors are piling in like there is no tomorrow, you may want to take a contrarian view on the market falling.

Well, what difference does ‘what people think’ make?

It makes a big difference, because if you are prepared to stand by your research, or instinct, then you can buy into sectors or companies that are effectively on sale through no fault of their own.

Think of it as a shopping trip, you would not wait to buy something until the price went up would you? Buying shares is no different, but you need to be able to sift out the bargains from the rubbish to make sure you are not paying for something that is not going to be of value to you.

OK, so how do I identify these companies and sectors that are worth taking such a chance on?

You need to look at the fundamental valuations of the companies or sectors in question, and consider why the price has dropped. If you can see a specific reason relating to the company itself that has caused its price to fall, such as a profits warning, a major change in the board or another reason that is specific to the way the company itself is being run.

If there is nothing specific that you can identify, other than perhaps that the sector itself has been hit because of, perhaps, political decisions or the wider economic climate taking its toll, then it might be worth a closer look.

A company – or fund for that matter – that has seen its price drop without a good, fundamental reason is worth considering for a contrarian investment position.

I don’t think I can be bothered to do all that research, is there another way I can find out what I need to know?

You could speak nicely to your adviser to get them to do the leg work for you. In fact, a good adviser should be helping you to make the most appropriate use of the money within your portfolio, and if you are prepared to take a contrarian view, you could see significant benefits when the company or sector comes back into favour. It is all about steeling your nerves, and believing that the position you have taken is correct.

Hmmm, easier said than done. Are there any famous investors who are contrarian that I can get some tips from?

Actually, yes. One of the world’s most famous – and most successful – investors is a contrarian. George Soros, the so-called ‘Man who broke the Bank of England’ because he made an unimaginable $1 billion in a single day because he took a short position on sterling on Black Wednesday in 1992, which forced the UK out of the European Exchange Rate mechanism. In hindsight, it may have been a good thing given what is happening to the euro right now.

So is it only in extreme times that contrarian investing works?

No, not exactly, it is just easier to find valid examples to take a position on when markets and sentiment are operating at extremes. There will always be situations where you can find companies that have seen their share prices fall because of external factors, but without extremes, you will have to look harder to find them. This makes it more labour intensive, but there can be real rewards if you get it right.

The obvious place to take a contrarian view would be Europe at the moment I would say, am I getting the hang of this then?

Yes, it sounds like it. There are some real problems in Europe with sovereign debt crises playing out in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and now possibly Spain, not to mention France and Belgium having seen their interest payments they need to pay for their borrowing rising sharply.

But this does not mean that the companies within the European markets are in a worse position than they were six or even 12 months ago. Vincent Devlin, manager of Black Rock Greater European Investment Trust plc, said that despite the problems in Europe, it still contains “some of the healthiest economies in the world and a high number of world leading franchises”.

He added: “If confidence returns to the region, we would expect Europe to perform very well as an investment region.” But remember, there are problems worldwide, so you could argue the same applies to companies in the US and Japan, and other Asian markets. Currently, there are opportunities in so many areas that it is certainly worth a look.

Should I stick with what I know, investment wise I mean?

That makes your research easier, for sure, and it will also help you to understand when to change your view. But again, your adviser should be able to help you with this, so if you have the stomach for it, take a look at being contrarian. Just do not expect to be as successful as George Soros. Yet.

Triathlon comprises a swim, followed by a cycle ride and then a run, which are all completed back-to-back with a ‘transition’ between each. It is just one of a range of multisport events that are being tackled by athletes of all levels, and all shapes and sizes, who want something more than a simple one event race to participate in.

Distances vary from super sprints, which are a 400m swim, 20km bike and 5km run, to Ironman which is a 3.8km swim, 180km bike ride and then a 42.2km run. (see box) In fact, it is possible to do a double Ironman, which is double all the Ironman distances, and a deca-Ironman, which is a mind boggling 38km swim, 1800km bike and 422km run.

Everything up to Ironman is completed in a single day, a double will go over 24 hours and anything up to 36 hours, while a deca will be completed over an entire week. Yes, it is non-stop – well, with as little sleep as you can manage anyway. But do not let the distances put you off getting started.

Dan Roberts of Dan Roberts Training, who is the fitness guru for a number of Hollywood A-listers, used to live in Thailand as a pro athlete, and has worked as a fitness consultant in India and Singapore. He recommends starting small to begin with if you are just getting into your fitness, and then building up to a triathlon.

He said: “Start with 10k run – I say this because running is easier to do and there are loads of 10k races all over Asia – and you can see if you enjoy it. Then start swimming or cycling. If you can do two disciplines reasonably well, then doing a tri is Irona good goal. You should start off with sprint tris then move on to more challenging distances.”

It may seem daunting, but there are plenty of ways to get involved, and one of the best starting points is to find a local club to see if you can get some guidance from more experienced multisport racers. To find clubs in your location, there are a number of triathlon federations across Asia (see list) which will help you get together with likeminded people. It is not a cheap sport to be involved in, as there is a lot of equipment needed.

For example, you may need to use a wetsuit to swim in open water, you might want to get a tri suit – a special all-in-one Lycra outfit that is skin tight and prevents drag in the water and on the bike – and you most certainly need a good pair of running shoes. There is also the question of getting a bike to use for the cycle section. It is possible to get lots of this kit second hand, as triathletes are infamous for buying new kit to ‘bling’ up their bikes or improve other kit, so there is often good quality kit available from other triathletes. This is another good reason to join a club, as you can often pick up some pre-loved bargains that are still in good shape from clubmates.

Training for a triathlon is essential – even the shortest events can be punishing, as putting the three sports together back-to-back is harder than many people imagine, even for sprint distances. If you can get some training tips from a club, then so much the better. Often they will have coaches who will help you with techniques too, such as improving your transition speed – the changeover from swim to bike and bike to run, known as transition 1 or T1 and transition 2 or T2.

If you need, or prefer to train alone you can get some training plans online that will stand you in good stead. For example, you can pick up free training programmes online at www.triathlongeek.com which will give you a 14-week sprint triathlon training programme to follow. If you are looking at get into multisport events, going straight to a triathlon may seem a little daunting.

But you can start off with some smaller events and work your way up. Other multisport events include an Aquathon – swim/run, or an Aquabike – swim/bike – or a duathlon which is run/bike/run. Nutrition plays a big part in triathlons too, as the extended period you are exercising for means you have to make sure you are properly hydrated, and you may also need to take on some food while you are racing too.

Sarah Coope, a former top pro triathlete who placed third in the Ironman World Championships in Kona, has been European Triathlon champion six times, and has been British Triathlon many more times, said it is vital to get your nutrition right, even for short events.

She added: “Even for a 5k it is vital to make sure you eat and drink correctly, but this becomes even more vital as the distance increases to enable you to finish a race. You need to prepare beforehand, and make sure you recover properly after you finish the race.

“Try to get into the habit of drinking little and often throughout the day, and if you are very active you will need at least three litres of water a day, more if you are living and training in a hot climate. You need to be able to eat and drink while you are running and cycling, which will take some practice. So make sure you are doing this when you are in training. One golden rule is never to try anything new on race day, as a different energy drink or form of nutrition can really upset your stomach.”

Triathlon is really starting to take off in Asia, and there have already been a number of Asian training and development camps for junior and under 23 athletes. The latest was in Seogwipo, Jeju, Korea, where 13 triathletes and coaches were put through their paces under the auspices of the International Triathlon Union.

Libby Burrell, Development Director for the ITU, said athlete development camps such these are a great learning opportunity for coaches and athletes alike, and that this plan would no doubt show itself with more Asian triathletes on top of ITU podiums around the world.

“This year the ASTC took a high performance approach for their annual camp using strict standards for selection of participants in the hope that these identified athletes will represent the new generation of Asian triathlon stars on the world stage.

“This is the first of several future camps where the progress of these athletes will be monitored and developed. ASTC has the athletes with the talent to win medals at major events, and this project is just one of the many ways they plan to do just this.”

Ki Woo Kyong, the Asian Triathlon Confederation (ASTC) Sport Development Coordinator for Korea, said it had put a strategy in place which ensured athletes had to be at a certain standard before they could attend this high-level training camp. This raised the bar in terms of the level of performance achieved.

But there is plenty of room for people who are just starting out in the sport. Information on triathlon in Asia can be found at Asian Triathlon Confederation (ASTC) which covers 25 countries and areas in Asia either as a triathlon federation or association. As you progress in the sport everyone has a natural respect for each other, as we all know how hard it is to get to the start line in the first place. Go for it – it’s a great sport.

As Chrissie Wellington, four times Ironman World Champion says: “If you put one foot in front of the other you will cross the line.”

Useful Contacts

ASTC

www.astc.triathlon.org

Thailand Triathlon

www.thailandtriathlon.org

Indonesian Triathlon Federation

www.triathlonindonesia.org

Dan Roberts

www.danrobertstraining.com

Sarah Coope

www.teambodyworksxtc.com

In Mongolia’s Bayan Ulgii Province, there are over 200 golden eagle hunters, all carrying on the ancient tradition of their forefathers. Most of the actual hunting takes place during the winter, when the birds are lean and hungry, but a large festival takes place in the province at the end of autumn, where the ethnic Kazakh hunters gather to show off their skills, as well as compete in traditional Kazakh games on horseback.

The bond between hunter and eagle is strong, as the eagle is a fiercely independent creature, and to create trust it must be trained from an early age. The eagle hunter I am staying with, 50-year-old Bikbolat, tells me that females make the best hunters, as they are more aggressive due to protecting offspring, plus are a third heavier than their male counterparts.

Training young chicks can be preferable, as they are tamer and won’t harm children or sheep, but older birds are actually better hunters and have the killer instinct needed to bring down wolves and foxes. Bikbolat says that the eagle chicks can be obtained by finding nests on mountain tops during hatching season, but that to get older birds they must resort to setting out traps baited with fresh meat, or tethering an accompanying eagle next to a carcass, provoking a flying eagle into a jealous rage if it occurs in their territorial space. Once trained, the eagle goes out with the hunter on horseback, riding on his left arm.

The awareness between the veteran hunters and their birds is such that the slightest change in talon pressure on a hunter’s arm alerts him that his bird has picked up the scent of a prey. Some Kazakh hunters have antiquated Russian rifles which they use to pick off hares, but most of the hunting is left to the eagles, as their vision is eight times as sharp as that of humans. While their main victims are marmots and corsac foxes, prized for their pelts which make excellent insulation, the physically powerful eagles also take down owls, wolves and even rare snow leopards. One could say that with enough livestock, hunting is superfluous, and mainly done for sport.

However, the cloaks and hats that the hunters wrap themselves in during the severe winters are made entirely from the furs they get. Additionally, the practice of eagle hunting still serves as a rite of passage for Kazakh young men and is a highly refined art form that has been passed down for generations.

Eagle hunting requires a blend of force and tenderness as well as a profound respect for the natural world. The birds are treated with reverence by the hunters, and are always released back into the wild after 10 years or so.

A Kazakh proverb sums up the hunters’ lives out in one of the world’s most remote places: “Fast horses and fierce eagles are the wings of the Kazakh people.”

Travel Tips:

Mongolia can be reached from Bangkok via Air China, which has daily flights to Ulaan Baatar via Beijing

(www.airchina.com/th/en/index.shtml).

To reach Bayan Ulgii, the new Eznis Airways has domestic flights every other day and is the most comfortable way

of reaching the remote west of the country (www.eznisairways.com).

To set up visits with eagle hunters or tour anywhere in Mongolia, local outfitters Kazakh Tour are recommended

(www.kazakhtour.com)

Of course, not everyone has a partner to share the financial burden, which means it is even more important to keep a tight rein on your financial affairs, because if things go wrong, you are literally on your own.

There are no end of women who come to see me in times of crisis who suddenly realise that while they were busy taking care of their children, or working through their day’s chores, they have no concept of how their finances actually work. Single ladies are often just too busy to take the time to deal with their finances as effectively as they should.

They will be surprised when they find out that they have more debts than they expected, or insurance policies they did not know about, or had forgotten about. The real shame though is when they come to me and find out that while they thought their husband was dealing with the life insurance, he thought they were. Often by the time they see me, it is too late to remedy this.

Financial planning may seem complicated, and it can appear boring at times to the untrained eye. But consider this: if you think finance is boring, then how interesting do you think a life in penury is going to be?

Working women, mothers, single career women and even those who are simply trying to make ends meet all have one thing in common – they fail to take the time to deal with their personal financial planning. It is very low on this list of priorities, and by the time they realise they needed to work on that as much as their career or their children, it is often too late.

Your financial position has such an intimate bearing on everything you do in life, that you have no means of avoiding its grasp. For example, having enough money to live on is essential, but having enough to do what you want to do is one of life’s luxuries. As many of us will have seen both ends of the spectrum, it is important not to lose sight of the importance of nurturing your financial affairs, in the same way that you would nurture your child or your garden. In the end, you want your money to grow in the same kind of way, to give you the best fruits of your labour you can have without any worry.

You want your money to grow, but in a way that will allow you to not only meet your goals and aims, it will also align with your ethical principles. Yes, it is possible to get the results you want without losing sight of your hopes and beliefs along the way, and I for one am here to help you achieve that.

Over the coming months I will be looking at the best ways you can keep on top of your financial affairs, not by having to pore over detailed spreadsheets and watch endless reams of financial current affairs videos – unless you really want to – but rather by establishing some basic understanding of the best way to make your money work as hard for you as you do for it.

Finance does not need to be hard work, however it is something that needs relatively regular attention to avoid it becoming difficult to manage. There are so many areas you need to consider to ensure your affairs are not only well-balanced, but so that no single item gets overlooked.

Let’s take a workout example. You would be unlikely to go to the gym on a regular basis and simply work on one set of muscles in your body, would you? For sure it would mean that you may have amazing triceps, if that was your muscle of choice, but they would be useless if the rest of your body was badly out of shape. Well, the same thing happens with your financial affairs if you do not ensure they are worked on throughout the year.

Extreme financial events, such as the credit crunch or the ongoing euro crisis, will quickly knock investment portfolios out of shape without proper monitoring. And it is not only global crises that can have an effect either. Personal crises are often even more shocking to the system, such as a house flood, or a death in the family, or even perhaps a poorly relative who needs medical assistance that you will have to fund. It could even be you that needs medical help, and although we would all hope this does not happen to us, there is no point in being unrealistic. It could happen to anyone, at any time.

But I realise that what you do not need is a lecture, or a set of goals that are so complicated, it makes it feel impossible to work out what you need, or where you need to start from. So I will make finance simple by taking one issue each month and offering practical advice on how you can make the changes that will empower you.

Through this monthly column, I am going to be giving you the tools you need to take control of your finances, which will help you to keep control of everything else in your life. I will take away the worry of uncertainty, explain the difficult bits, and have a bit of a laugh with you along the way. After all, finance can be fun. Honest.

However, for many investing is a way to create an income, whether for now or in the future. In the past, people would often buy an annuity to provide them with an income for life, but the current historically low interest rates make this far less attractive, and investors have to be more creative in their income sources.

Everything from stocks and shares, bonds, income funds, and property can provide you with an income, and you should consider all of the options carefully before you make a decision on which is the right one for you.

So to make life easier, I will take them in turn and look at the pros and cons of each:

Stocks and shares

Investing directly in stocks and shares is not for the faint-hearted, as you are completely exposed to the ups and downs of the markets, and if you are not able to spread your investments sufficiently you could find your portfolio is taking risks that make you uncomfortable.

The income you receive from stocks and shares is paid in dividends, and these are generally paid twice a year. The amount you will receive depends on the performance of the company, but there is no guarantee you will receive any dividends at all if the company performs badly.

To get the most from your investment, look for strong companies that have a high dividend and a relatively low share price to maximise your returns.

Bonds and gilts

Corporate bonds are essentially IOUs issued by companies in return for an interest payment to investors of a fixed amount over a defined period. The government equivalent are called gilts.

At the end of the term, if all is well, you will get your original investment back – the exception is when the company or government goes bust and ‘defaults’ on your debt. It does happen, just think of the position many eurozone countries are close to now.

This is rare, but  it does mean this type of investing, although lower risk than shares because the bond or gilt issuer is obliged to pay you the agreed interest rate for the agreed time, is not without risk.

Bond funds

Investing directly in corporate bonds can require sums so high that it prevents many investors from getting close to this type of asset. So bond funds pool the funds of a number of investors, which gives the opportunity to buy a basket of bonds. This is then run by a fund manager, who will make changes to the investments as and when necessary to keep the income flowing for investors.

It reduces the risk to you of a single company or government defaulting. If there is a problem with one, the others will usually carry on paying out. The fund managers will usually tell you how much return you will get in income each year, and they will be measured on how effective their strategy is by reaching this target.

Income funds

The fund managers will usually set out an amount of income they expect to generate for you over the year, and will use a combination of both bonds and stocks and shares to reach their targets. Again, the investors’ money is pooled together to enable a fund manager to buy a far wider range of investments, and disseminate the risk that you are taking with your money.

Be aware that in some cases when the funds are not performing well, some managers will return your capital to you as ‘income’. It is not much use to have someone give you your original investment back when what you want is to generate returns, so using a good financial adviser can help you not fall into this trap.

Property

Investing in property has always been popular, and it is easy to see why. There are few investments that allow you to borrow money to make money, but property is the exception.

Rental income is used by many expats to help boost their spending power, and you can get some good returns. The downside is that if you do not live near the property, you will have to pay someone to manage it for you, and you will also have to foot the repair bills.

That said, property still remains popular, and there are currently some bargain properties to be had in the likes of Spain, Ireland, Italy and Portugal thanks to the credit crunch. Rental incomes have also risen because fewer people are able to afford to buy a property, which makes rental property rarer, pushing the price up. Like so many things in the financial world, it is about supply and demand.

Of course, you have the option of investing in property funds too, which will provide income and allow your investment to be more liquid, in case you need to get at the money in a hurry.

Although any one of these methods would work for you to generate income, there is no need to stick to one. A combination of methods within a balanced portfolio will often be the most sensible course of action. So speak to your financial adviser to find out how to generate the extra income you need to enjoy your life.

First published in Expatriate Lifestyle

Living as an expat brings its own concerns when it comes to healthcare, because where you are will most certainly have an impact on the type of treatment you can expect. In many countries, you will not be able to rely on state-funded healthcare, you will have to buy cover yourself, and that is a decision you most certainly do not want to get wrong.

It may be tempting to get healthcare that covers you just for where you are currently living. It is OK if you are not planning to move on, it may be slightly cheaper, it may not. But realistically, expats often find themselves heading to a new country for work, or even to retire, and that can mean having an uncomfortable time re-buying your medical insurance policy when you are likely to face higher charges thanks to advancing age or moving to a more expensive country.

But trying to ‘go it alone’ when you are getting cover is a dangerous game – not only could you find you are paying more than you need to, you may also end up paying premiums for cover that will not give you what you need when the time comes. For example, if you have a spouse and children, you need to ensure the entire family is covered for healthcare – and that means getting the right policy.

Yet this is a lot harder than you might think. Healthcare has so many elements – out-patient and in-patient care, peripheral healthcare treatments such as physiotherapy, diagnostic tests – you must also try to compare the cover of various policies so that you can find out whether the premiums you are being offered are reasonable. The trouble is, the policies differ in some small but vitally important ways, and to the untrained eye it may seem like all is well when it really is not.

The value of a medical insurance policy can only be judged when you come to claim – and without taking advice when you are buying the policy, you may find that you are unable to claim when you need to. Yes, this would be a travesty after paying years of premiums, but worse than that it could be a tragedy if it means a loved one goes untreated. This is why talking to an expert at the start is vital to ensure you get the cover you need.

First published in Asia Life.

It might be easy to think that in Asia, where we are seeing a relative boom compared to the rest of the global economies, that it does not matter. But you would be wrong to think that, and here is why.

You see, the conventional wisdoms of investing in bonds have, essentially, been turned on their head thanks to the current sovereign debt crisis. Ordinarily, bond funds will invest in the countries that are the biggest issuers of bonds, the likes of the traditional, old economies such as Italy, France, the UK and Germany. Yet there is an irony to this method – these countries are the most indebted nations, by definition, so are consequently the most likely nations to default when it comes to paying their debts.

Bonds are essentially an IOU from a nation – or company, if we are talking about corporate bonds – where the entity in question agrees to pay you a set amount of interest for an agreed period of time, and at the end of that term you will get your investment back. Relatively simple really, and it is a good way of allowing you to plan for events in the future, for example a retirement income.

However, where it becomes complicated is where the country – or company – is not in a position to pay your money back because they no longer have enough in assets to repay it. Then it would default, and would be considered bankrupt unless a renegotiation of the debt, or some refinancing, can be arranged.

Now, that is what is going on in Europe right now, the EU nations are working hard to try and prop up those that have effectively overspent on the assets they have, and can no longer afford to pay their debts. They are struggling to refinance, because the amount they have to pay to encourage new countries or bond funds to buy their bonds is so high that there is real concern they will not be able to repay any more money that is made available to them. They are faced with the prospect of decreasing their currency valuation, or defaulting – neither of which is particularly appealing to their populations who have savings and assets that would also be devalued.

Italy, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and now France and Belgium are all either having to make significant cuts to their spending to try and balance the books, or are being caught with the contagion that those countries who have already needed bailouts – Portugal, Ireland and Greece – have precipitated across the region. Italy and Greece now have unelected technocrats running their parliaments, as they are in dire need of tough economic decisions being made, not popular political decisions. The future of the euro itself is now being openly questioned, with Jacques Delors, one of the main architects of the euro, admitting it was flawed from the very beginning.

So what we are seeing is a situation where the traditionally strong, old economies are becoming too risky to invest in, despite their increasing interest payments. In contrast, you have relatively new economies, such as China, which has a strong foreign currency reserve – the only country to hold more dollars than China is America itself – and strong growth prospects going forward.

Yet because it is not regarded as a traditionally ‘strong’ economy, China is still paying high rates for its borrowing, despite there being less chance of it actually defaulting on its debt. This is not the only country in this position either, bonds from Qatar, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Russia are also of interest, for the same reasons.

So if there is one thing the ‘New World Order’ – at least financially – is telling us, it is that you should not discount funds that invest in what are often considered to be more risky economies. As things stand, it could be a question of the Far East and Middle East taking a greater lead in global finance than ever before in the years to come.

First published in Expat Lifestyle magazine.

The rate of inflation is detailed by countries based most often on a basket of goods that you would buy, such as the staples of bread, milk and eggs. It is the changes in consumer prices that make the biggest difference to your spending power, and the inflation measure is a means of identifying nationally what is happening with regard to these prices.

The rates across Asia are currently very varied. For example, the inflation rate in Thailand stood at 3.4% in January. In December, the latest available figure, China’s inflation was at 4.1%.

Cambodia is faring slightly worse according to the latest available figures, and was at 5.7% (November 2011) – although this is far less than the 19.7% its residents suffered in 2008. At present, Vietnam is suffering very high inflation, and it stood at 18.1% in December 2011.

Yes, there are a lot of different figures there, but it is important to understand what they mean. In real terms, the higher the inflation rate, the less you will be able to buy with the money you have available. $100 at an inflation rate of 18% will buy you today what would have cost you $81 yesterday – I am being figurative, but you can see what I mean.

As inflation rises, it becomes ever harder to keep your money growing at the same rate as prices, so your spending power is going to fall. If you cannot get a return on your savings or investments that will beat inflation, especially after you have paid tax, you are going to be losing out financially.

But even though you are unlikely to find returns on your investments that will reach the heights of 18%, the more you can generate for your money, the less impact inflation will have.

This is why it is vital to take advice on the best way to grow your portfolio, whether you have the money in cash or investments, as this will keep you closer to maintaining, and hopefully exceeding your previous spending power as time goes on.

But that is not the whole story. Although a nation’s inflation rate is defined specifically by what is put into the ‘basket’ that its leaders decide should be there, we all have our own inflation rates – and they depend specifically on what we are buying on a regular basis. Some prices will rise, such as commodities that are running out, while others will fall – electronics particularly are getting cheaper as time goes on.

If prices are rising for, say, coffee in a region, then it is vital to look for ways to cut our costs, such as buying a different, cheaper item if you can, or choosing an alternative to the product you usually buy that is on sale. While this may sound obvious, and something you would look to do anyway, this is one of the most effective things you can do to help reduce your own personal rate of inflation.

But really, you need a two-pronged attack – make the most you can on your savings and investments, and cut as much as you can on your spending costs. It sounds like simple budgeting doesn’t it? Well there is a good reason for that, it is.

First published in Asia Life

For most of us, the majority of time we have investments is spent somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, with returns either ticking over nicely and providing us with a reasonable income or a generous nest-egg when we need it, or falling slightly behind where we would like them to be. But let’s face it, ‘jogging along nicely’ does not tend to make many headlines, so it is only in times of extremes that we hear about stocks and shares and the way they are performing on the news.

Sadly, that can mean that people get the wrong idea about investing, they think it is either going to make them a fortune overnight, or lose one within the same timeframe. In reality, you would be either very lucky, or unlucky, to do either.

Now don’t get me wrong, that is not to say it does not happen. But it is rare. You see, with investments, you will only ever make a real loss rather than a paper one by cashing in your investment at a point where you have lost money. For example, if you put $1,000 into a fund and the value of your investment fell to $800 within a week, you would not have actually ‘lost’ anything – your investment value would have fallen, but unless you actually cashed in that $800, you have not lost a penny.

If you left it where it was and the next month it was worth $1,200 – and yes, I know this sounds like a particularly volatile fund, but it is only for illustrative purposes – then you not have ‘gained’ anything in real terms either. Not unless you cashed in your investment at that point, and then you would have made 20% on your money in a month.

The thing is, no matter how you try to separate emotion from financial decisions, it is extremely hard to do, especially when it is your money and financial future that is on the line. This is why many advisers will offer two types of service to help you with your portfolio investing – wealth management, and investment advice.

The latter is, quite simply, the means by which an adviser will take you through what he or she perceives to be the best way for you to invest your money to reach your end goals. They will give you the information about your options, explain the likely pros and cons, and provide you with tools to even monitor the decisions you make about your money. But that is the key part of this, the decisions are your decisions to make, the adviser will not be making them for you.

Now, if you have a lot of time, or a specific knowledge or interest in investing, that may well be the best way for you to deal with your financial affairs. You would have control over how and when your money is moved, what investments you choose to put your money into, and determine when to be in or out of certain markets.

This is part of the fun of investing, but it is also hard work to keep up with everything that is going on while you are keeping up with everyday living. So if you prefer not to have this extra workload, then you can choose to use a wealth management service instead.

Although wealth management has elements of investment advice within it – the adviser will need to know your aims and objectives before making any decisions – the day-to-day running of your portfolio will be given over to a professional. So you will not have a say in exactly when and where you money is moved around, the wealth manager will make those decisions for you, but they will be based entirely on the agreement you come to around what you want your money to do for you, and over what period of time.

Wealth management takes the worry and effort out of researching the market, keeping a close eye on the news, and moving your money around yourself, often when it is too late. It is the practice of giving a professional the reins of your portfolio so they can keep everything on track for you.

They will be backed up by teams of researchers who will be checking market moves and news on a regular basis, and their expertise will allow them to see trends or potential pitfalls before the general public. This can give you an advantage. Since they are working on this full-time, they are often able to make decisions ahead of the majority of investors, and that is likely to keep your portfolio either protected, or moving forwards more effectively.

Yes, wealth management services can cost more than investment advice, but then you tend to get more out of them – they will generally prove their worth. After all, there is no point in having lower fees if the result is a much lower investment performance after those fees are taken into account.

First published in Expatriate Lifestyle

With retirement for many people so far away, and more immediate drains on our income ever present such as mortgage payments and school fees, it is the one thing that often gets forgotten or delayed. But the longer you leave it before you start saving, the harder it is going to be.

In many countries, including the UK, retirement planning within a family is often undertaken primarily by the man in the household. While this is the same in many countries across Asia, the notable exception is Taiwan, according to research from HSBC. Here, women are more likely than men to deal with retirement plans. Interestingly, there is also generally a greater level of equality between men and women in retirement planning across Asian countries, such as China and Korea.

David Wells, head of investments, pensions and savings at HSBC, said that while people in the West are less optimistic about their retirement prospects, those in the East are seeing “rising incomes and living standards are merging with a culture of saving and self-reliance to create a generation of well-prepared retirement optimists” in emerging economies.

The difference between men and women when it comes to retirement planning is important, as statistically women are more likely to live longer than men, so they will need more money to survive for a greater number of years after retirement. Women are also more likely to take time off work to raise a family, and this can harm their ability to save effectively for retirement.

In Japan, for example, women born in 2009 are expected to live until they are 86, while men born in the same year have a life expectancy of 80. In Thailand the differential is even greater, with men born in 2009 expected to live until 66, while women are expected to survive until they reach 74 on average, according to statistics from the World Health Organisation.

Depending on when you expect to retire – it will usually be any age from 50 onwards – you are potentially looking at living for at least another 20 to 30 years on the money you have accumulated in your retirement fund. That is going to be costly, and making the money stretch for that length of time takes meticulous planning.

Generating a retirement fund can be done in a number of ways. If you are an expat in a region where you are not paying tax on your income, then saving into your retirement fund will give you the equivalent of tax relief. The type of fund or funds you choose will largely be determined by your personal attitude to risk, and how close you are to retirement. For example, if you are prepared to take a greater risk with your money, you would be looking at equity funds and perhaps emerging markets as an option. You are likely to generate higher returns from your portfolio than those who are risk averse.

But everything has to be considered in the context of how close you are to retirement, as the nearer it is, the less risk you can afford to take with your money as you will have less time to repair any damage done by sharp falls in the markets. Traditionally, women are more risk averse than men when it comes to investing, but the HSBC report found the opposite to be the case for China, where women were happy to take greater risks than men when it came to their retirement portfolios.

The report stated: “Men and women display very different attitudes when it comes to embracing long-term investment risks. Whereas only one-in-four men (25%) count themselves as conservative investors, this rose to two-fifths (39%) of women.

“China is the only country in the survey where women have a greater risk appetite than men: in all other countries women appear to be more risk averse.”

Of course, the way you create your retirement fund has a bearing on how you will be able to generate your income. Building a property portfolio to generate rental income is a popular method of funding retirement. This has the advantage of having tangible assets in the bricks and mortar and you are not reliant on annuity rates to try and generate enough income to live on. Also, because you can borrow money to invest in property, you are able to leverage your investment, something you would not generally be able to do elsewhere.

The downside is the relative illiquidity of the assets – if you needed to, you would not be able to get rid of them quickly. If you build a portfolio with stocks, shares and funds, then you will need to turn that money into income. You can do this by keeping your portfolio invested and generating an income from it, using bond funds and good tax planning.

But the vagaries of this method mean you could leave yourself with too little income to live on if the bond markets turned against you. In reality, the best way to create a retirement fund is to have a mix of assets, such as property, bonds, equities and cash, so your portfolio can weather financial storms more effectively when they hit because you are not relying on one asset class to consistently perform well. If you want to know exactly what your income will be, then you can buy an annuity, where you invest part – or all – of your retirement fund with an insurance company, and it pays you an agreed amount of income until you die.

If you buy a level annuity, then you will be paid the same each year with no uplift in line with inflation. This does mean you will get more income at the start of your retirement than you would with an inflationlinked annuity, but as time goes on, your spending power will reduce in real terms. Inflation is a silent thief, and is a real threat for pensioners who have a fixed income.

With the current global economic crisis, there is a significant risk that we will see inflation start to rise more sharply in the short-term. An inflation-linked annuity will help you to keep pace with rising prices, so you should be able to maintain a similar standard of living over time. But without this inflation-linked uplift, you will soon find your buying power eroded, and it will become increasingly difficult to make ends meet.

It is vital that you take advice when you start your retirement planning process, as building a good foundation is a sure way to get the results you desire. But even if you have started your retirement planning without advice, then make sure you get some guidance as time goes on, because it is a complicated area, and it easy to make mistakes.

The problem is, without the right advice, you may not realise this until it is too late.

Notability

This top paid for app allows you to take notes through handwriting, audio recording and word processing, with each integrated so they seamlessly work to create comprehensive notes, saving you time and effort.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12

The EA Sports Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 golf game has been updated, and it now plays “with more precision and power”. Challenge your friends and colleagues to Closest to the Pin, and put your best shots on Facebook for bragging value.

Chess

Mastersoft Mobile Solutions has created one of the best desktop PC chess games in the world which finished fourth in the World Microcomputer Chess Championship, and this same system is used in this app. High resolution images in a game designed by “chess champions”.

F1 2010 Game

The official Formula 1 driving game for adrenaline junkies who want to drive themselves, albeit virtually, around some of the most impressive circuits in the world, which for 2010 included Korea. New acceleration pedal and precise steering help you to imagine you are your heroes.

Pages

A word processing programme app available only on iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, where you can create, view and edit documents which are automatically synced across all of your devices. You can choose from 16 templates to create everything from letters and reports to posters and flyers. Using the iCloud service, you means you can start editing your document where you left off no matter what device you are using.

Pretty Pet Juice Empire HD (image above)

The follow on from the successful Pretty Pet Tycoon sees Piglina in her quest to dominate the fruit industry, by making the biggest profits with your help. Part of the Pretty Pet empire from Dream Cortex.

Need For Speed Shift For iPad

EA Sports has created a real driver’s driving game, with an in-car point of view of everything, including first hand experience of crashing. You get to drive one of the world’s fastest cars, the Bugatti Veyron 16.4, and other impressive motors that most of us could only dream about, like the Nissan GT-R (R35). You can even race your friends if you link up on WiFi or Bluetooth.

Skype for iPad

Fantastic, who could fail to like the free internet communication software Skype in a handy format for the iPad? If you have not yet discovered the benefits of making free calls and even video calls through the internet, you do not know what you are missing. Having this facility available on the iPad provides even more flexibility for when and where you call loved ones, or business contacts. If you already have a Skype account, then once you are logged in, all of your contacts will already be available to call.

The Merry Manor HD

Another way of creating your own virtual world, as you get to build your own merry manor with a farm where you grow fruit and veg, and find yourself in many challenging and fun situations with your neighbours Oops Bunny, a racoon called Nostradamus and Operator, a business cat.

Modern War

With impressive graphics for a free app, Modern War gives you the chance to play war games with missions, bases to build and the ability to take on other opponents. You even have a choice of which country to fight for, China, Russia, Germany, Iran, the UK or the US. Not one for younger children though, you would need to be 12 or over to play this due to the nature of the game.

Japan

Niseko United Who could ask for more than four ski resorts on a single mountain – the 1,308m Niseko Annupuri. The Niseko Hanazono, Niseko Grand Hirafu, Niseko Village Ski Resorts and the Niseko Annupuri Ski Area are just 100m south of Sapporo, and provides options for all levels of skiers and snowboarders.

The lower part of the Grand Hirafu resort has varied terrain, while beyond the tree line you can access wide open, obstacle-free runs. The Niseko Village resort has enough variety for even the most adventurous skiers, while Hanazono is famed for having extra dry snow, with long runs suitable for all levels of skiers and snowboarders.

Costs: One lift pass gives you access to all four resorts, and for a five while webday adult pass between December 10, 2011 and March 11, 2012, you would pay Yen26,000 ($333). Children aged 13-15 and those over 60 would pay Yen19,200 ($244). Children aged 7-12 would pay Yen14,000 ($180).

Facilities: You have an impressive five restaurants to choose from for a little après-ski in Niseko Annupuri. Paradise hut is described as a ‘cozy cafe’ in a mountain hut, while if you get the munchies after all that hard work, you can do ‘all-you-can-eat’ at the Barbecue Restaurant Mokumoku- tel. Niseko Village has 10 restaurants and cafes to choose from, with Altitude located on the roof of the Green Leaf and open every day, weather permitting. Niseko Grand Hirafu has 11 food and drink stops for your delectation, Hanazono adds its Hanazono308 Cafeteria in the Hokkaido Rest House to the eclectic mix. There really is something for everyone.

You can even check out how the slopes are looking before you go, as there are webcams placed around the resorts that can be viewed on the website.

How to get there: You can get a train or bus from Sapporo to Niseko, see the website for details. If you are driving, you will be travelling anything from around 92km to 105km from Sapporo. Again, detailed instructions on how to get to each resort are available on the website. www.niseko.ne.jp

South Korea

Alpensia Resort, Pyeongchang

With its heart set on hosting the Winter Olympics, South Korea has been working hard to create world class winter sports venues, and Alpensia Resort is certainly offering something for everyone, from family skiing to snowboarding speed freaks.

Single board advocates have a slope to themselves, so they can speed as much as they like, without fear of hitting other skiers. The remaining five slopes are ideal for families, and there is a 1.4km slope which is specifically aimed at beginners and intermediate skiers – details of all of the slopes can be found on the Alpensia Resort website. There is even a Snow Sledding Park, and you can get instruction in both skiing and snow boarding.

Facilities: You can rent skis, poles, boards, and clothing at this resort. You can also get repairs to your equipment if you damage it, and if you damage yourself there are medical staff on standby 24 hours a day. You can also enjoy a ride on the Alpine Coaster, which will go up to speeds of 40km/h. Adults will pay KRW9,000 ($8) for this, while students pay KRW6,000 ($5).

Costs: As yet the costs have not been published for the coming season, but check the website for details.

How to get there: Fly into Incheon International Airport, then follow Hwy#1 south to Hwy#4, then take this East until you reach the Hwenggye Interchange. The resort is signed from there. Alternatively, you can take a bus from Eastern Seoul to Hwenggye. www.alpensiaresort.co.kr/EnInfoAlpInfoIntro. gdc

China

Nanshan ski, Beijing

Beginners to experienced skiers and snowboarders will all have something for them at the Nanshan Ski Resort. It has 21 different runs ranging from beginner to expert, an off-piste tree run, and the Quiksilver Nanshan Mellow Park snow resort – and because the snow is man-made, you can guarantee the runs are in peak condition. Thanks to its variety of rope tows, platter lifts, chair lifts and two high speed Quads, up to 8,960 skiers and snowboarders an hour can be catered for.

Facilities: Ski and clothing hire, plus a ‘world class snow school’ for both children and adults are the basics here. In addition, you can try out the Seasons Toboggan run, a dry luge track which stretches for nearly a mile, or soar above the crowds on the Cable Hang-Glider, if you are feeling daring. You have a choice of six cafes and restaurants at the resort, ranging from the Lavender Tea House where you can get French Lavender tea and coffee, to the Terrace Restaurant and Pub, where you can get pizza.

Costs: Nanshan offers a variety of packages, ranging from RMB220 ($35) to simply ski for four hours, or RMB380 ($60) if you want to include ski hire. For the more adventurous, a special package ticket worth RMB380 ($60) will get you three hours skiing, including ski and suit hire, plus one Cable Hang-Glider flight, a sledge, one toboggan run, a meal and an entrance ticket.

How to get there: It is 62km from WangHe Bridge, Beijing. You can drive there in half an hour from Beijing via the JingCheng Expressway. www.nanshanski.com/english/index. htm

But can you really make yourself healthier by making a few changes to your diet and lifestyle? Well, yes, you can, and the proof most certainly won’t be in the pudding. It is often our diet that lets us down, but this is actually the one thing we can change relatively quickly and painlessly.

Of course, it is easier said than done – if it was simple, then none of us would be overweight or unhealthy. To make a success of a change in diet, you have to get yourself to a point where you really want to make the change. One popular way to start a new regime is with a detox.

Heading off to a spa break to make the most of the rest as well as the new regime would be ideal, but for most of us that is not an option. Work or family commitments often take priority, but it does not mean you cannot do a detox in a shorter time. For example, you could pop into a spa like the Rasayana Retreat in Bangkok in your lunch hour.

Rasayana is an ancient Sanskrit term for ‘rejuvenation’, according to the company’s website, and it provides a range of treatments that will help you improve your health and wellbeing. It offers a range of deep cleansing and weight loss programmes, ranging from colon hydrotherapy to therapeutic massage, and has a Raw Food Café, which has the added benefit of allowing you to eat as much as you like without the need to count calories.

If you cannot bear to go the whole hog on a detox, there are some things you can do to help your body day-by-day. Dame Kelly Holmes, the double Olympic gold medalist, regularly tweets about one of her favourite health tips – hot water and lemon juice, which she has each morning. Lemon juice is full of antioxidants – it is why you can prevent easily oxidizing fruit from going brown by covering it in lemon juice once it is exposed to the air – and it helps to mop up the free radicals that attack your cells within your body.

Whether you try to detox or not, at the very least you need to think about how much you are eating. The old adage “you are what you eat” is also something to consider, so for a new you, make sure you are eating healthy, good quality foods. For many of us who already have a healthy diet, the problem with obesity is not about what we eat, but how much. So check that you are getting the right portion sizes. A simple idea to help is to use a smaller plate for your meals, this way you naturally reduce the portion size on your plate and in a few weeks you should hopefully see the weight fall off.

There is a new product on the market, which is apparently a “totally natural” appetite control spray which helps to control feelings of hunger by tricking your brain into thinking you are not hungry. Called FULLfast, you spray the liquid under your tongue three times, five times a day. It is available in Japan by mail order.

A spokesman for the company said: “With your brain ‘on side’ it becomes dramatically easier to say ‘no’ to tempting treats and take control of what you eat without resorting to any dangerous or faddy diets.

“A double blind placebo-controlled clinical trial carried out on overweight women proved that FULLfast reduces hunger cravings within five days, which then resulted in weight loss. Full results were published in the International Journal of Obesity.”

Remember though, you might be better off just sticking to plain old willpower to get you through the first few days and weeks of your diet. Although you may not want to go to a gym, for the best weight loss results, you really do need to do some exercise, said Dan Roberts, fitness guru to A-list Hollywood stars through his company Dan Roberts Training.

He added: “Exercise is integral to healthy living – your body is designed to move, to be stretched beyond its current capabilities and to adapt to the ‘good stresses’ of exercise by strengthening bones, tendons and muscles, increasing the health of your heart, and your lung function.

“Your body only adapts when properly hydrated (so drink lots of water), fuelled (eat high protein and a plenty of low Gi carbs) and rested. Sleep is essential for performance and weight loss – try going to bed an hour earlier for one week and see how you feel exercise also has a well-documented positive affect on immune function, life expectancy, and self-esteem.”

You can make some small changes to help your muscles adapt without getting sweaty though – you can even do some exercises at your desk. If you work in an office all day, or work from home and are sat at a desk, you can use a wobble cushion to sit on. A wobble cushion works the same way as a balance ball used for exercise. When you sit on it you are made to work your core to keep your balance, so you get a nice toned tummy.

Helena Greenwood a member of the British Osteopathic Association (BOA) has the following tip: “To help achieve a toned tummy sit on a wobble cushion every day. Take it to work and use it at your desk or during your lunch hour, or sit on it while eating an evening meal or watching television at home. It stimulates your core muscles, helps with balance and means you are doing something good for your body – even while stationary.”

The most likely way you will be successful in making changes in your lifestyle is to make them slowly. Never try to change everything all in one go, but implement changes sequentially one at a time. You are more likely to stick to your goals if you make them tough, but achievable. Set your new health goals for the year ahead.

Over the last three years, smaller companies funds have performed well. For example, the Japanese Smaller Companies sector has made an average of 8.5%, against a backdrop of global economic uncertainty. But the top performing fund – Henderson Horizon Japanese Smaller Companies – has made a massive 51% over the same period. If you had chosen the lowest fund in the top 10, you would still have returned nearly 13% in a period of significant volatility.

In the current economic climate, smaller companies are being seen as an integral part of the recovery process, and Asia as a region is expected to spearhead the global turnaround. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been clear that the “policymakers in Asia face a delicate balancing act” to maintain its performance and bolster growth, not least in the face of natural disasters such as the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March 2011, and the recent widespread flooding in Thailand.

Although growth has “moderated” in the third quarter of 2011, as external demand has weakened according to the IMF, domestic demand for goods and services continues to grow. The IMF stated: “Domestic demand is still resilient, and it should continue to sustain activity across the region, contributing to relatively robust growth of 6.3 percent in 2011 and 6.7 percent in 2012 on average, slightly below our forecast last April.”

The rebuilding projects that are getting underway in Japan are expected to continue to push up domestic demand, and growth is expected to reach 2.3% next year according to IMF figures. In addition, an expected moderation in food and energy prices is likely to ease inflationary pressures going forwards. SMEs are set to benefit from the rebuilding process in Japan, with the Shinkin Central Bank establishing a yen 5 billion fund to help with credit lines in December, which is expected to have a 12-year shelf life, but could be extended.

In Asia as a whole, there is a general consensus that smaller companies still provide a good basis for investment returns in the region. Hugh Young, manager, Aberdeen Asian Smaller Companies Investment Trust PLC, identifies that smaller companies tend to be “under-researched” especially in Asia as the amount of research available is relatively thin on the ground. Yet because smaller companies are often fledgling and have greater opportunities for growth, they have the chance to significantly outperform the blue chip companies over the longer term.

However, Mr Young added: “Periods of mispricing and illiquidity mean investors must be patient.” There have been some falls in Asian small cap stocks in recent months thanks to the knock-on effects of the problems in the West, with blue chips offering better returns at some of the most stressful points in the world economic crisis.

But there are still good quality companies in the small cap sector in Asia that bear consideration when looking at longer term investments, especially if the companies you are investing in are key players in their areas of speciality. Mr Young said: “While the region is not immune from the woes of the Western economies its strong fundamentals should mean both large and smaller companies should perform well for those investors with a long-term time horizon.”

The European Union is so convinced that smaller companies will lead the world out of the global economic crisis that it is putting measures in place to improve the international business capabilities of smaller companies that are currently only operating locally within the EU. While this is designed to help the businesses in the eurozone, it is likely to have a benefit for smaller businesses in other key regions, including Asia, that should have an opportunity to improve profitability through strategic partnerships.

Currently just 13% of small to medium sized enterprises in the EU are operating internationally, and the EU is adamant that its “Small Business, Big World” strategy will assist in providing the tools to “penetrate new markets and search for the right local partners”. The concentration of smaller companies in Asia is high, with 99.7% of companies in Thailand alone qualifying as an SME according to the Office of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Promotion (OSMEP).

So there is plenty of scope for the region’s SMEs to continue to grow and thrive. Even though the floods in the region have prompted market falls in Thailand and Indonesia, the experts in this field are positive about the future prospects for smaller companies. Strong domestic demand and increasing building and rebuilding of infrastructure within the region should provide opportunities for increasing growth for the small cap sector, said SooHai Lim, manager of the Baring ASEAN Frontiers Fund.

The Thai government has also cut corporate taxes to help boost growth in the country – this may be an important reaction to the flooding and its impact on Thailand’s tourist industry, as it should help SMEs become even more profitable.

Mr Lim added: “In an environment where economic growth is at a premium in the world, we have high conviction in the outlook for the South-East Asian economies and markets. In spite of the performance seen in recent years, the weight of the ASEAN countries in the MSCI All Countries World Index remains significantly below the level seen in 1996, a factor which gives us confidence that there is still considerable investment potential from here.”

The prospects do not only look bright in Thailand, Indonesia and Japan though – as China’s moves to devalue its currency to improve export prospects are also going to help SMEs there too. The Chinese economy is growing at such a rate relative to the US that it is expected to surpass America as the world’s biggest economy in around a decade.

President Obama had the audacity to tell China it needed to act like a “grown up” on the world stage, as America is keen to stop China devaluing its currency. But many of the measures America itself is undertaking are designed to devalue the dollar to improve its export prospects and boost its economy, so that could be seen at the very least as hypocrisy.

China is expected to start loosening some of the financial restrictions within the country, which could help to boost interest in its equity markets, and further increase the appeal of its smaller companies.

Investing in property is a desire for many expats no matter where they are, and for many it proves to be a good decision.

Property prices rise and fall in the same way that markets do, the main difference being that once you have bought the property, it is much harder to liquidate your asset if you need to. Aside from that, there is a benefit that you can borrow to invest in property, something you cannot do in most other investment arenas. But this has a downside too if you end up in negative equity.

For now, property prices are relatively static in Asia, or are falling. For example, nearly two thirds of Asian cities are expecting to see falls in their luxury property prices in the coming year, according to the Knight Frank Prime Global Forecast. Prices in Hong Kong and Shanghai grew more slowly in the last 12 months, with respective price rises of 7.8 per cent and 3.8 per cent. This is not bad, but is significantly lower than the 19.7 per cent and 29.7 per cent respectively seen the previous year.

There are fears that China’s property market could fall by as much as 20 per cent next year, if the analysts are to be believed. Of course, just because you live in Asia, there is no reason to think you have to buy property here – the world is your oyster in property investing, but you need to be comfortable about where you are buying your property.

You should also think about how the rest of your portfolio is structured to ensure a property investment would work for you, and decide how long you can afford for your money to be tied up. For investment property, it’s not location location location that matters, but location, quality and price. Some markets are more recession proof than others, like London and New York City, as opposed to Leeds and Florida. This can relate to the ability to get mortgages on property, and strong laws to protect property investors.

In many Asian countries it is not possible to get a mortgage, foreign ownership is not allowed, and property laws – even where they are – are complicated. For those prepared to make an investment and hold on for some time, price falls and a general cooling in the markets at present could offer a buying opportunity. But the real trick is to get the right kind of property, in the right place – location is key, and it is not just a geographical issue.

Choosing the country you would like to invest in is just the start, and you need to get advice from a trusted adviser who has specialist knowledge in the region you are interested in. After that, you need to find the right property, and that can be easier said than done. Those new to property investing often make the mistake of trying to find a property they would like to live in. This is the wrong approach because, after all, you are not going to be living in it. Instead, you need to be looking at a property through the eyes of the person who will rent it from you.

So consider things like transport routes, whether it is close to good schools, or a university if you are after the student market, and how close local amenities are such as shops, bars and restaurants. It may not suit you to be living close to the centre of town, but for many people this is the ideal place to be. Choose your region, choose your target market, then choose the right property.

But before you try to do any of this, choose the right adviser for you, because this is a big decision and you need to get it right.

Take the current economic situation with the eurozone countries desperately trying to get themselves out of the mire, without any of them losing face or seeing an obvious ‘winner’ to come out of this difficult situation.

The horse-trading that we are seeing is tantamount to when Churchill engaged the help of Roosevelt to win the war against Hitler. Hitler, he warned his American counterpart, could not be trusted, and the British and American people had an unbreakable cultural bond. An interesting take on things, since it had only been 165 years since the colonies had broken free from the shackles of British imperialism, and a mere 76 years since the Crown had unsuccessfully tried to influence the outcome of the American Civil War in favour of the Confederacy.

Still, an accord was struck, proving once more the old adage that in geopolitics, there are no permanent allies, only permanent interests. That, frankly, is exactly where we are with the global economic crisis today. Politicians and policymakers are procrastinating – as much out of a dire necessity to save face and their country’s economic future, as uncertainty about what to do next.

In reality, most of the major players need this economic system to work. Of course, 1929 is still sufficiently recent in the collective memory and economic depression benefits very few. Within the EU, the stronger countries need a weaker currency, while the weaker countries need cheaper debt. Both goals will be achieved if the euro is maintained.

Outside of Brussels, the anaemic US recovery cannot afford a meltdown across the pond, bearing in mind that the European economy, while fragmented and culturally diverse, still outstrips that of the US. If the US struggles, China cannot be far behind, and with them the entire South East Asian region, and probably Australia too.

Come to think of it, probably the only countries that would benefit from a Great Depression would be Russia and Iran. Both are well stocked with their own energy supplies, both have low levels of debt, both can feed their own people, and neither are particularly dependent on exports. Yes, Russia supplies much of Europe with natural gas, but the energy business is such that buyers have relatively little bargaining power.

The sight of US Treasury Secretary Geithner checking into a Frankfurt hotel confirmed the view that for now, at least, the United Nations of Finance are as one in ensuring that their industry will not implode. But it still remains a fascinating study in game theory.

Nobody at the table wants anybody else to lose, but nor do they want anyone to obviously win. Throw in the complications of democratic politics and you have every major leader attempting to send messages in code to their electorate that it is they who actually got the best deal, despite what the media might have reported. So we have alliances and deals and axes and detentes breaking out all across the world.

In Europe, the Franco- Germans are trying to get a deal done with the peripheral nations. Here, the stakes are greater scrutiny of sovereign finances in exchange for access to the German national credit card. The bargaining chips are the threat of default from Greece, Ireland, Portugal and others versus the threat of withholding emergency funding to these same nations.

At the next table, the Republicans and Democrats are trying to work out a fair exchange rate between higher taxes on the rich and cuts in entitlements and other spending. Finally, the US and China are seeing if a deal can be done on a stronger Chinese currency in return for continued access to US markets, with Taiwan and North Korea being used as the red herrings. There are still considerable risks. These are all human beings, prone to mistakes. It is very possible that they have miscalculated the severity of the problem and have left it too late to get all the deals done.

It is possible too that the looming elections for many of them – Obama, Merkel, and Sarkozy – will push them towards the political and away from the practical. Finally, it is eminently possible that they are simply not up to the task.

Yet for all the flaws in our global village, it does seem that civilisation is on an upward slope. Contrary to what the media would have us believe, there are less military conflicts than there were 500 years ago, and there is more of an understanding that peace and prosperity are what the people want. Conspiracy theories aside, equilibrium has become the desired economic state for most of the world’s major powers.

Certainly there will be more chapters in this saga. Certainly there will be days when it seems like the world as we know it is going to end and certainly one will find oneself wondering whether or not the men and women in that room understand the consequences. But a solution will be found, it’s in everyone’s permament interest to temporarily ally.

By Jeremy O’Friel

What is yours this year? Lose weight, change something about your life, improve your finances? Well, if it is the latter, you are not alone, as there are many of us who are looking to do that after last year’s topsy-turvey markets.

The thing is, it is vital – no matter what your resolution – to give yourself some goals to achieve along the way, as it will make it easier to stay on track for more than the first month. They need to be smaller to start with, like stepping stones that will help you to reach your ultimate goal, whatever that may be.

Let’s say, for example, that you want to save yourself $1,200 over the coming year. Sounds pretty unmanageable to most of us, so let’s break it down. That means keeping an extra $100 a month of your salary. Yep, still pretty steep, right? Well, hang on though, that actually works out to $25 a week, which is just over $3.50 a day. With a few basic tweaks to your lifestyle, that is manageable.

Of course, if you are looking to get your money working for you and generating more in returns, then you may not want to set a financial goal to achieve in such a short term, as returns can be more difficult to generate and judge on the same month-by-month basis.

Instead, you may want to consider setting yourself a goal of checking how your portfolio is performing every six months, or even three months if you are keen. Ironically, checking this too regularly can cause you to make changes that, ultimately, may make you worse off depending on market conditions.

You may be more sensible to say you want to achieve a set amount in returns over three or five years, and then work towards that over a longer period of time. But you would still need intermediate goals to ensure you get there. This time though, you would need to check that your portfolio is on course to achieve, or hopefully exceed, your expectations over that time. Your adviser should be able to work with you to outline what these intermediate goals might reasonably be.

Resolutions are hard to keep, there is no doubt about it. But if you want to be wealthier this time next year, then you need to put the building blocks in place to achieve it now, and keep working towards them throughout the year, no matter whether you are saving or growing your money. To maximise your returns, you could try to do a bit of both.

First published in Asia Life

While one person will look at the economic data and think the worst, another will look at the same data and interpret it in a completely different way – think of it as the glass half empty, or half full. One will see a disaster, the other an opportunity.

This difference of opinion will ensure that markets continue to thrive, after all, the adage that “two views make a market” is, at a very basic level, what keeps the economic wheels turning. But which one you will be depends on everything from your previous investing experience and understanding of the sector you are investing in, to your current financial and emotional commitments. But it seems we are not spending enough time thinking about how we deal with our finances.

Professor Janet Reibstein, a psychologist who specialises in commitment and relationships, said: “[The Standard Life report] Your Commitments, Your Future shows a discrepancy in how much attention we devote to our financial and emotional commitments. We spend over two hours a day thinking about emotional commitments, but just 37 minutes on our financial commitments.

“People consider financial commitments as something abstract, separate to their emotional life. But our finances underpin our most important relationships and often our ability to achieve our future goals. The Standard Life report makes it clear how vital it is for people to engage with their finances, their personal relationships and future aspirations as one single entity.”

Even if you try, or think you succeed in eliminating emotion from your financial decisions, it is almost impossible to do, especially if you are relying on the money you are investing for a specific reason, such as retirement or paying your child’s school fees. The closer you get to that date, the more important it will be that nothing goes wrong with your investment – so the emotional pressure for it to succeed becomes greater.

There is an inherent part of human nature which makes most of us more comfortable if we are acting along the same lines as many others. This ‘herd’ mentality is not for everyone, there are some very successful contrarian investors who prefer to go their own way. However, this herd mentality is one of the key factors in the creation of investment ‘bubbles’ in the markets.

Often investors want to believe that something is going to happen, and that ‘shared’ optimism is what leads to assets being over valued. For example, in the last 15 years there have been a number of bubbles – the tech bubble in the late 1990s, the property bubble fuelled by sub-prime lending in the States to mention just two – many of which would not necessarily have been seen as bubbles until the markets turned, investor confidence faded rapidly, and prices crashed.

US investment giant Vanguard has characterised its model of a bubble into four stages. In a report earlier this year, it said: “In Stage 1, investors develop initial forecasts of asset prices based on errors in statistical inference, broadly captured under the idea of the representativeness heuristic (where ‘heuristic’ means a decision shortcut).

“In Stage 2, these forecasts of future price appreciation become exaggerated. Overconfidence and excessive extrapolation of recent positive experience come into play.

“In Stage 3, individual forecasts influence the behavior (sic) of the group (in this case, the market or financial system as a whole). Through a process known as group polarization, the financial system takes on higher risk exposures than individual members would separately agree is prudent.

“Finally, in Stage 4, as actual market data begins to undermine the group’s overconfident forecast of the future, the group polarization process plays in reverse, and the collective market outlook shifts sharply to the negative.”

At Vanguard’s stage 2 in the process, the tendency for an improvement in the price of a stock or sector in the short term can be extrapolated farther into the future than perhaps is deserved. This overconfidence is a well-recognised phenomenon in investing, and is aligned with an overconfidence in other areas of our lives.

Vanguard’s report continued: “Overconfidence is perhaps the bestknown bias in behavioral finance. It is found in a wide range of human decisions, financial and nonfinancial. On a number of dimensions, most individuals tend to rate themselves as above-average. For example, most drivers, joke tellers, and students rate themselves as better than average. The tendency to view oneself as above-average extends to professionals, including CEOs, managers in general, doctors, negotiators, investment bankers, and entrepreneurs.

“Overconfidence has been linked at the margin to gender. Men, on average, appear to be more overconfident. For example, they trade more in brokerage accounts—and generate inferior results—compared with women, who are more likely to be buy-and-hold investors.”

However, it is the same herd mentality that causes bubbles to form that pops them so effectively in a short time – when sentiment turns, the majority of investors will look to sell rather than hold, as that appears to be the ‘right’ thing to do.

So, given how many people get ‘burned’ when one of these bubbles eventually bursts, you might wonder why these cycles are repeated time and again, in different markets but with the same painful results? Human nature tends towards being positive, and hopeful. It is also, unfortunately, to try to convince ourselves that ‘it could not happen again’, or ‘it is different this time’.

This bias is what has caused millions of investors throughout history from the South Sea China bubble to the property bubble in the USA in 2007 to make the same mistakes time after time. It comes back to the emotion that we use when we are making all of our decisions, including investment ones. No matter how hard you try, there will still be some emotion in your investment decisions, and that can mean you making a choice more with your heart than your head.

The most successful investors are the ones that have a solid foundation for their reasoning, a clear understanding of why they have chosen their investment and what they expect to get, and the exact point at which they will take profit – no matter what happens. Investing in what you know can help with this decision-making process, and will inevitably give you a better understanding of how a stock or sector is likely to behave. It will also help you to understand the impact of the wider economic environment on your holdings, and help you to be more cool-headed than others.

Feeling in control of your finances is directly linked to your self-esteem, according to a study by Aviva last year in association with a psychologist at the City University in London. Nearly nine in 10 of those surveyed with high self-esteem also felt in control of their finances, while seven in 10 with poor self-esteem felt they had no control of their financial affairs. Taking control of your financial affairs is not only going to be good for your wellbeing now, it will give you peace of mind for the future. If you cannot do this for yourself, then consider getting some assistance from specialist.