LEARN FROM OTHERS

consulting giant Capgemini). Note: Those investment assets exclude, among other things, a person’s primary residence, collectibles like works of art, and consumer durables such as private planes and cars.

That floor of US$1 million in investment assets is roughly RM4.2 million today, which is a lot of money for most Malaysians. It’s also a lot of money for every other national population when you consider just one person out of 448 worldwide has that much (or more) in investable assets. It will interest you to learn that according to the those wealthy people called HNWIs (pronounced hun-wees) fall into three wealth slices:

1. Millionaires next door — 89.98 per cent

of the world’s 16.515 million HNWIs; 2. Mid-tier millionaires — 9.07 per cent

of that number; and

3. Ultra-HNWIs — 0.95 per cent, again, of that number.

Regardless of whether you are already a HNWI or aspire to become one or have a more modest goal of building up your lifetime investable assets to between, let’s say, RM500,000 and RM3 million, taking a close look at how the world’s rich invest their money is illuminating.

According to the WWR 2017, in the second quarter of this year the world’s HNWIs broke down their investable assets within their financial portfolios in this manner:

1. Equities — 31.1 per cent

2. Cash — 27.3 per cent

3. Investment real estate — 14 per cent 4. Fixed income, meaning bonds — 18 per

cent

5. Alternative investments — 9.7 per cent

(Alternative investments or Alts as an asset class comprises structured products, hedge funds, derivatives, foreign currency, private equity and, my favourite segment within this asset class, commodities.)

I suggest you take a look at the current breakdown of your wealth portfolio by asset class and then contemplate changes you might wisely make to align your strategy for longterm wealth accumulation to that of the world’s proven economic winners.

As you do so, particularly if you live in the Klang Valley, as mentioned earlier, you’re welcome to snag one of the

100 free seats at my public talk

in the afternoon of Friday Oct

13 at the KL Convention Centre, Exhibition Hall 5.

My presentation is just one of many such educational events that will be held at the InvestSmart Fest 2017. (As seats are limited I suggest you immediately preregister for this useful initiative by the Securities Commission at www.investsmartsc.my/isf2017. html and also email yuvink@ sidc.com.my with a request for a booked seat.)

I plan to be candid about my numerous financial missteps, which is relevant to you because, quite frankly, learning from the failures and successes of others is, hands down, the best way to catapult yourself toward financial strength and maturity.