An A-Z reflection of 2021
How I felt in a meme…
As cliché as it sounds, it felt like yesterday when I was sitting down to write my reflection on 2020. I’m often reminded of that Einstein quote:
“When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it's only a minute. But when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it's two hours. That's relativity.”
Everything is relative.
Those who’ve followed me for a while will know I wrote a similar post almost 1 year ago here. I decided this year to follow the same framework of thinking about an event this past year for each letter of the alphabet from A-Z. Maybe next year I’ll come up with something different?
Where possible, I’ll make reference to external links, images, videos, etc for each of the letters that I go through!
Here are the memorable moments I recall for each letter of the alphabet over this calendar year 2021.
Atlas Academia. It was a typical October weekday for me, when my mum came into my room with a flyer she picked up from the local ice cream store below our apartment in Epping. The flyer showed some really fresh young faces and piqued my interest when I read the co-founders’ backgrounds (which were uncannily similar to the co-principals at Sydney Science College). I showed up announced on a weekday afternoon and introduced myself to Anthony, Wayne, and Jeffrey (the co-founders), and thus began a relationship of getting to know their motives, passions, and work ethic towards teaching science subjects to year 11-12 high school students in Epping.
I’ve been madly impressed and inspired by them (they’re like only 20 years old, but don’t let their age fool you in their maturity!). I hope to continue supporting them wherever/whenever I can into 2022 and beyond. They definitely deserve the first mention in this 2021 reflection blog post (and it just so happens they start with an “A”!). Check them out here!
I’ve been grateful for the opportunity to do a podcast interview with one of their co-founders, Anthony. Below is a sneak peek photo of us chatting on a late Monday night, about goal setting. We think this is not only relevant to high school students but also university students and potentially young workers too!
Atlas Academia’s co-founder, Anthony interviewing me in a podcast coming soon
Bitcoin and other cryptos. This was certainly a memorable and volatile year for cryptocurrencies. Several of the coins in my Binance wallet have doubled/tripled, so I am pleased with that. Special shout out to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, and Dogecoin. The crypto assets remain a speculative position in my wider portfolio, though also a diversifying asset class. Also beginning to look into NFTs (non-fungible tokens), so lemme know if you got any recommended readings for me!
Church at MBC, and my role in the investment committee. It has now been more than 5 years at Macquarie Baptist Church (MBC) for me. I’m incredibly grateful for our ministers Tim and Kevin, my growth group leaders Robin and Annette, and the wider group of brothers and sisters at my church for advising me in many different areas of my life. MBC has been a very welcoming community to me even if there are not too many people my age.
Furthermore, some may know I was approached by our church’s treasurer to lead the investment committee we set up this year. I’ve benefitted from speaking to all the members in the committee, and learnt to appreciate other asset classes beyond stocks (believe it or not!). I pray that we continue to wisely allocate the church’s finances and glorify God as we go into 2022.
Disney Plus. I cannot deny how great this subscription plan has been to me particularly during the COVID lockdown period in the 2H of 2021 in Sydney. But aside from that, there were SO many good TV shows I got to watch this year. I think Disney Plus is absolutely underrated amongst a lot of my group of friends/colleagues. Some TV shows/movies I watched on the platform that I’d recommend off the top of my head from this year…
High School Musical The Musical The Series
WandaVision
Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Loki
What If…?
The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers TV series
Turner and Hooch TV series
Doogie Kamealloha, MD TV series
Big Shot TV series
Hawkeye
Unsure about others, but I think I’ve become a serious marvel fan in 2021. I typically watch an episode, then watch like 3-4 different YouTube video breakdowns for that episode. Just me?
Exam for CFA program (level 3). Some have asked what the “CFA” means, and it stands for a “Chartered Financial Analyst”.
It has been a year since I sat the L2 exam, and this time, the world felt like it had changed in that year when I sat for my L3 exam. Gone were the days of the paper exam, and instead, I sat my exam in a computer room typing my answers online on a keyboard. Furthermore, the exam was not 6 hours, but now only 4.5 hrs. Despite the significant changes in testing conditions and environment, I’m just glad the exam is over for now. I have no idea how I’ve performed but I just hope it’s enough. For now, I’m just happy to get back the ~20 hours I was studying each week for ~5 months in the lead-up to my L3 exam in late November! I’m also thankful for my parents for taking on some of my chores during my study period. For those interested, I recently shared my thoughts on the L2 exam and how I approached it here (after only taking 1 year to get to it… but it should give you some sense of the preparation I did for the L3 exam).
Foundation of Goodness (FOG). For those who may not know, I volunteered for 1 month back in July 2016 in Sri Lanka, in a small rural area called Seenigama, at a charity called FOG. They support the rural kids of Sri Lanka who may be disadvantaged and without the resources of the city kids. I continue to donate to FOG annually and am encouraged by how they use my money to buy monitors, printers, renovate the computer centre, etc. I continue to stay in touch with their former Head of IT at FOG, Saman, through regular FB video calls. Technology is amazing and I hope to continue supporting the work of FOG. It was actually my experience at FOG and regularly speaking to Saman, which inspired me to mentally set up a “charity fund” as a separate asset class in my personal investment portfolio… I describe what exactly it is below. I’m always open to supporting new and innovative charities/social enterprises so lemme know if you got any suggestions. A list of charities I support is here.
Guest speaking at churches like GPC (Gracepoint Presbyterian Church) and WSCCC (West Sydney Chinese Christian Church). This is personal for me. If you told me at the beginning of the year that I would get the opportunity to speak at 2 churches on the topic of personal finance as a Christian, I wouldn’t have believed you. Both these opportunities gave me time to reflect more seriously on what the Bible says about money. Here’s the summary slide of my money seminar talk I did on zoom for GPC. My reflection culminated in distilling that the Bible informs us in 4 ways about how we use money, namely giving, saving, spending, and investing. Message me for more details if interested!
My summary slide for the money seminar I gave at GPC on zoom
High School at Sydney Science College (SSC). I’m grateful for the tireless efforts of the teachers at SSC, teaching the first cohort of students at SSC this year. It has been incredibly volatile with the COVID lockdowns, but I’ve been impressed by the resilience of not only the teachers but also the students for putting up with these obstacles. We are expecting triple the number of students going into 2022 vs 2021. I remember when me and mum made baked goodies to welcome the new students in SSC earlier this year.
Me and mum delivering baked goodies for the new students at SSC, with SSC’s co-principal, Joey
It will be our 2nd year of operating and with it, our first batch of year 12 students attempting the HSC! Whilst exciting, I sense the burden is greater for the teachers, so I go into 2022 with cautious optimism. I also want to thank the co-principals Joey and Shaun, for their continued focus on the school. We’re expecting to do a lot of construction over the post term 4 holiday break so I expect we’ll continue to be insanely busy.
Here’s a snapshot of the walkway to the downstairs labs in SSC here!
Investing 4 Charity UNSW. Another great charity that basically helps teach and empower UNSW students in both giving back to charity and learning to invest - and fundamentally seeing the two as not mutually exclusive, but rather co-existing fields. I’ve been involved with I4C since late 2017 as an Education Director, and I’ve continued to be involved, by donating annually to them, but also being invited back to judge their stock pitch competitions and speak in different panel events.
I’ve been overall pleased with where UNSW I4C has grown to now. I had the chance to speak with the students leading I4C into 2022 and I think it is in a safe pair of hands (I also feel very “boomer” now talking to these students who are like ~5 years younger than me at times admittedly!). That’s all I ever wanted, and as long as we continue to stay true to our mission and not compromise on the values of I4C, I remain excited in I4C’s future! Below was a shot taken from me judging the T1 stock pitch competition with Jackson and William. Also wanted to give a shout-out to an introduction to investing panel I did with Jackson earlier this year, with the recording here for those interested.
Judges at the UNSW I4C T1 2021 stock picking competition
Journalling. I want to do more of this, which should be via substack! Stay tuned for more blog posts going forward hopefully.
Kurnell. One of my favourite moments this year was walking with a group of friends from Cronulla to Kurnell. We started at 10am, and finished at 4pm (with a lunch in between), but yes, I certainly was taken aback by how long our walk was. Those on the walk will remember how important that stick was for navigating the hidden wet puddles… I remember asking regularly where the next cafe was! I might need to look into that coffee addiction of mine… Despite how exhausting the walk was (give me some slack, I’m not very fit), I’d do it all again with this group of friends.
At the end of Cronulla beach, before the walk got WAY more difficult towards Kurnell (and we lost all our energy)
Lockdown in COVID in July. A blessing in disguise when Sydney went into lockdown in July for me when I look back in hindsight. It meant we were working from home everyday, and the commute time I saved (which is about 1 hour door to door from Epping to Wynyard), means 2 hours saved when considering travel both ways. This meant more time to focus on my work, rest at home, and allocate to studying for my CFA L3 exam.
Mentors / mentees - AH, JM, JR (mentors) and JC, LD (mentees). I spent a solid amount of time in my early 4Q 2021 FB live call that I shared with family and friends to reflect on the past 10+ years of my life. The mental exercise involved asking about the different stages of my life when I met my goals/did not meet my goals, and identifying whether there were/were not patterns of frameworks/processes I was depending on at those different points of time in my life. Below is a summary slide that outlines the different “frameworks” I’ve applied at different stages of my life that I’ve taken away from this thought exercise.
A summary slide from my 4Q 2021 live FB call to family and friends
I have to thank Albert for inspiring me to do this exercise. Being 60+ years old and the investment chairman of his own hedge fund, he has been an incredible source of high level wisdom to my spiritual, intellectual, and career development.
I tell people, that my trajectory in my career before meeting him, was likely one towards being just an accountant. It was only after connecting with him in late 2017 did I re-evaluate my aspirations and decided to go down the rabbit hole of being an investor. I think readers of my blog can relate to this. Typically there are only a select few people in your life that significantly alter the course of your life, and Albert remains one of those key individuals in my life. We couldn’t do yum cha during lockdowns, but we did catch up on Zoom!
Recent zoom chat with Albert Hung (he was praying for me!)
That said, 2 other key individuals have been Joey and James. Both in different ways might I add. Joey has regularly reminded me of the psychological biases in my own investing (finally had another catch-up lunch with him yesterday!), and James has regularly reminded me of the need for hard work in this industry of funds management (our sector team had a Xmas dinner last night!). Both continue to be solid role models to me.
Also need to give a shout out to my mentees, Lachlan and Joyce, who are both hard-working and very driven individuals. Both are incidentally working in bulge bracket investment banking internships as we speak. I pray I can continue to support them in whatever way I can. I’m a big believer in mentors and continue to impress upon people the idea of finding a mentor you trust earlier rather than later.
No way home - Spiderman. I am hyped for this, as I’m sure many others around the world are. No spoilers please! Watching this with Edmund this coming Sunday, in gold class (also will be my 1st time experiencing this!) Will hope to do a review about this movie when I see it. Of the movies in the cinema I’ve seen this year, I’ve been also meaning to do a review on Cruella which I still have yet to do…
Online board games with friends. What also kept me sane during this lockdown period in Sydney in the 2H of 2021 were the diffrent groups of friends I’ve been thankful for that have I’ve zoomed with to play games online on the weekends. Here’s one with a bunch of my high school friends below a few months ago! There’s this game that’s like mario kart battle royale, which I’ve really enjoyed playing…
Me and friends on zoom playing games online
Podcast with Ajay, Founder of Entry Level. Thanks to a friend, Eric, who opportunistically provided me the opportunity to speak in his place on a podcast. Haven’t delved into that world before, but am grateful I got the opportunity to do this. Thankful for Ajay taking the time to interview me about a day in the life of an investment analyst at a hedge fund for the Career Wiki that he is building through Entry Level. Check out my podcast interview with Ajay here.
Quest to Wollongong. Went with a small group of friends (Gary, Nancy, Tina) traveling near Wollongong during a long weekend (think it was a Labour Day public holiday). Had a fun time exploring Albion Park, Wollongong, Kangaroo Valley, and Fitzroy Falls with them. The latter 2 locations were new destinations for me. I cannot stress the number of twists and turns up and down the valleys when you’re driving on those roads... Anyways, here’s a nice picture of me reflecting at the edge of one of the waterfalls at Fitzroy Falls.
I was probably thinking about stocks here at Fitzroy Falls
Rocket League on PS5. Such a great game. Only discovered it early this year when I got my PS5 in May, and before I went into a 5 month hiatus due to studying for my CFA L3 exam. But in May and June this year, I was playing this game religiously for 15-30 mins after dinner on the days I worked from home. I’ve still got a lot of work to do to improve my ranks across all KPIs at Rocket League… You can see my latest stats here
Sector team at Antipodes. A pretty volatile year, despite being 1 year on from when we first knew about COVID. Only speaking in general terms here of course, but I’ve been very grateful for the sector team that I’ve been part of and the support I’ve had despite some supposedly topical long/short stock ideas of mine (partiocularly the latter this year). It’s not easy shorting in a bull market… It’s been nearly 3 years for me at Antipodes and I often tell people my “education” in investing constantly feels like 3 years packed into 1 year (in generally a good way!). On that math it has felt like ~9 years of learning for me condensed into ~3 years! I continue to be inspired by my sector team, and the wider team on their work ethic and often how insighftul and perceptive they are at thinking about companies. Here’s a picture from yesterday at our sector team end of year dinner! Would recommend uccello (thanks Anthony for organising, and of course James for covering!) and I give the food an 8/10.
Dinner at ucello with some Antipodes colleagues
Tutoring Tim. I’ve been lucky to continue tutoring maths for Tim in year 10. It’s been a massive privilege and duty for me. Teaching him has also refined my maths for work and the CFA exam.
As I reflect on the last ~3.5 years with him when he was in year 7, there have been highs and lows. But when I zoom out and look at where we’ve come from, I’ve begun to appreciate how much progress we’ve made not just in maths, but also life together. For what it is worth, I stuck to the promise of maintaining a long-term maths score average of 80%+ with Tim (over the whole period, the average of all his maths exam scores averaged ~85%).
A histogram of Tim’s termly maths exam scores since I took him on in T3 2018
I think part of being a good tutor is also humbly recognising when your student will outgrow you and having the foresight and planning to prepare for his next steps. I planned ~3 years ago to pass him onto the more capable hands of SSC, to take over his maths education when he got into year 11. However, I will be evolving my maths tutor role into a mentor role for Tim as we go into 2022. I continue to look forward to involve myself in Tim’s life and support him where I can as a mentor!
University speaking opportunities. This year, I’ve been thankful to speak at 2 universities outside of UNSW - my first foray outside my comfort zone! It was my first time speaking in some capacity at UTS (University of Technology Sydney) and UOW (University of Wollongong). I have a lot of respect for Dr Amanda White, in how she tries to promote accounting to a wider audience on her social media, and I got to be interviewed by her (see the recording here). Yes, that’s right, I secretly love accounting too.
My interview with Dr Amanda White, talking about how investment analysts apply accounting/audit to their work
Also have to thank the founder of the UOW Investment Management society, Nathan for giving me the opportunity to speak with keen business students from UOW (and a recording of my talk there is here).
VR Headset - The Oculus Quest 2. An amazing piece of hardware for ~$400. Whilst I haven’t touched it recently. Here’s a picture of me (don’t ask me why I chose to go for a bald haircut in the “metaverse”) standing outside a virtual Snoop Dogg concert entrance. My favourite games in the Oculus currently are table tennis and mini golf! Admittedly the downside with the current headset is it can get a bit disorienting on the eyes if you don’t regularly wear and use it, but I’m sure FB is doing everything they can to reduce the consumer friction here in time...
Me in the Oculus metaverse outside a Snoop Dogg concert entrance
Walks around Epping. I committed to this almost religiously after work, walking 30 minutes around my local neighborhood whenever I work from home. Occasionally, I’ve had opportunities to catch up with people from Sydney Science College and Atlas Academia (they’re like right next to each other literally!) on occasion when I go on my walks.
Xmas - what plans do other people have? For me, I’m going to relax at home on Xmas day, nothing fancy. I haven’t taken any annual leave for December outside the public holidays (as I already took some leave ahead of my CFA L3 exam). Do hope to try take some leave in January 2022 when students are returning to school and workers are returning to office. I’ve got plans for a weekend trip to Central Coast with some close friends (James, Jack and Luke), and then a weekend trip to Jindabyne (first time for me going there!) with some friends/acquaintances at City Bible Forum’s Headstart group.
Youth. My sister’s daughter, Evelyn, who is now 4 years old, drew this picture of me. I give it a 6/10. Probably has my emotionless face correct although missing some hair. Still a pass, and better than anything I can draw. Thanks for the drawing, Evelyn!
My sister’s daughter’s drawing of me (look’s like my metaverse face!)
Zoo outing with friends. This was right before lockdowns began in Sydney in July this year. Me and a bunch of high school friends decided an interesting outing would be at the Sydney Zoo out in Sydney’s west. Admittedly, most of the customer demographic was either elderly or young families with kids. Not really the first destination you’d consider as a group of young workers. But that said, we had a lot of laughs and it was fun! Would recommend people to check it out. I’d give Sydney Zoo a 7.5/10.
Me and friends taking pictures with the big koala at Sydney Zoo
Wow, that was longer than I thought… If you’ve gotten this far in the blog post, I appreciate your patience! Please do not take offense if I did not mention you explicitly in the blog. There were so many people I have been thankful for in my life but I just did not have enough room to give a shoutout here.
If you’re free over late December or early January, reach out to me if you’d like to catch up with me. I’m always keen to catch up with people over coffee/tea!
To wrap up, it hasn’t been all ups in 2021 (I worry sometimes these blog posts portray a false perfect reality of me), and certainly, I can flag a few downs this year. But overall, I think 2021 has been not bad for me. To be honest, I’m hoping more of the same into 2022 but of course, I believe that is up to God’s will.
Wishing everybody a merry Xmas,
Michael Li
