A friend recently post me this question?

"Personally, I have been investing on the side for several years and made some decent returns. Why should I turn to financial advisers and commit myself contractual plans when I can buy funds and other financial products on my own through the Internet or other independent channels?"

A bull market can sometimes send you the wrong signals and may lead you to think that the market will never disappoint you.

Often investors get into investments without proper research, hoping to make profits.

On the other hand, when the market is bearish, one might be too afraid to get back into the market, thus missing out on the huge upside potential during the recovery phase.

Through personal observation, most people do not have enough time and resources to analyse the market, investment information and strategise a plan.

Keeping personal emotion in check and acting rationally during volatile market is easier said than done; therefore seeking professional advice is an essential step towards one’s investment undertaking.

Engage an independent financial adviser representative (iFA Rep) for their unbiased and independent advice in setting up a contractual regular investment strategy to do away with fear of investing and instill certainty for your financial goals.

Discipline and perseverance are two important traits for successful investing.

Always have a long term view, if not at least a medium view.

This shall set a good yardstick for your investment vision.

A long term contractual plan utilizes dollar cost averaging strategy and this is a sound investment concept which has proven to be successful towards building and preserving one’s core wealth.

Therefore, it is important to decide on an appropriate investment time horizon to fulfil your financial goals.

So you can see that personal investing is not so simple as it seems to be.

It requires a lot of self-discipline and perseverance on acquiring & applying the investment know-how.

Without engaging an investment adviser giving on-going guidance, it's certainly not easy to invest in the market that feels so chaotic and to ride on the investment cycle that always feel unpredictable.