High-flier cherishes her childhood dream

 

Tuesday, Oct 07, 2014

Rachael Boon

The Straits Times

Former treasury bonds trader Rhonda Wong may have had a high-powered career, but her childhood dream was to be a full-time volunteer.

She eventually took a different path, graduating with a degree in business administration from the University of Michigan.

Ms Wong, 29, says: "I was studying in Michigan and I went to Chicago to be a treasury bonds trader. I managed to save up quite a bit and I came back to Singapore when I was 23, to co-invest in one property with a friend."

But she still did her part to give back to society while in Chicago, by volunteering at a nursing home.

She recalls: "Back then in trading, we got off by 2pm or 3pm because the bonds market closes at 2pm. So I'd spend my afternoon in the nursing home to just hang out with them."

When Ms Wong returned to Singapore, she dabbled in various businesses - including a lingerie shop called Rondavous in Far East Plaza in 2009 - while trading and looking out for investment opportunities in property.

Her latest venture is real estate agency Anthill Realtors, which she founded in June, with the aim of providing ethical services and giving agents high-quality training.

Malaysia-born Ms Wong is no stranger to business, having helped out with her parents' photo shop business since she was a child, along with her sisters Race, 32, and Rosanne, 35, who pursued careers in showbiz as Cantopop music duo 2R.

Ms Wong, who is now a Singaporean, recalls running to and from her parents' photo shops in town as a child.

She says: "We had big crowds outside our store at Lucky Plaza, especially on Sundays. The Filipinos would always print their photos on their day off, we worked from 8am to 10pm. This was at Lucky Plaza, and we had Takashimaya, so we had to run between the two stores.

"It's different - Singapore parents pay their kids as a reward, my parents didn't. We just worked as a family, it's very Malaysian-style."

The experience was fun, but less so when her friends had weekend birthday parties.

"I think in secondary school, everyone was having parties at chalets but I never got to go. I didn't have a choice (laughs). That was the way growing up."

Q: Are you a spender or saver?

The bulk of my savings I put into property investments. Every year, I try to purchase one property, big or small.

When I've a big chunk of money, it goes into my mortgage, so naturally most of my money goes into property.

Q: How much do you charge to your credit cards every month?

$30,000. I spend on food and travel, I have to travel a lot for work, to Malaysia, Jakarta and Thailand to meet a lot of developers.

I try to take care of my parents' travelling bills... my sisters and I try to take care of my parents' expenses as much as we can as we get older.

Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself?

I'm just a small-time property investor. Sometimes, I can't afford it and my sisters and I share the cost.

I told them that if we can buy one property a year, in 10 years' time if we do want to retire and spend time with our children, we will have passive income from our properties.

I've more investments in residential properties than commercial.

The profit from my first investment went back into trading and when I made more from trading, it went back into property. I traded on my own when I returned to Singapore, and that's when I realised no matter how well I trade, because of the limited funds I have, I'm not going to get anywhere any time soon.

I also have two stock portfolios but ever since I started Anthill, I have no time for it.

The start-up for Anthill is about $1 million. My partners, including my sister (Race), and I have pumped in about $500,000, and we're still putting in money.

Q: Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like?

Mum and dad made us work a lot. I had to help them at their store since I was eight years old. They were running a Konica store so we developed films. I had to help every weekend during my growing-up years.

Back then, we were not as well-to-do, so my parents really needed the three of us to help when it was busy.

As we got older, my sisters went to Australia (to study) and I was the only one left. I think that instilled a very important lesson in my life about the value of money, how difficult it was to earn money.

At that time, we were selling film for $5 each, and it always occurred to me that if I don't have the product, how am I going to make $5 today?

That really helped me a lot. I really appreciated my parents' money, pocket money-wise, so I never asked them for money until they gave it to me.

Q: How did you get interested in investing?

After my Chicago job, I came back with $80,000. I paid my mum whatever I could for the school fees.

I put $20,000 into my first business and the rest in my stocks account. In the first two years, I made 100 per cent minimum per year, but that only got me to about $300,000.

There was no way I could continuously make 100 per cent each year. In my third year, I made about 60 per cent, and in my fourth year I lost money.

The property side was going well, so I went into property sales, and subsequently opened my own agency as I'm confident of providing a better environment for myself and my agents.

I still believe in shares, initial public offerings and bonds but I just don't have time for them any more.

Q: What property do you own?

I've two residential and two commercial properties here and some in Malaysia. Property in Malaysia is more affordable.

Q: What's the most extravagant thing you have bought?

Maybe jewellery for my mum, I bought her a Cartier Love bracelet with diamonds for about $50,000. Fortunately for me, she doesn't really like this stuff, she just thinks it's not worth it, which is kind of true.

I don't really shop. I've two sisters who are very fashionable and are celebrities, who "feed" me with all kinds of clothes all the time.

I never had to shop until last year. When I was in Michigan, my sisters sent me a whole box of clothes every month, to the point where I told them to stop sending me clothes because they were from Hong Kong and not warm enough. All I needed in Michigan was a very warm jacket, that's it. I'm very fortunate, my sisters dote on me.

Q: What's your retirement plan?

My ideal goal is to retire at 40 and have children by then who I can take along when I go on volunteer trips.

I think volunteering and working are extremely important for children when they are growing up. They helped me a lot.

Every time you're complaining about something in your daily life, if you just think about the days you were volunteering, the people and lives you saw, you realise that nothing you're complaining about is worth complaining about.

I wanted to have kids by 30, so by 40 they're like at a decent age to travel. But I've no kids until now, I don't even have a boyfriend so it's not happening (laughs).

I don't know if I'm still on track actually, because I'm almost 30 and I'm still very far from my goals, and still at the start-up phase.

Q: Home is now....

A penthouse unit in River Valley with my parents and Race. My dad doesn't let me move out. I've been trying to, I just want to move across the street, I said, so I'll still come home a lot for dinner.

He said, "no cannot, wait till you're married". I said "that's going to take a long time".

Last year, I was very sure that I was going to move out... and he was so upset. I love them (my parents) very much, but I kind of got used to staying by myself when I was away.

My grandma also lived with us for many years - she just recently passed away so I'm still not used to it. Every time I come home from my trips, I'd expect to see her at her permanent spot... and I still expect to see her.

Q: I drive....

A BMW M5.

Worst & best bets

Q: What is your worst investment to date?

In two shares - Blumont and LionGold.

To me, they are the worst. I had lost more in other shares but the fundamentals were good, they came back up.

These two companies are useless now so they are a gone case. I bought them at a very low price too, after the crash.

I was buying them as a "scalp", so I was supposed to enter and exit (the market) within a very short period of time. But I didn't watch my portfolio, that is the main problem. It's very bad when I don't have time to watch it.

Q: What is your best investment to date?

It was in Cosco Corp. I had a trading strategy on this stock based on technical charting. I had very clear signals to enter and exit the market for this stock alone.

In my first two years (in Singapore), I basically traded this stock all the time and that made me a lot. In the fourth year, I lost money because this stock halved in price, but back then I was watching the market full-time so I was able to cut losses.

Most of my trading profits are from Cosco. There isn't any percentage gain, I entered and exited the market very frequently.

That was what I was trained to do in Chicago - basically I look at all kinds of charts and run correlations, and find a trading strategy. If I don't find it, I don't trade it.

This article was first published on Oct 5, 2014.