The month begun with the Annual Forecast Dinner held at the Asian Civilisation Museum. During the event, panelists Mr Steen Jakobsen, Mr Ashish Goyal, CFA, Mr Tommy Leung, CFA, and Mr Lai Hock Meng, CFA and moderator, Ms Lim Li Ying, CFA, provided an evening of thoughtful insights and engaged our members with a discussion on the outlook, challenges and opportunities in 2013. Mr Syed Mohammad Saleh Zaidi, CFA  was announced as the winner of the CFAS-Saxo 2012 Foreign Exchange Trading Competition. He received a cheque of SGD 10,000 from SAXO Bank to start an online trading account. Three lucky members also walked away with a bottle of wine each at the end of the event.

For networking events, a talk on the  topic “Good Health without  Medicines” was included during the drinks session held at  Harry’s Bar, Boat Quay. Our members were treated to good food and drinks while they learnt more on an independent form of yoga, the Tatva Yoga Mudra Vigyan, from guest presenter, Mr Vijay K Bansal. Mr Vijay taught members various Mudra Yoga finger positions which can provide some beneficial relief when applied by one suffering from certain ailments.

There were two Executive Education Programmes conducted throughout the month.  The first workshop, Advances in Strategic Asset Allocation, was conducted at the Singapore Management University  by Professor Ralf Zurburegg from the University of Adelaide. The workshop series saw participants from Bank of Singapore, First Principal Financial and the Central Provident Fund Board amongst others.  Following that, the Advanced Financial Modeling Series was conducted at the M Hotel Singapore  by Mr Hamilton Lin, CFA.  This series saw participants from Changi Airports Int'l Pte Ltd, CIMB Bank Berhad and Oman Investment Fund amongst others. The 3-day workshop consisted of practical, career-enhancing programs related to fundamental analysis, valuation and financial modeling. Topics covered included the Core Model, Banking Industry Analysis as well as M&A Deal Structuring and Merger Modeling Techniques.

The PD talk for the month was presented by one of our CFA Singapore board members, Mr Lutfey Siddiqi, CFA. The luncheon talk focused on the various challenges observed from the dealing floor.  Challenges discussed during the session included the diversity of objectives and players in currency markets when traders forecast and devise appropriate strategies.