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Tiong Hum Soh
Tiong Hum Soh

Tiong Hum Soh

Managing Director TerraSeeds Market Technician Pte Ltd

TerraSeeds Market Technician Pte Ltd

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Tiong Hum Soh is a member of:

Thoughts on Education system of our country
I am not qualified to comment on education system in India since I do not have any encounter with the system. However I do have strong opinion about education in general:

1. Equal opportunity regardless of gender, family;
2. Advancement based on individual merit and achievement;
3. Vocational training available to individuals who are not able to reach higher tertiary education;
4. Vocational training should meet the needs of industry;
5. Give emphasis to skills such as language proficiency, IT;
6. Provide career counselling at school;
7. Convert some schools, universities to become centres of excellence so that they can devote resources to specialise fields such as engineering, research, agriculture;
8. Decentralise or even privatise segments that are fast growing or require special resources
Important lesson learned
Each person must be prepared to continue upgrading oneself and if necessary to reinvent. I was a late-bloomer so I see myself miss many opportunities when I was a teenager and then subsequently when I was in my twenties. My early career in automotive aftersales marketing reached a point where I did not grow any more. If I am lucky to have a productive, fruitful career to the age of 60, that means I would have to drag my feet, going through motion for another twenty-plus years.

Some times we may reach a dead end. If we sat there to lament our misfortune, we would be stuck there forever. Reinventing oneself means that we got to change track no matter how difficult it is. If we made a wrong 'investment', we got to recognise the 'sunk-cost', 'write it off' and then take up a new path altogether.

Changing tracks halfway, I left my old job and ventured down a new career path. It worked. I am now more satisfied at work and looking forward everyday.
My achievements
There are many small achievements that I am happy with. My company was established since 2005 years and has gained recognition among investors, local and foreign brokers as a credible play in the business. This says a lot since the training business in Singapore is highly competitive. I have also received invitation to contribute articles on technical analysis, forex trading to several magazines, blogs. Being interviewed by SiliconIndia is also an amazing achievement to me and a very pleasant surprise.
Brief description about me
I am a multilingual, cosmopolitan individual living in the island state of Singapore. I run a training and education company started by my wife and I. As a working individual, I consider myself an entrepreneur and craftsman. My small company requires each person to wear multiple hats so that means that I am also the marketing manager, finance manager as well as webmaster. Beyond the roles that I play at work, I am a reasonably accomplished technical analyst, i.e. chart reading for stocks, market indices, futures and forex.

Earlier in my career, I spent nearly 10 years in automotive aftersales marketing and research with 3 years working in (then) DaimlerChrysler and then later on my own market research company. Because of the knowledge-intensive competencies that I worked in, which are almost dealing with research and analysis, I do not have big leadership and management experience.
My family background
I was raised in a traditional Chinese family. Tracing my father's line, I should be a third-generation Singaporean. My great-grandfather came from the Fujian Province in Southern China. He was a chef. His son my grandfather was a chef. I managed to do well in primary school so I attend secondary school in Raffles Institution. The extended family is quite big and being the racial melting pot that Singapore is, I am glad to report that I have an aunt who married a Sikh and a cousin who married a Hindu. But I am threading on thin ice here because I am not acquainted with the different Indian races and cultures.
My strongest skill
My strongest professional skill is technical analysis or chart reading for financial markets. As a study, technical analysis has been around for maybe 200 years. It is thought to originate from Japanese rice merchant Homma Munehisa who used a candlestick price chart he devised to buy and sell rice. Technical analysis has since evolved in many ways with contribution from many individuals in terms of techniques, applications and so on. It is not a science because unlike chemistry for example, you cannot always put 2 and 2 together and arrive at 4 but it is very scientific in its approach.

I have dedicated 15 years of my life to use it to study prices of stocks, futures, forex, gold, silver and so on. And I certainly not the best and may never be but I would say that there is a tremendous amount of experience which I am personally very satisfied with.
Couple of years from now
Oh, accepting challenges, solving problems, reinventing myself, making up and reaching new goals. Very much the same as now.
Degree that I recommend
Any one who wants to pursue technical analysis further should consider a certificate or Masters degree from International Federation of Technical Analysis.

For every one else, I suggest that no effort should be spared to improve one's written and verbal communication. Bringing one's values, ideas and philosophy across is very important. This is because in today's very fast moving society, people have little time and patience for others. Whether you are speaking to a business associate or a customer, bringing a point across clearly, making the biggest impact in the shortest time is necessary.

Whatever we set out to achieve, I think that many readers will agree with me that the busiest, more influential people we want to impress cannot be converted unless we send a clear attractive message. If we hem and haw, meeting's over.
Ensuring success
Remind myself everyday: keep an open mind, be humble, be willing to learn and don't be offended, don't look down on others. The day I become 'cast in stone', my growth and development is over. Some things to keep in mind:

1. Be interested in technology, do not be afraid to try lest I become obsolete;
2. Don't look down on anyone because one day that person overtake me;
3. Life is a marathon, I have not won until I cross the finnish line;
4. Don't bear a grudge especially in business because in the interest of business, even enemies should consider working together if there is money to be made;
5. Play by my own rules and make others play by mine;
6. Always be hungry. The day I stop being hungry, I will probably stop moving forward.
Qualities needed to become a successful leader
A successful leader should be a principled so that followers know what he stands for; like-minded friends and followers will quickly gather to a common cause. A leader should have a vision and be unwavering like a rock so that he is a 'lighthouse' when followers and co-workers are lost and confused.
Important decision
There are three very important decisions I made correctly:

1. I decided to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to be rewarded for the amount of effort I put in. If I stayed on as a employee, I might be measuring success according to my employer's goalposts rather than my own. In addition, a sheltered environment would have made me lazy .

2. I married the right woman. The outcome of a supportive wife is also like 1 + 1 >2. Of course my wife has her own career as well.

3. In business I have played by my own rules. They may not be the best but people recognise me the way I am. I have refrained from following others' lead. It turns out that pretty often, business peers and competitors follow each other in a 'monkey see, monkey do' kind of dance. Then everybody makes the same mistakes because the first person was just jumping onto a quick-fix. By sticking to my own, I am running on my own marathon.
More about myself
Under Q-11, I wrote that I remind myself to be 'hungry' all the time. I think that this attribute is very important. Coincidentally I even wrote about it. Even the Editorial Team feels that it is worthwhile to share, please by all means http://www.terraseeds.com/blog/2013/11/do-you-want-to-make-more-money-how-hungry-are-you/
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