Sensei Michael Investments

It seems that investment products without tacit government backing would fall eventually. BitCoin Club has now been investigated by the US government for possible Ponzi scheme involvements. The company has been raided and their accounts frozen. Under such circumstances, even IF (and that is a big IF) the legal team proves their innocence, the company is effectively done for. Nobody can invest with them under the present circumstances, and by the time they emerge, their finances would have been in shreds. I have already made more than twice my investment with them, and have already withdrawn my BTC before the event. It reminds me so uncannily of how I liquidated all my investments in the SGX before the big crash, investing the money in the best investment of my life - my wedding and marriage. Right now my money is in Funding Societies , a crowd funding site for local businesses. I have seen a 6.28% p.a. returns from it, nothing to shout about compared to my HYIP, but something to ke...

It all started when the NZ regulatory body withdrew the broking licence from the HYIP I was investing with , because their fixed income product (the HYIP I was investing with) does not fit into the broking licence's regulations. The HYIP's banking accounts got frozen later, resulting in their inability to repay their investors. I have been through something similar with my own private investment fund, as I become aware of regulatory hurdles that I would have to cross when I reach a certain size, and how banking bodies would start to check on me (ostensibly under money-laundering laws) when the money coming in from broking houses become larger. My fund closed before I could ever reach that stage, and so I watched with bemusement as anger and frustration built up within the Telegram investment group I was in, over being "scammed" by this HYIP. I moved instead into BitCoin mining, and my USD599 investment into the mining pool (whose mining equipment is in Iceland) in la...

My IB has indicated that he is unable to continue business with me. This means I need to explore other methods of withdrawing and funding my investment - only Perfect Money (a payment processor) and BitCoin are platforms the FOREX broker deals with. In the States, an Accredited Investor is someone with a net worth of USD 1 million, or an income of USD200,000 per year for the previous two years. In Singapore, the same class of investors is someone with net assets of SGD 2 million, or an income of SGD300,000 in the past 12 months. Many classes of high-yield investments like hedge funds, FOREX funds, etc, are allowed to be marketed only to such people (so nobody is allowed to market those investments I am investing in to the "common folk"). Such investors are considered to be "sophisticated" enough to understand the risks involved in such high-risk investments. I have been reading the Telegram chat group of my FOREX investment. Each time the Introducing Brokers (the fi...

It has been an incredible and interesting journey, and I have completed my one-year contract with the FOREX broker. ON 27 July, my investment account was automatically terminated as per my agreement with the broker, and my USD1000 in that account returned to me. I have decided to reinvest that amount into a new account (allowed under the investment agreement with the FOREX broker) with a fee of USD30 charged to me. This would allow me to continue my 8+% monthly returns every month for another year. As I continue with the world of HYIPs, I cannot help but continue to remember why the rich always get richer. The FOREX broker allows each individual up to USD100,000 in the fixed income investment. I cannot afford such potential losses and so have to limit myself. The rich, including some Malaysian Dato I know of, can afford such losses and so could pump in the full amount, gaining USD11,000 every month (it is no longer 8+% but close to 11% at these amounts). Accounting for the weak Ringgit...

Found another HYIP that pays 2% per day for 10 days with a capital of USD100, upon which profits is returned together with the capital. So far all HYIPs with such low capital outlay have not lasted long (unlike the other one I have invested with since July 2015), due likely to the fact that anything more than 1% per day is going to be difficult to sustain, and that is with FOREX being used as a trading platform. For someone like me, who was used to comfortably doing 1-2% a month selling options in the US stock markets in the past, the amount of leverage those guys are getting into is really incredible and mind-boggling. I have learnt to keep an open mind, however - because there are many who found my 1-2% a month equally mind-boggling. As I began understanding the world of high leverage, I learnt that they can be done - just not done by everyone. All forms of high-yield investment programmes have to deal with the issue of draw-downs. A move against the predicted model, a long-tail, a b...

My portfolio is now ahead SGD243.60 (I included the bank charges that I incurred when I first entered into this HYIP), 10 months into my investment. Things have been going well so far but my antenna is still up. I suppose many years of playing with HYIPs (and actually running one) made me so. It needs a certain kind of personality to survive the world of HYIPs. The HYIP I am investing with now has dropped its previous payment processor (which allowed us to directly send our investment by bank telegraphic transfer) and started using BitCoins. To me, this signals an attempt to avoid anti-money laundering efforts. Previous HYIPs used e-gold to avoid anti-money laundering scanning by financial institutions, which created tons of problems then as hackers attacked the e-gold accounts and removed the gold. BitCoin, however, has physical wallets, which is actually a 2FA system where you cannot hack and access the BTC (acronym for BitCoin) without physically controlling the dongle as well. And ...

Just applied to withdraw another USD200 for this monthly payout. Unlike some of my fellow investors, who aggressively market this product to gain from the binary payout option (investors also gain from the payouts of those below them, in a form of MLM), my insistence on telling my prospects of the risks involved in this product (and the nature of investment products) mean that my leverage has not been as good as those who roped in tons of downlines. I am fine with that, but am also frustrated at how many of my fellow men could not see the importance of a salary hedge, could not see how the risk of losing the USD1300 is actually less than the risk of not investment (it is a mindset issue), and could not see how an investment product, while different from a health product, is still a viable product after all. Risk management itself is an important part of modern financial prudence. Why do we pay to buy insurance, in the hope that we do not need to use it? The concept of risk management c...

With this latest payout from the FOREX HYIP, I have already taken back all my money in USD terms (more than USD1300) although in SGD terms I still have to get one more payout to have taken back my investment (due to the IB's spread of 1.6 vs 1.4 currently for the USD/SGD pair). For something I started 8 months ago, this is pretty solid returns. In statistics, we study probability and understand the concept of mathematical equivalence. We understand the concept that a 100% chance of getting $10 is the same as a 50% chance of getting $20, mathematically. However, in the real world, any sane person will take the 100% chance of $10. As such, in the real world, probability in itself has a value, and all games of chance (investments are also games of chance, as are businesses we run, except that the latter we believe we can influence somehow with our steering of the business) add that value to the investment. Because of this value of probability, all investments share one common trend, w...

I met up recently with a lady who was interested in my 8.52% per month investment scheme. She wanted to find ways to quickly reduce her debt, which made me advise her not to come in to the investment scheme because of its high risk. I found out she had incurred the debt burning her fingers doing FOREX futures. It was nothing new to me. Too many of us have been burnt with leverage. Leverage is like a knife - it can enable you to cut something well, but if used carelessly, you cut yourself. And if used criminally, it can kill someone. Unlike spot trading, where you immediately pay on the spot and hold on to the actual security (stocks, in the case of the stock market, or currency, in the case of the FOREX market), futures itself is a promise to pay in the future at an amount agreed upon now. Since there is no floor or ceiling either way, you can get burnt for more than the capital available, unlike spot trading. Futures really, should be used by those who are truly interested in locking ...

I have received my seventh payout early this month. Calculating the various bonuses from the downlines that my upline has added to me in this binary MLM system, I have gotten back USD1255. This means that, in USD terms, I am one more payout away from taking back my investment. So far the capital protection has also kicked in a second time, replacing lost capital from their poorly-performing trading system. I must admit I still find it strange that they are open enough to show us the inner workings of a poorly-performing trading system. Ponzi schemes I know of would show you all the nice trading gains, and you will be none the wiser, unless you are the financial advisers of latter investors in Madoff's ponzi (who did the Math and could not reconcile how the strategy could bring in the returns promised). A prospect that I spoke to recently told me she believes in working hard and adding value in her work. It is a common objection from those who have no experience in the finance indus...

I got my sixth payout last week. So far the HYIP has been doing as promised, delivering payout after payout. Again, I am seeing for myself why the rich is getting richer . There are those who can afford to take the risk. There are those who cannot afford to do so. I remembered a time when, even those I got salary increments, the amount of real money I get is constantly going down - because the cost of living outpaces my salary increases. I used to be paid in USD, but spent in RMB and paid loans in SGD. It was extremely painful watching the USD slide back in 2004-2010, wiping out my minor increases of a hundred or so USD each year. It was also a time when a bowl of noodles rose from RMB6 to RMB10, and groceries rose from RMB100 a week to RMB200. It was crazy then. Even right now, here in Singapore, where many of my peers are getting paid in SGD and spending in SGD, we see the costs of living outpacing our salary increments every year. In fact, some of my friends have not received salary...

I got my fifth payout this week. By now, with my own downline and the spillover effect of a binary matrix, I am getting more than the 12% ( actually 7.4% if you do the math) promised me. Do I still think this is a high-risk venture? Yes, by its nature it is a high-risk venture, but it is a venture that banks and hedge fund traders are doing day-in and day-out. And the risk factor is the reason I believe why many rich are getting richer. They can take risks that "mere mortals" cannot. To put things in perspective, can anyone afford to lose USD1 for a super-low chance to win USD1 million? Most people will shrug and put in the money. We call this the lottery. The lottery sells hope to those who participate in it, because the loss is insignificant but the possible gains are large, even though the probability is less than 1-1. Can many people afford to lose USD1300 for a 7.4% monthly income, but with the chance that any moment they may lose that USD1300 totally and not recover it...