Singlife’s Helen Shen believes in the joy of missing out when investing

Living on her own since she was just 14 years old, Helen Shen, group head of Products at Singlife, had to quickly learn how to be independent as an only child, especially when it came to managing money. Her parents had divorced early on, and her mother was setting up an oil and gas business in Guangzhou – only flying back on weekends to check on her.

“I think that really gave me the ability to manage my funds. This was many, many years ago, before Paylah!. She’d put a few hundred bucks in a drawer. If I ran out of money, I really had to deal with that. I had to eat less McDonald’s, and eat more cai fan (mixed rice). I gained the ability to budget, and to understand how money works,” she recalls.

A graduate of Questrom School of Business, Boston University, Helen first spent over 10 years at DBS Bank focusing on ecosystem partnerships and digital transformation, and was part of the bank’s China integration team of ANZ Bank’s wealth business into DBS. She then served as country manager for Alipay Malaysia and Singapore at Ant Group.

In 2022, she joined Singlife, where she oversees the development and implementation of end-to-end integrated solutions for the company’s life and health products.

“I believe in the growth of Asian corporations, and have dedicated most of my career working for and contributing to Asia-based firms, helping them expand locally and regionally, and making an impact on the global stage,” notes the 38-year-old.

Despite her atypical childhood, Helen had a very “middle-class” life. Even though they could not splurge on luxuries, she always had a roof over her head, had enough clothes, and good food on her plate. Even with surplus cash, she noticed her mother was careful with her spending, which instilled in her a very healthy relationship with money.

Her mother also encouraged Helen to get a part-time job during school breaks, and this helped her better understand the value of money, and the importance of having a good work ethic. Mum was also the one who pushed Helen to make her first investment at the age of 16.

Now a mother-of-three, Helen tells us about the “joy of missing out”, why financial protection is important, and how she imparts key financial values to children.

What was your first investment experience like?

When I was 16, I earned about $800 working part-time. That was when my mum suggested investing it. I was initially very hesitant, but she co-invested with me, and she let me choose a stock. There was an article about an up-and-coming one, with revolutionary ideas. We ended up losing everything. I was pretty sad for a while. My mother said, “Hah, serves you right! Now you understand the importance of doing research, knowing the risks and handling losses.” But she lost $800, too.

That experience led to one of my investment beliefs, which is the joy of missing out (JOMO). When it comes to investing, we always feel like we need to jump on the next bandwagon because of FOMO – fear of missing out. But I believe that when it comes to investment, what works for somebody might not work for you. It’s okay to miss out sometimes.

What was your biggest loss?

My mum and I invested in a pre-IPO (initial public offering) American pharmaceutical company around 2016 or 2017. The medical drug it was developing had already passed two rounds of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) test, so we were not investing just based on an idea or the concept of it. Ultimately, the medical drug did not manage to go to market successfully, and my losses were in the range of six figures.

My biggest takeaway from this is to understand the risks, and not to trivialise the underlying risks. When investing in high-risk instruments that are overseas, there are also considerations in terms of the sector, country, geopolitical factors, FX and others.

You mentioned previously that one of your biggest financial regrets is not getting core protection until your 30s. Why not earlier?

I only had a very basic hospital policy. I thought [insurance] was going to be really expensive, and really hard to plan for. At that time, I felt physically invincible, and only wanted to focus my energy on chasing returns. I think this is a very common misconception that younger folks have. With the rise of disease patterns, we are actually seeing a lot more diseases that usually affect the elderly, like dementia, in people as young as 30. So disease patterns have changed over time.

The second misconception, which I had as well, was about pursuing financial freedom. However, we must not forget the unsung hero, which is to protect your money at the same time. So while we want to grow our money, it’s important to remember to protect our money [with insurance] too.

Why is it important for more women to learn how to invest?

Statistics vary across different geographies and countries, but in general, women invest way less actively than men. If you poll 10,000 men, it’s a healthy number. Women are usually 40, 50 or 60 per cent of the benchmark. It’s very important to demystify the barriers to investing because sometimes, we might feel daunted by all these numbers and think “I’ll leave it to my husband”, or “It’s going to be very difficult, such a big effort”.

But there are many instruments out there that try to make it easy for you to just dip your toes in it. And you don’t have to always get it right. And what women end up doing is we procrastinate, or we just end up not doing it. It’s okay to start small somewhere. You can always readjust and stack on more when you’re a bit more in tune with it.

As a mother yourself, how do you educate your children about money?

My children are 11, seven and three. Every Chinese New Year, we will invest 50 per cent of their red packet money. As they are very young, we just put it into the S&P 500, which is a relatively safe index. The other 25 per cent, they can keep, spend or use. And another 25 per cent is for donating to a charity of their choice, and we’ll match that one-for-one.

We are currently supporting a few children through World Vision, a Singapore low-income family of five via National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre, and many other causes on Giving.sg.

We have open conversations about money at home. It’s not just about understanding that something is expensive, but also about being grateful for it. At the same time, when we choose not to pay for certain things, I explain that it’s not because I can’t afford it, but because I didn’t think it was worth the expense.

As a parent, I believe there are a few things you naturally impart to your kids if they see you doing them every day. One is their relationship with money, another is their relationship with food, and the third is their relationship with sports and exercise. If they consistently see their parents exercising, they may come to view exercise as a normal part of their daily routine.

Helen’s investment journey in numbers

• 14 – The age she learnt how to budget independently for her living expenses
• 16 – The age she made her first investment
• $800 – The amount she put in – and lost – on her first investment
• 10+ – The number of years that she has been investing in property
• 25% – Her investments in bonds, lower risk investments
• 20% – The percentage of her portfolio that’s in very high-risk investments
• 6-figures – Her biggest loss in one such very high-risk investment

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to investing, but there’s plenty to learn from other women’s challenges, successes and failures. How I Invest is a column where we ask women about their financial journeys to help us demystify the world of investing.