Gekko Brand Ambassador Interview: Darrell Lim credits his achievements to his motivation

Gekko App
Gekko App
Aug 9, 2017 · 5 min read
Brand Ambassador: Darrell Lim, member of Singapore’s first winning team at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group Trading Challenge 2016 (Photo: www.gogekko.com)

As Darrell recollects his team’s win in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group Trading Challenge 2016, it was unpredicted. He shares, “We gave it our all — leveraging on our bullish view on gold as well as our judgement in terms of technical and fundamental aspects”. Being the underdogs amongst the top-grade schools in USA, their win was a big achievement.

Surprisingly his interest in finance only started in 2015, in his 2nd year at Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP). That was when he got exposed to the various aspect of finance such as trustnet, estate planning, financial advisory. His passion only grew stronger in his 3rd year when they had the opportunity to enter an eight weeks’ course at the NYP Financial Training Centre. This learning experience inspired him to trade.

Darrell is inspired by entrepreneurs such as Howard Schultz (Starbucks), Elon Musk (Telsa), Larry Page (Alphabet), Steve Jobs (Apple), Jack Ma (Alibaba), the list goes on. These heroes keep Darrell striving as he sees them as people whose ideas captured the world and who made their ideas a reality.

Photo: www.gogekko.com

“Always diversify. Never put your eggs in one basket” — this reflects a lot of Darrell’s risk appetite when trading. He believes in putting assets into different classes, not different equities. Darrell shares that his biggest challenge before deciding to venture into trading was the general stigma of how the finance industry is viewed. The 2008 financial crisis and banks procedures previously left a mark on this older generation which made them see the investment market in general as a gambling risk. In Singapore especially, the older generation is much more conservative, and with their past experiences, they don’t view investment as a legitimate source of income. For all finance students and industry professionals know this isn’t how the economy works. Investment, in general, is vital to the economy. Darrell believes that Singapore’s market is now very encouraging, especially with SGX reducing lot sizes from the current 1000 to 100 shares and upcoming Fintech startups looking to include and empower the younger generation.

What keeps him striving, is his motivation — which was not developed overnight. Like any young adult, he spent his first year in polytechnic figuring out his goals and milestones in life. It was only in year two when he reflected and developed a strong sense of motivation. This motivation stayed on and helped him achieved various milestones in his life. His eagerness to learn and exploration into different aspects of trading such as algorithmic trading.

To enter finance, many assume that they key skill to have is a strong mathematical background. Darrell, however, thinks there’s more to it than just that. He feels that strong analytical skills and being meticulous are important skills to have for people to consider before entering this field. With perseverance and a never say die attitude, these would bring one a long way. He shares that it’s crucial to be passionate.

He commented that a personal key element of his motivation. Motivation is a key factor to learn, strive and always achieving the goals one set for themselves. Success is subjective to everyone. For Darrell, he determines each achievement as a milestone and constantly planning what’s next. This keeps him motivated and his goals ae what keeps him in track.

When asked what Darrell foresees in the future of investment and personal trading, he shares, “It’s just the beginning. Singapore is hitting a major milestone being the World’s largest fintech hub. All these bound to play a part in future — someone is going to create an app that is easy to navigate, user-friendly and educational. This will attract users to different financial instruments, financial market and the educating them on the risk involved”. One day something will happen in the field of trading, it’s just the matter of when. We are living in the fourth industrial revolution — the rise of data. The first was the coal mining, then second came the oil, third was the internet, and now it’s the fourth how we harvest data and bring it to the next level. The amazing thing is, we’re now living in it.

The advice he hopes to share with fellow Millennials is that don’t be afraid to try. Firstly, research, learn and improve your financial literacy. Followed by finding out the different asset classes and know what type of investor you are. Understand this, set your goals and how much you’re looking to earn. With this, it would determine your risk appetite. Don’t simply put your money in the bank as there are various investment options such OCBC blue chip investment plan and much more. Look at the bigger picture and find out where your money can grow.

Gekko being a game for trading, Darrell comments that from a phone perspective there is no app platform as easy to navigate and use. Other apps he tried such as oanda and IG — interactive broker trading these two apps had an immense amount of data, and it was not easy to sign up for an account. For Gekko app, it’s much easier to use and encourages new users to sign up for an account to trade. Best of all it is all stimulated; no one gets burnt. For new traders, it also helps to check if what they researched matches what’s happening in the market.

Photo: www.gogekko.com

On a personal note, what he wished to have found out sooner was his motivation. Motivation to set goals, milestones and to know what he wanted to achieve each year. Without the first year in Polytechnic trying to figure that out, he wouldn’t have focused and be motivated to achieve even more. He believes that when one realises their value and self-reflect on the things they did, they will see things differently and be passionate to make things happen in their lives.

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