You will be able to use an assistant to plan what to find out about an investment instead of asking whether to buy it.
Farhan's colleague has been talking about a REIT listed on SGX for weeks. It pays out regularly, he says, and the yield beats a fixed deposit. Farhan has some savings he isn't using and asked an assistant the obvious question: "Is this REIT a good investment?" He got four confident paragraphs. The REIT had strong properties, a reliable payout history and a yield of a little over six percent. The answer ended by saying it could suit investors seeking income, though he should do his own research.
Every part of that sounded reasonable, yet Farhan had no idea which parts were true, which were true two years ago, and which were made up. He also had no better idea what his own research should be.
Asking whether something is a good investment invites exactly the failures from lesson 1.3, Where it fails: invented numbers, old facts, wrong country. To give a verdict, the assistant has to supply facts: the yield, the debt level, how the price has moved, what the properties are. For one particular REIT or fund, it has seen relatively little text, much of it old, so it fills the gaps with plausible figures. Then it wraps them in an opinion, and the opinion makes the figures feel more solid than they are.
There's a second problem, which is that "good" depends on you: what you need the money for, when, how much you can stand to see it fall, and what else you own. The assistant knows none of that, and it has no duty to find out. Lesson 7.3, AI output versus licensed financial advice, returns to this.
So the verdict question fails twice. It gets facts you can't trust and a judgement that isn't about you.
Change the question from "should I buy this?" to "what should I find out before deciding?" That turns the assistant from a source of answers into a planner of questions, which is the fourth job in lesson 1.2, Four money jobs AI does well.
Farhan's second prompt was: "I live in Singapore and I'm considering investing in a REIT listed on SGX. I'm not asking whether to buy it. List the questions I should be able to answer before deciding, grouped by topic. Don't give me any figures or opinions about this REIT."
The same approach works for a unit trust, an ETF, a single stock or a bond, as long as you name the type of investment. The right questions differ: cost and the index tracked dominate a fund list, a REIT list leans on debt and rental income, and a bond list starts with who is borrowing and what happens if they can't pay.
Whatever the investment, a useful question list covers five areas. If the assistant's list misses one, ask for it.
What it holds. This means what your money actually owns, whether that's the holdings of a fund and the index it follows, the buildings in a REIT and the tenants who rent them, or the business behind a share.
What it costs. Every fee you pay to buy, hold and sell, and any ongoing charge taken from the fund itself. Unit trusts, robo-advisors and managed money compared covers fund costs in depth.
What can go wrong. The main risks: prices falling, payouts being cut, interest rates rising, the borrower failing to pay, the currency moving against you.
How you get your money out. Whether you can sell any trading day, how long the money takes to arrive, and any penalty or loss for leaving early.
Who regulates it, and who you'd complain to. Whether the provider is licensed in Singapore, and where the product is listed or registered.
Farhan's list came back with twenty-two questions. A few he'd never have thought of, such as how much of the REIT's income came from its largest tenants and when its loans were due for refinancing, while others were about things he didn't care about at all.
Twenty questions is too many to answer properly. Cut the list to the ten that would actually change your decision. A good test is to imagine the answer surprising you and ask whether you'd then invest differently, and to drop the question when you wouldn't.
Then save the list somewhere you can find it again. The answers to these questions change every quarter, as prices, fees and holdings move. The questions themselves change much more slowly. A REIT question list you write today will still be the right list next year, and for the next REIT you look at.
Lesson 4.2, Where the real answers live, matches each question to the document that answers it.
Pick one investment you're curious about now and get your own question list, then cut it down to the ten that matter to you.
Get a research question list for one investment you are curious about and trim it to the ten questions that matter to you.
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