You will produce a short research note where every factual line has a source beside it.
Farhan has done three-quarters of the work. He has ten questions about the REIT from lesson 4.1, a source for each from lesson 4.2, and a method for confirming a claim from lesson 4.3. What he doesn't have is one page he can read in two minutes, show his colleague, and come back to in six months to see what's changed.
This exercise produces that page: a research note on one investment, where every factual line has a source and a date beside it. It takes about forty minutes, most of it spent reading primary documents with an assistant's help.
Work through your ten questions one at a time. For each, open the source you listed in lesson 4.2, Where the real answers live, and find the answer there.
Use the assistant where it saves time. If the answer sits somewhere in a two-hundred-page annual report, upload the report or paste the relevant section and ask it to find and quote the passage that answers your question. Ask for the page number too. Then go to that page and read the passage yourself. The assistant is finding the answer for you, and you are the one confirming it.
Write each answer in one or two plain sentences. Keep the figures exact, as the source gives them.
After each answer, in brackets, add the document, the page and the as-of date. For example, with figures that are only an illustration: "The REIT's gearing was 38.2% (annual report, page 64, as at the end of its last financial year)." Or: "The manager is licensed by MAS for fund management (MAS Financial Institutions Directory, checked on the date of this note)."
The as-of date matters most for figures that move, as lesson 4.3, Check a claim: find the sentence or the figure, explained. If you worked anything out yourself, such as a yield at today's price, say so and keep the calculation in a spreadsheet you can open again. Write "my calculation, from the distributions in the results announcement and the closing price on the date of this note."
Some questions won't have a clear answer in any public source. Some will have an answer you can't confirm. Don't fill these in from the chat, and don't leave them blank either.
Mark each one clearly: "Not found in the annual report or recent announcements." Or: "Prospectus describes the fee but not the amount; factsheet gives a figure without a date."
Gaps are part of the result. A note with three honest gaps tells you more than one with ten confident answers, three of them invented. Sometimes a gap is the most important line on the page. If you can't find out how a product makes its money or how you'd get yours out, that's information.
The last section is not a recommendation. Don't write buy, sell, hold or "looks attractive". This course teaches you to check, not to pick, and a research note that ends on a verdict tends to colour how you read everything above it.
End instead with the open questions: what you would need to know before deciding, and who could tell you. Some of these are about the investment, such as when the next refinancing is due. Others are about you: how this would fit with what you already hold, and whether you'd need the money within a few years. Those personal questions are often the ones where licensed advice earns its fee, as lesson 7.3, AI output versus licensed financial advice, explains.
One page. At the top, the investment's name, its type, and the date of the note. Then the ten questions, each with a one- or two-line answer and its source and date in brackets, or a clear gap. At the bottom, a short list of open questions.
Farhan's note had seven sourced answers, two gaps and one figure he calculated himself. His colleague read it and asked where he'd found the debt maturity dates. That's the kind of question a good note invites: one about the evidence, not about whether to buy.
Choose your investment, set aside the forty minutes, and work through your list from the first question.
Write a one-page note on one fund, stock, REIT or bond with ten sourced answers, the gaps you found, and open questions.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).