Hi all, I'm a retired sell-side (stockbroking firm) analyst. Retired at 45 with a net worth of S$8m. Started out being in debt with student loans after my degree. Am about 50% in property (live in a bungalow) and 50% in mostly high yield stocks that give me about S$200K in dividends per year. I am not completely retired in that I have an easy 9-5 management job that pays about $200K (total including bonus) a year. I didn't work for a short while, but boredom almost drove me insane. That gives me about $400K in income per year when you combine with the dividends.

My family expenditure is about $200K per year and includes 2 cars and I didn't change my lifestyle when I "retired". So operational savings are around $200K+ per year, which is basically all of my relatively simple job. I don't have to work if I don't want to. The value of my stock portfolio has varied a lot. It was down about $1m in 2008, but is up about $1.6m in 2009. Just before I "retired", I brought in $900K steadily for the last 3 years of my career working at a top foreign firm. Because the job was so busy, I never really actively managed my investments, just slowly built up my high yield stock portfolio steadily buying for about 8 years. I don't really listen or follow any investment advice. I just buy and buy. I made about $1m profit on selling a property, but wasn't really from conciously investing or speculating. Thats just the profit I made when I sold my condo to move into a bungalow a few years ago. At one time, the condo was valued at $400K below my purchase price though! You have to sell at the right time. The bungalow has doubled since I bought it.

I didn't even work that long in as an analyst - about 8 years - just that I was good at it. For the first 15 years of my working life, I saved only about S$1m. Then, the 8 years when I was an analyst, my net worth rose S$7m. I worked in a different industry before I became an analyst, but it was the experience in that industry that got me hired and I had to figure out all the finance stuff by reading books. Thought about a CFA, but eventually I never bothered to get it because I was doing well. For those contemplating being an analyst, the key thing is not how smart you are, but how well you deal with smart people like fund managers and management. Towards the end, I hung out with CEOs of large companies in Singapore and knew a lot of fund managers very well. Key advice from my history is that you can dramatically change your life/weath by changing careers. I did it when I was 37 years old and was able to retire by 45. Most won't be able to repeat what I did because there are large numbers of failed and mediocre analysts. But it is good training to get into other areas like sales, trading or even corporate finance. Hope some find my experience useful.