Q&A
The questions asked over and over in the Clubhouse sessions — one page per recurring question, accumulating James's answers and situational variants across dates.
Q: A new lower-fee Nasdaq ETF appeared — should I switch my holdings over?
James's answer: no need to switch. Hold your core position to the death — switching over means selling, realizing capital gains, and paying tax once; paying a big tax now to save a tiny bit of management fee isn't worth it. It's simple: leave what you hold untouched, and just buy the cheaper one with new money.
Q: I'm stuck in a losing position I can't bear to sell — should I realize the loss and switch to the Nasdaq?
James's answer: sell it all at market immediately and switch to the Nasdaq — don't stay stuck in a bad holding just to 'wait for it to come back.' Use the 'broken elevator' metaphor: the elevator is broken — do you keep waiting for it to be fixed, or just switch to a good one? You want to get to the 55th floor, you took the broken elevator, there's a good one right next to it, yet you insist on staying in the broken one — that logic itself is wrong. What's already fallen is a sunk cost; switching to something that will rise is the point.
Q: Am I suited to borrow (credit/pledge) to invest? How high a rate is still worth borrowing at?
Two layers. Rate layer: as long as the rate is cheap enough and you 'can repay it,' borrow — 4% is cheap, first-to-borrow wins; don't guess why the government is tightening credit. Fitness layer: but 'borrowing to invest' only suits people who can already invest steadily and firmly believe in index investing; if you can't even handle your current positions and panic in a downturn, don't borrow yet — first get what you can manage right, and only after you're actually making money does borrowing make sense. The point of borrowing was never the interest, but risk control.
Q: Should I let my partner/family know my assets? Should I do a prenup or a trust?
James's stance is consistent: don't nickel-and-dime. Married couples already share property — at divorce everything goes on the table and is split in half, and premarital assets barely count after ten years — so a prenup, 'joint account + personal accounts,' or hiding assets mostly just 'feels good' and protects nothing. The real solution is to find someone with close values who won't nickel-and-dime, and to not even harbor the thought 'if we divorce I'd lose half.' Only if you're inheriting a huge sum is a prenup worth considering. Set up a Living Trust to give equally to children and their spouses (love me, love my dog); don't believe the 'your inheritance gets taken by a divorcing outsider' ad pitch.
Q: I'm already in the US (immigrated), but my money is still in China/overseas — should I move it over? How?
Unless you plan to retire back there, James's answer is 'move it' — and soon. Reasons: assets keep growing, so the longer you wait the less you can ever move over; two-country accounts make both tax and inheritance messy; and the US market long outperforms A-shares. How: 'ant-move' via the annual US$50k remittance quota, bring proceeds home in one lump sum legally after selling property, or route through a Hong Kong account; keep only small day-to-day sums in the local account. Get any back-reporting and taxes owed done quickly.
Q: Should I let my kid take out loans for college? What's the most efficient way to fund education?
Chinese families habitually sell stock and pay full tuition in cash — James says that breaks the compounding. Simplest: pay tuition with a PAL, don't sell stock. If the child is willing, use a student loan — deferred repayment effectively borrows several years of investing time on their credit. More advanced: open a custodial account early and gift into it each year so it compounds; by graduation the account may exceed the loan balance. In a line: borrow what you can, invest what you can, and grow the family's total investment assets.
Q: Surrendering my savings insurance loses principal — cancel now or wait until maturity?
An asked-over-and-over classic. James's answer never changes: cancel immediately, don't wait for maturity — 'wait until you've finished paying and you'll lose even more.' What you've paid is a sunk cost; paying on just locks more money into a low-return (or principal-eating) product. Put the surrender value straight into an index and it grows several zeros over a lifetime. The only insurance worth holding is term life and legally required cover (like auto).
Q: Now that I've retired / stopped working, should I keep paying labor insurance and national pension?
Decide purely on return on investment. Taiwan's National Health Insurance is mandatory and must be paid (it's cheap). For labor insurance and national pension, run the ROI: if you have long tenure and a few more years earns you a lump sum (James had paid 18 years at retirement; 7 more was worth it) → pay; if tenure is thin and the payout is near 1:0 (early 30s, under 10 years) → not worth it, don't pay. Having no job means no labor insurance — that's normal; it's insurance, not a tax, so there's no legal problem or clawback. James also skips US Medicare Part B (a few hundred USD/month) and self-insures — but cancer and other poor-health cases are decided differently.
Q: Can I raise my pledge-borrowing rate (to 4%, 6%) as my assets grow?
No. Hold your withdrawal rate (about 2% on a 433 allocation, 3% on 70/30 — beyond that you must shift into high-dividend), and don't mistake 'accumulated borrowing ≤ 20% of total assets' for a withdrawal rate. 20% is a hard ceiling: the market can drop 80%, and even if you only borrowed 20% you'll get margin-called into bankruptcy. To raise your standard of living as assets grow, you rebalance: park twice your accumulated debt in the cash position to hedge it, redo 433 on the rest, then take 2% of the new total.
Q: What should go in a Roth vs. a Traditional IRA?
A common US retirement-account question. Principle: put the most aggressive, fastest-growing assets (QLD, QQQ) in the tax-free Roth; keep conservative ones (BOXX, QQQI, cash) in the Traditional IRA or a taxable account. Pair them so 'one dollar of QLD in Roth against one dollar of BOXX in Traditional = overall Beta 1.0,' giving the tax-free room to the highest-growth asset.
Q: Am I qualified to quit my job / retire early?
The most common career question. Answered in two steps: first the math ('can I afford it' — how many times annual expenses, does cash flow hold), then the values ('is it worth it' — once you hit the threshold, stop selling your life for money). James's practical takeaways: before switching to an easier job, run the numbers — often 'keep working' and 'retire' differ little; full-time investing is fine but don't make it a new rat race; if the workplace is toxic, leave.
Q: How many times my annual expenses do I need to retire?
An asked-over-and-over classic. Bottom line: 15× is the entry threshold, but the actual multiple depends on how high a dividend cash flow you can get — with only an 8% high dividend (e.g. China) you need around 25× (roughly 17.5–20× worked out), while anyone withdrawing ≤3% (≥33×) needs no high-dividend fund at all. This page accumulates James's answers for different situations over time.
Q: Should I be a guarantor for a friend/relative, or lend money out?
James's test is one line: only lend or guarantee money you're willing to treat as 'thrown down a drain, never coming back' — and since that's the case, the better move is to just give it to them and say 'don't repay.' Being a guarantor means shouldering the entire debt for someone; only do it if you can afford to. If you can't afford to wire them the full amount outright and generously say 'this is yours, no need to repay,' then you can neither guarantee for them nor lend to anyone. Taiwan's old joint-guarantee rules once made parents guarantors with debt chasing their children — all the more reason to avoid it.
Q: My family/friends sold earlier, or followed a cycle trade — what now?
The answer is the same as every 'I sold, what now': buy back at market immediately, no other answer. But the bigger lesson is — never again notify friends/family who don't watch the videos to do any maneuver (deleverage, cycle, sell); tell them only one line: 'buy when you have money, never sell.' Because you must get both the buy AND the sell right, which is nearly impossible for people who don't study; once they get off, they can never get back on (fewer than 10% of even daily viewers managed it).
Q: Why do capitalists leave a path for workers to rise? Won't it stop working if everyone uses it?
Capitalism is a system designed by capitalists to sustain themselves — but it's fair and open, and can't fully seal off class mobility, so a path to wealth exists; it's just 'not advertised': schools don't teach it, only wealthy families, the awakened, and CLEC tell you. The system is a maze — capitalists have navigation, ordinary people don't (the 'navigation' they get points them toward being workers). Will it collapse because everyone uses it? No — introduce it to 100 people and most think you're a scammer or money-crazed; the vast majority can't be woken.
Q: Should young people buy high-dividend funds (QQQI, 0056)?
An asked-over-and-over classic. Bottom line: no. High-dividend funds are a tool for people who are retired, have no income, and reached only 15× annual expenses — to generate cash flow. They are not for anyone still in the accumulation phase. A young person's biggest risk is low return; parking money in low-growth high-dividend funds is choosing to stay poor.
Q: My retirement cash flow falls short — should I take a reverse mortgage?
An asked-over-and-over classic. Bottom line: if you own a house and want to keep it, a reverse mortgage is a very stable monthly cash-flow tool — and it's not only for people short of money. Retirees with no income can't get an offset mortgage, so a reverse mortgage fills the gap; parents who own a home should use it to activate the asset so their children needn't keep sending living expenses.