A lot of investors have posted good results for last year. However, if you were like me and had been worrying that the stock market could crash in 2017, a year that ends with 7, you would have missed out on a stock market rally in which the STI rose by 18% in 2017. When everybody else is posting good results online, it does feel depressing occasionally.

I was not totally out of the market last year. Having participated in the stock market for 32 years, I will never be totally out of the market, even though I respect the folklore that the market would experience a crash whenever the year ends with 7. I took a defensive stance, ensuring that I had around 45% to 50% cash to deploy in the event that a crash were to materialise. As I sold stocks that were rising, I continued to invest ...