1 July is SAF Day and every Singaporean male who has served will know that camp life comes with its own language. The lingo, the jargon, the sarcasm. Overwhelming for newbies, second nature once you’re in. And somehow, despite Gen Z inventing new slang every other week, SAF phrases never die. They get passed down, generation after generation, like a rifle handed to the next poor recruit. This is still an investing website, so I’ll spare you the nostalgia and get to the point. SAF lingo maps surprisingly well onto investing. Here are five that might just make you a better investor.

1. “Never mind, you take your time.”

Classic sarcasm. The officer is already fuming, and this is his version of a countdown. You take your time? You better not. In investing, though, take the literal meaning. Compounding needs time, years, decades if you can manage it. Charlie Munger said don’t interrupt it unnecessarily, and he was right....