My most unforgettable journey through the mountains happened more than 10 years ago when I was a career army officer and training in Brunei's Temburong Jungle. I had to lead 150 men through the jungle on a mission. We first used a sortie of helicopters to land on a helipad 10km away from our destination at dawn. When you land in darkness and when the strong wind caused by the rotor is blowing down on you, you lose all your sense of direction. At that time, I depended on my compass and map and moved my men in the direction of our objective. As we moved through the jungle, we walked along the ridge lines and went up and down many hills. You need to know one thing about walking in the jungle: it is never a simple case of walking straight all the way to your destination. The terrain will ensure that you will 'meander' your way through.

Make adjustments where necessary
Like walking in the mountains, from time to time, you will be disoriented. What is most important is to retrace your steps and move to your last known position and start moving in the right direction again. In investments, we must monitor the performance closely. When our portfolio is not moving generally towards our set returns objective of say 7 per cent per annum, and when it is taking on more risk, say 8 per cent than we expect it to be, it is time to check what went wrong and make necessary adjustments. If you have been faithfully documenting all your decisions and assumptions, you would be able to move in the right direction once more.

Follow the right commander
When I was leading my 150 men, I was responsible for their safety, welfare, morale and the achieving of the objective as a team. If I am only concerned about reaching my objective at the expense of my men, they will never follow me again. I must also prove to them that I am a competent commander, able to be calm during adversity and having the technical ability to use the right equipment to navigate in the rough terrain. I must constantly communicate to them about our situation and motivate them. I must be prepared to admit my mistakes and tell them what remedial actions I am going to take so that they trust me. In that mission, I believe I displayed those qualities and won the respect of my men.

Similarly, as investment managers managing clients' monies, we must be responsible for the safety of our clients' monies. It is their hard-earned assets and their dreams for their future. We must not make decisions based on our own selfish financial interests at the expense of our clients. We had better be sure that we are competent before we lead our clients into the 'financial jungle'. When markets are seemingly doing well, we need to hold on to our clients tightly so that they won't be overly confident or greedy and, as a result, invest blindly. When markets are volatile, we need to be calm for our clients and hold them close so that they don't sell their investments out of panic. Throughout the entire investment lifespan of our clients, we need to maintain communication with our clients so that they know that we are in control. If we fail to be that 'commander' for our clients' investments, we may lose a client, but they may lose their dreams for their family and themselves. Don't take our responsibility and leadership lightly.

In May and June, the financial markets fell sharply due to fears that interest rates might be raised again. The fall wiped out all the returns that the markets have gained in 2006. Many were afraid as they did not know what to do. In this period of great difficulty, we did what every good military commander would do. We studied all the data available and knew that the markets have over-reacted and there was really nothing to be overly concerned with. We checked all our portfolios and knew that despite the fall and the volatility, the portfolios were still behaving according to our expectation and moving in the right direction, towards our clients' objective. We remained calm for our clients, stayed invested but made minor adjustments to these portfolios.

We communicated to our clients the truth behind the fall and assured them there is nothing to be too concerned about. We told them we are still very much in control of the situation and remained confident their portfolios will deliver the returns they need. As a result, none of our clients pulled out their funds and today, the portfolios have recovered.

If you want to journey into the 'financial jungle', you need to know that like walking in the mountains, there is no way you can reach your objective in a straight-line approach. You must be prepared for occasional fluctuations as this is the way of the 'jungle'. Without risks, there are no returns. As long as your investments are behaving as you expect them to and your investment manager is in complete control, there is nothing to fear. Go to the mountains sometimes, for there are many investment lessons to be learnt from Nature.