Jake van der Kamp is a native of the Netherlands, a citizen of Canada and a resident of Hong Kong. In his earlier years in Hong Kong he worked as an investment analyst and research director for Sun Hung Kai Securities, Hoare Govett Asia and Morgan Stanley Asia. He covered stock markets from South Korea to India, overseeing the work of up to 50 analysts and advising clients in Europe and America as well as Asia. He subsequently made a career shift to journalism, writing a widely read daily column on investment and finance for Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post. During this time he was also director of a Singapore-based hedge fund and, for a period, the treasurer of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong. In this book he returns to his career interests with a manual on self-reliance in investment matters.