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🛠️ How I took advantage of 3 arbitrage strategies

In 2008, the biggest trading arbitrage ever documented occurred.

The US TIPs vs Treasury Bonds arbitrage — worth $56B of mispricing — led to Barnegat Fund to seize the opportunity, making a killing.

Everyone talks about arbitrage in financial trading.

These are the larger-than-life accounts you hear about in books and news.

But no one talks about the arbitrages hidden in plain sight.

The ones that you and I come across every single day…

… which can help you save tens of thousands of dollars.

In this newsletter, I deep dive into 3 arbitrage strategies that I have taken advantage of over the past few years to save and make money—and how you can too.

First up, one of my favorites:

Strategy 1: Geographic

In 2020, when I moved from San Francisco to Singapore, I made a lower salary in Singapore than if I worked in a comparable role in the US.

But I ended up roughly over 50% higher in take home pay (after taxes) due to lower cost-of-living and taxes.

This enabled me to save and invest a higher amount.

Then, when we stayed in Vietnam for a few months, our housing costs shrunk by 60%:

• $4,800 SGD (~$3,570 USD) for a 1-Bedroom 1-Bath Condo in Singapore’s Robertson Quay

• $1,400 USD for half of a 3-Bedroom 3-Bath Luxury Serviced Apartment in Saigon’s District 2 (shared with another couple)

What’s the game here? Increasing your take-home earning power, then saving and investing more.

And I think this game is still accessible if you can find the right job (or run a business).

But there’s a couple other methods of executing this strategy too:

How to use geographic arbitrage:

• Move from a high cost-of-living to low cost-of-living city. Explained above.

• Work remotely for a global employer in a low-pay country. I’ve seen high-performing tech workers ask global companies to benchmark their salary based on a more competitive market (e.g. instead of Indonesia, use Singapore). Note: This only works for global companies - see chart below.

• Move from a low-pay to high-pay country. This is the classic immigration strategy my parents tried to employ. Move from China to Canada, and later the US, for more high-income career opportunities.

Strategy 2: Time

In my work, I generally prioritize activities that produce the highest hourly rate based on my skills, knowledge, network, and capital.

For example, my product advising charges 5x my FT PM hourly rate given it’s highly leveraged. So I spend my time here.

Then I can delegate out admin and operational tasks like my bookkeeping for <$20/hour.

On the extreme end, I can delegate basically any activity under my hourly rate. (I don’t do this, but realize I can delegate more.)

What’s the game here? I’m allocating my time intentionally on the highest leveraged activities. While I spend on delegating other tasks.

How to use time arbitrage: