The Core CLEC Practical Toolkit

Online scams are rampant, and impostor accounts impersonating Teacher James are everywhere. Important notice: for Teacher James’s official accounts, rely on the information panel, the pinned announcements, and his own public statements on the CLEC Investment and Personal Finance Channel (the official account circulated within the community is @clecchairman, but please still verify against the channel). CLEC never proactively sends private messages to anyone through Line, WeChat, WhatsApp, Telegram, or any other messaging app, and there is no private investment group that requires a paid membership. All CLEC teaching content is entirely free and public. If anyone reaches out to you on their own initiative, steers you toward buying a specific ticker, offers managed accounts, or asks you to pay to join a group, treat it as a high-risk scam signal, block them immediately, report it to the police, and never wire any money.

A note on distinguishing terms: throughout this book, “CLEC” always refers to Teacher James’s “CLEC Investment and Personal Finance Channel” and his investment-teaching system (including extended usages such as “the CLEC system,” “the CLEC Compendium,” and “the CLEC investment philosophy”). This is a YouTube channel set up by Teacher James himself, delivering teaching content one-way. “The 00662 community,” by contrast, is a LINE community established by students of their own accord (including the “Beginner 00662 Index Investing Class — First Community” main group and several side chat rooms); it has no direct connection to Teacher James himself — the teacher has never set up, operated, or endorsed any community. When you see phrases in this book such as “compiled by the 00662 community” or “reported by 00662 community students,” please understand them as second-hand practical information contributed by the community of its own accord, not the official opinion of Teacher James personally.

This appendix is a study index compiled by the editor from CLEC’s public videos, lecture materials, 00662 community experience, and third-party tools; it is not an officially approved list from CLEC or Teacher James. It contains an investor’s checklist, the core tickers and their functional roles, a comparison of extended products, and an index of online tools; all links, tools, products, and tax explanations are organized from public information (data as of 2025-Q4) and may lapse or change over time due to platform policies and shifts in regulation. Before use, please verify against the original sources yourself, and rely on the latest official announcements from each institution.

The Investor’s Practical Checklist

Before executing any major investment action, be sure to run through the following items:

• [　] Does your cash-defense layer match your stage of life? During the working accumulation phase, at least 6–12 months of essential living expenses; those who pledge or use high leverage must let cash plus short-term bonds be enough to cover the borrowing and the pressure of a long bear market; retirees hold mainly 30% short-term bonds / cash (when total assets reach 50× annual expenses, 30% equals roughly 15 years of living costs). The tickers can be BOXX / SGOV / 00865B.
• [　] Is your allocation code clear? What is your current Beta value? Is it 433, 442, or a ratio that matches your risk tolerance?
• [　] Do you need a retirement rescue plan? Only if your assets fall short of 25× annual expenses and you also reject pledging should you consider cash-flow tools such as QQQI / JEPQ / JEPI (like the 10+5 dual-engine); for the general accumulation phase and for retirees with sufficient assets, still stay mainly with QQQ / 00662, a short-bond cash line of defense, and a 2% annual drawdown rate.
• [　] Has your rebalancing discipline been activated? Have you set an annual execution date (such as 12/1) or a threshold (such as a 5% deviation) for rebalancing?
• [　] Are your debt tools under control? If you use securities pledging (PAL), is the pledge ratio held within 20%, keeping the initial maintenance ratio at about 500%? (250% is only the warning line, not the ideal safety line; when the market falls near it, you should stop adding new borrowing, raise your cash line of defense, or reduce leverage.)
• [　] Do you reject noise and prediction? Can you, without watching the news, still mechanically execute the system’s instructions?

Core Tickers and Their Functional Roles

Based on the core logic of this book, the following are the recommended tickers and their roles within the system:

| Ticker | Category | Functional Role | Main Characteristics | | :— | :— | :— | :— | | QQQ / 00662 | Underlying index | Core base asset | Possesses “organism”-like metabolic capacity, representing the strongest technology growth force in the world. | | QLD / 00670L | 2× leverage | Offensive accelerator | Used to raise the portfolio’s Beta value and shorten the time it takes to accumulate assets. | | BOXX / 00865B | Cash-like / short-term bonds | Risk moat | Highly liquid defensive ammunition; but it is an ETF, not a bank deposit or time deposit, so keep the current month’s living expenses and emergency cash in bank cash. | | SGOV | Short-term Treasuries | Short-bond / pledge collateral | At some international private banks it may earn a higher collateral recognition ratio (the actual LTV depends on each bank’s policy and is not fixed). | Note: the following are alternative tickers suited to retirement cash flow and to cross-border residents (outside Taiwan and the US); they are not part of the core accumulation-phase whitelist. The full explanation is in the chapter “The Multi-Region Allocation for Cross-Border Residents” (CH18).

The Tax Difference Between SGOV and BOXX for US Holders

For US tax residents, although SGOV and BOXX are similar in function (both being cash-like defensive tools), their tax efficiency differs significantly:

The key difference: SGOV distributes dividends monthly, and the portion derived from US Treasury interest may be exempt from state tax in some states (depending on state of residence), but it must still be reported and federal tax paid, with annual distribution-reporting work. BOXX uses a box-spread options strategy to roll gains into NAV and generally does not distribute, a design that reduces the tax friction of annual distributions — but it is not a tax-exempt tool, nor can it guarantee it will never distribute taxable gains (taxable distributions have occurred historically). (The above is a general statement of public tax law; for your actual personal filing, please consult a CPA or a qualified tax advisor directly.)

Practical suggestions:

• Regular taxable account (brokerage account): BOXX’s annual distribution tax friction is usually lower, but it is not “tax-exempt”; whether it suits you still depends on the account, the holding period, and the fund’s annual tax classification for that year, to be judged by a CPA
• Retirement accounts such as Roth IRA / Traditional IRA: little difference between SGOV and BOXX (both sit within a tax-free / tax-deferred environment), so choose based on liquidity and collateral-ratio needs
• Those who need to pledge at an international private bank (such as HSBC): SGOV is often given a higher collateral recognition ratio, but the actual LTV depends on each bank, account region, and credit policy, and is not a fixed 90%

The QQQI Retirement Cash-Flow Engine

QQQI is a “yield-type” ETF that uses the NASDAQ-100 as its underlying, collects premiums by selling call options (covered calls), and returns them in the form of high distributions (its yield is commonly seen in the 10%-and-above range). It is CLEC’s “rescue” tool for retirement cash flow, used specifically in the retirement phase; it is not a core holding for the accumulation phase, nor is it a standard allocation for retirees with sufficient assets.

• Positioning: the main line during accumulation is always QQQ / 00662 (pursuing growth); QQQI is a cash-flow rescue tool for when a retiree’s assets are insufficient, and is not used during accumulation. Those whose assets reach 50× annual expenses still stay mainly with a 2% annual drawdown rate plus a short-bond line of defense.
• Core use — rescue allocation: when a retiree’s total assets fall short of 25× annual expenses (that is, the forced withdrawal rate exceeds 4%), QQQI’s high distributions can directly cover living costs, avoiding selling stock at a low point. The reverse-engineering logic for how much to invest is detailed in the withdrawal-rate ladder in the chapter “Taiwanese Investors and the Homegrown Moat.”
• The 10+5 dual-engine (rescue model): for elders whose assets are insufficient (about 10–15× annual expenses), who are unwilling to pledge, yet who must retire, you can use 10× annual expenses of QQQI to cover living costs, paired with a 5× annual expenses 70/30 allocation (70% core growth 00662 / QQQ plus a 30% cash cushion of 00865B) to maintain both growth and defense. This is a rescue plan for those with insufficient assets, not a standard retirement main line; those whose assets reach 50× still put a 2% drawdown rate plus a high cash line of defense first.
• The price you must recognize: the high distribution of a covered call is “trading away future upside for present cash flow” — in a strong rally the return is capped by the premium collected. It therefore suits the retirement phase, where “cash flow takes priority over maximizing growth”; using it during the young accumulation phase amounts to crippling your own growth engine.
• QQQI + 433: use the distributions to cover living costs, while the remainder keeps rolling according to the 433 structure, balancing cash flow with long-term appreciation.

The Formulas for Assets and Exposure

Community member PonPon provides a set of “asset-layering and exposure / leverage” formulas that convert positions scattered across real estate, stocks, cash, and various debts into a single set of manageable Beta and leverage metrics, making it easy to see how far you are from the forced-liquidation line and the boundary of discipline.

First define each layer of assets:

• Total assets = market value of real estate + market value of stocks + cash
• Total net assets = total assets − (balance of Category-One mortgage + balance of Category-Four mortgage + personal-loan balance)
• Liquid net assets = (market value of stocks + cash) − (balance of Category-Four mortgage + personal-loan balance)
• Liquid assets = market value of stocks + cash (it is recommended that cash make up at least 30% of liquid assets, to facilitate annual rebalancing)
• Hypothetical cash position = total revolving personal-loan credit available − outstanding revolving personal-loan balance (for stress-test support only; unused credit is not real cash and may disappear if the bank cuts your line, refuses to lend, raises rates, or the economy turns, so it cannot replace the bank-cash and short-bond line of defense)
• Stock-market exposure = (underlying market value × 1) + (2× market value × 2) + (3× market value × 3)

Then, taking “stock-market exposure” as the numerator and dividing by different asset denominators, you get various Beta and leverage figures:

The value of this set of formulas lies in viewing “book leverage” and “exposure leverage” separately:

• On the books your debt may look modest, but once you factor in the market-exposure multiples of 2× and 3× leverage, the volatility you actually bear may far exceed what you imagined.
• Conversely, by including the usable-but-not-yet-borrowed personal-loan credit (the hypothetical cash position) in the denominator, you can see how much defensive depth you actually still have.

Extended Products for Reference (Not the CLEC Core)

Products mentioned in the book but not part of the CLEC core are collected here for extended reference only; the CLEC channel does not proactively recommend the products below.

Note: within the main text, a single sentence of comparison or a counterexample may remain; anything that expands beyond the scope of the main line is consolidated into this section.

Stablecoins (such as USDC, USDT) have gained more discussion in the community in recent years, and their nature as tools must first be settled: a compliant US-dollar stablecoin is, in theory, backed by highly liquid assets such as cash and short-term US Treasuries, and is often described as “on-chain dollars”; it does not appreciate in itself and pays no interest. Its value lies in the convenience of cross-border remittance and of payments in inflation-prone regions, not in long-term asset appreciation; but it still carries issuer, custody, redemption, regulatory, on-chain security, and exchange risks, and cannot be equated with bank cash or a principal-protected tool. If you have idle funds you want to use to participate or observe, you must strictly hold the red line that “the funds involved do not exceed 1% of total assets,” proceed with a “just trying it out” mindset, never affect the safety of your core allocation, and certainly never let it replace the cash / short-bond line of defense.

External and Community Verification Tools

Do not believe the pundits, and do not even blindly believe this book; please verify the first principles yourself with the tools and manage your assets. CLEC’s official lecture-material cloud drive, online backtesting site, NotebookLM knowledge base, and CLEC GPT have already been organized in the earlier “About CLEC” section; below is a supplementary set of community- and third-party-developed tools that can be cross-verified:

“cfnavi.org (the Investment and Personal Finance System)” was developed by the Chengfeng Linghang community, tailor-made for Taiwan-style pledging and asset allocation. It can dynamically monitor the maintenance-ratio line of defense and automatically calculate rebalancing ratios, and is a common practical tool for executing the 433 strategy.

“Chengfeng Linghang cfnavi Investment and Personal Finance System”:

https://cfnavi.org/

The “Investment Calculator” is used to project “how NT$10,000 a month rolls into NT$100 million and NT$2.2 billion.” Enter a Return Rate of 12% (working phase) or 11% (retirement phase), and you will witness with your own eyes the nuclear-grade power of compounding over time.

“Investment Calculator”:

https://www.calculator.net/investment-calculator.html

The “Great-Way-Is-Simple Investing Method Excel spreadsheet (backtest model)” was compiled from Chengfeng Linghang’s Great-Way-Is-Simple Investing Method, for advanced users only, used for a 25-year backtest of dollar-cost averaging vs. fixed-share investing and for a pledge maintenance-ratio stress test under extreme market crashes; the video contains the full spreadsheet download link and operating tutorial.

“Operating Tutorial for the Great-Way-Is-Simple Investing Method Excel Spreadsheet”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdI2caBfPig

The “clec-strategy-backtest engine” was developed by student yutaofr and offers both online and local usage: the online version can run multi-year backtests of QQQ’s various formations, smart-rebalancing comparisons, and retirement-withdrawal scenario simulations directly in the browser, with no download or installation; the local version, aimed at regions with restricted internet, lets you download the source code and run it offline with “docker-compose up app,” fully bypassing firewall restrictions.

“Strategy Backtest Website (online version)”:

https://clec-strategy-backtest.vercel.app/

“GitHub Source Code (local deployment)”:

https://github.com/yutaofr/clec-strategy-backtest

The “Teacher James NotebookLM Knowledge Base” was built by the community from the transcripts and lecture materials of thousands of Teacher James’s videos, and lets you query in natural language the teacher’s views on a specific topic and the corresponding video timelines, sparing you the pain of manually hunting for answers across dozens of hours of video.

“Teacher James NotebookLM Knowledge Base”:

https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/736acf71-c8bf-4b46-992b-4badda3838f0

Supplementary knowledge base (different coverage, for cross-querying): https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/60ca894f-17d4-4dbf-bf43-38388bea077f

The “CLEC Gemini Gem Assistant (student-built, unofficial)” was built and maintained by a student on Google Gemini as a CLEC-themed Gem, and lets you query allocation and scenario handling in natural language; it is another query gateway besides the NotebookLM knowledge base. This is a student’s own compilation, not Teacher James’s official content, and its answers should still be cross-verified against the original CLEC channel videos.

“CLEC Gemini Gem Assistant (student-built, unofficial)”:

https://gemini.google.com/gem/e2fbb66e66b8

https://gemini.google.com/gem/a91fa6dd44c9

A note on using AI tools: the NotebookLM, the Gemini Gem above, and the CLEC GPT in the “About CLEC” section are all “general-purpose” artificial intelligence in nature, not CLEC-proprietary models — they can only assist your queries within the range of sources actually included, and may err due to incomplete data, version gaps, distorted summaries, or model hallucination, helping you at most catch obvious problems in logic or in a formula. For investment philosophy and final allocation decisions, be sure to return to the original CLEC channel videos and judge for yourself, and never treat the AI’s answer as Teacher James’s official position.

The “CLEC Weekly Video Summary Newsletter (unofficial)” was compiled of their own accord by the student “the little editor on the road to financial freedom,” condensing the content of Teacher James’s weekly videos into illustrated summaries, published on the Vocus platform. For readers who have no time to watch every video one by one, or who want to quickly review the key points of a certain week, it is an efficient review gateway. This is a second-hand compilation by the community of its own accord, not Teacher James’s official content, and the original CLEC channel videos still prevail.

“CLEC Weekly Video Summary Newsletter (the little editor, unofficial)”:

https://vocus.cc/user/@clecweeklyunofficial

A Community Template for the Asset Health Check

Within the community there is a fill-in template that makes it convenient to help one another optimize a “balance sheet” and a “cash-flow statement.” Once you have filled in the following fields, you can seek targeted advice from experienced students in the community, rather than making them guess your family situation from scratch.

• “Age and family structure”: your own and your spouse’s ages, whether there are elders and children living with you, each person’s health condition and whether there are special expenses
• “Asset-liability allocation”: the real-estate / securities / personal-loan / mortgage amounts for Category One (owner-occupied) and Category Four (for investment); your current Beta value and allocation ratio (such as 433 / 442)
• “Annual income and expense projection”: after-tax annual income, the investable amount after deducting daily expenses, annual personal-loan repayment expenses, and expected large expenditures over the next 1–3 years (renovation, children’s education, delivery of a pre-sale home)
• “Common bottleneck questions”: for example, “How large a budget for a car can I afford?” “What do I do if I still have a NT$14 million pre-sale home to take delivery of in a year?” “Should the reserve for my parents’ long-term care be kept separate or merged into the main account?”

The purpose of filling this in is not to let the community decide for you, but to let yourself, for the first time, spread a vague family finance out into a quantifiable list. Most people, halfway through filling it in, will find that the problem was actually that they had not listed things clearly, not that the allocation method was wrong.

Community Backtesting Tools

The Google Sheets backtesting tools developed within the community by three students — Chengfeng, GamLIN, and PonPon — cover the three needs of asset allocation, dollar-cost-averaging scenario simulation, and Monte Carlo flexible rebalancing respectively, and are the tool set most often brought out for real testing when executing the CLEC system.

“Chengfeng: Asset Allocation and Rebalancing Backtest Spreadsheet” covers the rebalancing effects of core allocations such as 433 / 442 / 505 across different years, and is the recommended entry-level tool.

“Chengfeng Backtest Spreadsheet (instructions)”:

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=kZJfJB0Z6Ga9Jv3fg65HBIThWYPy2HhXInW7

“Chengfeng Backtest Spreadsheet (click to auto-create a copy)”:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Kp5sOea_Ib3geIjA8c-Tf1WO9xBg5F-Ir7YC51dIJ-Y/copy

“GamLIN (11/15 version): Dollar-Cost-Averaging and Withdrawal Backtest Sheet” has four major features: short-term Treasury rates use actual historical T-Bill values (not a fixed assumption) / the allocation ratio of DCA funds is adjustable / the starting principal can be set to NT$0 / both pledge borrowing and withdrawal-by-selling are computed as a “fixed proportion of the starting funds” for a fixed amount. When you open the Excel file, you must click “Enable Content” to lift the macro block; for the Google Sheets version, just “make a copy” to use it. Filling-in steps: open the “Settings” tab, modify the yellow fields, and press “Start Backtest.”

“GamLIN Dollar-Cost-Averaging and Withdrawal Backtest Sheet”:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s7lLMUYWdc5MHoBRu87FNSyBptiDkzXg/edit?usp=sharing

“PonPon: Monte Carlo Flexible Rebalancing Backtest” supports Monte Carlo simulation and a flexible-rebalancing matrix (multiple rebalancing rules that can be switched and compared). On first opening, you must consent to the Google Sheets authorization; the data template contains several sets of scenarios that you can copy and modify to match your own allocation.

“PonPon Monte Carlo Flexible Rebalancing Backtest (version one)”:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_AmOM_HZArLZhksdzkIRewQaxSbyFpRamCLSXAS58EE/edit?usp=drivesdk

“PonPon Monte Carlo Flexible Rebalancing Backtest (version two)”:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uvQSSwRDNpENceNsK7Ncpj7_0DVE_GE6SwRDFMr8ln8/edit?usp=drivesdk

Notes on use: all of the above tools require you to “make a copy” to your own Google account before you can edit them; the original links are read-only. The projection results are for concept verification and scenario simulation; the numbers do not represent guaranteed future returns. Before actually investing, rely on your own financial situation and professional consultation.

A core reminder: The tools in the appendix are meant to “simplify” your decision-making process, not to add complexity. Return to first principles, let your assets run automatically, and time will naturally give you the reward you deserve.

Note: content related to US tax status (PFIC, FBAR, FATCA, the US estate-tax exemption offsetting liabilities) has been moved to the chapter “The Retirement and Inheritance Taxation of US Citizens and Green-Card Holders” (CH19) for detailed explanation.