Life and Finance

In December last year, I accompanied a friend to open a trading account at POEMS. Several weeks later, the trading and CDP accounts were opened. Good to go, right?  Fast forward to the present. He shared that he still doesn't know how to start. It then got me thinking about the underlying causes. There could be other underlying reasons that I am not aware of, so I could be wrong.  Could it be due to a lack of information? A lack of time? A lack of drive?  As I thought about it, it cannot be due to the first reason. The internet has provided endless information. Neither is it due to a lack of time. There are certainly pockets of free time and it depends on how we prioritize it.  So, how could I maybe, help him to get started? It is rather straightforward but easily the most difficult.  First , he needs to be interested in the world and its economy. It may be boring, especially if one does not have an interest but it's the most important. Read about the ...

Dividends CDL Hospitality Trusts: $40.96 CapitaLand Mall Trust: $11.60 Nikko AM STI ETF: $40.89 Singtel: $58.80  Total dividends so far in 2018: $152.25 Average dividends per month: $12.69 Current Portfolio Stock Shares Current Market Value (Based on closing prices on 9/3/18) Total Paper   Return(dividends and capital gains/losses)  CapitaLand Mall Trust 1000 $2020.00  +$86.89 CDL Hospitality Trusts 800 $1344.00 +$335.06 Singtel 600 $2016.00 -$159.20 Nikko AM STI ETF 686 $2420.55 +$430.73  $7800.55  +$693.48 Update:  Purchased 600 shares of CapitaLand Mall Trust at $1.98 on 14/2/18, therefore increasing the total shares owned to 1000.  Overall Portfolio Value increased by $916.18 as compared to the  previous Portfolio Update , mainly due to purchase of CapitaLand M...

In October last year, I tabulated my investing portfolio for the first time and wrote about it here:  My portfolio at 23 years old . I started investing because I wanted better returns on my extra cash(it's not the cash in my emergency funds) than just leaving it inside the bank account while I was going to be in National Service. I did not start investing because I wanted dividend income but as I read on, I was inspired by the financial bloggers in Singapore. So how much did I receive for 2017?  CDL Hospitality Trusts: $66.10  CapitaMall Trust: $44.56  Nikko AM STI ETF: $46.35  Total dividends: $157.01 Average dividends per month: $13.08 The dividends are currently kept in my CIMB FastSaver bank account with 1% p.a. I will be buying the Singapore Savings Bonds (fully backed by the Singapore government) with the dividends along with some of my emergency cash to obtain a slightly higher return while still maintaining flexibility.  Scr...

It has been a little over 2 years ago that I started reading into stocks and bought a few stocks. As a university student now, I lack the financial capital as before and priorities are now different. As such, I don't find myself trying to read as much as before, but I'm glad the habit of reading the posts on thefinance.sg has stuck with me.  So these are my current stocks:  Stock Shares Current Market Value  (19/10/2017)  Return (dividends and capital gains/loss)  CDL Hospitality Trusts 800 $1296.00 +$255.30  CapitaMall Trust 400 $820.00 +$75.44 Singtel 600 $2250.00 +$26.00 Nikko AM STI ETF 686 $2369.03 +$342.32 $6735.03 $699.06 Individual Stocks So long as I felt that the new growth engines were reasonable, a PB ratio that was lower than 1 and the companies could afford to pay or reservice debt, I bought it. An e...

If I am to describe myself as an investor now, I will probably be an index investor. It has since been about 9 months ago that I subscribed to Invest-Saver. There were a couple of reasons that got me started.  Firstly, I wanted to get started with stocks, secondly, learn about investing with a small capital and lastly, to discipline myself financially.  9 months on, how did it fare?  Dollar-Cost Averaging $100 goes into the RSP monthly, except for June's amount of $200.  Total Investment Costs and Cumulative Portfolio Value as of 30 July Capital Gains/Losses as of 30 July There were dividends of $2.93 in January and $10.59 in July.  Total Return is $17.64 as of 29/7/16 which includes the dividends minus the commission costs. ( Note that a few months back, the STI was really volatile and Total Return was negative, so it isn't all rosy always). Current share price stands at 2.93 as of 29/7/16).  I am going to continue this pl...

Update: I made some changes in the post below, reflecting some of the information that was not written previously and  made existing information clearer. As of 2/7/16.  Good news for us in NS! Other than putting the allowance into other savings accounts that offer meagre interest rates, we have this option now! An option to save for the 2 years or 22 months of service. Introducing the  POSB Save As You Earn  (SAYE) account. I was truly excited for this when I got wind of this. Looking deeper, I made some comparison. I thought the CIMB FastSaver  might serve as a useful comparison as well.  POSB SAYE 1. Saving At the end of 2 years Good for new enlistees who just wants to save a fixed amount every month and not do anything with it until they ORD. It gives fixed deposit rates for small amounts. Note: This works like a 24-month fixed deposit,  so you will lose the 2% cash gift interest if you withdra...

Come 20 June 2016, Singaporeans can check if they are eligible for the GST Voucher 2016 handout!  You can check it here:  GSTVoucher2016 .  On top of the regular GST voucher, there is a one-off Cash Special Payment this year.  I was surprised that I was eligible for it last year even before crossing my 21st birthday.  I'm all hands up for handouts! I hope I am eligible again! Of course, it must be done with consideration for the country's wealth. I'm confident that the government has considered that. The additional one-off voucher (which will costs $280 million) will help Singaporeans a little more this year.  Some personal thoughts I was searching for more info and I came across the article. He quipped that" if we spend some of these in our neighbourhood shops, it will support our local businesses as well! Gratitude for Mr Heng. I read that he was a good MP and his residents liked him. Hope he makes a full recovery and continue ...

After opening a FastSaver account with CIMB 6 months ago, I can say I am a satisfied depositor. I took home a good $10 cash gift. I shared that happiness with my family and friends. Of course, some scoffed at the promotion and interest rate. I tried to convince them. I failed. That's alright. They are happy with POSB. Probably they didn't understand inflation. They didn't think $10 is worth the simple 6 steps process. In this 6 months, the coffee prices increased by another $0.10 at a nearby kopitiam. Just last month, one of my army mates got really interested and opened FastSaver too. He told me about this promotion  for another CIMB account. CIMB StarSaver  is offering 0.8% if you maintain $500 of fresh deposits. I assume the promotion is to get some people to sign up for StarSaver since FastSaver is presumably the better option here to a new depositor with no conditions. I could be wrong on this, though. Do your own analysis. Anyway, he got his interest fr...

Gen Y or Millenials (the cooler sounding name). That's me! Picture from Huffingtonpost An article (see here: Survey: 2 in 3 young people have not started investing ) in the Sunday Times by GYC got me thinking. I am unsure of the intent of the survey but I assume that it is meant to set younger people thinking about the purpose of investing and hopefully, more will be receptive. If the earlier generation, say, the parents of millennials are already finding it difficult to save for retirement, I can't help but fear how we, millennials, will fare. Not knowing how to invest The young people of my time grew up in an environment where information is easily accessible. So it came as a shock when I saw in the article that one of the reasons cited were a 'lack of financial knowledge'. 61 per cent of the two thirds do not invest because they do not know how to. If I went back into time, I will have cited that reason also.. Two biggest influences are ...

I have been without financial goals for most of my life up until 7 months ago. I began tracking my expenses on Excel and keeping a record. I also made it a point to read posts from bloggers and the Invest section of the Sunday Times regularly.  The idea of indexing and passive income was something new and I am glad it came into my life now.  All this reading have helped me along the way to better understand the need to save and set financial goals for myself.  So what will be my financial goals be for the short to long term haul?  Emergency Chest (Long-term) The SAF is a good employer, providing an iron rice bowl for at least my 2 years of National Service. So during this period where I am serving, I aim to save as much as possible. I am fortunate because my parents still give me an allowance, therefore I am able to save more. After National Service, it is pretty much on my own if I'm heading out to find a job.  Goal: $10,000. Save $250 per mon...