Two weeks ago Alvin wrote about investing for his mother. As an experiment of sorts, he has received a token sum of $2000 from his mother. The sum will be invested and returns tracked. He has compared the various options available to retail investors, amongst them reits, ETFs and corporate and Singapore Savings Bonds. For a start, I was impressed by the sheer number of options available. Even for a relatively small sum, there is no lack of variety. And we are not even in alternative investment territory (landbanking, wines, peer to peer landing etc) yet. The second thing that struck me was how expensive it is to invest a small sum of money. The transaction cost adds up and becomes very prohibitive. The implication is this – as the sums invested becomes bigger, the investment becomes cheaper. When sums are small, investments become more and more expensive. It got ......