Author: Investment Moats

Some how the balloting results of Prime US REIT (analysis here) gives me the eerie feeling of the IPO of HPH Trust. Here are the balloting results released yesterday night: Basically if you have applied for any amount that is 99,900 units and below, you get what you applied for. There is one person who applied from between 500,00 to 999,900 units. He got 325,000 units. There is another person who applied above 1 million units, and he got 625,700 units. They were initially only catering 16 mil units for the public offer with the rest for placement but...

Yesterday, OCBC put out what they called the “first time such a comprehensive study of Singaporeans’ state of financial health has been conducted”. They call it the Financial Wellness Index. I thought a few companies have done studies like this, but I could be wrong. I do have poor memory at this age. Nevertheless I do appreciate data like this, especially now that I am in a job that needs to look at things like this. I wanna see whether there are more interesting data points and the more detailed report (my boss was surprised 37 slides is a...

On 4th Jun 18, MAS issued a consultation paper seeking comments on two proposed set of guidelines, regarding the provision of financial advisory service and the design of advisory and sales form. This ended on 5th Jul 18. 4 days ago, on 10th Jul 19, MAS published the Guidelines on Provision of Financial Advisory Service, Response to Feedback received on that consultation paper. You can read the guidelines in the link above. I interpret the report as this is the basis how MAS will expand the regulation in this expanding space of new media that Investment Moats is operating...

This must be an old man problem because I think most people this day and age won’t have this issue. I am just not sure whether you guys and gals have so much things to store locally nowadays. I remember during my time, I have seen: 5 and 1/4 inch diskette 3.5 inch diskette magnetic hard disk IOMEGA disk mini disc CF card, SD card, memory stick and their variants CD and then DVD LD Cassette Tape Video Tape And perhaps this generation, they do not have much things to store. In this age, we use storage as a...

Since we are on the topic of job switching, I thought of writing some financial and non-financial decision points I considered when making these decisions that I had over the years. However, these thoughts are rather jumbled up in the head. And this week, is not the most conducive to think about these things because I am picking up some stuff… that requires a little bit more manpower. So perhaps that will be left to next week. One book that have been on my mind to write about was this book called Family Inc. This is not a very...

I left my company last week. The last 2 weeks was a bit crazy, in the amount of handover that I have to do. I probably didn’t do a good job. I probably underestimated the amount of stuff I had my hand in. It is rather different from the last time I left my previous team to come over to this work place 6 to 7 years ago. Back then, there are enough folks that know what I have my hand in, and the second in command (as well as those below) was just damn good (and eventually proved...

Here is a higher yielding, safe way to save your money that you have no idea when you will need to use it, or your emergency fund. The August 2019’s SSB bonds yield an interest rate of 2.01%/yr for the next 10 years. You can apply through ATM or Internet Banking via the three banks (UOB,OCBC, DBS) However, if you only hold the SSB bonds for 1 year, with 2 semi-annual payments, your interest rate is 1.68%/yr. $10,000 will grow to $12,021 in 10 years. This bond is backed by the Singapore Government and its available to Singaporeans. A single...

Prime REIT. Prime REIT. Prime REIT. If you say it fast enough, and repeat it often enough it becomes Prime Rib, Prime Rib, Prime Rib. Not too long ago, Keppel Capital partnered with Peter M. Bren and Charles J. Schreiber, Jr’s KBS Realty Advisers to list a Grade B Office REIT called Keppel KBS in Singapore. Keppel Capital and KBS Asia Partners (KAP) have lodged their prospectus and will go ahead to list their Grade A Office REIT called Prime US REIT. This article will go through what I think about this REIT. The Offer From what we understand,...

Life insurance coverage against death, TPD and critical illness is necessary and most people I know do not have adequate coverage. They think it is expensive to get themselves adequately covered. However, that is not the case. Adequate life insurance can be affordable, yet leave you with good cash flow to live life. First and foremost, the basis of insurance is for protection. When we purchase insurance, we sought to address a particular health risk that would create monetary challenges for ourselves or our loved ones. Some of the most common ones are: The risk that if you passed...

There has been a few placements, non-renounceable rights issues and acquisitions by REITs that I cannot get through all (well by my own standards). But I thought I will just do the Cromwell European REIT one.  After the burnout work in the office in the past 2 weeks, I really do not feel like doing anything.  So this one will probably be a short one.  I have not do much homework on Cromwell, so decide to treat this as a relaxing homework of mine.  Cromwell European REIT will be purchasing  3 Freehold French Office Buildings in Greater Paris 2...

I have been single for a large part of my life. And if you are doing some planning for your finances going forward, some aspects that you will think about as a single will be whether there are things that I didn’t realize I need, just because I am single. There are some things that I am concerned about, and they do not start with money. The clearest is that in the event of different degrees of disability, how would that affect my life? How much higher cost would I need to support such a change in lifestyle? Kiplinger...

I have been single for a large part of my life. And if you are doing some planning for your finances going forward, some aspects that you will think about as a single will be whether there are things that I didn’t realize I need, just because I am single. There are some things that I am concerned about, and they do not start with money. The clearest is that in the event of different degrees of disability, how would that affect my life? How much higher cost would I need to support such a change in lifestyle? Kiplinger...

Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick’s Animal Spirits have become a great podcast to listen to. If you are the sort that wants a short 30 minute entertaining take on what are some of the best financial data points out there, and discussion on some of the latest articles that they have read (they read a lot), this is the one.  They have introduced a Talk your book segment where they bring on some interesting financial products that they find, could have a role in your portfolio, and ask the people behind it to talk about it. You will appreciate...

Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick’s Animal Spirits have become a great podcast to listen to. If you are the sort that wants a short 30 minute entertaining take on what are some of the best financial data points out there, and discussion on some of the latest articles that they have read (they read a lot), this is the one.  They have introduced a Talk your book segment where they bring on some interesting financial products that they find, could have a role in your portfolio, and ask the people behind it to talk about it. You will appreciate...