Author: Investment Moats

“You have to make it possible for yourself. And you can do it” If there is one takeaway from this article it would be this 2 sentence. Tony and Margo raised their 3 kids. Then they retired in 2010. Like many of us, they had mortgage and high health insurance payments (in the United States, the health insurance cost is much higher than in Singapore). In Margo’s words they “owe their soul” to Bank of America. They owe Bank of America so much in high-interest payments that they realize it was just not worth it. So they decide to...

Do you wish to test your trading skills, beat the pants out of professionals and be rewarded for it? Now your chance is here! Investing discussion group platform InvestingNote.com is partnering with SGX and Societe Generale to organize an active trading tournament for traders. You can be part of this competition. All you have to do is click the Register for FREE blue button, and you are on your way. Registration will be from 21 Sep 2019 til 8 Nov 2019 The tournament will consist of 2 rounds and one voting period: Elimination Round (14th Oct – 8th Nov...

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 November 2019’s SSB bonds yield an interest rate of 1.74%/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 1.62%/yr. $10,000 will grow to $11,740 in 10 years. This bond is backed by the Singapore Government and its available to Singaporeans. A single...

One of my ex-co-worker let me know that there are 2 exchange traded funds (ETF) listed on the London Stock Exchange this year. I thought these are pretty good to let you guys and gals be aware of. This is more suitable for the buy-and-hold investors who understand the benefits and shortcomings of investing in a low-cost portfolio by doing it yourself. This is in contrast to purchasing through easier to access robo-advisers platform. Both ETFs are UCITS ETF that are domiciled in Ireland and they are listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). We prefer the ETF and...

I realize I have not written any updates on Manulife US REIT’s latest acquisition. So here it is. Just a short update. This year, majority of the REITs have seen their share price appreciating. With the share price appreciation, the cost of equity (which in this case, is the dividend yield the REIT pays to you) have gone down. This makes equity raising much attractive and for them to bring acquisitions on board. This increases the AUM, the net property income and therefore the fees earned. Manulife US REIT made the acquisition of Centerpointe in the Washington sub-market in...

Majority of the affluent looking to retire are not financially on track yet. This is according to a recent Standard Chartered Survey. This Standard Chartered Survey covers 1000 respondents across 5 different countries China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. The survey asked 200 respondents between the age of 35 to 59 years old, from each of the countries. If I invert what the survey concluded, the result is quite interesting. 57% of affluent Singaporeans respondents (114 people out of 200 people) did not indicate that they are on track to the desired retirement they wish for. 36% of...

Cute Platelets that Clot and Binds Last week, I wrote a post on Providend titled Here are the Top 3 Attributes of a Good Financial Adviser. I thought it will give you some good examples how you could go about assessing a prospective financial adviser if you wish to engage one. After I have published the article, I would like to share some thoughts about what goes into the thought process. When I wanted to write such an article, I could not write it from my point of view since I have been more of a consumer, rather some...

In my capacity on my day job in Providend, I was asked to make a comment on a recent MorningStar study that came out. You can see my comments here: click to read article. Unfortunately, my Chinese is so lousy that I cannot translate this. Basically, Zaobao seeks a comment why local funds are comparatively so expensive and my answer is as above. MorningStar’s global investor study seeks to examine the cost structure of funds for retail investors around the world. They have produce this study every 2 years so this study in 2019 is the sixth edition. It...

I woke up this morning feeling very frustrated about something at work. There is this functionality that is so simple, yet I can’t find a lot of service provider offering it. So I am contemplating coding this myself. It will also be good since I may eventually be able to own the intellectual property rights to this. And that means Investment Moats readers may eventually be benefit from it if Kyith becomes resurgent as a coder. However, that would mean that the writing stuff will have to go down. So this is roughly what I need I am thinking...

In investing, things are most of the time not definite. I make a very poor salesman because straight away, people can detect a lack of confidence. I would rather say, my face most of the time, show how uncomfortable I am with things. That is why we have advisers because they don’t have this problem of mine. At work, I kept the deepest, darkest part of what I know about the markets and investing firewalled from them. This is so that they can function. If you know too much, it affects your ability to push a good narrative. My...

This week is pretty much drained. So I don’t have any bandwidth to explore things that are new. Weekends is probably to catch some breath. One of my reader that I met up with some time ago asked me these 2 deeper question about retirement: What amount of principal will you feel comfortable to quit the job & just collect investment dividends, with a not-too-spendthrift lifestyle? How much to “reserve” for medical costs? I thought it is easier to tackle in this week that requires some decompression. A Framework to Think about Whether You are Ready for Retirement Before...