Archive for the ‘Fixed Income’ Category

Posted on November 16, 2009 - by musicwhiz

MTQ – 1H FY 2010 Financial Analysis and Review

MTQ released their results for 1H FY 2010 (they have a March year-end) on October 28, 2009. Since the company only releases results every half-yearly instead of quarterly as they are below the S$75 million market capitalization threshold, this means that I will only be able to review the company’s performance every six months, barring any updates which the company may provide in the meantime. A pleasant surprise I got was a newsletter which the company sent out to all shareholders to provide updates on the Company – most companies I know do not do this and MTQ is certainly very shareholder-friendly in this respect. This is even though its shares are not very liquid and the company is relatively unknown.

My analysis will be split into the usual 3 sections as per my other analyses for my companies; and at the same time I will discuss briefly on prospects and plans.

Profit and Loss Analysis
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Posted on August 24, 2009 - by Eng Tiang Chuan

The Almost Perfect Contrarian Indicator

Advisers are constantly bombarded with email updates and sales kits from fund houses, especially the well performing ones. The account managers are just doing their job promoting their funds. This can also be a good source of information for advisers, be it for performance ranking, latest economic conditions or even academic information. However, adviser must conduct their own due diligence as no fund house would criticize their own funds. Not all advisers do that.

Hot funds are promoted aggressively by fund houses. I remembered a particular fund which managed to do well in 2008 being marketed very aggressively. Performance updates were sent out regularly and numerous product trainings were given. Some advisers were sold and they too promoted this fund heavily to their clients. During a recent in house investment training, an update on this fund was given. Most were shocked by the poor performance. Few knew about it because the performance updates has stopped some time ago, presumably due to the under-performance.

China funds were also promoted heavily recently. And what happened to the Chinese market? Read more…

Posted on January 20, 2009 - by Createwealth8888

The power of compounding in investing

Time could help regular-savings-plan investors chalk up a considerable sum of returns.

Clearly, the initial investment sum plays an important role in the sum of returns. Let’s say you invest $100,000, assuming an investment return of 20%, you would get $120,000 in total. The sum would diminish to $12,000 if you had invested only $10,000 at the same rate of return. So some people may have an illusion that investment only work well for people who invest large sums of money.

Well, not exactly. Even if you invest a relatively smaller amount, you could make a very good return by utilising the power of compounding. What you need to have on your side is TIME; or simply to invest early. Let’s illustrate how much $100,000 would grow at steady rates of return over different periods as shown in Table 1. (more…)

Posted on April 28, 2008 - by La Papillion

Of bonds, yields, stocks and PE

By: La Papillion

I was inspired by Mike’s posting on the stock vs bond deal to do a little more research on my own. From what I can gather, the chart below seems to be the latest updated yields for treasury bill/bonds by SG govt (I’m not sure!)

Quite pathetic right? I’m not sure if I can find any bond yield longer than 20 years old, because the website where I got the data didn’t have such an option for me to choose. Read more…

Posted on March 23, 2008 - by PanzerGrenadier

How to check treasure bills cut-off yields (i.e. interest rates)?

By: PanzerGrenadier

The Monetary Authority of Singapore conducts weekly auctions for 3 month treasury bills issued by the Government of Singapore (Ministry of Finance). Every Monday, the results of the auctions for the treasury bill are announced. Read more…

Posted on December 30, 2007 - by PanzerGrenadier

Cash management 101

By: PanzerGrenadier

You are interested in your finances to read my blog.

You want to know about investments, personal finance and money management.

Ultimately, you want to be financially free.

Why cash management?
One of the building blocks for growing your net-worth and maximising the returns from your savings is to manage your cash well. Today’s high inflation rates of 4-5% in Singapore has resulted in our savings accounts earning 0.25% having a negative return of 0.25% less 4% (or -3.75%). Thefore, just to mitigate the negative return of holding cash, you should consider cash management to hold as little cash as possible in savings or deposits and try to allocate more towards assets that generate a better return that inflation.
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Posted on December 26, 2007 - by Wilfred Ling

What is the best risk-free rate in Singapore?

By: Wilfred Ling

During a Christmas gathering with friends, someone asked me for a question: What is the best risk-free instrument in Singapore? It was an easy question.

My answer to that was:
There is no risk-free instrument in Singapore. Traditional risk-free instrument is associated either with a bank deposit (preferably linked wiith the Singapore goverment) or the Singapore Government Securities (SGS). But we know that bank deposits and 10-year SGS is below the inflation rate. It is forecast that inflation for 2008 will be 4-5% per annum.
Read more…

Additional Resource:
The Best Bank Deposit Rates in Singapore by Dr. Money