JPMorgan came up with a nice slide deck showcasing their data collection about things related to retirement planning. If you are interested in planning for your own retirement, this slide deck might interest you. I reviewed this slide because I am interested in this area for myself and for work. I picked out some of the slides that I find interesting or resonated with me. This slide resonated with me because I think many think that if they can get one or two things right then they can have the kind of retirement they want. It may not be one or two things but a breadth of areas. The challenge ..read more

In BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink’s 2024 letter to shareholders, he highlighted potentially countries took a peep at the U.S. and wonders what they can do to make themselves more resilient. And the key may be to have stronger capital markets: Last year, I spent a lot of days on the road, logging visits to 17 different countries. I met with clients and employees. I also met with many policymakers and heads of state, and during those meetings, the most frequent conversation I had was about the capital markets. More and more countries recognize the power of American capital markets a ..read more

In this post, I will explain further about the main portfolio which makes up the majority of my net wealth. The bulk of this portfolio was published on Investment Moats for quite a while because I wanted a way to show people how to use my FREE Google Spreadsheet, which many have said is a pretty good way to track your portfolio by transactions ( You can read more and get the spreadsheet here). However, many have also explained that my spreadsheet looks like a zoo. This is because the spreadsheet is not just about tracking what we currently have but what we used to have. So many of the line ite ..read more

About a month ago, I reflected upon the short-term underperformance of a Nikko Shenton fund in Dealing with Short-Term Underperformance is Tough. Reflecting on Nikko Shenton Global Opportunities Merger. I went through my thought process and explained why I think investors through CPF OA may not have a choice but to switch to another fund now that Nikko Shenton Global Opportunities is going to be merged with Nikko’s Global Equity Fund. Since then, Nikko AM has reached out to me and tried to understand what I was thinking and provide some clarity over what I presented. Back then, I thought that ..read more

Here is a safe way to save money that you have no idea when you will need to use or your emergency fund. The 10-yr and 1-yr Singapore Savings Bonds rates since the first issue in Oct 2015 The May 2024’s SSB bonds yield an interest rate of 3.06%/yr for the next ten 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 one year, with two semi-annual payments, your interest rate is 2.99%/yr. The one-year SSB yield seems to be heading down, showing a less flat curve. $10,000 will grow to $13,070 in 10 years. The Singap ..read more

By now, many of you would have heard that UOB has reduced the bonus interest rates that you can earn if you bank with them. The revised rates are below: Changes such as this sometimes positively affect us but also could negatively affect us, as in this case. On first inspection, the interest rate that we can earn is reduced. We also observe that if you spend a minimum of $500 on your credit card and credit salary into your UOB account, there may be more interest to earn on an additional $50,000 of your savings. If you spend $500 minimum on your credit card and successfully carried out 3 GIRO ..read more

My colleagues Mike and Eddy wrote this E-book called InsureWell for Smart Accumulators to help enlighten Singaporeans about their insurance protection. You can download the E-book here. You would need to leave your name and email address before you can download. The book was ready some time ago, but I decided to share it here today because, coincidentally, I got some private messages or questions about whether: Are they adequately insured against XXX? Should they get this policy that their adviser recommends to them? How much should they insure against YYYY? Now… these questions came about ..read more

Last weekend, I came across two pieces of research that talk about style factors in relation to recession and bear markets, which sounds interesting to me. The first report from First Eagle reflects upon their investment management in 2023 and covers economics, market valuation, small cap, private debt, housing. The second report is written by Morgan Stanley about Equity “Compounders” in a European investing context. Both reports provide insights on the timing of style factors or how well style factors are impacted by economic cycle changes. I thought I would go through some charts that might ..read more

In the past month, as part of the CPF policy changes, I have been making some changes to incorporate the new policy changes but also looking at whether some improvements can be made to our internal CPF Projector. The most challenging part is to estimate the CPF LIFE Standard income that we may get given a certain amount of money we successfully accumulated in our CPF LIFE. We all had to rely on the CPF LIFE Estimator to see the projected income. The estimator only works for those who are turning 55 years old recently, and if we are much younger, the estimator doesn’t work. I decide to tabulate ..read more

A Singapore Treasury Bill issue (BS24106W) will be auctioned on Wednesday, 27 March 2024. If you wish to subscribe successfully, get your order via Internet banking (Cash, SRS, CPF-OA, CPF-SA) or in person (CPF) by 26th March. You can view the details at MAS here. In the past, I have shared with you the virtues of the Singapore T-bills, their ideal uses, and how to subscribe to them here: How to Buy Singapore 6-Month Treasury Bills (T-Bills) or 1-Year SGS Bonds. The Tbill cut-off yield in the last auction is 3.78%. If you select a non-competitive bid, you may be pro-rated the amount you ..read more