sgwealthbuilder, Author at SG Wealth Builder

You Are Not Making Enough Money

April 7, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 476 Views 0 Comments

The following article is from Guest Blogger, Mike AdamsSales Performance Consultant, Corporate Fixer & Coach in Singapore. In one of my previous articles, I wrote on the importance of learning the art of selling in order to become a successful entrepreneur. This article resonates my thoughts that to be rich and successful in life, you must learn the rope of selling.I don’t know how much money you make but I am telling you, its not enough. You might make $100k a year or a $100k a month – it doesn’t matter, you and I need to make more.

If you are in sales and therefore have the ability and vehicle to write your own pay cheque, your duty is to go out and expand your income. Why? While it looks like the world economy is rebounding post 2009 it is in no way, shape or form back to boom times. Governments are struggling to find their feet and control debt and the government is not going to repair the world economy – business will! And it’s the sales people in businesses that can make this happen.

There is plenty of money in the markets; we just have to get it moving.

Money management; personal finance

Singaporeans are self-centred and money-face

March 26, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 531 Views 6 Comments

There was an online article written by a foreigner who described her experiences living in Singapore. Not too long ago, she came here with high expectations of Singapore and our culture. After some time, she was indeed happy with her life here, until she became pregnant recently.

She complained that nobody gave up the reserved seats in the train. Once, when she almost fainted at the train platform, nobody came forward to help her. She felt disappointed by Singaporeans’ lack of empathy and compassion.Being a local and having lived in Singapore for 34 years, I can concur with her that Singaporeans are basically self-centered and very money-face.

When her article was published, a lot of Singaporeans came forward to dispute her views and threw brick bats at her. Many claimed that what she wrote was based on an isolated incident and argued that it was unfair to judge us based on that single incident. Many also threw up lame excuses to justify our lack of compassion. There are very few locals who supported her views and many just dismissed her accusation as baseless.

When we come across such an article, instead of doing self-reflections, we are always quick to go into defensive and denial mode.

Gold; Book review; investment

Right on the Money

March 22, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 794 Views 0 Comments

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118856228.html

There are many online articles on how one should invest physical gold and silver, but very few people actually revealed their experiences on the precious metals. So it is refreshing to read Doug Casey’s experience on bullion investments in his book, “Right on the money: Doug Casey on Economics, Investing, and the Ways of the Real world with Louis James”. The book contains forty interviews Doug had with Louis, touching on topics such as investments, assets, gold, real estate and ethics.

My favorite chapters are from Chapter 9 to 14 under the segment “The Art of Investing”. In these chapters, Doug shared his candid thoughts on physical gold and silver. Interestingly, even though he made his fortune through speculation, he actually advocated investors to avoid trading physical gold. In fact, he urged investors to accumulate it as an asset on a consistent basis. Even though the interviews were held in 2011, I believe his views remained valid today because he was convinced that gold would go higher and that he saw any form of correction as opportunity to buy. He viewed the US government as the greatest danger to Americans today and labelled Bernake “as zero experience in the real world”.

Blog updates

Creating a high traffic blog

March 21, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 585 Views 0 Comments

If you are looking at starting a personal or professional blog, having a high traffic is vital to the success of your project. This may seem like common sense to many readers but many bloggers consistently overlook the importance of online traffic because they don’t realise that unlike brick and mortar business, or traditional mainstream media (e.g. newspapers and radio), unique visitors to your blog do not happen by chance.

In today’s context, given the billions of websites in the online galaxy, you cannot expect to achieve overnight success by advertising through newspapers or radio. You must have a sustainable strategy to capture traffic and make your online project a success. This is because the more unique visits your blog gets, the more established it becomes. More unique visitors would mean that a large group of people have visited your blog and read the content. This means that your marketing technique is successful.

Once you succeed in creating a high traffic blog, you can easily devise ways to monetize your blog and create a form of passive income for yourself. It is thus important to know the technique that drives traffic to your blog because it can determine whether you can make money out of it.

Money management; personal finance; Investment

Building your wealth in Singapore

March 12, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 477 Views 4 Comments

Hi SG Wealth Builder,

Let me first introduce myself. I’m currently an undergraduate and I would like to seek some advice from you because I’m quite lost. How can I increase my wealth to the next level? I’ve been making thousands every month month through trading for the last 2 years but I want to earn more. Is there any way to achieve this?

PS: In case you think I’m kidding around, I’ve attached my profit for March.

Thanks. 🙂

Yours sincerely,

Jacky

Many Singaporeans want to make money and become rich quick but very few bother to acquire the investment knowledge needed to build wealth.

I received the above letter from one of my readers a couple of weeks ago but could not find the time to reply due to my work commitment. As usual, I was reluctant to provide specific advice or guidance on investments that would mislead my readers into thinking that I am a financial guru. I just want to emphasize again that I am not. As a matter of fact, I don’t even work in the finance sector. But after much thoughts, I decided to share some of my insights pertaining to the reader’s question.

Property investment; Singapore market; housing prices

Property Investors’ Alert: HDB COV Falls to Zero in Feb 2014

March 6, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 811 Views 0 Comments

COV Trend

(2). Twelve out of 28 HDB Towns saw zero or negative median COV. This is an increase from seven HDB towns in January that saw zero or negative COV. Bukit Panjang, Punggol, Sembawang, Sengkang and Woodlands led the drop with negative overall median COVs recorded in Feb. Bedok, Bukit Batok, Chao Chu Kang, Geylang, Jurong West, Tampines and Yishun recorded zero overall median COV.

HDB Median COV by Town and Property Type

(3). Almost four in ten HDB deals closed below valuation. According to transaction records from srx.com.sg agencies, 37.3% of HDB resale deals were closed below valuation in February. This represents a 7.9 percentage point increase from 29.4% of negative COVs in Jan.

(4). HDB resale prices fell 1.8%. Overall, HDB resale prices fell 1.8% in February.

personal finance

Money Wisdom from Li Ka Shing

March 5, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 669 Views 0 Comments

Many Singaporeans want to be rich and retire early in Singapore. But not many of them are keen to invest the time and energy to gain the knowledge required to be a millionaire. I came across a recent article by well-known Hong Kong billionaire, Li Ka Shing who shared some tips on how to become rich. Li Ka Shing’s story is one of rag-to-riches, so his success is particularly inspiring.

Like many of you, I share the same aspiration to achieve financial freedom. While I have not achieved Li Ka Shing’s wealth status, his strategy resonates with my philosophy of having a growth mindset. This means that one should put in the extra effort to develop new skills and knowledge. Take note that none of his pointers below encourages you to hoard money like a scrooge.

In that article, he outlined a unique plan that can help to improve one’s financial destiny. His approach is refreshing to me because so far I have not come across anyone with a similar approach. Basically, the gist is to split your income into five portions.

1st portion (Expenditure)
The first set of fund is to cover your living expenses. He elaborated that one should take hardship when young and eat simple.

Stocks

Profit taking on K1 Ventures

March 2, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 691 Views 0 Comments

Recently I liquidated my remaining K1 Ventures shares in my CPF Ordinary Account. Total profits, including dividends and capital gains, amounted to $1,400. This represented a total return of 13% in 3 years. It could have been more if I had not pared down the investments since last year. As of now, I am not vested in any stocks.

The intent of investing my CPF monies was really to divert a portion of my CPF monies from the Ordinary Account before HDB wiped out the monies for settlement of my HDB purchase in 2010. I wanted this investment to be a buffer in case I got retrenched from my job and still need to service my housing loan. With no income, this investment could then be liquidated and used to pay the HDB monthly installments for at least one year. This buffer was important for me as I am the sole breadwinner.

Three years later, I am glad that the nightmare scenario of losing my job did not happen. But nevertheless, I decided to sell off all my K1 Ventures. Firstly, my financial situation has improved substantially due to higher income and advancement in my job. These developments contributed to significant cash savings for me.

Property investment; Singapore market; private housing prices

Are cooling measures for Singapore property solving the right problem?

February 28, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 658 Views 2 Comments

SG Wealth Builder is pleased to form a partnership with SRX Singapore Property to bring you the latest information on property trend in Singapore. Below article is based on information provided by SRX Research and readers must not interpret it as a form of financial advice.
Recent Singapore Real Estate Exchange (SRX) data suggests that the government’s cooling measures have been very effective at reducing the volume sales for condominiums and private apartments. In particular, the combination of measures to tighten the loan-to-value limits and the total debt servicing ratio have helped cut volume sales from 32,125 transactions in 2012, to 20,203 last year. These two measures have been effective at reducing demand because they restrict the amount of capital Singaporeans can borrow to purchase investment properties.The impact of the cooling measures on price has been less dramatic. Again, the two measures seem to have had the most effect. However, prices did not plummet like volume did. Instead, the former plateaued and experienced monthly gains and losses.

It is more difficult for cooling measures to bring down prices than it is to bring down volume sales. The reason is that the market is constantly in search of a fundamental price for each home, factoring in many variables and pricing signals unavailable to analysts and policymakers.This

Stocks

Three things about Baker Technology Limited

February 24, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 554 Views 1 Comment

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are based solely on the author’s perspectives and/or experiences. Readers must not treat the articles as financial advices. The author shall not be liable for any damages caused to the reader(s) arising from the use or purchase of information, products and services directly or indirectly featured or implied in this blog.

Recently I chanced upon this stock called Baker Technology Limited and decided to do some research after a fellow blogger claimed that this is a good investment. Usually I am fairly skeptical on penny stocks in SGX because good ones with growth potential are far and few. Most of them are either overvalued or simply trash stocks not worth mentioning. But just out of curiosity, I decided to do an evaluation on this stock.

Dividend Stocks
In light of the low interest rates, one of the favorite strategies in recent years is to invest in stocks that consistently pay out good dividends. For those who invested in Baker Technology Limited, this investment may look like it fits the bill as a classical dividend stock. In 2013, it paid out $0.10 of dividends and this year May, it will pay out $0.05.

Blog updates

Top Ten Personal Finance and Investment Blogs in Singapore

February 23, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 796 Views 1 Comment

I am so happy that my blog. SG Wealth Builder has been featured by DirectAsia.com!
In one of their latest articles, my blog was ranked fifth. Check out the article here.

The author wrote the following:
Having begun life way back in 2010, this one-man-blog is one of the ‘old guard’ of Singapore finance blogs – but it is still regularly updated with insightful posts on wealth accumulation, investments and money-making in general. In fact, this blogger furnished his readers with more posts in 2013 than any other year. Some in-depth information on investing here, and while it may not seem like a blog for beginners at first glance, many younger, less experienced investors do write in for advice and tips.

DirectAsia.com has established itself as one of Singapore’s leading online insurers in recent years. The company’s mission is to change the face of insurance in Singapore, and to bring the best value insurance policies and customer service to the region. On this aspect, the company’s core values are aligned with the philosophy of my blog, SG Wealth Builder.

I firmly believe that consumers, or rather investors, should be empowered to make investment decisions based on transparent information. To this, there are certainly areas within the insurance industry that needs to be improved – namely customer service and transparency.

Money management; personal finance; Investment

How to invest and be rich in Singapore

January 21, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 645 Views 1 Comment

Hi sgwealthbuilder,

I read your blog post on how to start building wealth from young and I enjoyed it thoroughly it helped me to understand more about investing and how I should go about developing myself as an investor.

However, I realize you tackled the situation for young investors who have yet to start or are interested to start. Hence, I was hoping if you could share with me your experience or some wisdom on what a young investor who has some knowledge, capital and owns a few shares already. I really would like to know whats the next step of vision and many blogs do not really touch on this category of ‘very young investors who accidentally started before reading financial blogs’.

I’m sorry I have yet to introduce myself, I’m a young army boy just turned 19 and saved up just about 12k and invested about 8k into Suntec Reit and FCT a couple of months ago. I do plan on purchasing gold because I like the feeling of holding my assets and I am aware of the benefits of having gold (cheap during economic booms and recovery, which are happening soon I think?).

I noticed you mentioned you do not normally give advice to people since you are not a financial adviser and such but I hope you could guide me somehow as my parents and close relatives do not invest and I’m the first to venture into this ‘taboo’ world.

Self improvement

How to build your wealth from young

January 16, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 726 Views 4 Comments

Hi SG Wealth Builder,

I am one of your readers of your blog, apologies if this email came as a surprise, I stumbled upon your blog while browsing the net on my iPhone.

Allow me to introduce myself. I’m John, a 3rd year polytechnic student. Though mentioning this might have made your head turn away, since I’m still young and probably in no position to search for any financial-generating opportunities like Stocks or Investments due to the lack of capital, but I believe it’s good to start young. I cannot find any tips that cater to someone like me, hence i wrote this email in hope to hear from you.

Problem is I don’t have any opportunity, or know of any methods to grow financially. hence I hope that through this email, I can get some guidance from you of what a person at my age and situation should do.

Hope to hear from you, thank you.The above is an email from one of my readers but the name has been changed to protect his identity. Since I started blogging four years ago, I have received quite a number of emails from readers seeking financial advice from me and normally my policy is not to reply their queries.

Property investment; Singapore market; private housing prices; imoney

Is It Possible To Sell Property Without An Agent?

January 16, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 508 Views 0 Comments

Property owners often think whether they can sell the property of their own or not. This line of thought pops up in mind because there is cost involved along with additional procedures and countless meetings. And some people do not want to involve a third party unless it is absolutely required.

The simple answer to the question is – yes it is possible for property owners to sell by themselves. There is no law in Singapore that says one cannot sell the property of his / her own! But for that they need to be equipped with related information, should know in and outs of property selling and must have an idea about the selling procedure.

In a demand driven real estate market like Singapore, owners often think of selling their existing property and buying a new one. With the continuation of price cooling off since mid 2013, many property owners have already sold their property in a bid to hunt for new ones. Urban Redevelopment Authority announced that about 27,000 public housing flats will be ready to sell in 2014. And according to industry experts, 95,000 new private units will come on the market over the next five years. This opens a wide door for property owners to consider selling the existing one and buy a brand new one.

Blog updates

Singapore Finance Bloggers

January 6, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 701 Views 0 Comments

I started this blog since 2010 and along the way witnessed many fellow finance bloggers leaving the scene one by one. Many of them started off very brightly but slowly faded off. Eventually they just gave up blogging all together, probably because of work or family commitments. Some of them were actually brilliant writers and I thought it was a loss to our local community when these bloggers stopped sharing their financial experiences online. Even though there are new finance bloggers coming on-board in blog aggregators like The Finance.sg or Singapore Investment Blogs, I hope this declining trend will not carry on, otherwise this unique group of bloggers would just disappear.

Yes, I used the term “unique” because there are not many Singapore blogs on personal finances. Most bloggers prefer to develop themes on food, lifestyle and politics but not personal finances. I suppose there are a few reasons to this. Firstly, it is easier to capture readership if you write articles on food, lifestyle and politics. These are common topics that attract large unique visitors. This is because Singaporeans like to eat and constantly look for interesting places to go, so naturally they tend to visit blogs for recommendations.

Career management; investments

New Year Resolutions

December 31, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 448 Views 0 Comments

Happy new year to all readers! On this first day of 2014, I would like to pen down some thoughts with regard to how the previous year had panned out for me, as well as my new year resolutions for 2014.

2013 had been an incredibly good year for both my career and my blog as well. Readership for my blog, SG Wealth Builder, has soared from 50,000 page views in 2012 to 440,000 page views in 2013. The dramatic increase was due to my commitment to blog more often, surge in my blog’s email subscription and also due to the expansion of my blog network. These factors had contributed steady flow of readers to my blog and spiked up the traffic.

Interestingly, my blog has also attracted new Singapore vendors to form business partnerships with me. I was approached by BullionStar and Fitch Learning to be their affiliate partners. Although there were several lucrative offers from interested partners, my policy is to promote only businesses which I believe in. Thus, I had previously turned down a few opportunities. One of them was to promote Malaysian properties investment seminars for a company which I politely declined.

Invest in myself
Many people, myself included, tends to chase the money and invest in everything under the sun (stocks, ETF, property,gold, unit trust, etc).

Career management; Book Reviews

Career Management: The Power of Doing Less

December 29, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 484 Views 3 Comments

2013 has been a hectic but rewarding year for my career. I got my coveted promotion in my job but in exchange for that was heavier workload, presentations, meetings and new projects. I found myself spending more time traveling and less quality time with my family. Sometimes I wonder if the promotion is worthwhile and question if life is all about work. So what if we can climb to the top but neglect our loved ones, families and things we really wanted to do with our lives? Is life really all about bringing home the bacon and paying the housing loan?

During this short holiday break, I am glad to have some spare time to do some reading on career management. Basically I want to start 2014 brand new and don’t want to go through the same motion as in 2013, so I checked with Wiley whether they have any books on career management. To this, I was given the chance to do a book review on Fergus O’Connell’s The Power of Doing Less, a refreshing 135 pages book which you can probably finish reading in half a day.

As each year goes by, we find ourselves working harder and harder.

Money management; personal finance; Investment

How to become rich in Singapore

December 27, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 719 Views 0 Comments

Many of us must be thinking hard on how to become rich in Singapore. Recently, there was an article in the local Chinese newspaper stating that an elderly man and his daughter illegally sublet their rental flat for $700. Apparently, they paid the government only $26 of rental fees every month since 1987 and had made a few hundred thousand of rental profits through the decades.

Even more amazing is that they were let off lightly by our government – barred from applying for HDB flats for the next 10 years and fined $5000. My wife and myself thought that the fine was peanuts considering the fact that father and daughter made a huge pile from the rental incomes. It seems that nowadays, Singaporeans are becoming more and more innovative to become rich, albeit through immoral methods.

Gold buy-back schemes
Every now and then, when gold prices hit record highs and made the local headline news, there would be investors rushing to buy gold. To exploit clueless investors, a group of smart Singaporeans devised complex gold buy-back schemes, which operates like Ponzi scams. In such cases, gold is offered at a small ‘discount’ from their exorbitant prices. There is an option of buying back the gold at the full exorbitant price but the money used to buy back the gold must be derived from new recruits.

Stocks

The Aftermath Effects of US QE Tapering

December 24, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 528 Views 0 Comments

Merry Christmas to all readers! Below is a guest article from Gideon, a hedge fund manager for Blyton Fund. He is a global macro investor using similar strategies as George Soros. He search the world for the best profits with the lowest risks. He cover equities, foreign exchange, commodities and bonds across global markers. He is based in Singapore and is open to managing funds for others. Below is his article on US QE Tapering.

Incidental with the announcement by the US Fed on the upcoming tapering of the Quantitative Easing program, there are positive signs to buy into several equity markets and to long the US dollar against selected currencies.

The major equity markets will advance higher

I postulate that the equity markets of the United States, most of Western Europe, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia will likely advance higher.

Some would argue that no, they will crash because interest rates will rise.

My argument will be that yes, interest rate will risem but at a controlled and slow enough pace that will not hurt the economies. The respective governments will see to that because interest is at stake.Yes, it is true that when interest rate was almost zero, asset (stock) prices were inflated.

Gold

The best time to buy gold

December 22, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 850 Views 0 Comments

The best time to buy gold is not always so straight-forward.. No matter what assets you invested in, the only way to make money and become rich is to adopt a contrarian approach. Most investors understand the investment principle of “buy low and sell high” but when it comes to practice, most people will refrain from taking a position that opposes the majority. This trend is similar for any form of investments – property, equities, currencies and precious metals.

Currently the Wall Street’s Dow Jones is at a historic high of 16,200 points, recording a stock market bull run that stretched from 2009’s 6500 points. This represented an incredible 250% jump within 4 years for the United States’ stock market. A sensible investor would have refrained from investing in the stock market, given the bubbly state. Conversely, gold’s performance has been dismal this year.

According to BullionStar, gold prices have plunged more than 30% since the start of 2013. This puts gold in its first bear market after 12 consecutive bull market years. In my opinion, gold prices could slide further, reaching USD900 per ounce. On the surface, this may seem like an ominous news to gold investors, especially for those who had invested in paper gold, such as ETF and mining stocks.

Career management salaries

$3000 income is the new benchmark in Singapore?

December 20, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 755 Views 0 Comments

Recently, both my wife and myself visited the new Bedok Mall developed by CapitaMalls Asia. We were quite impressed because it is the first full-fledged shopping mall in Bedok. The mall houses over 200 shops across three floors and net lettable area of 220,000 square feet, offering everyday essentials, lifestyle and fashion. The only major disappointment is the lack of cinema.

Anyway, back to the topic on income. We walked past EC House Express Cut and saw the job advertisement for a hairdresser. The advertisement stated the salary of $3000. It was not stated that the position required experienced applicants nor did it state for the preference of Singaporeans or foreign applicants. But I was quite surprised that a hairdresser in Singapore can command such high salary nowadays. After all, when I graduated in 2005, my starting salary was only $2600. So it seems to me that the salary gap between a skilled labor and white collar graduate is closing up rapidly in Singapore. The question now is: are Singapore workforce overpaid or is it a case of high inflation? In today’s context, can a degree really provide good income or open the door to opportunities?

I recall not too long ago, Sakae Sushi offered $3000 for a dishwasher.

Gold; currency

Tapering QE is a sideshow and the road ahead is inflationary

December 5, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 648 Views 0 Comments

In my interaction with local finance bloggers, I was surprised that many of them confessed that they didn’t know anything about gold bullion. In recent years, there were also a lot of negative reports of Singaporeans fallen prey to gold scams and frauds, losing millions of dollars in the process. With this in mind, SG Wealth Builder partners with BullionStar to educate Singaporean about the precious metal and the fundamental behind it. This article is extracted with permission from BullionStar, a Singapore online bullion company where you can buy gold and silver at competitive prices.

The word ‘taper’ has never gotten so much attention than in 2013 when it was used to describe the gradual tightening of the money printing spigot of the Quantitative Easing (QE) program. It started in March when the Federal Reserve said that they will reduce the QE bond purchases if economic indicators improve.

In April, a number of top Federal Reserve officials fed the media with more taper talk. St Louis Fed Bank president James Bullard said that he favoured “trimming” the QE program in $10-$15 billion increments if the economy improves. Then John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said that if there was substantial improvement in the labour market, the Federal Reserve “could end the purchase program sometime late this year”.

Property investment; Singapore market; private housing prices

More HDB flats sold below valuation

December 4, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 651 Views 0 Comments

According to an article by Property Guru, 105 HDB flats were sold below valuation in October. Based on HDB data, this trend is significantly down from the average monthly 0.3% for H1 2013 and reflected the number of flats sold below valuation increased four times in October compared to the first half of 2013. This phenomenon indicated a weakening demand caused by the “twin attacks” of stricter home loan rules and massive new flats construction programme announced by HDB in recent years. So should property investors press the panic items and run for their lives?

As written in my previous article, the cooling measure will not change market sentiment. Throughout history, the best form of cooling measure had always been a recession.

During recession, there would be widespread retrenchment by companies and it is only when people lost their jobs and lost money in stock investments, then they would be forced to sell their investment properties at cut throat prices. When this occurred, the market will correct itself and bring down property prices.

So I foresee that property prices will stabilize for the next two to three years, baring any form of recession taking place in Singapore. However, I don’t think that premium over valuation, commonly known as “cash over valuation (COV)” will enjoy its heady days.

Insurance coverage; medical shield; financial planning; personal finance

Insurance

December 2, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 708 Views 2 Comments

Insurance should always feature in every investor’s financial planning. In fact, before you even attempt to make any form of investment in equities or gold, make sure you are adequately covered, in terms of unforeseen hefty medical expenses.

Because of my late father’s health condition, I started buying life insurances and protect my wealth with enhanced hospital shield plan. I see it as a form of responsibility to my family because I don’t want to be a financial burden to them when I am old and ill. I also urged my friends and blog readers to buy insurance policies when they are young and healthy. This is important because if you procrastinate, chances are, the insurers will likely to reject your application if you are not in the best of your health.

Lately, I chanced upon a fellow blogger, Lee Chin Wai’s article on his health condition and medical insurance. His article set me thinking whether I had really plan for the unexpected. In his article, he related how he has encountered unforeseen risk in his medical insurance. He had bought a private “as-charged” Medishield Plan B but did not buy any riders for deductible or co-insurance potions. In recent years, because of his poor health, he went to seek consultant at a private specialist and unwittingly “exposed him to the risk of being warded in a private hospital”.

personal finance

Budgeting

December 2, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 579 Views 0 Comments

When it comes to personal finance, budgeting is an important element. Yet I observed that many young Singaporean working adults fail to understand the importance of budgeting and how to practice it in an effective manner.

This is not surprising as most students were not taught about how to manage money in schools and at home, most parents also seldom discuss household budgets with their children. As Asian, we also find it taboo to talk about money issues during social meetings. All these factors reinforce the notion that budgeting is not relevant to successful personal finance, which is totally untrue.

Many people thought that budgeting is all about counting beans and tracking your daily expenses. But I beg to differ. Sure, there are means and various mobile apps designed to track your daily expenses but I find that managing personal finance at such micro-level would take the kick out of living a meaningful life.

Just imaging this: having to think twice about buying or treating your good pal that cuppa of Starbuck coffee. Or how about skipping a close colleague just to save that ang pow money? Money is important but we should not let it rules our lives and stresses us out.

Investment; SGX stocks; Yongnam; Stock trading

Herd investing

November 29, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 661 Views 6 Comments

When it comes to stock investments, it is difficult to make money if you adopted a herd investing mentality. A few months ago, a friend of mine sent me a text to recommend investing in one of the local stocks, Yongnam. In his texts, he kept praising how good the company was, citing the various exciting business prospects and developments.

I did not solicit for his views on any stock investments before, so I was quite surprised that he tried to induce me to invest in this counter. Furthermore, I am not the sort of person who is easily influenced by others when it comes to stock investment and normally I would do my own research before investing in any counters.

So I chided him for trying to induce me to invest in Yongnam. Of course he denied flatly and vehemently defended that he was just sharing good stuff. I gave him the benefit of my doubts since he is my good friend, nonetheless, I did not invest in Yongnam.

One of the most common mistakes made by new Singapore investors is the tendency to adopt a herd mentality. Tempted to make quick profits, many novice or inexperienced investors enter the stock market and rely solely on rumors and tips from friends or brokers.

Property investment; Singapore market; private housing prices; imoney

Property market outlook for Singapore

November 27, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 509 Views 0 Comments

The following article is a guest posting by iMoney (Intelligent Money), which was founded in Malaysia in April 2012 and started out with a team of three. It took 14 days to get from an idea to a fully functional website. The company’s vision was (and still is) to simplify financial matters for consumers, thus helping them make better decision.

Property prices in Singapore are among the highest globally. This market has always been a demand driven one. That is because Singapore is a commercial hub, connecting the whole of Asia with rest of the world. The country attracts business people, professionals and executives from across the world. As a result, demand for both office space and housing have persisted over time.

Apartment prices are on the raise

Apartment prices of Singapore’s core central region including Orchard Road district increased by 49% and prices in the suburbs that are popular with middle-class people increased by 70% since the end of the global financial crisis in 2009. According to a Channel NewsAsia research, household debt was 77.2% of the gross domestic product at the end of March 2013. It was just 64.4% in 2007. But the property prices grew by 120% in the same period.

Personal finance; saving accounts; bonuses; financial planning

Year-end bonuses

November 26, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 478 Views 2 Comments

It is that time of the year when employees look forward to collecting their year-end bonuses. Last week, the government declared the 13th month and 1.1 month annual variable bonuses for all civil servants.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry has forecast Singapore’s economic growth to be about 3.5% – 4% for 2013. Growth is expected to be supported by externally-oriented sectors such as manufacturing and wholesale trade, in line with the slight pickup in the global economy, as well as domestically-oriented sectors like construction and business services which are expected to remain resilient.

With the world economy still in unstable mode, I believe most Singapore workers’ year end bonuses would be modest, in view of the moderated growth for Singapore economy.

This will be the 8th time I am collecting year-end bonuses. In my previous blog entry last year, I made a resolution last year to purchase an endowment plan for my baby daughter. This is to plan for her future tertiary education expenses. Hence, we bought an endowment plan in July.

For this year, I am setting aside some of the bonuses for next January’s Chinese New Year. I budgeted about $2500 to 3000 for the overall Chinese New Year expenses, which include red packets monies, new year clothing for my family and other miscellaneous expenses.

Stocks

Investing insights

November 23, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 0 Views 0 Comments

Some people said that investing is all about timing, some said it boils down to luck. To me, investing is half science and half art. Sometimes you can analysis as much as possible on a particular stock but when the market suddenly crashes, all your profits and capital will be gone. That’s the hard reality.

Therefore, successful investing also requires the right skill to make critical judgement call and look at things from the big picture. To be a winner, you must remain calm in the face of market swings, and be prepared to go against the crowd. That will not be easy, and not many people, including myself, can achieve that. But if you are able to do so, the rewards can be substantial.

The difficulty of assessing a company lies in the qualitative analysis. This is because it is not easy for investors to come up with the intrinsic value of the business, especially for those novice ones. I have seen many Singaporean finance bloggers making investments in local stocks based solely on NAV or P/E. Some of them also invested in Reits or ETFs, with investment criteria based solely on potential dividend yields. These are very narrow measures to gauge a company and may not reflect accurately the value of a stock.

personal finance

When to Use a Credit Card and Not Cash

November 11, 2013 sgwealthbuilder 678 Views 0 Comments

Many people still pay for goods and services with cash and this is perfectly fine. Cash transactions are quick especially when you’re only buying a few items at the grocery store or convenience store. Using cash also lets buyers and merchants avoid fees associated with using a credit card. However, credit card issuersoffer their customers many benefits that could make it wiser to swipe your card the next time you pay for something.

Rewards, Rewards, and More Rewards

Rewards and bonuses are one of the main features of credit cards. Retailers that offer their own credit cards have a lot of promos for their customers as a way to gain loyal customers. Retailers such as gas stations and specialty stores promise their customers rebates and special discounts when customers use the store’s special credit cards. Some petrol stations in Malaysia for example, give 8% rebate on gas purchases with store-branded credit cards. It’s best to study your expenses and see whether your favourite store offers their own credit card. You could be saving a lot by using their credit card or at least earn more reward points. This is especially true for frequent flyers who want to earn more air miles by swiping their credit cards.