Stocks Archives - Page 26 of 26

Wrap fee for CPF Investment Scheme

January 3, 2012 sgwealthbuilder 628 Views 0 Comments

From 1st July 2012, the CPF Board will subject wrap fee charged for CPF Investment Scheme to a maximum of 1% per annum.

A wrap fee is an ongoing fee charged by financial advisors for providing bundled services such as advisory, brokerage and administrative fees. It is typically levied monthly or quarterly by liquidating a small portion of the investment. Currently, CPF members who maintain wrap accounts for their CPF Investment accounts are charged up to 1.5% annually by their advisors.

Since 2006, CPF board has been progressively implementing new measures to lower the cost of investment and enhance the quality of funds under CPF Investment Scheme. This new measure should bring cheers to retail investors as high costs may potentially erode investment returns over the long term.

Such development is in the right direction and will go a long way to encourage more Singaporean to invest responsibly using their CPF funds.

Under the CPF Investment Scheme, you may invest in CPF-approved unit trusts, bonds, endowment policies and gold products, after setting aside $20,000 in your Ordinary Account. If you wished to invest using your CPF Special Account, you need to set aside $40,000.

But before you start to invest your CPF monies, it is important to examine your risk tolerance and your financial situation.

Stocks

Investment article: What you may not know about stocks?

December 28, 2011 sgwealthbuilder 967 Views 0 Comments

Below is an investment article by Jeff Augen, extracted from my favorite blog “CreateWealth8888″, dated 4 Feb 2011. I like the blog because many of the articles are sensible, informative and educational. Hope readers can benefit from the article:

” Most investors who buy a stock believe that they are investing in a company. That view, while technically correct, is also misleading. A stock investment is really nothing more than a bet on the direction that money will take as it flows through the financial markets. A stock can rise only if market forces align to aggressively drive up the bid price causing new money to flow into the stock.

Many different factors are involved including economic news, announcements from other companies in the same industry, political events, the actions of large institutional investors, analysts’ forecast, and a variety of global economic forces such as changes to currency exchange rates and interest rates. the long-term performance of a stock represents nothing more than the compound effect of these forces over time.

It is important to recognize that the financial markets are zero sum game with competition at all levels. the stock market competes for money against the bond and currency markets; industries compete for money with each other; and money flows between stocks within a particular industry.