Why some Singaporeans are destined to be poor

May 7, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 638 Views 0 Comments

Whenever I flip through The Strait Times, there are so many get-rich quick seminars advertisements on forex trading. It seems that the advertisers are targeting the growing aspirations of middle-class Singaporeans seeking to build their wealth quickly through forex trading. These seminars are often marketed as “enrichment classes” with catchy tag lines such as “Mr X makes 2,000% profit in one month, so can you!” or “Mrs Y turned $2,000 into $50,000 in three weeks, so can you! Also, during the seminars, the modus operandi is to highlight the opportunity to retire young and the chance to earn extra income. The organisers would use hard-selling tactics and misled people into the false impression that the trading techniques can produce good money. In return, consumers had to pay thousands for these seminars or buy their in-house trading software.

I do not have the figures on the profile nor the number of Singaporeans who attended these forex trading seminars, but I suspect that many Singaporeans had already lost a lot of money from forex trading. This is a worrying trend which I think Singaporeans need to be aware of. Firstly, forex trading is a form of high risk activity as you are betting the future movement of currency exchange rates.

Book review; Property investment; Singapore market; housing prices

Property Soul: Dirty Truths and Profitable Secrets to Building Wealth Through Properties

May 3, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 1190 Views 0 Comments

Many Singaporeans are obsessed with property investments but not many have been successful. Some have made a windfall, while many have lost a lot of money. Those who have become rich through property investments are reluctant to share their experiences and prefer to keep a low profile. This is understandable as who would want to reveal their secrets to building wealth? Therefore, I was a bit skeptical initially when Property Soul asked me to do a book review on her newly launched book “No B.S. Guide to Property Investment – Dirty Truths and Profitable Secrets to Building Wealth through Properties”. I thought that she must be a property agent trying to market her services through publishing a book on real estate investments. But after a phone chat with her, I realized that I was wrong.

Property Soul was a Hong Konger who relocated to Singapore in 1998 (she subsequently converted to Singapore citizenship). She bought her first private property for rent in 2002 and within 4.5 years, managed to build up a portfolio of 5 properties. By 2008, her total investment value doubled. She sold 4 of her properties in 2010 and 2011 and made a handsome profit of 80 to 120 percent.

Career management personal finance

More PMETs retrenched in Singapore

April 29, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 603 Views 0 Comments

Recently, I saw an article in The Straits Times which reported the increasing trend of local PMETs being laid off in Singapore. It brought home the hard reality that professionals and skilled workers are no longer safe from being made redundant in their jobs. From the perspective of a wealth builder, it also reinforced the belief that in order to sustain in this dynamic economy, it is very important to build a solid personal finance foundation and master niche skill sets.

I always encourage young people who just entered the workforce to build up their own emergency funds as soon as possible. Life is always unpredictable. You never know when you will lose your job or encounter personal crisis. Having an emergency fund can help to provide short term security against market uncertainties. It allows you and your family to carry on life as per normal whilst you embark on the recovery journey. Without this sum of money as interim support, you have no choice but to borrow from friends and relatives. Personally, I don’t like to, and have yet, to borrow from my friends and relatives.

Of course, having this emergency fund is only one of the key elements of the personal finance framework.

Stocks

The right time to invest in SMRT?

April 27, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 673 Views 0 Comments

To become rich from your stock investments, you must do your research first before you invest. The following analysis covers one of the listed companies, SMRT, the largest rail operator in Singapore.

In recent years, every time the Singapore railway system broke down, it was like a nail to the counter’s coffin. Due to the service disruptions, SMRT stock price has plummeted at a frightening rate from $1.74 in 2012 to $1.02 in March 2014. Speculators must have lost a lot of money in this counter. This is not surprising because to invest in SMRT, you need to hold a long term investment horizon.

Fundamentally, even though SMRT has a monopoly in the public transport system, its business model is heavily dependent on government policies, and because of this, investing in this company is not so often straight-forward.

On 24 April 2014, SMRT share price rocketed 21% on rumors of CEO Desmond Kwek’s submission of new financing framework to Singapore government for the company’s assets. The increase was the biggest ever one day gain for the stock. I reckon that the CEO had to do something drastic to reverse the destiny of SMRT. In January 2014, the company reported a set of dismal results for the third quarter.

Money management; personal finance

Facing death

April 25, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 705 Views 5 Comments

When you are facing death, what is the last thing on your mind? In a recent radio report by UFM100.3, it was revealed that two thoughts commonly fill the mind of dying people. On their death beds, most dying people worried that they would become a financial burden to their families and many were concerned on how their families could cope financially after their passing on.

As a wealth builder in Singapore, I think the survey was quite accurate because when facing death, probably you would not be thinking of how much money you have in your bank accounts nor would you be concerned about the assets that you would leave behind. Very likely, it is the thought of not being able to see your loved ones again that made the pain of death so unbearable.

Are they going to suffer as a result of your prolonged stay in hospital? How are they going to cope if you are the sole breadwinner? These are perhaps some of the worries that most dying people have in their last journey.

Death is an inevitable journey that everyone would go through and everyone is equal, regardless whether you are rich or poor. Yet most people refused to think or prepare for it.

Entrepreneurship

Opportunity

April 17, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 774 Views 0 Comments

Opportunity is like a ball. Sometimes when the ball is passed to you, you may not have ample time to think and execute the ideal actions. A professional player will grasp the opportunity and went on to score crucial points. Mediocre ones will let opportunity slip.

Recently, I chanced upon www.data.gov.sg, a useful website for entrepreneurs and Singaporeans to search and access publicly available data published by the Singapore Government. This website contains many wonderful data and apps, such as Activtify, EduChoices, etc. Besides government data and metadata, data.gov.sg also offers a listing of applications developed using government data, as well as a resource page for developers.

In today’s context, whether you are an entrepreneur, an employee or full-time investor, data is important to help you forms important decisions. Those who are able to analyze the situation will seize the opportunity to grow wealth, build wealth and create wealth.

Take for example if you are choosing the university courses to enroll, the website is able to provide valuable data for you to crunch. If you are an investor, you would be interested in the health of the economy and business sentiments. If you are an employee, you may be interested in the data on job vacancies in the market.

Gold; career management

BullionStar: Job Opportunities and Bitcoin Payments

April 15, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 628 Views 0 Comments

The following newsletter is from BullionStar, a Singapore online bullion company where you can buy gold and silver at competitive prices.We are excited to have released a number of new products lately.

Heareus Silver Bars

The Heraeus Silver Bars are very attractively priced. The 10 oz Heraeus bar is actually comparable in price per oz to larger bars and significantly cheaper per troy ounce compared to 1 oz coins. We currently have Heareus bars available in 1 oz, 5 oz and 10 oz.

Singapore minted Gold Bars
These gold bars are unique as they are the only gold bars minted with Singapore themed design. We currently have three different motifs in stock – the 50 gram Singapore Orchid gold bar, the 100 gram Marina Bay Sands gold bar and the 100 gram Merlion gold bar.

Chow Tai Fook Gold Bars
We have limited pieces of the beautiful .9999 Chow Tai Fook gold bars. They have the popular Chinese creatures such as the dragon, phoenix and horse exquisitely etched into them. These gold bars are easily sold at a much higher premium at Chow Tai Fook retail stores.
We have the 50g dragon, 100g horse, 112g dragon & phoenix and 200g horse gold bars.

Investments

Hotel Investment Opportunities for Singaporeans

April 15, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 817 Views 0 Comments

Brisbane Targets Singaporean Hotel Investors

Hotel investors, operators, developers and financiers from Singapore are being targeted in an on-going campaign to provide more hotel rooms in Brisbane each year for the next decade.

An active approach to attracting hotel investment has reaped rewards for Brisbane with more than 500 additional hotel rooms either available or coming on line this year, but many more are needed.

Speaking at the launch of the updated Guide to Hotel Investment in Brisbane, Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said more investment in hotel rooms was needed to attract high spending visitors.

The Lord Mayor outlined opportunities for hotel operators, investors, and developers keen to establish a footprint in the city.

“Due to a shortage in internationally-recognised, full-service hotel room supply, Brisbane is forgoing about 121,000 visitors a year,” Cr Quirk said

“The shortage is causing the market to defer an estimated 278,000 room nights every year — about 14 per cent of current demand.

“This deferred economic benefit is largely contributed to the lack of hotel supply which in turn is hampering Brisbane’s ability to attract major events and conferences. This lost visitor expenditure equates to about 1100 jobs and AUD$114 million in economic activity that would otherwise exist.

Career management; investments

Internship Opportunities with Thomson Reuters

April 14, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 669 Views 0 Comments

For many years, aspiring local finance bloggers have been lamenting on how difficult it is to obtain jobs in the Singapore finance sector. There were also many young Singaporeans writing to me on how to get into venture capitalist, investment banks, fund management companies. In Singapore, while our local institutes of higher learning have been churning out finance graduates with good academic results, most of these graduates lack working experiences and track record in investments. So there has always been a gap in the investment industry. With this in mind, SG Wealth Builder is pleased to collaborate with TrakInvest to bring you the Thomson Reuters Challenge. Winners get to work in Thomson Reuters Singapore as interns! TrakInvest is a completely free virtual trading platform that allows users to hone their investment skills and at the same time earn money through monthly competitions.

THE THOMSON REUTERS INVESTMENT CHALLENGE

2 students with the best investment portfolios will win an internship each with Thomson Reuters Singapore.*

TrakInvest and Thomson Reuters are pleased to announce “The Thomson Reuters Challenge” The online stock market challenge will be hosted on the TrakInvest (“TI”) platform and 2 winners will get the opportunity to intern with Thomson Reuters Singapore for a period of 7-10 weeks.

Career management

Tan Kin Lian’s career advice for young Singaporeans

April 9, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 1051 Views 0 Comments

I used to enjoy reading Tan Kin Lian’s blog because it contains a lot of useful tips on life insurance and personal finance practices. In fact, he inspired me to set up this blog to share my thoughts on career and wealth building journey.

Somehow, after his failed presidential election in 2011 (he garnered the lowest vote of 4.9%), he became more vocal against the Singapore government. Out of ten articles, five of his articles would criticize government policies. Tan’s style of writing has also become more cynical and self-righteous. His articles have become such a huge turn-off to me that I did not follow any more since 2011.

However, in one of his rare articles on career advice, “How to build a long-lasting career“, I think there are some good take away which I would like to share with my readers.

Tan Kin Lian wrote that to be successful in your career, you need to choose a job that fits your skill set. Whilst I agree to this statement, this context may not be applicable to fresh graduates who lack working experience and relevant skills to prospective employers.

In order to embark on a long-term career, you must first work in a specific industry.

Career management

You Are Not Making Enough Money

April 7, 2014 sgwealthbuilder 585 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 621 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 916 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 795 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 565 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 929 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 817 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 828 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 810 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 717 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 1015 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 775 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 876 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 585 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 908 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 531 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 581 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 879 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 674 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 985 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.

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