Official Shiny Things thread—Part III

[celtosaxon]

TD Ameritrade is only US stocks. You have to do wire transfer SGD to USD to deposit money into them.

You can just send them a local SGD check to fund the account. The money usually arrives within 5-7 days in USD, they don’t nick you too badly on the exchange rate, seems to be around 0.5% from mid-market. You can also wire funds in USD from a local or U.S. account. I’ve done the latter, it works too.

 

[chrisloh65]

https://www.barrons.com/articles/th...y-bad-week-why-it-could-get-worse-51593217141

The Dow Just Had a Very Bad Week. Why It Could Get Worse.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/25/imf...ty-markets-disconnect-risks-a-correction.html
IMF warns disconnect in financial markets risks a correction in asset prices

There is a great disconnect between wall street's stock market and main street's economy.
It is only expected that stock market will follow main economy sooner or later.

 

[chrisloh65]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/b...acing-a-huge-amount-of-uncertainty-2020-06-26

‘Black Swan’ author says if investors don’t use a ‘tail hedge,’ he recommends ‘not being in the market’—‘We’re facing a huge amount of uncertainty
Published: June 27, 2020 at 6:30 a.m. ET

More warning of stock market bubble

https://www.barrons.com/articles/th...y-bad-week-why-it-could-get-worse-51593217141

The Dow Just Had a Very Bad Week. Why It Could Get Worse.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/25/imf...ty-markets-disconnect-risks-a-correction.html
IMF warns disconnect in financial markets risks a correction in asset prices

There is a great disconnect between wall street's stock market and main street's economy.
It is only expected that stock market will follow main economy sooner or later.

 

[cassowary18]

Stay the course.

 

[celtosaxon]

DCA is like a vacuum... when things get dirty, it picks up even more.

Indexing is like a sugar cane press, you get every last drop of the market performance.

 

[highsulphur]

Stay the course.

Hopefully we will be right in 10 years time. Then I can retire

 

[chrisloh65]

https://www.barrons.com/articles/ho...to-nyu-professor-aswath-damodaran-51593082800

Buying Tesla at $180 and Other Investing Nuggets From NYU Professor Aswath Damodaran

What do you think of the current rally?

This is going to be a terrible year. We all agree with that. Now, we can debate whether earnings are going to be down 30% or 40%, but they’re going to be down a ton. The real debate should be about what will happen over the next three, four, five years. How much of this damage is permanent? And how much is transitory? That’s a healthy discussion to have. And when you have the discussion, what happens is, you discover that there are some businesses where the damage is permanent.

 

[rantasaurus]

Lurker here as well, got to agree with you except attitude part because i see that attitude only against many of those attacking him first. Time for lurkers like us to say a few fair words against so many bullies & verbal abuse here.

Fellow lurker (close to 2 years already) here too, but wanted to give a shoutout to ST and the other fellow contributors like BBWC for your time and effort to educate the masses on personal finance. Particularly during a time where Singapore and its young population are facing several structural issues, which would likely be accelerated by the Pandemic, it is so important to educate the younger folks on evidence-based investing.

At the same time, I think it is equally important to call out bad behaviour. If you were go through the earlier posts, you could actually see constructive and thoughtful debate happening between members (e.g. % allocation between SG & Global stocks, MBH vs A35). This is the kind of discussion that should be happening. On the other hand, I often find chrisloh's responses condescending, sarcastic and lacking of intellectual humility.

I have been working in a large asset management firm for close to 5 years now (still a work-in-progress as I am learning everyday on-the-job and through reading technical finance textbooks), and I would say I have an okay-ish understanding on asset pricing, financial products, and portfolio construction. I do share ST's observation that chrisloh has an inaccurate and poor understanding on a broad range of financial topics. Sure, some of his methods might have worked for him in the past but I'm just not sure if that gives him a right to behave in this manner.

I can look past the part about the technical knowledge because finance is such a broad and technical subject that even professionals take decades to build deep expertise. Furthermore, the media (FT, WSJ etc) sometimes do such a poor job covering financial topics and often end up over-sensationalizing. But what I don't appreciate is intellectual arrogance and I don't think that is good for newbies trying to learn.

 

[highsulphur]

Fellow lurker (close to 2 years already) here too, but wanted to give a shoutout to ST and the other fellow contributors like BBWC for your time and effort to educate the masses on personal finance. Particularly during a time where Singapore and its young population are facing several structural issues, which would likely be accelerated by the Pandemic, it is so important to educate the younger folks on evidence-based investing.

At the same time, I think it is equally important to call out bad behaviour. If you were go through the earlier posts, you could actually see constructive and thoughtful debate happening between members (e.g. % allocation between SG & Global stocks, MBH vs A35). This is the kind of discussion that should be happening. On the other hand, I often find chrisloh's responses condescending, sarcastic and lacking of intellectual humility.

I have been working in a large asset management firm for close to 5 years now (still a work-in-progress as I am learning everyday on-the-job and through reading technical finance textbooks), and I would say I have an okay-ish understanding on asset pricing, financial products, and portfolio construction. I do share ST's observation that chrisloh has an inaccurate and poor understanding on a broad range of financial topics. Sure, some of his methods might have worked for him in the past but I'm just not sure if that gives him a right to behave in this manner.

I can look past the part about the technical knowledge because finance is such a broad and technical subject that even professionals take decades to build deep expertise. Furthermore, the media (FT, WSJ etc) sometimes do such a poor job covering financial topics and often end up over-sensationalizing. But what I don't appreciate is intellectual arrogance and I don't think that is good for newbies trying to learn.

The only thing he advocated was "buy low sell high" Anyway I blocked him so not sure things have changed

 

[chrisloh65]

Interesting to know that you are lurker here for close to 2 years already but only joined recently and posting below post as your maiden virgin post?
Ok, looks like this is a new clowne account of somebody here

Since you claimed to be working in large asset management firm and you claimed that Shiny Things is right, could you please help Shiny Things to provide facts and evidence to support his claims as below (since he is unable to backup his claims!):

Shiny Things,
Why don't you do yourself a favor and backup your below claims here?

Firstly, are you sure you want to do this? When you buy a China ETF instead of a global ETF, you're betting that the Chinese stock market will outperform the MSCI World. For that to happen, one of three things has to happen:

* Chinese banks manage to work themselves out from under their GARGANTUAN pile of bad loans; or,
* Chinese tech companies go from "trading at a titanically expensive multiple of earnings" to "trading at a truly monstrously expensive multiple of earnings"; or,
* Chinese property companies manage to keep the Ponzi going. I have a few acquaintances who look at this stuff and none of them can figure out how the Chinese property sector hasn't imploded yet.

................
"China is going to emerge!" has been trapping people in an underperforming market for decades.

Could you please provide facts to back up your claims that:

(1) You claimed that Chinese banks have GARGANTUAN pile of bad loans!
Where is the evidence? Please point to the Chinese bank financial statements, etc. ICBC, and show us where is the GARGANTUAN pile of bad loans?

(2) You claimed that Chinese tech companies are "trading at a titanically expensive multiple of earnings" that should be avoided!
But yet why you didn't warn all of us here that many of the USA tech companies are now "trading at a monstrously expensive multiple of earnings" (worst than those titanically expensive Chinese tech stocks) when you advocated others here to continue to buy IWDA, consisting of >65% US stocks (including those "mostrously expensive" US tech stocks)?

(3) You claimed that Chinese property companies are having Ponzi scheme!
What ponzi scheme and where are the facts and evidence?

(4) You claimed that "China is going to emerge!" has been trapping people in an underperforming market for decades!
Please back up your claim.
From what I can see, comparing VWRD etf (that you recommended) and 2822.HK China etf since 2012 (near their inception), 2822.HK has beaten VWRD handily since 2012! Wow! so much for underperforming market but beating VWRD (that you recommended) handily hands down!

And strangely, why you don't want to tell us that USD and US T-bills is the biggest ponzi scheme of all time in history?!
US Gov clearly has no ability to pay off all the T-bills without printing more USD like toilet papers!

And another ponzi scheme is to "DCA blindly into index ETFs regardless of market conditions" so that the earlier adopters will retire early very rich by persuading the latter comers to keep pushing up the price, very much like those MLM scheme!

Now, if you can't provide facts to backup your above claims, that brings into question whether you Shiny Things are purposely spreading lies here or you are really so ignorant and making those false claims in your post?

Fellow lurker (close to 2 years already) here too, but wanted to give a shoutout to ST and the other fellow contributors like BBWC for your time and effort to educate the masses on personal finance. Particularly during a time where Singapore and its young population are facing several structural issues, which would likely be accelerated by the Pandemic, it is so important to educate the younger folks on evidence-based investing.

At the same time, I think it is equally important to call out bad behaviour. If you were go through the earlier posts, you could actually see constructive and thoughtful debate happening between members (e.g. % allocation between SG & Global stocks, MBH vs A35). This is the kind of discussion that should be happening. On the other hand, I often find chrisloh's responses condescending, sarcastic and lacking of intellectual humility.

I have been working in a large asset management firm for close to 5 years now (still a work-in-progress as I am learning everyday on-the-job and through reading technical finance textbooks), and I would say I have an okay-ish understanding on asset pricing, financial products, and portfolio construction. I do share ST's observation that chrisloh has an inaccurate and poor understanding on a broad range of financial topics. Sure, some of his methods might have worked for him in the past but I'm just not sure if that gives him a right to behave in this manner.

I can look past the part about the technical knowledge because finance is such a broad and technical subject that even professionals take decades to build deep expertise. Furthermore, the media (FT, WSJ etc) sometimes do such a poor job covering financial topics and often end up over-sensationalizing. But what I don't appreciate is intellectual arrogance and I don't think that is good for newbies trying to learn.

 

[CWL84]

The only thing he advocated was "buy low sell high" Anyway I blocked him so not sure things have changed

Just keep that ignore button on him permanently, you are not missing out on anything.

 

[Calpha K]

What you’re describing there could be either a “stop-limit” order, or a “Stop-market” order (which is also known as just a stop loss order). The difference is what happens when the stock reaches $2.

With a stop-limit order, you’ll specify a “stop price” and a “limit price”. In this case, your “stop price” will be $2, and your “limit price” might be, say, $1.95. When the price drops to $2, your stop-limit order will turn into an active limit order that says “sell my stock, but no lower than $1.95”.

With a stop-market order, you’ll just specify a “stop price” (in this case, again, $2). When the price drops to $2, your stop-market order will turn into an active market order that says “sell my stock AT ANY PRICE I DON’T CARE EVEN IF THAT PRICE IS MINUS THIRTY SEVEN DOLLARS JUST GET ME OUT”.

And that’s probably not what you actually meant to say. Which is why you use stop-limit orders instead of stop-market (aka stop-loss) orders.

So...is the following picture a stop-limit?
Because what I see is but a "SELL" with a limit price. I don't see the word STOP anywhere...

 

[Calpha K]

Are there any opinions on UOBAM Invest Roboadvisor?

They have portfolios catered to the individual's profile. Is it a good place to park funds in? Why or why not?

 

[crystalnox]

Are there any opinions on UOBAM Invest Roboadvisor?

They have portfolios catered to the individual's profile. Is it a good place to park funds in? Why or why not?

Why not? Because of their lovely fees.

Advisory fee (1% p.a.), platform charge (0.3% p.a.) on top of 1-1.5% underlying fund management fees.

 

[chrisloh65]

Better avoid all Roboadvisor or whatever.
Directly investing into stocks is the best.
If you want to be lazy and willing to settle for lower returns, then go for index ETFs.

Are there any opinions on UOBAM Invest Roboadvisor?

They have portfolios catered to the individual's profile. Is it a good place to park funds in? Why or why not?

 

[chrisloh65]

This is the truth that you don't read here:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/09/rea...cking-2000percent-of-gdp-report-suggests.html
Real US debt levels could be 2,000% of economy, a Wall Street report suggests

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/w...ssion-a-credit-bubble-will-explode-2019-03-20
When the U.S. falls into a recession, a credit bubble will explode
The U.S. economy, at its own peril, has been driven by cheap credit

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessec...periencing-a-dangerous-corporate-debt-bubble/
The U.S. Is Experiencing A Dangerous Corporate Debt Bubble

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/17/investing/united-states-debt-risks/index.html
3 reasons to fear America's massive $70 trillion debt pile

Shiny Things,
Why don't you do yourself a favor and backup your below claims here?

Firstly, are you sure you want to do this? When you buy a China ETF instead of a global ETF, you're betting that the Chinese stock market will outperform the MSCI World. For that to happen, one of three things has to happen:

* Chinese banks manage to work themselves out from under their GARGANTUAN pile of bad loans; or,
* Chinese tech companies go from "trading at a titanically expensive multiple of earnings" to "trading at a truly monstrously expensive multiple of earnings"; or,
* Chinese property companies manage to keep the Ponzi going. I have a few acquaintances who look at this stuff and none of them can figure out how the Chinese property sector hasn't imploded yet.

................
"China is going to emerge!" has been trapping people in an underperforming market for decades.

Could you please provide facts to back up your claims that:

(1) You claimed that Chinese banks have GARGANTUAN pile of bad loans!
Where is the evidence? Please point to the Chinese bank financial statements, etc. ICBC, and show us where is the GARGANTUAN pile of bad loans?

(2) You claimed that Chinese tech companies are "trading at a titanically expensive multiple of earnings" that should be avoided!
But yet why you didn't warn all of us here that many of the USA tech companies are now "trading at a monstrously expensive multiple of earnings" (worst than those titanically expensive Chinese tech stocks) when you advocated others here to continue to buy IWDA, consisting of >65% US stocks (including those "mostrously expensive" US tech stocks)?

(3) You claimed that Chinese property companies are having Ponzi scheme!
What ponzi scheme and where are the facts and evidence?

(4) You claimed that "China is going to emerge!" has been trapping people in an underperforming market for decades!
Please back up your claim.
From what I can see, comparing VWRD etf (that you recommended) and 2822.HK China etf since 2012 (near their inception), 2822.HK has beaten VWRD handily since 2012! Wow! so much for underperforming market but beating VWRD (that you recommended) handily hands down!

And strangely, why you don't want to tell us that USD and US T-bills is the biggest ponzi scheme of all time in history?!
US Gov clearly has no ability to pay off all the T-bills without printing more USD like toilet papers!

And another ponzi scheme is to "DCA blindly into index ETFs regardless of market conditions" so that the earlier adopters will retire early very rich by persuading the latter comers to keep pushing up the price, very much like those MLM scheme!

Now, if you can't provide facts to backup your above claims, that brings into question whether you Shiny Things are purposely spreading lies here or you are really so ignorant and making those false claims in your post?

 

[Sinja89]

I'm currently investing in ES3/MBH/IWDA
I'm a Malaysian working in Singapore,I'm not sure where I will be after retirement.but i have a goal of travelling around the world after retirement, should I invest fully in international stocks/bond as
1.IWDA 80% and international bond 20%?
2.which is the equivalent of BNDX but Ireland domiciled?

 

[swan02]

What are the purely recommended technology etfs ?

 

[Shiny Things]

Haha, success. Finally managed to snag a domain I've been after for literally years.

There are brokerages (eg ameritrade if I'm not mistaken) that charge flat rate for commission (around usd 10) for each trade. Does it make sense to use them instead of IB if quantum is high enough? Or they have certain disadvantages compared to IB?

Yeah; what you save in commission you'll probably lose in execution. TDAM, Schwab, ETFC, Robinhood—they all route your orders straight to a market-making firm, and you lose the opportunity to work your order for a better execution.

IB's got a surprisingly rich range of algos if you're trying to execute a large order; it's worth paying the extra commission over a flat-rate broker, if executing half a cent or even a quarter of a penny better will save you hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Fellow lurker (close to 2 years already) here too, but wanted to give a shoutout to ST and the other fellow contributors like BBWC for your time and effort to educate the masses on personal finance.

I have been working in a large asset management firm for close to 5 years now (still a work-in-progress as I am learning everyday on-the-job and through reading technical finance textbooks), and I would say I have an okay-ish understanding on asset pricing, financial products, and portfolio construction.

I appreciate the kind words - and it's always good to see another practitioner on here!

So...is the following picture a stop-limit?
Because what I see is but a "SELL" with a limit price. I don't see the word STOP anywhere...

Your picture's not rendering for me. Can you stick it on Imgur or something?

What are the purely recommended technology etfs ?

Um. Kinda depends what you want—global tech? US tech? Just a generic Nasdaq-composite ETF (which is not just tech! Nasdaq ETFs are only about 48% tech)...

Either way, if you actually want a tech-sector tilt, the go-to is IUIT, listed in London. Though be aware that you're absolutely chasing performance here, and if tech stops being trendy like it did from about 2000-2007 you're going to be in for some pain.

I'm currently investing in ES3/MBH/IWDA
I'm a Malaysian working in Singapore,I'm not sure where I will be after retirement.but i have a goal of travelling around the world after retirement, should I invest fully in international stocks/bond as
1.IWDA 80% and international bond 20%?
2.which is the equivalent of BNDX but Ireland domiciled?

1) yes.
2) The go-to is LQDA LN - it's USD-denominated, high-grade corporate bonds.

 

[hahaman111]

I don't get how index etf are ponzi scheme? It is not buying in hope of another fool to pay higher. It is just to milk whatever gdp growth that index has (can be global gdp like iwda or specific country like es3).

Just realize gdp growth may not be relevant (since some index like es3 may not be representative of the country's gdp). Should be milk the average growth of the underlying companies in the index.