*Official* Shiny Things club

[Queenss]

Thank you very much for your advice. Cheers.

 

[Bedokian]

So does anyone else remember when I said "maybe I should write a book"?

I'm writing the book.

The Indiegogo campaign is up, and it's going to be called Rich By Retirement: Invest Smart, Retire Wealthy. I'm not going to break the forum rules by linking to it myself, but you can find it (and support the campaign!) by hopping over to Indiegogo and searching for that title.

A few notes:

• I'm going to write the book no matter how much funding it gets - the campaign is just a good way to get a bead on how much demand there is for a book like this.
• At the moment I'm not planning to do a hard-copy version - I'm only planning PDF for a first run - though if there's a lot of interest I can add a hard-copy run. Basically I need somewhere around 30 hard-copy backers to make it worth the print run.
• If you have any ideas for extra perks, drop me a PM!

Expect laughs, thrills and spills, some insider gossip, some war stories, and a whole lot of the advice you've come to know and love. I'm not going to stop posting on here, either (though I might be a bit slow; writing a book isn't the easiest thing in the world).

Good move! It is good to have investment ideas "immortalised" somewhere.

I am currently having a book project as well, writing on investment basics and styles. This is meant for my family as a form of "instruction manual".

BTW, which app you are using? I am currently using the iBooks Author app to write (or type) my manuscripts.

 

[sputnikmoment]

I'd be astonished if your employer bars you from buying ES3. The point of finance-sector stock trading restrictions is usually to prevent people from insider-trading; that shouldn't prevent people from buy-and-holding broad index ETFs. (Narrow index ETFs might well be non-kosher, but ES3 is about as broad as it gets in Singapore.)

Anyway, ask your HR department. If they really do ban ES3, then ask them if they have a list of approved ETFs/funds/whatever.

The restriction arises cause one of my clients is part of the STI. In this case, should I just invest in Singapore savings bond then?

 

[Shiny Things]

BTW, which app you are using? I am currently using the iBooks Author app to write (or type) my manuscripts.

Good question. At the moment I'm just dumping it all into Google Docs, but I'm open to suggestions for good authoring software - do you like iBooks Author?

 

[Shiny Things]

The restriction arises cause one of my clients is part of the STI. In this case, should I just invest in Singapore savings bond then?

That is really astonishing. Like, I'm actually astonished - do they really think you're going to insider-trade your client's stock as part of a 30-stock index? You can tell them I said their policy is stupid.

But in that case, and THIS IS ADVANCED INVESTING NORMAL PEOPLE SHOULDN'T NEED TO DO THIS, you can bodgy together a rough copy of the index by investing in the underlying stocks.

Do your usual bond/stock allocation, and buy your usual slugs of A35 (for your bond component) and IWDA (for your overseas-stock component.

With the Singapore stocks component, just buy equal amounts of the 3 big banks and Singtel. If one of those four is your client, then replace that one with HongKongLand and Kepcorp.

That's going to get you within shouting distance of the index. It's not quite the same as owning the actual ES3, but it's close enough for government work.

Each year, rebalance those 4-5 stocks so that they're back to equal weights within your "Singapore stocks" lump.

 

[newjersey]

That is really astonishing. Like, I'm actually astonished - do they really think you're going to insider-trade your client's stock as part of a 30-stock index? You can tell them I said their policy is stupid.

But in that case, and THIS IS ADVANCED INVESTING NORMAL PEOPLE SHOULDN'T NEED TO DO THIS, you can bodgy together a rough copy of the index by investing in the underlying stocks.

Do your usual bond/stock allocation, and buy your usual slugs of A35 (for your bond component) and IWDA (for your overseas-stock component.

With the Singapore stocks component, just buy equal amounts of the 3 big banks and Singtel. If one of those four is your client, then replace that one with HongKongLand and Kepcorp.

That's going to get you within shouting distance of the index. It's not quite the same as owning the actual ES3, but it's close enough for government work.

Each year, rebalance those 4-5 stocks so that they're back to equal weights within your "Singapore stocks" lump.

Shiny Things,

I know of people who gained a sweet 25% returns from insider trading, as they were handling the buyover, etc.

that was 25% returns over what? 14 days of "hard" work...

it's quite normal, esp those on the investment banking side of things...

 

[Bedokian]

Good question. At the moment I'm just dumping it all into Google Docs, but I'm open to suggestions for good authoring software - do you like iBooks Author?

Looks good. So far I am using it on my one and only current project. They have a few templates, and the UI is good for book writing as you can insert by pages and chapters. You can convert your book into PDF or export it as a file readable by iBooks (haven't try out the latter yet).

 

[Asphodeli]

The restriction arises cause one of my clients is part of the STI. In this case, should I just invest in Singapore savings bond then?

Your company HR and audit/compliance dept are brain-damaged. How about OCBC BCIP on STI ETF? Surely they can't have jurisdiction on that?!

 

[nicholasmong]

Oooh, high-yield debt. USD HY corp debt has been an absolute dumpster fire this year, because a lot of the biggest issuers are energy and mining companies that are merrily imploding because commodity prices have collapsed. (Funnily enough, if memory serves, total return ex-mining and -energy has been OK, but those two sectors have been such utter disasters that they've brought HY debt into negative territory for the year.)

I'm not opposed to owning a little chunk of high-yield - like 5% of your portfolio, absolute tops, because it's a nice diversification from the usual names you get in an investment-grade bond ETF, and it's a decent bit of extra yield in return for the risk. But you shouldn't own a lot of it, and if you're just looking for a punt on USD strengthening, then... buy USDSGD FX. (Disclaimer: don't do this, FX trading is a terrible idea.)

Update: On a related note, the rather good Across the Curve blog just posted a good piece about credit conditions in the junk bond market. At some point it's gonna be a good time to buy junk bonds on the cheap, but I'm not sure now is that time.

Potential credit crunch; considering energy and mining?

 

[Shiny Things]

Potential credit crunch; considering energy and mining?

Er, what? If you think there's going to be a credit crunch (even more than there is now), you don't want to own highly-leveraged energy and mining stocks.

 

[limster]

Potential credit crunch; considering energy and mining?

Found any new ETF to collect?

One of my mistakes with SCB investing was to buy GBP listed ETF that declare dividends in Euro. Dunno what to do with the Euro, and luckily SBC no min commission, so using this Euro to buy IEBB (lower ER than IHYG, also IHYG costs 102 Euro per share, my quarterly dividends not so much...).

 

[lordnaj]

Noted on this. Will probably just leave the CPF-SA funds untouched and earn risk free 4%.

I was reading through the brief discussion about our SA account... not sure if this question has already been asked before but does it make sense if we treat the bond component (using "110-age" formula) as purely our SA savings? ie, we only use cash to buy (110-age)% of ES3 monthly, and commit the rest as SA savings since a portion of our salary already goes in? if we need more bonds component, we just top up SA account with cash?

 

[hyperbole]

I was reading through the brief discussion about our SA account... not sure if this question has already been asked before but does it make sense if we treat the bond component (using "110-age" formula) as purely our SA savings? ie, we only use cash to buy (110-age)% of ES3 monthly, and commit the rest as SA savings since a portion of our salary already goes in? if we need more bonds component, we just top up SA account with cash?

You can if you want to. But if you're overweight on bonds, you can't sell your SA to buy more shares

 

[nicholasmong]

Found any new ETF to collect?

One of my mistakes with SCB investing was to buy GBP listed ETF that declare dividends in Euro. Dunno what to do with the Euro, and luckily SBC no min commission, so using this Euro to buy IEBB (lower ER than IHYG, also IHYG costs 102 Euro per share, my quarterly dividends not so much...).

Trust you to find exotic ETFs! Your EUR was from Div paid on XESX?

Yes, this IEBB TER is like 40% lower and listed on LSE. BBB/BB ratings looks great in my view. Now I know what to do with the Div paid from EUE now. I unwinded my ES50 UT and picked up some EUE + ISF for Europe overweight. EUE cost rather high at 0.35 compared to 0.09 on XESC/XESX.

 

[limster]

Trust you to find exotic ETFs! Your EUR was from Div paid on XESX?

Yes, this IEBB TER is like 40% lower and listed on LSE. BBB/BB ratings looks great in my view. Now I know what to do with the Div paid from EUE now. I unwinded my ES50 UT and picked up some EUE + ISF for Europe overweight. EUE cost rather high at 0.35 compared to 0.09 on XESC/XESX.

Yup, Euro dividends on XESX & VERX. Bought XESX because volumes usually higher than XESC. Volume is important to me as allows me to buy a midpoint of bid-offer spread. There are a lot of interesting SPDR ETFs on LSE but no volume.

Interesting experience with IEBB. The bid offer was 4.80/4.82. I keyed in my order at 4.81. Even though I have real-time quotes, my bid never appeared and the screen remained constantly at 4.80/4.82, despite that, my order was filled instantly - must be some superfast computer trading that can insert an offer at 4.81 before my bid comes in. (because those that provide liquidity are 'paid to trade').

 

[white_tiger]

Dear All,

any idea what website/app that can generate something like this from a portfolio we enter :

it may be useful for someone who have more than 5 ETF ; and the chart is kinda cool though

 

[Perisher]

Dear All,

any idea what website/app that can generate something like this from a portfolio we enter :

it may be useful for someone who have more than 5 ETF ; and the chart is kinda cool though

Looks cool. Always liked infographics.

 

[Asphodeli]

Trust you to find exotic ETFs! Your EUR was from Div paid on XESX?

Yes, this IEBB TER is like 40% lower and listed on LSE. BBB/BB ratings looks great in my view. Now I know what to do with the Div paid from EUE now. I unwinded my ES50 UT and picked up some EUE + ISF for Europe overweight. EUE cost rather high at 0.35 compared to 0.09 on XESC/XESX.

Hmm interesting that you picked up EUE. I picked up IDVY on AMX for fun, and also to check if I would be taxed. Apparently they didn't tax me on the dividends? Not sure if EUE also has the same treatment though.

 

[doody_]

The restriction arises cause one of my clients is part of the STI. In this case, should I just invest in Singapore savings bond then?

I would use a certain brokerage that does not use CDP as the custodian, hereby keeping things mostly "off record".

Here, look at my CDP, no shares of XXX! I'm a rule abiding employee *fistbump*

 

[The Accountant]

Not sure if EUE also has the same treatment though.

They should have the same treatment.