info for beginners

[yihao93]

totally new to this, wanting to know more about investments ,(what types are there that you can invest in and how,etc ) preferably in a singapore context?
help or directiion to ebooks or links would be appreciated . thanks

my interests are currently in low/mild risk low/mild returns area , time period less then a year... would be glad to know what options im looking at so that i can at least read up =)

 

[Dividends Warrior]

How much capital do you have?

What are your investment objectives?

Time horizon?

 

[yihao93]

How much capital do you have?

What are your investment objectives?

Time horizon?

capital : 1000.

objectives : 1)passive income ,if you may (basically just invest some money and let it sit there)
2)risk low returns , atleast till i am more familiar with this.
3) might not have time to dedicate to this project. ( perhaps1 hour per day) (in NS)

time horizon : payout monthly to half a year.

do tell me if im doing anything wrong. thanks.

 

[WindBoi]

why not look at some of the sticky posted by moderators in this forum?

 

[remy3413]

capital : 1000.

objectives : 1)passive income ,if you may (basically just invest some money and let it sit there)
2)risk low returns , atleast till i am more familiar with this.
3) might not have time to dedicate to this project. ( perhaps1 hour per day) (in NS)

time horizon : payout monthly to half a year.

do tell me if im doing anything wrong. thanks.

very limited choice, don't bother buying, save up first

your brokerage fees will kill you

 

[yihao93]

windboi , i roughly read through it but what i am looking for is perhaps WHAT type of things i am suited to invest in ,etc .

remy- really? thats a downer. how much would i need?

 

[Epps_Sg]

capital : 1000.

objectives : 1)passive income ,if you may (basically just invest some money and let it sit there)
2)risk low returns , atleast till i am more familiar with this.
3) might not have time to dedicate to this project. ( perhaps1 hour per day) (in NS)

time horizon : payout monthly to half a year.

do tell me if im doing anything wrong. thanks.

$1000 for one year investment, better to put in 6 month or one year fixed deposit, find a bank with the best fixed deposit rate. At least you get started with 'investing' and go one step higher than 'savings account'... can take small steps at a time, important is to start getting investment 'returns'.

next, if possible, check you have some term life insurance coverage, and some upgraded medishield coverage (totally using medisave to pay) if possible... guard your future investment capital from sudden medical expenses. Aviva's SAF Group Term Life Insurance policy is affordable life insurance, 12.80/month per 100,000 life coverage. Consider using term insurance then learn to invest the rest.

Next up, you can accumulate investment capitals. you can choose to learn about long term passive investing strategy - lower volatility, no market timing, no stock picking, reasonable long term returns. Look to use lower cost ETFs for investments instead of unit trusts that have high initial sales charges and high annual fees. A simple passive investing portfolio can be 50/50 STI ETF and Singapore government bonds, rebalanced yearly. Both are available from SGX. Passive investing strategy is not rocket science and it is not demanding like trading, so enjoy learning passive investing. Lots of interesting resource in internet and books to learn passive portfolio investing.

There are other long term investing methods around, such as passive dividend investing, value investing. Each method has its pros and cons, so analyse which is more suitable style for your particular case. Test water with part of your capital first, and avoid trading strategies till you establish your main investment funds. If you do high risk trading in future, trading capital should preferably be 5~10% of your total investment capital. Ask questions if you have doubts, and do your due diligence to verify infomation before acting on advices.

 

[Dividends Warrior]

capital : 1000.

objectives : 1)passive income ,if you may (basically just invest some money and let it sit there)
2)risk low returns , atleast till i am more familiar with this.
3) might not have time to dedicate to this project. ( perhaps1 hour per day) (in NS)

time horizon : payout monthly to half a year.

do tell me if im doing anything wrong. thanks.

$1k is really not enough for meaningful investments......

Save up first. NS is a good time to save up.

You can spend some time reading and doing some research on dividend stocks like telcos.

After ORD, you can buy stocks oredi.

 

[flyfox]

very limited choice, don't bother buying, save up first

your brokerage fees will kill you

If stanchart still nt too bad lah, compared to the rest

 

[yihao93]

$1k is really not enough for meaningful investments......

Save up first. NS is a good time to save up.

You can spend some time reading and doing some research on dividend stocks like telcos.

After ORD, you can buy stocks oredi.

is this dividends stocks related to the above post menioned of passive investing?

 

[Dividends Warrior]

is this dividends stocks related to the above post menioned of passive investing?

Yes. Dividend stocks pay u cash on a regular basis. Just buy, monitor and wait for the dividends.

Singtel, Starhub, M1, SPH, Singpost etc. are examples of quality dividend stocks.

SPH is giving dividends in Dec and Singtel is giving dividends in Jan next year.

 

[Epps_Sg]

is this dividends stocks related to the above post menioned of passive investing?

Dividend stock investing generally refers to long term buying and holding dividend stocks only. This require stock picking and analysis knowledge.

Passive portfolio investing generally refers to long term buying of stock index ETF as well as other assets like bonds, in a fixed ratio of say 50/50 stock/bond. The goal is to rebalance the assets back to original ratio eg. 50/50 once a year by buying the cheaper asset with fresh fund or selling the profitable asset to buy cheaper asset. This is almost a mechanical approach to investing without market timing and stock picking, and this is not difficult to understand and implement.

 

[yihao93]

i see... at this pt of time with what is told to me it seems that Dividend stock and Passive portfolio investing is what i need to look into. thanks for the information .

am i right to say that opening an account and how to buy and sell stocks or bonds will be stated on the broker firm website?

what other information would i need to start investing?

i welcome other suggestions =)

 

[Dividends Warrior]

i see... at this pt of time with what is told to me it seems that Dividend stock and Passive portfolio investing is what i need to look into. thanks for the information .

am i right to say that opening an account and how to buy and sell stocks or bonds will be stated on the broker firm website?

what other information would i need to start investing?

i welcome other suggestions =)

Yes. You need to open an account with a brokerage firm. E.g. DBS Vickers, UOB KayHian, POEMS, Standard Chartered, OCBC, Kim Eng etc.

They will give you passwords and stuff like that.

Then you can just click away on their internet trading platform.

 

[remy3413]

i see... at this pt of time with what is told to me it seems that Dividend stock and Passive portfolio investing is what i need to look into. thanks for the information .

am i right to say that opening an account and how to buy and sell stocks or bonds will be stated on the broker firm website?

what other information would i need to start investing?

i welcome other suggestions =)

One thing to note, SCB is not like your regular brokerage firm like Lim&Tan, Kim Eng, CIMB, OCBC, DBS

When you buy through SCB, your shares are never deposited in the CDP, Standard chartered will hold your shares for you.

I don't favour SCB, unless you do frequent tradings then you will save on brokerage fee

 

[doody_]

With 1k you can't buy much... most of the REITs are above $1. Save up more first!

 

[Wildreamz]

There are some REITs (Lippo, Saizen etc) that are less than $1. And some high yielding stocks that are less (Valuetronics, MIIF) than $1. Please note that this is not a buy call, please do your own research.

If you are not going to touch 1k for a long time, can consider investing in these and leave it to grow for the rest of your NS life/uni life.

 

[maliciousmonster]

if you're going for stock/shares investment. In my opinion, 1k capital is like tuition fee.

use it to buy 1 lot which you feel is comfortable and look at it 6 months down the road. Is it better? is it worse? why so? it'll make your life easier once you ORD and start working.

 

[yihao93]

well today picked up this book and started reading, found that what i would be interested in( at this point of time with limited knowledge) would be bonds, ETF, indexes because from what i know these are low risks as compared to the other investing methods like gold, forex and stock market.

as such, i would like to know more about these 3 and how i can go about purchasing it.
1) how much($$) do i need to purchase the above 3 products? ( is there perhaps a website or something?)

2) Possible to get rid of middleman?
Spoke to my friend today , he also invests and he said that if he were to buy bonds, he could buy it directly from the company, eliminating the need for a broker. ( how can i do it too? for the 3 aforementioned products) ( perhaps what im questioning here is the necessity of the middleman)

3) how to go about trading it in singapore and what i can use to analyse the returns on the 3 products ( eg, other then credit ratings? )

4)TAXES
read that taxes is made upon your profits , is this also true in singapore trading context? possible to find out what is the tax amount? ( with or without broker)

5) investing with CPF ( how can i go about it and what would be a safe platform to invest in? ) since CPF is for your retirement, is it tax-sheltered as well? ( what i read in the book is that sometimes that would be the case.

6) REIT- what type of investment is it?

7) Business club. ( had friends who is in this biz club and they invited me to sit in, are they like legit or shady??)

8) currency market fund - any dabbles in this?

would appreciate it even if one could reply even one question?

And yes i agree that i have to save up more. but at this moment i am looking to at least have some returns to slowly build up my savings today with my NS pay.

 

[yihao93]

if you're going for stock/shares investment. In my opinion, 1k capital is like tuition fee.

use it to buy 1 lot which you feel is comfortable and look at it 6 months down the road. Is it better? is it worse? why so? it'll make your life easier once you ORD and start working.

assuming i have 1000.
buying 1 lot at $10 means i still have $990
why would be be considered tuition fee?
is it because of the underlying fees and such? ( I am afraid i don't understand. my bad haha