*Official* Shiny Things club

[IronMac]

Personally, I feel that if the government stop wasting so much money on defense we can use the money for better purposes. Lowered defence Budget need not equate to a weak military.

I was shocked and surprised that SG spends 13% of its budget on defense.

 

[Shiny Things]

Hi guys, seeing that General Election is nearing. Why are your views on Singapore's future economy?

Are we hitting some road bumps in terms of growth, particularly Singapore companies?

The problem is that Singapore's economy has been running hot for years, so it's probably not surprising that it's going to slow down a bit; also because you guys are so heavily leveraged to China and to commodities, as China slows down and commodity prices drop then Singapore's going to slow down as well.

Have we really maxed out on (easy)ways to grow like what PM said?

Well, the easy way to grow is to bring in more people, but that's a bit tough for obvious reasons. So, yeah, you're going to need to improve Singapore's productivity if you want to keep growing, and that's harder than just getting more people in the doors.

What are your strategies for investing with this in perspective?

I don't think this makes any sort of argument for changing from the usual buy-and-hold strategy. It makes an argument for investing internationally, sure, but you're already doing that with the international stocks component.

 

[hin999]

Hi guys

with the recent drop in major financial markets, any changes to your investment strategies?

Keep calm and buy ES3, IWDA and A35 as per normal?

 

[VictorvonDoom]

Hi guys

with the recent drop in major financial markets, any changes to your investment strategies?

Keep calm and buy ES3, IWDA and A35 as per normal?

yup that's what I'm doing. though if I will be a happier man if my usual buying period is during these few days.

 

[djchris]

Trying to wrap my head around IWDA and VWRD and pardon me if this sounds stupid.

The biggest difference is that IWDA reinvests its dividends and VWRD pays out dividends. What I'm trying to understand is, how does reinvesting its dividend benefit me as an investor because the way I see it:

1) If VWRD pays me dividends, I can reinvest the dividends and get more shares. Sure, I pay the commission fees but at the end of the day, my holdings increase.
2) If IWDA reinvests the dividends, my holdings do not increase, but the share price increase according to the dividends reinvested. But the price of the share can wipe out the dividends in a bear market (like now) and I'm back to square one.

Am I making sense here?

 

[Shiny Things]

Hi guys

with the recent drop in major financial markets, any changes to your investment strategies?

Keep calm and buy ES3, IWDA and A35 as per normal?

Seriously, though, yes. This is the hard part of investing - when all the stuff you've bought gets hit, and you're thinking "oh god why didn't I leave my money in the biscuit tin why why why".

Couple of things.

First, if you bought A35, you're going to be really happy with yourself - that little guy is off less than 1% month-to-date. It's doing exactly what bonds are supposed to do: it's the stabiliser in your portfolio, so even if you're getting hit on stocks, your bonds will keep you afloat and reduce your losses.

Secondly: remember, you're invested in stocks for the long run. A one-week plunge (and let's not mince words, this is a plunge, especially if you were up early this morning watching the Dow open down 1000 points) shouldn't affect your 5-year or 10-year or 20-year plan.

The absolute best thing you can do right now is: nothing. Just keep dollar-cost averaging (and down here, you'll be mostly buying shares, which is great - same great companies but 10% cheaper).

I'm going to defer to the good folk at the New York Times here:

The impulse when the stock market falls hard for a few days in a row is to do something. Anything. Our life savings are often on the line, after all.

But that’s just the thing: Stocks are most useful for long-term goals. So unless those goals have changed in the last few days, it probably doesn’t make much sense to overhaul an investment strategy based on a blip of market activity.

So pour yourself a drink, or sit down with a pint of ice cream, and consider the following six things.

For what it's worth, I'm getting hit too. My portfolio really got the rough end of the pineapple today - I stopped myself out of a couple of my interest-rate punting trades, and made sure that my core buy-and-hold portfolio was safe in case anything really funky happens.

But I've still got money flowing in, and I'm still fully invested. Give it 20 years and this will be far in the rear-view mirror.

 

[white_tiger]

Shiny, where do you think the good price to averaging?
DJI, SnP500, SPY and QQQ price in particular...

 

[Shiny Things]

Shiny, where do you think the good price to averaging?
DJI, SnP500, SPY and QQQ price in particular...

I don't think this is a very useful question, to be honest. The point of dollar-cost-averaging is that you do it regularly every month, or two months, or whatever; trying to pick levels to buy more is what traders do, and we're not trying to be traders here.

That said, if you're looking to buy US stocks for the long run, I think these levels are pretty great right here.

Also can I just take a moment for a nerdy market-structure whinge about the Dow? The Dow is a dumb index. It's not representative of the broad market (only 30 stocks); it's price-weighted not cap-weighted (so 3M has more weight in the Dow than Apple even though Apple's six times bigger); and it's a lot easier to trade the SPX.

The only reason everyone quotes the Dow during these plunges is that the Dow is bigger so the numbers sound scarier. "SPX DROPS 77 HANDLES" is a bigger selloff than "DOW DROPS 600 POINTS", but which one will make more people click on the link to the story?

Free rule of thumb there: anyone who talks in Dow terms instead of S&P terms doesn't really know their markets, and you should feel free to give them side-eye.

 

[Shiny Things]

1) If VWRD pays me dividends, I can reinvest the dividends and get more shares. Sure, I pay the commission fees but at the end of the day, my holdings increase.
2) If IWDA reinvests the dividends, my holdings do not increase, but the share price increase according to the dividends reinvested. But the price of the share can wipe out the dividends in a bear market (like now) and I'm back to square one.

So let's go five years down the road, and say you've reinvested your dividends from VWRD to match IWDA. You'll effectively own more shares of VWRD, but because VWRD pays out its dividends instead of reinvesting them, a share of VWRD will be worth less than a share of IWDA.

So you either own more shares at a lower value (VWRD) or fewer shares at a higher value (IWDA). Either way, you end up with a similar dollar value of shares.

 

[w1rbelw1nd]

Nope, someone getting violently stopped out.

The same thing happened in a couple of ETFs I track - they traded down 15%-20% this morning when the underlying stock baskets were only down 4%-5%. (They came back surprisingly quickly, though - the dislocations lasted about 15 minutes, tops. If I hadn't been woken up by a garbage truck at 4:30 this morning I would've slept through the whole thing, but for those 15 minutes there was free cash lying on the street.)

Basically what happened is this:

• The market-makers switched their machines off because markets were unusually volatile;
• Price-insensitive retail traders said to their brokers "oh my god get me out at any price" - or, equivalently, their brokers said "you've lost too much money, we're cutting you out";
• Those retail traders were forcibly sold out, into a market where prices were plunging and there was no liquidity;
• Prices end up plunging miles away from their fair value until the market-makers switch their machines back on (or smart traders buy the dislocated ETFs and wait for them to converge.)

The buried lede here is that ETFs work quite well! Stuff swung around a bit for about 15 minutes, but if you weren't using leverage - if you were just buying-and-holding - and you were off doing your job or something like that, then as far as you were concerned the ETF tracked the basket of stocks very nicely.

Quoted this from another thread(Limster bro was making a comment on EIMI suddenly plunging by almost 20%). As mentioned, prices of ETFs have deviated from the underlying indexes prices.

Just to check with everyone here, do you try to pick some of these mispriced ETFs by putting a very low (15-20% off spot price) bid? Any things to consider for trying to do that?

Anyway i managed to get some EIMI at $18.20 and $18

 

[Shiny Things]

Also my day has just finished, so I'm gonna head home, put my feet up, stick some smooth jazz on the radio, pour myself a nice glass of Napa Valley cab sav, and forget about the markets. I suggest y'all do the same.

Your money will still be there tomorrow.

 

[nicholasmong]

They called it Black Monday. It was a sea of red and I took a look at my portfolio for buying opportunities. Picked up some EIMI; not much, just enough - missed the 16.16 though. ES3 opened at 2.87 today, back to 2.99 (10:42am). It's just a speed bump, a blip to pick-up stuff as far as I'm concerned.

 

[VictorvonDoom]

They called it Black Monday. It was a sea of red and I took a look at my portfolio for buying opportunities. Picked up some EIMI; not much, just enough - missed the 16.16 though. ES3 opened at 2.87 today, back to 2.99 (10:42am). It's just a speed bump, a blip to pick-up stuff as far as I'm concerned.

Itchy fingers and queued for 2.88 before the open. Filled at 2.87 on SCB

 

[The Accountant]

Quoted this from another thread(Limster bro was making a comment on EIMI suddenly plunging by almost 20%). As mentioned, prices of ETFs have deviated from the underlying indexes prices.

Just to check with everyone here, do you try to pick some of these mispriced ETFs by putting a very low (15-20% off spot price) bid? Any things to consider for trying to do that?

Anyway i managed to get some EIMI at $18.20 and $18

I was live during that time. And I Was wondering what on earth happened to EIMI. It took be a while to notice there was no significant change(like 30%) to nav(anyway China market should be closed during that time).back in my head I can't understand why because the AP should have arbitrage the difference. I didn't know the machine would be turn off until shiny things mentioned it.

Anyway I tried to get in but I can't because the spread is too darn wide. Ended up I settle for 18.70

 

[w1rbelw1nd]

I was live during that time. And I Was wondering what on earth happened to EIMI. It took be a while to notice there was no significant change(like 30%) to nav(anyway China market should be closed during that time).back in my head I can't understand why because the AP should have arbitrage the difference. I didn't know the machine would be turn off until shiny things mentioned it.

Anyway I tried to get in but I can't because the spread is too darn wide. Ended up I settle for 18.70

I didn't have live prices.... So I didn't know what to bid initially. Do you have subscription to live price?

 

[doody_]

I find not logging into my brokerage account very helpful for reducing panic and preventing unwise selling decisions

 

[reinphd]

I find not logging into my brokerage account very helpful for reducing panic and preventing unwise selling decisions

This. Things were down 10% overall but I picked up more shares of the etfs along the way. Helped to average down heh

Sent from Samsung SM-G900F using GAGT

 

[The Accountant]

I didn't have live prices.... So I didn't know what to bid initially. Do you have subscription to live price?

I didn't subscript to a live quote. I was looking at Google chart which I think is the best close to live quote.

Point is, I am using SCB. At that point of time, the bid price in SCB was very low but the ask price was ard 18.9 if I remember correctly. I tried to place an order @ 17 but it didn't work out and I had to revise my order. So I don't think SCB users are able to take advantage of this as I have the same experience on A35. perhaps those who uses IB could take advantage of it but I am not sure if this liquidity issue applies to all platform.

 

[doody_]

http://omnifeed.com/article/money.c...elloff-circuit-breakers-1200-times/index.html

I guess that explains the weird behaviour.

 

[Erwinlow]

How do you all view the Pound against SGD? Will it strengthen it time to come with imminent interest rate increase?