Official Shiny Things thread—Part III

[Torenoo]

1. I'm not an expert and it tires me due to lack of passion and poor grasp of english to fully comprehend and complete the long product description. BBC watcher will soon critique Aviva's product. a/w him soon.

but
2. from what i've read before I slept. It is certainly $39.60 monthly premium.

3. Looks like in Singapore, its called deferred period. Did you notice that horrible 6 months deferred period !!!....now you know why its so cheap.

4. 1 mil term is a good start considering your higher than avg monthly income and assume higher expenditure, but definitely you need to spend time thinking really, how much you really need.

5. I suspect your AIA could be the rider that you need not pay excess ?

Anyways, wait for BBC watcher to critique the product as her (I assume a She from the way she writes) written and scrutiny befits a lawyer.

no worries at all and thanks for sharing your views as well

1. yeah i though 6/m was a bit too good to be true

2. so its 180 days.. pretty lenghty indeed, but i guess if you are permanently disabled suddenly, that would be the emergency funds to take note of, but the main risk in context still being addressed i suppose.

3. I have pretty low monthly expenditures, no plans for kids in mind for now, its mainly for my aging parents incase i gone suddenly.

4. It was the AIA 1 full "as charged" basis with access to single ward or something like that. Heard across the ind it was all gone up even with other Cos, have since downgraded it to class B or 1 tier lower.

5. BBC is certainly very well versed and is able to dive deep into these technicalities and languages that only confused laymen like us. definitely contributed lot of this forum, kudos to BBC watcher.

 

[Sunader]

Hi, noob question here - does anyone know how to setup GIRO for FSMOne RSP?

 

[viventa]

2. so its 180 days.. pretty lenghty indeed, but i guess if you are permanently disabled suddenly, that would be the emergency funds to take note of, but the main risk in context still being addressed i suppose.

That's what I was thinking. If you're suddenly able to go back to work and start earning income after 5 months of being "disabled" it's really a happy problem in the context of DII... plus the longer deferred period is reflected in the relatively lower premiums anyway.

 

[swan02]

However, I do find fault with such a long deferred period. I sincerely do not find a DII of longer than 90 days deferment period attractive. I wonder whether a better product exists ?

Imagine a scenario that is sufficiently crippling such as mental illness or some debilitating pain which can be neural or physical that renders u unworkable for a few months and recovers yet rears it’s ugly head a few times a year forever.... u can kiss your emergency funds goodbye along with an impotent DII insurance.

That's what I was thinking. If you're suddenly able to go back to work and start earning income after 5 months of being "disabled" it's really a happy problem in the context of DII... plus the longer deferred period is reflected in the relatively lower premiums anyway.

 

[Duhlazer]

Is it prudent to rely solely on group insurance? I understand that group insurance is so much cheaper because there's a chance that your claim will not be honoured if the total cumulative claims of others in your group have already reached the group limit in the current claim period (which we won't know). As an unlucky person that always misses traffic lights I'm a bit wary of buying only group insurance.

 

[viventa]

Imagine a scenario that is sufficiently crippling such as mental illness or some debilitating pain which can be neural or physical that renders u unworkable for a few months and recovers yet rears it’s ugly head a few times a year forever.... u can kiss your emergency funds goodbye along with an impotent DII insurance.

I've not looked at the DII policies offered in Singapore, but I believe DII policies offered overseas usually include recurrent disability clauses. It will of course vary from policy to policy, but the gist of it is that you may not need to wait out the entire deferred period again to receive payouts if you get hit with the same disability shortly after you tried to resume work.

 

[easti3]

Hi all,

I have tried to transfer my IWDA holdings from scb to ibkr afew months back but was told it's no longer possible.

I'm 30 years old and have around 50k SGD worth of IWDA in scb.

Will it be recommended to sell from scb and buy via ibkr?

If so, will it be recommended to be done as one big bang or gradually over several months?

Monthly investment to IWDA will be USD 1k.

Thank you.

 

[_dXter]

With IB SG and eventually movement of existing account from US to SG, you may be able to try again.

 

[crystalnox]

Hi all,

I have tried to transfer my IWDA holdings from scb to ibkr afew months back but was told it's no longer possible.

I'm 30 years old and have around 50k SGD worth of IWDA in scb.

Will it be recommended to sell from scb and buy via ibkr?

If so, will it be recommended to be done as one big bang or gradually over several months?

Monthly investment to IWDA will be USD 1k.

Thank you.

If you're still a long way off from US$100K, why not just leave your holdings in SCB and start IB first?

 

[easti3]

If you're still a long way off from US$100K, why not just leave your holdings in SCB and start IB first?

Hey thanks for the response. I have started investing via ibkr and I'll eventually need to make this decision one day too.

 

[elemention]

Hi Shiny Things and everyone else! I have checked with Interactive Brokers Singapore and have some updates to share.
We can now buy Singapore denominated products at a fee of 0.08% for the fixed tier plan. However, we are not able to use the existing IB account and have to create a new IB-SG account at interactivebrokers.sg due to Singapore regulations.
I have checked with the support team and we are able to shift our entire portfolio from our existing IB account to this new IB-SG account.
However there is one concern which is that our IB-SG account will no longer be protected under third parties like the SIPC 500k protection or ICF.

As such, I would like to seek your opinions about this. Do you think it is a good idea to shift our entire portfolio over to the new IB-SG account? Or should we have 2 separate accounts (1 for international and 1 for Singapore) to ensure that there is SIPC protection for the international account?

-Note that the minimum value for activity fee to be fully waived will be the same 100k USD (or SGD equivalent) for the IB-SG account

 

[chrisloh65]

Not sure why you are looking at all those you mentioned (compared to others like 2822 in HK etc.), and 2801 in HK is terrible because of the low liquidity resulting in large bid-ask spread (to buy and sell).

Also, 2801 HK owns 2 stocks which consists of about 34% of whole portfolio, and this is terrible concentration of risks in just 2 stocks!

Hi, ST and BBC,

I find for the same index "MSCI China NR", we have
MCHI in US
2801 in HK
LG9 in SGX
Almost the same size and same Expense Ratio.

So which one is good?

2801 HK has a much lower expense ratio than the other two (about 0.2% vs 0.6%), and it seems liquid enough unless you’re planning to trade seven-figure lumps. Pick that one.

 

[chrisloh65]

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3093686/us-investors-still-piling-fdi-money-china-despite-rising

US investors still piling FDI money into China despite rising political tensions
Foreign direct investment (FDI) from the US to China rose 6 per cent from a year earlier in yuan terms

The smart money is investing in China, so would you listen to "dumb money" here to avoid China?

 

[hwckhs]

Hey thanks for the response. I have started investing via ibkr and I'll eventually need to make this decision one day too.

I know some had advised you to wait for IBKR SG to fully open to try a transfer again, or to keep the SCB as is, but I have been thinking what would be the best way to execute sell-and-buy if you really need to.

Although sell-and-buy is not an efficient way to transfer shares, there are situations where it is necessary, for example, to transfer shares between a parent and a child (while both are still alive) because most brokers do not allow transfer between accounts with different names. I may in this situation in future.

So, this is just for discussion purposes, not a recommendation. I have not tried it, but I think it is possible to sell from your SCB account directly to your IBKR account, by using a mid price. One of the accounts need to have live prices.

For example, IWDA currently shows:

• Bid: 62.04
• Ask: 62.06

The execution steps:

1. Place a buy limit order @ 62.05 in IBKR
2. Place a sell limit order @ 62.05 in SCB

The time gap between the 2 orders must be kept as small as possible (no more than a few seconds to be safe). One can possibly use 2 different browsers and go through the order wizard before clicking the final "Submit" button in both browsers immediately one after another.

If the 2 simultaneous orders were filled successfully, then you save on the bid-ask spread. However, it is an open market, so it is possible for other people's orders to disrupt what you are doing. Take it as a bonus if it went well, otherwise just sell/buy at the prevailing bid/ask. To be honest, the bid-ask spread of IWDA (hence the saving) is very small, compared to the commissions you pay to both brokers. Any saving is better than none, though.

Using the numbers above:

• Bid-ask spread = 0.02/62.04*100 = 0.032% (what you save)
• SCB sell commissions = 0.25%, min USD 10 (personal banking)
• IBKR buy commissions = 0.05%, min USD 1.70 (tiered)

You will need a "working sum" so that you can buy in IBKR while waiting for the sell order in SCB to settle 2 days later. The working sum should be large enough to defeat the min commissions in SCB and IBKR. That means at least USD 4000 cash. Repeat the process until all necessary shares are transferred. The larger the working sum, the faster you can complete the process.

Not sure if this is a silly idea . Opinions welcome.

 

[Shiny Things]

Hi Shiny Things and everyone else! I have checked with Interactive Brokers Singapore and have some updates to share.
We can now buy Singapore denominated products at a fee of 0.08% for the fixed tier plan. However, we are not able to use the existing IB account and have to create a new IB-SG account at interactivebrokers.sg due to Singapore regulations.
I have checked with the support team and we are able to shift our entire portfolio from our existing IB account to this new IB-SG account.

_tada emoji!_

Thanks for doing the research, and this is superb news. You get IBKR's fabulously cheap rates—0.08% with a $2.50 minimum, which is going to give the old-school brokerages heartburn, and I approve of that. You get IBKR's more resilient systems; you get better execution and algos; and you get access to a huge range of markets from one account, so you can finally, FINALLY, put IWDA and ES3 in the same account without paying horrifically large fees somewhere along the line. Hallelujah.

Keep us posted on how the process of shifting to an IB-SG account works.

However there is one concern which is that our IB-SG account will no longer be protected under third parties like the SIPC 500k protection or ICF.

As such, I would like to seek your opinions about this. Do you think it is a good idea to shift our entire portfolio over to the new IB-SG account? Or should we have 2 separate accounts (1 for international and 1 for Singapore) to ensure that there is SIPC protection for the international account?

Jumping through hoops to get default insurance - especially if you have to pay more for it! - is a waste of money. It's a pain having to maintain multiple accounts, and log in and out of them depending on what you want to trade.

Having two accounts means you'll pay two sets of monthly fees instead of one, two sets of market data fees instead of one, and (for active traders) it means you'll cripple your cross-margining. It's not worth it.

With IB SG and eventually movement of existing account from US to SG, you may be able to try again.

I don't think this is right. The reason you can't do this transfer is to do with the clearing-houses, it's nothing to do with the entities that you yourself deal with.

 

[chinta]

phillips cashplus vs IB SG account

Hi ShinyThings,
Need your advise. I noticed phillips is offering 0.12% commission trades with no mimimum charges with cashplus account for SG stocks. Isn;t this better than IBs 0.08% and monthly minimum charges of USD10?

Both are custodian accounts so I don't see any difference there.

Am I missing any details? Can you help to enlighten on advantages and disadvantages of both the accounts?

 

[Carbonnade]

Hi Shiny,

I am looking to make the following adjustments to my monthly investments and want to sound check any issues, currently as follows:

IWDA; 70%
EIMI; 10%
LQDA; 20%

*No local exposure, when I decide over then next few years where I will settle down I will adjust accordingly. I still take advantage of the pacific peso's major fluctuations investing in VACF & IOS but consider this outside my normal monthly investments.

Questions;
- When rebalancing should I just purchase delta difference to maintain the 80/20 rule or actually sell every 6 months?
- IWDA + EIMI will cost me over time in fee's, to maintain the emerging markets exposure it would be best to change this to VWRA?

Now on to the main one, a few months ago I took a new job and relocated from SG to Thailand, I am paid in baht and have concerns about its outlook over the next year (I am compensated well so overall better off even with a 10-20%+ drop). Particuarly with how exposed the economy is to tourism which is unlikely to pick up until next year.

I am wondering what would be a good way to hedge against a major decline, assuming I want to hedge for the next 12 months would I look at taking a July 2021 put option against the THB? or what other products could I research here that would meet the need (I am still a noob in this area).

 

[limster]

Hi ShinyThings,
Need your advise. I noticed phillips is offering 0.12% commission trades with no mimimum charges with cashplus account for SG stocks. Isn;t this better than IBs 0.08% and monthly minimum charges of USD10?

Both are custodian accounts so I don't see any difference there.

Am I missing any details? Can you help to enlighten on advantages and disadvantages of both the accounts?

Which broker is cheaper for SG is purely a maths problem. For some investors, philips is cheaper, some IBKR is cheaper, and for some, FSM is even cheaper.

user cclee created a spreadsheet for which broker is cheaper for foreign shares, maybe he can expand the spreadsheet to which broker is cheaper for SG shares, to help those who can't do the maths

 

[zoneguard]

Hi ShinyThings,
Need your advise. I noticed phillips is offering 0.12% commission trades with no mimimum charges with cashplus account for SG stocks. Isn;t this better than IBs 0.08% and monthly minimum charges of USD10?

POEMS's no minimum charges is a promotion until end of 2020 if you read the fineprint.

No minimum brokerage is applicable for all Cash Plus Accounts (“Eligible Accounts”) from 8 June 2020 to 31 December 2020, both dates inclusive; thereafter minimum brokerage rates apply.

AND dividend handling fee:

Cash dividend handling fee is 1% on net dividend subject to minimum S$1.07 capped at S$53.50 + foreign fees and taxes (if applicable).

 

[BBCWatcher]

AND dividend handling fee:

According to their fee schedule they’re indefinitely waiving dividend handling charges for SGX-listed securities. However, for accounts below S$250,000 in value they have a S$15 per quarter fee unless you have at least one trade in the quarter.

The major appeal of Interactive Brokers Singapore Pte. Ltd. is that their fees are consistently low (often lowest) for both SGX-listed and non-SGX listed securities. So you have simple, one stop shopping for MBH and VWRA, for example. And as long as you’re usually making your buys monthly at least while the account has less than US$100,000, the minimum commission won’t matter.