Official Shiny Things thread—Part III

[Han Shot First]

The problem is that Stanchart and IBKR clear their European and UK stocks through entirely separate clearing houses. Basically it’s not something any of us on here can fix; if you want to move IWDA from Stanchart to IBKR, you’ll need to sell and re-buy it.

Would there be a problem to transfer U.S. stocks and/or SGX-listed stocks from SCB to IBKR?

 

[newjersey]

By whom?


First of all, Temasek has made lots of mistakes and really hasn’t done too well. Second, Temasek is not even close to a majority shareholder of Standard Chartered.

not sure if u are familiar w investing.

find me an investor who only pick wins.

temasek has failures, yes.

but their overall portfolio size has grew.

so is that still a fail?

 

[BBCWatcher]

temasek has failures, yes.
but their overall portfolio size has grew.
so is that still a fail?

It certainly could be. Growing a pile of Singapore dollars isn’t hard. A bank will help you do that at 0.05% per year, at least. But if you’re not generating even average net levels of growth (based on portfolios with comparable risk profiles), I’d say that’s a failure. If Temasek is below average, then I don’t think we should be happy about it.

Regardless, you’re really not a smart investor if you think “Oh, Temasek holds a piece, so it must be good.” Temasek can still afford to take gigantic investment risks compared to you, and it often does. If Temasek holds a piece that could be a terrific indicator you should run away, especially if you’re a conservative investor.

 

[chrisloh65]

So you are claiming that you are a smart investor because you think Temasek is lousy (and newjersey is not smart investor because he believes that Temasek is good investor) and your lousy low return from DCA blindly into index ETFs makes you a fantastic investor?

It certainly could be. Growing a pile of Singapore dollars isn’t hard. A bank will help you do that at 0.05% per year, at least. But if you’re not generating even average net levels of growth (based on portfolios with comparable risk profiles), I’d say that’s a failure. If Temasek is below average, then I don’t think we should be happy about it.

Regardless, you’re really not a smart investor if you think “Oh, Temasek holds a piece, so it must be good.” Temasek can still afford to take gigantic investment risks compared to you, and it often does. If Temasek holds a piece that could be a terrific indicator you should run away, especially if you’re a conservative investor.

not sure if u are familiar w investing.

find me an investor who only pick wins.

temasek has failures, yes.

but their overall portfolio size has grew.

so is that still a fail?

 

[summersky1986]

Hi all,

Not sure of this is the right thread. But we are looking for an unit trust to buy in to invest our CPF for the next 3 years.

We were looking at Schroder Asian Growth fund earlier, however it seems like we've missed out boat back in March.

Hope to get the recommendations of the better informed investors and experts here.

 

[polyglob]

Wishy washy non answer to the actual question posed.

It certainly could be. Growing a pile of Singapore dollars isn’t hard. A bank will help you do that at 0.05% per year, at least. But if you’re not generating even average net levels of growth (based on portfolios with comparable risk profiles), I’d say that’s a failure. If Temasek is below average, then I don’t think we should be happy about it.

Regardless, you’re really not a smart investor if you think “Oh, Temasek holds a piece, so it must be good.” Temasek can still afford to take gigantic investment risks compared to you, and it often does. If Temasek holds a piece that could be a terrific indicator you should run away, especially if you’re a conservative investor.

 

[chrisloh65]

Got to wait lah, like flowerpalms keep a big warchest for your once in a life time opportunity!
Strike it and you can retire rich! Don't have to DCA blindly over 30 years!

Time to go shopping !

 

[zoneguard]

but their overall portfolio size has grew.

so is that still a fail?

https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/128610150-post2516.html

Today's news.

 

[Rknight]

ANT financial IPO listing in Shanghai and Hongkong won't be applicable for us right ? I realised nobody is talking about it in this forum, strangely.

 

[viventa]

not sure if u are familiar w investing.

find me an investor who only pick wins.

Oh, the irony...

 

[chrisloh65]

https://theasiareport.com/2020crisis/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=2020crisis

DBS CEO Warning On “Biggest Crisis In 70 Years”
Richard (Jun Hao)
July 21, 2020

Here are the key takeaways:

1. The economic storm is the worst one he has seen and he describes it as the worst crisis facing mankind in the last 70 years.
2. He expects the real challenges to emerge next year as companies will transition from a liquidity crisis to a solvency crisis.
3. The consequences of the financial crisis have not been felt… and he expects it to be on par if not worst than the 2008 Great Financial Crisis.
4. He expects the banks to be able to weather out the current crisis better than 2008 with stronger capital buffers & risk management.
5. Under their current projections, DBS will be able to maintain its dividend.
6. If there is a tail event (US-China Trade War?) that deals even bigger damage, then the dividend may have to be cut.
7. One of the biggest challenge ahead will be unemployment and job creation which is rising relentlessly.

 

[iceblendedchoc]

Got to wait lah, like flowerpalms keep a big warchest for your once in a life time opportunity!
Strike it and you can retire rich! Don't have to DCA blindly over 30 years!

i just want to buy stuffs from amazon

 

[celtosaxon]

Do people who try to time the bottom have a greater tendency to miss it because of their predisposition toward negative thinking? And do they end up missing the recovery and subsequently seek out doom and gloom stories to make themselves feel better and convince themselves that the next big one is coming?

Could be a worthy psychological study.

 

[ftpofmpo]

Wishy washy non answer to the actual question posed.

ur answer is the distraction;

it's considered underperformance if funds are not able to match the market in the long run after expenses;

otherwise just invest in the index with a small crew, no need a giant organisation with huge expenses

 

[JadenQ]

Hi Shiny,

I saw in your Rich by Retirement book that the Internal Revenue Service—the US tax authority—imposes very strict rules on US taxpayers who invest in stocks or ETFs that are listed outside the USA. For myself, I am due to relocate to the US in the near future for my employment and I would expect to be working in the US for a number of years once the relocation happens. In that case, would it still make sense for me to buy the London-listed ETFs such as IWDA/VWRA right now? Otherwise, what would be appropriate to buy? For my retirement country, it is not something that I have decided as of yet.

 

[Han Shot First]

it's considered underperformance if funds are not able to match the market in the long run after expenses;

otherwise just invest in the index with a small crew, no need a giant organisation with huge expenses

The problem is: The PAP government believes in active management. And is willing to pay for it using taxpayers' money.

BTW, which "market" are you referring to? Different stock markets (and market indexes) perform differently.

Maybe that's also why the PAP goverment does not allow index mutual funds (with low expense ratios) to be sold in Singapore to retail investors. Singapore is decades behind the U.S. and the U.K.

 

[swan02]

Can someone recommend a value etf such as IVE but listed in the LSE ?

 

[polyglob]

ur answer is the distraction;

it's considered underperformance if funds are not able to match the market in the long run after expenses;

otherwise just invest in the index with a small crew, no need a giant organisation with huge expenses

Of course consistent underperformance is failure and next better players should be put in charge.

According to that BT article quoted total shareholder return since 1974 is 16% in US$ terms. In the 1st 2 pages of web search I found 1 link stating that BRK CAGR is 20.9% from 1965-2017 while S&P500 with dividends included is 9.9%. Not identical measures but useful as frame of reference.

Any other industrial conglomerate or SWF you suggest to compare to?

 

[Kaypohji]

S&P500 with dividends included is 9.9%

For 1965 to 2017?

Of course consistent underperformance is failure and next better players should be put in charge.

According to that BT article quoted total shareholder return since 1974 is 16% in US$ terms. In the 1st 2 pages of web search I found 1 link stating that BRK CAGR is 20.9% from 1965-2017 while S&P500 with dividends included is 9.9%. Not identical measures but useful as frame of reference.

Any other industrial conglomerate or SWF you suggest to compare to?

 

[BBCWatcher]

Maybe that's also why the PAP goverment does not allow index mutual funds (with low expense ratios) to be sold in Singapore to retail investors.

While the government could do more, or anything really, to encourage the development and proliferation of low cost, well diversified index unit trusts (Singapore’s equivalent to mutual funds) — simply implementing the last round of CPF panel recommendations would help — the government isn’t stopping the private sector in this respect. Blame Singaporean investors and unit trust providers and sellers for persistently high costs.

The history in the U.S. is really all about Jack Bogle founding Vanguard as a not for profit mutual association — and then his not being a jerk about his own total compensation, which by Wall Street standards was modest. Yes, OK, it’s helpful that Vanguard’s founding roughly coincided with the development of 401(k) plans (a regulatory invention) and, later, the Internet. But there’s no particular impediment to history repeating itself in Singapore, and SRS accounts already exist. And the sclerotic unit trust market is getting more competitive with the growth of zero fee platforms and more savvy investors.

In the Singapore context, maybe TCC Credit Co-operative could/should get in this business, offering low cost “target date” funds (via automatic GIRO deductions) that are index funds of index funds? The underlying funds would be VWRA (or IWDA), ES3 (or G3B), and MBH. All distributed dividends would be automatically reinvested.

According to that BT article quoted total shareholder return since 1974 is 16% in US$ terms. In the 1st 2 pages of web search I found 1 link stating that BRK CAGR is 20.9% from 1965-2017 while S&P500 with dividends included is 9.9%. Not identical measures but useful as frame of reference.

The 1974 date is simply when Temasek was founded. Any monkey with a Singaporean or “Asian” bias could have made/did make a lot of money in 1970s and 1980s Singapore. Good for Temasek that Singapore rapidly and successfully transformed from an emerging economy to a developed one, but you don’t measure a fund management team’s performance based on one-time historical happenstance. It should always be relative to reasonable baselines (“monkeys”), inclusive of the happenstance as part of your baseline.

To start to get some sense of what’s going on, you could look at various performance intervals: 1, 3, 5, 10, 20, 30 (years), and Inception.