Property wins the crown again.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-31/asian-millionaires-firing-bankers-take-control-of-wealth.html Read the article from bloomberg. I don't know how much clearer the path to riches for NORMAL people is thru' property investment over the long term. I have to emphasize normal people. People who do not possess insider knowledge of an industry, a company or adept at picking stocks. Another relevant article is the number of property billionaires/millionaires in the singapore forbes rich list this year again. For your first million, I think the probability will be higher from your property investment. But of course.. like stocks, you need to search for the one that is undervalued with respect to the others. It must be in a good growth region, etc etc.

SGD Appreciation

I read this guy's thoughts from forum and I find it's very enlightening and just got to put it down here for future references.

Big problem for Singapore : Stronger Sing Dollar and Higher inflation...

Happily I go to Malaysia change my S$1 to $2.52+ ringgit every few weeks to spend...however, some Singaporean ya-ya-papaya think that strong S$ means Singapore economy more powerful or gaining strength on Malaysia and so on. This is the view of IGNORANT people.

1. Why did MAS allow Sing$ to go up so much despite negative GDP growth last quarter?

There is very high inflation in Singapore and raising the S$ makes the imported component of the CPI lower thus lowering the overall inflation figure to 5.3% which is already quite bad. Imagine at 6% our inflation will be higher than 3-month spanish bonds!!!

This is a sign the Singapore govt is losing control of domestic price inflation and using the S$ to make imports cheap to hide inflation pressures.

2. Our export sector is hurting and property bubble is prop up to keep us out of recession? 

Why you think MAS allow 50 year home loan. If property sector shrink immediately Singapore will be in recession because export sector is weak. The govt is just playing the number to prevent a recession by artificially propping up property sector.

3. As for some people think S$ strong almighty against the ringgit means Singapore BETTER

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/malaysia/inflation-cpi

Actually Malaysian inflation rate is 1.7% vs 5% in Singapore. Malaysian economic growth is 5% vs negative for Singapore last quarter.

The way Singaporeans can gain from this is stronger Sing$ is to go to Malaysia to spend their money. But you cannot spend every S$1 in Malaysia no matter what most of your money has to be spent n Singapore unless you MOVE TO MALAYSIA. That means you're exposed to high inflation while Malaysians are not despite their weaker ringgit. The weaker ringgit means Malaysian exports are stronger.

4. Strong S$ despite strong outward remittance flow=high dependency on capital inflows of hot money, tax evaders and money launderers

Half the workforce is foreign. They feed their families back home in Philipines, India and China. This means there is high remittance flow as these workers convert their salary to foreign currencies putting downward pressure on S$. Our trade deficit is very large.

To balance our accounts we depend on rich people from India, China, USA to shift money here to avoid tax in their home countries. Some of the money (like Ma Chi's) are of unclear origin. This means Singapore is forced to keep taxes on wealth artificially low even as income gap balloons. If billionaires stop parking their money here, the merry-go-round stops and things can sink FAST.

Singapore economy is propped up artificially. It is not healthy. We have no Samsung, Acer or HTC. We are flushing the economy with all sorts of money avoiding taxes, running from their own govt. This means we try to makan the highly corrupt western banking pie as western banks fail - this is likely done by deregulation and allowing more shadow activities in Singapore. If Obama wins again, he is likely to shut down this type of parasitic business growing like cancer and breeding the most foul type of financial businesses and humans.

Ok...next week I happily go spend my S$ in Malaysia...but I not so gong kia to think it is because things are so steady poon pi pi in Singapore.

Last edited by TopSageTemp; Today at 08:42 AM.

As for the investment type, I would still prefer properties.

Market pricing in QE of Europe and US

The market price action is leading me to believe the market is pricing in the prospect of QE by both US and Europe.

So, anything less will be a correction :)

Which brings me to the VXX again. I have observed VXX seem to have reached a bottom as yesterday was a positive session but VXX went up instead.

Just my guess.. so as long as the QE do not materialised, it's time to put on VXX.