Portfolio Rebalancing to factor in Global Reflation.

http://billehrman.tumblr.com/post/153081840243/the-shot-heard-round-the-world-first-inning-of

Events in the U.S. last week overshadowed whatever may have occurred elsewhere in the world. The key now is where are we going from here and how best to profit from that.

I believe that we are only in the first of a nine-inning game. Trump has not even taken office but the market is correctly anticipating change 6 to 9 months down the road, which is the norm. The market is finally focusing on reflation here as well as abroad. The world is moving from a conservative bias with policies and regulations that limited growth to much more accommodative policies.

Finally, monetary authorities here and abroad are talking about the need to pass the baton to governments and fiscal policy to promote growth as they did as much as humanly possible and the incremental benefits of monetary ease from here were negligible at best. I mentioned again last week that the chief economist of the World Bank supported Janet Yellen’s comment that the monetary authorities should let the economies run hot before hitting the brakes.

If everything comes together as I expect then we will be talking about an overheating economy, inflation over 3% and much higher interest rates a few years down the road. But in the interim, earnings will take off for the beneficiaries of growth offsetting any increases in rates therefore leading to much higher stock prices for the reflation beneficiaries. The safe stocks of the past with steady but low earnings growth will suffer and decline. And sell all bonds. Sell the dividend yield stocks too. Thus we have our long/short portfolio.

For myself, I am more bullish on AUD and USD appreciating against the SGD. Thus, I have for the past 2 years allocated 50% of my available resources to AUD and USD equities and cash.

I have also lighten my SGX portfolio in favour of a ASX and NYSE/NASDAQ portfolio, with a strong emphasis on the financials and industrials as well as technology in my portfolio.

I've also not add on to my bond portfolio the past 2 years. Instead, the proceeds from bonds redeemed by the issuers at par or matured was put into productive use in the equities market of the USD/AUD market.

Every year, we have had at least one steep correction and I do not think this will change next year and I intend to keep to my portfolio till the facts changed. 

18 years later and you did not beat the market.

http://www.chrisperruna.com/2016/04/03/the-only-way-the-99-should-invest-in-the-stock-market/

Does it help that I am not selling you anything? Perhaps. What I am selling you is a story, based on 18 years of experience of what works for the common investor, one that I am already starting to sell to my 7 year old. I prefer he start a business, several businesses for that matter, rather than get wrapped up in trading stocks.

I am finding the time spent researching for the portfolio and worrying about it and yet not beating the market by a big margin is really a waste of time.

Most retail investors are more suited to the index investing arena and spending the time saved enjoying life or working hard. Either way, they would end up more satisfied and richer.

I am planning to transition back to an all properties portfolio when the time comes. The returns from properties are plain amazing when compared to a bond/stock portfolio. Stock market is really an exercise in futility and I don't want to waste my time doing that when the returns cannot match what could be handled to me from a property (assuming you buy and hold 10 , 20 or 30yrs).

Naysayers will talk about the leverage offered and you can do the same for stocks and get amazing returns. I say to them, please go ahead and try that  :) Leverage like you would with a property (20% down, and 80% leverage) and go buy your stock. Tell me how it turns out.

What about property gains are maxed out and you will not get similar returns in the next decade. Well, if that is the case, I would bet the probability of Singapore stock market going nowhere for the next decade to be similar. 

Does Dual Class shares actually benefit the retail shareholders?

Under Armour CEO to Sell $72 Million in Stock

Shareholders approved the creation last year of the nonvoting Class C shares, which allowed the executive to sell some of his holdings without losing influence. Through his Class B shares, which have 10 times the voting power of Class A stock, Plank controls the majority of the company’s voting rights.

I have not gone in depth into what actually happens from dual-class shares.
From the UnderArmour example, it seems like a way for owners to treat the company like an ATM while retaining control thru' the voting class shares. In other words, you might have an owner who controls only 30% of the stocks in Class A (which can have voting rights from 1 time to 5 times to 10times as in this case).

Though a dual-class shares under a good and responsible manager like Berskhire Hathaway will benefit the retail/minority shareholders. There are many others in US which has dual class but have responsible managers. The argument would then be the onus is on the retail investors to find which one has responsible management and "vote" with your purchase of those stocks. However, I think that should not be the way to go about doing things.


I wonder how it would affect the singapore stock market when companies founders start to monetize it this way. Would it become only the institutional holders and company founders retaining much of the pricier class A shares, while retail are left holding the class B(or whatever term u call it) shares. In moves that might not be beneficial to the class B non-voting shares, retail holders have effectively no control over their fate.

Example, if a company want to privatise at a less than premium, voting rights which is very much in the control of the owners and institutional holders would benefit more. You might not have a case while retail holders can vote and say no to the privatisation. Or how about right issues?

Or how about we take it a step further, if a transport company has a dual class shares. And it wants to do something that is of not much benefit to the minority holders, the minority non-voting shares holding can not do much as they will get bulldoze by the voting rights shares which might constitue less than 20-30% of the company outstanding shares. Do note in Singapore, much of the large-listed companies are GLCs. In this case, you really need to ensure the management and the institutional holders(in this case, much of it lies in the hands of GIC and Temasek) are capabable and prudent and work in the best interest of all shareholders, not just the major shareholders. Most Singaporeans loved investing in "bluechips" (Singapore GLCs) for retirement or to buy and hold forever(as taught by the buffettologists of the world). So this issue of management is really really very important for us.

Luckily, so far, it seems only new listing are allowed dual-class. So let's hope we don't have more spin-off of our blue-chips into smaller listed companies.
http://www.straitstimes.com/business/companies-markets/sgx-is-closer-to-allowing-dual-class-shares

It also said companies already listed on a one-share-one-vote structure should not be allowed to convert into a dual-class set-up because existing shareholders did not invest in the company with knowledge of the risks associated with such structures.

We might argue much of the decision today even without the dual class shares is still very much dependent on the institutional and company owners, but this one takes it a step further by effectively removing the rights of the minority.  The analogy for me is like in a democracy, a government decides that only the top 10% are awarded 10 votes per person, the middle class 1 votes per person, while the rest are entitled to 0 vote per person but you can still be a singapore citizen with the included benefits of healthcare , education etc.

Anyway, for further discussion on it, it might be good to take a look at the links below on how the stock market is not what is . It seems to be moving towards insiders and wealthy(institutional) have more rights than the others.

Designed to give specific shareholders voting control, unequal voting shares are primarily created to satisfy owners who don't want to give up control, but do want the public equity market to provide financing. In most cases, these super-voting shares are not publicly traded and company founders and their families are most commonly the controlling groups in dual-class companies.

Read more: The Two Sides Of Dual-Class Shares | Investopedia http://www.investopedia.com/articles/fundamental/04/092204.asp#ixzz4JBEpYKXi
Follow us: Investopedia on Facebook

Oh, I just found a local business times article on this. So I'm happy people here are concerned about this too. Much more indepeth and insightful than mine of course. And it seems HK , australia and UK do not allow it.

http://governanceforstakeholders.com/2015/11/28/say-no-to-dual-class-shares/

Hong Kong recently shut the door on dual class shares after the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) rejected it. The Australian Securities Exchange does not allow it (with minor exceptions for cooperatives and mutuals), and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK has also recently banned dual class shares for companies listing on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange.

http://governanceforstakeholders.com/2016/08/31/dual-class-shares-safeguards-or-minefields/

Let’s now consider the proposed “safeguards” to minimise entrenchment and expropriation risks. For entrenchment risks, the first safeguard is a maximum voting differential of 10:1, which is the commonly adopted voting differential in other jurisdictions. A 10:1 ratio is the problem, not a safeguard. Consider a founder who holds only Class B shares with 10 votes each and public shareholders hold Class A shares with one vote each, and there are one million total issued shares. If the founder owns just 10 per cent of the total issued shares, he will have one million votes – or 52.6 per cent of the voting rights – while the public shareholders will have 900,000 votes. This will allow him to pass all ordinary resolutions. If he wants to be able to pass all special resolutions requiring 75 per cent support, he only needs to own about 23.5 per cent of the shares. And this is assuming all shares are voted at general meetings.

Not advocating you to buy properties at this moment.  And whether you buy or sell is entirely your business. But I have found property to have 100% ownership to you, no fractional ownership unless you go into a partnership or setup a company to purchase it. Even then, you are in control of whether you want to "Dilute" your own shares. I think shares can only make you very rich if you are able to gain a significant chunk to influence the company decision. If not, it is just a tradable commodity and DON"T FALL in LOVE with it.

The Art of Persuasion

Good read by Dilbert's creator on the art of persuasion by Donald Trump.
Applicable to all of us in real life too. I tend to write things for me to read instead of for others to read. :) In office presentations, it also does seems the 3 components, Ethos, pathos, Logos need to be present to make a good and compelling pitch. But nothing beats having the Pathos right. Once you get the pathos right, the other 2 components will be more or less met with less objections from the audience.

If you are keen to explore the ethos, pathos and logos in play, you could just attend one of the numerous investing seminars out there. You will see the flow is almost always the same. Build the credibility, appeal to your emotions, set out the "facts"/logic on how to achieve it. And lastly, CALL TO ACTION ! :) Sign up or Miss Out! hehe.. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-will-win-in-a-landslide-the-mind-behind-dilbert-explains-why/

Adams, in other words, believes that Trump himself has turned the campaign game around. On the stump, the real-estate mogul is not running on the knowledge of his numbers or the dissection of the data. He is running on our emotions, Adams says, and sly appeals to our own human irrationality. Since last August, in fact, when many were calling Trump’s entry a clown candidacy, the “Dilbert” cartoonist was already declaring The Donald a master in the powers of persuasion who would undoubtedly rise in the polls. And last week, Adams began blogging about how Trump can rhetorically dismantle Clinton’s candidacy next.

Considerations for Retiree or lumpsum investors

Opinion: Why a 100% stock portfolio can ruin your retirement
very often we hear about ignoring stock market volatility and just keep invested or to do DCA.

However, this is only true for people with extended timeframe and who has an active income.

For retirees and lump-sum investors, it might be more prudent to keep to an asset allocation strategy and rebalance periodically. You might not get the normal equities return of 8-10% annually, but you will sleep easy with a 4% withdrawal rate. Though it comes with another risk, Inflation, which will reduce your purchasing power for the same dollar.

I have been investing for 7+yrs full time in equities/bonds ... and have come to the realisation, real estate is probably a better way to get returns for people who can afford to buy properties.

UBS outlook for 2016.

UBS 2016 Houseview

UBS has make their houseviews available online if you are interested.

Take a pinch of salt.

They are only as good as you and me.. hehe.. I don't think there is any edge.

Structured Deposits?

Understand capital-guaranteed products

A capital-guaranteed product is a structured product created by a bank to be sold mainly to retail investors. It is issued usually for a term of 5 years, is invested in the manner spelled out in a prospectus and carries a guarantee from a bank that the invested sum will be returned on maturity.

Several products of this nature were created and sold by many banks in Singapore to retail investors during the years 2000 to 2005. The interest rate on bank deposits fell below 2 percent during this period and investors wanted a higher return for their savings, without taking risk. The capital-guaranteed products appeared to meet their needs.

Most retail investors did not read the prospectus as they trusted the bank guarantee and the assurances given by the marketing staff of their trusted bank.

Several billion dollars were invested in these products during these years. On the maturity of most of these products, the investors were disappointed with the meagre returns — usually less than 2 percent for 5 years, or 0.4 percent per year. This was even lower than the yield on fixed deposits.

Not a bad read on the ills of a structured products sold by banks. Only buy if you really really know what you are doing.

Implication of PAP Landslide for Your Investment.

After the landslide victory by the incumbent, how do we position our investment?

The resounding mandate given by the people means the government can proceed with its current goal of managing the Singapore with ECONOMIC GROWTH as its priority.

The government will continue with its way of increasing GDP thru' increase labour  participation.

Some things that will happen :-
1) 6.9mil population is a GO-Ahead. I would think 10 mil population is the stretch goal the government is aiming for within the next decade.
2) Foreign labour quotas will once again be relaxed to cope and free market mechanism will be at work. Your wages will have to be competitive vis-a-vis the foreigners.
3) Infrastructure spending will be full-steam ahead to cope with the increase in population.

Implication for investment :-
1) Properties will be a good long-term investment once again. Your $1mil property (at 6 mil population) will become $2mil property (at 10 mil population) once population stretch goal is achieved. So, buy properties once cooling measures are relaxed. Your rental will be supported by the increase in tenants (since most foreigners are working here and will not be buying). The buyers will probably be your global investors who will once again be convinced Singapore is a pro-investment country managed by a competent team of leaders well supported by its the citizens.

2) Shares in general (I will try to focus on the GLCs and banks and telcos and property/reits companies) will be a good buy for the long term as they will be able to take advantage of the increased in labour at a cheap price while having an increased consumption demand from the increase population. Your companies bottom line will be improving yearly till 10mil population stretch goal is achieved.

With this win, I have 100% confidence in the above 2 investment classes in Singapore. I will stay invested.

Property Demand Estimation done wrong.

http://thewealthjourney.blogspot.sg/2012/09/housing-oversupply-but-sentiments.html

You need to figure out how many are white collar, blue collar, construction related.

Souce :- http://www.mom.gov.sg/statistics-pub...ceNumbers.aspx

Pass Type As at Dec 2011
Employment Pass (EP) 176,000
S Pass 113,000
Work Permit (Total) 908,000
- Work Permit (Foreign Domestic Worker) 206,000
- Work Permit (Construction) 264,000

Total Foreign Workforce Around 1.19 million

So, let's work on these figures.
So, Work Permit holders account for almost 76% of the 1.2mil foreign workforce. These people do not need homes as they are housed within dormitories or employers' residence.

 Glad someone finally picked up the glaring over-estimation by property pundits in terms of housing demand. You can refer to the article by TodayOnline here. But like what I had said earlier... a lot of demand is self-created inside human's head. We can do all the justification but when sentiment is hot(barring any crisis), nothing will stop prices from rising. When sentiment is cool, nothing will stop prices from falling.
http://www.todayonline.com/business/common-errors-estimating-housing-demand

A common error in estimating housing demand repeatedly surfaces in research reports, news commentaries, property brochures and even academic papers.

In the commentary “Predicting the sun will rise in the east” published in TODAY on June 21, 2013, I highlighted the error of taking the 5.3 million total population, divided by the 1.2 million dwelling units — Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats and private homes — to derive an average household size of 4.4. When working on total population data and relating these figures to housing, we need to take into account the number of serviced apartments, hostels and worker dormitories in the total stock for accommodation.

In a similar vein, but coming from the opposite direction, property agents or analysts may say that since the Singapore population increased from 5,399,200 in 2013 to 5,469,700 in 2014, the additional 70,500 people would require 23,500 additional housing units on the assumption of an average household size of three people. This is also erroneous. 

Don't Succumb to Peer Pressure or Keeping up with the Jones(Tans).

http://business.asiaone.com/news/money-way-better-serve-my-life

Q: What's the most extravagant thing you have bought?

A Chanel bag for myself as a Mother's Day present "from my one-year-old daughter" (laughs). It was really because of peer pressure. For instance, at my office there was a lady whose bag collection could have probably bought a small HDB flat.

They would talk about what kind of bag and how many of those you should have after working in the industry for six to seven years, for instance. But I found the Chanel bag not practical and it's too small.

I learnt a life lesson - the consequences of buying something because of peer pressure. In my case it was a bag, but for my peers, it could have been an Audi, Ferrari or a house.

- See more at: http://business.asiaone.com/news/money-way-better-serve-my-life#sthash.W8B3Mr6M.dpuf

Well said. Too many people succumbed to peer pressure or having to have face. If you can afford a Ferrari and is within your means, please go ahead and do so, POWER TO YOU! :) But for the rest who have to stretch to buy that Ferrari, please think twice. It's only a car that brings you places literally. Bring you place metaphorically can only be done if you really have the substance to carry thru' , if not, that first step will always be at the doorstep and that's it.

I can afford a Ferrari, but I choose to drive a Hyundai. What about you?

Knowing how much is enough.

Touching farewell memo from Google CFO.

The CFO in the story knew when the question came from his wife and that was the trigger.

in our case, it could be something as drastic as a life-changing event in the form of a stroke or a major accident. Or it could simply be like the CFO, a loved one telling you a simple truth or a simple question.

For my ex-colleague who was flying frequently as a regional sales, he recounted to me the following moment that triggered that question and thought process.

His moment came when his 2year old daughter was down with high fever but he had to go off that day for a business trip. So, he decided after the trip to seek a lower-paying job without regional sales included. He did not want to have the regret of not being there when it matters the most for the family and he certainly do not want to miss the chance of seeing his daughter grew up.

OF course he did not retire completely, but the message in the CFO message was not asking you to retire, it was asking you to have a work/life balance. Your work will always be there for you, but your loved ones might not and growing up moments can never be recaptured.

I remember telling Tamar a typical prudent CFO type response- I would love to keep going, but we have to go back. It's not time yet, There is still so much to do at Google, with my career, so many people counting on me/us - Boards, Non Profits, etc
But then she asked the killer question: So when is it going to be time? Our time? My time? The questions just hung there in the cold morning African air.

http://mashable.com/2015/03/10/googles-cfo-retires-memo/

Views from a seasoned Property Investor

The investor has done the heavy lifting for us on the historical property returns from peak to peak, trough to peak and peak to trough. I share the same view and suggest waiting if you are not in need of a home.

Though I would opine HDB BTOs are always a good buy for a 1st home :)

http://www.crei-academy.com/todays-property-market-to-enter-or-not-to-enter/



p/s : He sells courses and I don't get referral fees from him. So don't be mistaken  :)

A good video for us to ponder on our direction next year.

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!

Time to get motivated for planning what we want to achieve next year ! :)

Loved the speech so much.

Alternative stream of income..

Multiple streams of income has been preached to death in financial literature to boost your networth.

You can be a tutor on the side-lines, take free lance programming project, usher the audience in concerts, be a part-time property agent, insurance agent and also taxi-driver. The sky is the limit to what you can do.

Though I have to acknowledge those are unlikely to scale much as you are using time to exchange for money. It is good enough for paying your expenses while your earned income can be saved and invested.

Pouring your heart out into a business would be the most ideal as you could build it part-time till you feel you have enough traction to take the leap of faith and quit your paying job(the one that brings the bacon home) to run the business fulltime.

That is why the most interesting fascination I have currently is ONLINE MARKETING. The earned while you sleep dream painted by many online marketers. Your ability to generate content interesting to your target audience is the key to getting eyeballs. You don't need a large capital to start. All you need is a free blog like blogspot for a start and I am quite sure you will have a happy problem when you need to migrate out of blogspot (though i think it will take quite a lot of eyeballs to force blogspot to evict you). If you are a student without the capital to get monthly passive income from stocks, you will be surprised you can actually get $xxx monthly from setting up a blogspot, getting relevant content and setting up your ads and referrals links. Thus far, I am against the setting up of a website or sales landing page to promise people they can make $x,xxx or $xx,xxx monthly by selling high converting digital products (which usually ends up being another how to make $xx,xxxx online).

I have experimented with it and I am still not good with it thus far. Case in point, Google Ads and Amazon Ads brings me only the low $2xx combined monthly (it has been quite consistent the past one year). I am still unable to bring it to the next level as I have not committed enough effort into it. Taking it slow and easy and there's no hunger in me.. sob sob..

And being a cheapskate, I don't really want to pay thru' my noses for courses conducted in Singapore and I prefer to look for materials online by proven gurus who have shown their income to be consistent(based on good faith, there's no audited records of course).

It quite obvious after a while, everyone who seems successful are able to keep their website interesting with contents to be able to command a high eyeball traffic and then depend on the conversion rate to generate income thru' the sales of digital products, referrals fees, private product reviews/endorsement, etc etc. It's much like any other real world business where you have to do marketing and sales of  external/in-house product to reach your target audience and hopefully convert leads into sales.

A simpler but not easy way would be to do content aggregation like thefinance.sg or a news reporting website like temasekreview.net or ba-gua website like STOMP.sg

Below are the three recommended ones I have been reading whom I believe are worth their salt.

• Smart Passive Income
• ProBlogger
• Neil Patel Quick Sprout

I am still learning, this is based on my experience and I might be wrong. Please do share about your experience.

P/S : Another new HNW entrant to the blogosphere? Do check out his website as he is invovled in internet startups. How cool is that! http://limdershing.blogspot.jp/. Starting to read his 1st blog on January 2013. LOL.. loos like my weekend is filled up.

A normal path to retirement for most singaporeans

Is this possible? Food for thought...

Yes..  the steps to achieving financial freedom is this. Is this still applicable in the current economic climate and singapore have transformed into a developed nation.

1) 30yrs old , Get Married and get a New BTO/EC (No reslae, no DBSS!). - Congrats! You have bought a $1 item for $0.70-80cents. Upside min is 20% within 10yrs(Very high probability! if assume inflation at 2% avg). For property , downpayment is 20%, upside of 20% in 10yrs. So your $100k becomes $200k (100% return in 10yrs which is minimall roughly compounded annual rate of 7% pa (excluding your principal paid down).

2) By 5yrs time, most probably, you will save around $100k real cash(most people pay down bto using CPF) from working. Time to look for 2nd property valued at $500k (100k enough to pay 20% downpayment, exclude stamp duty and miscellany).

3) Work another 5yrs, your HDB should be fully paid off (for most couple with degrees. I know coz many of my friends married paid down theirs within 10yrs).

4) So by 40yrs, you should have 1 fully paid HDB you lived in. 1 rental condo you let out which is compounding the money.

5) by 45yrs old, your $500k condo you can also fully paid(assuming your salary stagnant and you pay down at same rate like your $500k HDB BTO).

6) Congrats.. you can retire officially at 45yrs old ...  But this is the most conservative strategy.. most people within that 15yrs span.. might have acquried another 1 or 2 more property depending on their earning power.

Long Term Position in AUD

The author states his view of why to choose AUD over other currencies for the SGD currency holder looking to park his money somewhere.

I've been doing the same since 2009 when the market crashed and recovered, that year I had allocated a portion of my portfolio to AUD currency, bonds and equities and they now make up roughly 30% of my portfolio. 40% is in SGD and the remainder is split between HK and US market.

I like his blog as it is quite relevant to singaporeans. Many times, we have news telling us AUD is overpriced and it's going to go down against the USD. But many times, most of us have the bulk of our money in SGD denominated assets. We should instead be focusing on what SGD USD(i believe our currency weighting is very heavily towards USD) is doing and then USD AUD is doing and then you will have your answer to the SGD AUD pair.

I hope our local banks start dishing out more SGD related analysis instead of echoing what the global banks are talking about(always in terms of USD).

http://tradehaven.net/market/fx/food-for-thought-lets-all-save-in-aud-and-pass-the-worlds-low-rate-problem-to-them/

So when friends ask me what to buy, guess what I say ?
AUD.
Pretty brainless AAA bet even for Singaporeans – instant carry with massively higher yields. There is little reason for the SGD to out perform the AUD now that the RBA has little onshore reason to cut further after reading into RBA Governor Steven’s remarks last week. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-20/stevens-says-animal-spirits-needed-to-spur-australian-growth.html

How to clear your work and leave by 5.30pm every day.

This article is excellent imho. 

This was what I was doing when I was an employee in one of the telcos. My senior manager had a weekly monday morning meeting for any major event and updates by the team mates. We also had to submit weekly timetable (planned and actual) to track what we've been doing. The part about putting the tasks into the calendar and booking the time is what I do personally as well. There might be a lot of meetings going on which results in changes but we have to push the task to another date. The end result of all these is probably you will achieve more or less the major tasks you planned for the week. It's very productive for those who like to procrastinate. 

Unfortunately, I have not been planning forward and tracking my time nowadays , but I am still blocking time on my calendar for tasks i need to do. Maybe I should start doing the weekly timetable again.

Sum Up

Cal's five big tips:1. To-do lists are evil. Schedule everything.2. Assume you're going home at 5:30, then plan your day backwards.3. Make a plan for the entire week.4. Do very few things, but be awesome at them.5. Less shallow work, focus on the deep stuff.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-stop-being-lazy-and-get-more-done--5-expert-tips-2014-8?IR=T&utm_content=bufferf06bf&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Best Financial Tool for Singapore and global stocks.

I was using bloomberg and reuters financial website for most of my fundamental screening and analysis as well as holding my portfolio.

However, bloomberg have since modified their website to contain only the barest of financial summary while reuters still retain the most comprehensive financial statements and details one can find for free out there with a screener to boot.

Now, there is an even better option, I've been using Financial Times market portal for all my portfolio needs. I liked everything about it from their graphical illustrations of key financial figures and ratios(like shareinvestor). Comparative analysis of the company versus the index and sector. Their portfolio management tool is comprehensive with dividends tracking automatically.

Oh did i mentioned they have got the best screener available out there! and tons of other excellent stuff like economic calendar (of all countries). Fund screener, stock screener. Stock Alerts(without paying a subscription fee for it). Markit Short-selling activity...

Do go over and see what you are missing without paying of course. :) This is basically the poor man's bloomberg terminal.

http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Summary?s=W05:SES

Is the 1st wave of property correction beginning ?

This is the 1st time since 2009 I've seen so many mortgagee's sales (basically the whole list) in one auction.

There are some considerations if you are still interested in purchasing an investment property :-
1) Rental for residential cannot go up higher anymore unlike the last few years when it keep on increasing on the prospect of increasing demand
2) Interest rate cannot go down lower anymore unlike the last few years when FED and other Central banks are openly supporting the QE ,indirectly driving interest rate down
3) Prices cannot go up higher anymore if we have basically doubled from the 2009 low and effectively kept up with the money supply resulting from the global QEs.

Here is the three formula you need to know : 

i)   Property Yield = Rental / Purchase Price 

ii)  (+/-)Cashflow = Rental - Installment Payment(principal+interest) 

iii) ROIC (return on invested capital) = 

[ Gross Rental - Interest paid(exclude principal) - Misc Expenses)] / Downpayment   

(Often in the high 8% to double digit % if you are using max loan with 20% downpayment.)

So if you can hold for the long term and assuming rental yield never goes down, interest rate never goes up and property prices recover to your purchase price and beyond, you will actually be getting quite a good return annually at 8%++.

4) Singapore's Economic Restructuring and the impact to GDP?
5) Coming Election 2015/16 - Is it in the party's interest to have lower or higher property prices before election? The flood gates can of course be opened after election.
6) Supply > Demand? General observation there is more supply out there(unsold units or taking longer to clear new launches) and general tightening in demand thru' foreign workers/professional quota. I'm sure everyone knows the supply is built for the opening of the floodgate right after the election :) But in the meantime, Supply > Demand.

Attached is the list of mortgagee's sales.

A good source of information from real property investors.

This discussion thread is for sharing good lobangs with the forumers here. Please feel free to contribute any good lobangs that you had come across.In the current low sale-volume climate, we foresee many developers' projects going to drop prices soon - especially for those unsold units that are near, or have even passed, their T.O.P dates. In fact, some have already dropped prices. I shall start by contributing here:
27 July 2014
1) Vermont on CairnhillCairnhill Rise (D09)FreeholdJust T.O.P.Many units went by more than half-million dollars discounts Results: 31 units out of the last 34 units were sold in 2 weeks upon the start of the discount program.Currently left with only 3 units of 3BR.From $2.691m, or $2016psf nett.

2) WhitehavenPasir Panjang Road (D05)FreeholdLast unit of 4BR DK ($1530psf) and 12 units of penthouses (from $1285psf)Developer opened to negotiation! 

3) The SkywoodsDairy Farm Road (D23) near Hillview MRT Station99-years LHPrices have dropped to $1,1xx to $1,3xx psf Results: 19 units sold in 2 weeks

4) The CrestPrince Charles Crescent (D03)99-years LHPrices are averagely $1,6xx psf to $1,9xx psf. Already cheaper than the neighbouring Echelon, yet buyers will enjoy additional ABSD rebates.

5) Hallmark ResidencesEwe Boon Road (D10) near Stevens MRTFreeholdT.O.P. coming soonPrices slashed by 10%. Average prices dropped from $2,3xx psf to $1,8xx psf (for 3BR from $2.8m, 4BR from $3.5m) to $1,9xx psf (for 2BR, from $1.89m).Results: 40% sold in 2weeks. For buyers looking for 4BR, there are only 2 units left.

6) The TrilinqJalan Lempeng (D05) near Clementi MRT99-yrs LHDeveloper opened to negotiation. But re-launch program coming soon. Stay tuned.

For those who are looking to buy property or intend to invest in property, it is always good to keep up with on the ground information and discussion provided by helpful local property investors.

I frequent this forum to take in the information and news and strategies of like-minded investors.

Do note, of course, there are perma-bulls and perma-bears in there and you need to take everything with a pinch of salt. Likewise, there will be successful property agents masquerading as investors(frequently they are too) but trying to sing up the market.

So here you go.. the link to a world of property knowledge..
http://www.condosingapore.com/forums/showthread.php?22013-Developers-Projects-with-Prices-Slashed-ABSD-Rebates-Re-Launch-Discounts-etc

One of the "luminaries" from the forum is PropertySoul. She was featured in Sunday Times recently. Check her out : http://propertysoul.com/