Rainbow on FI

It's the time of the year again - time to contribute money to your CPF or your parents' CPF accounts if you are looking for some income tax rebate. Better do it soon too, because there are less than 5 working days to new year (and to qualify)! Another way of getting the tax rebate is to do some good by donating back to society. :) Here is the IRAS link to check out the top-up relief limits:  CPF-Cash-Top-up-Relief (For self is $7000 and for family members is $7000 too. So the maximum rebate amount is $14000.) And not forgetting, there is also the elusive Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) which you could contribute to... What is SRS? More on SRS contributions If you are lazy to analyse for yourself on whether you should put your money into the SA or SRS, here is a good article that can help to shed some light. It might be a good alternative to annuity or perhaps even life insurance (if you are already quite aged and need to pay very high premiums). Note that

Past tense = dividends, P/E Present tense = current share price , NAV,  news Future tense = prospect / business analysis, projected earning, speculation Some people like to make decision looking at the rearview mirror, some people like to make decision based on trend and gut feel, some people like to analyse and try to foresee things. Which describes you? ------------------------- My stocks portfolio adventure in 2016: - Earned an ok dividend of 4.3% by year end - My worst paper loss this year was -29% in January - Rode through the boring market period and terrible paper loss by not capitulating and just taking dividends as panadol - Did some diversification of portfolio as it was over-concentrated in certain equities - Paper loss (current) is about double the amount of absolute $ of my dividends gained Looking to do some rebalancing of my portfolio to welcome 2017.

Who says 宅女 don't go shopping? From the rise of ebay, blog shops to Alibaba, we could practically find anything we want online and have it delivered to our house - at times at a better price. Qoo10 is having some cool deals of cart coupon offer here . $3 off $20 min purchase, $10 off $50 and $30 off $200. I usually shop for clothings, PC and handphone accessories. Because of these great deals, I decided to get something more adventurous - a robot vacuum cleaner. For only $82 after the coupon discount ! :) My mom doesn't like to clean the floor, neither do I. So we can't wait to try out this cute machine. I shall write a review when I get hold of it next week. Review 9/10/16: Just slightly bigger than the size of my dinner plate, this little gadget is relatively quiet and simple to use. So far it has functioned quite well as a robot dust sucker, average 3 sessions before 1 charge. Good for people who are lazy to use the broom or lug a bulky vacuum cleaner around

I can't believe I am now back to my old-school-days-craze of Pokemon catching. Those were the times when I was glued to the TV catching every weekly episode and watching my cousins playing Pokemon on their Nintendo Game Boy pixelated screen. Almost 20 years later, people on the street of Singapore, from kids to uncles aunties, are glued to their handphone playing Pokemon Go - the evolved and more powerful version. What I have learnt for everyday life by being part of this craze (besides not to dash around dangerously): 1) Do your research There are certain tricks and background information to everything. Why I ended up with Squirtle instead of Pikachu? Because I didn't do my research la! Same for investing - if you didn't do your research properly and just go with the norm, chances are you would not be getting the good 'hidden' stuff. 2) Increasing your chance of luck also need technique You don't expect sitting around your house to catch some rare

POSB is currently running a 'Get 1.55% p.a. interest for 6 months!' promotion. Check it out here . How to get the deal? Deposit fresh funds* into your POSB Fresh Funds Account by 4 August 2016 . Fresh funds deposit via cheque(s), cashier's order(s) and demand draft(s) must be done by 4 August 2016, 3.30pm. During the POSB Fresh Funds Account opening process, you will be prompted to select an existing POSB/DBS Current or Savings Account to be used for signature reference. This same account will be used for the crediting of the Cash Gift Interest. This account has no applicable fees or charges. Capped at S$50,000, with no minimum amount required. Maintain the fresh funds deposited in the account for 6 months until 4 February 2017. What happens at the end of 6 months? The Cash Gift Interest will be credited into your reference account by 15 March 2017. Your POSB Fresh Funds Account will thereafter be auto-closed and the funds will be credited into your referen

There are many Android apps which monitor stock prices and show stock charts but I could hardly find one that gives you Price Alert feature. Call levels (I came to know about it from a DBS Vickers ad) is a mobile app that would alert you when any stocks you chose hits a certain price. It has a simple and clean interface that shows you nothing else on screen but the price of the stocks that you are following. Upon reaching your keyed in price, it will automatically alert you via mobile notification. You could also choose to receive the alerts via email notification. The call prices would be consolidated at the bottom, together with the time and date of when they are reached. You could delete them away then add new stock prices to monitor by touching the '+' icon. The only limitation is that it only allows you to key in a few stocks to monitor each time. However, you can get a higher limit when you refer this app to friends. I only use it to monitor stocks from SGX but it

Been sitting in front of computer for too long? Here are 12 sets of work out that you could do in a small space within 7 minutes. Try it daily. :) ---------------------------------- If you think that by doing multiple sit-ups you are gonna get rid of your belly fat, you are so WRONG! The exercises that really get your abs muscles working mostly involve leg movements. Don't believe? Try this out and let me know if your abs muscles ache the next day. You would know which muscles you worked on when they ache. Lol.   Tips: Make sure your lower back is flat against the mat and you suck your tummy in. The video mentioned it at the Toe Tap part. To check that, try to slip your hands under your lower back and make sure they can't be slipped through. You can buy cheap dumb bells from Daiso. They are bottle dumb bells that you can fill with water to use.

I have been using Samsung Galaxy series since the start of smartphone age, with signing of 2-year contracts. However, I don't make much calls or sms so I have decided to get a no-contract sim when my contract ended. M1 is offering some pretty good SIMs only deals. To get the phones at a even cheaper price, sign a 12 month contract and I can get call, sms, data bundled under $25. Bye Singtel... Attractive as they are, the new Samsung S7 / S7 edge come with exorbitant prices, especially without a contract. I was looking at functionality and pocket-friendliness, not so much on high-tech fanciness and trend. I thought of getting a Xiaomi note 4 as the reviews were pretty good. But... it's SOLD OUT. =.= (My post is back-dated by 1 month so it could be in stock now.) What caught my attention next was Oppo (hokkien saying 'no fish, prawn also can') with a price well within my budget and of course a sales person to answer my queries. From afar it looked strikingly like an ip

Rights issue = an issue of shares offered at a special price by a company to its existing shareholders in proportion to their holding of old shares. When I think of rights, I think of share dilution. More shares at cheap price for existing shareholders, some would scurry to sell off once they get hold of the rights share before the full dilution takes effect. Not all rights are right to get. However, if you decided not to get then you might be better off selling away the shares instead of holding them (before full dilution takes place as mentioned). A few questions you can ask yourself before taking the leap of faith are - why is the company issuing rights? This in turn gives answer to what it would do with the money gathered. Most of the time it is for paying off debts. Fair enough. But what's next? How are they going to turn their business around? What data did you get your convictions from? How are you able to minimise your risk? (From a bad past experience, when a compan

It is very interesting to find out about government's support on our local grown SMEs. So I have been 'sua ku' all along! Heard about them but really didn't bother to find out more till now. Here are some of the resources available: IDA Singapore -  https://www.ida.gov.sg/Programmes-Partnership/Small-and-Medium-Enterprises SME Portal -  https://www.smeportal.sg/content/smeportal/en/bizguides/business-development.html Enhanced ISprint Program -  https://www.ida.gov.sg/Programmes-Partnership/Store/Enhanced-iSPRINT Programmes by NLB -  http://www.nlb.gov.sg/golibrary/programme/Business.aspx --- Have been too busy in my new job to blog about stocks. Market has been quite quiet lately so I am staying dormant too. ***

Decided to do some trendline drawing practice out of boredom. Just a few stocks I was watching. Pictures paint a thousand words? (Hack care about macd, stoch, rsi and what not... just kidding) Keppel Can't seem to break out of its downtrend channel. Secondary uptrend occurred since my  previous update  but uptrend broken once ex-dividend. :(  Lippomall Going sideway soon?   Noble After being ditched by STI, will this salted fish break out to life again? OCBC On a happy steep climb. For now. * Disclaimer: These are NOT investment advice. Your own discretions apply in the chart usage. Charting workflow in a nutshell - Zoom out to 5 years or maximum, zoom in to 2 years, zoom in to 6 months or even more recent depending on your trade time horizon . See the macro and micro trends. - Find trend, draw lines. Lines should be touching closing price of candles. (no trend don't enter. sideway stocks don't enter. downtrend can consider shorting

Is that a right overall?  Wrong. "It's not whether you're right or wrong that's important, but how much money you make when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong." - George Soros *** Check out my  Blog Archives here  for previous posts

Yoz! Am back from Taiwan. Since now I am so free and officially a slacker, I thought I would sign up for course or two at SGX academy. Good to be student again once in a while. My advise for this is don't attend FOC preview courses, because most of the time you will be listening to just-some-ideas and much self-selling (to make you attend the actual course). For better learning experience and not waste time, go for the paid courses that suit your level. The recent course I went for is on technical trend trading for beginners (3 hours). Prior to this I have had some knowledge on technical analysis but going for live talk on it was far more entertaining and enriching than book-reading I feel. Reasons being: - Case studies on Singapore stocks - Some experience sharing by speaker - Gist of the books summarized in slides format - No distractions of wanting to do other things or skip chapters The basic trading principles and best practices coincide neatly with what I have lear

The Next Apple This is a new-age book which I discovered in the library on investing. To sum it up, the strategy that the authors advocated is mostly applicable at the start of a bull run or in good economy times (stable stock market) because it's main tactic is to pick the stock when it keeps climbing and goes pass its 52-week high with at least 50% break-out from a technical base. More of a technical read than fundamental, it's teaching us how to ride on momentum stocks. However, I find the authors contradicting themselves by saying you should buy stocks that fulfilled the momentum criteria when not many people of the public know about those stocks yet (well, the only reason I could think of which caused the momentum would then be institutional investors who are driving the stock prices up and not so much of retail investors). Some take-home points about risk management (one of my favourite topics to read): Pick stocks that have potential to appreciate s

Besides money, you will also need... KNOWLEDGE! SG brokerages now require clients to take some tests before they are allowed to trade SIPs (specified investment products) or CFD (contract for difference) if they are not working in finance-related fields, do not have prior finance certifications or have no trading history of such instruments for at least 6 times in the preceding 3 years. It's basically the same idea as having to pass the driving theory tests before we could get into the driver's seat and start engine. Maybe the next thing you know they would start making risk management course compulsory so you have no excuse to point any finger and say "I didn't know that...". Shhh... Where to find knowledge? You can take the courses at: SGX e-learning  (takes about 2-3 hours to complete) OR http://sips.abs.org.sg/Default.aspx#   (each course consists of about 60 slides with a 15-question quiz at the end of each set) It's free of charge. O

In view of the Skillsfuture Credit kicking into effect from this year, SG citizens age 25 and above are given $500 to kickstart learning. Since it's free lunch given by 'ah gong' (sg government), why not? BUT before you excitedly start signing for courses around, you might want to first find out what courses are eligible for the $500 subsidy. Check out the list here  http://www.skillsfuture.sg/credit . What courses can help you improve on financial literacy or understand investing better? Check them out here: https://portal.wda.gov.sg/content/wda/course-search-directory.html?CourseTitle=finance https://portal.wda.gov.sg/content/wda/course-search-directory.html?CourseTitle=invest SIM modular courses: http://www.unisim.edu.sg/CET/Documents/SkillsFuture%20Courses%202015.pdf You could also check out SGX Academy for more investment courses (may need to verify against the course list on Skillsfuture for eligibility). Some of them are FOC. Happy learning!

To deliver excellent Customer Service in FMCG retail is hard. It is even harder than doing so in burger chains. You don't believe it? Go and try working in one instead of being a customer who just observe. At the burger chains, the Counter Staff multi-tasking duty revolves around two things - cashiering and passing the correct prepared food to customers. If you go to the big shopping malls these days, you might have noticed that most of the fast-food chains are evolving their services. Mcdonald's and KFC starts to have separate cashiering and serving counters plus automated self-order kiosks, instead of the old school way of multi-tasking. I haven't been to Burger King frequent enough but I do know that the one at Kallang Wave Mall has the same layout with a digital Q number screen long before I see MCD's. It is also a form of optimising their 'production line' to speed up sales (many POS versus 1 service counter). On the other hand, staff working at small

Some time back last year, I briefly penned a post Time or Money?  at a point when I was gloomiest about work. Today incidentally, I caught something interesting in the book 4-hour Workweek : "People don’t want to be millionaires—they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy. Ski chalets, butlers, and exotic travel often enter the picture. Perhaps rubbing cocoa butter on your belly in a hammock while you listen to waves rhythmically lapping against the deck of your thatchedroof bungalow? Sounds nice.  $1,000,000 in the bank isn’t the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows. The question is then, How can one achieve the millionaire lifestyle of complete freedom without first having $1,000,000?" This set me thinking.

[First published on 03/09/2014] It became a slow burning question after I have embarked on my investment journey for some time. Why? Because it's all too easy to buy but when it comes to selling... it's a different story. "Buy because of the price but don't sell for the price . Sell because it's value has depreciated or there's a better value investment elsewhere to park your money." In essence, I have categorized the reasons for us to sell below... Internal factors that determine selling of your shares P/E ratio goes sky high P/B ratio goes sky high Eroding fundamentals of the company External factors that determine selling of your shares Poor outlook of business sector eg. competitive edge has worn off, declining industry It is at a downside of a business cycle (for cyclical businesses) In macroeconomics point of view, when market sentiment is turning bad -share prices can't break through long term resistance and start to break throu

I used the DBS retirement calculator here . And discovered I need at least $ 1 million to retire if I want to retire 20 years from now (that's in 2036). Assuming I spend only 60% of my current income on retirement.  (I suspect the system didn't take into account any prospective pay rise or maybe it just assume a flat inflation rate of an unknown x% for all the current figures. My shortfall predicted at $xxx,xxx with a beautiful chart representation.) So what now ?

I borrowed this book from the library last week by chance. It is the third book of the famous Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. If you expected it to be your usual FA TA book then you would be sorely disappointed. I find it more of a pep talk book - to help in adjusting the reader's mindset to think rich. The first couple of chapters in the book reminded me of SMOL 's favourite line "come have a kopi and char shao bao...". Then it goes on saying one should get to know oneself and what type investor one wants to be.

My mom likes to call playing the stock market gambling. I rebutted that it is NOT gambling, because you know the cards dealt to you and there is the element of control which is absent most of the time in gambling. This 4D is not your toto 4D. These 4Ds are well within your control . Don't catch a falling knife. Don't capitulate (too late) when there's a sell-down frenzy. Don't try to average down, especially with margin. Cos this is like number 1+2 combo which equates money suicide.  But is short-selling with CFD a good idea? Do diversify. Do not put all excess cash into 1 stocks, do not make up your portfolio with only stocks, do not buy stocks from only one market or sector. If you don't know which to pick, ETF is a good choice.

Keppel corp - down 34.3% (caught a falling knife) Bakertech - down 56.6% (an old stock bought and forgotten as a result of laziness) OCBC - down 11.9% Sempcorp - down 10.3% My investing report card this sem is marred in red by the "oily bear". Moral of my story: Besides not catching a falling knife. Need to get more tools and sharpen them at the same time. With more tools, one would be able to utilise the right tools at the right time whether to hedge or to profit from the bull// bear market. (What is 'right' and how to utilise? Homework - go and figure them out.) Update on 21/3/16 Rebalanced my portfolio + price rebound + cut some losses to minimise further risk exposure. Finally double digit (%) paper loss now became single digit. In a bull market, priority is to maximise profit. In a bear market, priority is to minimise losses. -------------------------------------------------------- Sempcorb on the turn-around? --- " That’s one

If you are bored this new year (like me), let me introduce to you an addictive monkey game available on Window 10 and iOS called Bloons TD Battles . This is a great game to teach you and your kids on resource management. It is fun and quick to play with no test on patience (oh I hate those games that drag on and on). Basically you start off the game with some cash to buy monkey towers (you will earn more cash as the game progresses). The objective is to clear as many levels as possible by popping balloons with your towers - with each increasing level, the balloon types get harder to pop. For every balloon that escapes from your terrain, you lose a life. When you lose all 150 lives, you lose. That is why it is called "Tower defense". In 'assault' play or battle mode, you could match against somebody and deploy sabotages in the fury balloon popping battles. The monkey towers which you chose at the start of the game and how you place / deploy them are crucial in w

We are often overwhelmed by many emotions when navigating through our investment decisions. Thus, I have made it a habit to document and reflect upon those emotions together with investment mistakes that I've made. I know otherwise I would have the tendency to keep repeating my old mistakes. So I have created an Inside-Out table in an excel sheet format. (Yes, the boring excel sheet is a wonderful tool for all sorts of recording!) The table has got three columns which runs down chronologically. One column is the date, one is the emotions or 'how I was feeling at that point' and the third is a description of the mistakes made. 'How I am feeling' column is filled according to my emotion that triggered the mistake at that point when I made the decision. I find this chart very useful in helping me to identify and keep track of which emotions hindered my investment decisions. This is an example of my "Inside-Out" table:

I seldom put up speculative posts, but can't resist one here. Maybe signs of oversold have been long overdue but now is SUPER oversold. BN4 All time high this year: $9.54 All time low this year: $4.82 RSI is at extreme low of 30.67 . Volumes are higher than usual last week plus consecutive price falls are indicative of big sell-down. Are investors capitulating or what? (And I also wonder if brokerages have enough shares to lend those short traders.) Date Open High Low Close Volume Adj Close* Jan 15, 2016 4.95 4.98 4.82 4.84 10,188,000 4.84 Jan 14, 2016 4.97 5.00 4.86 4.86 17,776,100 4.86 Jan 13, 2016 5.21 5.28 5.10 5.19 14,299,300 5.19 Jan 12, 2016 5.50 5.53 5.15 5.15 18,285,700 5.15 Jan 11, 2016 5.70 5.71 5.50 5.54 11,156,500 5.54 Jan 8, 2016 5.68 5.91 5.62 5.80 13,107,600 5.80 Jan 7, 2016 6.15 6.15 5.81 5.82 19,195,800 5.82 Jan 6, 2016 6.42 6.43 6.21 6.23 9,350,400 6.23 Bollinger band is no where near narrowing, guess the price would fall further but should