Tag: t_histReview

##trust`(someone)n invest`

Posted on by tiger40490

k_FLI2

In this bpost, “Trusting” means trusting an investment salesperson, and trusting a commercial company.

— My FLI2 experience

Trusting in Singlife in their “projected” payout rate.

Trusting in CIMB as the marketing agency. Contrast it to DBS as marketing agency for Manulife.

Trusting in Linna and her colleague.

— my RBBT experience .. I did my due diligence on the LIR calc
Trust in the bank system for calc algorithm.. is no longer a big concern, but bigger than in the EGA case.

Initially, the promised super-low LIR was too good to be trust-worthy.

— Oanda vs Saxo
Oanda was more fair to customers. I feel Saxo’s FXO practice was really mean to customers.

— my HY/PE experience ..
With E12, I did my due diligence and decided to trust Chip Taylor.

With Jill, I invested multiple times. I still assume Jill might be trust-worthy but she (and her managers) had poor judgement on the companies that received the money.

Overall, I don’t feel very sure about the trust-worthiness (of those people), even though each company is different.

— My SEAsia rEstate decisions .. I visit the sites. I trust a salesperson after a long interaction. I transfer fund only to an account given by the same salesperson.

In each case, there is some big reputable company in the “equation”. That company lends credibility.
— my Rbh experience
Zero commission sounded too good to be trust-worthy, so I started small.

Similarly Vanguard has very low-cost mufus and they have earned my trust.
— my EGA experience .. I did my due diligence on the interest calc
The EGA-IR was too good to be trust-worthy.
Trust in the HSBC calc algorithm .. is not a big concern.

bachelor→pff: how I adapted #80marks

Posted on by tiger40490

I’m trying, unsuccessfully, to transfer my burn rate habit to my kids. Meimei seems to be listening.

My income is much higher than bachelor years, partly due to salary inflation. My family burn rate is also much higher, with inflation playing some unquantified role.

I have largely avoided the white elephants of many middle-class families — cars, private/international schools, golf, high-maintenance landed properties, maid, big loans,

Background: An author mentioned that we all face cashflow challenges as singles [1]. We face even more when we get married and have kids[2]. (Based on no definition) Out of 10 singles on (cashflow) high ground, fewer than half would remain on high ground in [2], rather than falling off.

Paradox: my single burn rate (c++US etc) is less than 25% of my family burn rate. I won’t go in-depth because I think the explanatory factors are fairly obvious.

This blogpost can easily become forgettable and hardly /distinguishable/ from similar blogposts. Sharp questions might be more valuable (than answers)… They represent perspectives, angles of view.

As to the answers, most will be valid, relevant but forgettable. I won’t try to make all of them /memorable/. My preference is to avoid vague items, separate out the important but familiar items, and focus on unusual items.

Q2: what strategies and habits did I carry over from single’s life /transitioning/ to family life?

  • saw a clear distinction between liabilities vs productive assets (cashcow). Liabilities include debts [mtg, student loans..] and white elephants like cars
  • — forgettable answers
  • steadfast focus on expense regulation [control ]…. rather than a target-amount of nest egg for investment. Jolt: My nest egg was a by-product.
  • .. ctbz? Probably more effective on the big-tickets like cars, rent cost, vacations
  • .. just_say_no to FOMO, exclub, creep, splurge,
  • maintained my salary … better than anticipated, despite churn, age discrimination etc

Q2b: what adaptations did I have to make for the transition?

  • a focus on published stats of median household income in the city, rather than a hearsay guesstimate of my peers’ burn rate. That guesstimate is 300% of that median.
  • — forgettable answers
  • exp recon .. a key “regulattory device”, adapted to family finance — no mean achievement. Virtually no one in my circle reached my efficiency, even though many heard similar suggestions about budgeting, tracking/recon. Without hard evidence, I believe that most of their budgets hit ineffective excusion. Many overspent for decades.
  • in 2008-2017 childcare costs threatened to /derail/ everything. Somehow, wife and I have managed to /contain/ this fire

Actually 2008-2009 pff situation in NY was a tough adaptation in terms of brbr, expense control, rent,,, On the flip side, the experience built self-confidence.

Q3: besides my skills, what other factors contributed to our current cash flow high ground?

  • grandparents didn’t become a financial burden
  • frugal wife
  • kids didn’t demand too much
  • medical expenses moderate

Q: what can my kids learn from me? Some say that financial skills are more valuable “heritage” than physical inheritance.

Q: in my answers, why are investments, NNIA conspicuously missing?
A: I guess they have played a background/supporting role so far. See the blogposts in cashflow projection. They don’t affect my day-to-day cashflow.

late90s engineer salary^curInvInc ^unrealizedProfit{trad` #NUS

Posted on by tiger40490

At NUS while I was immersed in academic study, there is a lot of quiet chatter among fellow students, about investment and leveraged trading. Rumor was spreading that active trading could generate 100k/Y profit. How about an engineer’s salary at that time? About 5k. Some evidence ..

  1. in 1992, My HJC classmate EnJia said his engineer dad was earning 3k+
  2. in 2005, some Tyco engineer was earning 5k.
  3. In 2013, I heard that some Japanese MNC managers were only earning 6k.

Now in my late 40s I have a different perspective/perception — 1) unrealized profit is not an income replacement 2) Consistent periodic cash payout is, but much harder to achieve 3) engineer’s salary is modest but reliable over 40Y. An engineer needs to stop comparing with the exclub — zzcl[知足常乐].

With current income, we feel confident to spend the income. In contrast, with unrealized gains
* sometimes we are unable to cash out easily and quickly .. consider rEstate
* sometimes the bid/ask or commission is too high, eroding actual net profit .. consider bccy
* sometimes the paper profit can quickly turn into paper loss

gain`traction {20Y wheel-spinn: eq investing

Posted on by tiger40490

See also [21] %%G9 strengths as investor #specifically

div-stock picking after years of disappointing mufu-research + FXO trading — this is my vision/traction.

I wrote this blogpost as a retrospective and also to highlight my presumably improving wisdom(?) and competence(?) relative to the lay public. Am growing to a wise investor.

A random list of my vision secrets:

  • Dividend is more reliable, higher ROTI. In contrast, dividend is dismal in mufu (mutual funds) + FXO.
  • Blue-chip stocks are more dependable than mufu
  • mentally segregate my stock portfolio into growth ptf + income ptf etc. Even the growth ptf could be fine without benchmarking against SP500.
  • — minor insights:
  • Easy to find rich research insights on individual stocks, much better than mufu .. With mufu (or FXO), the info available online is 1% compared to stocks. There’s no dividend history (My vision secret) to look at. The online reading experience can be fun but aimless, often time-consuming, but some other forms of analysis can be enjoyable as I feel accumulating a bit of insight and vision.
  • mufu would eventually lose out to SP500 due to expRatio cumulative erosion. Important to long-term buy-n-hold investors
  • eqMufu div yield > 3% is inevitably unsustainable. (I have multiple blogposts) Underlying CDY is up to 4% but expense ratio is 1.5%, so it’s hopeless to aim at DYOC of 5%.  Stocks are superior.

A random list of my traction secrets:

  • Favor US.. see U.S.beats other markets over3Y+ 
  • decent marginal ROTI, due to effort, not completely luck or dumb timing.
  • The effort has to be sustainable and compatible with my lifestyle.
  • sustainability .. buy-n-forget with firewall, without babysitting
  • zero commission + fractional .. permits quick and frequent experiments
  • 100+ stocks diversified .. made possible by buy-n-forget habit
  • recording annual return is futile and poor ROTI

==== historical review
For decades, I never really perceived equity as a suitable investment for my financial needs. Too unstable, unpredictable. Unacceptable liquidity by my definition (blogpost). A long trough could last 10Y+, so I never had the conviction to invest 10k (“$20k” later on). Even now, on Futu trading app or elsewhere, when I look at the 100 well-known stocks across my familiar countries [US, greater China, SG, Japan, EU, Korea], I see the same absence of long-term trend. Well-known stocks attract hot money, leading to boom-n-bust… that’s one of my theories.

My eqMufu journey since 1997 has been long and wide. It confirmed those “theories”. Instinctively, I always cash out my mufu at some modest level of profit, because I felt that the profit is impermanent. In hindsight I tend to blame the expRatio — forever erosive. 2% over 5Y means 10% erosion.

Then in 2013 it occurred to me (unknown to the lay public) that US large-caps exhibit much better long-term trend than other regional markets.

In 2019, I discovered Robinhood. Thanks to the one-share minimum I was able to pick dozens of stocks, rather than “handful” in a typical portfolio.

Only in 2020 did I create my “system” based on DYOC/firewall/buy-n-forget.

How about non-eq? With FXO and FX, I did a lot of research but did rather few trades, largely due to per-trade commissions. My traction secret? Robinhood lets me act on my research more easily

— gambling?
FX, commodities, futures, options are zero-sum games, more gamble-like than equities. Index investing is actually just as gambling as stock picking, but div-stock picking feels less gamble-like. Blue-chip div-stock picking is esp. thrilling, even though my picks are sometimes unspectacular.

Remember many retirees rely on dividend stocks + bond coupons. Investment-grade bonds are comparable to annuities (least gamble-like)

 

%%annual return ]eq #JL.Loh #w1r3

Posted on by tiger40490

See also

Q: over any “12M window when my account has $1000+ in equities“, do I usually generate 5 ppa return?
A: yes. However, with my eqMufu, the end-to-end return for each fund is more accurate therefore more reliable.

Q: over a 5Y sliding window, do I usually generate 5 ppa return whenever my account has $1000 or more in equities?
A: IDK. harder to estimate.

Q: Why are so many people interested in a stock portfolio’s annual returns?
A: Because they want to compare it to a fixed-income asset!

— eq holdings… ought to be documented before we assess return rates

  • small amount in FSM
  • — SRS: total SGD 15k invested
  • SIA
  • DIVA
  • — in U.S.
  • USD 2k GS shares
  • USD 20k in Roth401k target date fund
  • USD 2.5k in eqMufu
  • USD 10k in Rbh

— (edited) letter to .. Hi Junli, You asked: what’s my average return in my eq investments.

  • My top mutual fund is from T.Rowe Price. Look at its performance: https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/trbcx/performance
  • One retirement fund was managed by Goldman Sachs. I don’t think the NAV has ever dipped below my initial amount (around 20k). Therefore, it’s a positive return end to end. If you ask about annualized returns, then I would say “I don’t care. I leave it to the fund manager.” Typically, U.S. fund managers use SP500 (or other indices) as benchmark. In those cases, long term annualized returns would be 4% to 8%, not negative. Negative return is always over a short window in the U.S.
  • I have tiny ETF positions (in my brokerage account) and Reit positions (in brokerage and DBS accounts). End-to-end returns are positive so far.
  • ^^ for these items, I leave my money entirely to the managers. I don’t monitor them.
  • my own brokerage account (in US) shows a 30% return over the last 3 years, but a future year could easily hit a negative return. My wife has a SGD brokerage account…
  • my Singapore mutual funds are each held for a few months, or longer (up to a few years). For example, if I hold a fund for 13 months, I may sell at a 10% profit. Most of the time (like 9 out of 10 times), I do sell at a profit. The profit ranges from 5% to 80%. Once a while, I liquidate a fund at a loss, where the loss ranges from -10% to -30% end to end. Therefore, overall return is surely positive across my equity mutual funds. My profit% or loss% is never an annualized number. It’s too time-consuming to calculate annualized returns.
  • ^^ So almost all the items above are end-to-end positive. All’s well that ends well.

Some people ask me how much money I invested across all equities, and how much total profit so far. I once spent hours computing, and gave up.

Why did I gave up? The questions assumes we are a fund manager with a single platform, a sophisticated accounting system to keep track of money flows. In reality, my total “commitment” fluctuates too much and I have no such “tracking system”. I started at 10k, grew to 50k (or 100k?) and I took out most of it, before topping up again. For many years my commitment level was close to zero. So I don’t know (and don’t care about) the average commitment level. Profits are also hard to track.

Next time, I will give an answer based on my brokerage account over the last few years. I will say that when my account had more than $1000 value in equities, the typical return is xxx ppa

 

Is my eq/bond investment skill improv`@@ #R.xia

Posted on by tiger40490

— some areas of visible improvements

  • focus on div yield, not windfall appreciation. See mail to Ashish on 2 Oct.
  • usage of limit orders
  • usage of zero-commission broker
  • experience with high-yield Reits
  • experience with name-brand vs unknown stocks

In Nov 2014 (email below) I set a target of SGD300/month cash payout from equity+bond investment. I did hit that target using my rental properties, but my original target was “using equity+bond”. Now I see a way.

My Unit trust experiment was disappointing and too time consuming so I just left some SGD 50k in there unattended. I guess my dividend yield was 3-4% but NAV was highly unstable, often dropping more than 4% a year. So I think my overall average return was below 3%/year. In conclusion, my experiments show that Singapore unit trusts are ineffective tools for generating cash income.

What I need is a portfolio with reliable dividends + more stability in NAV than I have seen. I believe it is possible — with U.S. dividend stocks. Many retirees seem to rely on stock dividends.

I’m sure those high-dividend unit trusts also invested in these same U.S. stocks, but the killer is management fee. If the portfolio generates 4.5% dividend payout, I can only get 3% in the form of cash payout.

Now 3% dividend yield is not very high in the U.S. stock market. I think I can earn more than that.

Another advantage with stocks is, i can choose my allocation , and take on riskier dividend stocks, to generate 6-8% dividend annual payout. SGD 300/Month = USD 2666/Year = $38k x 7% so I only need about USD 40k. Over the next few years I plan to deploy up to 50k in U.S. dividend stocks, to generate SGD 300/M.

On Sun, 30 Nov 2014 at 13:04, Bin TAN (Victor) wrote: >

> “Going forward, perhaps i will invest more aggressively, take on more risks, > > lose bigger amounts, learn more lessons, before I cut down.” > > Rong: “lose bigger amount” != found cutting edge. I lost a lot. When I look > > back what I did, my lesson is it’s unnecessary to use real money to try and > > error. Reading more books has the same effect but cost much less. >
In order to justify the 3H/week precious time spent, i need to > generate higher profit, which usually comes with (the chance of) > bigger losses.

So what dollar amount is “higher profit”? Right now, my dividend cash > (deposited into my bank account) is $500 – $600 a month.

The other investment profit (mostly unrealized) amounts to $20 – $100 > a month. The actual average is close to zero because some months my > portfolio loses value.

For me, higher profit means average monthly non-dividend income of > $300, to be achieved by 1) a bigger eq portfolio, and 2) a bigger bond > portfolio.

I have to say it’s not straightforward to measure my monthly > non-dividend income. So I don’t spend too much making accurate > measurements. $300/month is a rough (and tough) target.

##recent investment track record #Jack.Z

Posted on by tiger40490
  • Dec 2018 I invested $2500 in a no-load mutual fund. Positive return so far.
  • Late 2018 I deplored about SGD 3k in various no-load mutual funds on FSM invested outside U.S. Mostly positive return so far.
  • Apr 2018 I invested 5k in an oil-field via a structured product. It has paid out 0.58% monthly dividends (7% pa, guaranteed) so far.
  • Mar 2017 I invested SGD 10k in a HYPE that repays 31% over 2 years. So far I have received the semi-annual payout without surprise.
  • In 2014-2016 I invested 3 times with another HYPE, each time SGD 10k. Two of them have repaid in full, with handsome profits, but the third one has defaulted. The company received my SGD 10k investment in Feb 2015 but was unable to repay as scheduled in Feb 2018. I’m not writing it off yet, as the company promises to repay investors in 2019 with interest.

##Did I invest too small amounts@@

Posted on by tiger40490

When I feel I have invested too small amounts, it’s always after hearing some lucrative investment gains by other people.

However, I also learned painful lessons of over-exposure and over-concentration:

  • BGC
  • Majestic Village
  • too many China holding in FSM
  • Unifund by UOB Asset Management. Forced to liquidate

##high-ROI ] %%experience

Posted on by tiger40490
S$profit % realized incl capital annual ROI[2] capital category windfall
2.2k 122% over 2Y c 10.5% 10k PE German investment
6.6k very low delayed 10k PE Brazil invest #1 #3Y
2.8k 128% over 2Y [1] c 13% not 14% 10k PE Brazil invest #2
S$200k[3] zero 🙁 c 12% up to 2017 USD 90k home #2 USD90k invested in Beijing
S$240k[4] 237% over 8Y c 11% only 175k home #1 Blk 177
v v    trivial amounts     v v
1.4k 170% over 2Y c 30% roughly USD 2k US eq Legg Mason US funds
below 1k 110% within a year 15% roughly 1k equity selected eq funds

Turned out to be mostly real estate, so all my gold and bond investments pale in comparison.

Actually, at my age I need current income more than windfall… see separate blog

[1] there was $100 admin fee, but they paid out an extra $100 to compensate for it
[2] not compound return if no ‘c’. Note compound return above 4% is lucky and hard to maintain
[3] 2017 value = 20% x CNY 8.5M
[4] excluding rental savings

hotlines in U.S.

Posted on by tiger40490

Rude awakening in early 2007: Government services were often very poor. Hit numerous immigration problems. ID issuance was slow. DMV had huge queues. Post office had shorter lines but inadequate hotlines.

Government Hotlines are overloaded…

Many government services are self-service, either online or by write-in [still common as of 2007]. Many complicated procedures with pages of instructions to read. Often you must ask friends + self-teach. Still you can hit roadblocks that require commercial, professional assistance. Sometimes there was a visible effort to simplify (or explain) the process for new users. I would say far from effective. In contrast, Singapore goverment services come with plenty of hotline staff (occasionally community centers too) .. adequate staffing !

Semi-government, non-profit services are similar. Hospitals, utilities, schools, credit bureaus, airports, transport authorities, police, legal systems, IRS,,,

Some big private [i.e. for-profit] service providers have adequate customer support, often tiered based on your account tier! I noticed it in GS, Verizon, … So if you don’t have enough in-house expertise, then you need to pay a premium.

In 2007, I couldn’t afford to pay the premium 🙁

Alternatively, smaller service providers offer better customer support.