I would rather hold the BGC condo than buy-n-hold a SG condo. Holding BGC condo provides 1) higher rental yield 2) more upside. Sg condo’s advantage is stability in a world Tier 1 property market, better currency risk.
Rental yield is the biggest factor, esp. given the high quantum and high commitment.
I feel BGC condo has rental demand among locals in addition to expats. SG condo mostly target expats.
Motivation: keeping too many coins at home/office creates a hazard. They are heavy. They can be worth $20.
— option: ocbc: any account is OK. Can combine notes and coins
— option: DBS
— option: TransitLink office readily accepts coins in 50c. (For smaller coins, there are various restrictions, to be documented)
Warn: by right, each time staff can accept only $2 worth of coins.
sugg: Better pre-sort into small bags
Sugg: bring only one type of coin each time.. less Sys2 effort for staff who counts.
sugg: keep some of these coins in office, so I can visit the RafflesPlace location.
k_investor_selfEval
The more specific/unusual the better. I hope to develop more strengths, and give my kids and younger friends.
— significance of these strengths? Not to be exaggerated or belittled. I want a fair assessment of the significance of these strengths.
However /tempting/ it is to derive and assign some numeric “value” to each strength, such numbers would likely be extremely unscientific and un-objective. Instead, it’s more useful to ask questions:
Q: Will these strengths grow in significance as my income drops in older age? I am 90% certain.
Q: Will these strengths grow in significance as my asset grows? I am fairly certain.
Q: Will my “worldly” wisdom grow with experience, in this and other domains? I hope so. Look at grandpa.
Investment loss can be devastating, not to be taken lightly.
See also blogposts on
For the next X years in Singapore, my family burn rate is predictable (no college no mortgage) at around $4k/M excluding transfers, $5k/M total burn rate. I sometimes tell my wife “Every time we squirrel away $60k from (work/nonwork) income, we extend our Fuller Wealth by a year.” This /prognosis/ is almost too good to be true. Simplistic but motivational thought. Long-term forecast is naturally less reliable, subject to multiple upsets but still, some guesstimates can help us plan better. Just remember not to put too much trust in the guesstimate numbers.
This prognosis is a useful yardstick for comparison with other families. Some families can “add a year” quickly (a couple of paychecks), while others need a decade to “add a year”.
— going from strength to strength, from strong to stronger .. In 2018 I had a numerical projection showing barebones ffree. Then in 2020, I wrote to wife another numerical projection showing that salaries are not really needed.
So my Fuller wealth already exceeds those targets. Every new month, my nest egg is now more fortified/resilient [2], growing (by $5k+) towards a new target of “no need to flee to U.S.”
[2] Keystone of the “nest egg” idea is … defense — against hazards, missteps, contingencies, uncertainties.
How does this prognosis differentiate me from my cohort? Many people also grow their nest egg every month, but they don’t have a FIRE target amount like 25Y worth @ living expenses. I have multiple progressive targets.
— Let’s /substantiate/shore up/ some weaknesses of this prognosis.
My concept of Chn’s middle class is mostly-urban, white-collar, usually college-educated. A concept confirmed in a book by XS.L (梁晓声 Xiaosheng.Liang).
When I interact with my relatives, ex-classmates, /repatriated/ ex-colleagues, repatriated young graduates (acquaintances) … I often have a vague, unfounded livelihood assumption that the Chinese middle-class has some advantages + some disadvantages[2] vis-a-vis SG middle-class counterpart, but on balance equally well-off. This assumption has a theoretical cornerstone — the middle-class’s definition. This definition implies that the middle-class in any country is well-off (小康富足) although the numerical criteria depend on location. Those criteria are vastly different in Bayonne vs 天津 vs 建德 vs Cambodia vs Manila due to PPP-FX.
[2] A lot of times, I could feel a strange sense of inferiority. Highly distorted and irrational. This is the same illusion as (not similar-to)
In this blogpost, I want to point out some of the hidden but crucial differences between SG and Chn middle class livelihood. Not a Chn-watcher, I won’t go in-depth. Mostly based on hearsays, but from trusted sources such as serious intellectuals.
— 🙁 Difference: housing … The most intriguing difference. If a Chn middle class family of 3 could avoid buying a 2BR home [3] in a tier-1 city, then livelihood pressure can be tolerable. I just don’t know how many of the urban middle-class can avoid it. They are drawn into it by some invisible force, unable to free themselves.
[3] XS.L specified 70 sqm 居住面积 for an a stereotypical white-collar young couple planning to have kids, but XS.L didn’t say Tier-1 city.
Tier-1 city’s home price is comparable to, if not above, SG condo (at least 100% above HDB flats) but typical Tier-1 city salary is still lower than SG. The price tag is so large as to require contributions from 3 generations of a middle-class family, as XS.L confirmed. When we compare livelihood, this price tag is the elephant in the room.
I used to feel this peer pressure was exaggerated by the media, but XS.L, my parents, and my Chn bachelor colleagues all confirmed that this peer pressure is both pervasive and entrenched.
A major factor is mate selection, which affects entire families! Girls often demands not only a tier-1 city dowry home, but a 100 sqm [grandpa said, 建筑面积] home. So if you have a bachelor son, can your family avoid “it”?
— personal medical reserve .. This is not a SG^Chn difference per see, but quite relevant.
In the late 2000s, my mom said CNY 400k (si4shi2wan4) was a good-enough medical reserve for each retiree, on top of public health insurance (reimbursement-based). Such insurance has coinsurance, and numerous exclusions such as elective treatments [imported medication, supplements,,].
In early 2022 my dad recalled that consensus figure among retirees of that time — regardless of the medical condition, if CNY 500k is spent over and on top of insurance, and still the life can’t be saved, then it’s reasonable to give up. As such CNY 500k was a reasonable last-resort personal medical reserve, for millions of well-informed Chinese retirees.
Fast forward to 2022, CNY 500k-1000k of family savings is common according to my dad, living in Beijing. I think this improvement in savings reflects (medical++) inflation, rising income, rising wealth esp. in rEstate.
This is written for some friends asking me
Q: as a Singapore PR, why should I bother to apply for citizenship?
— school fee subsidy.. including preschools
In this blogpost “the affluent” refers to anyone qualifying as clients of SG wealth mgmt, having SGD 200k account balance.
Rebecca of UOB suggested that many of his affluent clients prefer (mutual or ETF) funds rather than stock trading.
— reason: professional mgmt (with the mgmt fee) .. highly questionable value-add in reality
“Peaceful sleep” is a major selling point of professionally managed funds.
Active fund managers analyze individual stocks and hand-pick them. I criticized it in bluechips=slightly more dependable than mufu
— reason: professional assistance from financial advisor .. probably a key factor.
In contrast, these advisors will not help them trade stocks because there’s no fee to be earned !
— reason: no interest no time no expertise .. I think more than half of these affluent clients lack enthusiasm (risk appetite), free time or expertise to pick stocks by hand.
Q: in terms of Funds vs stocks, how do I compare to the affluent? I only have some very vague presumptions about the age, nationality distributions of “the affluent”.
A: I guess many of them favor ETF or mutual funds, rather than stocks. The Vanguard 2020 report is an analysis of investor preferences.
Q: how relevant is it to understand fellow investors?
A: I think the relevance may grow.
Long-horizon Financial planning, either pre-retirement or retirement planning, is all about uncertainties. These Uncertainties get foggier the further out you plan ahead. Some people give up in frustration, but I spend lots of mental energy mapping out the key drivers and identify the stable, predictable factors.
It’s important but tough to look beyond the medium-term challenges such as job security, college funding, ,,
At the core (and the base) of my long-horizon financial planning, here are the three beams:
oth risk .. This knowledge is like general knowledge, not for interview, not for personal investment, but can help my education effort for my kids.
https://www.ubs.com/global/en/asset-management/insights/china/2019/stock-connect-china-a-shares-faqs-equity-investing.html is a FAQ. https://research.ftserussell.com/products/downloads/Guide_to_Chinese_Share_Classes.pdf is a pdf showing a table.
China A-shares trade on the two Chinese stock exchanges, the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE). Historically, China A-shares were only available for purchase by mainland citizens due to China’s restrictions on foreign investment.
Gary believed China ADR stocks are correlated with China index much more than SP500.
— Chn A-share ETF .. I think the exchange fee and broker commission on both entry and exit is likely higher than the FSM fee.
Also need to find out how to use interactive brokers…
— currency and other defining features
China A-shares are only quoted in RMB, while B-shares are quoted in foreign currencies, and are more widely available to foreign investors. On the Shanghai Exchange, B-shares trade in U.S. dollars. On the Shenzhen Exchange, B-shares trade in Hong Kong dollars.
Some companies opt to have their stock listed on both the A-shares and B-shares market. Due to the limited access of Chinese investors to B-shares, the stock of the same company often trades at much higher valuations on the A-shares market than on the B-shares market.
— retail vs institutional investors
China A-share markets are dominated by retail investors. Therefore, China’s A-share markets can be volatile.
SSE and SZSE are both more retail-driven than HKEX.
— issuing entity .. A/B/H shares can be issued by the same entity. I think N shares too (on New York exchanges including OTC), but am not 100% sure.
Most of my China stocks are N-shares including the OTC stocks.
Due to access control, I think the onshore market has some kind of correlation among the stocks, driven by China retail investor[1] herd instinct. The H-shares and N-shares have correlation among them, driven by the investors [2] on these (more open) markets. [1] and [2] are probably two distinct groups.
There’s also some correlation between 2 market segments.
— indices.. There are many indices for the various market segments. JustEtf.com compares index performance figures over 1Y (or 3Y). You can see the indices are quite different.
best China index? You can collect the count of tracking ETFs for each index. The most popular index is MSCI China.
Gary singled out FTSE A50.
to Genn: G3 specific goals@investment effort #commute is an introspective. In line with that if I receive $1m windfall, I would use it to strengthen my shields and relieve my anxieties.
Q: what’s your best use of additional 100k, assuming you can’t invest it?
Specific items I can spend on … are the best answers.
For Mr Money Mustache, apparently such a windfall doesn’t mean anything, but I doubt it.
Some of These are among the G10 most important lifestyle changes after I achieve bare-bones ffree.