Tag: t_stickyQ

## where2spend more, like upper-midclass

Posted on by tiger40490

Depending on your idea of middle-class lifestyle, some families spend $10k/M, some $15k/M.

Q: now that my retirement, medical, housing needs are taken care of, and college funding brushed aside (all related to CPF), do I have no aspiration to spend more like my cohort? If yes, then which specific expense items would I consider increasing?

— investments: property; dividend stocks; ETFs; HY/PE;
— investments: gold

Compiling the list below reveals to me that what I care about is different from what my peers spend on.  It’s crucial to attend to the needs of the self, rather than other people’s desires.

— lower paying, lighter job .. not a popular middle-class spend, but scratching a real itch.
— shorter commute .. another itch
— keep wife a stay-home mom
— get wife a bachelor’s degree
—- now some items similar to lifestyle creep
— wider variety of healthy foods
— more (low-cost) sports equipment to encourage everyone to stay active
— more yoga classes .. one of the truly luxury spends. To my delight, increasingly I can practice on my own.
— more vacations .. not my top favorite, but wife and kids will enjoy

##exceptional stocks hav`20Y trec

Posted on by tiger40490

I wonder what elements of a good stock make it still a good stock x years later. My timeline is x = 10Y.

— eg: PAP gov of SG .. I have been long SG for decades. Can the SG ‘stock’ continue to be exceptional?
— eg: MSFT, PG, ABT
— eg: AAPL .. somehow revived, but I think it’s an exception to prove the rule that usually an iconic stock is unlikely to be a comback kid
— eg: IBM, HP, Oracle, Intel, Cisco
— eg: GE, Sony, Nokia, RIM

— high-yield, low-growth blue chips .. boring cash cows

  • T:US is probably a leading example.
  • Singtel is another well-known example.

How about the red chips? My view on gov red chips has changed. They seem to pay good dividends to compensate for very poor long-term trend. Gary felt red chips are profitable businesses, but widely perceived as low efficiency, low margin.

U.S. dividend stocks offer better long-term prospect. The red chips don’t qualify for my income ptf.

U.S.stock trading: define acceptable ROTI

Posted on by tiger40490

limit order (rather than fractional) are key to tCost mgmt.

I frequently felt self-hate because the time cost is too high for the small trades. Then I found the concept of recreational stock-picking as the self-defense.

Q: what dollar amount of invested (each week) would relieve the self-hate? $1k/week is too big.
A: $100/week

I think this question is slightly similar to the yoga roti issue in Bayonne. Basically, I felt very good about my yoga lessons, but I also felt self-hate about the 3H total tcost including a leisurely shopping down-time after the yoga, almost as a reward.

— cf: property investment. I tend to spend a few days and commit 5-figure sums (around $100k). Then I execute the deal and put it aside. Therefore, ROTI is very high, but not recreational.

 

y SG rated most expensive city

Posted on by tiger40490

I don’t want to spend too much time on questions that only bother other people, like this question:

Q: why is Singapore rated as one of the world’s most expensive cities?

In this case,  I decide to spend a few minutes, because my family members may ask this question, or they may face this question from their friends.

— First, these rankings are often politically motivated, perhaps to weaken the competition like a smear campaign.

— Next, to understand the ranking, we need to zoom into the basket of goods used to compared expensive cities. The score is a weighted sum over this basket.

According to various sources, the biggest reason for SG’s bad score is cost of car ownership (not taxi not public transport). Weightage of this item in the basket can be adjusted/manipulated.

— Note the basket is often constructed for a foreigner, perhaps a foreign executive, not an average local resident.

Local residents enjoy subsidies in education, healthcare, utilities, public transport,,, How about the elephant in the room — Housing?

Public Housing for SG citizens is subsidized in the demand-controlled HDB housing market. If (without demand control) a rich foreigner were allowed to buy HDB in bulk, then price could double or triple to the level of private properties.

Therefore, Citizens face a lower home price than foreigners. How about renters — do foreign renters endure higher cost? I would say arguably yes. My foreigner colleagues (Indians, Chinese, Koreans, not to mention Caucasians) mostly rent in condos. As a local, I’m more likely to rent in HDB.

[19]U.S.beat`all markets over3Y+ #Nsdq

Posted on by tiger40490

Alan Tan … said U.S. stock market shows self-renewal.

see also the older blogpost [14] long-term +ve trend: U.S.only

My conviction is based on 1) data 2) explanation.

  • Data: I guess U.S. market dwarfs Europe and Japan markets, among the established, mature markets.
    • Explanation: Hkex, in my view, is dominated by China-themed stocks [H-shares, P-chips] and viewed with suspicion except in Chinese-dominated communities [like SGP, MYS]. Globally, I think China stocks are perceived similarly to India stocks, Russia stocks, Korea stocks, Latam stocks.
  • Explanation: global mind share — U.S. equity enjoys disproportionate mind share among the investing public as well as the professionals. When a new investor think of stock markets to invest, U.S. stocks and indices are the first to consider and often the default choice. If investors form a pyramid, then the base layer (largest number) investors would choose US stocks in addition to their homeland stocks. The base layer won’t bother with Europe or Japan stocks.
  • Explanation: passive investing — Increasingly more investors choose passive index funds. I believe there are many more index funds for U.S. market than non-US markets. Also the U.S. index funds are more mature and have longer track record, attractive to the less confident base layer of investors.
  • Explanation: optimism — majority of U.S. stocks are owned by Americans. Americans are more optimistic. Even non-Americans are more optimistic about U.S. stocks than their homeland stocks !
  • hypothesis: global herd instinct — I now believe that herd instinct is in America’s favor.
  • hypothesis: Many professional funds [offered by banks, insurers, pensions] have a theme like regional theme or sector theme … I think they invest in U.S. stocks more than non-U.S. stocks.
  • Explanation: hot money — There’s more hot money than before, such as those BRIC citizens. Hot money follows mindshare
  • Explanation: Majority of the symbols listed in the U.S. are U.S. companies. They are often more profitable than companies in other countries.
  • Explanation: in a down turn, some U.S. blue chips are perceived as safer, defensive.
  • Explanation: USD — is perceived as a safe haven currency and a default currency. JPY and EUR? no big stock market to match America’s

I’m slightly more “independent” in my thinking. For yeas my U.S. allocation among my equity holdings was around 10% to 20% no more than 25%. I also flipped through the influential [[irrational exuberance]] written before the dotcom crash.

==== shorter trough, faster recovery
I like Jay Seide’s summary — the broad U.S. stock index always rebounds after a big correction. See [[irrational exuberance]]. Using whatever arbitrary criteria, let’s say there have been 20 crashes over 20 years. Among them, this rule has seldom been broken — recovered within 3 years, usually within a year.

However, Longest trough in Nsdq100 is 17Y

Q: why U.S. stocks show better trough i.e. faster recovery?

— reason for China’s long trough: retail investors tend to bid up the price too high, resulting in a super-long trough. In contrast, U.S. market has more institutional investors. Vance of DBS pointed out that China markets are increasingly open to foreign institutional investors
— [warning] data sample size is very small
There are not 500 regions where only one region (US) is head and shoulders above the rest (like Linus Pauling who twice won Nobel prize unshared).

There are not 90 (non-overlapping) trough periods in a data sample where the shortest 5 all belong to the U.S.

— [warning] regime change
— [warning] index composition differences ..  Vance of DBS believes the index component is one reason. He said STI has mostly sunset-sector stocks. However, I would say hot tech stocks tend to become overhyped leading to longer trough.

##[19] best Spends@100k windfall

Posted on by tiger40490

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?

  • I didn’t choose a very small sum — not enough of an interesting question, and not engaging
  • I didn’t choose a very big sum — unrealistic and not engaging

Specific items I can spend on … are the best answers.

  • lower-paying (probably contract) job with more satisfaction. Respect is the #1 satisfaction.
  • .. In contrast, My answer to Genn is more about work-life balance (free time …)
  • commute — See my answer to Genn. Note For commute current income is more effective than a $100k windfall far out.
  • more frequent visits with grandparents, but business-class ticket would be un-affordable luxury.
  • vacations to nearby locations. There are plenty of world class yet low-cost destinations in SEA, China and India.
    • No Japan no Korea please — luxury and unnecessary. Our family life isn’t less complete if without them.
  • — smaller, “lifestyle” items that I could spend part of this 100k on
  • more yoga classes, and possibly other classes
  • more packaged, washed raw veg and fruits
  • more frequent buying of salads
  • — less specific items:
  • spend to create more spare time for kids, family and myself

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.

 

 

target balance sheet@2029@age55

Posted on by tiger40490

See also Passive income generators. Here is an imagined balance sheet:

  • by age 65 will have about 100k-300k to put into CPF LIFE
  • BGC apartment, paid up and rented out. Better hold it as hedge against Cambodia.
  • Phnom Penh commercial units, paid up and rented out or liquidated
  • Blk 155 home, paid up and rented out. Possibly more reliable rental income than overseas units.
  • Beijing home – partial ownership, probably liquidated.
  • US home, on mortgage or paid up

Liquid asset:

  • some stocks and some cash
  • Boy is enrolled in college so we will have some idea of the the cash flow impact.

— today’s action plan to meet the 2029 target:

  1. first build up for 3 years towards down payment for US home
  2. buy US home and pay down the mortgage
  3. build up towards CPF LIFE

U.S.dividend: y so high #REIT++

Posted on by tiger40490

Basic reason: depreciation risk — Jack Zhang said when a REIT cuts its dividend yield, the stock price may collapse.

2013 https://seekingalpha.com/article/1243211-reits-why-the-dividends-are-a-mirage

2019 https://www.simplysafedividends.com/intelligent-income/posts/3-high-yield-dividend-stocks has a detailed analysis

–2019 https://www.simplysafedividends.com/intelligent-income/posts/3-high-yield-dividend-stocks has some discussion on why some dividends are very high.

  • maturity of company such as telecom and utility stocks

–2018 https://investorplace.com/2018/09/real-estate-investment-trusts-high-yields-invtlk/ says  REIT’s are a creation by/of the U.S. government.

–2018 https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/012816/basics-reinvesting-reit-dividends.asp says

Many REITs have long track records of generating continuous and increasing dividends, even during the tumultuous real estate crisis of 2008. A solid-performing REIT typically invests in a large, geographically dispersed portfolio of properties.