Should I open POEMS cash plus account or cash management?

I have both! And I recommend that you open both too!

I mainly use my Cash Management one for long term shares (I define as 5 years) that I want to hold, and my Cash Plus for short term trading (anything that I envision selling <5 years) because the latter has really discounted brokerage fees (a percentage of the trade), as opposed to Cash Management which charges min $25 commission for each SGX trade.

It is way cheaper to trade US shares on Cash Plus as well!

Just take note that for Cash Plus, once you have any SGX shares in your account, you have to make at least 1 SG trade per quarter to get the quarterly fee ($15 iirc) waived, so do consider how often you will expect to be trading as well!

Hi anon,

This depends on the market as well as your investment intentions.

Very briefly:

If you are buying and holding SG shares without much trading involved, you should use a cash management account, as the shares will be stored in CDP, and there are no quarterly account maintainence charges, custody fees, corporate action charges nor dividend handling charges.

If you are buying and holding US shares, just go for cash plus since the brokerage is cheaper.

If you are trading, cash plus is generally cheaper as well.

Just take note that there is a standby margin on cash plus, which can catch people off guard. (You owe interest if you end up utilizing standby margin)

But actually, you can open both. So why not open both, and then use the appropriate account depending on your intent?

(Note that most fees are waived on cash plus if your account AUM is S$250K, so for high AUM, cash plus is probably the better account overall, but that might not apply to you.)​​​