I would like to know too. You can tell me if you achieve this. Ideally you have a financial background, several years of experience and have a decent track record of managing other people's money. Some people have gone from sales to portfolio managing, since they were already good at it. At the very least, you need to be familiar with the following - the various types of equities and bonds - the benchmarks you may be up against and why - Forex trading and how to leverage on it - Options trading and how to leverage on it. There are like 12 - 16 other relevant skills that I've listed somewhere (because I've looked into it briefly before) but those 4 would be a good start.

Early Critical Illneess Insurance is the future. It's not going to get any cheaper. Every day you wait it becomes more expensive. Nobody is saying you MUST take the plunge, but you can consult a professional to see how it might complement your curent portfolio. For some people, it just won't. The budget won't fit. So that's all fine and dandy as well, but you never know until you try. https://www.moneymaverickofficial.com/posts/early-critical-illness-failure-of-ci-insurance If you'd like to have a conversation about it, I'm contactable via my Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/luke.ho.54

Someone who can answer the conflict of interest well would make a good financial planner. I'm not perfect at it, but its what I'm striving for. Some have even higher aspirations, like being an Independent Financial Advisor (via MAS definition, not working for an IFA). What factors does that consist of? Typically it means that when they pitch you something they give you more than one choice. They also can tell you how it benefits you, and how much commission they make if you ask. They can also answer why they are pushing a particular plan if it happens to benefit them more. That's a good start.

An ILP is not the same as an endowment plan. It's either or. So someone has been teaching you wrong things. You can consult someone to see if you should surrender them or not. While what you're saying doesn't sound favorable at the moment, we won't know till we get a close look at them. https://www.facebook.com/luke.ho.54

Early Critical Illneess Insurance is the future. It's not going to get any cheaper. Every day you wait it becomes more expensive. Nobody is saying you MUST take the plunge, but you can consult a professional to see how it might complement your curent portfolio. For some people, it just won't. The budget won't fit. So that's all fine and dandy as well, but you never know until you try. https://www.moneymaverickofficial.com/posts/early-critical-illness-failure-of-ci-insurance If you'd like to have a conversation about it, I'm contactable via my Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/luke.ho.54

How old is she now? The context is really very important. It may not make financial sense to cancel it because you may experience losses as well as coverage. Additionally, how do you determine whether she doesn't need it or not? Did you go through a professional who can give you a second opinion? I could take a look at it. https://www.facebook.com/luke.ho.54

Uh. Nothing. You can invest them in very limited funds, but that's it. Your special account is not for paying for stuff. Its for your retirement.

High yield bonds are better because they have lower volatility for around the same yield. The answer given below by Zann also applies more to individual bonds, not bond funds and especially not bond funds. Bond values are not fixed - especially with active management, the duration can be managed effectively so that you always get a higher compounded return. To be fair, what can happen is that some High Yield Bond Funds 'cheat' by holding some REITs anyway. So you may want to just invest in high yield bond funds. You can see an example listed above, which gives between 7 - 8% dividends.

Depends what kind of returns you want. Mutual funds can offer you either market beating returns or returns that have a better return-risk ratio than the market. Otherwise, don't invest in them. ETFs will give you market returns minus tax, transactional fees or reinvestment fees.