Interactive Brokers minimum commission is $1 USD but there will be a $10USD monthly fee if the total asset under your account is less than $100K USD. On the other hand, Saxo Capital minimum commission is $3.99 USD and the monthly fee is 0.12% of total asset under your account. I would therefore prefer to trade using Saxo Capital until I have $100k USD then I will switch to Interactive Brokers.

If you are buying through a brokerage house then the minimum shares you have to buy is 100 shares. Assuming you can only invest $500 every month, buying odd lots is only possible with regular savings plan. You can check out POSB InvestSaver, OCBC Blue Chip Investment Plan or Philips Share Builder Plan.

I own Singtel shares. In my opinion, the only chance that Singtel can recover will be the recovery of Bharti Airtel earnings.

Before you even start investing, I always advise people to have sufficient emergency fund (liquid cash) of at least 6 months of your expenses. There are many strategies of investing. Many prefer to pick their own stocks while others just buy ETFs every month. I recommend you to read up more before picking your own stocks to invest. In the meanwhile, you can invest in STI ETF using POSB InvestSaver to get a taste of investments. As for SSB, you have to sign up for CDP account and apply for direct crediting service before you can buy it.

I'm 19 this year and it will be my turn to enlist for NS in a few weeks time. I have about $21k worth of cash and investments. As what others have said, there's really no amount every 19 year old must achieve to be considered a good amount to have at that age. This is because different people have different circumstances. For example, their parents might have helped them save a huge sum of money since they are young and they continued to save when they are older. They definitely will have more cash than I do. For National Service, I always recommend those who are in service to sign up for POSB Save As You Serve. With POSB SAYS, you can potentially earn up to 2.25% per annum, that is if you do not withdraw any amount from the amoint and save at least $800 every month without fail. I always advise people to save at least $300 every month so that they can earn 0.2% base interest and bonus 2% interest if one does not withdraw. That being said, the main goal of this product is not to withdraw. Therefore, you need to look at your expenses for the past few months. Assuming that you are still earning $560 per month, are you able to keep your expenses to less than $260? Do you have any expenses that can be avoided such as going out with your friends to club or to eat with your friends at expensive places or do you have any big ticket purchases in the next few months? Since you can't withdraw any amount for POSB SAYS, I would suggest having sufficient liquid cash in your ordinary savings account to cater for those unexpected expenses. I am not trying to say that you can go ahead so long you have sufficient liquid cash but please do it in moderation. The problem with some teenagers is that they save a lot in endowment plans or POSB SAYS to the point that they are lacking of emergency funds to stay afloat for the remaining months when they encounter unexpected expenses. This is similar to learning how to invest, many teenagers who tried to invest in Stashaway might not aware that the at least 6 months emergency fund still applies to them. This is because prices fluctuate, they might realise a loss if they were to sell to raise proceeds for unexpected expenses. With emergency fund, they have liquid cash to help pay for it and there's no need to sell to raise proceeds.

SGX StockFacts allows you to search for dividend yield stocks. The most important factor to take note isnt about the dividend yield but the sustainability of the dividend. I use Payout Ratio and Free Cash Flow to determine the sustainability of the dividend. For payout ratio, it must be less than 100% and for free cash flow, it must be more than the dividends paid to investors.

Hi, I recommend you to sign up for CIMB FastSaver account. CIMB FastSaver is a great no frills savings account in the market currently. The interest rate for this account is 1% and interest is calculated daily so long you have at least $1000 each day. There is no fall below fee so you can have $0 in the bank account and not kena any bankdraft or whatsoever. Since there is limited ATMs for CIMB, I always do a FAST transfer from CIMB to OCBC for withdrawals or vice versa for deposits.

Both products are great. Interest rate wise, POSB SAYE is higher than SSB based on average 2Y interest rate. However, please take note that in order to get 2% bonus interest for POSB SAYE, you cannot withdraw them. On the other hand, for SSB, you can still redeem without losing your accrued interest. I wrote an article and my suggestion is to save at least $300 every month to get 0.2% base interest. This will ensure that you have $260 to spend, preventing you from any liquidity issue. It really depends on how frequent you spend and how much liquid cash you have on hand. I prefer to credit my savings to POSB SAYE because I get 2.2% interest rate if I save at least $300 every month and do not withdraw.

Yes. It is actually the same account. If you still have doubts, you can have live chat on POSB website.

There is no doubt that the management of CMT and FCT have excellent track record of increasing its DPU per unit every year as shown. However, why CMT is a better buy than FCT? Let’s take a look. Portfolio Overview CMT and FCT have 16 and 6 shopping malls all around Singapore respectively. All shopping malls own by CMT and FCT are near or beside a MRT station or bus interchange. This means that it is easy for customers like us to go to their shopping mall, aka more convenient. We understand that for FCT, Northpoint North Wing and Causeway Point are FCT’s gems. However, what I don’t like about FCT is its smaller shopping mall such as Bedok Point and Anchorpoint. I honestly felt that it was a mistake of acquiring Bedok Point because Bedok Mall which is owned by CMT is just beside Bedok Point. Anchorpoint is too far from the nearest MRT station.  One thing to take note for FCT is that close to 76% of the rental comes from Causeway Point and Northpoint North Wing and Yishun 10. That is a huge risk to take on if both gems did not perform well. CMT has a more diversified portfolio compared to FCT. I did not go into detail of CMT shopping malls because they really are the best. Comment below if you disapprove! A look at the Portfolio occupancy, we can see that 98.5% and 94.7% of all rentable spaces are occupied in both CMT and FCT respectively. It is very depressing to look at the occupancy rate of Bedok Point and Anchorpoint. However, bright spots for FCT are that occupancy rate for Causeway Point is resilient, Northpoint City, Changi City Point figures are improving every year. We can expect occupancy rate to improve next quarter. WALE figures for CMT and FCT are 1.9 years and 1.72 years respectively. The higher the WALE the better though it has its cons too. Before we start looking at the lease expiry profile, we should note that the FCT end of FY2018 is Sep 2018 while CMT is Dec 2018. About 85% for both CMT and FCT leases will end from now till 31 Dec 2021. For those who are about to invest in either CMT and FCT should take note of this risk as recession might happen on or before or after 31 Dec 2021. Due to this, both CMT and FCT might record negative rental reversion during this period. In terms of rental reversion, I would say that FCT did a very good job but the figure got dragged down by its underperformers. Looking at the quarter figures, you can see FCT’s Bedok Point recorded -23% rental reversion and Anchorpoint at -10.4%. It is the same story for its full year figures where FCT’s Bedok Point recorded -23% rental reversion and Anchorpoint at -5.1%. However, despite the fact that these two shopping malls recorded negative rental reversion, the figures are positive when looking at overall numbers. On the other hand, CMT recorded less than 1% positive rental reversion with negative rental reversion of at most -2% coming from some malls. Overall, the number is at 0.6%. Debt In terms of financial performance, FCT beats CMT hands down. Its aggregate leverage is lower than CMT at 28.6%. It is difficult to judge the aggregate leverage for CMT because CMT has just announced recently that it has acquired Westgate using private placement and debt. The aggregate leverage should be from 34%-36% after the acquisition. Interest coverage for FCT is also higher than CMT’s. Average Cost of debt for FCT is lower than of CMT. FCT might need to refinance a lot of its debt in the next three years where close to 88% of its debt will mature in the next three years but this is only so for 31% for CMT. Even though, FCT might have done well in its balance sheet, it is important to take note that CMT credit rating is better than FCT and that most of FCT’s debt will mature in the next three years. You be the judge. Industry Outlook Remember the time when Amazon Prime Now came to Singapore? It resulted in retail REITs, Sheng Siong to drop. Those who believed that Amazon will not be as successful as others thought would have profited from the fear. Those who bought despite the fear was right as retail REITs and Sheng Siong still produce great results. The retail industry in Singapore still looks dull according to URA data. According to an analyst report, Singapore’s QOQ retail rental growth reverted to negative territory in 2Q2018. The rental growth has been negative since 1Q2015 and only inched up 0.1% in the previous quarter. You can refer to these websites for more information: RETAIL PROPERTY MARKET OVERVIEW section, Independent Retail Market Overview section, and URA media release. Conclusion I would prefer CMT over FCT. Reason being, it has a diversified portfolio than FCT. The risk for FCT in terms of rental income is that close to 76% of its property income are from the bigger malls. The risk is that if the bigger mall did not perform well, it will drag down the DPU. Anchorpoint and Bedok Point are not contributing much to the rental income. It was definitely a failed acquisition by the management to acquire Bedok Point. Bedok Point was bought for $127 million in 2011 and it is now valued at $110 million. There isn’t high probability that the mall would be sold at a premium looking at the depressing rental reversion and occupancy rate. On a brighter spot, FCT’s sponsor which is Frasers Property has solid shopping malls such as Northpoint City South Wing and Waterway Point that FCT could acquire. With such a low gearing ratio, there is room to take on more debt to acquire bigger shopping malls to diversify its portfolio.