1) Growth of Dividends Fundamentals analysis of the long-term outlook of the industry & whether the company itself had the inherent and/or competitive advantages to exploit the most of the favorable macro-environment. Management’s tendency to reward shareholders when earnings see substantial improvement & consistent dividend payouts that do not waver despite stock fluctuations. When there’s a gain on divestment of assets, would the mgmt choose to distribute back to the shareholders? 2) Sustainability of Dividends Dividend payout ratio of less than 100% Dividend cash distributions less than the free cash flow generated A sufficient amount of / gradually accretive retained earnings account that company can dipped into to maintain/increase dividends Low level of liabilities (in particular non-interest bearing liabilities) 3) Tax status of Dividends Is the dividends received by the investor subjected to taxation of his place of residency? Is the dividends subjected to withholding taxes before it can be remitted overseas to a foreign investor?

Being vested in Haw Par stock is akin to having exposure to 3 key sectors: 1) Healthcare medicinal products (Tiger balm ointment & sister products) 2) Bank (via stakes in UOB, one of the 3 blue-chip local banks) 3) Property (via stakes in UOL, one of the leading property company in SG). The interesting thing about Tiger Balm is that its a age-old household brand name, which carried tons of brand awarness when it comes to pain-relief solutions. The Tiger Balm ointment recipe is also difficult to be replicated by its competitors. Hence, its heartening to know that the company had been effectively exploiting this strategic advantage and carried out product extensions such as mosquito repellent patch, pain-relieving patch etc. They also seek to distribute their products via 3rd party networks & partnerships, reducing/eliminating the need to set up storefronts which result in capital layouts & recurring maintanence expenses. When it comes to their investments holdings in UOB & UOL, they are quite the shrewd investor. Quoted from their 2018 annual report "The Group elected to receive $47.6 million (2017: $25.2 million) of dividend income as scrip shares in lieu of cash dividends during the year. With the higher share base as the Group progressively opted for scrip shares in lieu of cash dividends, coupled with the increase in dividend rate, dividend income from strategic investments increased 64%". So at first instance, it might seem that in 2016 & 2017, their dividend income had shrank. But in reality, they are opting to re-invest and took advantage of lower share prices to hold on to more shares that had consistent dividend growth. Last but not least, not only Haw Par had very low liabilities in total, it also had very limited interest bearing debt, such that its trade & other payables exceed its borrowings. This speak volumes on the conservative & prudent financial approach that the mgmt take. No fancy financial instruments, very straight forward, clean & lean debt profile. All in all, H02 is not really an exciting growth or high yield stock. Its more of a "slow & steady" stock that rewards shareholders over the long horizon, with more gradual upward price movements than sharp downward movements.

Beside the usual red flags, there are other things to take note as below: 1. The inability of the share price to rebound over time along with its peers after a market correction like recent times, an indication that its fundamentals is subjected to scrutiny & suspect by market. Even though it might seem like a value buy at first instance, there are times could turn out to be a value trap. Etc see Breadtalk's share price, it had been in a stagnant mode since the 2018 market collapse, most stocks had send a rebound for the past 2-3 months meantime. 2. The reluctantness of management to reward shareholders over time, even though company is generating freecash flow or received gains via divestment & kept hoarding the cashpile with no intention to either expand the biz or do R&D etc 3. Mgmt incentives not aligned with shareholders' interest such as mgmt's lion share of their compensation derived from asset acqusition rather than improving the bottomline

Was looking at First Reit vs Parkway Reit to decide which one would be my first entry to healthcare sector. Eventually, I decided on Parkway Reit as First Reit had 3 inherent weakness that I am personally not comfortable with regardless of how well it performed in the past & possibly into the future. 1.High concentration risk in One Country: Indonesia Its Singapore & S.Korea portfolio is negligible compared to its Indonesia ones. Indonesia its not a country thats quite well regarded when it comes to policy consistency (look at the change in tax-policy effect on Lippo Mall Reit). Persistent rupiah devaluation to sgd since the start of 2000s, this means that any forex hedging exercise undertaken would still had its limits once it expired. Those who are affluent would always go to Singapore, Thailand etc where the quality of healthcare is better & the scenery is more pleasant. 2. High concentration tenant risk: Lippo Karawaci If the portfolio already had a high geographical concentration risk, the last thing I will like to see its a high tenant concentration, regardless how reputable/blue-chip the tenant is. 3. Nature of the asset lease: 30 year-old Build-Operate-Transfer So in essence, once the 30 year lease finished its course, the land along with the facilities on top of it would be in the ownership of the government. So whether the lease can be extend/renewed with resounding confidence is a question mark. I rather not take the chance. Cheers

So basically you had 5k in spare cash every month, the next question is how to allocate this 5k into different portfolios. My following suggestion is based on the fact that you are relatively young (can afford to be more aggressive), typical average investors seeking average/decent returns w.r.t average risk that do not want to constantly monitor market and/or little time/desire to pick out individual companies's financial statements etc. Here's my suggestion: 1. Build up an emergency cash funds 3-6 months worth of expenses. ($500 per month, 10%) This portfolio will be your "Pay-youself" fund to always ensure you had a financial safety net, on top your CPF savings. No hard & fast rules on the number on months, dependent on one's individual circumstances. For example, if you had dependants, a monthly mortgage, low job security then the emergency cash funds could likely exceed 6 months. This cash fund could be parked in a high-interest savings account and/or Singapore Savings Bonds (SSBs). Once you hit your targeted emergency cash fund amounts, you can just deploy the $500 to CPF-SA top-ups to get tax relief & earn up to 5% interest (almost risk-free). 2. Next put your monies to work via ETFs ($1,500 each per month for STI & US-index ETFs, thats $3k in total, 60%) The ETFs will be your "Time-in-the market" fund, always stay vested regardless of near-term market fluctuations, betting on the fact that 10/20/30 years down the road, things will eventually pay off. You alr made the first step by DCA to STI ETF, the next step is to consider adding US-index ETF which had historically & statistically proven to be far superior in terms of growth. "When should I stop DCA in STI ETF?" - Once again, no hard & fast rule, perhaps set an $X amount of target value for STI ETF to be in your portfolio. Eg: Once ETF reach $10k/$15k/$20k, stop buying into it and redeploy to other investments products. 3. Lastly, invest the remaining into dividend-yield stocks ($1,500 per month for REITS etc, 30%) This will be your "Pay-your-expense" fund, dividend income from these stocks could pay a meal/transportation/utilities bill. Owise, you can just simply re-invest the dividend income if you had no immediate need for it. Invest in REITs with a good sponser, etc Capitaland & Mapletree, circa 4-5% dividend yield. There's plenty of information on these kind of reits in Seedly, take your time to read through. All e best!

Personally, I feel that there's no true "technical investing", only technical trading. The only aim is to profit in the shortest frame as possible via price swings/fluctuations without consideration to the company's long-term fundamentals, dividend payouts, quality of management etc. You utilize the technical tools thats available to you & ascertain a target (buy/sell) price to enter & a subsequent target (sell/buy) price to exit the position within a set timeframe, could be days/weeks but rarely into months/years. One is making a trade order on the entire basis on how stock price behave in that single time frame. But whether technical investing is truly riskier on the practical application really depends on the individual trader, ability to stay discipline such as cutting loss when things go awry, amount of leverage used, eyes staying glued to the screen all times to be able to made a quick decision etc. However, as a individual who is "buy & hold" long-term fundamental investor, I do find technical analysis (albeit in much simpler forms) do have its merits when I made a decision to buy-in aftering doing my fundamental analysis. I would looked at things such as bid/ask volumes, recent price trends, price support levels to determine the appropriate price range to enter. Although quite a handful of fundamental investors out there advocate that if you are buying for the long-term, then the entry price does not matter, I tend to mildy disagree. If by allocating some time & effort to do some basic technical analysis, couipled with a dose of patience, there's a good probability one can get a stock at a better starting dividend yield & able to buy more stocks using the same amount of money. That's akin to receiving a small bonus ,free-of-charge into one's pocket.

Personally, given the info you had provided, I feel that you are in a great financial position to start off. There's no current need to fund your uni tuition fees, post graduation you are also student loan-free. In addition, you had the financial safety net of your parents being able to support themselves without the need on your side to contribute to family expenses. Lastly, you are only 19! You had the greatest asset for financial investing : Time. Hence, I am of the opinion you should start investing, instead of waiting post-graduation, thats a good 3-4 years of potential returns forgone and unable to chase back. As a personal suggestion, perharps keep $5k as a emergency fund and invest the rest of the $10k. To start off, I would recomend deploying a portion to REITS with a good sponsor such as Capitaland or Mapletree for example. The reason its becasue they provide consistent dividends payouts that steadily increase over time, and its stock fluctuations is not too violent for a beginner to stomach. I would strongly advise against STI as its growth potential pale in comparison to other established index suxh as S&P500, FTSE100 etc. Instead, go for ETFs such as Vanguard 500, buying thru a brokerage or Robo-Advisors with monthly/quarterly contributions. Meantime, continue to improve in your investment knowledge while in school & find new avenues to improve your take-home pay such as giving tuitions or part-time jobs/internships. When you had a steady stream of active income to rely on to cover your daily expenses, any temporary price swings in your investments would be bearable & reduced your emotional risk of prematurely cutting losses. Lastly, if you wait till graduation to invest, it might take some time before you can get things on track as a huge portion of your time would be dedicated/pre-occupied to job interviews/networking/learning the ropes while on the job. While in uni, you would had ample time to explore, experiment & mull over the pros & cons of various trading strategies/instruments. All e Best!

Whether $1million in hard cash is adequate depends on a combination of conscious choices rather than a figurative amount. 1) Are you going to rely entirely & periodically withdrawd on that $1M by the time your retire? Or are you going to invest that principal amount & reinvest the dividend and/or interest income with the aim of growing the initial lumpsum and subsequently relying on its returns to meet monthly expenses? 2) Have you considered the possiblity & willingness of migrating to a lower-cost location eg: Thailand, Vietnam should your retirement sum proved to be inadequate down the road? 3) Is your financial obligations (etc taking care of dependents, parents & children) by the time you retire going to wind down or increase? Will your house mortgage be fully paid? 4) When you retire & no longer receving a salary, can you & your familiy adjust the lifestyle requirements? The ability to acheive "budget deflation" is an essential component of ensuring expenses not exceeding passive income/budgeted withdrawal of retirement sum 5) Did you consider how much cash you can withdraw from your CPF by the time of age 55 & the amount of cash payouts from your CPF Life from age 65. This would & should supplement the cash you had set aside for retirement outside of CPF. I feel that by asking this hard questions, would at least give some framework into planning for an individual financial retirement as opposed to assigning a ballpark $$ figure that on first sight seem sufficient Cheers :)

My answer would be : Why not both? split the 10k into 2 portions. Practical experience aka "skin in the game" is ultimately the best way to figure out what kind of investor you are & what kind of stock suit your investment appetite Dividend Stocks: In bad times, a solid dividend stock should still be able to distribute dividends out of its earnings and/or partially draw from its retained earnings which allow investor to stomach the temporary "unrealised" losses while waiting for a recovery in stock prices. Meantime, dividend stocks also had the potential for capital appreciation. If the companies in question are able to grow its Earnings Per Share & consequently increase its Dividends Per Share, this will eventually attract higher valuations. From another perspective, dividend investing is subtely also "growth investing" in disguise, as the company instead of ploughing earnings back, they place dividends in the hands of the investor to decide how to deploy it effectively. Growth Stocks: Growth stocks tend to be riskier assets and suitable for people with a longer investment horizon & strong conviction for the companies' growth fundamentals to weather out the frequent fluctuations over time. No point investing in growth stocks if you get easily tempted/swayed to sell whenever prices dipped. At the end of the day, asset allocation & diversification also factor in. How many eggs ($$$) you want to put across a certain number of baskets (stocks), with each basket possessing its own risk-return profile.