STI ETF

Hi, I will choose index ETF investing as it is the cheapest among all. You can look at STI ETF, Hang Sang ETF and the S&P 500 ETF.

Hi, Investing in STI ETF will be a better choice.

Hi, I invest in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong , Thailand, Indonesia and United States Market. I generally go to different market when the opportunity arises. Personally, I am more skew toward investing in overseas market because of the growth and scale they have. If you are investing for income then Singapore market is good enough but if you are looking for growth, outside of Singapore will be better

1 lot is 100 shares usually in Singapore context. 1 lot or 10 lot is up to you and have to see the share price of the REITs that you are interested in as well. Just make sure you done your research before buying and comfortable with stock volatility.

Hi anonymous, thank you so much for your question and so sorry for the late reply. I generally do not like to prerscribe a product before understanding the full context of your financial situation. It is like deciding what ingredients to buy before we know what we want to eat and the recipe. But I would generally say "yes" to your question. My firms' (Providend and MonwyOwl) investment philosopohy is that we do not believe in timing the market. There is no need to as well. We also believe in lowering the cost of investing. ETFs is one good way to access index investing and also it is low cost. However, as ETFs are listed on the stock markets and there are brokerage cost involved in buying them, please be mindful that you do not do many small transactions. And by the way, if I have only $10,000, my preference is to invest in a more broadly diversified ETF such as the SPDR S&P500 rather than STI. The Singapore market is just too small. Hope this helps.

Hi anonymous, sorry for the later reply. Thanks for your question. Just want to acknowledge you for starting out so early! I am supposing that you will be graduating very soon and going out to work. Assuming that you earn a salary of $4K, I would encourage you to first set aside 3-6 months of your expenses/income as emergency fund. Your $12K in cash can be that fund. Maybe you can set it aside in SSBs for now as it is higher interest than your bank savings. As for the remaining $7.5K, my preference is that you invest in a diviersified portfolio of low cost intruments such as ETFs or Dimensional Funds. I prefer that over holding STI ETF (STI is a very small index with only 30 stocks on SGX) or just REITs (narrowly focused). There are a lot more opportunities out there - such as the S&P500 index.But if you only have a time horizon of 5 years, I will say put more of your money (like 70-80%) into bond allocation and the remaining in equities. The returns will be lower but with only a 5 year time horizon, you might not be able to take the volaitility risk. My son is around your age and this is the same advice I give him. Invest in a diversified portfolio of low cost ETFs or Dimensional and regularly save a part of your income into it. Hope this helps.

Hi anonymous, thanks for your question. There are A few parts to your question and so I will break it down. 1. About buying STI ETF I am a great believer in buying the Index. This is because, there are enough studies to show that most active managers do not beat the index after cost. Even if they do, they do not beat it consistently. As such, it is very difficult to pick a manager that can do it consistently after cost. And the point is, why do you want to take the risk to find a manager that cannot beat the market consistently if the market gives you enough returns to meet your goal? There is no need to take such risk. ETF is one way to invest in the index. However, while investing in STI is not a bad idea as we are familiar with the local market, STI is a very small market. I would prefer to diversify my portfolio with STI but definitely to bigger markets such as the S&P500. Investing into just STI may also expose you to volatility risk that you cannot accept and as such you get out of the market way too soon and thus not capturing the returns. 1. Using DCA method The thing about DCA is this, in a up market, DCA does worse than investing with a lump sum. And if you look at history of markets, the stock market goes up most of the time. However, as most of us may not have enough lump sum to invest at one go, DCA is not a bad idea. However, the problem with doing DCA using ETF is cost of transaction. Buying ETFs incur brokerage fees and if your regular DCA amount is small, the cost of that trade becomes high and that eats into returns. If I want to do DCA, I will prefer that you invest into a low cost indexed fund or evidence-based fund as such Dimensional. 1. About long term (more than 10 years) Long term is good. Short term is not investing, it is speculation. Over the long term, it has been shown that stock markets always go up. I think anything more than 10 years is reasonable. 1. Will it yield 4-6% p.a. This is something I cannot predict. What the markets can give really depends on many factors such as the future economy, population growth etc. However, I would say that 4-6% p.a from STI over 10 years is a reasonable expectation. 5. Is it a good investment? I think so. However, as mention in (1) above, do not just restrict yourself to STI. Do diversify across other markets. Hope this is helpful!

I asked myself this question a year ago but there was no affordable option to my knowledge then. Today I use interactive brokers to purchase overseas ETFs as it's much more affordable than local brokerages. You can DCA into a few overseas ETFs each month using this platform. The cost is so low ($1 per trade?) that you'd probably be paying the minimum $10 a month charge.

Google it! There are so many. It can also be easily be proven by theory. I believe Seedly has an article on this https://blog.seedly.sg/regular-savings-plan-the-piggy-bank-for-working-adults/

Log into DBS, scroll down to see your RSP account, click on it. There will be a sell option I believe