Stocks Discussion

Maybe Saxo or Standard Chartered are appropriate for You. When You look up on the broker pages the complete fee schedules You could really calculated on Your own which one is the best for You. The mainstream ones should all be safe. Expect however upcoming dynamics: I generally feel that all the fees and charges are going down ever more with competition and all those fintechs. Also for an ultra-longterm investor, as You should be, the fees of all the general brokers are already so low, that even the standard ones like POEMS ot FSMOne are completely O.K. for a retail investor. More important is, whether they give You possibility to invest in the U.S. + China + Europe. bye, good luck !

Hi, dear Anon, principally You seem to follow my own style, besides VTI you choose three technology ETFs. They had and have high potential, expect a lot of volatility but also risk. Possibly You already read my text?: https://seedly.sg/questions/what-is-your-general-investing-philosophy-strategy Standard thinking - i assume - would advise against being invested in such a high share of technology companies, especially as a beginning investor. I would never recommend that allocation to other persons, but to be honest, I for myself choose a similar approach like You. Make extra sure, that You never panic when there is a tech stock or general drop down. Even when Your portfolio should halve stay then with it. Also recognize that You have a lot of overlap with all these ETFs, even VTI has 6 tech companies under it's top 10 holdings: Microsoft Corporation 4.67% Apple Inc. 4.25% Amazon.com, Inc. 3.44% Facebook, Inc. Class A 1.81% Alphabet Inc. Class A 1.45% Alphabet Inc. Class C 1.38% Johnson & Johnson 1.31% Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Class B 1.18% Visa Inc. Class A 1.11% Procter & Gamble Company 0.97% You can calculate Your ETF overlap here: https://www.etfrc.com/funds/overlap.php QQQ & VGT: 48% overlap by weight QQQ & VTI: 34% overlap by weight VGT & VTI: 26% overlap by weight My own thinking is, that technology will always be the driver of progress of societies and economies, thus the high potential. One important point is that the U.S. were always the tech leaders for decades, but can they persist as leader into the future? Surely China will be upcoming, and in the best case scenario there will be a win-win situation by a U.S.-China global codominance. But it could also happen that China soon will be technology leader #1. Then the U.S. tech stocks could drop a lot. As to Your question: the traditional approach was to recommend to retail investors a mixture of stocks and bonds. Bonds for stability, but this stability and performance (5-7% per year in the past) is not valid anymore. My own approach (though I'didnt follow it yet) would be to substitute bonds for gold, as to stability, but there will not be generated income by gold, only costs (for storing safely). Investing icon Burton Malkiel recommends currently to substitute bonds with dividend stocks, or better dividend stock ETFs, which You own already with VTI (1.91% dividend yield per year). Here is an interesting recent podcast where he is interviewed: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-023-dr-burton-malkiel-host-rick-ferri/id1436401528?i=1000482482893 He was the first one to suggest to stay with average returns (passive investing), which his friend Jack Bogle then enacted with index funds. (They had arguments over ETFs, which interestingly were a no-go for Bogle). What I could recommend: I feel You're in need of better diversification. Some alternatives would be to have more global/other diversification with appropriate ETFs for: global allocation (MSCI World, MSCI ACWI, PGJ, or if technology) China (here it is very difficult to know which index is the best): ?A50, ?CSI300, ?ex state owned, ?PGJ, or technology ETF CQQQ Biotechnology some European exposure Emerging markets possibly are to risky and not better than western countries + China physical gold could be nice REITs (U.S: VNQ, Europe: IQQP, Singapore S-REIT ETFs, global REIT ETFs). As to Ireland domiciled ETFs: they do better, when the dividend yield is high and the TER fees comparable, there is no good definition for 'high dividend' ETFs, however for VOO or VTI with around 2% dividend yield Ireland-domiciled ones have better overall performance when withholding tax is acknowledged. GOOD LUCK, take care !

You have a long investing horizon! Just take your time to understand the product and read up more on other investment vehicles to see which will suit you best. These days (as compared to my time), there are a lot more sharing among people online on how they're investing, so you can get some insights, which can be helpful in shaping your direction. I recommend joining the Seedly Facebook group for a start, as the discussions there are quite robust. All the best!

Did you buy the mentioned stocks because of dividend yields? If so you may be in trouble somewhere in the future. High dividend yielding stocks may have unsustainable payout ratios and if their gearing ratio is high (eg >38%~) they may not have enough cash for the short term. For your question, Yes, after Ex Div, the stock price will go down because the cash it was holding was distributed. Stock price should not matter much to you if you are holding a solid, dividend growing Reit/stock. Industrial REITs are defensive in nature and will be suitable for dividend plays. Retail REITs are more cyclical while office REITs are in between the two. Hospitality REITs will really depend on whether travel and tourism is booming but that won't be the case IMO for the immediate future. At the end of the day, come up with your own investing strategy and stick to it. Ignore the market noises and take comments online with a pinch of salt. That said, this is my two cents and you should take this with a pinch of salt too. Hope it helps

Indeed you do not necessarily get poorer results just because of a geographical location. Warren buffett advocates staying within your circle of competence, fundamentally u should be looking for an edge if as a consumer in the local context can give you that then you should maximize it but then again alot of the services we use nowadays are international i.e apps u commonly used. The fundamentals are to invest in what you know.

Hi anon, You'll want to start by opening a CDP account online first with your Singpass. https://investors.sgx.com/cdp-account-opening/#/myinfo-form-intro Once your CDP account is open, you can open a couple of brokerage accounts with 2-3 firms and try them all out. There are no limits to how many brokerage accounts you can have, as long as you can keep track of them. Sometimes it might be useful to have a backup account with another brokerage, as you never know when you might face a outage of service from one broker. (This has happened before). If you're looking at S$25/trade and a 0.28% minimum, then you'll usually need around $9000/trade to make it worthwhile.

Behind every stock, there is a company and its business environment is constantly changing due to competition, macro outlook, customers behaviours, government intervention, etc. Hence, that said there is no "safe stocks". Remember that police banner around our neighbourhoods that say "Low crime doesn't mean no crime"? Lower risk of insolvency or business going down hill doesn't mean no risk. You will need to monitor these stocks too. If you feel confident in learning and analysing about them, you can try your hands in stocks. Otherwise, DCA in US ETFs (you may want to go for Ireland-domiciled ones to have a lower witholding tax) with robo-advisors (or FSMOne) can be a viable option.

%fee & minimum fee Interactive Brokers 0.05% 1.25 EUR SAXO Markets 0.10% 10 EUR Standard Chartered 0.25% 10 EUR Maybank Kim Eng 0.30% UK 20 GBP KGI Securities 0.50% 70 EUR OCBC Securities 1.00% 60 EUR

The moment I read your question, and saw that your reasoning on buying SIA is because "Price is quite low", I immediately understand that you know nothing about the fundamentals of SIA. The price of a stock alone tells you NOTHING about a business. What if SIA drops to $2 next month? Or worse Temasek decides to not bail SIA and SIA becomes a penny stock. Are you going to buy it? Because it's price is low isn't it. As a beginner, it is easy to be swayed by news to buy into the "Hot stock" in this case SIA. From a fundamental standpoint, SIA has been a struggling business even before COVID-19, they have an unhealthy debt-equity ratio and their capacity for growth are limited. Nowadays airlines are offering similar quality as SIA (Ethihad, Qatar) and even budget options for short haul flight, with this Covid situation, do you think demand will be back to Pre-Covid levels??? Applying some common sense, you will understand that SIA is a really troubled business in a really troubled industry. Several airlines are already facing insolvencies (look at Virgin Australia) and you need to also understand about Rights issues. Like Warren Buffett said, he sold off all his stake in major airlines stocks in March because he made a mistake and can no longer see what is the future ahead for the industry. Instead of looking at price, go and learn up your fundamental analysis, like how to value a company and reading a company balance sheet. If you can't do that, you should NOT be buying individual stocks at all and better off buying an INDEX ETF instead. I am speaking facts and from history, and even from a cognitive standpoint, as beginner investors often think they can pick winning stocks like the professionals (myself included). Buy a Simple ETF and just dollar cost average into it, it is a time tested, fool proof strategy that works every damn time. Even suggested by Warren Buffett. Hope this helps. To anyone wanting to buy into an individual stock by looking at PRICE, I suggest you to think twice and build up your knowledge first. Investing is not a get rich quick scheme nor gambling, it is a marathon about making the least mistake and having holding power.

Under normal circumstances, there's not much concern instead, it brings convenience as it lowers the barrier of entry (lower investment requirement). It is also easier for (re)balancing the portfolio to the user's allocation. However, if the company were to cease operation, there may be some issues. It is uncertain whether you are able to port over your investment to other companies due to the odd lots. As such, you may be forced to liquidate your holdings.