Buying an Exchanged Traded Fund (ETF) is just like buying any stock in the Stock Exchange. As such, there is a capital gain when the prices of the ETF rises above the purchased price. Some ETFs, like the SPDR® Straits Times Index (STI) ETF (ES3) and NIKKO AM Singapore STI ETF (G3B), also pay dividends. Again, I will use the STI

What exactly is an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF)?  According to Investopedia's definition, an ETF is a security that tracks an index, a commodity or a basket of assets like an index fund but trades like a stock on an exchange. To simplify: 1. ETFs are basically mutual funds that trade like stocks on an stock exchange. 2. ETF

I came across an interesting article from Dr Wealth website today. Dr Wealth (http://www.drwealth.com/) is an online platform managed by a team that provides financial advisory ranging from personal finance, insurance, retirement to investment education.  The article (How Much Returns Do You Really Get From CPF Life? The Truth About CPF Life Premiums - dated 25 Aug 2014) articulates

It came to my attention that the fictitious Mr Tan's - who was made famous in the 2014 National Day Rally - current monthly salary of S$4,500 would place him around the 25th to 30th percentile of Singapore household income ladder. According to the Department of Statistics, in 2013, the average monthly household income for the lowest 10

PM Lee at the 2014 National Day Rally - Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/ PM Lee in the recent concluded National Day Rally spoke at length on a few key points - 1) Honoring our Pioneers (especially our first President Yusof Ishak), 2) Education (is not just the academic route), 3) A new Municipal Services Office (a single point-of-contact to sort

Another poll on CPF. This time it was done by Manulife. 500 online interviews were conducted and I believe that all 500 interviewee were Investors. Screenshot from the article published on 14 Aug 2014. Findings from the survey: 1. Only 21% of those polled were confident that their CPF savings would sufficiently fund their retirement. 2.  47% felt

Andrew Hallam is the author of the book: Millionaire Teacher: The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned at School. He teaches Personal Finance at Singapore American School. And yes, he is really a millionaire teacher. Book cover. Visit http://andrewhallam.com/ for more details. A Teacher? A Millionaire? A middle class salary? Able to grow his wealth? These are

Bank interest rates have been so low for so long that it does not really matter anymore. In recent years, banks have promoting higher interest rates on your deposits (of course, with an * asterisk).  In one of my entries, I have highlighted that i have a sum of money that I will only use if there is

This is a good piece of news. Starting in January 2015,  the Singapore Exchange will reduce the board lot size for listed stocks from the current 1,000 shares to 100. What does that mean to a retail investor like me?  Purchasing of blue-chip stocks like DBS Bank will now be more affordable and it allows me to slowly