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House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

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BBCWatcher
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Re: House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

Post by BBCWatcher » Fri, 11 Mar 2016 11:53 am

Wd40 wrote:There are indian mutual funds which invest globally and quote in INR although underlying assets are not INR....
I don't think any of those funds are index funds, and I prefer index funds to actively managed funds, with the assumption we're dealing with reasonably well developed financial markets.
However the tax treatment is different. These are taxed, while mutual funds which invest in Indian equities are exempt from taxes if they are held for more than 1 yr.
Understood. Getting a tax advantage is a very good reason to hold an asset, but you still have other factors such as diversification that are also important. I also assume that there are ways to manage tax burdens at least somewhat. For example, if there is a capital gains tax, but the tax is only owed when the capital gain is realized, then you can defer the sale of taxable assets and/or "mix" regular sales of taxable assets with regular sales of tax advantaged assets in order to keep the former within lower tax brackets. If you want to get really fancy there's also something called "tax loss harvesting," which means (if the tax code allows it) you sell some assets at a loss (or at a lower gain in a lower tax bracket) and reinvest those funds in something different enough to satisfy the tax code but similar enough for your continuing investment purposes. There are some trading costs to do that, but sometimes that technique makes sense, if legally permitted of course.

Many governments offer tax advantages only for their domestic companies -- that's pretty common. Singapore does the same thing through CPF and SRS. But I do not recommend holding only Singapore-headquartered company stocks and other Singapore-based assets, even if you never leave Singapore. That's at least a bit too risky for my tastes, even considering the tax breaks.
PNGMK wrote:I don't know about Vanguard... I know people who are still negative in it from the 90's.
Vanguard is just a low cost, mutually owned (by its investors) manager. It offers numerous fund choices, so there's no "it" (singular) in terms of funds.

But sure, it's possible to lose money with even the best, lowest cost fund manager. For example, if you bought a Vanguard fund that invested solely or predominantly in NASDAQ stocks (U.S. exchange heavy with technology stocks), you bought that fund in one or a couple big payments at or near the peak of the "Dot Com" bubble, and then you did nothing else, then that asset might be worth less today than it was back then. But I didn't and don't recommend anything like that. That's not investing, that's gambling. Japan would be another example: if you had bad timing and made one or only a few purchases at or near the peak of that market, your asset would still be worth less today than it was in 1989.

Dollar (or rupee) cost averaging, long time horizons, well diversified holdings, and low total cost vehicles are all important success factors.

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Re: House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

Post by BBCWatcher » Fri, 11 Mar 2016 12:09 pm

One follow-up point. Very rarely there are occasions when it makes sense to deviate from a dollar (or rupee) cost averaging savings program. That happened in 2008-2009, in the U.S. financial markets during the Financial Crisis. At that point in time I doubled up on some purchases. It was pretty obvious there was a market panic. And, my goodness did I get some bargains back then. That was/is lovely. So I don't actually mind when markets go down. That just means I'm buying more, automatically. And if they *really* go down then I might deviate from the program and buy even more, as an exception. That 2008-2009 period might have been a once-in-a-lifetime exception, though.

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Re: RE: Re: House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

Post by RoastBeefBaron » Sat, 12 Mar 2016 12:23 am

Wd40 wrote:Yes, you can open a dbs multicurrency account. You can keep your money in some 7 currencies.

But don't use DBS to do the currency conversion. Do it yourself at a money changer in Arcade.

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Sorry to derail the thread, but I understand that if you try to deposit a foreign currency into a DBS foreign currency account, they'll slug you with a whopping fee that's actually more than what you've saved from using the change alley wide boys in the first place?

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Re: House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

Post by JR8 » Sat, 12 Mar 2016 2:04 am

Well quite RBB, that is very true. I never had a foreign currency a/c in SG. Kept in in S$ then once or twice a year > Change alley > home currency then took it home in cash, banked it and invested it in something more competitive and rewarding back there. Even say knocking 5% off your mortgage capital beat any SGn depo a/c returns... sometimes you simply need to identify the 'trees that are amongst the woods' rather than being dazzled and distracted by the extent of the woods.
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Re: House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

Post by BBCWatcher » Sat, 12 Mar 2016 9:08 am

That's been my experience also, that foreign (non-local) currency bank accounts are generally unattractive deals. There are other, better, lower cost ways to get some currency diversification. See upthread for some ideas.

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Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

Post by Wd40 » Sat, 12 Mar 2016 9:42 am

RoastBeefBaron wrote:
Wd40 wrote:Yes, you can open a dbs multicurrency account. You can keep your money in some 7 currencies.

But don't use DBS to do the currency conversion. Do it yourself at a money changer in Arcade.

Sent from my Redmi Note 2 using Tapatalk
Sorry to derail the thread, but I understand that if you try to deposit a foreign currency into a DBS foreign currency account, they'll slug you with a whopping fee that's actually more than what you've saved from using the change alley wide boys in the first place?

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
Not true. I have personally deposited and withdrawn HKD from branch, no fees charged.

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Re: House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

Post by RoastBeefBaron » Sat, 12 Mar 2016 3:45 pm

Thanks, that's great. I got the fee from page 17 of DBS' deposits guide, as below. It applies to foreign currency current account. What's the 'official' name of the account you have?

Image

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Re: House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

Post by Wd40 » Sat, 12 Mar 2016 4:15 pm

It is called DBS e-multicurrency auto save account. It is pg 7 of the same document that you shared :)

The account type you shared is a single currency account, while the one I am talking about is the multicurrency one. Interesting thing is single currency account has a fee for deposits but the multicurrency one doesn't, I wonder why so.

Edit: Ah got it! Read pg 18 of that document the account you are talking about is no longer offered.

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Re: House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

Post by RoastBeefBaron » Sat, 12 Mar 2016 4:48 pm

Good catch, didn't think of that. Cheers!

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Re: House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

Post by cassandrav » Tue, 22 Mar 2016 6:20 pm

Its better to buy in low cost! I am actually irritated with my owner, who has given us an old CRT TV and its already 18 years old. Now, it has been damaged and she is asking us to pay for new TV. Its hardly 2 months since we shifted there and I can't understand how can she keep a old TV and asking us to buy a new one, if we want. In fact nobody will repair that TV too.

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Re: House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

Post by JR8 » Tue, 22 Mar 2016 6:22 pm

How is your TV connected to house prices?
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Re: House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

Post by rajagainstthemachine » Tue, 22 Mar 2016 8:16 pm

cassandrav wrote:Its better to buy in low cost! I am actually irritated with my owner, who has given us an old CRT TV and its already 18 years old. Now, it has been damaged and she is asking us to pay for new TV. Its hardly 2 months since we shifted there and I can't understand how can she keep a old TV and asking us to buy a new one, if we want. In fact nobody will repair that TV too.
kill her! and then hang her body outside the door, that'll show her, and yes it'll bring hourse prices down too :mrgreen:
To get there early is on time and showing up on time is late

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Re: House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

Post by cassandrav » Wed, 06 Apr 2016 6:48 pm

rajagainstthemachine wrote:
cassandrav wrote:Its better to buy in low cost! I am actually irritated with my owner, who has given us an old CRT TV and its already 18 years old. Now, it has been damaged and she is asking us to pay for new TV. Its hardly 2 months since we shifted there and I can't understand how can she keep a old TV and asking us to buy a new one, if we want. In fact nobody will repair that TV too.
kill her! and then hang her body outside the door, that'll show her, and yes it'll bring hourse prices down too :mrgreen:
..Lol... I can't do that! I am angry, but her age isn't allowing me to raise my hand. But ya, spoke straight off. She is stubborn won't change her mind she said.

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Re: House Prices could drop by a Quarter?

Post by cassandrav » Thu, 23 Jun 2016 2:22 pm

JR8 wrote:How is your TV connected to house prices?
Then what about my monthly rental? Ain't related to house price? Hence said buy homes when it is available at low cost or else you will have to face such arrogant owners in near future.

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