Isn't Standard Chartered bank the best :)

[skipper]

Agree the interest isnt much, Its about 39$ per month. But then I am not even looking at the interest, I was just looking at the 200$ cash back.

I have 85k SGD cash lying in my savings account. Tell me which instrument in Singapore will give me decent yield? I dont want to put it in equities as I already have substantial amount in it. I have looked at term deposits and they are as pathetic as the savings rates. Initially I looked at Foreign currency deposits like AUD, which seems to give better rate, but there is that exchange rate risk.

I am waiting for my PR application result. If its positive, then may be I will make a home purchase and now raising the cash for the downpayment.

If its negative, I transfer it to India and make a property purchase there right away.

The thing is since SGD has been appreciating all this while compared to INR, in INR terms I am still making a decent yield.

And besides recently I read this joke somewhere "In the current market, people are not worried about Return on Investment, but rather Return of the investment"

Any decent bond fund with a manager worth his salt - schroders, fidelity, first state, even UOB have some good performing fixed income funds at present.

SC are bum f*cking you on that return if it's linked with spending - all that hassle for $200 and I'm guessing you're locked in for at least 3-6 months - you've got too much time on your hands, RH!

And I'd be pulling your money right out of equities at the moment.......

You are right. I wonder why I never thought of the bonds option. I opened an account with Fundsupermart like couple of years back but never bought anything.

I guess I thought bond funds too have the exchange rate risks as the best performing funds are usually emerging market bond funds? I am going spend some time researching on these. Thanks!

You got suckered by SCB. For $50K in an SG-denominated Allianz bond fund (ALNZ-US HY-AMH2S, relatively low risk), I been receiving $322.54 monthly. And I got back the $1.5K bank fees just after 3 months.

[revhappy]

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[revhappy]

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[BillyB]

@BillyB, I cant thank you enough for the advice you gave.
I invested 35k in United SGD Fund and 45k in Nikko AM Shenton short term bond fund and in the last 1 week I have got a return of 50$ on the 80K. This just awesome considering how conservative these funds are.

I am just kicking myself, why didnt i start doing this 6 months ago.

No worries - I can't take credit but it's always good to know that there are other options than a term deposit with a bank.

I'm losing my patience with SC as between themselves and Mastercard they bum f*cked me the other week on an FX transaction - I paid 350 bps in fees.........

[BillyB]

Agree the interest isnt much, Its about 39$ per month. But then I am not even looking at the interest, I was just looking at the 200$ cash back.

I have 85k SGD cash lying in my savings account. Tell me which instrument in Singapore will give me decent yield? I dont want to put it in equities as I already have substantial amount in it. I have looked at term deposits and they are as pathetic as the savings rates. Initially I looked at Foreign currency deposits like AUD, which seems to give better rate, but there is that exchange rate risk.

I am waiting for my PR application result. If its positive, then may be I will make a home purchase and now raising the cash for the downpayment.

If its negative, I transfer it to India and make a property purchase there right away.

The thing is since SGD has been appreciating all this while compared to INR, in INR terms I am still making a decent yield.

And besides recently I read this joke somewhere "In the current market, people are not worried about Return on Investment, but rather Return of the investment"

Any decent bond fund with a manager worth his salt - schroders, fidelity, first state, even UOB have some good performing fixed income funds at present.

SC are bum f*cking you on that return if it's linked with spending - all that hassle for $200 and I'm guessing you're locked in for at least 3-6 months - you've got too much time on your hands, RH!

And I'd be pulling your money right out of equities at the moment.......

@BillyB, Did some research and decided to stick to short duration bonds as they are quite conservative and lower interest rate risk.

In that space United SGD fund seems to the most consistent performer.
http://www.fundsupermart.com/main/admin ... 370124.pdf

Also this fund is managed from the SGD point of view and hence the fund manager is going to look at returns in SGD. The other global bond funds may do well, but the exchange rate movements are much larger than the returns/losses themselves and hence too risky.

I dont want to over diversify so going to put all my idle cash about 80k SGD into it. What do you think? Safe enough? I dont care if I dont get any returns as long as I dont lose like more than 2% of the capital invested. I am going to use fundsupermart as they have 0% entry fee for fixed income funds.

Good choice - capital preservation is key in a low-interest rate market, and throwing it into an SGD denominated fund makes complete sense as it removes currency risk.

[skipper]

You are right. I wonder why I never thought of the bonds option. I opened an account with Fundsupermart like couple of years back but never bought anything.

I guess I thought bond funds too have the exchange rate risks as the best performing funds are usually emerging market bond funds? I am going spend some time researching on these. Thanks!

You got suckered by SCB. For $50K in an SG-denominated Allianz bond fund (ALNZ-US HY-AMH2S, relatively low risk), I been receiving $322.54 monthly. And I got back the $1.5K bank fees just after 3 months.

Btw, the fund that you have chosen, is high yield and high risk and invests in junk bond. Be careful, you may not continue to get the same kind of returns for too long.

Read this article, read the very last line in which your fund has been mentioned

http://www.fundsupermart.com/main/resea ... cleNo=7328

And yet they classify the fund as a 4 (moderately low risk)
Anyway, I bought when the fund was launched. Let's see..

[revhappy]

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[JayCee]

Looks like our favourite Investment banking IT expert has removed all his posts, why?

[zzm9980]

Looks like our favourite Investment banking IT expert has removed all his posts, why?

I'm guessing someone who knows him saw the posts and identified him, and his net worth/assets. I don't know who he is/was, but he did post quite a bit of identifying details. Specific industry, Salary range, time in country, location of child's birth, etc. Someone who knew him probably tagged him really fast.

[NU]

Did think so until was told this wk that one of their bankers had intercepted a cheque of our for 4K!