Sg bonds listed in SGX

This is the last of the 3 part series detailing all the fixed income listed in SGX. For those who just came in to read about this article, a little background of why I'm doing this. I'm trying to plan out my parent's retirement fund. They gave me 50k not too long ago and I guaranteed a 2% pa, capital guaranteed LP bond to them, so I'm fulfilling my part of the bargain by doing the necessary background research in order to make their money work harder...

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Preference shares listed in sgx

Preference shares are quite similar to bonds. Unlike bonds, preference shares might not be able to pay out dividends in certain years, but that usually means that the ordinary shares holders won't get their dividends too. If bond issuers are unable to pay out coupons, they will be in default and that's very serious because it means that a lot of debtors will also be howling for their blood. Click for a bigger pic. Check the data yourself, I...

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Retail bonds listed in SGX

I'm sharing this summary of the retail bonds that are listed in sgx for those who are in the same boat as me - trying to piece up a portfolio of fixed income instruments for your own or your parent's portfolio. Those who do not know about bonds, I can share a bit here. Click to enlarge. I might be wrong, so do your due diligence Crash course on bonds: 1. There's a par value for every bond. In the case of all the retail bonds listed in...

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Issues to think about for portfolio allocation

With other people's money comes great responsibility. Well, over the last couple of days, I was doing intensive research on the various preference shares, corporate bonds and sg bonds. I decided that I'll just put those funds in fixed income instead of equities so that things are a lot more predictable. I'll have predictability in cash flow and more stability in portfolio value. I'm always thinking that I'm the one who's guaranteeing the money,...

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LP bonds are oversubscribed!

La Papillion is now officially a fund manager. I don't know whether this is a good development or not...I'd like to see it as a positive one. Before you start thinking I've joined some fancy company as a employee, nah, I'm not. I've simply the fund manager of my parent's retirement money. This follows my post a week earlier regarding an assignment that my mum tasked me to do. Following some readers comments that I should issue my own LP bond...

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Where to invest your mum's 50k

Interesting assignment that my mum gave me this morning. She wanted to put in 50k for her savings to get more returns instead of the usual savings. I think she got this lump sum after her previous fixed deposits expired. She wanted me to look into some instruments where she can get better returns but she don't want to put it into the stock market for fear of eroding her capital. I also won't recommend that she put it into the stock market when...

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Far from the madding crowd

When we’re in a social context, we tend to look at each other’s good points, totally ignore the bad, and lament how far behind our peers we had fallen to. Some occasions, you might be far better than others but there are always others better than you. That's how the game is to be played and that’s also the reason why I don’t like social occasions – those meet-your-primary-school-mates or meet-your-secondary-school-mates gathering. I think...

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Thoughts about STI part 3

After looking at Drizzt's blog regarding the yearly percentage returns from Dow Jones here, I wanted to have a look to see how our very own STI would look like if the same information is sliced up and presented. Source: The raw data of ^STI is taken directly from Yahoo! Finance site here. The adjusted closing price is used and according to the same site, it refers to the closing price for each day adjusted for splits and dividends. Calculation...

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Finding the lemonade out of the lemons

Maintaining a household is not cheap. After about 2.5 yrs of wear and tear through usage and plain old 'depreciation', things start to break up a little for my home. Initially when well informed friends told me that I need to set up a fund to pay for such eventualities, I brushed them off saying that there's no need for such things and I can live with the wear and tear. I bravely and foolishly thought that it's just cosmetics (I can live with...

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3 Things to be grateful for

Since this month is December, a great holiday for students and a more laid back month for those working, I thought I should do a post to reflect upon the things that I'm grateful for in my life. I think in life, we focus a lot on the things that we do not have and not so much on the things that we had. It's a good time to put things in their right perspective. I don't know who said this, but I'm pretty sure it goes something like this: If you can't...

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New clothes for BullyTheBear

It's time to change a new template for bullythebear. It had been 5 years since I've last changed a new template, so I guess the time is ripe for another change. This change will make the 3rd major change since I started since blog. As always, it'll be dark themed. So if you're waiting for Bullythebear to have a white based theme, haha, wait longer! I think darker themes is easier on the eyes when reading, at least to me. Since the current template...

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Tightening my belt in December

As December approaches, I'll be careful to monitor my mental health for signs of depression. Why? I think I'm sort of a workaholic. Work fulfills me, not just in terms of the obvious financial gains that I will get, but also it's therapeutic to me. I cannot recall the countless times that doing my work (tutoring) makes me feel better. As year end approaches, I get 'retrenched'. Whatever amount of salary that I accumulated from the start of the year...

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Desktop productivity tools

I'm always very interested in improving my workflow. I don't own a laptop and most of my work is done on a desktop pc. For me, a non-cluttered pc desktop, a non-cluttered physical desktop, a clean and aesthetic software and stationery that boosts my productivity are paramount before I start something heavy (and possibly dreary). Take it as a planned procrastination, but that's how I gear up my momentum before I dive into something big. I'll...

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The relative size of your problems

"To be successful in life is to continuously be defeated by bigger and bigger things". I was just showering when I suddenly remembered that phrase I've read it from somewhere. I tried googling it but couldn't find anything remotely close to it. Doesn't matter. I think this phrase ties in with two blog posts that I've written many years ago here and here, about growing bigger than your problems so that the problems that you had seems like flies...

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My plan for my wife when I pass away

While having lunch in a subway outlet, me and my wife started talking about something morbid. It's about our plans for each other when we pass away prematurely, like within the next few years. It wasn't a morbid topic for me though. I thought that we should talk about such issues so that we have a feel for each other's plan. In the eventuality that we pass away, we can do so in peace with the knowledge that the other party is well taken care off....

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The advice from an economist lecturer

This is an interesting story that I heard, the source of which I will not mention to protect the people involved. There is an economics lecturer in a university, and we shall call him John. He is middle age, with adult kids. The kids had migrated over to Australia for reasons unknown to me, but he's still staying here in Singapore, earning a more than decent living working part time as a lecturer. The other part time work that he's doing is that...

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Paying down your debts or invest the cash?

If you have spare cash, would you dump it to make a partial payment of your mortgage loans or would you invest it so that you can generate more returns? Sooner or later, I think that's the question that you will have to face in your life. The philosophy and the baggage that you carry with you will determine which decision you'll make. Let's put in the context. I used HDB's loans with interest of 2.6% pa, spanning over 30 yrs. My monthly mortgage,...

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Thoughts after 1 month of YNAB

I've finally reached the 1 month mark of using the personal finance software, You Need A Budget (YNAB). It's the first time that my expenses are measured to the cents, inclusive of all the accounts that I had. In the past, I didn't include the cash in my wallet and neither did I group all the spending I had using my credit card and cash together. For example, if I've spent $100 on food using cash and another $50 on food using credit card, I didn't take into account that I spent $150 on food. It's a simpler inclusion in my spreadsheet to do it,...

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I don't know

It's so easy to say the three words, "I don't know". By saying that, you don't have to put more effort anymore. You don't have to try anymore and you certainly don't have to blame yourself for not knowing. Just by saying I don't know, you absolve yourself of all responsibilities. Suddenly, it's other people's problem - those who 'know' - and you just have to wait for them to help you solve it. The difference between a good student and a bad...

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5 reasons why you need YNAB (and 3 reasons why you don't)

This is an unpaid review of You Need A Budget, also known as YNAB. I bought it last month from steam at a discount, but had long heard of it by others who gave rave reviews about this personal finance software. Since it's at a great discount of 75%, I decided to plunge into it and try it for myself. Prior to this leap in using the software, I already had a working excel spreadsheet that works for me for the past 5 or so years. The spreadsheet is...

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