Investment Moats

Reviewing the Great Eastern MaxSave Plus – 2.54% Yield a Year after 18 Years

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I have a friend who knows that I collect the returns of these matured insurance savings plans.

I wish to satisfy my thirst to find out how close or far they are off the projections that their insurance adviser showed them in the past.

You can review all the past insurance endowment returns my friends and readers have provided me in Does your Insurance Saving Plans (Endowment) give you 3 to 5% returns?

I known my friend for some time first as a customer in my old company and then as a colleague when he joined us sometime later.

After servicing his Great Eastern MaxSave Plus for 18 years, it has finally matured and will get back his principal and returns.

The statement my friend receive recently.

My friend put in $102.40 as a forced saving every month for 18 years. The total premiums paid amount to $22,118.

The sum payable to my friend recently is $28,317. During this period, he has not taken any cash benefit and has put it back into the policy, earning a 3% return.

Many people would have computed his returns as (($28317 – $22118)/ $22118+1)^(1/18)-1 = 1.38% a year.

This is not an accurate way of computing his compounded returns since his contribution happens throughout the 18 years and not a lump sum upfront.

We often try to find out the internal rate of return of this stream of cash inflow and cash outflow of my friend as an accurate measure. For the layman, think of this as the “interest rate a year” you earned for this uneven stream of cash inflow and cash outflow.

If you have any doubts whether this is the right way to compute a policy’s return, in recent years, the insurance companies are publishing the projected policy yield that you earned based on internal rate of return.

MWRR/XIRR represents the internal rate of return for this MaxSave Plus investment.

The internal rate of return is closer to 2.54%.

In the spectrum of returns that I have reviewed in the past this one is closer to the low side.

You can then compare this 2.54% a year against the returns and risk of investments you made during this period, be it stocks, unit trust, bonds, government bonds, properties.

For reference here are a summary of the rest of the policies that I have reviewed in the past:

If you have a matured policies and are pretty OK for me to share it with readers do contact me at [email protected]

I started this crowdsource because I am not sure if the returns from endowment plans are atrocious or respectable.

No one shares their returns around.

If you are interested in the details of the MaxSave Plus, you can continue to browse the rest of this post.

How should we compare the 2.54% return to?

I think the returns of the 10-Year Singapore Government Bond Securities is a good comparison because the duration is long, and the asset class is closer to what makes up the participating fund of the investments behind the endowment funds.

In May 2002 the 10-Year SGS Yield is 3.44%

It will be easy to say that my friend should just purchase the less risk 10-year SGS bonds.

However, that would not be an apples to apples comparison because my friend was putting in money every year instead of a lump sum at the start.

Just use this as a reference.

What is the Great Eastern MaxSave Plus?

If I were to share my honest opinion, I would expect the yield on this policy to be higher than the 2.54% we see.

The reason is that

  1. The duration of this policy is longer, and thus the insurer can assign the money into longer duration bonds and equities that potentially have higher returns expectations
  2. Whether the reinvested interest rate is 3% or 4%, it is higher than this 2.54%

Back then my friend might be 3 to 4 years into his young career and looking for something as a form of forced saving.

Great Eastern MaxSave Plus is an endowment policy. The primary aim is to help you save money at a reasonable rate.

My friend had to commit to a fixed monthly premium payment of $102.40 a month for 18 years.

A feature about the MaxSave Plus is that from year 2 onwards, the plan pays out an annual cash benefit to you. The cash benefit of $600 a year looks to be guaranteed.

On the last year, the cash benefit payout is $2,400 instead.

I reckon this plan sells very well at that time since it is a very nice feeling to have a plan that pays out cash flow to you.

You can choose not to take the cash benefit and reinvest back into the endowment plan. The reinvested amounts grow at a non-guaranteed rate of 4% a year.

My friend choose to deposit his cash benefit instead of spending it.

I would have thought the interest rate earned on the deposited cash benefit is 4% but it seems to indicate that the interest rate on cash benefit has fallen to 3%.

This interest is after all non-guaranteed.

Projected Surrender Value back in 2002

My friend showed me the total policy benefit that was illustrated to him back in 2002:

Based on the projections, my friend would only break even on his premiums almost at maturity of his plan.

We can also see that the projected investment rate of return is much higher at 6.75% and 3.75% versus the 4.75% and 3.25% we use nowadays.

The strange thing is that based on the surrender value, it already projected that the MaxSave Plus plan would yield my friend just 2.5% a year.

That does not look very attractive to a lot of people. I guess the appeal of a policy will depend on how the policy was explained to my friend.

The idea of getting an annual cash benefit of $600 a year do sound good. What would be hard for most of us to get around is that to get that 2.5% a year return, you cannot take out the $600 a year cash benefit, which defeats the cash benefit feature.

Projected Maturity Value Reduces as Time Passes

The total maturity value at maturity was supposed to be $29,523. However, if we review the bonus statements my friend receive from 2007 to 2009, we would notice that the projected maturity value indicates the maturity value will be much lower:

From $29k to $26k.

Then to $15.3k.

Then back up to $15.8 k.

Eventually, at maturity, my friend received $28,317 in total.

The return that my friend get does not look too far from the original returns projected in 2002.

I wonder if the insurance firm revised the projected maturity value lower, would they eventually bumped it up if the investment return does better?

My hunch is that in reality it is very unlikely that the insurance firm will revised the maturity value higher for two reasons:

  1. The insurance firms are rather careful in projecting the returns. Majority of the portfolio are lower in volatility and more predictable and as such a large percentage of the returns should not surprise
  2. Markets seldom surprised on the upside so suddenly that will make the most recent revised projected maturity look too wrong

I suspect that if my friend does not take all his cash benefits, the eventual maturity value based on the original projection in 2002 should be closer to $29,523 + $12,000 = $41,523.

However, based on the actual performance, the insurer can only pay out $28,317.

The Lessons That You Can Learn from this Review

Some of my blogging friends will say if there is one lesson to learn about reviewing the actual returns, it is that you should only trust guarantee returns in the projection.

I find that to be hard to accept because, if you look at the guarantee returns of recent policies, the guaranteed returns projection is very, very low.

Like 0.9% low.

If you are locking in your money for 20 years, you should expect some premium to having your money locked up.

If you are only expected guaranteed returns, and the returns barely break even, then why do you lock up your money at all?

The only reason you will invest is that you are alright with the returns of a conservative investment return projection.

That tends to be 3.25% instead of the 4.75% that the insurer would like to anchor your brain into.

If there is one lesson to be learn, it is that

  1. Projections are projections. Expect the Reality to be different.
  2. You do not like the unpredictability and volatility of other financial assets. The underlying instruments of the endowment plans are the same volatile instruments, so the projected values are going to be volatile whether you like it or not
  3. The biggest volatility you will face is the volatility between the projection and the expectations in your own head. You will only know whether your decision is right or not 20 years from now.

Do Like Me on Facebook. I share some tidbits that is not on the blog post there often. You can also choose to subscribe to my content via email below.

I break down my resources according to these topics:

  1. Building Your Wealth Foundation – If you know and apply these simple financial concepts, your long term wealth should be pretty well managed. Find out what they are
  2. Active Investing – For the active stock investors. My deeper thoughts from my stock investing experience
  3. Learning about REITs – My Free “Course” on REIT Investing for Beginners and Seasoned Investors
  4. Dividend Stock Tracker – Track all the common 4-10% yielding dividend stocks in SG
  5. Free Stock Portfolio Tracking Google Sheets that many love
  6. Retirement Planning, Financial Independence and Spending down money – My deep dive into how much you need to achieve these, and the different ways you can be financially free
  7. Providend – Where I work doing research. Fee-Only Advisory. No Commissions. Financial Independence Advisers and Retirement Specialists. No charge for the first meeting to understand how it works

Long Term Ramifications on Demand for Commercial Offices

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Out of the many things I have read, it was a post at Housing Wire that made me wonder whether we are thinking too much in the present and not stepping back and referencing back to the baseline.

Real estate are traditionally less correlated with the equity markets. This time they are really showing less correlation. Various segments are dying together with the equity markets bar a few real estate segments, who are thriving instead.

Tenants have zero revenue and therefore cannot pay rent. The whole chain of parties from landlords, corporate lenders, shareholders, suppliers are all affected.

Many commentators are saying people in history will reference the period before Covid-19 and post Covid-19 as a pivotal period where all things change.

I think they are right but like always it is the extend of the change that may matter more. One of the tough thing to do in investing is valuing businesses because the nature of the business changes and this affect the intrinsic value of the company.

Usually, we are able to put our money down when we have higher conviction. Usually, certain aspect of that company we are certain about. What Covid-19 did was to make us question whether what was once certain will continue to be certain after this or will change entirely.

The real estate sector have been certain for a long time. Even within the sector, there are changes in trends. However, they take place in a past that every stake holders can adjust to.

Now, everyone seem to think that with work from home, there are no need for offices. I think there will be moderation, but this is not new. It will be the pace we are talking about.

Even with 10-20% overall vacancy will kill the valuation of certain property portfolios.

How big will the effect be? I am not sure.

In this post, I pulled together some of the things I have reader on this subject. I will list out some of the main points that stood out to me.

Everyone Down the Line is Affected

Animal Spirits: Investing in Corporate Real Estate >>

An interview with the manager of a USA ETF that focuses on triple net lease REITs, or REITs whose tenant pay for almost all the costs. I first shared about the appeal of net-lease REITs in this post here.

The parent company of the ETF is collaborating with huge asset manager Brookfield Asset Management to carry out sale-and-leaseback deals to help businesses that are hit a deal with cash flow better.

While there are aids provided by the government, it is not enough. The banks are not lending out as they should.

Some of the triple net lease REITs were affected because the tenants are Restaurants, Gyms, Day Care.

Surprisingly multi-family homes may be affected in the long run because of people relocating to other cities.

The appeal of net lease properties is that the tenants have long term contractual obligations. The tenants cannot break the lease easily.

The net lease REITs are taking the approach of working with their tenants to defer the rent, and then amortizing the rent over the rest of the contractual terms.

Everyone becomes a loser:

  1. Tenant cannot pay the rent
  2. Landlord takes a hit
  3. Corporate borrowers take a hit
  4. Shareholders take a hit as well

When tenant goes bankrupt, everyone down the line takes a hit as well.

In order to invest, you have to believe that in the long term, things will go back to normal.

That is, you will drop off your kids at day care, you will go to restaurants to eat.

They are seeing business picking up in different industries. Consumer behavior changes and so does how business is carried out. And so the revenue are recovering as well.

They also observed that suburban real estate is really growing.

Facebook CEO’s Future Office Policy in Full

Ramp Capital LLC: What we can learn from Global Workplace Analytics

The Death of Cities >>

Accroding to Gallup, Americans don’t want to live in big cities, they want to live in rural areas. The reason they live in big cities are for jobs and opportunities.

Data from Global Workplace Analytics:

  1. Only 3.6% of U.S employee workforce currently work from home 50% of the time or more
  2. 43% of employees work from home with some frequency
  3. 56% of the employees have a job where at least some of what they could do could be done remotely
  4. Studies show desks are vacant 50-60% of the time
  5. 80% of the employees say they would want to work from home at least some of the time
  6. 35% of employees would change jobs for opportunity to work remotely full time (Millennials much more than Boomers)
  7. 37% of employees would do so to work remotely some of the time (Millennials much more than Boomers)
  8. Greater than 33% of workers would take a paycut of up to 5% in exchange for the option to work remotely at lease some of the time. 25% would take a 10% paycut. 20% will take an even greater paycut

Moving to suburban places are more appealing. The rents in major cities are too expensive.

The cities with affordable housing and zero state income taxes may become very appealing to educated and rich workers.

On Facebook’s new policy: If you move away from the city, you are most likely to take a pay cut. There are trade-offs and you have to think about it. It might just be worth it still.

Major tech firms may not need to be headquartered in big cities. This will not kill the cities but will set growth back.

We may see tech firms moving to the suburbs. It will depend on whether the firms take the lead. The workers will follow.

The Increase in Remote Work or Work from Home Job Searches

WSJ: For Many, Remote Work Is Becoming Permanent in Wake of Coronavirus >>

“Just as Intel, HP, and others originally defined how we operated for decades in tech, we’ll see a redefinition for the 21st century by new digital companies.” – Aaron Levie, CEO and co-founder of Box Inc

LinkedIn recorded a 28% increase in remote job postings and a 42% increase in searches using the terms “remote” or “work from home”.

“The response to the pandemic has revealed the viability of remote work for many businesses that had access to the necessary technology, but were hesitant to expand the practice.”

The physical desire among humans to be physically present is hard-wired inside of us.

Jeffry Carter, General Partner at West Loop Ventures: Work From Anywhere >>

The last 10 years have seen a move towards urban city center vertical office campuses. Things might change so that worker can get outside in a less crowded space.

“You strip out a commute and you strip out having to get on an airplane for business meetings and you kind of remove a lot of these other things that crept into the work that you had to do.” – Aaron Levie

Conferences and meetups have more value compared to when on Zoom.

There are things that happen spontaneously in offices because people are in physical proximity with each other. These are the random stuff and conversations and comments. These spark ideas.

Even before Covid-19, CEO have a problem recruiting for their offices in areas like San Francisco, Los Angeles, NYC and Chicago. They were looking for a way to leave or reduce their headcount there.

Covid-19 gave them the perfect opportunity.

There are states that wishes to raise more taxes and there are states that are more “free”. Migration by firms may take place and this may impact not just state policy but also federal policies.

Since 2012, Jeffry have been noticing a trend towards co-working. Home space tends to be too cramped up. It may not be WeWork but other companies will take its space.

Avoiding Our Cognitive Bias to the Analysis of Larger Homes and Office Spaces

HousingWire: Could the coronavirus crisis lead to larger homes and office spaces >>

There are predictions that home size and office space have to increase but may be predicated upon the assumption that the prospect of a viral outbreak is the only factor a buyer considers.

Owners can have 50% of workers that are productive working from home to work from home and another 50% to work in office with better spacing. This may mean status quo.

Long term productivity is also unknown.

“The Spanish flu wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy, and many predicted it would lead to a decades-long recession – but instead, the pent-up demand to spend and enjoy life spurred the roaring 20’s. No one has a crystal ball to tell the future. But we do know that cultural change is usually slow, methodical, and the result of many social inputs. The accuracy of any prediction is incumbent on capturing as many of those input as possible and avoiding the cognitive bias of “What you see is all there is.”

Mass Commuting and Singapore Office

Mass telecommuting will shake up S’pore’s CBD, end work and office life as we know it>>

Human resources technology start-up EngageRocket, the Institute for Human Resources Professionals and the Singapore Human Resources Institute — has gathered more than 2,700 responses on workplace sentiments in Singapore since April 13.

  • 8 in 10 employees in Singapore wish to continue working from home at least half the time or more after the circuit breaker
  • 40% of younger workers said they were less productive than before. 49% of older workers said they were less productive than before
  • Companies cannot just manage employees based on face time
  • Peak hour traffic might be a thing of a past
  • Grade A office rent will get affected short term
  • Companies will fold or they might have multiple offices around Singapore
  • Office space might be re-design
  • The retail shops, Gyms catering to office crowd are badly affected as well

Do Like Me on Facebook. I share some tidbits that is not on the blog post there often. You can also choose to subscribe to my content via email below.

I break down my resources according to these topics:

  1. Building Your Wealth Foundation – If you know and apply these simple financial concepts, your long term wealth should be pretty well managed. Find out what they are
  2. Active Investing – For the active stock investors. My deeper thoughts from my stock investing experience
  3. Learning about REITs – My Free “Course” on REIT Investing for Beginners and Seasoned Investors
  4. Dividend Stock Tracker – Track all the common 4-10% yielding dividend stocks in SG
  5. Free Stock Portfolio Tracking Google Sheets that many love
  6. Retirement Planning, Financial Independence and Spending down money – My deep dive into how much you need to achieve these, and the different ways you can be financially free
  7. Providend – Where I work doing research. Fee-Only Advisory. No Commissions. Financial Independence Advisers and Retirement Specialists. No charge for the first meeting to understand how it works

Which is My Best Option to Fund My Condo Purchase?

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A long time reader wishes to purchase a condo that is valued at $1.65 million.

Currently, the family is staying at a 5-Room HDB valued at around $500,000 that is fully paid-up. This HDB can potentially rent for a gross rental income of $2,500 a month.

He considered 3 options.

Option 1:

  1. Sell current HDB
  2. Use the sales proceed + CPF + cash to buy the condo
  3. Do not leverage up

Option 2:

  1. Sell current HDB
  2. Use the sales proceed + CPF to purchase
  3. Also loan $300,000

Option 3:

  1. Keep HDB
  2. Use CPF + some cash to buy a condo
  3. Also Loan $900,000
  4. This will incur an additional ABSD of $198,000 since this is the second property they would own.

Other assets the family own include:

  1. CPF OA: $900,000
  2. Cash: $500,000
  3. Stocks and Bond: $1,500,000

So he asked for my second opinion. I can’t give much advice since I am not his planner. But I think I can provide him some guidelines how he can go about to identify which option is most ideal for his situation.

He needs to know what is the life he wishes to live

The toughest thing to work out is if you do not know what you want.

If you want everything, then it is tough because that would mean you need a lot of resources.

A plan that gives you a lot of flexibility often comes either with greater hidden costs or needs a lot more resources.

My friend here knows roughly what he wants:

  1. Move closer to their workplace to cut traveling time
  2. Their child is older and do not need to be near the HDB anymore
  3. Retire in X number of years

Given this, we can at least apply some sound, fundamental planning concepts to it.

He needs to have One Eye on the Longer Term Ideal Life

Buying a home that provides a better lifestyle today needs to fit in with his longer-term goals.

Sometimes by trying to satisfy one goal, other goals get impacted.

My friend would need to ask what is his desired retirement lifestyle.

A typical one would be living in this prospective condonmium, with enough assets to provide an income to last for X number of years.

Typically, you would like to have a peace of mind in retirement, you would prefer to pay off the mortgage for your residential property you reside in. Or at the very least, you can service the mortgage but have enough cash to offset that mortgage.

With that in mind, the best option would be the option that allows him to

  1. Fund his condo purchase and pay off the mortgage at retirement
  2. Accumulate enough for retirement

The option that allows him to do #1 and #2 the earliest as possible is the best option.

Calculate Which Option Gives the Greatest Net Wealth at Retirement Date

  1. Each of his current assets have a rate of return. Cash earns something, Stock portfolio earns something, Mortgage incurs some interest, CPF earns something
  2. Use the least costliest or lowest return asset to fund the property purchase and loan repayment
  3. Leave the assets that earns the highest rate of return for accumulating towards retirement

So what he can do is that if his targeted retirement date is 55 years old, then for each option:

  1. Fund the purchase of the home and pay the mortgage if the option requires a loan
  2. Any residual surplus from his work income after expenses will go towards wealth accumulation, together with his other assets
  3. At retirement, clear off any outstanding loan with his other assets

Compare his net wealth for each option less the value of residential property.

The highest net wealth is probably the best option.

Do we need to care about which assets are More Suitable for Retirement Income?

Money is fungible.

If you grow your money with Bitcoin till US$5,000,000 and that is not suitable to provide retirement income, just rebalance that US$5,000,000 into a portfolio that is more suitable to provide retirement income.

The important thing is to grow your money to the right targetted amount that can conservatively give you that retirement income.

For example, if you need $4,000 a month 10-years from now, a suitable way to generate retirement income is a low cost, portfolio of diversified equity, and bond. If we factor in the return profile of this equity and bond portfolio in retirement, the math estimates this person needs $1.8 million at least.

So your job is to grow your cash, CPF OA, stocks and bonds, HDB flat equity value + rental income to hit $1.8 million. If there is another asset that gives you a greater chance to do that, then go ahead and switch to it.

Too much opportunity is lose by people believing they need an instrument that throws out passive income so they lock their money in a plan that provides that mechanism but the actual returns during accumulation is rather lacklusture.

How to Model The Option of Keeping the HDB Flat for Rental Versus Selling It Off?

In order to evaluate which of your asset is the least costliest or lowest return, you need to know the return of your HDB flat.

This is probably a bit tough to do. How do you get a rate of return to compare against the CPF OA, cash and stock portfolio?

In some previous article, I worked out the longer term internal rate of return for some private condos. We can do the same thing here.

In planning we try to be realistically conservative. If the actual performance is better, then we can reach our goals earlier.

I try to estimate the net rental yield of his place and it works out to be around 4.7%.

I use a property growth rate of 3% a year.

I have also worked out the range of internal rate of return that he can get for holding on to his property over different timeframe:

Internal Rate of Return for Holding HDB Flat and Selling Off the Flat at Different Point in Time

If he held on the property for 10 years, earn rental from it, and then sell off the flat before retirement and shift it to something else, the internal rate of return is 6.6%.

That looks good. If the capital growth rate is 1.5% instead of 3.0%, at the same point, the internal rate of return would be 5.35% instead.

Now the difference is that if he held on to the HDB, he would need to incur the additional buyer stamp duty (ABSD) which comes up to $198,000.

We can factor in this ABSD into the cost of this HDB flat as a first-year cash outflow. Then we re-compute the internal rate of return.

At the 10 years mark, the internal rate of return fell to 2.11% instead of 6.6%.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, I could not determine which is the better option (nor do I wish to cross that chasm to do that).

I suspect the mathematical, better option is to borrow as much as he can, then for the rest, take the cash and invest well to capture returns at the appropriate risk levels.

The reason is that if you look at the returns/costs of what is available:

  1. Cash: 0.25% or less
  2. CPF OA: 2.5%
  3. Stocks portfolio: 4.5% (assume as a conservative estimate)
  4. HDB Rental + ABSD for new Condo: 0.9 to 2.11% (depend if the growth rate is 1.5% a year or 3.0% a year)
  5. Mortgage Interest: 1.3% to 1.5%

The return/cost rank from the lowest to highest is Cash, Mortgage Interest, HDB Rental+ ABSD then Stocks Portfolio

We can see based on the guidelines what may be the most appropriate steps to take.

Do Like Me on Facebook. I share some tidbits that is not on the blog post there often. You can also choose to subscribe to my content via email below.

I break down my resources according to these topics:

  1. Building Your Wealth Foundation – If you know and apply these simple financial concepts, your long term wealth should be pretty well managed. Find out what they are
  2. Active Investing – For the active stock investors. My deeper thoughts from my stock investing experience
  3. Learning about REITs – My Free “Course” on REIT Investing for Beginners and Seasoned Investors
  4. Dividend Stock Tracker – Track all the common 4-10% yielding dividend stocks in SG
  5. Free Stock Portfolio Tracking Google Sheets that many love
  6. Retirement Planning, Financial Independence and Spending down money – My deep dive into how much you need to achieve these, and the different ways you can be financially free
  7. Providend – Where I work doing research. Fee-Only Advisory. No Commissions. Financial Independence Advisers and Retirement Specialists. No charge for the first meeting to understand how it works

How to Help Your Kid Transition to Emerging Adulthood Better

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One of the bigger problems that I have growing up was in the conflict with my dad.

You can attribute that to partly adolescent insolence and immaturity but there were a lot of cases that he mistook that I refused to carry out some chore because I was lazy.

Some times I was lazy, but a lot of times… I really do not know how to do that thing!

Like how to wash the clothes when the washing machine is just stting there for me to use? The reason why I procastinate to do it, or refuse to do it was because… the washing machine does not come with a user manual.

I do not know how to use it.

The problem is I did not tell him I do not know how to do it, and he assumed that I know.

This could very well be resolved by showing me how to do it.

The tough part of transiting from being a poly kid and a junior college kid to becoming a young adult is that people expect that after school you become a young adult and are fully equipped with all you need to know about being a successful young adult.

I came across this podcast that resonated with me and I wrote about it over at Providend. You can read 3 Areas to Help Your Youth Ease into Adulthood More Successfully here.

I like the article because it comes from not a researcher, but someone who have been helping parents who have a frustrating time with their kids.

He identify 3 main areas parents can better communicate or do to help their kids ease into adulthood better.

The 3 areas he shared that parents can help work their kids on are:

  1. Be more responsible by asking them to do the mundane, administrative things well. Provide instructions to them
  2. Be more of a consultant rather than a supervisor. Your kid is already 17 years old. You cannot use the style of parenting more suitable for a child
  3. Be more relevant. They are leaving a structured world for a very unstructured world. You need to make them see that in the past, you have struggled as well and it is not special to struggle when you are transiting to adulthood.

For those of us who are young adults, you can read it and see if you identify with some of the problems Mark McConville shared.

For those readers with kids and struggling with them, let me know if this is of any help.

Read Areas to Help Your Youth Ease into Adulthood More Successfully at Providend Here

Do Like Me on Facebook. I share some tidbits that is not on the blog post there often. You can also choose to subscribe to my content via email below.

I break down my resources according to these topics:

  1. Building Your Wealth Foundation – If you know and apply these simple financial concepts, your long term wealth should be pretty well managed. Find out what they are
  2. Active Investing – For the active stock investors. My deeper thoughts from my stock investing experience
  3. Learning about REITs – My Free “Course” on REIT Investing for Beginners and Seasoned Investors
  4. Dividend Stock Tracker – Track all the common 4-10% yielding dividend stocks in SG
  5. Free Stock Portfolio Tracking Google Sheets that many love
  6. Retirement Planning, Financial Independence and Spending down money – My deep dive into how much you need to achieve these, and the different ways you can be financially free
  7. Providend – Where I work doing research. Fee-Only Advisory. No Commissions. Financial Independence Advisers and Retirement Specialists. No charge for the first meeting to understand how it works