BRIC is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, China and India. As these emerging economies emerge, a number of funds emerge to cover them as well.
Here are the BRIC funds available from Singapore online fund providers
The BRIC are expected to be lesser hit and recover much faster in the current economy crisis.
Some proponent though suggested that BRIC is too different and should be view separately. If you subscribe to this view, you can buy funds of the individual country for your portfolio.
As usual, do your own homework.
As for myself, I hold the Schroder and HSBC fund and is looking to add more units to them.
Often we heard or read the headline – “Internet stocks is hot”, “Biotechnology is poise for explosve growth” “Nanotechnology is the next mega trend”.
As a lay investor I often ask myself, how do I participate in these trend?
I do not have sufficient fund to buy into a single stock, let alone a portfolio (which, incidentally, should be the preferred way).
So, how can I participate in the trend? The answer for me lies with unit trust.
Continue reading ‘Unit Trust as subsititute to Investing directly into theme?’
I’m beginning another regular series to look at unit trust mangers in Singapore. Kicking off, we take a look at First State Investments.
Founded in 1988 in Australia, First State Investments is the fund management arm of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The group is one of the largest fund managers in Australia with investment offices in Sydney, London, Edinburgh, Singapore, Hong Kong and Jakarta.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and is the second largest bank in Australia.
First State Investments (Singapore) offers a range of retail unit trusts that includes global and regional funds, as well as specialist sector funds.
The First State Regional China Fund is one my favourite fund and has performed very well in my portfolio.
Continue reading ‘Singapore Unit Trust Managers: First State Investments’
Another week of non-action and waiting. Break out is not convincing. I had just brought into First State Regional India fund in anticipation of a rally.
BSE Sensex
Continue reading ‘India Market Aug 14′
Investing in Unit Trust is easy. Like all things worth doing in life, you may need to climb a little learning curve. Do not be discouraged, the time investment you put in will reap many time return.
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
- Benjamin Franklin
If you are reading this I can assume you know how to get online and is perhaps looking to do self-directed investing online. (Sorry for the jargon, it simply mean investing yourself).
In this first installment on Unit Trust Investing, I will introduce how to get started.
Continue reading ‘Introduction to Online Unit Trust Investing’
A question CPF investors often ask is, how do you compare the return between using CFP to invest and leaving the CPF monies in the CPF account?
CPF monies earn a risk free interest rate of 2.5% p.a. for Ordinary Account and 4% p.a. for Special Account. The interest is computed monthly and, compounded and credited annually.
To make things a little complicated, CPF investment is usually make through an angent bank which charges transaction fee and service fee. On top of that some unit trusts fund also charges a fee for purchase or redemption.
Taking all these into account, how to compare the return?
Let me introduce a tool to do that.
Continue reading ‘CPF Unit Trust Investment Profit & Loss Calculator’
dollarDex transformed their business model from their original online loan and financing model to include distributing unit trusts.
Things I like about dollarDEX
- Investing with credit card.
This is a killer feature and appeal to those that likes to mange their finance with credit card. Effectively you can use the credit money in advance and at the same time accumulate reward points for your card.
Although not all fund can be brought with credit card, this concept alone deserves full point.
- Performance chart comparing to CPF and bank deposit.
A nice simple chart that all other sites should have but don’t.
Things that dollarDEX can improve
- Browser friendliness.
Since I use Firefox, dollarDEX is the only site among the 3 that I have to switch to IE in order to use it. As a result I hardly ever visit it.
For historical reason, most of my cash investments are with finatiQ. The reason is because finatiQ started off as the first (and only) attempt to be a fully online bank in Singapore. I brought into the indea and moved most of my cash there.
When it lanched in around 2000, it offered the highest interest rate among all the banks for fixed deposit. Now its cash deposit interest (1.38% p.a) is even higher than fixed deposit (0.75% p.a).
Things I like about finatiQ
- Easy transfer of cash between OCBC which I have an account. (Bank of Singapore is owned by OCBC)
- Fixed deposit. Nice option but not attractive enough to see a need to use it.
Things finatiQ can improve
- Portfolio information is too minimal. One point I take issue with is the lack of buying price, date brought and return.
- Navigation. I have no idea where to look for information I want.
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