Wealth Management Singapore

Will you wish there was a housing crash in Singapore if you can get a 3-bedroom luxury apartment at The Sail over looking Marina Bay Sands for just $3,000 a month? The equivalent was what happened in Miami.

Brandon Klein, a 26-year-old tax accountant, stays at 50 Biscayne Boulevard, one of the luxury holiday condos built during the 2004 to 2008 boom to attract second-home buyers. Housing market has plummeted in end 2008, and with 7,000 unsold condos, almost a third of the 22,079 units in 75 buildings in Miami’s core, it has transformed Miami. With US$2,700 shared among 3 friends, Brandon is living in an apartment with 24 hour concierge, a ‘sick’ view of Downtown and a life he can never imagined. Some areas, previously only middle aged wealthy appear have transformed into dorm like residences. Interestingly, this has infused life into the vacation beach environment.

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China’s shift toward a stronger exchange rate may alter the shape of the world economy’s expansion more than its speed, economists said. The currency move is likely to affect the composition of global gross domestic product rather than the growth rate

Chinese consumers might buy more as the rising yuan boosts their purchasing power, while their counterparts in the U.S. cut back on their spending as the cost of goods imported into America rises. The shift will add 0.1 percentage point to global growth this year and next, leaving the rate at about 4 percent, according to the median of 17 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey of economists.

China’s central bank said June 19 it will increase flexibility in the yuan, marking an end to the crisis policy of pegging to the dollar.

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We have met the culprit and he is us. It is us that cause the oil spill.

We — both parties — created an awful set of incentives that encouraged our best students to go to Wall Street to create crazy financial instruments instead of to Silicon Valley to create new products that improve people’s lives. We — both parties — created massive tax incentives and cheap money to make home mortgages available to people who really didn’t have the means to sustain them. And we — both parties — sent BP out in the gulf to get us as much oil as possible at the cheapest price. (Of course, we expected them to take care, but when you’re drilling for oil beneath 5,000 feet of water, stuff happens.)

Article from New York Times

May has been a volatile month. Europe’s sovereign debt risks and tensions in Korean Peninsular weighs down heavily on the financial markets while economic data has shown that the recovery is underway.

Europe

Speculation and intense debate on 2 issues, whether Greece will be forced to default and whether Euro will lose some of its weaker member countries has died down a little. However, things are still not certain a month after attacks lead to a trillion dollar bailout package. Euro skeptics say the forced spending cuts and tax increases will scuttle a recovery before it takes hold. The fiscal austerity measures will be a big drag on growth. Spain lost its AAA credit grade at Fitch Ratings, dropping one step to AA+ to a “stable” outlook.

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New property rules

Government steps up moves to cool the sizzling property market yesterday.

First, anyone who sells a property within a year of buying it will have to pay stamp duty of around 3 per cent. This is on top of the stamp duty you had to pay on the purchase.

Second, lending institutions will now be allowed to lend only up to 80 per cent of the purchase price, not 90 per cent. Buyers will have to come up with at least 20 per cent themselves. Housing Board loans are not affected by this change in what is called the loan-to-value (LTV) limit.

The sellers’ stamp duty will hit short-term speculators, observers said, while the change in the bank loan limit is likely to weed out marginalised buyers. The measures will affect only a limited number of buyers but experts feel they could have a psychological effect on the market. There is also concern that tougher steps are in the pipeline.

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2009 end of the year update
2009 has been a year of recovery, first in share markets & then in global economic activity. Patient investors have seen some recovery in their wealth after the losses of 2008.

The perception of risk is still out of balance. While government bonds are expensive and there is still a lot of money in cash, equities and corporate bonds are no longer cheap.

Outlook for 2010
2010 is likely to see the economic recovery continue and become self-sustaining. Interest rates likely to be kept low by the US and the Europe.

A ‘U’-shaped recovery is most likely, which in some ways is the best outcome for investors. A ‘U’-shaped recovery presents investors a chance to enter the market when asset prices remain low. Global GDP growth in 2010 is at 3.6%-3.8% according to consensus.

Share markets are likely to rise further thanks to the combination of improving economic and profit growth, low inflation and still low interest rates at time when there is still plenty of cash on the sideline.

However, with uncertainties about the strength of the recovery and key central banks moving towards rising interest rates in the year ahead, share markets will be more volatile and gains more constrained than has been the case since March. A well-diversified portfolio should help to smooth performance.

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By Morgan House
December 1, 2009

Over the past year, it’s been Us vs. Goldman Sachs. Conspiracy theories have multiplied aplenty. Loathing hasn’t been shy. Heads have been called for. That much is certain.

But what would a sensible Goldman Sachs look like? One that we could put up with, without being the butt of every egg-throwing anti-Wall Street protest imaginable? To answer that question, we might want to go back and look at the Goldman Sachs of years past, when it commanded respect.

Goldman Sachs went public in 1999. Before that, it was a private partnership, structured the same way many law firms and accounting firms are. Partners were senior employees who, after years of devastatingly long hours, were selected into a small fraternity of owners.

These partners owned the entire firm. All of the capital was theirs. They literally supplied it out of their own earned income. As Charles Ellis writes in his book, The Partnership: “Goldman Sachs retained most of each partner’s yearly earned income. As a result, anyone who became a partner in Goldman Sachs usually experienced a drop in spendable income.”

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Yesterday, the Australian and New Zealand dollars traded near the highest level in 10 months after Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens said he will have to raise interest rates at some stage as the economy recovers. This is to guard against inflation.

Elsewhere, global fund managers are betting China will let the yuan strengthen for the first time in more than a year to keep inflation at bay following a flood of foreign capital and record lending. New loans in China almost tripled to $1.1 trillion this year, contributing to a 60% surge in property sales. A US$585 billion stimulus plan helped July’s retail sales rise 15.2% from 2008. Reserves swelled to US$2.1 trillion on June 30 after a record quarterly jump as overseas investments led China to sell yuan to hold it down. The Shanghai Composite Index, Asia’s second-best performer this year with a gain of 72%, is in “bubble territory”.

The predicted appreciation in Yuan pale alongside six-month rallies of 18% and 14% for the Indonesian rupiah and the Korean won.

All these bodes well for Asian currencies and fund inflows. Asian stocks rose after the U.S. Federal Reserve said the recession is easing and pledged to keep interest rates low.

U.S. Federal Reserve statement on Wednesday provided 3 points which boosts the market. Firstly, Fed pledged to keep interest rates low, boosting share prices on a short-term basis. Secondly, Fed said the U.S. economy is “leveling out”, meaning it is time now to wait for positive signs. Thirdly, the Fed will stop buying U.S. treasuries directly from the U.S. government by October. This is seen as a huge sense of confidence by the Fed and also made countries holding huge U.S. dollar reserve happy.

Short-term volatility will still be present. This week, Shanghai Composite Index fell, completing the worst week since February, on concern this year’s rally has overvalued the prospects for earnings growth.

As medium to long term investors, you should concentrate on the second and third point stated above. These 2 points points to a positive outlook over 3 years period, especially in Asia.

I wonder how the results for this poll, done on Singaporeans, will be.

There has been much controversies surrounding the issue of where he was born. Searched online for 15 minutes and got tired. Make your own conclusion.

However, I do feel that it should be what U.S.A is about a truly globalised nation. Even if you are born, bred, worked overseas, if your heart belongs to the nation, you should be. Idealism of course.