I started serious Investing Journey in Jan 2000 to create wealth through long-term investing and short-term trading; but as from April 2013 my Journey in Investing has changed to create Retirement Income for Life till 85 years old in 2041 for two persons over market cycles of Bull and Bear.

Since 2017 after retiring from full-time job as employee; I am moving towards Investing Nirvana - Freehold Investment Income for Life investing strategy where 100% of investment income from portfolio investment is cashed out to support household expenses i.e. not a single cent of re-investing!

It is 57% (2017 to Aug 2022) to the Land of Investing Nirvana - Freehold Income for Life!


Click to email CW8888 or Email ID : jacobng1@gmail.com



Welcome to Ministry of Wealth!

This blog is authored by an old multi-bagger blue chips stock picker uncle from HDB heartland!

"The market is not your mother. It consists of tough men and women who look for ways to take money away from you instead of pouring milk into your mouth." - Dr. Alexander Elder

"For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." - Aristotle

It is here where I share with you how I did it! FREE Education in stock market wisdom.

Think Investing as Tug of War - Read more? Click and scroll down



Important Notice and Attention: If you are looking for such ideas; here is the wrong blog to visit.

Value Investing
Dividend/Income Investing
Technical Analysis and Charting
Stock Tips

Friday 31 May 2019

CPF OA After 55 Is A Financial Proof Of Ready Cash


Uncle8888 learnt something new when he became one of the two sureties for an overseas scholarship as retiree without IRAS assessment statement. 

He was told that he still qualified as surety by submitting his CPF OA statement as financial proof of cash.

CPF OA after 55 is power!

Quickly go and top up CPF before 55!





Monday 27 May 2019

What Is Missing in 1M65 CPF Strategy???



























Read? How I Accumulate $1M In CPF OA!


How come there is no seminar or talk on how to become better CPFIS investors?

Not even investment trainers?

Why?

Hmm .. 2.5% compounding interests is so hard to beat over few decades?

To top up CPF is easy. You just need spare cash!

To invest is not easy. You need more than just spare cash!





Sunday 26 May 2019

Investor who promoted pyramid scheme fined $120,000


Read? Police reports filed against fintech company

Read? Investor who promoted pyramid scheme fined $120,000

CW8888: It is so easy to convince people that it is easy to earn passive income. I am earning passive income. You want to earn? Come and join me! Your trusted friends and relatives are your worst enemy when come to making easy money from the market. You tend to believe them!

2,000 investors! It is 2,000 bei kambing! Walau!


SINGAPORE - An investor in a pyramid selling scheme which left thousands of Singaporeans out of pocket has been fined $120,000 after he admitted helping to promote it.

Chin Ming Kam, 45, organised seminars to promote Maxim Trader, an international "fund management" scheme run by financial trading firm Maxim Capital, which collected more than $50 million from over 2,000 investors here before ceasing operations.

Chin had 53 people directly under him who invested a total of about US$755,000 (S$1 million), and as a result he earned US$75,500 in commission for referring them to the scheme.


However, in July 2015, investors received information that it would cease operating in Singapore, and later found they were unable to recover their investments or obtain returns.

Police were alerted.

Cases against two Singaporean alleged accomplices - Goh Seow Mooi, 60, and Andrew Lim Ann Hoe, 61 - are pending.

The court heard that Maxim Trader allowed investors to delegate trading decisions to Maxim Capital.

Investment packages ranged from US$1,000 to US$30,000, with investors promised 3 to 8 per cent monthly returns with a lock-in period of 18 months and a capital guarantee. There were no policies for refunds.

Individuals who wished to invest would have to be referred by an existing investor via the Maxim Trader website, which required a referral ID to register. 

The court heard that Maxim Trader was promoted via seminars and events, and that Chin and Goh organised at least 13 such seminars between May 2014 and July 2015.

Existing investors were invited to take along friends and other interested individuals.

The total amount of losses directly attributed to Chin was unclear. Court documents stated that he is "self employed".

Offenders convicted of promoting a pyramid selling scheme can be jailed for up to five years and fined up to $200,000.


Retiree inflation rate will be different. Likely to be lower than national average (2)


Read? Retiree inflation rate will be different. Likely to be lower than national average.


Most retirees are not affected by inflationary pressure coming coming from housing, children education, children expenses, and etc.

So don't overly scared by your FI using typical 5% inflationary rate. It is too scary!

Uncle8888 used 2.5% inflation rate for his retirement planning. 

Reasonable or not???

Hmm .. may be inflation will impact more on those who are spending at bare minimum i.e. no room to cut down expenses to cheaper alternatives.









Saturday 25 May 2019

Illusion Of Wealth In Your Investment Portfolio


Are you consciously aware what is real wealth and what is illusion of wealth in your investment portfolio? 

Money already spent is real!

Capital injection is real!

The rest is somewhat or somehow illusion?

No?



Read? The Stock Market ILLUSION Explained




Wednesday 22 May 2019

Single elderly households in Singapore need S$1,379 a month for basic needs: study

Read? Single elderly households in Singapore need S$1,379 a month for basic needs: study


A SINGLE elderly person aged 65 and above, who lived alone in Singapore last year without a chronic illness required S$1,379 a month to meet basic needs. 

This is according to a study by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (LKYSPP), released on Wednesday.

The team of researchers, led by assistant professor Ng Kok Hoe from the LKYSPP, conducted focus group discussions involving over 100 participants from various backgrounds. Using a consensus-based methodology known as Minimum Income Standards (MIS), the groups came to agreement on how ordinary Singaporeans think about basic needs, and determined the household budgets necessary for older people to meet those needs.

Participants generated lists of items and services related to housing and utilities, things needed in a two-room HDB flat, personal care items and clothing, food, transport, leisure and cultural activities, as well as healthcare. Each item or service was included only if participants came to a consensus that it was a basic need, and could explain their reasons for its inclusion. 

Based on the lists of items and services, the household budgets necessary to meet basic needs were: S$1,379 per month for single elderly households, S$2,351 per month for coupled elderly households, and S$1,721 per month for single persons aged 55-64, the study showed.


Said Dr Ng: "This study reveals that ordinary members of society can come to a consensus about a basic standard of living in light of norms and experiences in contemporary Singapore. Such income standards can help by translating societal values and real experiences into unambiguous and substantive benchmarks that policy can aim for."

Generally, participants agreed that basic needs must go beyond subsistence to include one's quality of life. They also emphasised the importance of independence and autonomy, which means not being a burden to loved ones, and being able to exercise one's choice and preferences.

"A basic standard of living in Singapore is about, but more than just, housing, food and clothing. It is about having opportunities to education, employment and work-life balance, as well as access to healthcare," the report stated.

"This study reveals that ordinary members of society are able to come to consensus about what a basic standard of living in contemporary Singapore means. What they said about dignity, respect, social belonging and choice, as well as the items and budget they came up with, reveal norms and values held by people in our society today."

In the focus group discussions, participants also highlighted frequently that health and healthcare costs are very important to them. Nonetheless, the researchers noted that such costs may vary widely for different health conditions, and are difficult to capture accurately in a single study.

Therefore, the study focused on establishing a baseline that presumes no chronic health conditions, with the researchers noting that this presumption likely underestimates healthcare costs.

"Future research can build on this study by comparing the individual budgets for healthy persons with that of persons with particular health conditions and additional needs," they said.

Comparing the household budgets against work incomes, the study highlighted that the median monthly work income of full-time workers aged 60 and above was S$2,000 back in 2017. This is about 1.5 times the budget for meeting basic standards of living among single elderly households. However, the researchers also pointed out that there are gender differences, with the median earnings of elderly women coming closer to the budget at just 1.3 times, compared to the 1.5 times for men.

Moreover, the report suggested that the overall picture in Singapore is one of heavy dependence on family contributions, with limited support from the state. In particular, the most common income source is adult children (78 per cent of elderly people reported such income in 2011), followed by wage work (21 per cent), and the CPF or other annuities (13 per cent).

This raises a few policy concerns, the researchers said. "Due to rapid socio-economic development, current cohorts of older people have steep educational and skill disadvantages compared to younger workers. When work incomes and wage interventions fall short, some older people either do not have the means to ever retire or will be permanently dependent on public and informal transfers.

"Even among younger cohorts, lifetime wages can and do vary. With the widening of income inequality in Singapore over the past decades, people will become older with varying levels of savings."

They added that while CPF participation and savings are projected to increase with future cohorts, the basic retirement payment of less than S$800, even after the most recent reforms, is only about half of the household budget for a single elderly person, and falls significantly short of what is required for a basic standard of living.

Added associate professor Teo You Yenn from the School of Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), another member of the research team and author of the book "This Is What Inequality Looks Like": "To tackle inequality, it is critical to establish an agreed floor below which no one should fall. The MIS method can be usefully applied to generate societal consensus across a range of household types."

The study pointed out that currently, major public transfer schemes are means-tested and modest, with most subsidies being one-off for a limited period, or for limited cohorts. As such, access is not assured, the researchers explained.

Furthermore, cross-generational family support is demographically unsustainable as the family size shrinks. This means that people will have either no, or fewer children as sources of retirement income, the researchers noted.

"The reliance on adult children as sources of retirement income may moreover reinforce economic inequality insofar as supporting parents takes up a greater proportion of household costs for the lower and middle-income compared to theirhigher-income counterparts. This leaves less for other needs of younger households, such as children’s education."

Therefore, the researchers noted that overall, the gaps in people's capacity to meet basic standards of living must be urgently addressed so that older people in Singapore can achieve what the survey participants described as basic needs for "a sense of belonging, respect, security, and independence".


Tuesday 21 May 2019

Book : The Best Investment Writing
























Understand your own time horizon in investing






















Not good  for those who strongly believe in hardcore analysis as investors to be world class investors.

Skip this chapter!

Less analyzing. More investing - CW8888

It is fine for Uncle8888!








Uncle8888 is with this camp. Earn more and save more.

In long term investing, you account size really matters - CW8888









In nearly every case, it is more realistic scenario to spend zero hours on investing, and simply works a few more hours and achieve a much higher yield on your entire portfolio.

Only once you achieve family office levels of wealth does it make sense to be spending ANY time on your portfolio.

CW: Anyway most retail investors will disagree. LOL!


























Monday 20 May 2019

How Much Is Enough To Build Sustainable Retirement Income For Life?


Read? The Evolution Of The Four Pillars For Retirement Income Portfolios


Four pillars for retirement income – interest, dividends, capital gains, and principal. Or stated more accurately, the four pillars of retirement cash flows.


Uncle8888 belongs to this school of thought on retirement income for life!

Read? Do I Have To Worry About Investment Portfolio Volatility Over The Next Market Cycle???


If we plan to include spending down of principal during the later phase in our life journey; then we will have lesser principal to accumulate to have enough to begin the retirement journey.







Saturday 18 May 2019

如何賣股的問題 會買是徒弟,會賣是師父。 賣股永遠是最難的一課,是否有一個完美賣股ABC


Watch this video shared by Raymond Ng in FB? 如何賣股的問題 會買是徒弟,會賣是師父。 賣股永遠是最難的一課,是否有一個完美賣股ABC


Alamak! Uncle8888 is 徒弟!

Position sizing and money management is what it takes to be long term successful retail investors over past and future market cycles.

Uncle8888 agreed with the speaker. There is no 完美賣股ABC!

After 19 years across past market cycles; he has more data points to show it - position sizing and money management.

Position sizing must be relatively large enough according to our account size so that our multi-baggers has impact on our investment portfolio.
















Friday 17 May 2019

Do I Have To Worry About Investment Portfolio Volatility Over The Next Market Cycle???


His answer now is no!

Uncle8888 has different income streams from his three taps sustainable retirement income for life model.

He is NOT expected to sell any stocks in the next market low to raise capital to re-balance investment portfolio or to fund household expenses so he is not worry over market volatility.





















Thursday 16 May 2019

Sustainable Retirement Income For Life With Assets Draw-down Strategy


Read? Depending On Our CPF OA For Sustainable Retirement Income For Life From 60 to 80???


Time to refresh this worksheet!

How to know whether we have enough assets and future cash flow to retire or semi or quasi retire from our full-time job employment?


As Ant; Uncle8888 cracked his head to do his own simple planning like this. 

If you want to play with it, email him for a copy.




Wednesday 15 May 2019

It Is NOT SEXY To reach FI or FIRE in your 40s or 30s in this way


Read? The Problem With Most Financial Advice


What Uncle8888 observed from our local investment blogoshere sphere; those bloggers who are reaching or has reached FI or FIRE in their 30s or 40s didn't clearly indicate that they are high income earners and high savers.

Investing for dividend income as source of retirement income definitely will depend on your account size, earned income and saving rate. It is just simple Maths!

Hmm ... or don't scare! Leverage up your account size also can reach FI or FIRE sooner and faster. 


Tuesday 14 May 2019

Dow drops more than 600 points, posts worst day since January as China trade war escalates

Stocks fell sharply on Monday after China decided to raise tariffs on some U.S. goods as the ongoing trade war between the world’s largest economies intensifies.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 617.38 points, or 2.4%, to 25,324.99 and posted its worst session since Jan. 3. The S&P 500 also had its worst day since early January, falling 2.4% to 2,811.87.  The Nasdaq Composite dropped 3.4% — its biggest one-day loss of the year — to 7,647.02. 

At its lows of the day, the Dow fell as much as 719.86 points while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq traded down 2.8% and 3.6%, respectively, at their session lows. The indexes came off their lows in afternoon trading after President Donald Trump said he had not decided whether to slap tariffs on an additional $325 billion in Chinese goods.



Sunday 12 May 2019

Debate (Quarrel) Over BTIR (Time to refresh)



Read? Debate (Quarrel) Over BTIR



Any Book To Recommend For Investing?

Someone has just asked Uncle8888 to recommend books on "how to calculate the value of a stock?" 

Probably, he is referring to fundamental analysis and investing.


Monday, 29 July 2013


Any book on Investing For A Living???

You google for "book trading for a living".

Google will return the search result with many books teaching you on how to trade for a living.

And then you change it to google for "book investing for a living".

Guess what will Google return?

Hmm ..

So strange!!!

No one writes a book on "Investing For A Living" or there is something wrong with Google search.

Investing for a living cannot be taught by reading a book???

Read? Books

Read? On reading books for investing






Thursday 9 May 2019

Not Just Financial Independence. Build Sustainable Retirement Income For Life!!! (2)


Read? Not Just Financial Independence. Build Sustainable Retirement Income For Life!!!


Thursday, 2 February 2017

(1) How to pass your time?


(2) Is your retirement life sustainable over next few decades?


After more than two years; this is what Uncle8888 has been doing relating to two questions raised during 2017 CNY home visiting:

(1) Read? Part-Time And Free Lance Jobs (2)

(2) This is the plan to build sustainable retirement income for life across future market cycles of doom.










Monday 6 May 2019

Over 20 households living in 5-room and bigger flats sold part of lease to HDB under LBS scheme in Q1


Read? Over 20 households living in 5-room and bigger flats sold part of lease to HDB under LBS scheme in Q1


CW8888: Fact on the ground.


Ms Ow said she had considered downsizing as she found the EA too big.

"I have to clean all of this myself. Everyday I'm vacuuming, cleaning. It's a lot," she said.

But she struggled to find a buyer, even after having put her unit up for sale for more than a year

“Nearly everyday, I’ll have at least three families who are interested in buying my flat. I priced it between S$568,000 to S$588,000 and it couldn’t sell. There was a buyer but they couldn’t get rid of their own HDB flat,” she said. 

She was reluctant to let it go for less.

“If I sold my Punggol flat for S$560,000 and spend around S$400,000 to buy a 4-room flat, I think I will get back less than S$100,000 after some renovation,” she said. 


She briefly considered renting out rooms in her flat but gave up the idea after hearing horror stories of tenants from her friends. 

She said she is happy to age in her Punggol flat and has engaged part-time cleaners to help her with household chores. 

I’m used to this environment. All the neighbours here are very good and very friendly. Many residents here are also pet owners and our pets play together. I go for morning taiji exercise around here too,” she said.  

She admitted that she has not thought about what she will do when the lease runs out when she is 97.

“(If I) can (live) until my 80s, it’s fine already,” she said


Why Warren Buffett doesn't practice what he preaches on index investing

Warren Buffett is just fine with Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK-A, BRK-B) low-yielding stash of cash and U.S. Treasury Bills. The $110.5 billion arsenal affords Buffett opportunities to pounce on juicy deals.

"We could spend $100 billion very quickly," Buffett said on Saturday at the 2019 Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting, which was exclusively live streamed on Yahoo Finance.

Buffett was responding to an investor who pointed out that if Berkshire had deployed its cash and Treasury bills in an index fund over the last 15 years (keeping a modest $20 billion cash cushion), at the end of 2018, the company's then-$112 billion position would have been worth $155 billion — an opportunity cost of more than 12% of Berkshire's book value.

Why stick with cash and government debt?

Buffett, who famously advises investors to stick with index funds, said it's a "perfectly decent question, and I wouldn't quarrel with the numbers." Referring to the 335% return in the S&P 500 since the 2009 market bottom, Buffett said, "Certainly looking back 10 years of [this] bull market, it really jumps out at you."

Buffett said his successor may choose an index fund over T-Bills. But he argued that strategy could limit Berkshire's opportunities, such as those that arose during and after the financial crisis. In September, 2008, Berkshire invested $10 billion in Goldman Sachs (GS) preferred stock, which paid a hefty 10% dividend.

Buffett also referenced Berkshire's recent $10 billion deal to buy Occidental Petroleum (OXY) preferred stock paying an 8% dividend, which is contingent upon a buyout of its competitor, Anadarko Petroleum (APC). Occidental and Chevron (CVX) are currently in a high-stakes bidding war for Anadarko.

Buffett said Berkshire's capital is much better deployed on these types of opportunistic deals, which are unpredictable and "will come in clumps, in all likelihood."

Berkshire’s Vice Chair Charlie Munger said, "I don't think it's a sin to be strong on cash when you're as big a company as we are."

Sunday 5 May 2019

Figure out what works and do it

Highlights from the 2019 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders Meeting


Highlight: Munger: "If you want one mantra, it comes from Lee Kuan Yew. ... Figure out what works and do it. You just go at life with that simple philosophy from your own national group, you’ll find it works wonderfully well. Figure out what works and do it." 


CW8888:

Why is this quote from Charlie Munger on "Figure out what works and do it " also applicable to our long term investing?


After one or two market cycles of either Bull-Bear-Bull or Bear-Bull-Bear; we have to figure out what works for us and do it again for the next market cycle.

What we read and hear from elsewhere is always other people's investing experience. It may serve as reference or guide our future investing strategies; but we still have to figure what works for us and do it.




Networking With Personal Or Commercially Vested Agenda


The recent meeting with fellow retirees who have just retired from their full-time jobs; Uncle8888 did realize something that he didn't really thought of it before.

Why networking after retiring?

As retirees with no other commercial vested agenda; we may network mainly for the purpose of social gathering or just to spend few hours of our spare time on some unplanned or ad hoc activities out of our "routine" retirement activities schedule.

Attending AGMS as retiree is another venue of networking to pass time. LOL!

Uncle8888 has never attended any AGM before. 

Hmm ... should he consider to attend one soon?








Saturday 4 May 2019

CEO Went To Jail. So What???


Read? What Really Help To Protect Me As Retail Investors???

Bagus! CEO went to jail!

So what for me?

My money in CAO had already gone into longkang!

We keep learning painful lesson after lesson until we finally retired from the stock market!

























What Really Help To Protect Me As Retail Investors???


KNS!

Those famous ones Uncle8888 also tio!

Noble
Hyflux
Swiber
Jurong Tech
CAO
Ferro China
Synear
NOL
Tat Hong


Damn bloody lousy stock picker!

What really help to protect me as retail investors?

You also know?

or you still blur?

Blur?

Then you better to find out before it is too late for you!



Friday 3 May 2019

The Art Of Becoming Millionaire From The Stock Market: The Do and Don't (3)


Read? The Art Of Becoming Millionaire From The Stock Market: The Do and Don't (2)

Is large war chest in your investment portfolio a damn serious drag on cash flow and performance?

But; Uncle8888's experience is somehow not the same feeling. Hmm ...


His current war chest is 1.4 times his initial investing capital on Jan 2000 and since then he has never injected a single cent as capital for last 19 years.
































Current YTD yield on capital is 6.5% and long term average yearly yield is 10.3% as of 3 May 2019

















Performance over past market cycles of Bulls and Bears as of 3 May 2019, CAGR/XIRR is 6.4% 


How bad is cash drag?















Updated for Warren Buffet for 2018



After So Many Years; His Ex Boss Still Remembered Him


Ex-boss retired last year @ 65 and has plenty of free time to let his mind and time running freely. Without his previous office KPIs; and true enough for the past few weeks he has been busy attending AGMs and making new acquaintances in the circle of retiree life and also knowing how other retirees are spending their free time. 


Attending AGMs are for retirees to pass time and make new acquaintance. :-)





















Thursday 2 May 2019

The Art Of Becoming Millionaire From The Stock Market: The Do and Don't (2)


Read? The Art Of Becoming Millionaire From The Stock Market: The Do and Don't


The duet in your  investing mind?

Don't time the market?

Over long run in investing; it is all about market timing and then time in the market to recover your investing capital and then sit back, relax and enjoy your freehold stocks with decent yield on (zero) investment cost. Not passive income? Then what is passive income? But, passive income can only happen after X or XX years of active income timing the market and time in the market. No?


Keppel Corp, Sembcorp Ind and DBS all XD for FY 18 and time to tabulate accumulated dividends received.

Read more? After Point X in our investing journey when we become more successful ..
















Wednesday 1 May 2019

The Art Of Becoming Millionaire From The Stock Market: The Do and Don't



Can you appreciate the Art of becoming millionaire from the stock market and then figure out for yourself the DO and DON'T?

What you did see and appreciate?






Related Posts with Thumbnails