Soul tired...
As it is, I am now fully plugged into NIE, which should prepare me for the frontline otherwise known as school. It's seriously a lot of work, more so than some of my fellow trainees because I have been assigned to teach Geography and English, which entails an extra 8hrs of class every week. That means I have more classes (and more assignments) to attend than lobos assigned Computer Applications and History etc. Also, hidden within the Geography module is Social Studies since Geog/SS is a Humanities combo often found in schools today. Soooo...I am teaching 3 subjects for the salary of 2.
I feel cheated.
NIE's too damn far by the way. A good 3+hrs of my life is spent on the road for 4 out 5 days each week and that means less time to work on my forex and investing.
I just finished reading all one month's worth of business reads so cut me some slack here as I attempt the rest of this blog in bullet point form:
1) Carry trade: Just discovered: Saxotrader 2. This is the trading platform offered by Saxobank and at first glance, it looks a lot user-friendly than Metatrader. Very clean finish and extensive help section makes it relatively easy on the eyes. But maybe that's because I have yet to pull out all the charts that comes with technical analysis.
Anyhoo...I was just messing around with it 'cos that's my style. I hate reading instructions and would just prefer to take the plunge, thank you very much. Did a little carry trade of my own and voila! I sm more than $11000 in the black!
If only it was real money...
How it works is pretty simple: I long a higher interest bearing currency, in this case, NZD and short a lower-interest bearing currency i.e. USD. I then let this postion carry forward and get paid interest for this. Technically, I am getting paid for buying NZD and selling USD.
The $11k profit was only possible because of margin trading. I am not sure how to set the leverage limits, amongst other questions e.g. how much to get started, where to get reliable info on NZD,AUD (currently the highest interest bearing currencies). Hopefully, the 13Feb workshop will help.
Oh, Saxo charges a commission for small trading volumes so I would do well to factor that in when I do trade for real.
2) I am looking to get out of my DBS fund already. Although my original holding period for this was 2.5 years, I am not so convinced I am getting a good return. The SIBOR has dropped to less than 2% and with recent inflation rates being 5-6%, this is not making a lot of sense.
I am going to be putting my money into HSBC's Multi-currency Savings Account instead, which offers pretty good returns on NZD and AUD deposits. The account is purely an online one and that's always a problem when liquidity issues crop up. Perhaps I could get a HSBC credit card so I can link it to the account and access my money more quickly when I need it :)
Now the critical thing is look for a good time to buy into NZD i.e. at its lowest relative to SGD. My exit can only be at a higher NZD-SGD ratio so I can lock in the capital gains as well.
Target amount: My current 3-mth Emergency Fund + Mum's holdings and then the rest of my 2yr planned savings into...
3) Equities: I am looking to buy into REITs, particularly retail. No doubt the bigger money-spinners are in office space since there's severe shortage of prime office space in Singapore. But that window is quite limited, I feel since most office REIT pricing would have priced in that growth already aka not cheap. With the IRs, Formula 1 racing and a new cruise centre, a good bet is therefore retail REITs namely, Suntec and Frasers Centrepoint cos they are still relatively affordable to me. Now to find out how to value REITs because they are quite different from equities per se - they have to distribute their profits to unitholders, their gearing is capped at 60% (which limits potential for growth since raising cash in these times isnt going to be easy).
Other options I am looking at: Starhub cos come May, when number portability comes into full play, I am quite confident Starhub's gona grab a bigger slice of the market share while Singtel's probably looking more to its overseas revenue generators and would not be too adversely affected by this impending loss. South Korea and the Middle East makes for a compatible medium term pairing. The Middle East is currently flush with petrodollars and looking to increase its productive capacity for the longer term. Korea is one of those direct recipients of those dollars as orders come in for heavy machinery. Once the Middle East takes delivery of these, it would be time to move out of Korea into the Mid East because then, the Mid East would be well-placed to leverage on its increased productive capacity. This would be a interesting time to put in some money in Korean funds and withdraw once the price of oil consolidates and Mid East gets cracking. The local construction industry makes for a compelling growth story too. There are some contracts yet to be awarded and I was quite interested to partake in Wen Hur's IPO recently. The construction industry is good for the next 3 years with double-digit growth projected. This fits my timeline so it's time to get down to the numbers and pick the cherries.
So much to do, so little time...no wonder I am so tired.
I feel cheated.
NIE's too damn far by the way. A good 3+hrs of my life is spent on the road for 4 out 5 days each week and that means less time to work on my forex and investing.
I just finished reading all one month's worth of business reads so cut me some slack here as I attempt the rest of this blog in bullet point form:
1) Carry trade: Just discovered: Saxotrader 2. This is the trading platform offered by Saxobank and at first glance, it looks a lot user-friendly than Metatrader. Very clean finish and extensive help section makes it relatively easy on the eyes. But maybe that's because I have yet to pull out all the charts that comes with technical analysis.
Anyhoo...I was just messing around with it 'cos that's my style. I hate reading instructions and would just prefer to take the plunge, thank you very much. Did a little carry trade of my own and voila! I sm more than $11000 in the black!
If only it was real money...
How it works is pretty simple: I long a higher interest bearing currency, in this case, NZD and short a lower-interest bearing currency i.e. USD. I then let this postion carry forward and get paid interest for this. Technically, I am getting paid for buying NZD and selling USD.
The $11k profit was only possible because of margin trading. I am not sure how to set the leverage limits, amongst other questions e.g. how much to get started, where to get reliable info on NZD,AUD (currently the highest interest bearing currencies). Hopefully, the 13Feb workshop will help.
Oh, Saxo charges a commission for small trading volumes so I would do well to factor that in when I do trade for real.
2) I am looking to get out of my DBS fund already. Although my original holding period for this was 2.5 years, I am not so convinced I am getting a good return. The SIBOR has dropped to less than 2% and with recent inflation rates being 5-6%, this is not making a lot of sense.
I am going to be putting my money into HSBC's Multi-currency Savings Account instead, which offers pretty good returns on NZD and AUD deposits. The account is purely an online one and that's always a problem when liquidity issues crop up. Perhaps I could get a HSBC credit card so I can link it to the account and access my money more quickly when I need it :)
Now the critical thing is look for a good time to buy into NZD i.e. at its lowest relative to SGD. My exit can only be at a higher NZD-SGD ratio so I can lock in the capital gains as well.
Target amount: My current 3-mth Emergency Fund + Mum's holdings and then the rest of my 2yr planned savings into...
3) Equities: I am looking to buy into REITs, particularly retail. No doubt the bigger money-spinners are in office space since there's severe shortage of prime office space in Singapore. But that window is quite limited, I feel since most office REIT pricing would have priced in that growth already aka not cheap. With the IRs, Formula 1 racing and a new cruise centre, a good bet is therefore retail REITs namely, Suntec and Frasers Centrepoint cos they are still relatively affordable to me. Now to find out how to value REITs because they are quite different from equities per se - they have to distribute their profits to unitholders, their gearing is capped at 60% (which limits potential for growth since raising cash in these times isnt going to be easy).
Other options I am looking at: Starhub cos come May, when number portability comes into full play, I am quite confident Starhub's gona grab a bigger slice of the market share while Singtel's probably looking more to its overseas revenue generators and would not be too adversely affected by this impending loss. South Korea and the Middle East makes for a compatible medium term pairing. The Middle East is currently flush with petrodollars and looking to increase its productive capacity for the longer term. Korea is one of those direct recipients of those dollars as orders come in for heavy machinery. Once the Middle East takes delivery of these, it would be time to move out of Korea into the Mid East because then, the Mid East would be well-placed to leverage on its increased productive capacity. This would be a interesting time to put in some money in Korean funds and withdraw once the price of oil consolidates and Mid East gets cracking. The local construction industry makes for a compelling growth story too. There are some contracts yet to be awarded and I was quite interested to partake in Wen Hur's IPO recently. The construction industry is good for the next 3 years with double-digit growth projected. This fits my timeline so it's time to get down to the numbers and pick the cherries.
So much to do, so little time...no wonder I am so tired.
posted by Ming at 3:18 AM
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