Saturday, May 30, 2015

With Medishield Life Coming, Is Integrated Plan Still Necessary?

Just the other day, had a group chat with a bunch of peer financial bloggers and one of the topic that we briefly discussed is about the upcoming Medishield Life launch. Apparently, it seems like many of the public are still quite hazy about Medishield Life and what's in it for them! It is understandable as it is kind of a complicated scheme. 

Without going into too much of the details, on the high level, you just need to know that Medishield Life is :

1. A revamp of the existing Medishield scheme with enhanced benefits/coverage (with higher premium, of course). It is administered by CPF Board. 
2. A compulsory national Medical Insurance scheme which cater to cover up to Class B2 Ward, Restructured Hospitals (5-6 bedded shared room). 
3. You can pay all your Medishield Life premium using your Medisave amount.
4. It covers all illness/condition (whether pre-existing or not).
5. It can be integrated with the Integrated Plan (provided by selected insurers*) for better coverage/benefit.
6. Going to be launched by End 2015 (actual launch date has not been confirmed yet) and during the transition period i.e. next couple of years, varies subsidies will be provided by the Government to lessen the impact of the premium increase. 
7. If you are deemed to have pre-existing condition/illness that fall under CPF Board/MOH's definition, there will be a standard premium loading of 30%. Good news is it can be paid via Medisave too (A notification from MOH will be sent out to the identified insured in later part of Q3 2015).

Since Medishield Life is a compulsory scheme, whether you like it or not, you will be in it automatically! So, there is nothing much that we need to debate about. What I would like to share more in this post is this : With the Medishield Life, is the Integrated Plan still necessary? 

Of course, the politically correct answer is "YES and NO". Why? Because everyone's needs are different and you need to decide for yourself (or your loved ones) whether you really need the add-on coverage or not. If you have difficulty in making the decision, maybe you can start with the following self-questioning :

1. Can I afford the premium in the long run? Integrated Plan is age-band rated (i.e. the premium will increase alongside your age), even though we can pay the Integrated Plan via Medisave but there is a cap per year, it's called Annual Withdrawal Limit (the cap amount is still not finalised yet), hence, potentially you need to fork out some cash when you are older (i.e. when the Integrated Plan's premium is more than the Annual Medisave Withdrawal Limit). 

2. Do I intend to stay in the higher class of Wards (i.e. B1 and beyond) or even Private Hospital? If the answer is YES, then Medishield Life coverage might not be sufficient to cover the expenses as the benefits will be pegged at the Class B2 Ward. Of course, this is really a personal choice, with our healthcare standard (which is quite high among the region), Class B2 ward might be sufficient for most of us.   

3. Do I usually choose the doctor (to attend to me) when I got admitted? If the answer is YES, then Medishield Life coverage might not be sufficient for you as you can't choose your preferred doctor in Class B2 ward.

4. Do I need the Letter Of Guarantee (LOG) facility? LOG is the facility provided by selected Integrated Plans to waive the deposit upon admission to hospitals. Do take note that by issuing the LOG, it doesn't means that your claim will be guaranteed payable, it is just a form of "credit term/assurance" provided by selected insures to the hospitals to waive the deposit.  

Two more things to highlight if you are considering the Integrated Plan:
1. Even though Medishield Life covers for all illness/conditions but the Integrated Plan might exclude you for certain conditions (Underwriting guidelines between the private insurers and the CPF Board are different). If you accepted the term, for such scenario (i.e. if you admission is due to the excluded condition by the insurer), you will be entitle to the Medishield Life claimable amount only. 

2. All the insurers* do provide Rider(s) Benefits you can attach to your Integrated Plan (with additional premium, of course). They are basically anther layer of add-on coverage/benefit to supplement the overall benefits.    

I hope this post provides some enlightenment to some of you folks. If you have any question related to Medishield Life, feel free to raise them in the comment section and I will try my best to answer them within my capacity. 

Cheers!

*5 insurers that currently providing the Integrated Shield Plans are :
AIA (HealthShield)
Aviva (MyShield)
Great Eastern (SupremeHealth)
NTUC Income (INcomeShield)
Prudential (PruShield)  

P/S: Please be reminded that you need to confirm your household composite by 19/06/2015 (Fri), for more details, click here.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

IPO - Singapore O&G Ltd @ 25 Cents

Singapore O&G Ltd , an healthcare firm focusing on Obstetrics and Gynaecology services/treatments is the latest company went into the IPO (Initial Public Offering) foray. It will be listed on the Catalist Board of SGX at 25 cents per share. 

A total of 43.6 millions of shares are being offered but only 2.2 millions are being offered to the public while the rest will be through private placement. The approximate net proceeds of S$9.2 million will be used for investments in healthcare professionals and synergistic businesses, expanding its business operations as well as for working capital purposes.

Some of the key highlights of the investment merits:
1. Well established specialist medical practitioners in women's healthcare
2. Dedicated management team with relevant industry experience
3. Stable business with strong cashflow
4. Conveniently located clinics in the central and east regions of Singapore
5. Attractive Dividend Yield (basing on the IPO price of $0.25 and FY2014 earnings as well as the 90% payout. the anticipated Dividend Yield is 7.3%). 

For more details of Singapore O&G Ltd's IPO Prospectus, click here

The IPO closes on 2nd June 2015 (Tue), 12 PM and will start trading on 4th June 2015. Personally, I quite like the healthcare industry, especially our vision to be the medical tourism hub for the region. Having said that, with the lacklustre performance of the past few recent IPOs, I am kind of undecided as to whether to try my luck on this one. 

What about you? Is this the IPO that appeal to you?  

Cheers! 

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

How Does Stock Investment Changed My Daily Routines?


One year and 2 months ago, stock investment has never existed in my life and daily routine is simpler and more repetitive then. being a movie and soccer lover, weekends entertainment are usually revolves around movies and soccer (on and off the field).
 
Since I started to get myself involved in the stocks investment, my daily routines are kind of impacted, unconsciously, for better or worst. Some of the noticeable differences are :
 
1. BEFORE : Reading newspaper is one of my daily routines and usually I will zoom into the Life and Sports section before browsing through the other sections. AFTER : I will zoom into the Money or Invest section FIRST nowadays.
 
2. BEFORE : I am indifference about the companies behind the services/products that I am interested with. AFTER : I tends to find out more about the companies involved and more importantly whether they are listed or not ;-)
 
3. BEFORE : During gathering session with friends, investments or stocks are hardly the topic of interest. Even if some of my friends talk about investment/specific stocks, I will usually switch off. AFTER : Occasionally, I will intentionally initiate the investment topic for open discussion.
 
4. BEFORE : My iPhone/iPad are filled with entertainment/news apps AFTER : My iPhone/iPad are filled with financial news/trading apps (and have the tendency of searching for more related apps)
 
5. BEFORE : The only app that I refresh regularly (for the most updated news) is Facebook. AFTER : Have tendency to refresh regularly my Facebook PLUS the POEM trading platform. I know, being a proponent of value Investing, I should not do this but it is kind of an habit now ;-) 
 
What about you? How does your stock investing journey impacted your daily routines?
 
Cheers!

How to make room for LIFE? Check it out...HERE!


Sunday, May 24, 2015

Yet Another Potential $60 Millions Ponzi Scam in Singapore

Just slightly more than two months ago, I've shared about the bogus gold buy back scheme (Suisse International) and mentioned that it would not be the last. True enough, in less than 3 months, we had another potential $60 millions ponzi scam case as reported in today's The Sunday Times. Once again, this would not be the last. 

This time round, it is not involving any institution and seems to be an act of a greedy individual (her name is Ms Leong Lai Yee, as reported in the newspaper). She reportedly promises very high returns (up to 48% or so, wow!) through "investing" in distressed properties and managed to "CONvinced" around 60 people/friends to part with their hard earned money, which comes up to about $60 millions. 

She has gone missing and now and a number of the "investors" have lodged legal action against her. 

So, I thought just to re-share the key learning points that we all ought to learn from these never-ending bogus acts:

Learning Point #1 : If the promise seems too good to be true, most of the time, it is NOT true!

Learning Point #2 : Most of the time, those get rich quick scheme is TRUE! But, the issue is they are the one get rich and NOT you! 

Learning Point #3 : Never part with your money without doing any due diligent check on the provider, when in doubt (or you can't convince yourself), SIAM ("avoid" in Hokkien)     

Cheers!

How to make room for LIFE? Check it out...HERE!

Saturday, May 23, 2015

Weekend Sharing - What Come BEFORE Money?

There are many things should come BEFORE money, actually! Just to quote a few, our health, our mental state (mindset), our freedom etc etc... Today, one particular element/resource that I want to dig in further is something that is...

1. Once gone, you can never get it back (no, not health, with the medical advancement, we might be able to maintain/get back "some months/years" of health)

2. Everyone share the equal amount of this precious resource (whether you are president of America, the monk in some kind of mountain or the average Joe on the street, ALL are equal).

3. You can't store/deposit/save this resources for future use or "transfer" it on another person, not even your loved ones. 

4. We all have limited amount of this precious resources. Some have more and some has lesser but all will end at some point in time. 

I guess by now you folks managed to guess what I am talking about is.... TIME. Yes, time is something so intangible but yet so so important in life, some squandered it away and by the time they knew it, it is too late. Some make full use of it and change the world, for the better. I can't exactly tell you how you should use/invest your time as it is very subjective. 

Personally, the time that we used/invested to build/improve on something, either on ourselves or someone else (e.g. a good relationship, fitness, health, knowledge, skills etc..), the TIME is deemed WELL spend!  

So, while we are all chasing for the holy grail (financial freedom), not to forget other stuff which are equally, if not more, important in our life! 

Oh, by the way, there is a saying which I thought quite fit for this post : TIME is MONEY! ;-)

Have a great weekend all! 

Thursday, May 21, 2015

My First Minion Size Dividend From An US Stock (EVEP)

Last month, I've written a post about two of my new addition to my portfolio and one of them is an US stock (EV Energy Partners, EVEP). As indicated in my earlier post, the main objective of these two counters is for Dividend Income purpose. So, dividend 

As most of the dividend paying counters from US are dishing out quarterly dividend (like Singapore REITS) instead of annually, I am expecting to receive the very first physical US dividend cheque this month (as the dividend payment date is on 15th May 2015). However, when I checked my account today (the one linked to my brokerage account), I was pleasantly surprised that the said dividend already auto-credited into my bank account. 

Even though it is just a small amount of $98.99 (after taken into consideration of Withholding tax of 30%) , it is still something to cheers about as first time is always the sweetest! ;-)

Cheers! 

P/S : For my recount of first dividend from Singapore stocks, check it out here!

A great place for family outing to learn more about pottery making!

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Wee Hur Holdings - My Next Potential Inclusion?

To be frank, I get to know Wee Hur Holdings (E3B.SI) from one of my favourite Stock Screener, Uncle Stock. In fact, Wee Hur Holdings ranked first in their Piotroski Top List (with a scoring of 9.74). Of course, this is only the trigger for me to dig in further into the counter. 

After browsing through their 2014 Annual Report, I must say that Wee Hur is fundamentally strong and are paying size-able dividend consistently. Oh, by the way. they have a record year in 2014, in terms of their revenue and net profit. 

Also, they have a sterling performance in their Q1 2015 result as well as an exciting expansion in new market, Australia. It seems all so positive to me. 

Wee Hur Financial Highlights
Wee Hur's Financial Highlights
Wee Hur's Q1 2015 Result Highlights
With Price/Book Value of 1.02 (Wee Hur last traded at $0.34) and average dividend yield of 5.8%, it is quite a tempting counter, bearing in mind that it has a strong potential growth, with its expansion plan (Australia). Having said that, I will keep it in my watch list first and not rush into it for the following 2 reasons :
a. It is still in its downwards trend
b. It's "50-Day Moving Average" is above "20-Days Moving Average" (see below) [I learnt that it is a sign of down trend]

Are you vested in Wee Hur? What is your view/comment on this counter?

Cheers!

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Maybe This Is The Reason Why I Started Late In Investing!

It is heartening to see more and more youngsters to get their hands dirty early in Personal Finance, especially on the investment. With more and more relaxing rules and guidelines by our regulator (MAS) to encourage retail investors to join in the bandwagon (be it Stocks, ETFs, REITs or Bonds), I foresee that age profile of the retail investors will be getting younger and younger over the years. 

Personally, I am a late starter, very very late, to be exact, I only started stock investment a year ago. Anyway, I am a firm believer of "later better than never". Of course, the phenomenal effect of Compounding Effect is no longer at my side, I will just need to make do with whatever I've got left. 

Speaking of which, it triggers me to revisit my past and trying to uncover the reason why I did not get involved in the stock (or any other kind of) investment earlier. I deduced three key "culprits" :

1. Lack of knowledge - Prior to this, I always relate stock investment with gambling, which might still be true as till now, my view is that there is still a small element of gambling in stock investment. The only difference is that with enough "homework" and focus on time-in-the-market, the probability of winning is much higher.

2. Money Is Hard To Come By -  When I was younger, money is not easy to come by. 20 plus years ago, I came to Singapore alone when I was still a kampung boy ;-) The life is much simpler then as all my living expenses are self-sufficient and at the beginning of my working life, it is kind of hand to mouth, so investing did not cross my mind during my younger years. 

3. Too Risk Averse -  I am the kind of person that like to play it safe (too safe, at times). However, I've learnt that playing too safe is not safe at all!  

So, how young have you started your stock investing journey?

Cheers!

Saturday, May 16, 2015

MediShield Life - There Is An Important Action You Need To Take Now!

Medishield Life
I believed most of you folks have already known that by year end, our National Medical Insurance, MediShield will be revamped as MediShield Life and it will be compulsory for all Singaporean and Permanent Residents. If you are still clueless about what is this all about, you may want to check out my earlier posts here and here for some basic information about the MediShield Life scheme. 

By now, most of you might have received an big envelope from Ministry Of Health (MOH) stating some action that you need to do by 19/06/2015. Basically, it requires you to confirm your household information so that MOH can work out appropriate MediShield Life premium subsidies (ranging from 15% to 50%) for eligible citizens. You may ask why can't MOH just make use of the Government database that they already have for this purpose? The answer is YES, they are doing that but just need us to counter confirm that their record is as current/accurate as possible.

You can do this via the following methods (Only one member from your household need to do this):

1. Online - through their Medishield Life site (you need to log-in through the Reference Number [provided in the letter sent to you] or your SingPass)
2. Counter Service - All SingPost branches, selected Community Centres and IRAS Office at Revenue House)
3. Hotline - 1800-222-3399

Oh, if you are eager to know what would be your estimated Medishield Life subsidies and premiums, you can use their calculator here (no sign-in is required).

On the related note, to me, medical insurance is a necessity, it is even more so with the ever increasing medical inflation costs. Even though Medishield Life is a compulsory scheme but it only takes care of the basic level of coverage (mainly up to Class B2/C Ward in Government Hospitals). Besides, there is still co-insurance and deductible component that you need to fork out your own money (by cash or Medisave). That's where the Integrated Shield Plans (and their corresponding Riders) from the current 5 insurers* comes into picture to complement the coverage. I've covered some of the key reasons in the earlier post,click here to view.  

Cheers!

*5 insurers that currently providing the Integrated Shield Plans are :
AIA (HealthShield)
Aviva (MyShield)
Great Eastern (SupremeHealth)
NTUC Income (INcomeShield)
Prudential (PruShield)

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Plan Ahead - Here Comes The 2016 Public Holidays

Time flies, we are almost half way through the year 2015. It is always good to plan early when comes to our leaves/holidays. Today, The Government has announced the 2016 Public Holidays and hence you can start to plan for your next oversea trips in 2016 now! Yeay!

On a side note, Today's hottest topic of discussion in the office is non other than the upcoming Singapore Savings Bonds (to be launched in second half of the year). I am quite surprise that many of my colleagues are quite interested on this capital-guaranteed investment vehicle. There are quite a number of blog posts written by the peer bloggers so I would not bother you folks with another similar post. However, if you are interested to learn more about Singapore Savings Bonds, you can check out the "8 Things You Need To Know About Singapore Savings Bond".

Oh yah, I've not forgotten stuff that I am supposed to share in this post, here comes the Singapore Public Holidays 2016 Calendar :

Singapore Public Holidays in 2016
Cheers!

Monday, May 11, 2015

Super Group - 1st Quarter 2015 Report Out Tomorrow

Super Group's (S10) share price has been going south since late last week, it went from $1.49 on 6th May 2015 to $1.39 today (a 6.7% decline, inclusive of the price adjustment for the XD today). I guess this is the anticipated sentiment from the Q1 2015 result, which will be released tomorrow. 

Being vested in Super Group for close to a year now (I bought it at its high of $1.465 in June 2014), I must say that this is one of the most volatile counter that I am still holding (as I intend to hold it for long term). As you can see from the Super Group stock chart below, it went south to as low as $1.05 in November 2014 below picking-up some momentum from March 2015 onward. 


If tomorrow's result is proven to be bleak, I am expecting the stock price to go south further. Then again, whatever goes down will comes up again, its a matter of time ;-)

Cheers!

Saturday, May 9, 2015

Can Financial Freedom Really Bring Out An Happier YOU?

Financial Freedom
Finally, finished the book, How Life Works, from Andrew Matthews. I know, it has been more than 4 months since I bought the book (click here for my earlier post on the book), but my excuse is : I am really a slow reader... ;-)

I am a fan of Mr Andrew Matthews' works and as usual, there are many easy to digest take away from the book (some of them might be quite common sense but occasionally we just need to be reminded). Among them, I felt most connected to the following phases :

If you are miserable before a promotion, you will be miserable after a promotion ;

If you feel worthless without a million dollars, you will feel worthless with a million dollars ;

If life is empty without a boyfriend, life will be empty with a boyfriend ;

Achieving goals won't make you happy. You need to like yourself when you are not achieving!


Achieving financial freedom (through any and all legal means) seems to be the Holy Grail for most retail investors or financial bloggers, but I do agree with the author that by simply achieving your goal (the status of financial freedom in this case) will definitely not automatically make you a better or happier person. Of course, I am not saying that it is not important to be financially FREE, what I am saying is that if there is/are something that you already know you want to do/act when achieving the financial freedom, DON'T wait, do it now (maybe at a smaller scale). Because, no one can guarantee that TOMORROW will come!

Cheers!       

You can Test Drive Now!!

Thursday, May 7, 2015

What Exactly Happens For The Dividend Stock Price On Ex-Dividend Day

Dividend Stock
Dividend is one of the key components for most income and value investors, it plays a major part in the compounding effect if we were to re-invest the dividend. Personally, when I choose a stock to invest, dividend yield is definitely one of the key consideration. 

When comes to dividend stocks, there are a few key dates that we absolutely need to get familiarized with i.e. CD (Cum-Dividend Date), XD (Ex-Dividend Date) and Payment Date. Today, I would like to talk a little bit about XD (Exclude-Dividend Date)

When a stock is trading at XD (usually 2 days), it means that any purchase during these 2 days will NOT be entitled to the upcoming Dividend payout. On the first day of XD, the stock price is adjusted downwards (by the Exchange) with the equal amount of the dividend to be paid. For example :

On 04/05/2015, Stock A is closed $10 ; 
[Dividend declared is $1]

On 05/05/2015 (first day of XD), Stock A will be adjusted downwards to $9 (10 - 1) as the opening price, even before any trading 
[Hence, trading will usually hovering around this price when it closes for the day]   

With this in mind, for a long term dividend investors (i.e. those intended to hold on to their stocks for years), it might make better sense to buy stocks on XD (when it is cheaper), what do you think? Personally, I used to buy stock at least a couple of weeks before CD as most stocks are trading higher during CD.

Cheers!

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Quick Random Updates

Maybe it is because of the damn flu bug (that plagued me since last weekend) or simply plain laziness, don't feel like writing anything for the past few days, hence you will notice the drop of my blog posts recently.

Anyway, in order to break this vicious cycle, the best approach is to write anything that comes to mind. So, thought of giving some quick random updates for the past few days or so (as I am writing the post through my iPad mini, I will keep this post short) :

1. One of my recent addition : UMS Group went XD (Ex-Dividend) yesterday and hence the counter is expectedly dropped correspondingly. Those who are vested can expect the dividend cheques to reach your mail box by end of this month.

2. Happy to see the local financial card game, Wongamania went mainstream a few days ago by featuring in Channel 5's Money Mind. You can watch the program at Toggle here.

3. A couple of major staff movements in the office since last week, If you are in the corporate world long enough, you will know that this is a common scene after the bonus payment. Anyway, life goes on...like the saying goes : horses continue to run, people continue to dance.

4. Received a surprise payment (a couple hundreds of USD) in my Paypal account yesterday, upon verifying, apparently it was from an affiliate tools that I was promoting (in another blog) a couple of months ago and left it there to auto-run. Even though this might be one off thingy but such (almost) passive income stream never fail to motivate me wanted to learn more about internet marketing.

Before I sign off, sharing herewith one of the meaningful dialogue from Nick Fury (in the movie Avengers - Age Of Ultron) :

"Hope for the best and make do with what we've got!"

Cheers!




Monday, May 4, 2015

Market News In 2 Minutes @ 4th May 2015 (Far East Orchard, Ramba Energy)

As stock investors (even though a small one), it is important to keep abreast with the latest financial and market news. Since I am in it, I thought it might be worthwhile to share it out with my readers too.

Hence, I started this "Market News In 2 Minutes" series.

Following are the "Market News In 2 Minutes" for today :

1. Far East Orchard (O10) - Unveiled its acquisition of four properties in Shieldfield, Newcastle upon Tyne, England for £40.9 million ($83 million), a plan that marks its move into the UK’s student housing space in a bid to push deeper into Europe and diversify its property development portfolio. (source : Shares Investment)

2. Ramba Energy (R14) - Plans to sell 14.9 percent stake in itself to an Indonesian tycoon for $18.4 million in gross proceeds to repay debt and other uses. Ramba will place out 68 million shares, or 14.9 percent of Ramba’s post-placement share capital to British Virgin Islands-incorporated Wing Harvest. Approximately $10.9 million will be used for the oil and gas business, another $4 million will be used to fully repay loan and interest from Ortus Holdings while the remaining $3 million will be used for general working capital. (source : Shares Investment)

Cheers!

Friday, May 1, 2015

About 20 ETFs Will Be Classified As Excluded Investment Products

HAPPY MAY DAY 2015!

As per my earlier coverage on the upcoming relaxation of the rules/guidelines for ETFs in Singapore, on Wednesday, Monetary Authority Of Singapore (MAS) has announced the reclassification of some 20 ETFs (including the current 11), which account for about 80% of the asset under management by locally listed ETFs, as Excluded Investment Products (EIPs) [for more details about EIP, check out my earlier post here]

So what does it means to the retail investors? It means that more ETFs will be accessible to us. According to the report in Straits Times on Thursday, SGX had already been talking to the ETF issuers ahead of the MAS announcement and the first re-classification could happen as early as the second half of this year.

ETFs is gaining its popularity because of its low cost (as compared to the Unit Trust Products) and lower risk (as compared to the individual stocks, because of its diversification) in nature. Also, we can trade ETFs in open market just like trading the individual stock. 

Are you invested in ETFs? What is your take on this upcoming change of the rules?

Cheers!

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