FT goes mobile on branded travel guides

From now on, it's all clear.

Products that fully protect an investor's principal sum are labelled 'capital guaranteed' - anything else carries the possibility of a loss.

After the collapse of the Lehman-linked products, MAS has decided to finally taken action to ban confusing in-between statements like "capital protected" or "principal protected".

On March 12, MAS issued a policy consultation paper to propose enhancements to the regulatory framework for
unlisted investment products.

The proposals focused on, among other things, promoting effective disclosure by improving the quality of information available to investors, and strengthening fair dealing in the sale and advisory process.

The second part of MAS' response will be published in the fourth quarter.

Know when to hold, when to fold Gabriel Chen, Wed Sept 09, 2009, The Straits Times

I started playing poker when I was in university.

I am referring to Texas Hold'em - the ubiquitous card game played in college campuses, casinos and card rooms across North America.

This is how it is played.

Players compete for an amount of money, known as the 'pot', which every player contributes to. The cards are dealt randomly and each player starts with only two cards, dealt face down.

The game is divided into a series of hands, that is, a number of rounds. At the conclusion of each hand, the pot is typically awarded to the player with the best hand.

How is this determined? Your poker hand will be compared with other players' at the end of each hand.

If, say, you hold a four of a kind - this occurs when you have four of the cards of one type - this certainly trumps one pair that your friendly opponent might have.

Clearly, a player's objective is to maximise his long-term winnings, not just a few rounds. Players do this by making decisions about when and how much to bet, raise, call, or fold - various jargon words linked with the game.

I got hooked. Like investing, poker is about good decision-making despite having incomplete information.

You want to increase the odds in your favour by playing those hands where you have the best hand, or when the probabilities are clearly stacked on your side.

I thought I was the only one who felt that poker could deliver a lesson or two on investing. Then in class one day, my Duke University economics professor, Emma Rasiel, took out a stack of cards and made us play Texas Hold'em.

'It affects your decision-making process when your own money is involved,' she said, as she made us jot down how we placed our bets and had us analyse our game plan.

While playing, I wondered why I made decisions I ought not to. For instance, why did I ride out my cards through the end, even when it was clear that mathematically I should have folded, or called it quits?

Unlike amateur players, experienced poker players are willing to fold even when they possess a decent set of cards and to walk away when the odds are no longer in their favour.

Good investors do that too. They may have splurged on a stock or building project, for example, but if developments mid-way alter the company's prospects or make the location less attractive, they are mentally ready to cut their losses instead of sinking in more money to salvage their investment.

Local entrepreneur Chan Chong Beng once told me how, after he took his wallpaper and furnishings business to Beijing more than a decade ago, he faced a big setback. His Chinese partner had hired a local woman to do their finances, but she claimed she could not collect the cash from the customers.

Mr Chan's Chinese partner backed her story. 'There was no way I could find out if these two were telling the truth,' said Mr Chan, the founder of Goodrich Global. 'I decided to cut my losses, and let go of our China operations. We lost $750,000 in just two years.'

Often, people do not cut their losses as they believe what comes down would eventually go up.

I was renewing my fixed deposit at a bank in 2002 when the relationship manager persuaded me to put that sum into a technology-themed unit trust. I saw an opportunity - given that tech shares had plunged after the dot.com bubble burst two years earlier.

But I had erred. I paid too high a price for a fund that did not contain veritable names in the tech business.

Fast forward to the year 2005. To carry on with the unit trust would mean sitting on a paper loss, but to get out of the decision that I made years ago would have validated my current loss, I thought at that time.

To redeem or not to redeem? That was a tough call.

That same year, I got out of my unit trust with a 30 per cent loss. In retrospect, my hesitation to fold stemmed from the hope that my investment would rebound.

In poker, like in investing, hope can be costly.

Hoping the last card will compensate for the poor cards you have in hand as well as those sitting at the poker table represents poor decision-making.

It is possible that in folding, you fold too early, but we should not confuse timing with hope. After all, wishing for a stock to rise in value certainly plays no part in making it happen.

I have since recouped my losses after ploughing the remaining money into energy stocks. If only I had realised my losses much earlier, I look back and consider wistfully.

Nevertheless, I tell myself the most important lesson learnt was to actually be pro-active and do the deed.

As the popular business saying goes: 'There is no sin in being wrong. The sin is in staying wrong.'

It is the advisor's job to know exactly what are the products' risks, and more importantly to help their clients understand the complicated terms that financial institutions use and what it means to them. Failing to do so should result in clawing back of commissions as shown by GE and Philip Securities.

If Great Eastern and Philip Securities can show responsibility for the mis-selling of minibonds, shouldn't bank representatives be held under the same kind of accountabilty?

Pay-back time at Phillip Securities Fri, Sept 04, 2009, The Straits Times, Lorna Tan, Senior Correspondent

LOCAL stockbroker Phillip Securities has started clawing back commissions from staff who sold toxic products - and advisers fear they may have to pay even more out of their own pockets.

The firm has not decided on the final sum, and is withholding a portion of monthly commissions from advisers who sold Minibonds structured products that failed in the financial crisis.

This is pending a final decision on the amount advisers must pay up.

FORGET THE FAST MONEY Larry Haverkamp, Thu, Aug 20, 2009, The New Paper

I WAS drinking iced tea at a Burger King outlet the other day when a woman sitting nearby showed me the course she was studying: Options trading.

She told me: 'It's like stocks, but you can make money even faster.'

Options were also featured in last week's issue of The Sunday Times. It isn't easy. You have to learn about delta, gamma, vega and theta.

As the woman told me, the appeal is leverage. You can trade 10 to 20 times your capital, which amplifies the profits and losses by 10 to 20 times. It is life in the fast lane.

Futures and structured warrants are similar to options. All are traded on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) but the trading volume is low, almost zero.

Structured warrants - a type of option - solve the problem by permitting the issuing bank to act as a market maker. It stands ready to buy or sell to anyone who wants to trade.

That's a plus, but the downside is that issuing banks conceal their fees in the warrant's price. There is no way to know the charges and many traders assume there are none.

Another solution is to trade futures and options on the major exchanges in Chicago, New York and London. Commissions are low and the volume is high.

The big question is: 'Can you make money?'

Courses, brokers and exchanges say you can but their livelihood depends on your trading. In fact, you can't win trading options, futures and warrants.

Flaw 1: Predicting the unpredictable

The first problem is that fancy terms like delta, gamma, vega and theta won't help if you don't have the correct 'view' of the future.

Is that hard to achieve? After all, prices move in only two directions: Up and down.

While they claim it is easy, I have asked trainers and other experts: 'Show me.'

Simply predict the price of any stock, index, option, warrant or future's contract for any date in the next 12 months. None has taken up the challenge.

I don't blame them. Markets already include all information in the price. You can outperform the market only if you have special or insider information.

It is hard to come by and may even be illegal if it gives you an unfair trading advantage.

The good news is even without fortune-telling or an expert view of the future, you can still win.

All you need is to buy and hold a diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds and property for the long run.

You can't do that with options, futures and warrants, since they are short-term trading instruments. Nearly all expire in a year or less.

Flaw 2: Zero-sum and worse

Options, futures and warrants are not assets but promises written into contracts. If you make a short-term bet that the market will go up, an unknown counter-party takes the other side to bet it will go down.

Your win is their loss and vice-versa, making it zero-sum.

When you include the trading costs, it becomes negative sum.

It is like flipping a coin with a friend. You pass money back and forth between each other and the average return is zero.

Suppose a third person - George - enters the room and takes a fee for overseeing the coin flipping. This makes a big difference and the game becomes negative-sum.

You and your friend will eventually lose ALL your money to the middle-man, George. It is only a question of time.

Options, futures and warrants are also zero-sum and become negative-sum when you include commissions. While returns are low - negative, in fact - leverage keeps the risks high.

A better choice is non zero-sum investments like stocks, bonds and property. These appreciate in the long run as the economy grows.

They also have the advantage of paying higher returns for riskier investments. Stocks and property, for example, are more risky and earn higher returns than bonds.

It isn't true for options, futures and warrants where risks are always high while average returns remain negative and produce losses.

BACK TO BASICS TO GROW MONEY Larry Haverkamp, Thu, Aug 20, 2009, The New Paper

DO you know the difference between a stock and a bond?

It is this: a stock means you own part of the company. A bond means you loaned it money.

Stocks and bonds are also called 'equity' and 'debt'. All investments fall into these two categories.

Both are ways for firms to get money to pay their bills or buy more assets for expansion.

A typical debt-equity split is 50/50. It means the business is financed half with debt and half with equity.

Companies get debt by borrowing, usually from banks. The equity comes from owners as well as past income that was never paid out as dividends.

It accumulates and is called 'retained earnings'.

That brings me to a new buzzword from this recession: De-leveraging. It means everyone wants fewer risks and it changes the world's debt to equity split from 50/50 to something less, like, 33/67.

Then, assets are financed one-third from debt and two-thirds from equity.

De-leveraging in action

Take 2006. A company may have had $200 million in assets, financed by $100m in debt and $100m in equity.

Now, in 2009, it still has $100m in equity, but debt would have fallen to $50m. It means only $150m in assets can be financed, and leaves the company no choice but to operate on a smaller scale than before.

De-leveraging hits households too. Banks now require that you put down more of your own money to buy a car or a home.

This is the 'new normal' and is likely to be with us for a long time.

Is it good or bad? Well, on the plus side, fewer risks mean not as many ups and downs in the economy. We will have fewer big recessions.

As explained, however, less debt means fewer assets to work with. The world will operate on a smaller scale. It will need fewer factories, office buildings and workers too.

It means lower growth and higher unemployment. Incomes will grow more slowly. Prepare to tighten your belt.

How to invest in the future

A company with more equity (ownership) and less debt (borrowing) is safer.

For an investor, it's the opposite: You take big risks when you own shares of a company (equity), and the safer investment is bonds (debt).

Which should you go for, high risk or low?

Most people say: Low risk. Why take chances?

The trouble with that is you also get lower returns.

Ok, let's try for high returns instead. Sorry. Then you have the problem of big risks. Hey, you can't win!

It is true. The pluses and minuses are exactly offsetting. As risks increases, so do returns.

Neither choice is better. Both are equal and fair. The choice depends on your risk preference. It is a personal decision.

Women, for example, often prefer safer investments while men take more risks.

Retirees usually go for safety while young people don't mind taking risks.

Here is a good rule of thumb: The per cent of safe investments should equal your age.

It means at age 50, you would divide your money equally between bonds and stocks. At age 90, you would have 90 per cent in safe assets like bonds and fixed deposits.

Risk v returns: advanced

A word of caution. Most people think higher risks mean higher returns. It's not always true.

Take gambling. The risks are very high but returns are low. In fact, they are negative. You are sure to lose in the long run.

It is also true for investments in contracts called 'derivatives'. Examples are options, futures, warrants, swaps and forward contracts.

(i) They expire after a few months and (ii) all gains and losses are offsetting, making them zero-sum before commissions. These two features make them more similar to gambling than investing.

Worse still, derivatives often come with high leverage. It magnifies the risks by 10 to 20 times while the average returns remain negative.

It isn't all bad. Derivatives can also reduce risks through 'hedging'. This is done by big companies and banks.

Most people use derivatives for 'speculation'.

Hedge Your Equities Portfolio
Lim Say Boon
Fri, Aug 28, 2009
The Business Times

INVESTORS who have yet to hedge their equities positions - something that is always important to do for long-term portfolios - should look into this pretty quickly. On balance, the stock rally of the past six months should continue. But the risks have risen sharply along with prices.

The recent 20 per cent correction in stock prices on the Shanghai stock exchange might not have marked the end of the rally. But it is a warning shot. More than that, it was probably also a glimpse into the future - at how the cyclical rebound in the equities markets could end.

This has not been a high-quality rally. The underlying recovery in the global economy has been driven by inventory restocking and government fiscal and monetary stimulus. Meanwhile, the markets for risky assets - stocks, corporate debt, and commodities - have been helped along by a huge amount of liquidity sitting on the sidelines, in bank deposits and money market funds. The 'frightened money' appears to have started re-entering the market, with bets in favour of government intervention trumping deflation.

But what happens after the 'mechanical' business of inventory restocking runs its course? The US consumer has been weakened by a one-third decline in the average home price and frightened by employment approaching 10 per cent. There must be serious questions over the ability of the US consumer to sustain the economic recovery beyond inventory restocking.

And even more importantly, as the panic of the past two weeks over Chinese stocks has shown, this is a monetary stimulus-dependent rally. On speculation that the Chinese government might start pulling back money supply and credit growth, the Shanghai stock market collapsed. This is not surprising given the correlation between money supply growth and the performance of the Shanghai Composite Index.

But this is not just a Chinese market phenomenon. Monetary stimulus - cheap money and plenty of it - has been crucial in sustaining the 'wassail on Wall Street' (and elsewhere). The markets understand this. So they are closely scrutinising almost every word from central bankers around the world for hints of imminent 'exit'.

Events of the past 12 months have been tagged 'the Great Recession meets the Great Government Intervention'. On many measures, the 'Great Government Intervention' has prevailed. The global economy is already in recovery. Economies from Germany to Japan to Singapore are out of recession. The US is likely to be confirmed in coming months as having emerged from recession in Q3 2009.

Asset price performance

Going forward, three factors will be crucial to the future of the ongoing recovery in risky asset prices. The first relates to the strength of the cyclical rebound in the global economy. The second is about growth drivers beyond inventory restocking. And the third relates to the eventual unwinding of government stimulus.

There is a serious risk of disappointment in the strength of the economic rebound in coming months. To date, the economic data has been weighted in favour of performances beating market consensus. The equities bulls appear to be betting on the continuation of better-than-expected data.

That is, they are counting on a sharp rebound following the deep decline of the past 18 months. They are betting on the mechanical process of recovery from sharp inventory destocking, further supported by aggressive government stimulus.

However, recoveries from recessions associated with financial crises have tended to be weaker than those from simple 'cyclical recessions'.

Meanwhile, in the US, unemployment is approaching 10 per cent, house prices are down by an average of around 33 per cent, and the US household savings rate had surged from almost zero savings to around 6.2 per cent of disposable income at its recent high (before pulling back more recently to 4.6 per cent). If this marks a 'new frugality' among US consumers, the global economy is going to struggle to find new drivers for growth.

And if governments start withdrawing fiscal and monetary stimulus while the world is still fumbling around for a new growth paradigm, that would almost certainly trigger a sharp correction in the rally in stocks, corporate bonds, commodities, and commodity currencies. At this stage of the recovery, the stimulus is the party 'punchbowl'. Take that away and the party ends.

On balance, central bankers are likely to be very circumspect about withdrawing stimulus. In the US, looking back some 40 years, the Federal Reserve has never raised its policy rate until the decline in the unemployment rate has been unambiguously entrenched.

That has meant a lag of months, even a year, after the peaking of unemployment. In China, there has been a tendency by the Chinese government over recent cycles to pull in money supply growth only during peaks or close to peaks of industrial production and export growth.

Currently, US unemployment has only just shown very early signs of peaking. Meanwhile, in China, exports are still in deep year-on-year contraction. And with prices in deflation, there is little incentive at this stage for the Chinese government to reverse course on monetary policy.

So money is likely to continue to be plentiful and cheap. Low interest rates are likely to continue forcing investors into the risky asset markets in search of higher returns. And late-comers to the rally could push the markets into an overshoot of fundamentals.

For example, the Shanghai Composite prior to the recent correction was trading at 3.8 times book value. And even with the correction, it is still trading at around 3.6 times book. Eventually, when earnings growth kicks back in, the focus will turn to price-earnings valuations and high returns on equity will eventually justify the high price-to-book valuations. But this has not happened yet - hence the 'overshoot' of fundamentals.

Prices for risky assets are likely to push higher, notwithstanding all the unresolved fundamental problems. But the easy money has been made. Prepare for a rougher ride from here. Volatility - measured by the S&P 500 volatility index VIX - recently hit a low of around 23 per cent. It is still trading around 25 per cent, a far cry from its crisis peak of 90 per cent. Volatility is cheap. Investors should consider buying a proxy for VIX.

The less aggressive investor might want to start taking profits off the table while continuing to ride this liquidity rally. They might put those profits into VIX to hedge their equities portfolios. They might also want to consider low correlation plays such as gold.

Lim Say Boon is the chief investment strategist for Standard Chartered Group Wealth Management and Standard Chartered Private Bank

This article was first published in The Business Times.

The views of Ms Lorraine Tan had the same tone of caution during her seminar on Saturday during the InvestFair09 at Suntec Convention Centre. The Director of Research, Asia of Standard & Poor's Equity Research, expressed the views that the exuberant market results have been surprising, with Singapore up against analyst expectations and becoming a little bit expensive at this current moment.

With real US unemployment rate at 16% , and the common sentiment that current market momentum is mainly driven by ample liquidity, perhaps punting for the short term is not the wisest thing to do right now.

That said, Ms Lorraine Tan and her analysts feel that in the medium term, a portfolio consisting of both defensive stocks in consumer staples, utilities and energy and cyclical stocks like commercial real estate and financials will help investors ride over these uncertain times.

For me, I still stand by the investment principle of taking a long term approach to things. Especially more so when the future is cloudy.

IT'S always an interesting and useful exercise to question conventional wisdom in the stock market, either when the mood is overtly bullish or bearish. Of course, many observers would point to a time-honoured maxim that 'the market is always right' which if true, suggests that it is an exercise in futility to try and probe for hidden truths beyond what the markets are saying at any one time - just accept the message being conveyed and react accordingly.

As a general rule, this approach would be correct; you'd have to assume that the market is usually right and certainly, if you had stood still over the past five months and done nothing, you'd have missed out on a rebound that has, on average, added 40 per cent to equities round the world.

However, all rules have exceptions and this could well be one such instance when markets are, shall we say, less than correct. We say this because current wisdom, going by the large upward thrust in equities since March, says that because the US economy has turned a corner and is supposedly improving, then the outlook has to be rosy and thus stocks are cheap. This much most investors would be familiar with, the mantra from the broking community and investment banks that markets have more upside, that there are more earnings upgrades to bank on and that economic growth has only one direction - up.

But you'd have to ask, why is there still such widespread scepticism among an appreciable number of learned observers? In BT's Aug 20 Roundtable for example, the recovery was described as 'phony' by financial consultant Ernest Kepper. He said that 'a turn-up in the economy is not the same as the economy recovering lost ground'. Japanese professor and former finance vice-minister for international affairs Eisuke Sakakibara said that he was mystified because there is no good reason why stock prices are so high, either in Japan, the US or even in China, where he believes a major bubble is inflating.

Plenty to ponder

All of these concerns might be dismissed as simple, misplaced over-conservatism if stock prices are really cheap relative to future prospects, but here we find plenty to ponder.

In US financial weekly Barron's Aug 3 issue for example, former Merrill Lynch strategist David Rosenberg is quoted as being still doubtful that Wall Street's March low was a real market bottom. This is because, according to his reckoning, on March 6 US stocks were trading at two times book value, 13 times forward earnings and 18 times trailing earnings which were supported by a paltry 3 per cent dividend yield - all numbers which don't qualify as a true market low.

Worse, the dividend yield today has dropped to 2 per cent while the trailing price/earnings has climbed to 24, leading to the suggestion that 'the marginal buyer of equities today may well be the same person who was loading up on real estate during the summer of 2006'.

And what of US growth? Even here, questions can be asked. Thus far, the latest figures - which incidentally brought cheer to Wall Street when they were released - showed that the slide in US consumption is levelling off, but this was most likely due to tax cuts and the stimulus taking effect, both of which can only provide temporary relief. With no real improvement in employment and only 0.2 per cent private sector wage growth, it's not likely that US consumers can do their part to spend the economy out of trouble in the months ahead.

As some critics have correctly pointed out, stimulus packages may ultimately cause more damage than good because they delay the inevitable downturn and prevent economies from healing themselves. One editorial described stimulus packages as akin to juggling flaming torches - impressive while it lasts, but doomed to succumb eventually to the law of gravity. If and when the US's 'bailout bubble' bursts - or when the stimulus is withdrawn - Wall Street could be in serious trouble.

Liquidity driven momentum

So where does this leave the investor who is wondering where equities might head in the months ahead? First, it's best to acknowledge that a large part of Wall Street's rally since March was liquidity driven, possibly even fuelled by money from US bailout packages that was quietly channelled to investment banks. If the liquidity dries up, so will the momentum.

Second, government spending and stimulus can help ease some of the pain some of the time, but not all of the pain all of the time - especially when both are funded by government borrowing. This is because artificial growth of the sort being engineered in the US comes at a price, and this could take the form of higher inflation and higher taxes as many have forecast.

Third and perhaps most important though, is not to get too carried away by the pronouncements from the broking community that the worst is over and that it's all happy days ahead because there is plenty of room for scepticism.

Put differently, it's best not to place too much faith in the dictum that the market is always right because sometimes, it isn't.

Greed is an inherent human flaw that is the major reason why markets are being more and more irrational. Even though every investment book out there emphasizes the importance of staying invested and taking a long term approach to reduce emotional investing behavior, there will always be temptation to jump onto the bandwagon and to make a quick buck. For every one success story, there could be many more sufferings left unheard.

But pressured by his 'rich and successful' friends, he decided to pool his hard-earned savings of $300,000 with his sister to put down a deposit on a three-storey cluster house in Kew Gate, a 31-unit leasehold development in the Upper East Coast area.

Intending to sell it about 10 years later, and confident of being able to repay the mortgage and make a handsome profit, he took out a 90 per cent bank loan.

Any thought that he would lose his job and house prices would drop like a stone never occurred to him. But the unthinkable became an unpleasant reality.

In 2001, after his employer merged with another company, he lost his job.

He managed to cover monthly payments on the loan with the remnants of his savings, but that did not leave much for his family.

Desperate to make ends meet, he tried to sell the cluster house in which his sister and mother had been living, but for two long years was unable to do it.

Although he managed to secure a new job in 2003, his salary barely covered the monthly payments. Then the Sars crisis hit and property prices plunged further, recalls Mr Tsai, who is now an operational manager in his late 50s. He eventually disposed of the house at a bank foreclosure sale in 2003 for $680,000 - almost half of the original value and $300,000 below valuation. In total, he lost about $700,000 on the house.

The Tsais, who had to sell their semi-detached home to pay off the debt, now own and live in a five-room HDB flat - also in the Upper East Coast area - bought with Mr Tsai's Central Provident Fund savings. 'I've dreamed of owning private property again and going back to a semi-D. But next time I'm not going to think twice - I'm going to think three or four times,' Mr Tsai says.

Home owner M.K. Kung, 42, has also been hit by shrinking values.

She purchased a two-bedder at Yio Chu Kang condo Seasons Park in 1996 with her husband for about $700,000. They are still living there with their child, but she reckons the apartment is now worth only $650,000 or less.

'We have been thinking of upgrading, but it's not easy to sell something when you know you're going to make a loss on it,' says the public accounting executive.

Mr Tsai and Mrs Kung - along with thousands of others - had bought into what PropNex chief executive officer Mohamed Ismail terms 'the myth that prices would only keep going up'.

'Prior to that we had little experience of prices being crushed. Queueing up for two, three days was common, and queue spots were changing hands for $15,000 to $30,000,' he says. Some property analysts draw parallels with the upbeat market we have today, but are keen to point out differences between the last property crash and today's situation.

DTZ's head of South-east Asia research Chua Chor Hoon says: 'The market right now is reminiscent of 1996 in atmosphere with the queues, the packed showrooms and good take-up rates for popular projects.

'But the level of speculation now has not reached the feverish state seen in 1996 and it's still too early to tell whether it will turn out the same way.''

Dr Chua Yang Liang, head of Southeast Asia research at Jones Lang LaSalle, agrees: 'It seems that there is a market euphoria that is quite similar to that in 1996...but the market fundamentals are quite different.'

What may cut the danger of another crash is the fact that properties in many areas are still worth less than at the time of their launch, while others have made only relatively small gains. Prices still have a lot of catching up to do, just to make up for inflation over the years.

Recent transaction data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority website shows that suburban properties launched in 1996 lost more value over the past 13 years than those in prime districts, some of which have actually risen in value.

Prices at Seasons Park, where Mrs Kung lives, have fallen from $610-$670 per sq ft (psf) at launch to around $520 psf now. And Hougang Green units now fetch around $520 psf, down from their average launch price of $560 psf.

At Ardmore Park in Orchard, however, the 2,885 sq ft apartments, launched at an average of $1,850 psf in 1996, have been selling for $1,976-$2,513 psf since August last year.

'The average price of resale leasehold suburban properties in the second quarter of this year was about a quarter below that in the second quarter of 1996; whereas the average price of resale freehold properties in prime districts in the second quarter of this year was about 5 to 10 per cent above that in the second quarter of 1996,' Ms Chua points out.

Ms Tay Huey Ying, director for research and consultancy at Colliers International, explains: 'Prime district prices recovered in the property boom of 2007 but the mass market recovery came later and was short-lived due to the United States sub-prime mortgage crisis.'

Current launches in suburban areas, such as Optima in Tanah Merah and Centro Residences in Ang Mo Kio, have sold for about $810 psf and around $1,170 psf respectively, on average. These are record prices in their districts.

Asked whether such new launches are overvalued, Dr Chua says: 'It's hard to tell now. There are no signs pointing to a major correction...but I don't think the current rate of price increase is sustainable if it is not supported by economic growth.'

Recently a local report found out out that 100,000 women does not even have basic CPF medishield coverage. That left me wondering if women really do leave much of the responsibility of financial planning to the men in our lives? While we may be more conservative with money (i.e no 4D, gambling bills), are we smart with our money management?
This article from fundsupermart highlights 5 pointers. Rule Number 5 is oh-so true-yet-so-hard-to-do. Curse the abundant shopping malls!