The Market Accumulation Portfolio - MAP 2012

Yes we are back again after we had acquired a good track record for the MRP (Market Recovery Portfolio) in late 2008. The MRP adopted a 10-month Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) strategy to ride on the recovery market trend.

Now, for similar approach we have the Market Accumulation Portfolio (MAP) to help you to accumulate your wealth based on the current market condition.

Refer below for more information. (For iPad user, you might want to use Chrome)




Alternatively, contact us for more information.

As much as we would like to achieve extraordinary performance, I would like to bring to your attention that past performance of the portfolio mentioned might not be an indication for future performance. Moreover, the portfolio selected is based upon your risk profile, your attained age, your current financial situation, your ability and willingness to accept calculated risk. Risk is something you need to understand and to consider before committed to any investment program. Please take note that by doing nothing itself is also considered taking one form of risk. Thus it is important to know how risk and return interact and to understand what type of investments might suit your risk appetites. So contact us to find out which invested assets could help you to achieve your financial goals!


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Insured the under-insured

Are we financially secure?

Are we prepared for the unforeseen?

Are we adequately covered?

Let's explore together.

Insured the under-insured. on Prezi

If you are unsure about your insurance program, let's have our first non-obligatory meeting to discuss further.

To ensure certainty is my mission.

Let's optimize assets!

Smart Kids need Smart Parents

Tertiary Education Funding on Prezi

Yes, indeed, smart kids need smart parents.

University Funding Analysis

The competition for places at institutions of higher learning has become more intense over the last decade. The costs have also gone up. Increasingly, the answer for many parents is to start saving and investing early so that they will be able to get the lump sum needed to finance their children's education. The benefits are clear. Saving early and often will help you to put aside less every month. Moreover by investing early, you will see your investments outpace inflation and increasing education costs, as illustrated above.

Saving part of our current income seems to be the only way to provide the education fund. The only problem is that we must have enough time to earn. Should our time run out earlier than expected, we can only count on whatever that's accumulated, plus some interests. Thankfully, we could use a "special account" that guantee the desired funds even if your time runs outs. All you need to do is to transfer your regular savings into our account, and see it grow.

Some useful references

Singapore to get its 5th and 6th universities

http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/singapore-get-its-5th-and-6th-universities-20120826

"The schools were chosen because they work closely with industry and focus on applied degrees" - Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced at the National Day Rally on Sunday night that both the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) and UniSIM would become universities. SIT will expand places and begin awarding degrees while UniSIM will add full-time programmes.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Room for more graduates

"By 2020, as much as 50 per cent of each cohort will enter university."

http://www.todayonline.com/Hotnews/EDC120829-0000061/Room-for-more-graduates

财经追击 Money Week, 理财101 (解答理财疑问) on 1 Sep 2012 @ Channel U

Money Week Episode 21 @ 1 Sep 2012

I was featured in this episode for <<财经追击 Money Week>>. So how was it started? I recalled....

One morning, I think it's about 3 weeks ago, while we are having our usual breakfast session, Ms. Michelle Ee, our Insurance Director, asked me to address the following financial situation w.r.t. debt management. And that's how I got "famous".

Nevertheless, I enjoy the shooting and got to know new friends and appreciate the importance of Business Mandarin. I must take this opportunity to thank Mr. Liu Zhipeng and his team for being so patient with me during the shoot. Also Mr. Eg Yi Fan, a brilliant gentleman and an amazing listener who is able to understand my explanation on the tedious loan calculation during our tele-conversation.  

So what was the question?

Audience : Let's address him as X

Subject: Tuition Fee Loan

"I just graduated from a local university with a interest-free tuition fee loan when I was a full-time student. However, my loan which is about S$50,000 will be interest-bearing from 1st August 2012.

The interest rate will be at prime lending rate (board rate) at 4.75% per annum.

I can choose to pay a minimum amount of S$100 monthly for a maximum of 5 years.

I can also choose to defer payment till August 2014, which means I can start to pay S$100 monthly from 1st August 2014, but interest will still be incurred during the 2 years when I didn't make any monthly payment. (But of course I cannot choose to pay minimum of S$100 as this amount is not sufficient to fully repay everything within 5 years) Currently, I have a total liquid assets of S$100,000 including:

S$35,000 cash

S$15,000 fixed deposit (matured in July 2013)

S$50,000 of stocks (most of them are blue chips, high-yield such as Singtel, Starhub, SPH, Singpost and REITS which are now all above at least 10% above the price I had bought) I would like to ask if I should pay all the S$50,000 before the interest commence, or should I do otherwise? Thanks!"

So about 20 minutes later, I got it written on my ipad and send her the draft.

"Hi Michelle,

As spoken, if X want to be debt free, then I would suggest he fully paid off his loan.

This is one of the options.

Next, he could paid off his loan over the next five years, if he want to feel "cash-asset".

So with this available cash at hand, he could invest his money to get a better return, subject to his risk appetite. Five years is a reasonable horizon to get his money invested. 

However, first thing first.

Debt is not an issue, it is managing the debt that might post a potential issue.

So first question is to find out whether he can afford to pay the $100 monthly repayment.

If he can, then the next question is how comfortable is he to pay the extra on his monthly repayment? Meaning to say, have a higher monthly repayment, say $200 per month. This will shorten the loan tenure.

If he preferred to be debt free, my answer is obvious as mentioned earlier.

Second question is the debt is manageable, then it's a question of what is his attitude towards investment risk?

Cash in one hand, loan on the other. Then he need to ascertain his target rate of return for his money to work for him. In this case, the loan rate is 4.75%, so if he is targeting to get that extra 20%, then his targeted rate of return shall be at least 5.7%. (4.75% x 120%)

He can't get these type of returns without taking any risk!

Michelle, I must say you have set me thinking. Thank you.

Sent from my iPad, Chew Hock Beng @ 93897195 @ LinkedIn @ Google+ @ Twitter"

After that I got my helpful colleguae, Ms. Angela Dou, to translate it to Mandarin.

"如果 X 不想有债务在身，我建议他一次性付清他的贷款，这是其中一个选择。

如果他想持有现金资产，那他可以选择在5年内还清贷款。

当手上持有现金资产时， 他可以根据自身的风险偏好，用这笔现金进行适当的投资，来取得更好的投资回报。我认为5年的时间是一个合理的投资期。

然而，首先要了解的是：

债务本身不是问题，问题是如何管理债务，不当的管理会带来潜在的问题。

所以，首先要了解，X 是否可以承担每个月100块的分期付款债务。如果他可以，那么接下来就是要了解，他是否愿意增加每月还款额，比如说，每个月还200块，这样可以缩短他的贷款期限。

如果他不想有债务在身，正如我 之前所讲的，他可以选择一次性付清贷款。

债务是可以管理的，问题是他在面对投资风险时的态度和承受能力。

如果他既有现金资产，又有贷款，在进行投资时，他需要确定一个目标投资回报率。在这个案例中，贷款利率是 5.00% (4.75%)，如果他想获得格外的20%的回报，那么他的目标投资回报率至少要在 6.00% (5.7%) 以上。要想获得投资回报，不要承担风险是不可能的。"

So the shooting starts.... And I landed myself featured on the show 
<<财经追击 Money Week, 理财101 (解答理财疑问)>> at Channel U on 1 Sep 2012 @ 7 p.m.,
or catch me at xinmsn video.

What do you do with your CPF?

The Central Provident Fund (CPF) is a comprehensive social security savings plan that has provided many working Singaporeans with a sense of security and confidence in managing their finance. There are 5 main areas which listed in the poll where you could make full use of your CPF to create, protect, enhance, preserve & distribute your CPF.

The objective of this particular poll is to find out which area of planning is your main concern based on your current life stage. 

Do you know what is the current amount for CPF MSS?

In the first place, what is CPF MSS?

It is the Central Provident Fund Minimum Sum Scheme.
The objective is to provide a basic standard of living for the CPF members in Singapore to be able to receive a constant stream of income from their CPF fund when they reach age 65 (currently the retirement age).

So what is the current CPF Minimum Sum?
I will encourage you to take part in the LinkedIn Polls and make a guess. Let's find out how many will get the correct answer. Meanwhile, I will be sharing more on this scheme and how we are going to handle certain issues on retirement planning. Feel free to ask and comment.

How it could benefit us when we get to enjoy our retired years.
Or are we going to retired from our enjoyment altogether?

2 ears 1 mouth... listen to talk, talk to listen?

Some reference questions which I have gathered and apply over my years in financial advisory...Feel free to add to this list. More could benefit from our sharing.

What do I want to accomplish with my life? What do I want to accomplish with my money? What is my number 1 priority? What are my top five priorities?

If I were now 100 and looking back, what would I Like to to have accomplished?

What's really important to me? What's important about money to me?

Where do I see myself in 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? at age 100?

What is my 100-year plan? What are my goals?What are the milestones in my life up tip now? What does financial freedom mean to me? What does success mean to me? Why am I here? What is my purpose? What is my mission?

If I could design and live my ideal calendar, what would it look like?

If I knew I had only six months to live, what changes would I make in my life?

If I knew I have only six months to live, what changes would I make in my estate plan?

If I could live my life over again, what would I do differently?

If I knew that I could not fail, what would I do?

If I had $1,000,000, what would I do with it? How would I want to leave it?

How much is enough? What is my exit strategy?

What are my primary concerns? What keeps me awake at night?

When I die, to whom will my family turn for advice? Who are my primary advisors?

What is the most important advice I could give to my children?

How do I want to be remembered by my children? My grandchildren? My favourite charity? My community? By society? If I were to be remembered for only one thing, what would I want it to be?

What would I like to accomplish as a result of developing a master action plan?

Who are the ten most important people in my life outside of my immediate family?

Where do I want my money to go?

How do I feel about the tax system in this country?

How do I feel about inherited wealth?

What is my investment philosophy?

Aside form my company stock, how would I rate myself as an investor?

What mistakes have I made as an investor?

The DNA of 7CAPITAL

... the 7 aspects of personal financial planning. 

The DNA of 7CAPITAL on Prezi

Helpful Financial Tools in our Resource Center

7CAPITAL Resource Center provides some useful spreadsheets to help you in understanding your personal finance. This mind map tool provide direction and could lead you to spreadsheets that might be applicable to your situation. Side by side, explanation notes & illustrations, which is linked within my blog, helps to explain certain financial planning concepts. Hence, this would lead you to understand your current personal financial situation so that you could arrive your ultimate financial destination "safe & sound'. The available tools would determine how you are going to achieve your financial goal. BTW, going through the financial planning process required your conscious discipline, as my coach once told me, "Hock Beng, we can't build muscles by lifting feathers."

Do come back for more as I would be updating this mind map as whenever new stuffs (tools, applications, illustrations, templates) are ready and available for your references.

I hope that this reference would truly be a helpful resource for your personal financial well-being.


Create your own mind maps at MindMeister

Know your financial numbers!

Know your financial numbers! on Prezi

The Building Blocks of 7CAPITAL...

Create your own mind maps at MindMeister

The DNA of 7CAPITAL

The 7CAPITAL is based on 7 financial planning areas.

Firstly, we need to Create the financial objectives, based on one's current resources, i.e. the cash flow from various income source and the assets acquired so far. Knowing your financial ratio helps you to better manage the finances.

Accumulation of your capital is the the next important planning area. Here you will get to know your numbers to achieve your long term accumulation goal. In Singapore, the two most common needs are RETIREMENT Funding and Children EDUCATION Funding. We help clients to develop a realistic and achievable program to meet these needs.

Preservation (aka Investment) is the key to protect the capital already accumulated so far. Not only do we preserve the capital, we works towards enhance the growth of the assets. We help clients develop an investment program that is appropriate to their unique situation, yet will grow at the desirable rate. With the help of our proprietary tools, clients stand a better chance of enhancing their investment return, thereby fulfilling their long term financial dreams.

Any financial plan without placing any proper risk management in place is futile. The reason is simply Insurance (Protection) planning is the foundation of a sound financial plan.Without an adequate protection plan in place, clients will be vulnerable to the effects of a chance misfortune which may cause tremendous financial loss. Our planning helps to ensure that client's lifestyle will remain intact even in the event of such misfortune.

How you want your capital to be Transferred depends on on how you are going to distribute your wealth? Here we will look at preserving and distributing one's estate. The only certainty in life is that it will not last forever. We help client to develop an effective and efficient Estate plan so that the legacy of the client can be well preserved and distributed according to his wishes. 

Achieving financial independence when one retire is certainly an important goal in life. Annuity is an important tool to allow the retiree to have a smooth flow of income and creative use on annuity concept would enhance the capital further. Isn't it true that the only person who can take care of the older person we will be someday is the younger person we are today? And, whether we get to enjoy our retirement, or we could retired from our enjoyment... it's a matter of choice.

Finally, adopting proper financial Leveraging would enhance your wealth position. Akin to how the way the gears in your car transfer engine to speed to road speed, financial leveraging or gearing would accelerates (or decelerates) your returns on investment. With proper planning, financial leveraging can be successful only when the risk involved is fully understood.

Mission.Vision.Goal.

As a devoted Manager, I'm constantly sourcing for the person with the right attitude to join our profession. I'll trained to ensure their competency to serve with integrity. I'll do my utmost best to retain the finest Financial Consultants to serve the community. In addition, I'm also committed to serve my clientele as a financial planning practitioner providing sound and timely advice.

As devoted and committed to the profession, I'll strived to assist families in identifying their stewardship responsibility to enhance True Wealth Management by creating unique systems, strategies and structure for family and financial empowerment with ongoing accountability to enrich quality of life without giving up choice and control.

The True Wealth Concept is built upon on 4 important values, i.e. Clarity, Balance, Focus & Confidence. These empowered me to assume the role of a "Certified behaviour Financial Coach" ( CbFC ) to coach every well-being to Understand assets, to Optimise assets, and to Seek True Wealth to uphold é human capital, é intellectual property, é financial assets, and é family values.

With this amazing tool, PREZI would illustrate my mission, my vision and my goal in this financial advisory profession.

7capitalist on Prezi

If you share my view & we have something in common & you are inspired to excel in your life with a strong aspiration to serve the community passionately, I welcome you to walk this journey with us, join us as 7CAPITAList, Together wE can Achieve More as a TEAM.

As the saying "Per Aspera Ad Astra . Are you willing & able?

Save More or Earn More

I would like to highlight an interesting mathematical relationship on why you should considered taking calculated risk in order to achieve your financial objective. In this case, the targeted financial goal to achieve $500,000 by age 62.

Don't forget the power of time! 37 years of accumulation which can be considered long enough to have achieved the expected rate of return of 7.68%. The expected annual saving would be just $5,596!!! ( i.e. only $466 monthly investing).

As compared with a return of 3.68%, you are required to save more!
How much more? $5139 (91%) more on an annual basis.


If these options are not attainable, work towards doing a little bit of both;
saving more money and earning a higher rate of return.

Having a good understanding on these relationship, you probably willing to take the calculated risk, so that you can make better use of that saving on other areas of financial concern.

Are your assets working hard for you?

Invest in appreciating assets.
So what are these types of assets to protect the value of money from eroding?

• Tailor-made well-diversified portfolio
• Stocks
• Bonds
• Real Estate
• Foreign currencies
• Gold
• Collectibles, subject to willing buyer
• Businesses, subject to proper management

Having the right mix of assets investment will cushion off the impact of inflation. Money idling in the bank is likely not earn enough interest to stop its purchasing power from declining during inflation, as illustrated above.

Therefore, selecting a portfolio that suits your financial objectives and risk profile based on your investment time horizon to grow your wealth to battle against inflation is a wise decision to make!

The Cost of Waiting!

There is never a right time to do your financial planning.
However, I would encourage you not to delay it because procrastination will hinder you from becoming financially successful.

 As illustrated, if you set aside $200 per month for the next 25 years (assuming no taxes and 6.5% annual rate of return), then by starting:

• TODAY, the outcome is $150, 579.
• After 5 years of delay, the difference is $51,963!
• After 10 years of delay, the difference is $89,541!!

So simple consistent savings will lead to big payoff.
Don't delay!
Start now!

Related article of interest "Systematic & Disciplined Investing that pay."

Don't put all your eggs in one basket!

One of the time-tested investment rules is "Diversify! Diversify! Diversify!"

Never put all your investment eggs in just one basket.
Different types of investments are exposed to different levels of risk and by diversifying, the losses in some investments can be offset by other investment gains.  (Refer to article here)

The whole idea is to reduce the overall risk by investing in a broad range of economic sectors. Studies show that proper allocation accounts for more than 90% of the total return.

How you could spread the risk...

• Different asset classes
• Different regions in the world
• Different industries
• Different companies
• Different currencies
• Different maturity dates, etc.

7 types of Health Insurance

Basic Medical Insurance  or commonly known as Hospital & Surgical Insurance (H&S), is a reimbursement medical plan that provides benefits for covered medical costs that result from accidents and sicknesses. Reimbursed for inpatient expenses incurred during hospitalization as well as certain outpatient expenses subject to the limits stated in the policy. In other words, the client may not get a full reimbursement for the medical expenses incurred. 2 common types of limits – Separate limits, a.k.a. sub-limits for each of the covered expenses. Next, it’s the maximum limit on a per disability basis for the inpatient benefits and a flat dollar amount for the outpatient benefits.

Some insurers may practice “expense participation method” on the policy, which means to say that you need to bear part of the medical costs.

Deductible is usually a flat dollar amount of medical expenses, such as $500 or $2,500 that the patient must fork out of his pocket. I call it the “first-dollar ownership”. It is usually on a per year basis.

The “second-dollar” payment is the co-insurance whereby the patient need to pay a specified percentage, e.g. 15%, of the total covered medical costs which are in excess of the deductible.

Major Medical Insurance or Catastrophic Medical Insurance is designed to cover the cost of major illnesses where the medical cost can be substantial. Besides covering for inpatient and outpatient benefits, it also provides cover for certain expensive treatment like kidneys dialysis and cancer treatment.  Together with the basic Hospital & Surgical policy, some insurers name it as comprehensive major medical expense insurance policy. Such plan usually has deductible and co-insurance element, as mentioned above. The national MediShield is one good example.

Supplemental Medical Expense Insurance is a separate range of optional covers to the main Medical Expense Insurance policy which some insurance companies offer. These are meant to enhance the cover under the main medical plan and include:

·      Emergency assistance services;

·      Dental cover;

·      Maternity benefit;

·      Organ transplant

·      Specific disease insurance;

·      Surgical implant and prosthesis;

·      Miscarriage benefit;

·      Private nursing home care;

·      Death Benefit, etc.

Key Features of Medical Expenses Insurance

• Stand-alone or Rider
• Choice of Plans
• Family Coverage, usually come with a discount
• Reimbursement of expenses
• Deductible & Co-insurance
• Plan Limits – Lifetime limit, Annual limit, Event limit.
• Coverage charges, e.g. Room Charges, surgery, doctor’s consultation, etc.
• Geographical limit – Usually auto terminate if you are out of Singapore for more than 180 days.
• Waiting Period
• Age Limit
• Premiums is based on age-band
• Guaranteed Renewability
• Exclusions & Limitations
• Co-Ordination of Benefits Clause – To ensure that the insured will not get more than he has actually incurred.

Disability Income Insurance helps to replace a portion of your income should you becomes totally or partially disabled and unable to work as a result of an accident or sickness. It is an income protection plan.

Disability Income Insurance (DII) is not Total Permanent Disability (TPD) Benefit. Briefly, DII provides an income replacement if you are unable to work whereas TPD serves to accelerate the death benefit payable under a life policy.

Long Term Care Insurance pays a monthly fixed amount for long term nursing treatment, based on ADL requirement. Benefits are paid when you cannot perform some “activities of daily living” (ADL). These include bathing, dressing, feeding, going to the toilet and moving around. The national ElderShield offers the long term care benefit.

Critical Illness Insurance, commonly known as Dread Disease plan, provides a lump sum benefit to an insured in the event that he is diagnosed to be suffering from one of the critical illnesses or is undergoing a surgical procedure covered under the policy. (Please refer to http//:www.lia.org.sg for the CI definition.)

Hospital Cash Insurance is a daily cash benefit paid directly to the insured if he is hospitalized as a result of accident or illness. The daily benefit is a fixed dollar amount selected by the insured at the inception of the policy, and is usually limited to a specified number of days per hospitalization.

Seek Professional Advise. As there are different types of medical plans available, it could be confusing what is suitable for your situation. So it is always advisable to seek professional help, someone who could analyse your medical needs and has your best interest. Such a professional would be an independent financial planner. For instance, you wouldn’t want to be caught in a situation where you are over-insured and is limit by the “co-ordination of benefit”.

Being “independent” is not constraint to marketing a specified product or forcing you to buy “house-brand”. Instead, you could compare various benefits from different insurer where the independent financial planner could present his comparison that best suited for your needs, and most importantly within your budget requirement.

In this way, you could secure the appropriate and suitable medical coverage for yourself and set a good peace of mind for your love ones.

Which come first? Making profit or making loss?

To have profit, first you need to make a loss!

It may sound bizarre but the first step to making a profit in the stock market is to make a loss. Not a real loss, but what’s called a paper-loss. This means that you must expect any investment you make to go down over the short-medium period, but in the long term it will generate a profit. All this is not just some fancy theory, but something based on a hardcore study of numbers and investor psychology.

You may do a great amount of research work and put in hours to come up with an investment strategy and the investment-based financial planner whom you engaged may offer you investment advice, while this is good discipline, it by no means guarantee success. Making sustainable profits from investment depends on endless factors, some predictable and others totally unforeseen. So, how do you ensure a good investment growth over long-term?

When you make an investment, you should be prepared not to expect any positive returns for the short to medium term. In such a case of uncertainty, expectation is what is considered the most likely to happen. Expectation is a belief centered to the future and it might or might not happened. More often than not, investors tend to feel disappointed when they do not expect the unexpected. So expecting loss before gain will go a long way. Only beyond that, the returns will start to roll in. According to Newton’s law of gravity, what goes up must come down, what goes down must come up, except for one’s age. Expecting loss or "Loss expectation" is an important psychological step to cross a bear market, when things are less rosy and negative markets overrule.

Bull markets can sometimes send you the wrong signals and lead you to think that the markets will never disappoint you. And, often investors get into without asking the right questions hoping to make quick profits. Then psychological expectations grow out of proportion and greed gets the better of them. Investors would end up holding the investment assets against unnecessary risks. And when the markets crashes without warning, it may be too late to exit (The Lehman Brothers) without getting burnt. One way is to adopt the “ERP” approach when various investment opportunities are evaluated. As an intelligent and informed investor you should not only be motivated by (P)erformances, but also be aware of taking calculated (R)isks and the cost of maintaining the investment or the (E)xpenses incurred. Buying into an overly bullish market is clearly not based on taking calculated risks.

On the other hand, when the market is more bearish, you could be able to identify the potential value in the capital market. Due to the less optimistic investing environment, you need to adopt a more practical return growth path and accept a realistic practical return growth path. Your main focus is on the recovery and how you can ride on it. What we want is the return and not to be stuck with those fund that is not performing. Hence, the most important strategy is to buy only fundamentally sound diversified investments across asset classes, geographical regions and funds of reputable fund managers with strong investment ratings.

Getting over a negative state of mind through loss expectation is very important in a bear market. You should hold on to fundamentally strong investment assets on a long term basis and be prepared to take in the “paper loss” arising in the short term and mid term.

Always remember, successful investors are in control of their emotions and are more likely to act on facts as opposed to feelings. Patience and perseverance are two essential traits during a bearish market. If you are able to handle losses emotionally and come out of it, you would have more flexibility and adaptability to handle future uncertainty better. Even the best investment selection system would lose money if you do not have the right attitude, so develop a positive one. Always have a long term view, this is a sound investment strategy and has been proven to be successful towards building and preserving your core wealth.

So be prepared and expect for small loss to gain BIG profit!

Related articles: Adjusting our mindset to avoid common behavioural pitfalls.

7capital - Brief introduction of 7CAPITAL

7capital - Capital Accumulation (part 2)