USD Fixed Deposit Review

I have with me a sum of USD and every 6 months to a year, I have to find a good place to park my USD to get some good returns.

So why does Mrs Spoon have this sum of money? Well, working for an MNC have its perks. MNC typically give away some shares to its employees and I have been saving a few rounds of my bonuses. I cash them out (yes, at a bad price though) and I opted to have the monies in United States Dollar as a hedge for the fledging Singapore economy and currency. It is good news now since USD is trending upwards. I am really unsure of Trump's move though. what is his plan for the US economy? How will interest rates be affected?

So is a comparison of the current FD rates for USD right now:

Bank	Rates (3 Months)	Rates (6 Months)	Rates (12 Months)	Minimum Amount
CIMB		1.77	1.85	20k
Maybank		1.1	-	50k
ANZ	1.18			50k
OCBC	0.65		0.8	5k
UOB	0.05+0.9			50k

So it does seem like CIMB is tops at the moment. 

What other factors do you need to keep in mind? The transfer fees and the agency fees. 

I plan to move some of my USD out from my existing USD current account to the CIMB account. There are two ways which this can be done:

1. TT transfer; or 

2. By cheque. 

TT transfer is quick and fuss-free. Generally, what I would need to do is to go down to CIMB bank to get a placement form with the relevant instructions so that the bank knows what to do when monies hit the account. There is no charge on CIMB's end as the receiving bank, but there is a charge on the transferring bank. I did not manage to contact OCBC but CIMB informed me that if they were the transferring bank, they would charge SGD30 for admin fees, and their agent bank would charge about USD50 for agency fees. 

For cheque, this is not instant, and it takes about 4 working days for the cheque to clear. However, it does seem like this is free on both the transferring bank and the receiving bank. Let me try this out and see how it goes.

Edit: It is not free for cheque from OCBC bank either. There is a 0.125% charge for commission fees and 0.125% charge for commission in lieu of currency exchange fees! However, what is not charged is a $20 TT transfer. So that is what you are saving on. If 4 clearing days makes you more than SGD20 in interest (either the interest rate is so high or the amount is so huge like in the millions), else a cheque is still cheaper. 

Meanwhile, please update me if you have any idea what else i can do with USD. 

Cheers

2016 Review

A year passes by so quickly and its time to set out my review again.

With kids and a full time job, I realise that you have less time to sit, think and savour a good cup of coffee, let alone have time to review your stock portfolio regularly. Hence, one of the things I did since 2015 was to set up regular savings plan for both SRS and cash funding. This is a good thing coz I stayed invested in the market.

So how was the year for me?

Dividend income (from RSPs and shares) = $5169
Capital gains = -12898

Yes, you saw that right. Negative capital gains. Why? I decided to cut losses on shares that couldn't recover. Namely, Hyflux which was a whopping loss of nearly 10k, NOL on a slight loss of 500 (but it was being bought out so I did not have much say) and another penny share which I had entered into recognizing it was a punt. I only made small gains on the sale of AHT.

Do I regret my sale? I guess I am learning to deal with cutting losses. I should have cut losses on Hyflux earlier but I just couldn't bear to. Months turn to years and losses went from a few thousands to many thousands. I couldn't even bear reading the AR for hyflux for months and when I finally did, the numbers were so terrible I decided to just cut loss. Interest rates are expected to rise and I am not sure how hyflux is going to deal with the debts they have at hand, and how they expect to pay off their perp bonds holders.

Current Local Share Holdings (in order of current size):
1. Nikkoi STI ETF
2. Keppel Corp
3. DBS
4. AIMS
5. ST Engineering
6. SPH
7. Wilmar
8. SIA Engineering
9. Ascendas India Trust
10. Ascendas Hospitality Trust
11. Comfort
12. M1
13. SembCorp Industries
14. Singtel
15. Nam Cheong
16. Keppel Reit

Things for next year:
1. I am going to stop RSP for Nikkoi STI ETF and Keppel Corp. Why? I have not sold Nikkoi ETF and I worried about the liquidity. It isn't THAT much since my entire portfolio is now 140k thereabouts but I haven't tried selling any ETFs as yet. As for Keppel Corp, my average price after being on the RSP is now $8.70. It isn't a fantastic price but with the amount of money invested hitting nearly 25k, I want to pull back a little and keep some cash for other dividend plays.

2. Purchase more DBS bank shares. So the good thing about RSP is that I have now build up a substantial DBS amount through RSP. I kept wanting to invest directly throughout 2016 whenever a pull back happened but kept thinking it would drop below 14. Look where that got me.

3. Research on ST Engineering /  Keppel REIT / SPH / SCI. I keep thinking of putting more money in but I haven't yet done the research. Better not be lazy.

4. Purchase Singtel / M1 / AHT on pull backs. Ok, so I have read up and I think ST / M1 is worth purchasing on pull backs. Singtel has a better moat but I desperately (shucks) need to average down M1. I am also expecting AHT to be able to bring in additional revenue next year and want to put more into it.

5. Sell off Wilmar, Nam Cheong. These were really wild cards to begin with. I should review and discard in time.

What was right about this year?
1. Putting money in RSP. It took away a lot of emotions. It is easier for a working mum to cope with it.
2. Concentrating more on dividend income. My dividend income has finally grown to 5k, which means about 400 per month. This covers some transport and food for me.
3. My total asset is finally more than my biggest liability - my share of the house mortgage.
4. Reading up a lot more on REITS and shares.

To a better 2017.