Portfolio Management
Minibond better explained
Tan Kin Lian’s blog has a contribution that further explains the whole Minibond situation:
The name “Minibonds” itself is a misleading word for investors. Whatever money you have invested in this “Minibonds” are not invested in bonds of the six reference banks or bonds issued by Lehman Brothers. This is how it works.
Lehman Brothers [...]
Dual Currency Deposits: The trade off
Many people like their currency deposits for the high interest rates compare to the idiotic ones we can get in Singapore fixed deposits. However, the recent currency changes might have really adverse impact on these “safe” deposits.
Tan Kin Lian has this to say [horror story]:
This type of investment allows you to bet on currency movements. [...]
So Much for dollar cost averaging
In this financial meltdown one thing is clear: If you dollar cost average a down trend, you end up with very bad result. If you dollar cost average a sideways trend, you still end up with very bad result.
Below is one of the big blue chip, General Electric’s monthly chart:
GE is back to its [...]
The ETF Book: All You Need to Know About Exchange-Traded Funds
ETFs are a great tool for the average investors. Well, they are fantastic tools, if you live in the US. For Singapore folks, there are ETFs listed on SGX as well as HK stock exchange to choose from as well.
Here in an audio interview at financial sense, the author explains
What are ETFs
What are active ETFs
How [...]
Timber Agg 1: Introduction to Timber Investing
Here we at Investment Moats, we hope to to discover good asset classes or instruments that are obscure to most investors, especially Singaporean Investors.I first heard about timber sometime back but didn’t really follow up on this since I thought this is just another agriculture. Little did i know it is very wrong. In this [...]
Mines’ Eyes Have Not Seen The Glory
Written by Eli Neusner
March 04, 2008 12:53 PM EST
Gold prices are on a relentless march toward $1,000/ounce. Gold bullion closed on February 29 at $974 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and some precious metals analysts are predicting gold will eventually reach $1,700 an ounce or more.
The reasons for the strong move are [...]
Hidden Commodities Exposure
With commodity prices running at a high level in recent weeks, many investors might be tempted to increase exposure by purchasing unit trusts that invest 100% into energy, soft commodities , base metals etc.
I some time feel that i can draw a parrallel comparison to the case of the China bull in street talks with [...]
Portfolio Review 24 Feb 2008
Been a busy week. And its gonna get more busy next week.. This doesn’t mean that i don’t have time to do a mini review of my portfolio.
The objective of this round of review is more to align my current allocation to an allocation that i believe will do better going forward.
Macroeconomics
While i believe in [...]
Clarifying the Information Ratio and Sharpe Ratio
Mukul Pareek
With the interest in hedge funds and other alternative investment mechanisms soaring, here is an attempt to provide an intuitive explanation for understanding and interpreting the Sharpe Ratio and the Information Ratio. They are both indicators of risk adjusted returns, and are ratios of mean returns to standard deviations of some flavor, but different [...]
Correlations of asset classes
Drizzt:
In recent times we have seen that diversification has not serve us very well. Why say that? If we were to check most father/mother portfolio theory textbooks they will tell us having a portfolio made up of various asset classes and regions is good to reduce the overall volatility of your portfolio. Watching your [...]
