Book of Wise Investors

Since investment is such a critical part towards achieving financial freedom for most of us, and mutual funds is one common vehicle for that, one does need to know what is contained inside the portfolio of fund. Think about it, do you buy a new house for primary residence simply by looking at it from the outside. You won’t, simply because a house represents significant financial commitments, with mortgages that stretches to more than 20 years for most, I don’t think anyone will anyhow buy without looking at every single thing inside.

The same goes for investing in mutual funds,…

Given the inherent risks involved and minimum capital required for adequate diversification when owning the three main asset classes directly – stocks, bonds and real estate, most of us can only participate in the long run returns from them through active management of passive managed index funds, and to reduce risks of losing everything as well.

This post is going to talk about the different ways in which stock mutual funds are classified, knowing what types of stock mutual funds you are buying aids greatly in determining the levels of risks and rewards that one is exposed to. As such,…

The author of this website recommends equity exposure through index funds and exchange traded funds as opposed to direct stocks ownership (if not enough capital) and actively managed mutual funds. See that there are basically only three ways to own stocks, not considering an investment linked insurance policies that invest some of the policy holders’ premiums in equities.

As of now, there are more than 1000 index funds and exchanged traded funds available in the United States, without including other countries. Out of these 1000 passively managed funds, around 300 consisted of index mutual funds and…

There is increasing popularity of indexing investing as Internet breaks down the informational advantage that the high priests of finance once have. People start to realize the premise that professional fund managers can beat the market is false, at least for the majority because they are the market. Even in index investing, which is basically buying into index mutual funds and/or exchanged-traded funds that tracks certain indexes, there is still a need for an average investor to acquire knowledge in this area of index investing to prevent being screwed by salesman in expensive suits.

However, though index funds…

Before you can start investing in index fund and/or exchange traded funds that track an index, the first thing that you need to do is to choose which index or indexes to invest in.

The undeniable fact is that an index fund and/or exchange traded find that track an index can only do as well as the index, net of the expenses of the fund. As a result, the first task is to decide on which index to invest in. Not every index is born equal; there is difference in the quality among the various indexes in both United States…

There are many three days stock trading seminars claiming that one can beat the market by consistently earning positive returns, or at least most of the time such that the overall returns over the long run is positive.

Then the high priests of finance, going by the names of financial planners, financial advisers, etc, in the wealth management industry that repeatedly drills you in the head that because it is difficult to beat the market when even professionals in this area are unable to do so consistently, as a result, you should concentrate on your job and profession, then turn…

Although there are more causes for investing in a passively managed index fund/exchanged-traded funds, in certain specific circumstances, such as shorter holding periods, or identify that a certain sector is going to become hot in three years time, or simply believe in the advices of bank relationships managers and financial advisers, decides to allocate some investment dollars in actively managed mutual funds, then what are some basic rules to follow when deciding on this type of mutual funds, given that there are even more actively managed mutual funds than index fund/exchanged-traded funds and all the stocks listed on stock exchanges…

This post will talk about a passively managed fund that is introduced in Singapore two days ago, on 4 August 2009. According to various sources and opinions, Singapore is a small rich city state with more than US$100 billions in reserves, with stable social-political-economical environment for decades.

According to local mainstream media in Singapore, there are three funds options. The POSB’s MyHome Fund buys into DBS Singapore STI ETF and ABF Singapore Bond Index Fund.

Let us look at what the DBS Singapore STI ETF and ABF Singapore Bond Index Fund consisted of, based on what the newspaper…