Thursday, June 21, 2007

Invest in an index fund

Hi Mr Tan,

I am 30 years old and I have been searching for investment which suits my risk appetite. I finally found your blog and I am quite impressed with index fund. Could you tell me more about it and how to invest in this fund?

My ideal index fund is
1. Global equity which is well diversified.
2. Low sale and annual charge.
3. Modest dividend

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REPLY:

The closest to an index fund that you can invest now is the ST Tracker Fund that you can buy from the stockmarket. The only problem is that the Singapore stockmarket is at a high level now.

You can read my views in this FAQ.

If you are investing your monthly savings for the next 30 years, you can consider the Ideal plan from NTUC Income. You can invest in the Balanced or the Growth fund. Although it is not an index fund, the charges are among the lowest available in Singapore.

I will ask X to advise you.
at

3 comments:

  1. AnonymousJune 21, 2007 5:08 PM

    The Ideal plan from NTUC Income is a regular-premium ILP. These kinds of products (including the ones from NTUC Income) have extremely high expense ratios compared to Unit Trusts and ETFs.

    Before you decide to invest, remember to ask Income to quote you the expense ratio and compare it to a regular-saving Unit Trust.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJune 21, 2007 5:47 PM

    http://incnet.income.com.sg/uiGuide/guideDetailsPublic.aspx?gde=3304

    You can check the FAQ of the Ideal plan. The plan charges 15% of the savings for the first 3 years and that's not including the loads and management expenses.

    This is definitely a bad deal compared to a Unit Trust.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJune 24, 2007 9:16 PM

    Before you invest in NTUC ideal plan check out what the FAs can offer you.
    You will be shocked to know how much you can save in cost.Don't use other insurers' regular ILPs too; they are even worse.There are a lot of good products out there that your insurance agents don't want you to know.If you are investing for retirement Never look for an insurance agent. At the best they know about insurance. Insurance products cannot get you to where you want to go; they only get the agents to where they are going. You see the conflict of interest?

    ReplyDelete