Jethro's Braindump

Investment

Investing In ETFs

Identifying good ETFs (Joshua Giersch, Rich By Retirement)

Good ETFs satisfy the following conditions:

  1. Low fees (<0.3% per annum)
  2. Plenty of assets in the fund (above $100 million)
  3. “Cash” or “physical”, not “synthetic”
    1. This is because if the counterparty collapses, the synthetic ETF will start tracking the bunch of miscellaneous stocks

Portfolio Composition

General recommendations

  1. Invest in ETFs, not single stocks (Investing In ETFs)
  2. Invest “110 minus your age” into stocks, and the rest into bonds
  3. For the stock component, half should be in local-stock ETF and half in global stock ETF
    1. Global stock ETF is inherently more volatile, affected by currency
  4. The bond component should be entirely local

Good ETFs

  • SPDR Straits Times Index ETF: ES3
    • big, liquid, 0.3% expense ratio
  • MBH, Nikko Asset Management SGD Investment-Grade Corporate Bond ETF
  • IWDA, the iShares Core MSCI World ETF
    • invests in every developed market in the world, 0.2% expense ratio