I was first introduced to LM Investment Management Limited by an institution on May 2008. It was to be offered to high networth or Accredited Investors. It was an Australian fund manager. The fund that was introduced to me was the LM Currency Protected Australia Income Fund. The returns were generally 100bps more than the standard fixed deposit rates as shown below: Despite its attractive … [Read more...]
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6 ways to increase your investment returns
1: Asset allocation is critical The most important part of investment is to get the asset allocation right. This is because large proportion of the percent of return variation of a portfolio is explained by the asset allocation. The above was a research done on the percentage of the actual return variation of balance funds explained by the asset allocation policy. In all countries surveyed, it … [Read more...]
Vanguard funds in Singapore at just US$ 20,000!
Vanguard is the world’s most famous index fund provider. Vanguard came to our office a few years ago but nothing happened after that. My problem with them is that their funds required a whopping minimum of USD 100,000 or EUR 100,000. It is impossible to construct a diversified portfolio with such a large entry level. Moreover, their funds were not on any of the platform. So, it was impossible … [Read more...]
The broken Umbrella: Platinum All Weather Fund
The Platinum All Weather Fund invested in complicated derivative transactions. The fund shorted out-of-the-money 'calls' on the S&P 100 index stocks and the long out-of-the-money 'puts' on the index. The underlying fund manager was impressive. It was reported that since 1990, the fund manager delivered decent returns with low volatility. With such long track record, it must be a good … [Read more...]
Disappearing Castlestone Collection of Modern Art
The Castlestone Collection of Modern Art fund was launched in March 2009. It invested in a diversified collection of museum-quality Post-War Art. The art pieces were non-producing/deceased artists with established secondary markets (Christie’s/Sotheby’s). This fund was only offered to Accredited Investors. The Castlestone Collection of Modern Art was an open-ended mutual fund, 8-year … [Read more...]
CPF Lifetime Retirement Investment Scheme unlikely to achieve economies of scale
I wrote the following letter to the Straits Times on 5 August 2016 which expresses my opinion on the CPF Lifetime Retirement Investment Scheme: I am glad that the Government will be introducing the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Lifetime Retirement Investment Scheme (LRIS) ("Simpler investment scheme to grow retirement nest egg"; yesterday). However, more needs to be done to ensure the … [Read more...]
Swiber Holdings defaulted bonds, a commentary on how the system works
The Swiber Holdings is another lemon product sold to Accredited Investors. Here is another article on lemons. As everybody already know by now that Swiber Holdings bonds have defaulted. It seems a lot of people bought its bonds. Who are these individuals? These individuals are rich people known as ‘accredited investors’. According to the Straits Times report, “Swiber saga DBS says bond sales … [Read more...]
Dual Currency for High Networth
Dual Currency is marketed to both retail and accredited investors. It is another lemon product that is meant to reduce the networth of the investor. Many investors thought that if they would to bet on two currencies and get converted to the currency that has weaken over the time period, they get to buy at a lower price. They are wrong as the conversion price used is based at the beginning of … [Read more...]
How the bank take advantage of you through Equity Linked Note (ELN)
Equity Linked Notes or ELNs for short are marketed to Accredited Investors. Here is an example: The ELN is linked with the performance of 15 companies. The ELN earns a fix 4% yield for each year provided the 15 companies’ shares are above certain predetermined share prices known as the strike prices. Typically the strike prices are 20% to 30% below the current prices of these companies. Assume … [Read more...]
The Super Underperforming IQS Performance Fund
The IQS Performance Fund invests in managed futures. It is a super high risk fund and had a super performance of more than 6000% returns from 1995 to 2010. It is only offered to Accredited Investors. After 2010, it lost so much that it almost gave up all those nice past performance. From end of 2010 to 30 Oct 2015, the IQS Performance Fund lost nearly 79.73%. Many investors bought the fund … [Read more...]
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