Is it time to invest in the stockmarket?

JUST A PERSONAL OPINION.

If you are a long term investor, it is about the right time. The global stockmarkets have corrected down by about 20 percent. It is almost one year, since the subprime crisis surfaced. Most of the bad news have been discounted. The recovery is likely to occur over the next three months to six months (just a guess). It may be earlier.

Something may happen that will trigger a recovery. By that time, the market may move up quite rapidly, and you miss miss the boat. So, as a long term investor, it may be time to start investing.

Investing to get a retirement income

Dear Mr. Tan,
You have always talked with much sense & wisdom. I would like to seek your views.

I have been told by my insurance agent that with my impending retirement, it is good to invest in Investment Linked Policies (ILPs). Let the investments grow and sell little bit by little bit, when I need money.

But with market turbulence and falling equity prices, I have a feeling that this may not be the way to invest. What is your opinion here. Please help out with your opinion.
E

REPLY

Please read these FAQs and see if they are helpful in your decision:
http://www.tankinlian.com/faq/savings.html
http://www.tankinlian.com/faq/seniors.html

If you are investing for the long term, say 10 years or longer, it is all right to invest now. You can ignore the market turbulence in the meantime. It is difficult for you to catch the right time to invest anyway. In a turbulent time right now, you have the chance to buy the equities at a lower price and make a bigger gain when the market recovers.

It is all right to invest in a ILP and have a monthly withdrawal to get your retirement income. You should choose a single premium ILP (where the upfront charges are 2% or less, and the annual fee is less than 1%).

Wish you all the best.

Financial planning and inflation

For the first time in 20 years, we have to deal with high rates of inflation. Are you saving enough and earning a sufficient return to cope with inflation?

Here are some simple tips on how to deal with this matter. Read this FAQ:
http://www.tankinlian.com/articles/financial.html

Put People First

I hope that our business policies are made on the concept of "put people first", rather than "make more profit".

By putting people first, the business can still earn a good profit margin. They will get the loyalty of their customers.

Some businesses make more profit by overcharging customers or degrade the service to customers. They may reduce their expenses, but they add more cost to the customers. Some examples are:

1. SMRT reduces the number of trains during off-peak hours. The commuters have to wait longer for a train. The train will be nearly fully packed, even during the off-peak period. By adding more train, SMRT will increase its cost marginally, but it will improve the comfort level of the commuters significantly.

2. Businesses make customers waste a lot of time in navigating through their automated call center systems. It reduces the expenses to the businesses marginally, but add a lot of wasted time and telephone bills for the customers.

3. Businesses make customers wait a long time at their customer service counters. If they increase the manpower to serve customers, they may increase their cost marginally, but reduce the waiting time for customers. Wasted time is costly to customers.

If there is genuine competition, businesses will put their best effort to "put people first", so that they win over the loyalty of their customers. Unfortunately, in Singapore, many businesses are operated by near monopolies. In competitive situations, these businesses apply unfair methods to lock their customers into term contracts and then treat the customers badly during the lock-in period.

I hope that there is a stronger voice to speak for the consumers in Singapore.