NIKKO AM SINGAPORE STI ETF Ex-Date 29-Apr-2013

Type : Dividend
Expiry Date : 29 April 2013
Record Date : 02 May 2013
Date Payable : 10 May 2013
Particulars : SGD $0.035

Source : SGX.com

The Most Important Asset Class

What is the most important asset class?

Equities? (stocks)
Fixed-income? (bonds)
Cash equivalents? (money market instruments)

Think again. What generates the capital that is used to purchase these asset classes?
You!

In Buy Term Insurance, and Invest the Rest, I mentioned my term insurance coverage which comes up to around $400,000 in total. Not the best case scenario yet, but it is about the best I can do at the moment.

Term Insurance provides coverage of financial responsibilities in the event of (a) death or (b) total and permanent disability. When the worst case scenario happens, the least I can do is to enable my family to be debt free (cover all loans etc), while the remaining sum of money will help to partially make up for lost income.

Critical illness insurance or critical illness cover is an insurance product, where the insurer is contracted to typically make a lump sum cash payment if the policyholder is diagnosed with one of the critical illnesses listed in the insurance policy.

My Coverage = SGD$325,000

[1] NTUC Family Insurance Policy (Living Benefit) = $200,000

The Family Insurance Policy from NTUC Income is in fact an empty policy in which you can place any riders to provide the specific coverage that you want. Instead of a Term rider, I chose to include the Living Benefit rider, which pays the sum assured upon either (a) death, (b) permanent total disability or (c) diagnosis of a specified dread disease to tide over a period of prolonged illness and loss of income.

[2] SAF Living Care = $100,000

I believe that my coverage isn't sufficient, which is why I chose this low cost option to beef up my Critical Illness coverage as an interim solution. Up to age 45, the premium is pretty affordable at $10 per $100,000. Moving forward, the challenge would be to find a way that provides Critical Illness coverage above age 45.

[3] AIA WholeLife Policy = $25,000

The policy wasn't my choice, it was one of those that my parents bought for me when I was young, and happened to have term coverage. Anyway, I'm not inclined towards buying whole life policies, but it makes no financial sense to cancel it now, so I might as well see it through maturity I guess.

CPF Investment Account for Index Investing - Part 2

After emptying my CPF coffers for the purchase of my HDB apartment, it took a little while before my CPF monies slowly built up in excess of S$20,000. Yesterday, I dropped off an application form to POSB to open a CPFIS-OA account.

Continuing off from the previous post on CPF Investment Scheme - Ordinary Account (CPFIS-OA), it seemed like the webpages of the different banks have contradicting information. Thus, I decided that the CPF official website would be able to provide the authoritative source of information and came up with the below for CPFIS-OA.

Up to 100% of investible savings can be invested in
Fixed Deposits
Singapore Government Bonds
Statutory Board Bonds
Bonds Guaranteed by Singapore Government
Deferred Annuities
Endowment Insurance Policies
Investment-linked Insurance Products
Unit Trusts
Exchange Traded Funds - This is what we're interested in!
Fund Management Accounts
 
Up to 35% of investible savings can be invested in
Shares
Corporate Bonds
 
Up to 10% of investible savings can be invested in
Gold

If I have S$30,000 sitting in my CPF Ordinary Account, then I can invest S$10,000 into ETFs. Currently, there are only two ETFs allowed - SPDR Straits Times Index ETF and ABF Singapore Bond Index Fund.

Nikko AM Singapore STI ETF Ex-Dividend Dates

When a company declares a dividend, it sets a record date when you must be on the company's books as a shareholder to receive the dividend. Companies also use this date to determine who is sent proxy statements, financial reports, and other information.

Looking at Singapore Exchange, the previous ex-dividend dates for Nikko AM Singapore STI ETF (G3B) in April were 27 Apr 2012, 29 Apr 2011 and 29 Apr 2010. Take note if you're planning a purchase!

Then again, true to what I think this blog should be achieving, which is to kick-start your thinking process rather than telling people what to do, do check out this article and see for yourself what does dividend really means to you.

What you receive as dividends (regardless low 1% dividend yield or high dividend 50% yield) will be discounted off right at the market open on the ex-dividend date.

As a shareholder, a dividend payout no matter how big or small has no impact on your net worth.

Source : Philip-Teo.com

Interested to find out more? Then check out the article!

Singapore 2012 Online Brokerage Leader : Philip Securities

Capturing 31 percent of the market, Philip's online trading platform POEMS came in #1. Standard Chartered's low cost model came in 8th with 5 percent despite joining the fray only in June 2011. Looks like Standard Chartered will continue to capture more market share?

For more details check on The Business Times!
Source : The Business Times