Reader says...
I have some money in bank and my Relationship Manager is pushing me to buy unit trusts with leveraged.
Recommend me to take 100% loan so the yield will be higher from 5% to 8%.
I could also take a 200% loan to get 10.5% yield.
Good or bad?
AK says...
Gear up 200%!?
Sack your Relationship Manager.
Of course, the bank he works for won't sack him.
You sack him!
I don't borrow money to invest with.
When you buy a unit trust, the only people guaranteed to make money are your Relationship Manager, the bank he works for and the fund managers.
You are the one bearing all the risk.
Do you want to increase that level of risk?
(It is a fact that if you leverage up, they will be guaranteed to make even more money from you while you are only guaranteed more risk.)
Someone I know bought into a REIT mutual fund before the Global Financial Crisis.
It lost about half of its value.
Imagine if he had financed that investment with 200% leverage!
His losses would have been hugely magnified!
Shudder...
Remember that no one cares more about our money than we do and don't ask barbers if we need a haircut.
Warren Buffett believes investors should avoid using borrowed money to buy stocks.
"It is crazy in my view to borrow money on securities," he told CNBC on Monday.
"It's insane to risk what you have and need for something you don't really need."
"My partner Charlie says there is only three ways a smart person can go broke: liquor, ladies and leverage," he said.
"Now the truth is — the first two he just added because they started with L — it's leverage."
He shared the data that revealed Berkshire Hathaway's stock declined by a range of 37 percent to 59 percent multiple times over the last five decades.
"There is simply no telling how far stocks can fall in a short period."
"Even if your borrowings are small and your positions aren't immediately threatened by the plunging market, your mind may well become rattled by scary headlines and breathless commentary." (Source: CNBC, 26 Feb 18)
AK agrees.
Peace of mind is priceless.
You might want to read these blogs:
1. A great crash is coming!
2. Lost life savings and now in debt.
And also this "e-book":
Survivability and opportunity in times of crisis.
In case you just joined us, another blog was published earlier today.
See: Make investing easy.
PRIVACY POLICY
Featured blog.
1M50 CPF millionaire in 2021!
Ever since the CPFB introduced a colorful pie chart of our CPF savings a few years ago, I would look forward to mine every year like a teena...
Past blog posts now load week by week. The old style created a problem for some as the system would load 50 blog posts each time. Hope the new style is better. Search archives in box below.
Archives
Pageviews since Dec'09
Recent Comments
Get this Recent Comments Widget
ASSI's Guest bloggers
- boon sun (1)
- Elsie (1)
- Elvin H. Liang (1)
- ENZA (3)
- EY (7)
- FunShine (5)
- Invest Apprentice (2)
- Jean (1)
- JK (2)
- Kai Xiang (1)
- Kenji FX (2)
- Klein (2)
- LS (2)
- Matt (3)
- Matthew Seah (18)
- Mike (6)
- Ms. Y (2)
- Raymond Ng (1)
- Ryan (1)
- Serejouir (1)
- skipper (1)
- Solace (13)
- Song StoneCold (2)
- STE (9)
- TheMinimalist (4)
- Vic (1)
Resources & Blogs.
- 5WAVES
- AlpacaInvestments
- Bf Gf Money Blog
- Bully the Bear
- Cheaponana
- Clueless Punter
- Consumer Alerts
- Dividend simpleton
- Financial Freedom
- Forever Financial Freedom
- GH Chua Investments
- Help your own money.
- Ideas on investing in SG.
- Invest Properly Leh
- Investment Moats
- Investopedia
- JK Fund
- MoneySense (MAS)
- Next Insight
- Oddball teen's mind.
- Propwise.sg - Property
- Scg8866t Stockinvesting
- SG Man of Leisure
- SG Young Investment
- Sillyinvestor.
- SimplyJesMe
- Singapore Exchange
- Singapore IPOs
- STE's Investing Journey
- STI - Stocks Info
- T.U.B. Investing
- The Sleepy Devil
- The Tale of Azrael
- TheFinance
- Turtle Investor
- UOB Gold & Silver
- Wealth Buch
- Wealth Journey
- What's behind the numbers?
10.5% yield but must take a 200% loan.
Thursday, August 30, 2018Posted by AK71 at 12:56 PM
Labels:
debt,
investment
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Monthly Popular Blog Posts
-
It has been almost a month since my last blog post. I am serious about becoming more laid back and being less active in social media. The ga...
-
For those of you who follow me in my YouTube channel, you would know that something unfortunate happened recently to my father. So, I expect...
-
With DBS, OCBC and UOB doing so well in 3Q 2024, I had to take time off from gaming to produce a series of videos. For those of you who do n...
-
I didn't think there would be another blog post until the new year but I did something just now which would have surprised myself a few ...
-
In recent times, I have found it much easier to talk to myself on YouTube. It is faster than blogging. This explains the greater number of v...
All time ASSI most popular!
-
A reader pointed me to a thread in HWZ Forum which discussed about my CPF savings being more than $800K. He wanted to clarify certain que...
-
The plan was to blog about this together with my quarterly passive income report (4Q 2018) but I decided to take some time off from Neverwin...
-
Reader says... AK sifu.. Wah next year MA up to 57200... Excited siah.. Can top up again to get tax relief. Can I ask u if the i...
-
It has been a pretty long break since my last blog. I have also been spending a lot less time engaging readers both in my blog and on Face...
-
I thought of not blogging about my 2Q 2020 passive income till a couple of weeks later because Mod 19 of Neverwinter, Avernus, just went liv...
10 comments:
Raymond Ng says...
Leverage is a double edges sword.
Can get you richer fast but also can get your 'holland' fast as well.
Hengqi Toh says...
Credits/debt are bedrock of economy.
If we as banks dun create these facilities,or other sophisticated products,there wun be cycles and movements of funds.
If its calculated risk, and exposure with margin calls, leveraged can be a dual edge tool purpose to multiply returns or losses.
AK says...
The problem with RMs (or at least the ones who contacted me before) is that they just try to sell products by making them look more attractive.
In this case, there was no explanation on how the product generates a 5% yield and the RM just tried to tempt the customer with a 10.5% yield with leverage instead.
Imagine if the unit trust is holding investments which already have leveraged balance sheets.
It would then be leverage on leverage!
There is much that is opaque in such an offer and tempting clients by engineering a higher return is, to put it lightly, irresponsible.
Debt is necessary in some instances but not in all instances.
Debt is definitely unnecessary in this instance.
"It's insane to risk what you have and need for something you don't really need." WB
How well RMs are rewarded depends on how well they sell.
It is understandable but it doesn't mean that it is acceptable.
Prasad Rnv says...
If its a foreign currency instrument, the bank will cheat you on the final settlement and on the currency exchange in the end.
Your gain wont be so much after all. Leveraging is dangerous as you are borrowing money to invest.
Read Chapter 5:
Survivability and opportunity in times of distress.
Reader says...
Thank you for the reminder.
I read your blog on junk bonds and bond funds too.
When offered to improve the yield on a bond fund with borrowings, I told them what AK said. :-)
Swiber and hyfux are still hurting me. :-(
AK says...
Hurrah! :D
And ouch! :_(
(Er... did you misspell Hyflux on purpose?)
Koh Kai Xiang says...
I agree that credits and debt are bedrock of economy.
But I disagree the context and the usage of credit and debt in most people’s investing (or inflation fighting). Ask the RM to invest alongside the client with the leverage they recommend the client, and u ll instantly see a reduction of such bad and ill advised behavior.
There is a reason why people like warren buffett advises folks not to use leverage in investing
AK says...
It is about alignment of interest or the lack of.
All broking houses are doing the same thing with a slight difference...Margin Account. Its not all bad if one knows what he is doing though. My personal experience, made some money using this before. For me, its market timing. But hor, you must be very careful, don't just follow me. If you get it wrong, then don't blame me hor.
Hi Henry,
You are a brave soul. ;)
If in doubt, it is better to stay out. :)
Randy Go says...
I have a cousin who wants to start investing.
He just emailed me, he shows me email bank selling him 3x leverage bond fund😂 or structured products.
Hahahah told him read your blog too busy to structure a portfolio for him.
Post a Comment