Tea with Matthew Seah: OCBC Blue Chip Investment Plan.

I am constantly looking for people who are good writers and who have a savvy for investments. 

Some of you might remember reading an article about a young investor in the most recent issue of The Sunday Times. 

Matthew Seah is only 25 but what he has achieved is far more than what I did at his age.

I discovered the following Monday that I had actually been chatting with him for a few days already and that he is also a regular reader of my blog, having commented in a few of my blog posts before as well. 

I could not reconcile the Matthew who commented in my blog posts with this Matthew whom I have just started chatting with recently because I always thought he would be much older.

Well, I always say that I am a frog in a well. 

I just discovered (again) how small my well is.

I asked Matthew if he would like to do a blog post for ASSI and he kindly obliged, choosing to write a piece on OCBC Blue Chip Investment Plan. 

This blog post shows how logical he is in his approach and how sound he is in his ideas. 

I certainly hope that this is the first of many blog posts in ASSI to be penned by Matthew.





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The Business Times reported on 25 Jun 2013 that,

“OCBC Bank announced today the launch of the OCBC Blue Chip Investment Plan ("the Plan"), a regular investment plan that allows retail investors to purchase Straits Times Index (STI) stocks for as little as S$100 a month.

Investors can use cash or, funds from Central Provident Fund (CPF) or Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) accounts to invest in one or more stocks from a selection of 19 Mainboard STI stocks and one STI Exchange Traded Fund (ETF).

OCBC Bank also saves first-time investors the hassle of opening securities trading and Central Depository (CDP) accounts by buying the stocks on their behalf on a pre-determined date every month.

The 19 stocks were selected as they are included in the CPF Investment Scheme (CPFIS) from the entire portfolio of 30 blue chip stocks in the STI.”

For more details, see: OCBC Blue Chip Investment Plan

This investment plan is targeted at young working adults who do not have a lot of cash to buy one lot (1,000 shares) of blue chip. One lot of blue chips can cost somewhere between $600 (Golden Agri) to $43,000 (Jardine C&C). OCBC has kindly left out those STI components that are fairly affordable, stocks valued less than $1, as they cost less than $1,000 per lot to purchase.

This investment plan employs the Dollar Cost Averaging technique where you invest a fix amount each month, regardless of the share price.  Dollar Cost Averaging allows you to buy more when the price is lower, and consequently less when the price is higher.

Investopedia does a good job of explaining this technique: Dollar Cost Average.

What should a young working adult buy?

I am assuming the a young working adult to be enthusiastic, ambitious , full of drive. Thus, he/she would not have much time to do any due diligence when it comes to investing. He/she would not want to add more stress to his life by trying to beat the market. Trying to beat the market requires lots of control over your emotions, which might not be easy for a young investor who has not experienced the greed associated with rising prices, nor the fear associated with falling prices.

As such, I recommend investing only in the Nikko AM STI ETF. Investing in Nikko AM STI ETF would allow you to own all 30 STI components at once, hence eliminating the hassle of choosing the individual counter. Investing in the ETF also allows sufficient diversification to weather financial shocks to some extent.

The components of STI are reviewed semi-annually by FTSE Group to ensure that non-performing companies are replaced. E.g. NOL was removed from STI and replaced by IHH on 13 Sep last year. By investing in Nikko AM STI ETF, you can be sure that you are investing in the best 30 companies (or perhaps the 30 better than average companies) listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

While the Investment plan may be good, you should also consider the charges involved.

The charges involved are as follows: 

Click on pic to enlarge.

So the charges involved for investing each month is 0.30% or $5 per counter, whichever is higher. It might seem difficult to understand, but here’s a chart to help you.

Click on pic to enlarge.

As you can see, the fees are pretty high, at 5% when you invest $100 per month ($5 is higher than the 0.3%, thus the fee incurred in this case is $5). However, the costs involved is greatly reduced to an optimal 0.30% when you invest $1666.67 per month (In this instance, 0.3% is also $5) or more.

What this would mean is before you can even make any money, you will need to pay OCBC a fee of up to 5%. Whatever that is left will need to grow by 5.3% before any profit can be made (after paying 5% fees, you have $95 left. In order to get back to $100 using $95, the returns needs to be 5.3%). This kind of charges are the same when you open any other trading accounts, but the fees incurred may vary.
 

I feel that any fee below 1% of your invested capital is manageable as long as you are really holding for the long term. Hence please invest at least $500 per month if you are taking up the OCBC Blue Chip Investment Plan, and invest only in Nikko AM STI ETF for sufficient diversification.

See also:
1. POSB Invest-Saver Account.
2. Dollar Cost Averaging and expected returns.

Visit Matthew's blog:
Compounding for a better future.

Related post:
Inflation adjusted retirement income plan.

The secret to avoiding financial ruin.

We hear these two lines all the time:

"It is so easy to spend money."

AND

"It is hard to make money."

Perhaps, we should also remember these two lines:

"If we are not careful, it is easy to get into debt."

AND

"It might be really hard to get out of debt."






So, what is the secret here? Don't get into debt!

When I was a secondary school boy almost 30 years ago, $1m was a lot of money and during a class discussion, I asked how was it possible to spend all that money? The teacher looked at me like I was some alien and my classmates laughed at me.

Well, a HDB 3 room flat in D4 in those days cost only S$50,000 or so. Cars were much cheaper too. Of course, prices have shot through the roof by now. However, back then, I seriously could not think of how anyone could spend all that money with ease.

I remember always tracking the interest rates offered by the banks on our savings in those days and how I would shift my savings from one bank account to another to get the highest interest rates possible. 

Now, when I look back, my efforts were pitiful since my savings were so little but an extra S$50.00 a year in interest collected mattered so much to me then. Those were hard times.





Some will again say that I have a peasant mentality to wealth building, but I know myself and I rather be a happy peasant.

Increase our income, reduce our expenses and don't get into debt. 

Do all these and we might not become filthy rich, of course. Do the opposite, however, and we are in for financial ruin.




Related posts:
1. To be a happy peasant.
2. From rich to broke?
3. If we are not rich, don't act rich.
4. Today's millionaires.
5. Not enough money to be married.