WEEKLY ROUNDUP – ACADEMY’S FINEST VOL 3 [UPDATE: Keppel’s 3Q19 results]

The Weekly Roundup – Academy’s Finest is a collection of my favorite blog posts, podcasts and other useful contents that I have enjoyed over the past week.

I will be releasing this series of posts with a short summary of the content for easy summary.

My goals is to share quality content (or what i think are amazing stuff) in an easy to digest format for my readers.

In the meantime, I will also like to pay tribute to these wonderful content creators all around the world, not just here in Singapore.

Please share any great blog posts or podcast episodes with me through the comments section. I value your input and feedback which will in turn allow me to share the most beneficial content.

Without much ado, let’s get started into the Weekly Roundup – Academy’s Finest Vol 3

MY BLOG POSTS THIS WEEK

How you can maximize tax benefits through strategic SRS contribution and withdrawal: The SRS is a voluntary savings scheme that encourages one to save for retirement. I talk about how a typical single male Singaporean and a working Singaporean mum can look to maximize tax benefits through contributions into their SRS account. The benefits accruing to a Singaporean male will generally be more pronounced due to lower personal relief compared to his female counterpart, who if is a working mum, can enjoy pretty generous working mother child relief. I have also highlighted why one should not be withdrawing out his/her SRS funds after reaching age 62 in a lump sum basis and what should be the ideal strategy for withdrawal, taking into consideration further fund appreciation. Do check out the article.

Keppel’s 3Q19 results preview: [UPDATE] Keppel released its 3Q19 results after market hours on 17 October. Its share price is currently down 0.7% as its lackluster 3Q19 quarterly performance has likely been well-anticipated by the market. The company saw its net profit declined by 30% YoY for the latest quarter due to relatively weak performance from its property division which we have alluded in the preview.

No surprises from its O&M division which remained marginally above water. Strong and steady performance from its Infrastructure division helps to offset persistent weakness seen in its Investment division which recorded net losses of 13m (due to M1 acquisitions-related charges, which management expects to be recurring in nature).

During the Q&A (see transcript), multiple questions were asked pertaining to Keppel’s medium to long-term target of achieving a 15% ROE and if that is still achievable in the current context. Management remains positive of being able to hit that target but admits that all divisions, particularly its O&M division, will have to improve its performance ahead.

Pertaining to the Sete saga, no further provisions are expected but neither is the company looking at possible write-backs at this point of time.

Overall: a likely uneventful set of results which will probably see the street reduce their full-year 2019 earnings expectation of the Group but unlikely to see significant downgrades to their calls.

BLOG POSTS

• Why is Motley Fool Singapore closing down/ Replacements? by Financialhorse

It was sad to hear that Motley Fool’s Singapore, after 6 years of operations will be closing its office on 31st october 2019. Core reason given was due to declining profitability. Financialhorse gave his own take about his perception of Motley Fools and the problem associated with the Singapore capital market and I do agree with the bulk of his thoughts. Do take a read.

• Singaporeans Guide to Investments Products that give Guaranteed Returns by Seedly

Team Seedly went on a journey to look for investments that give Singaporeans “Guaranteed” returns. The conclusion is that with the exception of CPF that can potentially yield up to 5% (but will require you to lock up your capital for a relatively prolong period), most of the products that give guaranteed returns yield slightly north of 2%, which ain’t exciting. One of the options, Singapore Savings Bond (SSB) that has been a very HOT product in the past year has also seen its demand tapering as its yield has fallen drastically. Conclusion? Start looking at investing for retirement (that is my conclusion by the way).

• How I Convinced My Wife to Continue Working after I Retired Early by Financial Samurai

A guest post from one of his favorite bloggers, Joe from Retire by 40, Joe talks about how he manages to convince his wife to continue working while he enjoys the freedom of being a retiree. At the end, it wasn’t because Joe’s persuasive power but more because of his wife’s character, someone who enjoys working and giving back to society and her organisation in her own way. There are also other factors such as career and education timing which help “convince” her wife to stay on. It was partly also because Joe is such a good “house-husband”, being extremely good with kids and enjoyed the time looking after his son. Food for thought.

• Make more Money by having Salary Conversations by ESI Money

In this post, ESI talks about the reason why there are salary discrepancies. Simply because it is a taboo to be talking about salary compensation among employees. Companies will want to pay employees as little as possible and discrepancies between employees will not be corrected on its own. For an employee, ESI provides various suggestions as to what you can do to solve this pay discrepancy problem.

PODCASTS EPISODES

• Scott Young – Ultralearning by Mad Fientist

This podcast talks about why ultralearning can help you get to financial independence quicker. Why is it that the first part of learning something new is the hardest and how to use ultralearning to get past that phase sooner. There are also other useful tidbits such as what to do when you hit a block or plateau in your learning.

WRAPPING IT UP

That’s all for this edition of Academy’s Finest. Have a great weekend everyone!