Archive for August, 2009
Collegiate Financial Planning
Collegiate Financial Planning
by: Kendrick Chua, the Wealth Warrior
College was meant to prepare us for the real world, as what we were told. Well, I’d like to believe the schools did their work and the education we had was, in one way or another, did wonders for our chosen career.
But somewhere along the system, there is a gap. It is not exactly a flaw but a hole that needs to be plugged, an issue that needs to be addressed. The school taught us how to make money. There are even career counseling courses offered to graduating students to train them on how to “sell” themselves to their employers and climb the corporate ladder. Ammunitions for successful corporate stints are in no way lacking.
But the school never taught us how to manage that money.
Tags: financial planning
The Need to be Insured…as explained in I Love You So
The Need to be Insured…as explained in I Love You So
by: Kendrick Chua, the Wealth Warrior
I am a sucker for a romantic Filipino movie and watching And I Love You So last weekend certainly justified that! But the movie presented more than just powerful acting by Bea and cheesy lines of Sam (made me literally cringe), it presented the importance of life insurance.
In the story, Derek Ramsey and Bea Alonzo were happily married and in their mid-twenties, their future certainly looked very bright. With a passionate love bonding them together, it seemed that nothing can go wrong.
Think again. Somewhere along, Sam has to make his appearance. So instead of just making a love-triangle story, the producers decided to kill Derek.
Derek died too young and too soon due to aneurism and Bea became a widow at a tender age of twenty-five. Bea mourned for seven months because of her husband’s untimely death and when she got back to reality, she was confronted with mounts of bills and other financial obligations, including the rent for the pre-school Derek gifted her (awww…so sweet). Left with no choice, Bea has to leased the condo to she and Derek lived in to pay for the rent of the pre-school (bad) and move in with her mother-in-law (worse).
Tags: Insurance
Ranking of Equity Funds in both UITF and MF (as of August 19, 2009)
Ranking of Equity Funds in both UITF and MF (as of August 19, 2009)
Couple of months back, I wrote about the ING Funds rising from the ashes just like the mythical Phoenix (http://thewealthwarrior.net/?p=194). Today, it has even soared higher and faster than its contemporaries. In a bull market, being heavy weight in equities is ideal. Below is the complete list of the different equity funds and their YTD returns.
ING Bank, N.V. ING Philippine High Conviction Equity Fund |
88.20% |
| AB Capital and Investment Corp. AB Capital Equity Fund |
73.63% |
ING Bank, N.V. ING Philippine Equity Fund |
71.85% |
| Philequity Fund, Inc. |
54.10% |
| Philippine Stock Index Fund Corp. |
52.49% |
| Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company Metro Equity Fund |
48.68% |
| Banco de Oro UITF Equity Fund |
48.43% |
| Philequity PSE Index Fund Inc. |
48.16% |
| Banco de Oro BDO Peso Equity Fund |
45.76% |
| Asia United Bank-TIG AUB Equity Investment Fund |
45.67% |
| RCBC Rizal Equity Fund (vice Tiger Equity Fund) |
37.77% |
| Philam Strategic Growth Fund, Inc. |
36.92% |
| Philippine National Bank PHISIX |
35.42% |
| Sun Life Prosperity Phil. Equity Fund, Inc. |
33.89% |
| ATR KimEng Equity Opportunity Fund, Inc. |
31.43% |
| BPI Equity Fund |
30.64% |
| First Metro Save and Learn Equity Fund, Inc. |
29.41% |
| DWS Deutsche Philippine Equity Fund, Inc. |
24.50% |
| United Fund, Inc. |
13.11% |
| Allied Banking Corporation Allied Unit Performance Equities Fund |
6.86% |
Tags: Mutual Funds, uitf
My interview with Inquirer last year
I was fortunate to be interviewed by Salve Duplito last year for her article Offshore Investments getting hotter for Filipinos.
Offshore investments getting hotter for Filipinos
By Ma. Salve Duplito
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 21:36:00 09/14/2008
Filed Under: Economy, Business & Finance,Personal Finance
AT 25 YEARS OF AGE, marketing management graduate Kendrick Chua has already invested-and lost money-in offshore instruments particularly in China, real estate investment trusts and a Euro-denominated fund. To say that his $10,000 joint investment with his mom in a private bank is “not doing so well” is an understatement, but the young investor is not fazed.
“I am investing for the long-term and I know that you cannot learn without making mistakes. Sure, I lost money, but I’m learning too and I really like investing,” Kendrick says.
Kendrick hopes to have more access to options offshore to stabilize his portfolio, chunks of which are also invested in the local stock market and local mutual funds. Experts say this is the whole point of real diversification-investment language for putting your eggs in different baskets so that if some of the baskets don’t do too well, you can save the eggs in the other baskets.
Tags: offshore investing
Surviving Self-employment as published in Business Mirror
Surviving Self-employment
Three years of being self-employed as a life underwriter and I still cannot quite fully fathom the oohs and aahs of people when they learn I work on flexible hours. It is fun, no doubt about that. I get to wake up later than usual and can go on vacation whenever I feel like it. For the others, especially employed individuals, working on their own time is a luxury their companies cannot afford to provide.
Although this is just one of the perks of self-employment, a lot of people do not realize that with the flexible hours comes irregular income, earning mainly through commissions or professional fees. While other industries are fortunate to be shielded from the crisis, those in the financial services are feeling the pinch and the crisis has wreaked havoc in our earnings. This has caused a great deal of stress for us and I’m quite certain this will not turn any heads green with envy.
Tags: published article, self-employment
Generosity of Filipinos: A Tribute to Former President Cory Aquino
Generosity of Filipinos: A tribute to
Former President Cory Aquino
by: Kendrick Chua, the Wealth Warrior
I was literally awed by the supporters that have braved the rain just to send the former president to her final resting place. People of all ages, of all status came together as one. It was really touching, to say the least. The unity of the Filipinos shone brightly once again. Unfortunately, it was an effect to a tragic cause.
The Filipinos do have a lot to be proud of. The problem is, we just don’t know about it. We have spent centuries of degradation from foreign invaders. As if the colonialism was not enough, we just have to go into mass exodus to other nations to render our service where no others would do.
Shameful? Definitely not!
Tags: money habits
Understanding a Fund Fact Sheet
Understanding a Fund Fact Sheet
1.) The name of the fund and the Financial Institution
2.) Fund Performance
This is the comparative result of the fund against its benchmark. In this case, it is the high-conviction fund pitted against the Philippine Stock Exchange Index. The performance is broken down into different periods (YTD, 1 month, 3 months, 1 year, etc.) for quicker reference.
3.) Graph
For easier comparison, graphs of the fund and the benchmark are always provided in a fund fact sheet. This is for the investors to have an idea of the track record and the trends of the fund and the index. Investors can recognize when the fund performed better or worse than benchmark.
4.) Manager’s Report
The Manager’s Report usually contains three parts:
Market Review – a brief summary of the market’s performance for the past month and rational behind the performance. It also provides key issues that led the rise or fall of the market and other data that contributed to such performance.
Fund Performance -a comparative summary of how well (or bad) the fund performed against the benchmark and the issues in its portfolio that allowed it to outperform (or underperform) the benchmark.
Fund Strategy – A brief explanation on how the fund managers will proceed with the investment allocations to take advantage of the current market condition. This section explains which sectors they will be overweight and underweight, how much cash position should they have and what are the key support level they are likely to buy and key resistance level they are likely to sell.
5.) Investment Objective
The section that tells you what is the objective of funds. In other words, this is the compelling reason why you are investing in this fund. A word of caution though, never invest if your objective does not match the fund’s objective. If it says long term, invest for long term.
6.) Top 10 Holdings
This section presents the top issues of the portfolio and their corresponding percentage to the total fund. You can easily know which sectors they are favoring by just looking the companies the fund is investing in. This is also a guide on which companies to trade.
7.) Sector Holding
The percentage allocation of each sector to the total portfolio arranged from heavyweight to underweight. In bear markets, fund usually take a defensive stand by investing heavily in recession-proof industries such as Telecoms and Utilities.
8.) Key Figures and Statistics
Other data that are not classified into the first seven sections are all lumped into the last. This contains the total number of selection of the fund, the fund performance and its beta coefficient. It also contains the general information about the fund such as: Launch date, custodian bank, fund valuation and trust fee just to name a few.
Tags: fund fact sheet
