CNY 2021 is no doubt a more muted event this year. Now that the first few days are over and your kids have counted majority of the hongbaos, here’s some tips to maximise their hongbaos.
Teach your kids cash management.
Ultimately, it’s your kids’ finances. They should be part of the process of maximizing it. Take this chance to teach children about the importance of cash management and how they could allocate their money according to their needs and wants. One way would be to split up their money into several “buckets”; spending, savings, investments and filial piety. What better way to get them started on giving back to their parents!
Deposit them into a Savings Account
This used to be a no-brainer! Savings are important but with interests at the low rates savings account currently are, at 0.05% p.a., and global interest rates remaining low for the foreseeable future, there are much better ways to grow your kids’ wealth.
That said, emergency liquid funds are important for rainy days. So do allocate some portion into their savings accounts still.
Invest them into a Blue Chips Plan or ETFs
A very simple way of using dollar cost averaging (DCA) to “stack” your investments. Multiple banks offer the blue chip accumulation plan in their services and setting up a monthly automation is very straightforward. These banks also usually have investment arms which allow one to easily set up a CDP account and brokerage account for investments into ETFs or specific shares.
Wondering about the merits of DCA? That’s a topic altogether for another time.
Invest the money into Gold
With Gold increasing by 25% in 2020 and the rest of the precious metals classes enjoying similar if not more capital gains, it’s a good time to look into diversifying into other asset classes too. Many used to think that buying precious metals would be very traditional and outdated. Now, there’s much more convenient ways to buy into precious metals.
Buying via the retail route
Buying Precious Metal bullion has never been easier than now. Register account online and you can then scroll through the website and select what you want! All these in less than 5 minutes. You can even choose delivery to your doorsteps! Alternatively, head down to the retail shop to do your collection. Do remember to make appt here first and remember to practise social distancing!
A side note here, we know of one family who comes down after CNY every year and the kids literally bring along their hongbaos and swap them to silver bullion. If you are reading this, you know who you are 🙂
Daily accumulation system via mobile
Ever thought of diversifying your portfolio but was unable to due to cost or practicality constraints. (It is way too expensive to buy 1g gold, 1g silver and 1g platinum) Well now, that’s resolved with the use of your mobile phone.Set up an autosave plan for all three metal types from as low as $0.10 per day. And it only takes 3 minutes on your mobile phone. Pause anytime with no penalties and physical redemption is as easy as selecting the physical item and checking it out! You now have the power to set up a diversified and customized portfolio at very low costs.
So that’s it, quick and simple tips on how to maximize your children’s hongbaos. After all, the real huat starts with not buying 4D but by making smarter day-to-day personal finance decisions for your future!
Jason
Happy Chinese New Year Everyone!
It is the festive time of the year to receive and giving out little red envelopes. These little red envelopes are called “Hong Bao” 红包 in Mandarin, “Ang Bao” in Singapore and “Lai See” in Cantonese. The money inside is called “压岁钱”, which is also known as “lucky money” or New Year’s money.
Saving your “lucky money” by accumulating precious metals holdings
“When you have nowhere to spend, don’t spend on handbags, invest in GSAP”
There is no better time to start the habit of saving and investing money at a regular basis than at Chinese New Year because you have a good sum of extra cash to get started.
Saving for the future instead of spending right away is a good way to start. Time to stop spending your ang bao money on things that you do not actually need. Try saving and accumulating with our GSC Savings Accumulation Program (GSAP) instead. Let your “lucky money” work harder by investing in GSAP!
Below is a summary how GSAP works:
- Accumulate min. $100 per month.
- Minimum period to commit: 1 cycle (3 months)
- Accumulate daily on business days based on GSC 10am reference price automatically.
- You may refer to the 10am reference price through our website.
- Helps the client buy more when prices are low and less when prices are high.
- Dollar Cost Averaging method.
- Upon the maturity of the savings plan, clients can choose to take physical delivery of your accumulated holdings or sell to encash it.
- The only cost incurred is the storage charges of 2.5% per annum. It will be calculated daily as your holdings increase day by day. (Based on 10am reference price as well)
- The storage charges will be debited from your accumulated holdings on the 1st business day of the following month.
“You may decide to indulge when you have won the fight,
but don’t forget GSAP when the time is right.”
The right time is here. Contact us if you have any other enquires or you may also sign up through the form here!
Cheryl
2020 was the banner year for Gold, hitting US$2074.96/ounce in August 2020. Silver has hit its high since April 2011 at US$29.795/ounce and Platinum has hit US$1075.699/ounce since August 2016.
Based on the GSC 10 a.m. Reference Price, Gold has increased 24.93%, Platinum has increased 47.44% and Silver has increased 47.54% in 2020.
The lowest price for all metals occured in March for the year 2020. This is also the period when the pandemic started to proliferate globally.
The pandemic has accelerated the rally for investors who are looking to protect their wealth, and this led them to stockpile precious metals, the known safe-haven. In addition to the increase in demand, the pandemic has affected the supply chain for the precious metals due to lockdowns. All these led to an increase in the premium of physical stocks.
With the huge government debt, negative real returns on bonds, low or negative interest rates and threats of inflation and market turbulence, what would your precious metals forecast be for 2021?
Will the silver continue to outperform in 2021? Will the basis of positive blast from the green transformation driving increased industrial demand, and the expected economic recovery?
Below is the chart that shows the Gold, Silver and Platinum spot price (SGD & USD) movement line for the year 2020. Based on the charts below, it shows that Gold and Silver are in tandem and have a closer correlation as compared to Platinum hence a diversification across different precious metals might be a good idea for a more robust portfolios.
Price based on GSC 10am Reference Price
Suzane
I believe most have read about the recent Reddit group that has spurred on many other retail investors to short squeeze stocks that hedge funds have big short positions in. The idea is to drive prices of the stock high enough to force the hand of these hedge funds to buy back the stocks they have borrowed to sell, at a loss.
Why didn’t this work with the Silver Market?
The commodities market doesn’t work the same way as the stock market. The shorts reported by CME or Commitment of Traders Report (COTR) does not mean that all of these shorts are speculative positions or positions that traders have placed to bet that prices will go south for them to make a profit. Most of these short future positions are to hedge physical Silver exposure or miners to secure prices in the future to deliver mined Silver against. In other words, these short future positions are being offset with physical bars and coins held in their inventory.
Another point to note, we do not know what is on the trading book of each bank and they might have positions not pushed out to the market yet as they have taken on a big position. For example, the trader in a bank has bought a sizable amount of Silver from a fund and yet to sell it out in order not to move the Silver price too drastically. This ride up in Silver prices allows them to hedge out their risk at a much higher profit and due to the larger number of buyers available, it will also allow them to get out of their positions even earlier and at a tidy profit.
Bottom line is, we do not see the full picture from the reports provided via CME or COTR.
The financial institutions raised margins to prevent Silver prices from soaring, is this true?
Margins were raised by 18% by Comex but this was not because the institutions wanted Silver prices to stay low. Many brokers followed suit. Margins for trades is a function of volatility. The higher the volatility the higher the margins required. This is for risk management and also to protect the interests of investors. This will happen for any asset class not only for Silver. This often has been misconstrued by many to think that the institutions did this on purpose for their own gains.
Physical Silver premiums shot up sharply, does this mean there are not enough physical Silver?
Physical Silver premiums came up at least 30% or more but it does not mean that physical Silver have all ran out. The sudden sharp increase in physical demand from clients globally due to this Silver squeeze coupled with the Covid-19 measures implemented in mints and refineries lead to a short term tightness of physical Silver bars and coins. There are still large Silver bars available in many vaults around the world but they are not the preferred choice for retail investors.
The manpower restrictions due to Covid-19 also meant that production schedules for Silver finished products have to be extended especially with this huge increase in demand. These factors led to the increase in premiums and it will ease once the Silver orders backlog has been met.
Brian