Bus to Speaker's Corner

I had to give a talk on financial planning at SMU and then proceed immediately to Speaker's Corner to give my talk on "Minimum Wage". I did not want to drive there, due to difficulty in finding a parking space. I hesitated to take a taxi, as they might not be available during certain hours of the day. (Yes, our taxi service is not reliable).

I finally decided to take a bus, but was not sure which bus to take. I searched Google Map on my smartphone and learned that Service 33 is available for this stretch. While waiting for this bus, another bus came along. I asked the driver, who told me that the bus will pass Hong Lim Park. It was quite easy to take the bus
.

I am quite sad that the public transport system in Singapore is quite complicated and unreliable. I wish that the Land Transport Authority will take the lead to make it easier for people to move around.

Train announcements

The SMRT has introduced a jingle to announce the arrival of a train. It goes "training is coming ...." in a musical way. This is well done.

I have taken the NEL on a few occasions. There was an announcement at some platform, "The happy, happy platform ..... ". I was puzzled at this announcement. I heard it more than 1 dozen times and still cannot catch the words and message. It is a bad announcement. Does anyone know what is the message?

SDP rally at Speaker's Corner

You can see some photos of the event. It was well attended with 400 participants. Go to www.easyapps.sg/sgep/latest.aspx.

Property rules- 30 August 2010

A property consultant has summarised the new rules that apply to HDB and private properties that take effect after 30 August 2010. Go to www.tankinlian.com/latest.aspx.

Dollar cost averaging and ETF

Mr Tan,
Hi! Thanks for organizing last saturday's invest for the long term talk. I have never invest before. It was informative indeed. However, I have a few questions for you on ETF.
1) I want to invest an initial amount of $20,000 in STI ETF and continue to invest for the long term (20 years). I do not want to constantly monitor and track my investment. Do you think I should adopt dollar cost averaging (DCA) or invest in a lump sum?
2) If I am investing for the long term using DCA, should I care about the buying price (buy low)?



REPLY
If I were to take this decision, I would invest this sum in 1,000 units (about $3,000) every 3 months over the next 2 years to gain some dollar cost averaging. The reason for this decision is that the market is somewhat on the high side and the global economy is still uncertain (in my view), but we do not know if it will continue to go up or may correct downwards over the next two years. So, it is better to do some averaging. However, it is a difficult decision to take.

SIA Bond - no mention of maturity date

Dear Mr. Tan
The two advertisements I saw, one in Sunday ST and one in today's TODAY, did not state the maturity of the bond.  I read somewhere that it is maturing in Sep/Oct 2015.  I tried googling and found a few articles relating to the issuance and the two online reports I read did not mention maturity at all.

REPLY
Perhaps you can ask for the prospectus as a potential investor? It should have been stated in the document. Try to see it from the angle of an investor, i.e. whether the information is put in a format that an investor can understand easily.

FOLLOW UP
I found the prospectus on MAS Opera. Maturity date is 30 Sep 2015. The prospectus is similar to other prospectus, it's 113 pages and full of the usual financial and legal jargon.  I am used to reading these docs but find no joy reading it.  My point is why the full page adverts do not include bond mat date?