Insurance Today

Starhub used to be a darling stock for most dividend investors. With a generous track record over a decade of paying out a relatively high dividend yield, its business is also fairly defensive and recession-proof.  There have been a few good articles about Starhub's recent slash in dividends, which you can read here , here and here . In this post, I'll be looking at the red flags that signalled this impending dividend cut as well as whether this drop could present a buying opportunity for Starhub right now. Here's Starhub's historical dividend payouts:  Year Dividends Paid (SGD) Yield 2016 0.20 7.09% 2015 0.25 8.87% 2014 0.20 7.09% 2013 0.20 7.09% 2012 0.20 7.09% 2011 0.20 7.09% 2010 0.20 7.09% 2009 0.185 6.56% 2008 0.18 6.38% 2007 0.15 5.32% 2006 0.105 3.72% 2005 0.065 2.30% *Dividend Yield(TTM) =  7.09% You can see that for the past 7 years, they've been fairly consistent in paying out  $0.20 in dividends (or 5 cents per quarter). Furthermore, if you had been luc...

A year ago, news first emerged that hackers may have found a new way to outsmart our banks in their security measures, even after they introduced their 2-FA authentication protocol where consumers would have to key in a One-Time Password (OTP) sent to their mobile phone whenever they make an online transaction using their credit card(s). Their method? Just hack into the victims' mobile phone, where the hackers can then access both credit card details and OTPs at one go. Apps or websites where the consumer have previously keyed in their credit card information can reveal the card details, whereas the SMS would give the OTP required to make sure the transaction goes through. I'm not making it up. Take a look at this case as reported by The Straits Times last year: -------- When he woke up on Sept 30 last year, his phone was still "updating". He forcibly rebooted it by removing the battery, only to find SMS alerts from UOB on the purchases, as well as the one-time passwo...

Last week, the Business Times published a great article -  Markets are underestimating the risks of accelerating inflation  written by Neil Behrmann - which I thought was worth a second look.  In the nutshell, the author believes that there will be rapid inflation coming our way, especially with Trump's policies, and that this could be a sign of an impending market crash. I quote some parts of the article which I thought was worth sharing here (in dark grey). For those of you familiar with macro economics, you might find some of these familiar: RISKS of accelerating global inflation have been widely underestimated.   The deflation in the US, Germany, the UK, France, Japan and China in the past two years has turned into inflation. In the US, it is 2.1 per cent; Germany, 1.7 per cent; the UK, 1.6 per cent; France , 0.6 per cent; Japan, 0.5 per cent and China, 2.1 per cent. Singapore's erstwhile negative inflation numbers have also transposed into a marginally positive ...

Although we’ve yet to apply for our BTO, I’ve been asked to share my plans and financial calculations, so here goes! Hopefully this will help those of you who need a guide on how to plan your finances for your housing needs. I previously wrote about waiting for the February 2017 BTO launch, but unfortunately neither Bukit Batok nor Sengkang appealed to my fiancé and I as we prefer to stay within 20 minutes of our parents. Nonetheless, HDB conducts a BTO exercise every quarter with projects in different towns, so we’re now waiting for the May 2017 launch instead!   What type of housing should we get? The first thing we did was to discuss what housing options we should go for. Some people see their first house as an investment, but I don’t. To me, as long as it is a house I’m staying in, it qualifies more as a home rather than an investment asset.   My fiancé had initially wanted to go for a condo or an EC as he perceived such homes as symbols of one’s status. However, we finall...

Stop using "How to" posts as clickbait! This is inspired by  LadyIronChef's recent post (here) , which I came across this afternoon. Thinking that there was some secret method to get my Llaollao fix for just $1 (sort of like those secret Starbuck recipes you can find online), I excitedly clicked on the link, only to be solely disappointed after realising that it was just a 4-day promotion which runs for this month.  I've kept quiet on this issue of click-bait titles for a long time, but today I feel compelled to write a piece on how too many writers are resorting to the use of click-bait titles to draw readership, and why this needs to STOP asap. The original article with the click-bait title This version is so much better and honest. You see, when we search Google for "how to...", we're usually looking for an actual answer, methodology, trick or step-by-step guide of instructions. If I search "how to save on Starbucks", I'm looking for act...