When Ms Jean Phua began attending classes in business finance earlier this year, she found she could not keep up.
Desperate for help, the 23-year-old - who was then pursuing a bachelor's degree in marketing at SIM University - turned to a time-honoured Singapore tradition: tuition.
After a three-week crash course in the subject from a private tutor, she scored a credit and graduated last month.
'I was rusty with numbers and the lectures were very fast-paced,' she recalled. 'Each class had about 200 students, so it was hard to get the lecturer's attention.'
An increasing number of undergraduates have been bitten by the tuition bug, joining their younger counterparts from primary and secondary schools and junior colleges.
To meet the burgeoning demand, more private tutors and tuition agencies are offering their services to university students.
Agencies like Home Tuition Care say they have been getting at least one inquiry a month from undergraduates.
At StarTutor, coordinator Gavin Liu estimates that he has seen 30 undergraduate clients over the last two years.
'These are mostly private university students or working adults who don't have time to attend classes,' he said.
'Some just want to catch up on their coursework before their exams.'
Tutors like private economics teacher Kevin Chow have seen a spike in the number of university students who turned to them for help.
He now conducts small-group classes for up to four undergraduates each semester - compared to none a few years ago.
The increase, he said, could be due to rising pressure for students to do well in tertiary institutions.
'For undergraduates, their degree is usually their last hurdle before they enter the workforce,' said the 29-year-old, who also coaches JC students. 'It's more vital for them to do better.'
Unlike their younger counterparts, undergraduates usually do not need long-term help. Tutors say they are hired for just one or two months, but will charge a premium for their services.
Tuition fees range between $40 and $300 an hour. University professors and former lecturers often command higher rates.
Primary to junior college students are usually charged between $15 and $45 an hour.
Popular subjects among undergraduates include accounting, engineering, business finance and even advanced mathematics.
Mr Ng E-Jay, a private mathematics tutor who is pursuing a PhD in maths at the National University of Singapore, provides one-on-one home tuition for undergraduates and even uses free Internet call service Skype to help them with their coursework over the phone.
He says the needs of his students are usually very specific.
'They just require some explanation in basic concepts, like business students who need help with statistics, or economics students who want a good foundation in maths,' explained the 32-year-old.
Some enterprising undergraduates are even offering tuition to their peers.
Mr Alan Phua, a final-year business management undergraduate from Singapore Management University (SMU), has provided economics and accounting tuition for six university students this year - all referred to him by a tuition agency.
Said the 26-year-old, who is also a teaching assistant at SMU: 'When I teach my students, I also revise my own work and go further in my own studies.'
While most of the students who take up tuition are Singaporeans from local and private universities, there are also foreigners who have turned to tuition to help them make the grade.
Ms Beenita Stephenson, a Thai who is pursuing her MBA at James Cook University, says tuition was the only way for her to overcome her weakness in accounting subjects.
'I was scared because I had never studied accounting before,' said the 29-year-old. 'I want to make sure that I do well, and tuition is the best way to guarantee that.'
Monday 21 December 2009
Sunday 29 November 2009
Investment strategy pays dividends (from Sunday Times dated 2009-11-29)
By Lorna Tan, Senior Correspondent
Savvy investor gets $24,000 a year in dividends and that covers his basic needs
Mr Ng Wai Chung is a senior associate in IT governance at Singapore Mercantile Exchange. He invests almost his entire salary in stocks, which he monitors daily. He and his wife, quantity surveyor Pang Yoke Loo, live with his parents.
Imagine having a payout from your investments that more than covers your monthly expenses.
Canny investor Ng Wai Chung is in this happy position at the age of 34.
Mr Ng, a senior IT manager - and an author of investment books - achieved this a year ago. But rather than retire, he stays in full-time employment.
His investment income stream is the result of a plan he set in motion three years ago. That was when he decided to sell his investments in unit trusts and buy stocks that pay high dividends.
'Today, I am able to yield about $24,000 a year on my investment portfolio, enough to cover my expenses in most months," he said.
This enviable portfolio consists of real estate investment trusts (Reits) and shares that yield high dividends, such as mainboard-listed Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). Dividends are the portions of profits which a company distributes to shareholders.
Mr Ng has an engineering degree and a master's in Applied Finance from the National University of Singapore (NUS). He obtained the latter part-time while working.
The senior associate in IT governance at commodity and futures exchange Singapore Mercantile Exchange has published three books on finance: Growing Your Tree Of Prosperity (2005), followed by Harvesting The Fruits Of Prosperity (2007), and this year, Sowing The Seeds Of Prosperity. They are available in bookshops.
Mr Ng is married to quantity surveyor Pang Yoke Loo, 31. They have no children.
Q: Are you a spender or saver?
Very much a saver. In most months, my expenses are paid fully from my investment income, which arrives every quarter in the form of dividends. However, I dip into my work income for discretionary expenses, such as a trip to Korea. I can save up to 100 per cent of my salary in some months.
Q: How much do you charge to your credit cards every month?
I have only one credit card. I use it to save money by making purchases over the Internet. Normally, my credit card charges do not exceed $500 monthly. I try and pay the bill even before I receive the statement. I withdraw about $400 from the ATM about twice or three times a month.
Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself?
I invest 80 per cent to 100 per cent of my take-home pay directly in the stock market.
I had about $130,000 in my stock portfolio early this year; this has grown to $250,000 from capital gains as well as monthly cash injections from my savings. I have about 20 counters.
About half my portfolio consists of business trusts like Cityspring Infrastructure and Hyflux Water, or shipping trusts such as First Shipping and Pacific Shipping which, on average, give dividend yields of about 10 per cent. The rest are Reits like Suntec and Cambridge, which give me similar yields.
With the economic recovery, I'm focused on channelling my income into income stocks like SPH and Singapore Post, which will give me about 7 per cent yields. I have also invested about $30,000 of my Central Provident Fund savings in stocks such as M1, StarHub, Lippo Mapletree Reit and Cambridge Reit.
Q: Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like?
My financial habits were shaped mostly by my years as a kid hanging out in my parents' pet shop at Shaw Centre in the 1980s. Life was hard. My parents were at the mercy of the landlord and the consumer. As an adult, I crave job and income security. I am very averse to debt.
Q: How did you get interested in investing?
In my final year at NUS, I picked up Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. This spurred me to pursue financial programmes like the Chartered Financial Analyst. Armed with investment know-ledge, I took to writing books to present my financial ideas from the perspective of a non-commission agent.
When I stock-pick, I find out first how much in dividends have been paid out over the past year. I used to aim for 10 per cent but have now lowered this to 6 per cent to 8 per cent. I check if there are any red flags raised by auditors. The free cashflow (operating cashflow minus capital expenditure) must exceed dividends declared. This ensures a company can sustain the dividends. Once the yield drops to, say, 4 per cent, I switch to a better counter. I monitor my portfolio daily.
Q: What property do you own?
I am an only child; I live with my parents in Woodlands - my dad picked up a single-storey semi-detached house in the early 1970s for $70,000. The current value is estimated to be $1.6 million. I do not own any property.
Q: What's the most extravagant thing you have bought?
My iRex Digital Reader 1000S which allows me to download electronic books for easy storage and reading. It cost $1,400. I save 60 per cent to 70 per cent compared to buying the actual books.
Q: What's your retirement plan?
None, if I can help it. Work is a function of ability, and not one's state of financial independence. My personal expectation is to increase my investment income by about $6,000 a year for each year of gainful employment. The rest largely depends on whether I can continue to remain employed and whether my health will allow it.
Q: Home is now...
The semi-detached house in Woodlands.
Q: I drive...
Sometimes I drive my wife's recently purchased weekend car, a white Hyundai Avante.
Book spurred interest in money management
'In my final year at NUS, I picked up Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. This spurred me to pursue financial programmes like the Chartered Financial Analyst. Armed with investment knowledge, I took to writing books to present my financial ideas from the perspective of a non-commission agent.'
MR NG WAI CHUNG
WORST AND BEST BETS
Q: What has been your worst investment to date?
I had a very painful experience investing in McArthurcook Properties Securities Fund. I accumulated about 108,000 shares through 2007 and last year, and its yield was initially about 30 per cent. The price plummeted to 16 cents, from $1, when the recession hit. And last year, it stopped declaring dividends altogether. I exited in October last year at a loss of about $40,000.
Greed and my obsession for yields created an aversion to letting go of this. I learnt that I should not let my stubbornness get the better of me.
Q: And your best investment?
At the bottom of the market some time last year, I invested about $5,000 in Capital Retail China Trust at 60 cents per share. It had a dividend yield approaching 15 per cent. I have since doubled my money as the price is now $1.18. Most of my high-yielding counters have been doing well since December last year. My entire portfolio has almost doubled in size since early this year.
Savvy investor gets $24,000 a year in dividends and that covers his basic needs
Mr Ng Wai Chung is a senior associate in IT governance at Singapore Mercantile Exchange. He invests almost his entire salary in stocks, which he monitors daily. He and his wife, quantity surveyor Pang Yoke Loo, live with his parents.
Imagine having a payout from your investments that more than covers your monthly expenses.
Canny investor Ng Wai Chung is in this happy position at the age of 34.
Mr Ng, a senior IT manager - and an author of investment books - achieved this a year ago. But rather than retire, he stays in full-time employment.
His investment income stream is the result of a plan he set in motion three years ago. That was when he decided to sell his investments in unit trusts and buy stocks that pay high dividends.
'Today, I am able to yield about $24,000 a year on my investment portfolio, enough to cover my expenses in most months," he said.
This enviable portfolio consists of real estate investment trusts (Reits) and shares that yield high dividends, such as mainboard-listed Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). Dividends are the portions of profits which a company distributes to shareholders.
Mr Ng has an engineering degree and a master's in Applied Finance from the National University of Singapore (NUS). He obtained the latter part-time while working.
The senior associate in IT governance at commodity and futures exchange Singapore Mercantile Exchange has published three books on finance: Growing Your Tree Of Prosperity (2005), followed by Harvesting The Fruits Of Prosperity (2007), and this year, Sowing The Seeds Of Prosperity. They are available in bookshops.
Mr Ng is married to quantity surveyor Pang Yoke Loo, 31. They have no children.
Q: Are you a spender or saver?
Very much a saver. In most months, my expenses are paid fully from my investment income, which arrives every quarter in the form of dividends. However, I dip into my work income for discretionary expenses, such as a trip to Korea. I can save up to 100 per cent of my salary in some months.
Q: How much do you charge to your credit cards every month?
I have only one credit card. I use it to save money by making purchases over the Internet. Normally, my credit card charges do not exceed $500 monthly. I try and pay the bill even before I receive the statement. I withdraw about $400 from the ATM about twice or three times a month.
Q: What financial planning have you done for yourself?
I invest 80 per cent to 100 per cent of my take-home pay directly in the stock market.
I had about $130,000 in my stock portfolio early this year; this has grown to $250,000 from capital gains as well as monthly cash injections from my savings. I have about 20 counters.
About half my portfolio consists of business trusts like Cityspring Infrastructure and Hyflux Water, or shipping trusts such as First Shipping and Pacific Shipping which, on average, give dividend yields of about 10 per cent. The rest are Reits like Suntec and Cambridge, which give me similar yields.
With the economic recovery, I'm focused on channelling my income into income stocks like SPH and Singapore Post, which will give me about 7 per cent yields. I have also invested about $30,000 of my Central Provident Fund savings in stocks such as M1, StarHub, Lippo Mapletree Reit and Cambridge Reit.
Q: Moneywise, what were your growing-up years like?
My financial habits were shaped mostly by my years as a kid hanging out in my parents' pet shop at Shaw Centre in the 1980s. Life was hard. My parents were at the mercy of the landlord and the consumer. As an adult, I crave job and income security. I am very averse to debt.
Q: How did you get interested in investing?
In my final year at NUS, I picked up Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. This spurred me to pursue financial programmes like the Chartered Financial Analyst. Armed with investment know-ledge, I took to writing books to present my financial ideas from the perspective of a non-commission agent.
When I stock-pick, I find out first how much in dividends have been paid out over the past year. I used to aim for 10 per cent but have now lowered this to 6 per cent to 8 per cent. I check if there are any red flags raised by auditors. The free cashflow (operating cashflow minus capital expenditure) must exceed dividends declared. This ensures a company can sustain the dividends. Once the yield drops to, say, 4 per cent, I switch to a better counter. I monitor my portfolio daily.
Q: What property do you own?
I am an only child; I live with my parents in Woodlands - my dad picked up a single-storey semi-detached house in the early 1970s for $70,000. The current value is estimated to be $1.6 million. I do not own any property.
Q: What's the most extravagant thing you have bought?
My iRex Digital Reader 1000S which allows me to download electronic books for easy storage and reading. It cost $1,400. I save 60 per cent to 70 per cent compared to buying the actual books.
Q: What's your retirement plan?
None, if I can help it. Work is a function of ability, and not one's state of financial independence. My personal expectation is to increase my investment income by about $6,000 a year for each year of gainful employment. The rest largely depends on whether I can continue to remain employed and whether my health will allow it.
Q: Home is now...
The semi-detached house in Woodlands.
Q: I drive...
Sometimes I drive my wife's recently purchased weekend car, a white Hyundai Avante.
Book spurred interest in money management
'In my final year at NUS, I picked up Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. This spurred me to pursue financial programmes like the Chartered Financial Analyst. Armed with investment knowledge, I took to writing books to present my financial ideas from the perspective of a non-commission agent.'
MR NG WAI CHUNG
WORST AND BEST BETS
Q: What has been your worst investment to date?
I had a very painful experience investing in McArthurcook Properties Securities Fund. I accumulated about 108,000 shares through 2007 and last year, and its yield was initially about 30 per cent. The price plummeted to 16 cents, from $1, when the recession hit. And last year, it stopped declaring dividends altogether. I exited in October last year at a loss of about $40,000.
Greed and my obsession for yields created an aversion to letting go of this. I learnt that I should not let my stubbornness get the better of me.
Q: And your best investment?
At the bottom of the market some time last year, I invested about $5,000 in Capital Retail China Trust at 60 cents per share. It had a dividend yield approaching 15 per cent. I have since doubled my money as the price is now $1.18. Most of my high-yielding counters have been doing well since December last year. My entire portfolio has almost doubled in size since early this year.
Thursday 27 August 2009
Stephen Wolfram: Official Website
Stephen Wolfram: Official Website
http://www.stephenwolfram.com/
http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/index.html
If you're doing anything technical, think Mathematica--not just for computation, but for modeling, simulation, visualization, development, documentation, and deployment.
Why Mathematica? Because this one integrated system delivers unprecedented workflow, coherence, reliability, and innovation. Rather than different toolkits for different jobs, Mathematica has been built ground-up for more than 20 years to deliver one vision: the ultimate technical application and environment.
http://www.stephenwolfram.com/
http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/index.html
If you're doing anything technical, think Mathematica--not just for computation, but for modeling, simulation, visualization, development, documentation, and deployment.
Why Mathematica? Because this one integrated system delivers unprecedented workflow, coherence, reliability, and innovation. Rather than different toolkits for different jobs, Mathematica has been built ground-up for more than 20 years to deliver one vision: the ultimate technical application and environment.
Monday 23 March 2009
The Straits Times Editorial (2009-03-17): Now for a cultural revolution in bank selling
DRAFT proposals published by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to regularise the sale of investment products are stringent, covering information disclosure and risk assessment for clients. The onus placed on financial institutions and their sales staff to observe operating regulations, on pain of legal sanction, could even impede growth of the fastest evolving segment of retail finance. But the safeguards are necessary - absolutely. The tightening will fulfil the express wish of investors, soured by the experience of investing in the dark, that banks and brokerages be made to discharge fully a vendor's responsibility to go with the scope for immense profitability in the investments which they design or spew out as associate parties to the product originators.
Last year's eruption of investor anger over product misrepresentation in all the main financial centres, East and West, showed that no one country's investors were more savvy or less so than others. They had operated under a collective misimpression that the range of structured notes, unit trusts and derivatives they bought (or had foisted on them) were 'suitable' and 'safe'. Singapore should yield to no jurisdiction in its regulatory zeal to deal with the risks posed by mis-selling of products and of their suitability for different categories of investors.
A word of caution: Regulatory cautions can be parsed or interpreted too broadly by vendors. As an example, the risks summary to give clients an overview of suitability, called the product highlights sheet, would be worthless if written in dense officialese or couched in generalities that provide little information. This is a big-print primer meant to be read and comprehended, not a small-print compliance meant to deter but taken as read. Caveat emptor, or 'buyer beware', never suffered a worse case of disrepute through the years of fine-print abuse in prospectuses. MAS must be on guard. The same principle should drive the product risk-rating and 'professional advice' that is to be given before 'complex instruments' are sold.
Properly implemented, the restrictions amount to fomenting a cultural revolution in the transparent way banks and brokerages will sell paper, and in how investors educate themselves and get educated in the intricacies of investing. No longer tolerated will be the old habit of bank staff cutting corners and using subterfuge to meet sales targets set by unreasonable management. It will take some time for the banks and their workers to develop a culture of responsible selling. The task cannot start soon enough.
The Straits Times Edotorial (2009-03-16): A way to contain China-US naval spats
CHINA-United States relations have hit a spot of turbulence again. Last week, five Chinese vessels shadowed and manoeuvred close to the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed ocean surveillance ship. The incident occurred 100km south of Hainan Island in the South China Sea. Beijing alleged that the Impeccable was conducting 'illegal surveying', a phrase understood to mean spying on Chinese submarines. Angry confrontations have occurred recently, but the incident is the worst dispute since China's detention of an American EP-3 spy plane and its crew in 2001.
Amid the flurry of protests from both sides, some perspective is called for. As an independent analysis points out, China maintains that the Impeccable's activities come under the marine scientific provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), which require consent from Beijing. However, the US argues that the Impeccable was undertaking hydrographic and military surveys, which do not require consent. Their contrasting views represent interpretative differences of Unclos. China's view emphasises its need to deny access to what it regards as its sphere of influence in the South China Sea. America's view is informed by its need to assert freedom of navigation on the high seas.
There is also American complicity involved. The US has signed but not ratified Unclos. Put differently, the US expects China - which has ratified the Convention - to adhere to legal standards America itself does not adhere to. A rhetorical question would be illustrative: Would American naval ships behave likewise if a Chinese surveillance ship sailed close to the nuclear submarine facility at King's Bay in Georgia?
There fundamentally is a need for the two nations to move beyond the recurrent nature of such disputes and craft a regime for managing future confrontations. With the People's Liberation Army Navy expanding its reach, some friction with the US Navy can be expected. The 1972 US-Soviet Incidents at Sea Agreement greatly reduced friction between the two navies. Incidentally there is a 1998 agreement between the US and China that established a consultation mechanism to strengthen military maritime safety. But as the Hainan incident showed, this agreement proved inadequate or both sides wanted to show who was tougher. If any good should come of the episode, it would be that the two powers will rush to design a Sino-American agreement similar to the 1972 US-Soviet one. That absent, it would not be smooth sailing for merchant shippers and military ships in the Asia-Pacific region.
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