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🎯 Personal Finance Quick Action
There’s been a lot of “noise” around markets in the past week and that’s no surprise given a new war started between the US/Israel and Iran.
Trying to pick apart what sectors, or even specific stocks, will be “winners” and “losers” is generally just positing interesting hypothetical scenarios.
We should not be changing the way we invest long term based on any of this analysis. Why? Because it’s short term in nature. Sure, certain defense-related stocks (like SGX-listed ST Engineering) soared in the middle of the week.
But then it retraced its gains the day after and its share price has been bouncing around since. If anything, the price action we are seeing is more indicative of the fact that no one has any clue how this is going to turn out.
Will it be bad for inflation if oil prices stay elevated? Yep, nearly certainly. Will they stay elevated in the next few months? No one knows.
So, our approach to long-term investing shouldn’t be bouncing around like some of these share prices. Instead, it should really be anchored in how we’ve assessed our investing time horizon and risk tolerance.
For those who haven’t started their investing journey, this could – counterintuitively – actually be one of the best times to start investing. Uncertainty will always be there in markets and that’s been really heightened in the past week.
Getting used to that uncertainty, psychologically and emotionally, is one of the best ways to come to terms with how the market behaves.
And if we are investing regularly then lower prices should actually be welcomed at a time when a lot of markets are near all-time highs.
As ever, it’s always important to zoom out and look at global stocks over long timeframes rather than the one week, one month, or 12-month charts.
Just remember, when you’re putting your money to work for retirement or for your kids’ education (that’s usually at least 10-20 years away), what stocks do over sub-12 months’ time horizons is meaningless.
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💳 Card & Miles Hack of the Week
Annual fees for credit cards. We should all know that not one of us should be paying them for entry-level cards, whether it’s a miles or cashback card.
That’s because banks rely on us to use the cards. You’re the customer and you, therefore, have power.
The only time you need to consider a credit card annual fee as mandatory will be for higher-tier cards (usually requiring cardholders to earn a minimum of $120k a year or above).
For entry-level cards, you can always call up and waive the fee or go through Internet Banking to get it done. However, UOB does try to skim UNI$ off you for annual fees and it’s something we should all be watching out for if we have a UOB miles-earning card.
For example, on the UOB Preferred Platinum Visa or UOB Visa Signature, UOB will actually deduct UNI$6,500 (or the equivalent of 13,000 miles) in lieu of a cash annual fee.
This is done at the end of the month of your annual renewal, which will be the month portion of the expiry date you see on the front of your card.
Just wait a few days into the new month and go into the UOB TMRW app to request a annual fee waiver for that particular card. It’s important to watch out for this because it can surreptitiously deplete your UNI$ balance if you’re not on top of it.
Instead, just set a reminder in your phone or calendar that your annual fee, for whichever UOB card, is up for renewal at the end of this month. That will ensure there are no sneaky UNI$ deductions being made without your knowledge.
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