Mike Lister

Its not about beating the index every year, I don't care too much about that, if a fund goes South I can always sell it and find a new one. Buy and hold forever is fine for young guys who have got time on their side but it doesn't work for people over 70. I'm happy to trade funds the same way an investor trades stock and shares, it's cheap and easy enough to do. No, the reason I hold managed funds is so that a Fund Manager can get out of a down market, which is something a tracker can't do. If a tracker starts to go down, you have to take the ride and if it's a long ride to the bottom, a person over 70 may not have time to recover losses. I'm holding JPM Global Equities and the FM went into cash to the tune of 26%. Ordinarily an investor would squeal if an FM held that much cash but he was merely protecting himself against a down trend and also positioning the fund to buy the dip, it was a very good move to watch. The other aspect of this is I don't look to maximise my profits, I'm not looking for 15% per year and to double my money every 5 years. I'm very happy with my target 9% pa because that fits with my investment plan and it means low volatility and risk. As a wise man once said, "slowly slowly catchee money". I did however get lucky this year with Royal London Global Equities Select, it's up 17% and the fund is now closed to new buyers, happy days.

Is there an English language version of this?

Depends on the product I suppose, my wife sells online and has had her best two months ever.

The poster had said that sovereign nations might possibly change long established rules for making the equivalent of state pension payments and you regarded this is "scaremongering and uncorroborated garbage". I'm just pointing out that they, the USA, already have.

Your response lou was, as always, over the top and out of all proportion to what was said. That poster wrote: "I just think there will be some major financial events next year that will perhaps change the rules on how expats live in Thailand. I am not simply talking about the new tax law in Thailand. I am willing to go as far to say that pensions will not be paid unless you are a resident of your country or some kind of reporting requirement to your government, similar to 90 days here in Thailand". He was expressing a feeling rather than clearly saying that something specific will happen, to which you replied, " Scaremongering garbage that deserves nothing but contempt". Goodness me! And when Trump was in office, the rules for making Social Security pension payments to non-resident green card holders was quietly changed. Despite living and working in the US for 15 years and contributing to the SSc system throughout, retirement payments were taxed at source and this was, for the first time ever, not recoverable by filing a tax return, in effect a 30% reduction in pension payments, a penalty for not living in the US and for not being a US citizen. So the idea that nations might not pay make state pension payments to citizens overseas, is not as far fetched as you might think.

Nonesence

Here's some forecasts for global growth for 2024, from people who study and understand such things, see if you can spot the consensus. https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/economic-outlook-a-mild-slowdown-in-2024-and-slightly-improved-growth-in-2025.htm#:~:text=The Outlook projects global GDP,as it has in 2023. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2023/10/10/world-economic-outlook-october-2023 https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/the-global-economy-will-perform-better-than-many-expect-in-2024.html https://www.conference-board.org/topics/global-economic-outlook

Funny you should mention cars, I bought a new one last month. I asked the sale lady how many she had sold in November and she replied not many, only 17. That may not be many to her but to me that seems like a big number.

A whole 0.1%, wow! There is a technical recession and then there is a recession that is really a recession.

Not in the real world they aren't.

So you're saying that both countries are lying and both sets of numbers are fake.....really? I'm tempted to ask what it would take for you to believe any numbers produced by any government but I suppose your answer would be a set of numbers that matches your perception of reality....right?

Go and see an Opthamologist, not an optician, it's inexpensive and it will tell you what the problem is.

Seems like an odd remark. All money gets spent eventually, just because it's already been spent doesn't mean it wasn't income previously.

No, I'm not asked about other accounts and the money I live off during the year. At one point I did commingle the 400k and my spending money, that meant when the bank gave me a letter showing my balance it was in the millions. The Immi officer then asked me reconcile the total amount, back to the amount in the letter, rather than just the 400k. That resulted in me holding accounting 101 for the Immi officer because the total comprised fixed deposits, investments and savings. After that I decided that Immi money would have its very own account and book which didn't include anything else. I don't mind them going overboard by asking for a bank letter and the book but to require a statement also is so much overkill and plain unnecessary that it points towards stupidity rather than an excess of caution on their part..

Maybe you can relate to USD but this is Thailand and the figures I used are in THB. My numbers are from the web, very easily found if you try. The spend per month is the average of ALL tourists throughout the ENTIRE year.

Ben, it was a joke.

The average tourist spend is between 42,000 and 50,000 Baht per visit and the average stay is 9 days. That means tourists spend between 140,000 and 167,000 Baht per month. Resident expats are very unlikely to spend anywhere near that amount on average.

Ridiculous, we don't even have enough spare room in our fridge.

I don't agree. The major benefit of tourism is that it increases consumer spending, tourists arrive and spend money that ends up in the hands of local business and they in turn spend it to live. Nobody cares where those tourists come from, as long as they come and spend.

Respectfully DM, do you not think that those sorts of statements are somewhat paranoid? I think it goes without saying that the RD is not going to monitor cash withdrawals from ATM's by foreigners. The BOT almost certainly will monitor cash flows as part of its money in circulation reporting but not at the macro level, that's years and years away.

I've just done an extension using a long standing fixed deposit account that has nothing else in it apart from my 400K visa money. This year they wanted copies of every page in the bank book, a statement of the account from my bank covering the past three months and a letter from the bank confirming the balance. They've become paranoid beyond belief.

@Celsius What are the risks that scare you most? War with China or Russia? Recession? Climate Change? Financial markets collapse? Global Pandemic?

The exact quote came from Buffet who said that, "diversification is for people who don't know what they are doing", so it's perfect for me! Fortunately, the Fund Managers do and that's what I'm paying for!! According to Warren Buffett, "wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing."3 In other words, if you diversify too much, you might not lose much, but you won't gain much either. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/031115/what-did-warren-buffett-mean-when-he-said-diversification-protection-against-ignorance-it-makes.asp

Maybe this will get the ball rolling: I only buy investment funds, I’m 74 and try to keep my risk level in check. At present I hold 50% in global equities, 13% in global bonds, 30% in Money Markets and 7% in cash. (I’m 16% mid Caps and 7% Small, the rest is Giant or Large) Vanguard Global Bond Index tracking the Agg L&G Strategic Bond Fund Fidelity Cash (MM) 30% Vanguard Global Small Caps HSBC FTSE All World Royal London Global Equities Select Invesco Pacific Guinness Global Equities BNY Balanced Mixed Assets JPM Global Equities Geographically I’m split: US - 52% Japan - 10% EU - 14% Asia Dev 8% EM - 7% UK - 7% I like trackers but I prefer managed funds that are spread across different markets, this gives the Fund Manager somewhere to go if one market goes bad. I rarely hold funds with a P/E greater than 18. I look for low volatility and beta levels, <15 and <1 respectively. I pay 0.5% average for a fund and 0.25% for the platform, I'm very OK with both. My target return is 9% pa.

I agree, IB is one of the best offshore platforms.