ExpatJ

Yes agree with what others have said. do NOT use any financial adviser in Thailand, especially a foreign/farang one. I would suggest opening an online stock/fund t account in UK- Charles schwab, etrade etc. , read the many articles they on on their sites about investing, and then buy low fee funds, stocks through those websites. Also dont use big banks investment prodiucts as they will charge very high fees (HSBC recently tried to seel me a investment fund which would have cost me 5% of my investment in upfront and one year fee !!!

I paid for been for this season- 200 baht add on plus min true tv package 200 baht - fantastic

I believe it is regulated by individual by the funds/entities themselves who would require you to submit details of your bank/salary balances. 

Hi

Any recommendations for funds (anywhere, not in Thailand in particular) that are only open to accredited investors? 

I just bought true for first time for the footy- 199 baht per month + i think 190 for the basic package which you need to add the footy on to. They had a promotion so box and sim where free.

Bein sports channels are great -perfect picture, no buffering- (happy to leave the dodgy online streaming services behind!)

35 minutes ago, Sparkles said:

I can see exactly what you get with  the Premier League package but no where can I find a list of channels for the "core" pakage as you call it.

 

Maybe you can direct me to a link as asking TRUE staff in Chiang Mai has been met with confused looks and nothing but vague answers

 

On the web site there is a small image of the Gold package but you cant enlarge it to actually read it,obviously deliberate

Ask for the 'family knowledge' package- thats the cheapest on a special right now at @200 baht.I wanted abc news, but they only include that in their platinum package at @2000 baht per month

Im looking fwd to finally moving away from those knock off streaming sites that  you waste 1 minute for every 2 minutes watched trying to deal with buffering and connection issues.

I just bought a true visions package for the first time to prepare for Premier league- its 199 baht for the prem games (you get the four  Bein sports channels which each showing a game on a prem league games night), plus i bought the cheapest package at 200 baht per month (the prem league package is an add on to a core true visions package). 

Basically the Bein sports channels are the same channels that Sport360 used before they closed down (but cheaper through true!!!). 

Im thinking of signing up to true to get premier league this year- are the games in english or dubbed over in thai? Also does True censor movies and drama  - cut out swearing, pixels over cigs, sex and guns etc? 

Any other suggestions for premier league access now that sport360 done? (Kodi i understand has too much buffering to be watchable)

Hope to pick up an S8+ today after work if they have them in stock! I'm quite excited, upgrading from the Note 4  several generations older. 

On 4/21/2017 at 4:01 PM, ThaiBob said:

Has anybody been able to successfully preorder the "s8 plus" online? The links all lead to the Samsung unboxyourphone website and there is no plus option available. I went to both Samsung and AIS shops and they said the plus could not be preordered and the gift set promotion was not available. 

You can preorder S8+ at samsung shops with the promo package but only in gold color (but i think the preorder cut off date was yesterday).

 a;; S8/+ Phones and colors should be available in the shops on May 5. 

You can pre-order S8+ now in samsung shops (or online) in Thailand.  Only problem is they only have the gold version available for the S8+! 

I am a non- US citizen and have a schwab and Interactive brokers account. I highly recommend Schwab- their user interface is way, way better than IB  (but commissions lower on IB).  As a non- US citizen you will have to pay 30%tax on US stock dividends (not on capital gains)- but Thailand/USA has a tax treaty so if you are resident here that  cuts the tax to 15%.  The tax is deducted and paid by Schwab so there is no need for you to fill in any tax forms . 

2 hours ago, fletchsmile said:

... and of course Warren Buffet made all his money in tracker funds/ ETFs.

 

... worth noting that hedge fund managers don't usually put all their money in other people's active funds. Think about it. Nor does Buffet. They both choose their own investments not other people's funds. It was probably one of those bets for fun.

 

My largest Thai holding UOB Good Corporate Governance fund. Held 10 years+. Show me the ETF/Thai index tracker fund that beats it. LOL

 

My largest UK equity income holding fund. Neil Woodford. Held 25 years+. Formerly Perpetual Income now Woodford Income. Show me the ETF/index fund that beats him. LOL

 

Indeed obviously tricky for the likes of you. Please don't assume we're in the same boat though :)

 

 

 

I wasn't attacking you personally, just pointing out that professional investors are shifting their funds into ETfs away from managed funds.

Thats nice you picked out a couple of funds that performed well the last 10 years- i could pick out a dozen ETFs that did better over the same time period, but not much point.

But again, no hard feelings (sincerely) , but i think it is fair to  you are in a minority though at this point-just in the last few months alone there was @300 billion USD taken from managed funds and put into ETFs. 

Warren Buffet had a bet with a leading hedge fund manager - the hedge fund manager claimed as you do that managed funds do best if you know what you are doing. Buffet picked 5 ETFs, the hedge guy 5 managed funds- buffet won easily over a 10 yr horizon.  A nice , true story but obviously a snap shot (though if a hedge fund manager cant pick winning managed funds than a bit tricky for the likes of you and me!)

But the fact is that expert financial advisors are now using ETfs over managed funds- not retail investors, but expert financial advisors whose full time job is to analyse managed/ETF funds and pick the winners- 80% + now use ETfs instead of managed funds. can google the cnbc article more-investors-are-making-the-switch-to-passively-managed-etfs

But that still leaves a small minority of experts who still believe there is something in managed funds, and you also do, so yes  there is something still worth pushing in managed funds and certainly if people are keen no harm in trying (its your money!)..

12 minutes ago, ExpatJ said:

 

I meant to say open accounts in countries where i am non-resident..that;'s a   great service by HSBC. 

On ETFs, they consistently outperform manage funds- which is why we are currently seeing  outflows by investors (average and institutional) from managed funds into ETFs - there is just no way managed funds can attract customers any more with their fees (that are higher than ETFs) and with their lower returns than the non-managed ETFs index funds. 

If you  are paying too much on  fees (1% annual fee +) on your ETFs you may have been ill advised (i aim to pay 0.2 % or less in annual ETF fees with no entry fees /exit fees)

On 2/23/2017 at 10:35 AM, fletchsmile said:

The transaction benefits like bit better rates discounts etc are hardly worth it as you say. The benefits though are on the relationship side

 

For me the biggest benefit is getting a dedicated relationship manager (RM) who is a go to person, and who has got to know me and our family. We have a Thai RM who is great and been very useful over the years, including when we're outside Thailand. My Singapore RM is also very good, although we haven't been with her as long, and again given I'm based in Thailand not Singapore it's very useful to have an RM.

 

I also like getting invited to financial events now and again, and being made aware of new products that may be of interest. These are more nice to haves though and not worth meeting the thresholds juts for these.

 

Not quite sure what you mean about "keep your money and do something better". The SGD 200k and THB 3m are just the amounts of assets you hold via the bank. Doesn't need to be cash, it can be mutual funds, ETFs, equity stocks etc. Banks will also often count liabilities as well, e.g a mortgage, although the thresholds for liabilities can differ.

 

Cheers

Fletch :)

I have also been premier HSBC for many years- for me the big benefit is being able to open an account anywhere, with residency in that country. I have indo, singapore and thai (before they closed). But i have to say i have not been impressed with the relationship managers , especially the Singapore based ones . Just last month my RM tried to get me to invest in one of their funds that had 5% annual fees and 1.5% 'entry ' fee- unbelievable- hand over cash and immediately lose 6.5% of it (no wonder HSBC posted a 3 billion USD profit loss last quarter) . 

16 hours ago, partington said:

This is true: as I tried to make clear, for me bonds are not for returns - they are for compensating for the risk of investing in volatile equities, with the aim of making a portfolio less volatile in times of financial crisis.

 

I use them for stability, as a cash equivalent. If they simply maintain value at the pace of inflation this is still fine by me. I am not using them for yield - to me the capital value and the interest gained added together when I sell is the measure I pay attention to, and the strategy of using short term government bonds fulfills my goal for having them.

 

Your goals are different, obviously.

Lats night was a good example-  stocks dropped by 1-2 % , but all my bond ETFs went up. 

1 hour ago, Naam said:

i (not so) humbly beg to disagree with "when one crashes, the other one goes up" i am exclusively investing in bonds since 40 years. and during that period there were hardly any years when the average of global stock indices beat the yield of "my" bonds.

 

caveat: there are bonds and there are bonds. i am talking about high yield/high risk bonds which, even in today's low interest environment, yield up to 20% per annum.

 

but the rule interest rates up = financial asset down applies to both stocks and bonds.

 

 

Corporate bonds of course are linked to stocks more closely - government bonds not. 

1 hour ago, Sheryl said:

Perhaps a silly question, but if they have the same interest rate as fixed interest cash deposits, then what is the advantage to them?

 

Bonds are a way to hedge / balance your investments- if you have money in bonds and stocks- when one crashes, the other goes up. You don't get that with cash savings in a bank. 

2 hours ago, rak sa_ngop said:

Check out the BBC news item "Are we headed for a bond market bloodbath" posted on their news website 14 hours ago.

"Folks are selling bonds and buying shares."  Yes but for how long? 

Just google stock market bubble and you will see that the vast majority- if not all articles (apart from this one:) talk about an upcoming massive sell off of stocks i.e. we are in a frothy stock market bubble not seen since dot.com and 2007 crashes. This is the reason i increased my bonds from 15-20% of holdings- when stocks crash, bonds go up.

(In terms of liquidity, that is an issue for individual bonds- but the ETF mentioned is 35 billion $ , dont think you will struggle to sel if you are a retail investor)

I just put 20% of my investment cash into bonds- Vanguard Total Bond ETF (BND)- covers corporate and public bonds- yield about 2.5%, and , crucially,  fees are only 0.06%. 

I have accounts with both - schwab international is much much better in terms of visuals, ease of use, tools.  IB is better for range of stocks, etfs, options (though Schwab has all you need really), plus slightly lower cost (though schwab already v low cost).   IB account wins in terms of logistics of opening account- you can do that online with minimal effort, schwab there i a bit of back and forth, sending them documents via mail etc.   I would be happy just to use schwab but wanted to divide my investment funds up between two brokerages for security/safety (yes i know highly unlikely anything could happen but still...) .

31 minutes ago, smutcakes said:

Deleted, did not read the OP.

Yet, still here! :-P

Good advice already given here- follow Buffets suggestion- put 50% in an ETF that tracks the US market (VOO ETF), 30% in to a fund that tracks world stocks (VT ETF), 20% into bonds (BND ETF). Over 10 years that will get you more than most hedge funds, managed funds out there. Plus fees are crazy low  0.04 % - 0.2 % per year. 

Don't ever to speak professional financial advisors unless you have 2-3 million US$ + in cash to invest (and then speak to some well known ones in your home country) and/or have tax issues that you need advice on. Any amount less use the buffet model.