Investing

[mugopp]

I have 2 kids (Thai) living in Thailand. Their ages are 1 & 5. I would like to invest

100,000 for each kid into stocks bonds???? long term. Will also invest 100,000 a year to the same account. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thks

[Firefan]

If you by "where" mean where the funds should invest, I would personally go for a broad global index fund with as low costs as possible. Most managed funds regrettably does not manage to outperform the market itself - mainly due to exorbant fees but also due to churning(commissions/drag Etc.). Cheers!

I have 2 kids (Thai) living in Thailand. Their ages are 1 & 5. I would like to invest

100,000 for each kid into stocks bonds???? long term. Will also invest 100,000 a year to the same account. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thks  

[Thaiquila]

My opinion, worth maybe a few satangs or less: Well, these are young kids, so you want to take a good amount of risk because you have time for it to pay off. I would suggest 100 percent in a Western stock market index. As the kids are Thai, there will be currency fluctuation risks, so in a normal world you could put 50 percent in Thai stocks to hedge. However, there are some real dark clouds now in Thailand, so I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't put anything in bonds at the moment. Low return and also price risk.

[TizMe]

If I were you I would invest in my own country into an international fund manager.

[bakachan]

have you ever heard of market index linked cd's ?

I was studying one today that was linked to the usa nasdaq 100 index.

Even if the index is in the red you do not lose anything of your initial investment.

So, the worst scenario is your flat.

You could invest by setting up an account at a bermuda brokerage if you're living in thailand and just wire money into the bermuda accounts as you go.

To avoid paying taxes at time of maturity, you can set up the linked cd's inside

ira accounts.

this link explains them better than i can. This in my opinion is the best of both worlds.

First, your guaranteed the initial investment which is fdic insured and your also linking your investment to markets that have the potential to appreciate. granted the qqqq nasdaq 100 is down 4% for the year but it will recover at some point and the s&p index is up for the year about 20%

http://www.fisn.com/market_index_linked_cds.htm

Edited July 17, 2005 by bakachan

[sabaijai]

Like Thaiquila, I think US index funds are a good way to go. You might want to diversify, putting perhaps 40% in bond market index funds, the rest a blend of stock index funds.

Vanguard is one of the lower-cost fund groups to look at. You might think about 40 percent in the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index fund, then 10 percent apiece in six of their stock index funds: S&P 500, Large-Cap Value, Small-cap, Small-cap Value, and the MSCI EAFE International and REIT.