Excelsior Financial Blog

It is no secret we are moving into a rising interest rate environment to combat inflation. While it is debatable how much the US Federal Reserve can increase interest rates before causing the economy to slow down, I think interest rates are generally on an uptrend within the next two years.  Interest rates can affect your financial portfolios in a number of ways. In this article, I will share 3 things you should do for your portfolio in view of the rising interest rate environment. Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/__cBlRzLSTg 1. Refinance or reprice your mortgage loan to a fixed rate For most of us, the single biggest impact of interest rate is your housing loan. As interest rates rise, your mortgage interest rate is likely to rise.  If you are on a floating rate and are due for refinancing, you may want to explore refinancing or repricing to a fixed rate package. This will lock in your mortgage interest rate for the next two to three years.  2. Review your budget...

If there’s one thing Singaporeans are proud to be known for, it’s our “foodie nation”. Most of us love good food, and are even willing to queue for our favourite stalls. Hawker stalls are our go-to spots for quick, comforting meals, and we all have that one gem that we’d eagerly recommend. So, let’s take a look at what our financial consultants – who tend to commute all over Singapore throughout the day – recommend as their top favourites.   1. Banting Traditional Cuisine 萬津古早味 Located along River Valley Road, this ban mian stall doesn’t just dish out your run-of-the-mill noodles. A friendly couple from Kuala Lumpur runs this chilli pan mee stall, and the noodles here make a good bowl of comfort, especially on rainy days. Recommended by… Dax Quah, Senior Financial Consultant. What should you get here? Credit: Burpple / Maureen Ow Get the signature Hot & Spicy Handmade Noodles (S$5). This KL-style dry pan mee is what they’re famous for – the star of the sho...

Imagine if you need to pay for a wedding in two years’ time, but in order to keep the money growing, you invested the funds and are now sitting on losses due to a market downturn. How do you tell your other half that the wedding fund has been halved? Credit: Photo by Nils Stahl  Unsplash While investing in the market is a great way to grow your wealth over time, the volatility of market cycles and unpredictable economic events mean that investments are not liquid when money is needed within a short period of time. For short time-frames, I usually advise to park funds in a low-risk product that will mature and pay out with interest ahead of its intended use. Even better if there are guarantees to prevent any loss of capital. One such product is a short-term endowment.   What is an Endowment? Endowments in the Singapore context are insurance policies with accumulated or paid out cash values. As these endowments have fixed durations, maturities can be planned. Some endowments gua...

“There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish.” Opening a feature for International Women’s Day with this powerful quote from Michelle Obama seemed apt. Credit: Unsplash / That's Her Business International Women’s Day (IWD) is a day for us to come together and celebrate the achievements of women – social, economic, cultural, and political. This 2022, 8 March is a day to examine our biases. The campaign theme for this year is #BreakTheBias – it’s time for us to take a look at the biases against women that fuel inequality. From juggling multiple roles, to going beyond our familial roles as mother and wife, these four women – our very own colleagues – we spoke to have certainly blasted past barriers to achieve success.   What is success to you? Vivi : Success is just being able to do what you want to do, and also be able to give back to the community. Sara: For me, success is defined as freedom and control over my life. That means that I have the financi...

The financial markets have been in a correction phase since the start of the year. Many of you are understandably jittery with the ongoing corrections. Market corrections are part and parcel of investing in the financial markets, but that does not stop fear and panic from setting in from time to time when investors are unsure what to do during a market downturn. So in this article, I outline 3 things I think you should do in an ongoing market correction. Credit:  https://unsplash.com/photos/OmPqCwX422Y 1. Stop looking at your portfolio  Fear is very often the number 1 reason people do badly in investments. Panic selling is a very common phenomenon, where investors tend to sell when the markets are low which is the opposite of what you want to do. If looking at your portfolio in the red induces fear, one of the things you can do is to stop looking at the portfolio. If your investments are fundamentally sound, the markets will recover and your portfolio will likely be fine in th...

Credit: Photo by S&B Vonlanthen on Unsplash (Disclaimer: This article is not tax advice. You may want to consult a qualified tax advisor for your specific tax circumstances.) So you have just welcomed a newborn into your family and received the IRAS text message about tax savings and child relief/rebate. Congratulations! In the tired fuzzy haze of the early newborn weeks, it is easy to overlook apportioning this tax relief to your greatest advantage. As a new parent, you are entitled to tax relief through the Qualifying Child Relief (QCR) or Handicapped Child Relief (HCR). In Singapore, there are few ways to reduce tax, and the QCR is one such means. New parents can reduce their chargeable income by $4,000 per child (or $7,500 for HCR) until the child is 16 years old. By default, IRAS equally apportions this relief (50/50) to each spouse. This works well when both parents are joint income earners in similar tax brackets. However, there are some scenarios where parents m...

Did we just spend the entire (almost) February feasting and celebrating with utter disregard for the weighing scale? If your 2022 New Year’s resolution was to lose weight, are you further or closer to that seemingly unachievable goal? Fret not because I’m with you on this! In fact, here are 5 tips that you can adopt to bring you out of the self-guilt. Spill tea: these tips are truly for the lazy-to-exercise city dweller #1: Sleep Early Skip Supper Obviously if you hit the sheets two-hours earlier, you avoid the temptation of late-night snacking. No brainer for doing the math; less intake equals less gains. Not only that, we all remember our mothers’ nagging at us to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep each night, right? Sufficient sleep helps reset the body and keeps our cortisol levels in check. So, if you don’t intend to exercise for calorie burn, try reducing the calories by sleeping earlier! #2: Drink More Water Aim for at least 8 cups of water daily. Drinking water increas...