We had talk about the power of compounding. Now, Let’s go into the baby step of investing.
You may wonder, what to buy first. Stocks of the companies? And heard about people saying about Unit Trust? How about Bonds? And many others terms that are stranger to you, which I can’t completely understand them as well.
The most easiest is to invest into index fund or ETF (Exchange Traded Fund). Take STI (Straits Times Index) for example; It is an indicator to tell us how well that Singapore is doing financially.
Basically, this STI is tracking the performance of below 31 companies. And this list will get reviewed quarterly based on their financial performance of course.
| Symbol | Company name |
| C31.SI | CapitaLand Limited |
| J37.SI | Jardine Strategic Holdings Limited |
| C09.SI | City Developments Limited |
| H78.SI | Hongkong Land Holdings Limited |
| M44U.SI | Mapletree Logistics Trust |
| D05.SI | DBS Group Holdings Ltd |
| O39.SI | Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited |
| D01.SI | Dairy Farm International Holdings Limited |
| F34.SI | Wilmar International Limited |
| A17U.SI | Ascendas Real Estate Investment Trust |
| C6L.SI | Singapore Airlines Limited |
| C38U.SI | CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust |
| N2IU.SI | Mapletree Commercial Trust |
| U14.SI | UOL Group Limited |
| V03.SI | Venture Corporation Limited |
| S68.SI | Singapore Exchange Limited |
| S58.SI | SATS Ltd. |
| U11.SI | United Overseas Bank Limited |
| C07.SI | Jardine Cycle & Carriage Limited |
| T39.SI | Singapore Press Holdings Limited |
| C52.SI | ComfortDelGro Corporation Limited |
| C61U.SI | C61U.SI |
| Z74.SI | Singapore Telecommunications Limited |
| G13.SI | Genting Singapore Limited |
| S63.SI | Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd |
| Y92.SI | Thai Beverage Public Company Limited |
| U96.SI | Sembcorp Industries Ltd |
| BS6.SI | Yangzijiang Shipbuilding (Holdings) Ltd. |
| BN4.SI | Keppel Corporation Limited |
| J36.SI | Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited |
So, buying all these 31 stocks gonna be killer, just too expensive. Luckily, there are fund houses buying all these 31 stocks and re-sell them in another stock, which back to our index fund or ETF. And, in a cheaper option. One of them is G3B.SI from Nikko AM.
So you could invest a fixed amount every month. And just keep it there for 10-ish years. Some may go for extreme, half of the salary into the ETF. Of course, there are many ETFs out in this world, go and look for them!
Index Fund 101: