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Any money-savvy individual would appreciate a good professional opinion when it comes to their finances. Obtaining advice from a financial advisory professional can be extremely helpful to those looking to grow one’s wealth, make wise investment choices and save for one’s future. In these cases, engaging a financial adviser representative who offer a wide suite of financial consulting services for you can be the best option.

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Contributed by Kenny Loh
Senior Consultant, Financial Alliance Pte Ltd
(The contributor can be contacted at kennyloh@fapl.sg)
To learn more about him and read his articles, visit his blog 

There is nothing wrong with investing in dividend stocks to generate passive income for your retirement planning. However, it will cause a huge dent in your retirement portfolio if you are investing wrongly. The following are the 3 dividend traps that you have to avoid.

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Contributed by Kenny Loh
Senior Consultant, Financial Alliance Pte Ltd
(The contributor can be contacted at kennyloh@fapl.sg)
To learn more about him and read his articles, visit his blog 

Like the physiotherapist who has to check the physical health of the professional soccer players before declaring them to be fully fit to play in a 90-minute competitive game, we as retail investors need to understand our own personal financial ratios so that we prioritise allocating our limited resources to the more pressing areas in our personal financial plans.

In short, don’t jump straight into investments if we are not sure of our financial “fitness level.” So how do we know what our fitness levels are?

There are 8 basic personal financial ratios we need to check.
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Contributed by Kenny Loh
Senior Consultant, Financial Alliance Pte Ltd
(The contributor can be contacted at kennyloh@fapl.sg)
To learn more about him and read his articles, visit his blog 

Most investors are attracted by the high yield and passive income REITs offer. However, there are 3 important points to take note of when investing in REITs.
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Contributed by Kenny Loh
Senior Consultant, Financial Alliance Pte Ltd
(The contributor can be contacted at kennyloh@fapl.sg)
To learn more about him and read his articles, visit his blog 

One of the most common questions I am asked in my seminars is, “What types of asset classes are suitable in our retirement  portfolios? Endowment, annuity, universal life, bonds, equities, physical properties, land banking, hedge funds, etc?”

Physical properties are one of the most sought-after asset classes when it comes to investing in Singapore. However, there are some disadvantages relating to investing in physical properties when we are approaching our retirement age. We could instead consider investing in REITs.

REIT stands for Real Estate Investment Trust, and can serve as an alternative to investing  in physical properties. I will share 5 reasons to include REITs as alternatives to physical real estate in your retirement portfolio.

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Contributed by Kenny Loh
Senior Consultant, Financial Alliance Pte Ltd
(The contributor can be contacted at kennyloh@fapl.sg)
To learn more about him and read his articles, visit his blog 

It was a very unfortunate event that investors lost their hard-earned money and retirement funds with Six Capital (Read the story here: Angry investors file police reports against FinTech firm Six Capital).

I am rather concerned with this statement in the Straits Times article on Six Capital: A few retirees indicated that they had poured in significant retirement sums. One lady was the age of my mother. She said that she was going to the temple to pray.

What can we learn – as retail investors – from this incident?

Let’s use the SABO model to analyse this incident. By the way, this SABO is NOT the Singlish word for “sabotage”.

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Contributed by Kenny Loh
Senior Consultant, Financial Alliance Pte Ltd
(The contributor can be contacted at kennyloh@fapl.sg)
To learn more about him and read his articles, visit his blog 

For many years, I have been wondering why most people are not able to invest properly after attending expensive courses and many seminars. I have seen many smart people and professionals like lawyers, doctors, CFOs, Managing Directors, accountants, engineers, scientists, etc, still struggling with their own investment. I have finally found an answer after going through one-on-one private portfolio reviews and consultation sessions with more than a hundred students and seminar participants. In summary, it boils down to the misalignment of Want, Passion & Commitment.

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Contributed by: Estelle Heng
Intern from Gerontological Management Studies, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Temasek Polytechnic.

‘I’m too young to think about this’ is probably the most common excuse not to start financial planning in Singapore. However, if we think twice, we’re never too young. Parents buy insurance for their babies as soon as they are born, some before they even take their first breaths. What’s so important about insurance that it is this urgent? The reality is that unexpected things happen. And when they do, you can’t afford to give up your future because of piled-up debts from hospitals or leaving your dependents to pay them off. So really, insurance is more than just protecting yourself, it includes supporting your loved ones as well.

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Contributed by: Bryan Zeng
CFA, General Manager, FA Advisory Sdn Bhd
(The contributor can be contacted at bryanzeng@fa.my).

Regardless of whether you are in Singapore or anywhere else in the world, financial planning, especially saving and investing, is crucial for you to beat inflation or to achieve your financial goal, such as to have a comfortable retirement. You may have heard of people who lost their fortune during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis or the 2007 Global Financial Crisis. However, when done right, investing can make an average person a millionaire.
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Portfolio diversification is a key financial planning concept in Singapore which is pivotal in mitigating risk. Spreading out investments across more than a single investment channel nullifies the “all eggs in one basket” syndrome, which deluges avid risk-takers in debt when a market venture turns sour. Portfolios can be generally diversified via investing in different asset classes or within the same asset class by using mutual funds, bonds, real estate, insurance, precious metals and other notable assets.

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