For the 20 to 30 Year old Filipino Investor

I received an e-mail from Slovenia (Yes, Slovenia!} sharing that he was influenced by my blog.

I am very happy that I have a reader from Europe but I am in my best mood if more Filipinos will appreciate the Filipino Investor blog.

Why? because personal finance in my country Philippines is not being taught from basic to tertiary education (unless you major in Finance). This unawareness is contributory to the poverty that engulfing millions of Filipinos.

The Filipino people are the reason behind my passion to write the "Filipino Investor"because the destiny of our country we shared whatever the outcome . This is my share for patriotic purposes.

My friend at Slovenia benefits also because personal finance is universal and surely can be applied to his personal investment strategies.

Now to my blog:

If you are on your twenties to early thirties, a Filipino Investor can afford to be aggressive. As Money magazine said " You have nothing to lose but few more years of your working life. You have nothing to gain but an earlier retirement?.

Once you saved P50,000 to P100,000 you can now invest strategically in the following ways:

1. 70% in growth stocks.
2. 20% in equity mutual fund
3, 10% in money market fund or Time Deposit.

The above strategy offer you an annual returns of 9% or more based on past performance or the worst case scenario of 7% or less.

nelcadelina@blogspot.com

next topic: For the 30 to 40 years old Filipino investors

Buying Your First Home

For my blog readers you noticed by now that I write only articles based on my own experiences. It is my guiding principle that I will share only what i did passed through.

Now, those who would like to buy their first home, your own time factor is critical when designing an investment and savings plan for home ownership.

Please do not be surprised if i tell you now that I planned my first home five years before I wanted to make a purchase. I was 25 then.

Today young people I know ,including my own business students, they can not wait five years to buy a house. Really the trend today is to be fast and furious.

I can not blame them since they are experiencing their own rat race.( which surprisingly this race is abhorred nowadays by my generation)

But what is the benefit then of preparing for 5 years before buying a first home?.

The primary reason is that you will have more for downpayment or equity and less loan to pay for.

Here are my further advise to you then:

1. Review where your money is going and where you could save.
Can you forget that Starbucks coffee and drink Nescafe instead?. Trim your expenses like a possessed person and save a lot in mutual fund preferably balanced fund.

2. Visualize your dream house. Photograph it or draw it. Put in places you see everyday and set the date when you will build it.

3. Open a savings account intended only for your first home. Make regular deposits whatever the amount you got.

4. Monitor your progress to remind you that you are determine to have your house.

Remember this my dear-first-time-buyer-of-their-first-home your first house is the best investment you can make. It will be your sacred nesting ground.

May your house blessing happen soon.

nelcadelina.blogspot.com

Stock or Equity Mutual Fund

In mutual fund the best way of earning money is investing in stock or equity mutual fund. Judging from my past investment history, I did earn more in equities than in balance or money market fund for the reason that the rise of the price of stocks will carry the NAV upward.

Since 2003 I've been investing in mutual funds and over the years I gravitated to the First Metro Equity Save and Learn Equity Fund and ATR Kim Eng Equity Fund primarily because of their low cost structure, a reasonable initial minimum investment, the availability of performance data in their website and the ease of redeeming the funds.

What I learned over the years is that a Filipino Investor should primarily focused on knowing the consistency of performance of a stock mutual fund company. Do not be impressed with those 1-year, 3-year and 5-year performance tables you see in Business World newspaper everyday.

Here are then my tips for you:

1. Analyzed the stock mutual fund based for its total return for full calendar years .

2. Give more weight for the most recent year's performance than the prior year's because fund grows in size.

3. Check the stocks bought by the mutual fund company through their website if it provides the investment style of growth, core and value classification.

The following are the stock mutual fund available in the Philippines:
ATR KimEng Asia Plus Recovery Fund Inc.** (USD$)
ATR KimEng Equity Opportunity Fund, Inc.

First Metro Save and Learn Equity Fund, Inc.

Philam Strategic Growth Fund, Inc.
Philequity Fund, Inc.

Philequity PSE Index Fund Inc.

Philippine Stock Index Fund Corp. *
Sun Life Prosperity Phil. Equity Fund, Inc.

The best way to start if your interested is to visit their website and compare the funds with each other including their investment style. From then , you are already halfway of having passive income.

My best wishes always,

nelcadelina.blogspot.com