A summary for the risk adverse

Disclaimer:
Personal views are being portrayed in this posts.It might not be the absolute fact, and I have no professional background in this field.

This is my personal analysis and it is only valid at the time of writing. When the market have other newer and better products coming out, others might be better.
Do your own due diligence.
To know more about my background, you can take a look here.

Hi,

With the release of Singapore Saving Bonds coming this Oct 2015(able to start bidding at Sept 2015), banks have been raising its Fixed Deposit interest rates. They come in the form of SG50 promotions, free $$ for every $x amount deposited etc.

So here are my short analysis on where should the risk adverse (AKA non risk takers) put their money. Of course, this isnt a perfect guide as I have not included any financial products or policies in my comparison, so Financial consultants and bankers, dont flame me.

The Banks Fixed Deposit
Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/business/economy/banks-here-offering-higher-fixed-deposit-rates#xtor=CS1-10


Interest rates for banks are indeed going upwards, with some kopitiam uncles and facebook lurkers saying that it might even hit 2% later this year with all the #SG50 ending hype and pressure for more fresh funds for the New Year and CNY. 

One of the notably better ones among all these is the CIMB why wait promotion which will end on 30th Sept. The amount of 1.9% looked sexy, but that is a big UP TO. Which mean, you need to first have a shitload of cash to be locked down for a year, to get such high interest rates.

The Pros:

1. It is offering very good rates now, as compared to previous times. It is fairly low risk even if you put in Foreign Banks like CIMB. These banks still have pretty good ratings, and soon more banks would follow suit in order to gain customers.
2. Definitely better than keeping those money under your bed. 

The Cons:

1. Most requires a minimum of $30k to get such sexy rates. 
2. A lockdown of 1 year(or longer), meaning if you take out within a year, there goes your interest.

The Special Savings Account

With products like OCBC 360 and UOB one giving very good interest rates(up to 3.33%), surely keeping money in the bank is better right?
I have a blogpost regarding this 2 here.




The Pro:

• A seemingly higher interest than all those FD and SSB. Full flexibility with your cash as interests are counted and paid out on a monthly basis.

The Con:

1. Criterias to meet. Miss them and there goes your interest. 
2. No stability in terms and conditions. The recent change in OCBC 360 criteria tells you that they can change the criteria or scrap the program totally any time they like. As such, in the long run, you might lose your interest. 
3. Capped at $50k SGD, which means your interest earnings are very limited. 

Singapore Savings Bond

I will not say that I am very proficient in this bond, as this is a fairly new thing for me as it seemed difficult to understand. But from all useful articles, one of them from MAS themselves, did says that this bond is allows you to get interests depending on how long you put your money there, up to a max of 10 years.

The Pro:

1. Risks free- the only risk is SG govt going down, which might happen if election goes haywire or neighbouring region goes into war and such, which would also affect the above 2.
2. Allows small investors to start saving; starts at $500 per allocation.
3. Able to draw out any time you like(on a monthly basis), and interest will be paid in accordance to how long you have left your money in the bond, pegged to SGS rates.

The Cons:

1. $2 admin charge per bid, and you might not get the allocation you want. Hence to reach a $100k portfolio, which is the cap, would cost you a few $2. 
2. Interest rate will only be good if you left your money there for the full 10 years. If you withdraw it prematurely, the interest rates might still be lower than putting FD.
3. Capped at $100k

I have also read that you can put your extra cash into CPF via SA and the rates are godly. However, to my understanding, any money into CPF would mean it would be locked until you can use it when you retire.

As I am unsure of this CPF scheme, it will not be added into this discussion.


Thank you and hope this helps you understand something about the "plans" available for people who prefer low risk portfolios.

Regards
Benjamin Chai

Spring MVC command function

Hi,

I spent whole day being stucked at a bug that wasnt really a bug, but is actually born out of my weak understanding of Spring MVC.

Follow the link here: http://www.tutorialspoint.com/spring/spring_mvc_form_handling_example.htm
http://crunchify.com/simplest-spring-mvc-hello-world-example-tutorial-spring-model-view-controller-tips/


@RequestMapping
It is usually used to write the extended link address.
for eg, @RequestMapping("/welcome") would take care of all links in the server with localhost:8080/welcome/* to localhost:8080/welcome.html

However, in my situation where i am using a portal server,i actually use a
@RequestMapping("VIEW")
and extract the extended link address from

    protected HttpServletRequest getOriginalServletRequest(

   PortletRequest request) {

HttpServletRequest httpServletRequest = PortalUtil

.getHttpServletRequest(request);

HttpServletRequest originalServletRequest = PortalUtil

.getOriginalServletRequest(httpServletRequest);

return originalServletRequest;

    }

then, getParameter from the HttpServletRequest.

For eg, /non360?actionType=Amend
i will getParameter(actionType), which is Amend!


The next issue is the "command" object.
if you are using form, Spring MVC will only detect the "command" object, and ignore the rest.