As we enter October, just a quick reminder for those of us using the DBS yuu card that the new minimum spending cap – in order to earn 10 miles per dollar (mpd) – is now $800 per calendar month.

The second caveat is that this $800 needs to be spent across four different yuu merchants, although with the addition of SimplyGo as a new 10mpd yuu merchant, this should make it easier to hit.

One avenue that a lot of individuals might not have thought of is – if you’re a Singtel customer – you can actually pay your Singtel bill with a DBS yuu card to earn the 10mpd BUT you must do this at a physical Singtel self-service kiosk.

Beyond that, 1 October also ushers in the ridiculous “sub-cap” obsession that UOB has to its UOB Preferred Platinum Visa. In that case, remember to keep your mobile contactless at a maximum of $600 per calendar month.

To optimise your miles from now on, more effort is clearly needed but with the right system in place, individuals can still earn a decent amount from their day-to-day spending.

This past week saw the newest exchange-traded fund (ETF) debt on the Singapore Exchange (SGX). It was, of course, the LionGlobal Short Duration Bond ETF, trading under the ticker “SBO” for the SGD share class and “SBV” for the US Dollar share class.

Primarily investing in (surprise, surprise) short duration bonds, the active ETF’s underlying fund is actually just the LionGlobal Short Duration Bond Fund, which originally launched in 1991.

I won’t go into all the details of it – which you can find a quick summary of here if you’re interested – but the listing of this ETF is indicative of a broader trend in the fund world.

That’s the tendency to provide investors with better options and that means a more transparent pricing and liquid alternative to unit trusts, which ETFs are ideally placed to offer.

One of the biggest features of this new ETF, at least for me, is just how much cheaper it is than the fund version. The ETF is charging 0.25% per annum (p.a.) in a management fee, versus 0.5% p.a. for the fund, meaning the ETF is exactly 50% cheaper.

We know fees matter to our compounding but, with an ETF like this (which is more likely meant for short-term yield), any basis points that you can save means more money in your pocket. And with a yield-to-maturity of 3% at the time of listing, 25 basis points (aka 0.25%) is certainly significant.

So, a good exercise would be to take a look at any funds/unit trusts you might have in your portfolio and see if an ETF out there can do a similar job at a lower price. Call it an “ETF-Unit Trust Audit” but the end goal should be to trim costs where possible in our portfolio.

The price of gold has hit an all-time high after a government shutdown in the US saw the yellow metal climb during the week.

Gold is closing is on $4,000/oz and is already up over 45% since the start of the year.

Tim’s Take: It’s business as usual in Washington with “dysfunction” being order of the day given the latest government shutdown.

It’s not really any surprise to see gold hitting new highs on the back of this with President Trump’s scattershot policymaking, from trade to energy, driving investors to seek alternative stores of value to the US Dollar.

Gold is an obvious choice. It’s also no coincidence that in the same week gold hit a new high, Bitcoin rallied to within 1% of its own all-time high.

Investors are looking at alternatives to US Dollar assets and, with China and India being big buyers of gold (both at the retail and central bank levels), it seems that the price of gold could have further to run in the next few years given how much longer President Trump has in office.

However, do remember that most traditional asset allocation models advise having only 5% to 10% of your overall portfolio allocated to gold. In essence, gold effectively serves as “insurance” or a “hedge” for your portfolio and, thus, shouldn’t really have an outsized influence on it.

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