Water Price Raising - Psychological Feeling vs. Mathematical Analysis

One announcement Minister Heng Swee Keat made with the Budget 2017 that created strong reaction from Singaporeans was the raising of water price by 30% in two years. Radio stations made talk show on it and invited listeners to give their view. One of the callers suggested that the authority should have raised water price "gradually" over the past 10 years instead of making this "quantum" price jump at one go. The invited guest, one MP concurred to this opinion and said he would bring it up in the parliament during the budget debate.

A gradual price increase is psychologically easier to be accepted by consumers than a price jump of 30%. However, a mathematical analysis shows this is not necessarily advantageous to them in term of the money paid.

let's make a simple analogy. Say, a certain necessity commodity cost $1,000 for the past ten years, and the price jumped to $2,000 on the 11th year.

Now instead of this price jump on the 11th year, the price increased by $100 each year from the 2nd year onwards. So on the 11th year the price is $2,000, same as the first scenario.

Do you see that you actually pay more in the second case?

Now is it really better to pay more with the gradual increase? You decide.

Now I understand the Chinese saying 温水煮青蛙。

Portfolio Update January 2017

Ever since Donald Trump won the US election, market has shown positive trend. The new US president had used the slogan "To Make US Great Again" in his election campaign. Well at the least he has so far made US the "centre of world attention" again with his actions after his inauguration.

STI rose quite a bit in January. As at today, the index closed at 3046.80, up 166.04 points or 5.76% for the whole month. However, I don't really understand why the market shows such bullishness, as the corporate earnings reported so far do not tally with the index performance. Some companies in my portfolio in fact reduced their dividend pay out due to lower profit.

My portfolio value increased with the index, but at a slower pace. Its value increased 3.59% for the month of January.

This month, I did not do any active trade at all. I accepted the cash offer from Aztech and sold all my shares to the company, with a loss. I subscribed to the right issues from Sabana Reit. One of my retail bond investment from Capitamall Asia was redeemed prematurely by the issuer.

Total dividend received from stock and UT investment was S$5,750 this month, mainly from UT.

Below are the top 30 holdings as at 31 January 2017.

1.       SPH
2.       ComfortDelGro
3.       DBS
4.       OCBC Bank
5.       Ausnet Services
6.       Metro
7.       ST Engineering
8.       Kep Inf Tr fKa CIT
9.       Frasers Comm Tr
10.   Sembcorp Ind
11.   SGX
12.   SATS
13.   Starhub
14.   AIMSAMP Cap Reit
15.   CapitaComm Tr
16.   CapitaLand
17.   United Engineers
18.   Tai Sin Electric
19.   Keppel Corp
20.   Global Inv
21.   Nam Lee Metal
22.   OUE
23.   Ascendas Reit
24.   Sing Inv & Fin
25.   Nikko AM STI ETF 100
26.   Cache Log Trust
27.   KSH
28.   Lippo Malls Tr
29.   Stamford Land
30.   Mapletree Log Tr

新年快乐

祝各位新年快乐，财源广进，笑口常开，万事如意！