The SG Hustle

Every year, I watch the National Day Rally not because I am particularly patriotic about policy speeches, but because I have kids now, and every announcement about family support means something different to me than it used to. This year, the government unveiled a new SG Child Support Package, and it is, without exaggeration, one of the more generous moves I have seen in a long time. Here is what it looks like, broken down. The New Package Every Singaporean child, from birth to age 17, will now receive close to $70,000 in direct support. It replaces the old Baby Bonus Cash Gift and Large Families Scheme with something flatter and simpler, where the amount your child receives no longer depends on whether they are your first, second, or fourth. The breakdown goes like this: A $10,000 Baby Gift , paid out in two tranches within the child's first year $32,000 in Child Credits , disbursed as $2,000 cash every year from age one to sixteen A $5,000 CDA First Step Grant , with...

I had an intern this year. She came from Singapore Polytechnic, and I was assigned to be her mentor. In the beginning, I did not think much of it. I asked her name, asked about her course, and moved on with the usual first-week routine. Then we went for an onsite visit to a client. One of the clients looked at her and said she looked young, then asked her age. She said eighteen. I did not really process it. I know polytechnic students are usually between seventeen and nineteen, so the number did not register as anything unusual. Then the client asked, out of curiosity, which year she was born. She said 2008. That was the moment it hit me. Not gradually, not gently. All at once. The Math I Was Not Ready For I was still a first year polytechnic student myself that year. I had not even started my working life. And now, without fully realizing how I got here, I am thirty five years old, with almost eight years of work behind me. I could not sleep that night. I kept turning the same...

Why It's Still Here Over the years I've cycled through quite a few SGX-listed names. Some I sold and never looked back, good riddance. Others, like Hafary, I regret letting go of. But there's exactly one stock I bought years ago and have simply held through all of it: OCBC. I got in at around $12 a share. I didn't have a grand thesis, it was affinity as much as analysis. I use the OCBC banking app daily and it's genuinely one of the better-designed banking UIs in Singapore, clean, fast, doesn't feel like it was built in 2009 and never touched since. My insurance is with Great Eastern, which turns out to be OCBC's own insurance arm. So in a roundabout way, I was already a "customer" of the group before I was ever a shareholder. That familiarity is part of why I never felt the urge to trade in and out of it the way I did with other names. Where the Stock Is Now That patience has paid off. OCBC last traded around S$30.92–31.00, and touched a f...

The Strategy My US portfolio on IBKR is no longer getting fresh capital from me. It now funds itself, premiums collected from selling covered calls keep it self-sustaining. But I don't consider that portfolio "passive." Running a covered call strategy takes ongoing effort: analysing positions, picking strikes, managing assignment risk. It's active income dressed up as options theta. What I'm now channelling my savings into is a genuinely passive income portfolio, built entirely from SGX-listed names. The capital is sitting in a warchest, waiting to be deployed. Below is what's on my radar. One deliberate choice: I'm avoiding individual REITs. Most single REITs are yield vehicles with limited growth, you're paid well, but the unit price rarely goes anywhere over the long run. If I want REIT exposure, I'd rather buy a REIT ETF and get the diversification instead of betting on one manager's ability to grow DPU. 1. Haw Par Corporation (SGX: H...

Recently, there has been quite a bit of news about F&B businesses closing down, with rising rental, manpower and raw material costs often being cited as the main reasons. Some of these businesses have been around for decades, and yet eventually they reach a point where they can no longer continue.  I know I might get flamed for saying this, but these are just my honest thoughts after looking at how the F&B landscape has changed over the years. I don't really believe there is such a thing as a truly loyal customer. A customer doesn't keep going back to the same ice cream stall, fish soup stall or coffee shop simply because they are loyal to the owner. They go back because they like the food, the price, the convenience and the overall experience. The moment they feel that another place offers something better, cheaper or more interesting, they will probably give that place a try. At the end of the day, customers don't owe any F&B business their loyalty. They spend...

I know I’m going to sound like a boomer saying this, but let me remind you, I’m only 35 this year. I’ve been noticing a worrying trend among youngsters, and honestly, it doesn’t seem to be stopping. More and more young people are growing up believing that they can become an influencer or, as we now like to call it, a Key Opinion Leader (KOL), and make a good living without necessarily needing an education or a conventional career. Now, before anyone jumps on me, I want to make it clear that I have absolutely nothing against influencers or KOLs. If you can build an audience, create good content, attract advertisers and turn your personal brand into a successful business, good for you. That is a legitimate career. The problem begins when young people start looking at influencing as an easy alternative to studying, learning a skill or building a proper career. Social media has made this even more dangerous because we are constantly exposed to the winners. We see the influencer driving a F...