Time To Invest

For up to a month now, fund prices across Singapore has been seen to drop. This is hardly unexpected, what with the increase in oil prices, the series of hurricanes and earthquakes hitting many parts of the world recently. Could the avian flu have anything to do with the drop as well? Well, I really don't think so...

So is this a time for investors to panic? Of course not! We should always invest only with money we could spare and have a sufficient investment time horizon. This is simply one of the many downturn in a constantly fluctuating investment instrument. A downturn like this should not worry us too much.

There hasn't been major alarm bells ringing in the industry so the funds are generally expected to bounce back soon. Are there then any opportunities for us in this situation? Why, of course!

1) This is a great time to buy into the younger funds or funds that are currently looking very exciting and expected to have great upside potential. I won't say which sectors here but personally, there are a few sectors that definitely look promising. These funds are currently on great discounts due to the price drops!

2) Depending on the relative drop in more matured funds as compared to younger funds, it might also be a good time to exercise fund switches. For example, if across the industry, funds lost 20 cents over the same time period, matured funds would have lost less as compared to younger funds. As such, switching assets into younger funds would leave the investor with more units now as compared to switching 1 month ago. Some fund houses might offer free fund switch services so it might be a great idea to take advantage of this situation.

Bear in mind however that all forms of investments come with an expected risk. The descisions and risks are the individual investor's own and no one else can be held liable for any unfavourable investment move. So do think everything over first and find out more before taking any actions if you are not too informed about investment in these instruments.