Archives February 2025

SRS – SUPPLEMENTARY RETIREMENT SCHEME

I had the opportunity to catch up with a client to discuss about Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) planning. After explaining how the SRS works, my client was impressed by the substantial tax savings he could achieve. With the money saved from his tax planning, he used it to enhance his illness coverage where it becomes a growing concern due to personal experiences and arising incidents over the years.

A well planned retirement strategy should focus on generating two key income streams: Survival Income and Lifestyle Income.

Survival Income ensures that essential needs like daily living expenses and healthcare costs (including arising hospital premiums) are covered. Once Survival Income is secured, we can take on more risk to generate Lifestyle Income — funds that can support things like travel, leisure or other aspirations.

My client was thrilled to see how this approach could secure both his immediate and long-term needs.
As we wrapped up our discussion, both of us were excited about the retirement nest egg we are building. I’m looking forward to seeing the positive results unfold in the years ahead.

Why people are focusing on insurance during a pandemic?

We always told the clients to first take care of the protection part of their planning, which is insurance for life, health, critical illness, accident/disability, and home. Only after a client does the protection part do we move on to the next level, which is investment/retirement planning.

We believe and we motivate clients to buy insurance, or protection, products. With the present scenario, there is a lot of concerns with clients. As a result, they have started accepting the need to have the right or a little higher protection cover.

In the last three months, we have managed to touch lives by 100% as far as protection is concerned. We are focusing on where the need.

In our planning, we are advising clients to conserve capital now. Many businesses are facing challenges. Furthermore, a lot of people have lost their jobs, and some have had their salary cut. The first requirement, then, is to survive until things settle down.

We’re advising our clients to focus more on wealth protections ( life, health, critical illness, accident/disability) and pause on wealth accumulations, save capital, accumulate money, keep cash in hand and only take care of the commitments of renewal premium. We’re telling them not to do any new investments until they have a sufficient contingency to survive for one year. The majority of our clients appreciate that.

Once things settle down, and their income settles down and their salary is stable, we will start investing with them. 

From MURASU

Senior Financial Consultant.

Internation Business Financail Consultant – IBFC Team

+65 83710371

https://wa.me/6583710371

Investing Is a Marathon, Not A Sprint

2025 GLOBAL INVESTMENT OUTLOOK

01. Financing the future

Mega forces including AI are transforming economies. We see capital markets – especially private markets – playing a vital role in building this transformation.

02. Rethinking investing

This transformation raises questions about how to build portfolios for an ever-changing outlook. We think investors should focus on themes and put more weight on tactical views.

03. Staying pro-risk

We remain pro-risk and further upgrade U.S. stocks thanks to U.S. corporate strength. But we stay nimble. Key signposts for changing our views include any surge in long-term bond yields or an escalation in trade protectionism.

What 2024 says about 2025

Markets have been more sensitive to data surprises than in the past, with even long-term assets having outsized reactions. See the chart. That reinforces volatility. Yet 2024 underscored why trying to overlay a typical business cycle on incoming U.S. data can be misleading when structural forces are at play. Inflation eased, but growth remained strong, driven by structural forces like the post-pandemic normalization of the labor and goods markets and a rise in immigration.

Looking ahead to 2025, we see persistent inflation pressures fueled by rising geopolitical fragmentation, plus big spending on the AI buildout and the low-carbon transition. Slowing immigration may exacerbate the challenges of an aging workforce, keeping wage growth elevated. The Federal Reserve is unlikely to pursue aggressive rate cuts, with rates unlikely to fall much below 4%. Given persistent budget deficits, sticky inflation, and heightened volatility, we expect long-term Treasury yields to climb as investors demand higher compensation for risk.

2025 GLOBAL INVESTMENT OUTLOOK

01. Financing the future

Mega forces including AI are transforming economies. We see capital markets – especially private markets – playing a vital role in building this transformation.

02. Rethinking investing

This transformation raises questions about how to build portfolios for an ever-changing outlook. We think investors should focus on themes and put more weight on tactical views.

03. Staying pro-risk

We remain pro-risk and further upgrade U.S. stocks thanks to U.S. corporate strength. But we stay nimble. Key signposts for changing our views include any surge in long-term bond yields or an escalation in trade protectionism.

What 2024 says about 2025

Markets have been more sensitive to data surprises than in the past, with even long-term assets having outsized reactions. See the chart. That reinforces volatility. Yet 2024 underscored why trying to overlay a typical business cycle on incoming U.S. data can be misleading when structural forces are at play. Inflation eased, but growth remained strong, driven by structural forces like the post-pandemic normalization of the labor and goods markets and a rise in immigration.

Looking ahead to 2025, we see persistent inflation pressures fueled by rising geopolitical fragmentation, plus big spending on the AI buildout and the low-carbon transition. Slowing immigration may exacerbate the challenges of an aging workforce, keeping wage growth elevated. The Federal Reserve is unlikely to pursue aggressive rate cuts, with rates unlikely to fall much below 4%. Given persistent budget deficits, sticky inflation, and heightened volatility, we expect long-term Treasury yields to climb as investors demand higher compensation for risk.