Dear readers, how time flies, this year 2024 will come to a close soon.
Around this period of the year, I believe many investors will be like me, doing a stock take of the different aspects of their lives, including investments.
We still have one more month (Dec) before we usher in year 2025 and hence I have prefixed the title of this post with “An Almost” for my review of investments for this year-to-date.
For 2024, there are both surprising and unsurprising developments.
On unsurprising developments, interest rates continue to be high until the US Federal Reserves start to cut interest rates. Hence, I have continued to focus on those relatively low risk market instruments like Singapore Savings Bonds, Singapore Treasury Bills to make my monies work harder and grow in a risk-free manner.
However, what is surprising to many even within this unsurprising development is the election of Donald Trump as next US President. The markets have since priced in for the election of Trump and this has translated in the interest rates being more volatile for now. Instead of a clear projected decline, interest rates have moved higher in recent times. For examples, the interest rate of the most recent 6-month T-bill which has since closed is 3.08% per annum.
Then the surprising developments and which also caught me as surprise was the continuation of the trending up of stock markets despites the geo-political developments in the world. The Singapore stock markets have rallied to its highest since year 2007.
As Year 2025 beckons, there will be different investment strategies suggested by different folks. What is important is to understand your investment goal and style and not be distracted by what many in the investing community online say or suggest.