DBS Triple Happniess Fund. Trouble again?

last SG · 2008-11-17T22:49:50+00:00

Last time triple happiness, now become triple divorce plus alimony.

Nwcigotbetter2001 SG

...a fund called “DBS Triple Happiness Capital Guaranteed...the indexes that they (DBS asset management) invested ... policies holders should DBS Asset.M team change ... was unhappy with DBS triple happiness, this ... some compensation from DBS asset management or ...

maurizio13 SG

The 1 trillion assets in AIG might not be worth as much due to the current financial crisis.

Washington Mutual just went belly up in the last few days.

I also question the decision by Warren Buffett to buy into Goldman Sachs at this point in time. Should wait for the dust to settle by mid-next year, then you have a clearer perspective. Perhaps his decision was politically motivated, being a shrewd investor, maybe the government convince him to buy so that other investors in the market will have more confidence.

WaMu Files for Bankruptcy Following FDIC Seizure (Update2)

By Christopher Scinta and Tiffany Kary

Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Washington Mutual Inc., a holding company for the savings and loan that became the biggest U.S. bank to fail, filed for bankruptcy protection along with its unit WMI Investment Corp.

WaMu, the 119-year-old Seattle-based thrift, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, according to a release from Business Wire. The Delaware bankruptcy Web site was closed for site maintenance. Ian Campbell, a spokesman for the bankrupt holding company with Abernathy MacGregor Group, said he couldn't provide further details.

WaMu had its banking unit seized Sept. 25 by government regulators after customers withdrew $16.7 billion over 10 days. JPMorgan Chase & Co. became the biggest U.S. bank by deposits when it bought WaMu's branches with a $1.9 billion payment to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

WaMu had fallen 98 percent over the past year on losses tied to subprime lending before trading was halted on news of the FDIC seizure. The company was one of the financial firms the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission protected from short selling this month as part of an effort to stabilize equity markets. WaMu's bank had $188 billion in deposits.

The company's collapse makes WaMu the latest victim of the credit crunch, which also forced Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and IndyMac Bancorp into bankruptcy, drove Merrill Lynch & Co. to sell itself to Bank of America Corp. and brought about the Federal Reserve-financed purchase of Bear Stearns Cos. by JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Ratings Cuts

The Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition, filed Sept. 26 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, wasn't immediately available due to Web site maintenance. The Web site was expected to be operating again on Sept. 27 at noon, Eastern time.

JPMorgan, Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., Banco Santander SA and Toronto-Dominion Bank had all expressed interest in buying all or parts of WaMu ahead of the JPMorgan purchase.

WaMu was expected to lose as much as $19 billion on bad mortgages during the next 2 1/2 years. Standard & Poor's cut the bank's credit rating twice in nine days, to eight levels below investment grade, as chances decreased that any deal wouldn't be a buyout of the whole company, leaving creditors of the holding company to face substantial losses.

The failure of WaMu will have a ``significant'' effect on collateralized debt obligations that made bets on the lender's creditworthiness, Standard & Poor's said yesterday.

Pieces of 1,526 synthetic CDOs worldwide sold default protection on Seattle-based WaMu, S&P said in a statement.

Default Swaps

Sellers of credit-default swap protection must pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent after a bankruptcy filing.

WaMu started as the Washington National Building Loan & Investment Association on Sept. 25, 1889, 119 years to the day before its failure. A fire had engulfed downtown Seattle and residents needed a safe place to put their money, according to a history on WaMu's Web site.

Like others at now-struggling financial institutions, WaMu pushed at the height of the housing boom into riskier loans to less creditworthy buyers. WaMu was the second-biggest provider of payment-option adjustable-rate mortgages, behind Wachovia Corp., with $54 billion held in its portfolio in the first quarter, according to Inside Mortgage Finance.

Option ARMS let borrowers skip part of their payment and add that sum to the principal, so that when housing prices fall, as they have since 2006, they might end up owing more than the residence is worth.

To contact the reporter on this story: Christopher Scinta in New York bankruptcy court at [email protected]

Last Updated: September 27, 2008 01:15 EDT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aG.D1cUCF5zU&refer=home

stupidissmart SG

I also question the decision by Warren Buffett to buy into Goldman Sachs at this point in time. Should wait for the dust to settle by mid-next year, then you have a clearer perspective. Perhaps

The fact is tat,

Nobody really knows wat is gonna happened in the future. When he invest in Goldman, he is probably thinking he make a risk and can have the potential to double his capital tat he had invested in. Now nobody really knows if he is a genius or a fool yet.

One thing for sure is,

When everything is clear, it is already be too late.

reyes SG

personally i dont believe the investment products sell to me.

more than often, financial advisor dont even know what they are selling.

banks nowadays are here to make quick profits by selling investment products without knowing the truth risk. they simply put in the small print to protect themselves should thing go wrong. that is probably why the local banks claims that exposure to subprime crisis are minimal coz most of the risk has been pass on to investor like yourself.

i rather trust myself.

Uncertain SG

Dun invest in reach capital fund again :)

Want to be rich is simple, buy blue chip and let it grow over time.

4sg SG

Nwcigotbetter2001

When you purchased the fund, were you assured that the principle sum is guaranteed? Do you have receipt or document to prove it?

If you were initially assured of guaranteed return on the principle sum and now you are being told that it no longer the case, this can constitutes misrepresentation of information.

If this really the case, you may want to engage a lawyer to help you. Or if this is too expensive, you may seek fellow fund holders and do a collective legal redress.

redDUST SG

The fact is tat,

One thing for sure is,

When everything is clear, it is already be too late.

i would agree with you. and i think warren b would have a lot more information with him at his disposal to help him arrive at his decision. GS is a compelling buy. it's stock is trading slight above half its 52 wks high value despite the turmoil. it didn't obliterate like aig for e.g.

sure i believe there will be other financial institutions that will unravel itself in the coming months, but i think a few things hold true too:

1. the US government will never allow the financial sector belly up as a whole. it can tank the country.

2. tighter regulation will be in place between now and the next 24months to right the ship. i believe in the mid-term, things can only get better. it may take another 30-50years for the next wave of financial exuburance to `crash land' again.

3. those institutions that are able to `get help' or `manage to sell itself off' is likely to survive this dark period. there will not be many suitors, so for the rest of the troubled banks, it is facing imminent oblivion.

i cashed out early this year due to the financial jitteries. my average holding period for my stocks has been about 7 years. but i couldn't resist putting in a small amount a couple of weeks ago on aig after its bail-out announcement by the us federal gahmen. i agree it is a bet. however, i think it is an opening for me. i don't expect aig to reach its $70s mark in my lifetime. if in 3-5 years, it hit $10, i would be happy. if it hits $20/share, i will jump for joy but i hope it will touch the $30s mark. i will be estatic then.

SBS7484P SG

deleted cus this post was crap.

likedatosocan SG

I dislike Accounting . It makes me feel like a fool.

fatone SG

WALL OF TEXT +9999 DMG

whiskers SG

I also question the decision by Warren Buffett to buy into Goldman Sachs at this point in time. Should wait for the dust to settle by mid-next year, then you have a clearer perspective. Perhaps his decision was politically motivated, being a shrewed investor, maybe the government convince him to buy so that other investors in the market will have more confidence.

Could this move by Buffett be one of his philanthropist acts? Helping inject some confidence back in to the american economy... One Buffett beats many paulsons.

maurizio13 SG

Could this move by Buffett be one of his philanthropist acts? Helping inject some confidence back in to the american economy... One Buffett beats many paulsons.

Markets work based on psychological perceptions of investors, so if more investors see Buffett buying, they will have more confidence to invest, otherwise, they will just adopt a wait and see attitude.

I certainly feel more confident when I see the world's greatest investor buying into Goldman Sachs.

Existing empirical research has shown that providing assistance to banks and their borrowers can be counterproductive, resulting in increased losses to banks, which often abuse forbearance to take unproductive risks at government expense. The typical result of forbearance is a deeper hole in the net worth of banks, crippling tax burdens to finance bank bailouts, and even more severe credit supply contraction and economic decline than would have occurred in the absence of forbearance.

Cross-country analysis to date also shows that accommodative policy measures (such as substantial liquidity support, explicit government guarantee on financial institutions’ liabilities and forbearance from prudential regulations) tend to be fiscally costly and that these particular policies do not necessarily accelerate the speed of economic recovery.5 Of course, the caveat to these findings is that a counterfactual to the crisis resolution cannot be observed and therefore it is difficult to speculate how a crisis would unfold in absence of such policies. Better institutions are, however, uniformly positively associated with faster recovery.

Author: Yves Smith

Although I believe ideas should stand on their own merit, rather than on their author's credentials, I also recognize that readers want some assurance that they are not quoting a 13 year old or a dog. I have undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard. I have been working in and around the financial services industry since 1980 and have had over 40 articles published in venues such as The New York Times, Institutional Investor, The Daily Deal, U.S. Banker, Bank Mergers & Acquisitions, The Conference Board Magazine, BRW Magazine (Australia), and Boss Magazine (Australian Financial Review).

maurizio13 SG

MAS Press Statement

In consultation with MAS, financial institutions that have sold the DBS High Notes 5, Lehman Minibonds and Merrill Lynch Jubilee Series 3 are in the process of appointing independent parties to oversee their complaints handling and resolution processes for these products. The FIs will have to include the following matters in their terms of reference when engaging the independent party...............................

http://www.mas.gov.sg/news_room/letters_to_editors/2008/MAS_Press_Statement.html

eagle SG

for 5% interest rates, I would rather buy SPH stocks at the current prices than all these notes or preference shares.

That is the confidence I have in PAP in maintaining their control of the monopolised mainstream media. :D

airgrinder SG

Actually, even before this big unfortunate event happening, most structural deposits or "guaranteed funds" don't make money. Most were terminated early by banks as they were unable to make decent profits and hence exercise early termination.

I really doubt TS's "what can we do?" can work. I doubt DBS will give any compensation.

airgrinder SG

i rather trust myself.

Erm... not true. You may be mixing up 2 things together.

When they say exposure to subprime products, they meant actual investments and business that are in the subprime market or subprime related insitutions with direct subprime markets business.

"Small print to protect themselves" is really to "make sure" the consumers of the product understand the t&c and whatever the banks wants the consumers to know.

maurizio13 SG

Erm... not true. You may be mixing up 2 things together.

When they say exposure to subprime products, they meant actual investments and business that are in the subprime market or subprime related insitutions with direct subprime markets business.

"Small print to protect themselves" is really to "make sure" the consumers of the product understand the t&c and whatever the banks wants the consumers to know.

When I was doing my accounting and finance, my lecturers always emphasize, "the big print are not that important, the small print are critical".

Things they don't want you to know, they put in small print.

airgrinder SG

My friend was screaming at you when she read this post of yours. "Who are u to question Buffett's decision! Do you even invests for a living yet!" Haha =)

Precisely being a shrewd investor, I sure he understand the odds of success sufficiently to invest in Goldman, rather than politically motivation.

maurizio13 SG

My friend was screaming at you when she read this post of yours. "Who are u to question Buffett's decision! Do you even invests for a living yet!" Haha =)

Precisely being a shrewd investor, I sure he understand the odds of success sufficiently to invest in Goldman, rather than politically motivation.

In Finance, there is a principle that states, "past performance is not indicative of future perfomance". You have companies like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch making hefty profits in the past, but it hasn't prevented their demise.

Seriously, I won't mind taking a bet at this point in time too, because prices are sufficiently low enough, it's a good speculative gamble. But if I am a more prudent investor and less akin to speculation, perhaps I'd rather wait till mid 2009 to end 2009, after the dust settles and the prices stabilize before I make investments again.

It could go both ways now, either the market could pick up and the catastrophe postpone to another future date, or we could see the beginning of the 2nd great depression.

maurizio13 SG

My friend was screaming at you when she read this post of yours. "Who are u to question Buffett's decision! Do you even invests for a living yet!" Haha =)

Precisely being a shrewd investor, I sure he understand the odds of success sufficiently to invest in Goldman, rather than politically motivation.

You can ask your friend again, what she thinks about me doubting Warren Buffett's decision.

The Dow Jones just crashed 7% (777 points) today!!!

In the next few days there is going to be lots of action in the market.