Is now a good time to buy RMB Yuan for your portfolio?

Our family’s cash are broadly categorised into:

(1)   Near-term and daily needs in high deposit bank accounts

(2)  Emergency funds in short-term fixed deposits

(3)  Stocks

(4) Investment Warchest in Singapore Savings Bonds and high deposit bank accounts.

(5)  Currency – NEW!

In our previous post, we shared our decision to buy RMB Yuan. We considered several investment possibilities such as options, currency, bonds, gold to diversify our portfolio before finally deciding to go for RMB Yuan first. 

Our key assessments include (1) RMB Yuan is now part of IMF’s reserve currency bucket. This means that more international contracts could transact using Yuan which would spur currency demand. (2) Yuan will likely be well-supported by China and global forces to eventually become an option to challenge USD as the global currency. (3) At ground-level, ICBC Singapore offered a good fixed deposit ranging 2.75-4.5%. This is better than Singapore Savings bond or fixed deposits.

We have been steadily building up our position in RMB Yuan. The currency is facing some near-term volatility against SGD. 

In our view, this presents a good buying opportunity. I remained optimistic that Yuan should strengthen in the near or medium-term given my assessments above. I also expect the Singapore dollar to gradually pause strengthening or weaken in order to help our exports become more competitive during this trade war climate. 

Will our investment in RMB Yuan turn out well? I certainly hope so!

GoHuat

Related Posts

1. Signs of market downturn coming? 

Signs of market downturn coming?

Global banks are often the front-runners for a market downturn (e.g. bad debts, poor loan repayment, staff retrenchment, etc). Over the past 2 days, three news caught my eye:

• Deutsche Bank staff sent home as 18,000 job cuts begin (The Guardian, CNBC, 8 & 9 Jul 2019)
• Yield on the benchmark 30-year US Treasury bond briefly dipped below 2.5%, yielding less than the Federal Reserve’s short-term federal fund rate (CNN, 8 Jul 2019)
• Temasek Holdings one-year return for shareholders came in at 1.49%, down from 12.19% in the previous financial year (Straits Times, 9 Jul 2019)

The warning signs of a global market downturn have grown even stronger. For the past 2 years, our Singapore leaders have been warning the people to be more conservative through policies such as property cooling measures and public speeches. 

Even if a market downturn is more likely now, it is still impossible to time when it would actually take place. My best guess is to be around the U.S. Presidential mid-term election period (Oct-Nov 2020 time-frame). But surely many people out there would also share similar thoughts. So how accurate would this guess be? 

Instead of timing the market, my wife and I decided to diversify our investment portfolio from stocks. We considered buying currency, gold, bonds or simply build up our investment war-chest. For gold, we were doubtful if the returns were worthwhile as the US$ would likely weaken when global economy tanks. For corporate bonds, most bond returns seems unattractive with its risks. In the end, we chose to buy currency - RMB Yuan. We will elaborate more on our decision in our next post.

Do you think that a market downturn is coming soon? Feel free to share your thoughts!

GoHuat