SINGAPORE FEBRUARY 2019 SAVINGS BONDS: THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW!

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SINGAPORE SAVINGS BONDS Dear readers, the Feb 2019 tranche of Singapore Savings Bonds (SSB) is now up for application! Let us take a look at the details of Feb 2019 SSB in this post.
1) Annual return of Feb 2019 SSB (10-year holding basis)

On a ten-year period, the annual rate of returns of the Feb 2019 SSB is 2.20% which is a tad lower than the 2.45% of the Jan 2019 SSB. However, if we are to look in the context of all previous SSB tranches, the 10-year annual return of the Feb 2019 SSB is the lowest of all SSB tranches since Jul 2018 as you could see from the attached chart. The July 2018 tranche holds the best record among all previous SSB tranches with a 2.63% annual return on a 10-year holding basis, followed by the Aug 2018 and Dec 2018 tranche each with a 2.57% return.

2) First-year return of Feb 2019 SSB

The Jan 2019 SSB (the tranche which opened up for application last month) holds the best record for the highest first-year return of 2.01% and I have shared back then that investors who would like to grow their monies on a risk-free short-term basis should apply the Jan 2019 SSB. Seen in the above light, the Feb 2019 SSB (the current tranche up for applications) hold the second-highest first-year return of 1.98% and I believe that is the only best feature for the Feb 2019 SSB.

3) Feb 2019 SSB pays the same annual rate for the first three years

Apart from a reasonably high first-year return, the annual return for the first three years of holding the Feb 2019 SSB is the same at 1.98%! This is in contrast to all other previous tranches of SSB (at least from Jul 2018) where an applicant would be able to reap higher annual return for each successive year in year 2 and year 3.

Summary

My take of the Feb 2019 SSB is hence that this SSB tranche pays the most humble annual returns of all previous tranches, unless an applicant wishes to buy and hold the Feb 2019 SSB for the first year of holding of which then the 1.98% is rather good. Join the emailing list to receive regular Financial and Singapore stocks newsletters too! Like" me on Singapore Stocks Investing Facebook page to receive all posts on your Facebook as well as read more articles. Follow me on Twitter too.

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