Last updated on November 9th, 2019 at 11:22 am

First State Bridge is frequently among the most popular “recommended funds” by banks and advisers. Deservingly so in my opinion.

This post is to not to say it is the best ever.

But rather, to introduce it to you as a simple method if you are not started in investing yet.

First state bridge is a “balanced-risk” fund that helps you get invested into equities and bonds together.

That means you get

1. FREE diversification through one fund
2. Performance is smoother than pure equity etf/funds or investing in shares.

As shown below, it is held almost 50%-50% allocation and investing into such a fund gives you FREE auto-rebalancing between equities and bonds!

First state bridge is Asian in focus and if you like prospects of Asian companies, this definitely works.

It compares well to other CPFOA “balanced funds”

There are the only these few CPF approved balanced funds.

It has superior 3y, 5y and 10y average p.a performance than its peers. The results in the table is already nett performance.

The FTIF Templeton Global balanced fund is abit different as it will invest for you globally (as its mandate) and some will be into US equities

I personally think US equities are expensive in valuation currently.

First state bridge also has the largest fund size (>SGD$1.5B) and the lowest annual expense ratios (1.42%p.a) amongst these 4 funds.

How did it do in a financial crisis and against benchmark?

This is a very rate snapshot of how it did in the financial crisis. I was marketing it back in those days already.

As shown above, it lost merely 35% from Oct2007 to Dec2008 which is actually pretty low. STI index lost more than 60%? Of course they are not apple to apple.

Against the benchmark which is a balanced approach, it has also consistently done well.

Ready solution for you to start investing your CPFOA

CPFOA delivers 2.5%p.a guaranteed interest. Somewhat about inflation rate.

Of course, investing returns do not come with a guarantee and no one is sure what will happen to performance in a years time.

Stock markets can drop.

The 50% allocated to Asian stocks through First state Asian Equity Plus (which is what first state dividend advantage gets into) can drag down short term performance.

But if you can invest long term with your CPF

Like 5-10years.

And we use the more conservative 5.94%p.a past returns (note: past return does not guarantee future returns),

Its kind of a NO BRAINER to use this fund to start investing your CPFOA.

Now imagine this,

You want  to start investing but you want proper advice

Because you have heard some people losing money when investing

Or you want it to be simplified and simply outsourced because it is tiring to monitor

If you are keen to get started on your investment journey and would like to know more first, email josh.tan@promiseland.com.sg

Abit about me: I come from an accounting background with NTU and has been providing advice since 2008

My experience: I manage more than $6m in clients investments assets through various platforms.

Some reviews from private clients

PS: At certain junctures, there are different opportunities to in further increase returns

Here’s what you can look forward to

On a chart, this is how it compares (the green line is First state bridge).

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