11/11 Sale: Pro Running shoes for S$103??

 

Alex Yee wearing New Balance Supercomp Elite v5 at Valencia 2025

Equipped with my UOB Preferred Visa giving 4MPD for Lazada, I browsed the 11/11 sales and got myself 2 pairs of New Balance Supercomp Elite v5 NYC edition for only S$103 per pair. 

This is the racing shoe worn by NB athletes such as Alex Yee in 2025 but it is beginner friendly as its suitable for heel strikers (certain racing shoes like the Adios Pro 5 are geared towards mid/forefoot strikers).

Prices this low suggest that New Balance has excess inventory they need to clear, which correlates with the current narrative concerning the earnings troubles of various sports brand include NKE, which is my biggest loser... 

NTUC Whole Life Policy XIRR after 20+ years

 

I have 2 NTUC Income Whole Life Policies from 20+ years ago. I bought them in different years. One has a critical illness rider (yes the agent managed to upsell me to include a rider) and one without.  

20+ years ago, I wasn't that financially literate, so the NTUC Whole Life policy looked attractive to me. Total annual premium was less than 1 month take home salary at that time so making the wrong choice wouldn't have caused a financial disaster to me. My naive thought process 20+ years ago was that NTUC was govt-linked and would perform better than private insurers that are looking to maximise their own profits. Technically that's not correct but just sharing my thought process in going with NTUC.

I saw Kyith in Investmentmoats providing an update on his Limited Whole Life Policy and decided to do the maths on mine. Now, I can simply give AI all the info it needs to calculate the XIRR for me. 

3.75% and 4.05% over 20+years is a decent return to me since I also got the benefit of term insurance and some CI coverage. As expected, the policy without rider had a slightly higher return. But this is not an apples to apples comparison since the entry year of the policies is different and that could affect the overall return. 

November 2026 strategy

I took a short trip on Deepavali weekend to enjoy cooler (and rain-free) weather. Had this delicious fresh Crayfish Pasta twice. In the meantime, I can see my portfolio declining in value with Emerging markets being hit particularly hard. Will be giving an update on my unit trust portfolio in a couple of days.

Currently, my strategy is to continue DCA of Amundi Unit Trusts and DCA ETFs either manually using the usual brokerages plus FSMOne RSP. One REIT that I have been holding since GFC is CDL Hospitality Trust, one of my holdings that I topped up recently. It recently announced a rights issue and I will subscribe for excess.

Current market movements indicate that another interest rate hike before the end of the year is inevitable. Hopefully this is a case of once and one. If there is another hike and 10-yr US Treasuries remain above 5%, I am considering holding more. While I would prefer to hold US Treasuries directly (no mark to market loss, just get your capital back on maturity), its subject to estate duty and since I'm going to be withdrawing CPF soon, I'm not that young either, so the 7-10 UST ETF IBTM is my go-to vehicle.

 

Midterm Rally (and correction) 2026

 

Putting this here for reference. Given the statistics that suggest that markets rally after midterms, I had done some of my DCA at the start of November. I usually send money to charity in October so that I didn't have that much spare cash though.

Clearly cost of living was on voters minds versus ideology as red states filpped blue. There is cause for optimism that the US will exit the Iran war, oil prices will moderate and so will inflation and interest rates. That could be positive for REITs as well.

But having said that, the market took 2 steps back the next day. The difference in the Dow versus Nasdaq and S&P500 shows that the correction is centred on tech though there will obviously be contagion to other stocks.

Important thing will be what happens by the end of the year I guess.

SQ Time to Fly Sale 2026

 

TL:DR Still some deals, but smaller selection of available flights compared to last year. For destinations with multiple flights a day, the sale is likely to be for the 'lousier' timing.

I mentioned that I have already bought my biz class ticket to Sydney earlier because there the price was lower than what I paid last year and I had no assurance that the Time to Fly sale price would be as good. I was correct. For the flight I had selected, the Time to Fly price was $700+ more!

However, I managed to get a biz class ticket to Melbourne at a good price. There wasn't much of a selection of cheap tickets, but the available discount dates suited my travel plans so that was good. It is red-eye both ways so I get to maximise my time in Melbourne and sleep on the plane.

There are also two UOB Krisflyer related promotions for the 'fastest registration first'. First 200 online redemptions gets $50 of Krispay miles (min purchase $1k) and first 1,000 online redemptions get 3,000 miles (min purchase $2k). I submitted my registrations in the afternoon and I will update whether I got anything.

How to Spend Money

 

I found a useful article and using this blogpost to remind me of the reference: "If money doesn't make you happy, then you probably aren't spending it right" , Journal of Consumer Psychology, April 2011.

This year, I have gone on 5 short overseas holidays to nearby destinations (Japan + Australia) so far with one more in November and one more in December. As I have mentioned, of the 7 trips this year, 5 were in economy, 1 was biz class redeemed with miles after I cleared a waitlist, and the final biz class I bought during a sale.

I find myself preferring this over few but longer holidays to further destinations like Europe/USA.

This article: "If money doesn't make you happy, then you probably aren't spending it right" in the Journal of Consumer Psychology uses the 'adaptation theory' to explain why

• It is better to spend money on experiences rather than things
• It is better to spend money on more 'small' experiences than fewer 'big' experiences.

The article explains that we adapt to things quickly. So having many 'new' but smaller experiences (eg: short holidays), will lead to greater overall happiness and satisfaction. For econs students this is probably a variant on diminishing marginal utility - you combat diminishing marginal utility by breaking up the consumption. A 10 day holiday will probably not make you twice as happy as a 5 day holiday (unless you hate flying and the fact that you have to fly twice causes great unhappiness).

Finally I am looking forward to SQ's Time to Fly sale starting next week. I plan to buy a couple of tickets though I need to manage my expectations because the miles redemption sale this month was worse than last year (15% discount instead of 20% discount) and who knows if the sale could be worse. That's why I already bought my biz class ticket to Sydney when it was on sale earlier, because the price dropped to lower than what I paid in 2025 and no guarantee that the Time to Fly sale will match that.

Experimental Unit Trust Portfolio: Month 6

 

I started an experimental unit trust portfolio to test out the strategy of blindly DCA low cost Amundi Unit Trusts every month no matter how high the stock market gets. In the last update, I shared that as stock markets climbed, my average buying price increased and percentage return dropped, though fortunately the profits in $ value increased.

This month, my average buying price continued to increase but interestingly the % return and $ return both increased. The most significant change appears to be Amundi Prime USA which is probably the main reason for increased % return.

Previous update:

https://buyaftercrash.blogspot.com/2026/09/experimental-unit-trust-update-2.html