Singapore just announced its third budget in two months. This comes on the eve of the one month circuit breaker which will see the closures of all schools and many firms except for essential services to flatten the covid-19 curve. With 3 budgets amounting to $59.9b (12% of GDP), will this do the trick of saving the Singapore economy? (Recorded April 6) 

Our Head of Wealth Advisory, Kelvin Goh, tells us how being a 'lazy' investor and adopting dollar cost averaging as an investment strategy could work well for newer investors. If you suffer from investment inertia, consider monthly investment plans that put your investments on 'autopilot'. 

Malaysia has launched an unprecedented stimulus package, slated to be worth 17% of GDP. We discuss the implications here.

Our OCBC Credit Research team shares their views on whether government and central bank stimulus will alleviate the pain in credit markets today and what lies ahead. They also point out where investors may be able to find shelter in this storm and note four key fundamental calls.

Gold remains an important investment asset to investors, but should the Gold Standard return? We think not. The Covid-19 episode has seen massive support policies from governments around the world - which would likely have been much smaller if the Gold Standard was still in place.

Imposing a city-wide lockdown is important in the initial stages of dealing with an infectious disease, so as to "flatten the curve" and prevent one's healthcare systems from being overrun. But it is not the magic solution when the disease has evolved into a global pandemic. Our global economy has ground to a halt, and is not sustainable. How can we balance the need to restart the economy without compromising efforts to contain the outbreak? 

In this podcast, we break down the policy decisions by the MAS in its Monetary Policy Statement released on 30 March 2020. Overall, the decisions were in line with our expectations, especially when it comes to the slight re-centre of the policy band. (Recorded 30 March 2020) 

Singapore’s 1Q20 GDP contraction of 2.2% y-o-y was double expectations and marked the worst performance since 2009. Hence it came as no surprise that a mega-sized Resilience Package of $48 billion was unveiled. Will this be sufficient to ward off the imminent recession?

What are the operating and credit metrics that can offer us some insights amid this turbulent period? How can REITs, which typically do not hold much cash, boost its liquidity if needed? Credit research analyst Seow Zhi Qi believes it's reasonable to expect pockets of opportunity to pick up bullet bonds issued by quality REITs at slashed prices - though she discourages panic selling. Investors who have the holding power can also continue to hold on to their existing high-grade REIT bullet bonds as long as the fundamentals of the REITs remain intact.