Money Matters with Hongbin Jeong and Chua Tian Tian

Since the start of the pandemic, the number of digital nomads with traditional jobs has more than tripled. More than 50% of the world’s digital nomads in 2022 were from the US. But one Singaporean is joining this growing trend. In the Spotlight on Prime Time, Timothy Go and Bharati Jagdish speak with Gabriel Wong, CEO of Ascend Marketing, who will be moving his family of 3+1 (2nd child due Feb) to a neighboring country.  Produced and edited by Anthea Ng (nganthea@sph.com.sg) Highlights of the conversation: 01.50 : The main reason for the move to Bali 02.40 : How realistic is remote working? 07.32 : What are the challenges you can foresee, e.g culture and education?  11.18 : What would you say to people who are considering to relocate overseas?

The credit market is in focus today as tightening monetary conditions and trade tensions continue to dampen global market activity.  We’ll start from home in Singapore. Earlier, market reports suggested that Singapore’s three largest banks could see a possible increase in bad loans and softer loan growth this year, but which are the risks to watch and which bank will be best-placed to weather the economic slowdown?  Further away, JP Morgan is expecting to see Thailand’s interest rates peak this quarter at 1.75 per cent, but how would this impact the country’s banking sector amid elevated levels of household debt? And to what extent would higher interest rates make borrowers turn to unsecured retail products? On Market View, Prime Time’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Rena Kwok, Credit Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

In May 2022, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat said that helping SMEs scale up is one of Singapore’s three drivers of economic growth. Unfortunately, SMEs in Singapore face various challenges in the business landscape, which becomes even more difficult in the face of global competition. So how can SMEs in Singapore fight the Goliaths in the online competition both locally and globally? In the Spotlight on Prime Time, Timothy Go and Bharati Jagdish speak with Jesper Broberg, VP Emerging Markets, Optimizely, to find out. Produced and edited Anthea Ng (nganthea@sph.com.sg)

Singapore's core inflation, which excludes costs of private transport and accommodation, came in at 5.1 per cent year on year in December. The measure is projected to stay elevated in the first half of this year before slowing more discernibly in the second half of 2023. In The Straits Times' The Big Story, Multimedia Correspondent Hairianto Diman spoke with Associate Editor Vikram Khanna to delve more into these findings.

2022 has been a challenging year for markets as participants experience major pullbacks with their portfolios and investors struggling to protect their capital.  Against the backdrop of a high inflationary environment and geopolitical uncertainties, hedge funds felt the pains but managed to absorb some shocks in the market.  While the asset class declined 9.3% for the first nine months of the year on the whole, several sub-strategies outperformed other fund types to log positive returns. But what exactly are these strategies, and what does this mean for investors as we look to 2023? On Market View, Prime Time’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian spoke with Carrine Moh, Research Associate for Hedge Fund Data at PREQIN for more. 

A recent survey by Couchbase showed that 83% of IT leaders in banks, insurers and other financial services providers, are under pressure to deliver digital transformation. While it’s clear that the innovation in digital services spurred by the pandemic has been welcomed by customers, how can the Financial Services sector stay in the driving seat in what is forecast to be a tough business climate in 2023? In the Spotlight on Prime Time, Bharati Jagdish and Timothy Go speak with Genie Yuan - Head Of Field Engineering - APJ – Couchbase, for more insights.

Sustainability is increasingly becoming a necessity for corporations due to changing perspectives around the world. And yet, becoming a green company takes a sizable amount of resources, time and risks. So how can businesses better navigate this space and ensure they are authentic in their sustainability initiatives? Prime Time's Timothy Go spoke with John Pabon, Sustainability Consultant and Author and Charmaine Yee, host and brand ambassador, DocuSignon howbusinesses can ensure they are authentic in their sustainability initiatives.

The supply of certificates of COEs will rise by 3.4% for the period of February to April 2023, the first increase after two quarters of decline. Overall, there will be an average of 3,144 COEs available for bidding spread across the five categories each month during this period, said the Land Transport Authority (LTA) on Friday. This is up from the monthly average of 3,040 COEs for the November 2022 to January 2023 period. In The Straits Times’ The Big Story, Multimedia Correspondent Cheow Sue-Ann spoke with Senior Transport Correspondent, Lee Nian Tjoe to find out more. 

We’ll keep you up to speed with the key macroeconomic and market movements in the US as we end the week. Earlier, US producer prices out mid-week showed the producer price index decreased 0.5% on a monthly basis for December. That’s lower than November’s revised 0.2% increase. December’s annual PPI figure also came in lower than the previous month. Question is -  to what extent can this be taken as a sign that inflation has peaked, and is a 25 basis point rate increase by the Fed in sight? And with the earnings season in full swing, how have big names such as Netflix and Procter & Gamble fared, and which are the outperforming sectors to watch? Also - what is the outlook ahead for the tech sector with industry heavyweights Microsoft and Amazon cutting a total of 28,000 workers amid a possible recession? On Market View, Prime Time’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian sits down with Luca Paolini, Chief Strategist, Pictet Asset Management for more.

A 19-year-old has taken a year-gap in her studies to focus on her tuition business, where she has cracked the code to help fellow peers ace that GP paper. In the Spotlight on Prime Time, Bharati Jagdish and Timothy Go chat with Brooke Lim, Founder of Classicle Clubabout her decision to stop her studies for her fledgling business as well as the latest challenge to English teachers - ChatGPT - an easy-to-use AI tool trained on billions of words and a ton of data from the web. Produced and edited by Anthea Ng (nganthea@sph.com.sg) Highlights of the conversation: 01.50 : The motivation behind taking a year gap from her studies to run a business 02.50 : The decision to focus on her tuition business over a working in the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the lessons learnt in a corporate job that helped her business. 04.57 : The reason behind teaching the General Paper 06.11 : Are schools not doing enough for students? 10.27 : ChatGPT versus teachers, the good and the bad.