Home loan rates on the rise
Having done the latest round of online survey, i noticed that generally home loan rates are on the rise. Given that SIBOR is quite low now, banks may be making up for it by charging a higher margin. Even though many loans are tied to SIBOR, I suspect that the funds made available for home loans are not necessarily obtained from SIBOR linked sources and may come with a higher cost, which banks will have to recover by charging higher interest.
Honda Jazz 2009 Update Review
Time for a report card after 2 months of driving the Jazz. The mileage did not improve very much, sad to say, averaging 13.5 km/l, and this is with rather careful driving and deliberate effort not to rev up the engine too much. I still think this will improve over time, hopefully hitting 14 km/l within the next few months.
Car Loan Redemption Penalty
When signing up a car loan, typically you are subjected to a redemption penalty if you choose to redeem the loan before maturity. The redemption penalty is calculated based on the method of Rule of 78.
If you are interested in just getting a quick feel of how much redemption penalty you will have to pay on your car loan, skip to paragraph 5. Read on if you are interested in more background information.
Falling bond prices send yield higher
Bond prices fell following the US Treasury announcement to issue more bonds and more frequently, sending the ten-year note yield above 3%. Even the shorter-term 2-year note yield and the Libor 3-month rate have been trending up.
Difference between SIBOR and SOR
Quoting from the SIBOR wikipedia entry,
SIBOR stands for Singapore Interbank Offered Rate and is a daily reference rate based on the interest rates at which banks offer to lend unsecured funds to other banks in the Singapore wholesale money market (or interbank market).
