Monthly Archives: January 2020

Using my Schwab card at 7-Eleven (7-11) Japan ATMs

Last time I traveled to Japan in March 2019, I use my Capital One 360 Mastercard ATM card to withdraw cash from 7-11 ATMs. Capital One 360 does not charge any foreign transaction fees and at at that time 7-11 ATMs did not charge any ATM fee. In addition to my Capital One 360 card, I now have a Charles Schwab Visa ATM card which promises to refund ATM fees. Recently, I’ve read reports that 7-11 ATMs have started charging fees to international ATM card holders. I returned to Japan last week and found out out for myself if the reports are correct.

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PSEi index funds vs the PSEi Total Return Index

In comparing returns from PSEi index funds in the Philippines, the right benchmark to use is the PSEi Total Return Index (PSEi TRI). This is particularly true considering none of the PSEi index funds distribute cash dividends. The PSEi TRI accounts for cumulative price returns and cumulative return sof dividends reinvested back into the index, while the PSEi only accounts for price returns. The PSEi TRI was only introduced in 2019, but its history was back-calculated to 2007. Since it’s pretty new, I haven’t found any freely available resource for the PSEi TRI history. I recently came across this article, And the best equity fund is …, from the Philippine Daily Inquirer. This article was written by someone who is selling financial planning products, so not surprisingly, the article did not actually identify any particular index fund. Fortunately, it did provide some numbers for the PSEi TRI.

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