Daily Briefing: SATS' staff costs on the rise; MAS warns of subdued wages for Singapore

And here's how to know if a multi-level marketing company is a scam.

From The Motley Fool:

There’s a way to categorise businesses into two groups: Those that can grow their profits by increasing prices, and those that can grow their profits mainly by controlling costs well.

In the first group are generally businesses that have strong brands or great products. In the second group are generally businesses that offer products whose cost matters the most to customers.

For SATS Ltd (SGX: S58), a company providing catering services and gateway services, I believe it falls into the second category. As such, it’s important that SATS manages its costs well if it wants to grow its profits.

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From DollarsAndSense.sg via Yahoo! Finance:

MLM schemes are commonly defined as a sales structure in which a person recruits another person and receives commissions on the sales made by their recruit, and from the earnings of other people recruited by the recruit. In other words, people in the MLM scheme get rewarded not only for selling products but for recruiting other salespeople. In some countries, notably the United States, MLM schemes are legal.

You might have also heard of the term “pyramid scheme”. It is widely regarded as an illegal subset of MLMs where salespeople pay membership fees in order to participate and is subsequently paid commissions for recruiting additional participants into the scheme. These are illegal because the unsound financial structure of the business means that people who operate pyramid schemes are necessarily be doing so with the intention to defraud others.

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From Bloomberg Finance:

A stable outlook for global commodity prices, somewhat subdued consumer sentiment, and lingering labor-market slack will probably hold down inflation pressures, the MAS projected in its twice-yearly review of macroeconomic trends released Friday. Unemployment, too, should remain somewhat stable with the pace of economic growth seen slowing marginally next year.

“The Singapore economy will likely see slightly moderating, albeit more balanced growth, next year,” the MAS said. “The level of output is expected to remain close to potential and over the medium term, core inflation is expected to trend towards, but average slightly below, 2 percent.”

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg still see a 2.5 percent pace of growth for all of 2017, while headline consumer prices are forecast to advance 0.8 percent on a year-over-year pace. The central bank sees growth coming in at the upper half of its 2 percent to 3 percent forecast range this year.

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