The Unnecessary Job

Luck plays a huge role in successful investing. Don't let any one tell you otherwise. In my last post, I had identified Lippo Malls Reit as a potential addition to my portfolio in view of its recent correction to 40 cents and its attractive trailing yield of close to 9%. Ultimately I did not go with Lippo, and instead opted to increase my holdings in Ascendas htrust. My reasoning was mainly that I did not fancy the IDR-based income and felt that the share remain overvalued compared to its NAV. This proved to be a close shave. Just days after my purchase, the Indonesian Government announced a new 10% tax on rental income obtained from land leases. This is expected to reduce DPU by 7.2%.   By the reit manager's own estimate , the DPU per share for 2017 would have dropped to 3.19 cents had these regulations been put in place at the start of 2017.  Did not see that coming. The market's reaction appears to be severe. The share price has corrected from 39 cents to 32....

In a previous post, I alluded to the surrender of an investment linked life policy which i have held since i started working. The cheque came in last week. A respectable S$31,076  after 10 years of servicing my monthly premiums. To be honest, I do not recommend investment-linked policies to anyone. Sub-par returns after management fees. If I had invested all those premiums with a blue chip like DBS/Singtel since 2007, the returns would have been far more erm... substantial. I also do not recommend life policies for anyone unless their (untimely) demise would somehow bring their immediate family to the brink of financial ruin - hard to imagine this would be "most Singaporeans". Hence, life policies are really for a fractional minority, whose circumstances fall into the above described category.  For everyone else, they are just acting as ultra low yield, capital-non-guaranteed, bondholders to the financial juggernauts. Short, short end of the stick. This fresh injection ...