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Showing posts from May, 2021

FIRE by 2020 has officially failed

Back in 2015, I never thought I would have to work past 2020.   The idea was that I would have accumulated at least 1.7 M by Jan 2021 and would be comfortably returning 110k a year in passive income based on a 6.5% yield.  How laughably naive. The optimism is commendable but misguided.  Covid struck hard.   Several terrible decisions were made. EHT is bankrupt. A 50k write off.  Ouch is right. First REIT is trading around 20% of my cost price. Never again Riady. Never again. Yields have been severely compressed  with "quality" REITS, e.g., MINT, PLife, Ascendas REIT all returning paltry yields of 3-4% or, gasps, less.   With the view of improving portfolio resilience, I made a conscious decision to rebalance my portfolio to go REIT-lite (well, lighter) and increased my holdings in DBS, UOB, OCBC.  The MAS cap on banks' dividends does mean that these companies are returning 3% or less per annum.   Sigh.  All in all, pr...