The Unnecessary Job

"Be bold when fear paralyses the market" - seems to be the running theme now in most of the financial blogs I am reading. However, the thing is, if everyone is "boldly" exploiting the recent 20% correction in the STI, then who exactly are the "paralyzed" ones? Relying on boldness in and of itself is probably unwise anyway. It is like the wildebeests crossing crocodile infested rivers. Charging in head first is not always the best idea.  Relying on advice by so-called experts is also not optimal.  No one can predict the depth of this correction. Too conservative and you may miss the boat. Too aggressive and you may go down with the ship. Everyone touts a mythical balance, but nobody knows how to define such "balance".  In short, the answer to the question "should you invest in the stock market now?" is "your guess is as good as mine". As one of my favorite bloggers likes to say, a good strategy for me is not ne...

Every morning, my broker sends me a "market pulse" report, which contains a discussion of latest market developments and, additionally, a couple of BUY, SELL, or HOLD recommendations. On 7 Aug 2018, analyst Carmen Lee from OCBC had a BUY rating on DBS : Banks: You can bank on it! Despite recent volatility, the three local banks reported a relative good set of 2Q18 results.  More importantly, the guidance is still fairly positive. With more rate hikes ahead, NIM is likely to stay at current or higher levels. Based on current consensus estimates, net earnings growth is projected at 21% in FY18 and 11% in FY19 – record earnings for the banks. This underlines optimism in terms of growth expectation for both the Net Interest Income and Non-interest Income. The bumper crop of higher dividends also meant that on an annualized basis, dividend yields range from 3.5%-4.5%. With lower allowances, improving margins and healthy dividend payout ratios and yie...

Contributors Q3 2018 Dividends: Frasers Logistic Trust - $1,717 Singtel - $3,852 Cache Log - $193 Starhill Global - $218 AIMS AMP - $2,024 Unnamed Co - $310 Total dividends received for Q3: $8,315 This is a y-o-y improvement of 29.4% over Q3 2017, which saw a total contribution of S$6,424. The main reason appears to be due to my increased holdings in Singtel compared to the portfolio last year. The year to date dividends received is $30,581 , which is around 68% of the full year forecast of $45k. At this time, the manager see no issues in outperforming the conservative forecast by the end of the financial year. The challenge now is to properly deploy the war chest in time to meet next year's forecast target of  $80k in total dividends (based on my fuck-you-money spreadsheet ). Onward to FI!!!

Breakdown as follows: Shares held   Current share price value   AIMS AMP   81000 1.42 115020 Ascendas Htrust 235000 0.82 192700 Cache log 13600 0.74 10064 CRCT 35000 1.44 50400 Ezion 19500 0.074 1443 First Reit 40000 1.24 49600 Frasers Log 189700 1.07 202979 KepCorp 5000 7 35000 Sasseur REIT 40000 0.72 28800 Singtel 42000 3.23 135660 Starhill Global Reit 20000 0.695 13900 Unnamed 7611 6 45666 Warchest 260632.4 TOTAL $1,141,864.4 The total portfolio value has exceeded 1.1M, which was my target set in the initial part of the year. However, it should be noted that around $45k of the portfolio are shares of the company I work for. These shares are escrowed and cannot be sold until 2020 (earliest). While these shares would earn dividends, they do...

First victory recorded in September! Thai Bev was purely an impulse purchase due to the steep discount offered by Mr Market. Sentiments appear to be turning for Thai Bev and the share traded up to $0.695 on 24 September. I gladly accepted the market's offer to take the shares off my hand and cashed out entirely. I debated briefly whether to keep some and "let profits run".  I decided against it eventually because I do not know enough of Thai Bev's business and fundamentals to retain the stock long term.  In the money is in the money. All in all, a decent 9.58 % return in 2 weeks.  Well at least it covers the rent and then some.  I did retain Kep Corp, which has now rallied to cross the 7.15 mark. It appears Kep Corp may be looking to divest its stake in M1 through KT&T.  Kepland also secured a new land parcel in Nanjing. Blue chips will always be blue chips. You might not get them at the lowest. But a dollar cost averaging strategy for SG b...

Le long Le long, screams the SGX. Many have come to browse its wares; some cautious and wary. Others, egged on by a kiasu mentality, gobble up every single deal that appears vaguely attractive. The STI has been on a punishing slide since May 2018, retreating from a high of 3615.28 (2 May 2018) to 3105.66 (today, 12 Sep 2018); nearly a 14% retreat.  We are approaching the psychological resistance point of 3000 points. The last time the STI sank below 3000 points was Oct 2015 and that rut lasted until Jan 2017 (a short rut by historical standards).  It certainly seems like we are now heading back to that "not good, but not exactly bad" zone. Dealing with the ebbs and flows of Mr Market is like fighting a protracted battle. Battles are won and lost over the short term but the objective, of course, is to win the war. The initial wave of soldiers i sent to the front have unfortunately all perished.  Fallen valiantly in the battlegrounds of Singtel, Keppel and F...

Recent Actions: Bought 20 lots First REIT @ 1.29 Bought 2 lots Keppel Corp @ 6.8 Bought 6 lots Singtel @ 3.150 Entry into Singtel and Keppel were probably ill-timed. But timing the market is a fool's errand anyway. FIRST REIT I already discussed why FIRST REIT was attractive to me here. SINGTEL During the GFC, Singtel's lowest ever was 2 dollars. Singtel is nowhere near a crisis level. It's free cash flow (FCF) continues to grow (up 13% to S$1.47 bn), giving the company significant firepower to weather the price cutting wars in India and Indonesia.  While near term metrics are unfavorable, I maintain that Singtel is oversold at 3.050. KEPPEL Keppel's net order book for its marine business appear to be recovering (around 4.6bn ). Notably this number excludes the orders from Sete Brasil.  During the oil peak days when Keppel was trading around $11-12, its net order book was around 10-12 bn (which then included Sete Brasil).  The worst does appear to...