Portfolio Update - 31 December 2015

December has been a relatively quiet month in equity market. US Fed finally made the first step to hike the interest rate to 0.25%, officially ending the long era of cheap money. The hike was not excessive and the market took it as a confirmation of US economics recovery. Global stock market rallied the next day after the Fed's announcement.

STI rose moderately in quiet trading sessions, as there lacks positive news from the corporate world. At 5:10pm  today, STI stood at 2,882.73, up 26.79 points, or 0.94% from last month. My portfolio moved slightly ahead of the index, its value rose 1.17% this month. HTL and Ascendas H-Trust were among the best performers this month, after news of acquisition surfaced.

This month, I bought shares from KSH, Tai Sin and Lee Metal. I also received Mapletree Ind Tr and Cambridge Ind Tr shares through scrip dividend scheme. Net cash injected amounts to S$15,138.00. I also received some bonus shares from KSH.

On the dividend side, total dividend this month from shares and UT amounts to S$11,335.00. Below are the top 30 holdings as at 5:10pm on 30 December.

1.       ComfortDelGro
2.       SPH
3.       OCBC Bank
4.       DBS
5.       Ausnet Services
6.       Kep Inf Tr fKa CIT
7.       ST Engineering
8.       Metro
9.       SGX
10.   Sembcorp Ind
11.   Starhub
12.   Frasers Comm Tr
13.   CapitaLand
14.   AIMSAMP Cap Reit
15.   HTL Int
16.   SATS
17.   OUE
18.   Keppel Corp
19.   Tai Sin Electric
20.   Nam Lee Metal
21.   CapitaComm Tr
22.   Nikko AM STI ETF 100
23.   KSH
24.   Ascendas Reit
25.   Stamford Land
26.   SIA
27.   Ascendas-h Trust
28.   United Engineers
29.   Saizen Reit
30.   Global Inv

There are 5 new entries (compared with last month) in the bottom half of the table. Share prices HTL and Ascendas-h Trust surged after news of acquisition was announced. They will disappear from the list in near future. KSH and Tai Sin entered the list due to new purchase and bonus share issue, while SIA share price rose over a dollar this month.

As a whole, 2015 has not been a good year for equity investment. STI started well this year, and was above 3,400 in April. Then came a slew of bad news and now it stood at 2,882.73, down 482 points, or 14.34% from December last year.

My share portfolio took a beating this year as well. Although there was a net cash injection of S$170,000 into the portfolio, its value only increased by S$33,644. Even if I take the dividend received into consideration, there is still a net lost of about 4%. The only consolation is, the lost is smaller than the index. This shows again one advantage of dividend investment. In time of market volatility, dividend income can be used to reinvest into the market and hence cushioned the effect of volatility. UT portfolio value dropped about 10% for the year, or 4% when dividend income is taken into consideration.

The dividend income from both shares and UT investment was higher this year, as I continued to invest in dividend yielding stocks, UT and retail bonds. Total dividend received this year was S$151,364.00, which was above the target set a year ago. This was with the help of some special dividend following merger of City Springs and Keppel Inf Tr, and the return of  capital from MIIF after the fund closure. In the coming year, some of the dividend yielding counters will disappear from my portfolio. So I will not raise the dividend target, but keep it at S$150,000.00 The chart below shows the monthly dividend.

May I take this opportunity to Wish everyone a healthy, peaceful and successful 2016.

Portfolio Update - 30 November 2015

The market recovery in October proved to be short lived. Looming US rate hike and Slowdown of Chinese economy determined the market sentiment and the stock prices moved south this month. Other negative factors included terror attack in Paris, lacklustre corporate earning results, China probe in the brokerage firms, etc.

STI closed today at 2,855.94 for the month of November, dropped 142.41, or 4.75% compared with last month. My portfolio, though performed better than the index, saw its value decreased by 2.99% from last month (exclude new investment).

This month, I bought some shares from Nera Tel, Cache Log Trust and KSH. I also received shares from MapletreeLog Trust via scrip dividend scheme.

Total dividend received this month amounts to S$10,852.26, including dividends received from Bond(FCL retail bond) and UT.

Below are my top 30 holdings as at 30 November 2015. SIA and Ascendas HT dropped off the list, and were replaced by Saizen Reit and SingShipping. Total fund injected was about S$19,000.

1.       ComfortDelGro
2.       SPH
3.       OCBC Bank
4.       DBS
5.       Ausnet Services
6.       Kep Inf Tr fKa CIT
7.       Metro
8.       ST Engineering
9.       Sembcorp Ind
10.   SGX
11.   Starhub
12.   Frasers Comm Tr
13.   CapitaLand
14.   AIMSAMP Cap Reit
15.   SATS
16.   OUE
17.   Keppel Corp
18.   Nam Lee Metal
19.   Ascendas Reit
20.   Nikko AM STI ETF 100
21.   CapitaComm Tr
22.   Stamford Land
23.   YZJ Shipbldg SGD
24.   United Engineers
25.   Saizen Reit
26.   Global Inv
27.   SingTel
28.   Mapletree Log Tr
29.   Sing Inv & Fin
30.   SingShipping

Portfolio Update - 30 October 2015

After a few months of volatility and southwards movement, I was glad to find STI recovered to above 2,900 points when I came back from my China (Xinjiang) trip. In fact the market looked rather good in October, and STI moved above 3,000 points. China's interest rate cutting and Europe's QE measure supported the stock prices. Singapore companies reported a mix results of the past quarters, but REIT's do generally quite well. Just as I thought that market should be on it's way up, US Fed's hint to raise interest rate in December rocked the market again. STI moved down again on the last 3 trading days of this month.

Compared to 22 Sep 2015 (that is when I updated my portfolio in September), STI moved up 133.04, or 4.64%. My portfolio trailed behind STI and moved up 3.47%.

This month, I bought some shares of Lian Beng, Stamford Land and Tai Sin Electric. I redeemed my holdings on Macquarie International Infrastructure Fund due to closure of the fund. Net cash injection into the portfolio was S$,19,676.83.

Total dividend income this month amounts to S$14,488.21. Majority of the dividend came from Unit trust, as dividend from shares was low this month.

With many companies already published their result and declared dividends in November and December, I am able to forecast the dividend income for the year. This year turns out to be a good year for dividend income. With the help of some special dividend (e.g. Boustead, KIT) and the investment in Unit Trust, my total passive income looks to hit S$150,000 this year. Before you, my dear readers start to 'wow' in admiration or envy, let me reveal to you that, this is the total dividend income from both shares and UT portfolio. Year-to-date, my stock portfolio alone has its value decline by 7.29%, and the dividend income from it only represents a return of slightly less than 6%. So all in all, I have a negative return (paper loss) in my stock investment this year. So, there is really nothing to shout at.

I added in this information so that I am not seem to always brad about my dividend income, and the reader will see a more complete picture. As I said in another post, investment in stock market is like a game, sometimes you win, sometimes you loss; or it's like 围棋, you win here, but loss there. My focus is on long term so this temporary loss can be tolerated.

Below are my top 30 holdings as at 30 October 2015: Two new comers in the group: Stamford Land and Ascendas H Trust.

1.       ComfortDelGro
2.       SPH
3.       OCBC Bank
4.       DBS
5.       Ausnet Services
6.       Kep Inf Tr fKa CIT
7.       ST Engineering
8.       Sembcorp Ind
9.       Metro
10.   Frasers Comm Tr
11.   SGX
12.   Starhub
13.   CapitaLand
14.   AIMSAMP Cap Reit
15.   Keppel Corp
16.   OUE
17.   SATS
18.   CapitaComm Tr
19.   YZJ Shipbldg SGD
20.   Nikko AM STI ETF 100
21.   Ascendas Reit
22.   Stamford Land
23.   Nam Lee Metal
24.   SingTel
25.   United Engineers
26.   Global Inv
27.   Sing Inv & Fin
28.   SIA
29.   Mapletree Log Tr
30.   Ascendas-h Trust

Investing in Stocks is like a game...

Investing in stock market is like a game, you win some, and loss some.

Just yesterday, I blogged about an announcement from HTL caused the stock price to surge almost 100% within a day. This morning, another announcement from Lippo that they may move two REIT's, namely First REIT and Lippomall Indonesia Retail Trust to Indonesia cause the price of these two counters to tumble. To rewind back a few days, an announcement from Saizen REIT that they received an offer for their assets caused its price to surge as well.

Retail investors have no access to these informations beforehand. By the time we know it, it's already to late to act as the prices would have already moved. So it is like a game to us, sometimes we win, sometimes we loss. For the above four counters, 2 went positive, and 2 went negative. So it wasn't too bad for me.

For this kind of unexpected news, there is ready not much we can do.Perhaps the only things we can do are:

1. invest only in stocks with good fundamentals, so the surprise won't be so dramatic.
2. diversify your portfolio, so the impact of such event won't be too big to swallow.

HTL International - Share price jumped 97% in one day

HTL has been one of my "boring" counters for many years. The share price has been quite stagnant, even on a declining trend. I keep it for it still pay dividend every year (except this year), and the NAV has stayed steady so far. Few days ago the trading was halt.

Today the company made and announcement that they have signed an MOU with a company from Shenzhen on "business transaction that will unlock shareholders' value" and lifted the trading halt.

When the market closed this evening HTL share price jumped 23.5 cents, or 97.92%! This is good news to all patient supporters of this counter. Huat Ah!

Portfolio Update - 22 September 2015

I normally update my portfolio at the end of the month. However, I will be going for my holiday in towards the end of September and will be back only on 7 October. So I decide to update my portfolio earlier this month.

Market continue to be nominated by China slowdown story. Now it seems that China market volatility and Yuan devaluation is pulling down everyone, even the Fed decided to postpone the rate hike. Singapore market continue to be volatile and trend downwards. No even the great PAP victory in GE2015 brought any respite to the market. Market has been somewhat directionless and doing Yo-yo the past few days. Overall sentiment is still bearish.

STI closed today (22/9) at 2868.47, down 52.97 points, or 1.81% from last month end. Surprisingly, my portfolio did much better than the index. Its value increase by 0.62% for is incomplete month. The positive result is due to good performance of REITs, YZJ and SATS.

I did not buy and shares from open market this month, but will receive some shares from OCBC via scrip dividend scheme. Total passive income received this month will be S$10,148.00.

Below are my top 30 holdings as at 22 September 2015. No change in the list, just swopping of positions.

1.       ComfortDelGro
2.       SPH
3.       OCBC Bank
4.       DBS
5.       Ausnet Services
6.       Kep Inf Tr fKa CIT
7.       Sembcorp Ind
8.       Metro
9.       ST Engineering
10.   Frasers Comm Tr
11.   SGX
12.   Starhub
13.   AIMSAMP Cap Reit
14.   Keppel Corp
15.   CapitaLand
16.   SATS
17.   OUE
18.   CapitaComm Tr
19.   Nikko AM STI ETF 100
20.   YZJ Shipbldg SGD
21.   Ascendas Reit
22.   Nam Lee Metal
23.   SIA
24.   Sing Inv & Fin
25.   United Engineers
26.   Global Inv
27.   SingTel
28.   CWT
29.   Mapletree Log Tr
30.   Lippo Malls Tr

GE2015 - My own analysis on Opposition's Loss

GE 2015 is finally over, with PAP winning close to 70% of the votes, getting back Punggol East SMC, and reducing PW's winning margins in Aljunied GRC. Many prominent people have given their opinion on why the PAP had this landslide win. Here is my own 2 cents worth on why the opposition did not do well this time.

First of all, opposition parties' strategic goal and action plan did not tally. Right from the beginning it was clear that the opposition parties did not aim to take over the government, but just wanted to increase the numbers of opposition MP's in the parliament. WP said it clearly, and the fact that each opposition party only contest less than 30 seats confirmed this. However, opposition parties ended up contesting all 89 seats available in the parliament. This created a theoretical chance that the PAP might be voted out of the government. Under this scenario, the voters who still want PAP to form the government but want some opposition voices in the parliament (I dare to say that there are a large number of voters in this group) was put in a precarious position. The fear that PAP might lose power would have cause them to think twice before casting their votes.

Analysing the voters' psychology, there are mainly 3 groups of them. Perhaps 30~40% (don't hold me for the estimated numbers) are diehard PAP supporters, 20~30% opposition supporters, and remaining are voters whose votes can be influenced. This group of people, if you ask them frankly, will want PAP to continue to be in power, but may want more opposition voices in the parliament. The chance of a freak result scares them. The social media's publication on the massive turnout at oppositions' rallies reinforced the fear. Then came the "bookies' prediction list" before the polling day, which said that the PAP would lose this or that GRC and SMC further aggregated the fear. Could this has been the mean cause to the vote swing towards the ruling party?

Imagine the opposition had only contested 44 seats - effectively sending PAP back in power at nomination day. Would there be a by-election effect similar to the by-election, where Ah Lian won Punggol East SMC 2 and half years ago? There is no "if" in life and we will never find out, but it is worth a thought, isn't it?

There are surely other causes for the win. I think the result from GE2011 has sent PAP a strong signal and they have since done plenty of remedial work. Government has been more responsive since the last election (whether it is due to the presence of opposition MP's in parliament, I reserve my comment). Many policies have been implemented to help the needy. PAP has done tremendous ground work to approach the people. Pioneer generation, SG50 goodies, plus the passing of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, all these had worked in favour of the ruling party in my opinion. On contrary, the town council saga and how the WP handle it didn't work well for them.

To make the timing perfect, we have the economy slowdown in China and the region, political turmoil in our neighbour countries, immigration crisis in Europe...... Who would want another political crisis in SG?

Disclaimer: I am no political analyst, nor am I affiliated to any political party. The above is just me thinking aloud.

Topping Up My Retirement Account

I have passed the age of 55, and according to CPF rules, I cannot top up my Special Account, besides the monthly contribution from my employer. Yet because the government has raised the limit of minimum sum, CPF Board allows me to top up my retirement account, either by cash or transfer from money in OA. Cash top up enjoys tax rebate (limited to $7,000 per year).

Since I am still gainfully employed and pay quite a bit of income tax, I made a cash top up today to my retirement account. Since the money in RA enjoys the same interest rate as SA, this will go towards enhancing my retirement savings, on top of the savings from income tax.

What about you? Are you taking advantage on the high interest rate from CPF SA or RA?

Portfolio Update - 31 August 2015

August has been a bad month for share investors. Weakness in Chinese economy growth caused the Chinese stock market to slump. Of course the extreme volatility of Chinese stock market was also caused by the over-leveraging of the investors which has pushed the share prices to an insane height previously. The crash of Chinese stock market in turn affected the other markets, Singapore included.
On 24 August (which incidentally is my birthday), STI dropped 127 points on a single day! Many thought that the market is going to crash big time and were getting nervous. Fortunately STI recovered back to 2950 level by the end of the week. However the rally lag strength, and the index  dropped more than 1% today to close at 2921.44. For the whole month, STI droped 281.06 points, or 8.78%, making this the worst month in the past few years.

My portfolio value sank in tandem with STI. As at 31 August, its value decreased by 8.08% compared to end July. YTD portfolio value has decreased 11.26%. Unless stock market has a great rally towards the end of the year, the return of share investment this year is foreseen to be negative, even if dividends are taken into consideration. (I put this as a record here, it does NOT mean that I am overly concerned about the decline).

This month, I topped up shares of  Tai Sin Electric, Stamford Land, Ascendas-HT, CapitaR China Tr and STE. I am using the opportunity to increase these holdings to improve dividend income further. Total fund invested this month was S$31,425.00.

Dividend wise, August has always been a good month for dividends. This year is no exception. The total passive income received in August amounts to S$17,970.00, majority are from shares.

Below are my top 30 holdings as at 31 August 2015. There were not much changes as price drop was across the board. STE move up due to topping up, while Lippo Mall Tr replaces  SingShipping.

1.       ComfortDelGro
2.       SPH
3.       DBS
4.       OCBC Bank
5.       Ausnet Services
6.       ST Engineering
7.       Kep Inf Tr fKa CIT
8.       Metro
9.       Sembcorp Ind
10.   Frasers Comm Tr
11.   Starhub
12.   SGX
13.   AIMSAMP Cap Reit
14.   CapitaLand
15.   Keppel Corp
16.   OUE
17.   SATS
18.   Nikko AM STI ETF 100
19.   CapitaComm Tr
20.   Ascendas Reit
21.   YZJ Shipbldg SGD
22.   United Engineers
23.   Global Inv
24.   Nam Lee Metal
25.   Sing Inv & Fin
26.   SingTel
27.   CWT
28.   Mapletree Log Tr
29.   SIA
30.   Lippo Malls Tr

Scrips Dividend Scheme

Many high yield shares and trust (esp. REITs) offer scrip dividend scheme to the shareholders, i.e. shareholders can opt to receive shares instead of cash for their dividend. The advantage of the scheme is that shareholders can buy additional unit without paying commissions. The disadvantage is that he will have odd lot which is not easy to liquidate. To encourage shareholders to opt for scrip, companies will normally offer a small price discount to the shareholders.

I have been subscribing to scrip dividend schemes, as I normally hold my shares for very long period and don't mind to hold odd lots.

As August is the month when many companies pay dividend, I now have several "option forms" in my hand. Now with the share prices plunging last few days, a problem surfaces: Shares prices are now a few cents below the prices offered in the dividend scheme. I make me look "silly" if I opt to receive shares, since I can buy them cheaper from the market. Of course if one takes the commissions into consideration, the shares offered by scrip dividend scheme could still be "cheaper". Question is, will the share price continue to head south?

I will observe the market movement in the next few days and decide if I will subscribe to the scheme or receive cash.

Terminating Life Policies

I held a few life protection policies from various insurance companies, which I bought more than 25 years ago. At that time, I was convinced that I needed the policies as I just started working and was supporting my parents financially. If anything should happen to me, at least I would leave a sum of money for my parents. After I got married, I thought these policies would be good to protect my young family.

More than 20 years have gone by since then. With the passing of my parents, and graduation of my children, I think these life policies have served their purpose. Therefore I called on NTUC Income today to terminate the life protection policy. I also called my AIA agent to terminate my life policies with them.

I believe that we need different policies at different stage of life. At this stage, my need will be a good H&S policy.

Portfolio Update - 31 July 2015

Market has been very volatile in the month of July. STI started negative, swing back to positive territory, than dived into negative territory in a free fall fashion on the last few days of trading. Index was still up 1% on 24/7, but the last week completely wiped out this gain. As at 31 July 2015 STI closed at 3202.50, down 3.46% compared to last month.

My portfolio also also swung from positive to negative with the index. As at month end, its value declined  2.93%. 

This month, I bought into Nam Lee, Tai Sin, KepCorp and Metro. I sold all my shares in China Flex Pack, Koda, Courage Marine and FSL.

Total passive income amounts to S$14,007.00 and is mainly from unit trusts. Only S$460 is from shares.

Below are my top 30 holdings as at 31 July 2015. The changes in relative positions shows the volatility of the market. Nam Lee Metal is a new member in the list. together with CWT, they replace Lippo Mall Trust and FCT.

        1.       ComfortDelGro
        2.       SPH
        3.       DBS
        4.       OCBC Bank
        5.       Kep Inf Tr fKa CIT
        6.       Ausnet Services
        7.       Metro
        8.       Sembcorp Ind
        9.       Frasers Comm Tr
       10.   SGX
       11.   ST Engineering
       12.   Starhub
       13.   CapitaLand
       14.   AIMSAMP Cap Reit
       15.   Keppel Corp
       16.   OUE
       17.   United Engineers
       18.   SATS
       19.   Nikko AM STI ETF 100
       20.   YZJ Shipbldg SGD
       21.   CapitaComm Tr
       22.   Ascendas Reit
       23.   Global Inv
       24.   SingShipping
       25.   SingTel
       26.   Mapletree Log Tr
       27.   Sing Inv & Fin
       28.   CWT
       29.   Nam Lee Metal
       30.   SIA