Cory Diary : Portfolio Expenses YTD

Trading Expenses

A quick peek into trading expenses — it has hit slightly more than $3K, which marks the half-year point. Some people may find it excessive. Some traders probably think it’s not that much. Personally, unless it is way out of line, it’s just part of managing my portfolio business. A business.

In the early part of the year, I made some major shifts or continued efforts from last year. I sold down Ascendas REIT, which had been a core part of my portfolio, and switched most of it into banks.

In April, the portfolio underwent another large rebalancing — raising more cash from REITs to buy more banks and Keppel. I then ring-fenced most of the REITs into FCT and MIT as a defensive play. These actions basically accounted for half of the expenses.

The other half mainly went into exploring the US markets, which currently make up only 13% of the portfolio. I experimented with Vanguard ETFs, US Treasuries ETFs, ASML, and TSMC before settling on a US Big Tech peanut butter strategy. My latest silly move was to trade some NVDA, META, and MSFT — only to regret it and buy them back. This kind of approach doesn’t work well in the US market during the build-up phase. Another factor was using a non-custodian account, which probably cost me $500 or more.

What does the second half look like?

Most likely, there won’t be much increase in the US market allocation since the strategy has been finalized. As for the SGX side, it’s still uncertain — but any impact will be less of a concern since it will be done under a custodian account.

That’s all for today’s sharing.

Cory Diary

2025-06-28

CoryLogics Invest Chat - No Coin, No Porn, No Penny

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Disclaimer:

The articles presented in this blog reflect personal opinions and are intended for informational and sharing purposes only. Not responsible for any errors. Readers are advised to seek professional guidance when making financial decisions and should take full responsibility for their choices.

Cory Diary : Recovering Salaried Income Loss from Retirement

As a salaried worker, once our saving/investment pass a certain point, one may realised the monthly income we are getting in exchange for our productive hours relative to our portfolio size through years of saving/investment will get smaller over time.

When this happened, it maybe a good time to start preparation activities for managing one's investment portfolio to generate sufficient additional income to cover the income loss and retirement option may opens up. Depending how large is your portfolio or net worth, the needs of how much is enough is subject to individual situation.

Some may prefer drawdown plan, some want at least maintain portfolio to grow with inflation while there may some who want the portfolio to grow after expenses. This ties to expense needs and  investment risk.

For my situation, if I am to park most of my net worth into saving, is unlikely I will have enough to support my family in retirement. Even drawdown plan of the portfolio can be quite risky. How we adjust our investment is individual. There is no one size fit all model unless we go to the lowest common denominator which requires huge sum of money and therefore unlikely one can retire.

There are a few taps we can consider as a salaried worker. See chart.

The left is asset allocation, and on the right is the cash generated from each asset. The main asset which is Equity, covers much bigger % slices of the cash flow needs. The least productive in the chart is gold which generate no income.

Fixed deposits in percentage wise comparison between the two pie chart only generate half it's allocation. Normal saving account is the worst which only support 0.2% of cash flow despite 4.4% allocation of net worth. So to me I always need to actively manage the minimal amount with buffer to support working cash needs for bills and immediate expenses. Right now 4.4% is still too high. Unless one has  significant wealth this has to be actively managed to low single digit. How low, only you can tell.

We can also optimize allocation in T-bills, SSB and Pension. The hope is that with the extra time in retirement, the additional cash we can generate from the portfolio could cover the income loss by moving them to more cash generative assets. This has to be done safely to ensure liquidity and market risk.

If we can execute this correctly, the return maybe greater. One maybe financially better off retired than continued working. Even if income is lower, it maybe worth our while if we have other priorities for the later half of our life. Do your math. 

Something to think about for fellow retirees. And again always dyodd as this tie to individual risk/needs, and I have to say, don't follow me ! I could be logically in error, mathematically wrong or my portfolio size is large enough for me to do what I wanted.

Cory Diary

2025-0615

CoryLogics Invest Chat - No Coin, No Porn, No Penny

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Disclaimer: The articles presented in this blog reflect personal opinions and are intended for informational and sharing purposes only. Not responsible of errors. Readers are advised to seek professional guidance when making financial decisions and should take full responsibility for their choices.

Cory Diary : Dividend updates

Did a slight revamp on how I track Rental Income to align to dividend received which is after cost. Which is net of maintenance, interest portion of monthly instalment, refurbishment, property tax and income tax.  In this way, the personal cashflow is clean ( WYSIWYG ).

To keep information more private, excluded the annual returns. Instead I would want to reflect the total dividend exceeded 700k on cumulatively basis.

What is surprising to me is that remainder of income in relative proportion to dividend is a subset after I adjust the data on rental to remove expected cost in total. This different stream of incomes are for reference purposes against dividend amount.

Not in table is CPF RA which will only be available at Age 65. Also not in table is capital gain/loss from equity. Theoretically, the latest update mean I am financially independent. ( Returns > Family Expense )

I am not resting here, and the hope is that on US Market can do some magic for me long term with some fund apportioned to it.

Cory Diary

2025-0608

CoryLogics Invest Chat - No Coin, No Porn, No Penny

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Disclaimer: The articles presented in this blog reflect personal opinions and are intended for informational and sharing purposes only. Not responsible of errors. Readers are advised to seek professional guidance when making financial decisions and should take full responsibility for their choices.