Cory Diary : Year 2021 Mid Year Performance

Is quite "Miraculous" that for the past 1.5 years Portfolio has been registering reasonable profit despite how damaging Covid does to our way of life and therefore economy. The fortunate thing is that we still have our jobs. I am still able to get most of my stuffs online. Taking care of both our toddlers at home full time.

One key lesson I learned for this period is not to ignore growth stock therefore initiate my investment in Overseas market. To-date after some adjustment from my initial stakes, I have them consolidated to 4 which combined, is nearly 8% of my Equity portfolio. They have finally registered positive returns after my bad start in technological stocks early this year. I am still in long learning curve and will increase my stake over time. They keep me excited at night.

At the same time, I have released some bond shares to increase my warchest which now grew to more than 6 digit figures. I have applied excess for iReit shares and hopefully this will increase my dividend further. My goal is still to continue to push for higher dividend annually for cashflow which has been great on covering my housing loan. Property is a hedge against inflation plus rental support with comfortable leverage regulated from risk else MAS will not be doing their job. LOL.

One key concept I believe in is very hard for interest rate to increase. I have multiple articles mentioned on this. There maybe fluctuation in-between but the rate overall will stay low. So allocation wise, shares investment is about 40% of my Net worth. Depending on who we talk to, some may say I invest too much while others could feel is too little. I do not have a good answer yet other than reaching a balance level that I can sleep well. And that could well be the answer.

If you have read my earlier article, my focus is on Portfolio Size and Expense variables. ( link )

Which reminds me that I need to continue to find ways to grow my portfolio in a safe manner to support higher expenses.

For the first half of this year, absolute return finally hit near to 7% YTD and just 3 % away from STI Index which has been performing very well this year. Chart on the right. Is a creeping fight, back to back as my portfolio do not have enough Bank shares to grow with STI. Neither do I have enough growth stocks. So to able to close the gap over this time, I am happy. There is still more work to do.

Dividend wise Collected $30,729 which is on track to hit on sustainability basis more than $60k this year. ( 5k jump from Year 2020 ). Portfolio Size hits another ATH ( Chart on the left ) but that includes War Chest in trading account which has ballooned.

I am excited how this will end for Year 2021 with few surprises on my cards

1. Lifting of Bank Curb

2. Oversea Stocks Dynamics

3. iReit PO and Excess

4. Further recovery of Reit shares

5. Vicom result

6. Netlink BNB Tr surprise, if any

7. Currency as my portfolio now have many different exposures

Cheers

Cory

2021-0701

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.

Cory Diary : Jolted in my Sleep

I have this Fear again. Remembered the series of relapse after graduating of occasional lingering dreams that I am late for exam, not ready on certain subject, missing important classes etc. So I am fully aware on my emotional fear deep down coming to formulate my dreams.

The recent fear is in similar situation where after the human mind is conditioned to do things resulting in stress accumulation. And when it ended or plan to end in this case, the dark side appears in our lingering dream. Is something like PSTD though probably in milder form.

I have been working for more than 20 years and now towards early retirement and semi is not in the card yet. Knowing myself psychologically, I need to be mathematically safe before I take the leapt. Yes, the binary problem which I just blogged in my last article. Is pretty hard to shake it off. That's the angle that may come useful to explore too.

For now what are the things broadly. Is basically Money. How many people is not ? Money cannot solve everything but no money definitely cannot.

1.    Young Family

2.    Home Loan

3.    Portfolio Safety and Returns

4.    Maximize CPF VC Contribution till 55

So probably occasional jolts won't subsides till I get my Math right on my income generation asset or robust plan to get it through. And maybe after will still have few instances of recurrences.

Financial Status

Working Expenses Fund

Two years of working expenses in cash

CPF

CPF RA will kick in on Age 65 which will supplement my income after 14 years. This also align my daughters age to college. To optimize my returns, I need to maximize VC till 55 where SA allocation is at it's highest. This potentially means tapping on free cash that I am reluctant to make. The plan is to ensure my investment bonds are reduced accordingly to zero except for SSB. Fortunately, the amounts will match what I needed and likely more. 

Whether I will contribute further after 55 will depends on Free Cash Flow and CPF policies. It will be interesting to know by then.

Non-Salary Income

Dividend Income today is capable to cover annual Home Loan. So technically speaking, there is no worry of paying housing loan. Whatever additional free cash will be for living expenses. And that's the point. Living expenses sufficiency. So the crux of the matter is I will be quite dependent on this dividend income for living expenses if I am to retire today.

I still have rental income support as well that I have yet bring onto the table. Well I have decided this income leftover will be buffer since I am not allocating Loan payment on it.  Rental income covers Maintenance, Tax, Repairs, Upgrade, Insurance Payments and Parental Allowances. As you can see, Rental income is quite sizeable therefore I think is a bad idea not to let local benefits from rental market which can well support their retirement.

14 years of Home Loan Outstanding

Currently,

Reserved Two years of Home Loan Installment in cash

Secured Three years of Home Loan Installment in Bond

I could eliminate the Two years of reserved cash to 6 months, this will optimize my returns. The three years in bonds will be use for general emergency long term as the returns are reasonable. 

Opportunity Fund

10% of  Portfolio Opportunity Fund currently. This fund is critical because is active managed and helps to grow my dividend income. How to maximize it returns will be tougher as I may need it quickly. Putting them into bond or fixed returns that affects my response time or sell price won't be good either.

Maybe maintaining 15% of portfolio value for Opportunity fund seems a better balance and not too much idle. One way is to sell some of my portfolio when the market is in euphoria stage. This will secure 15% needed with shrinking portfolio value and growing cash. Dividend will be reduced. However since I have some idle free cash now, I should have them injected to increase my opportunity fund instead.

Market Returns

Well after going through so much on managing my finance, it looks like I am set to go. The final is the broad market returns. Frankly Speaking, Investing in Stock Market has been fruitful exercise. See below chart on over the years return. Absolute Profit vs Year.

The cumulative gains switching to dividend play has been amazing. To be be truthful I don't see myself getting rich from it versus the Net Worth I have accumulated. The gains likely mirror similar to a landlord. 

Even though I have stepped into US market a little. Most of my Portfolio gains over the years are still unrealised gain being a dividend player.

Looking at the chart carefully since 2018, if we include this year, there will be 3 years of strong profitable returns. The chance of 4th in the Year 2022 is lesser based on my track record. Maybe time for me to be prepared for a curve ball. So my take is I will hold on to the larger Opportunity Fund amount more stringently.

If the market continues to move up in my 4th year, I am happy else I have a larger Opportunity fund to buy in. Sounds like an exciting plan though mitigated.

In summary

The plan will be as follow except that the stage in blue will need to be very careful.

2 Year cash reduced to 6 months -> 15% Opportunity Fund -> Invest fund greater than 15% opportunity allocated -> Grow dividend well above annual home loan -> Support living expenses

Retirement where Living Expenses is covered by Increase in Dividend Income above loan and returns outside Shares dividends. No draw down planned.

End Goal

15% opportunity fund

Home loan covered by dividend income

Living expenses covered by additional incomes

2 years of living expenses

3 years of general emergency fund

6 months of cash buffer

Quite sure this will not be the end of it. I will be back again to straighten things out.

Cory

2021-0627

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.

Cory Diary : Annualized Returns since Year 2007 and Earlier

One of the interesting way to measure share investor performance is to use XIRR for multi-years computation. And this can be done easily summing up all the years of transactions that we usually keep annually.

If you are aware, in some measure, past year very old data may "cloud" years of recent performance. Some may practice 20 years cutoff as a compromise. For Cory Annualized Performance we can try as follows.

14 Years of Annualized Result

ANNUALIZED

Cory Annualized Performance ...

of last 14 Years will be 7% which starts from one year before 2008 GFC. This is captured in above chart. This returns pretty align with 3 Years and 5 Year benchmarks.

If we retain the recent years of data only,

Last 03 Years will be 7.1%

Last 05 Years will be 7.5% 

Last 07 Years will be 5.2% which reflects poor returns in Years of 2014, 2015 and 2016 periods

Last 10 Years will be 6.1%

GOALS

Therefore for Year 2021, the Goal is to be above 7.5 % Annual Return in order to improve in all the above levels. And therefore achieve consistent above 7% returns.

Stretch goal for Year 2021 will be 17.8% annual return to achieve 8% annualize of 15 years. That is how hard to move a needle of 1% on 14 years data. This will be a tough one to get for a dividend portfolio and may required some re-engineering on my part. I will need to put a thinking cap on this.

STI ETF

For STI, is -0.7% for 14 Years annualized data. STI Index has never recovered after Year 2009 rebounds. So if we are to include STI ETF dividends probably 3%-4%. We can try 3 Years and 5 Years data and I bet they will not be swimming well. This broadly defines the impact to Singapore Economy on Oils Sector follow by Covid-19.

I remember reading a challenge on re-investment of STI ETF every time dividends are distributed by STI ETF. What will the returns be like for the past 14 years then ?  To save time to do this. Allocated 11.5 cents dividend to each year and reinvest equally on 1st and last date of their respective year closing share price. The estimated answer I found is 3.2%.

Cory

2020-0105

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.

Cory Diary : Long Term Investment Results

There are few tricks when come to investment and there aren't much magical about it so far from my experience. A lot is common sense and this comes with personal experience or read up of others. Here's my result so far. The drawdown has been low. Gains have been accumulating. Portfolio size has grown many times.

Here's pointers. I think Point 8 is most important.

1. Be Risk Adverse : Position Sizing of each stocks even if average down. One way is to buy another stock of similar traits and average down by industry or different segments. There are usually bad reasons for a high yield stock else is a gem. Again sizing is important.

2. Cut Loss : Never wait for breakeven. Say one invested in stock 50k and loss 25k. A rebound happens and now loss is reduced to 15k but still deep loss. Cut loss if fundamental has change for the worst. Of-course if one is confidence that we can sell with gain and not due to false hope, it could make sense.

3. Take profit/buildup in stages : A speculative stock I may take 50% off table first. In good fundamental stock maybe 15%. There is no hard rule on % range for each stage. Some stocks may never start selling till price point hits. Same for increasing the size in an equity that we do in stages over time. 

4. Use TA for guidance : For some human behavior reasons there are tendency for stocks to move to around resistance levels. Make use of them for entry or exit. Not always.

5. FA for selection : Something to fall back on when broad market is down. You want to bet on something that will be uptrend long term while short term there are fluctuations. Management integrity is important. If we sense or find there is suspicion of potential misconduct or legality, avoid.

6. Diversification : For risk adverse, this can reduce our gains but we also cover our down sides. We can have bonds to minimize portfolio fluctuations however make sure it does what you hope too and not increase your risk. Amount allocation depends on each.

7. Peace of minds : If any position cause me to keep thinking or have sleepless night. Act on it quickly. The actions may cost but in the long run we will have healthy minds and body. And this is needed to manage our portfolio and our life.

8. Treat your portfolio as a holding company : And each stock a company in your holding. Unlike real life owner running their own company, stock investors have the flexibility to adjust the percentage of each company to manage the risk and rewards. With this mindset, is really a business of managing your holding company.

The above best describe my investment behaviors.

Cheers

Cory

2020-0102

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.

Cory Diary : Year 2020 Performance

Year 2020 has been quite tough. Both STI and Cory Performance have been underwater for most part of the year till early Nov when we see a significant breakout. The year is best remembered for Covid-19 freezing up the broad economy excepts for the Basic essentials, Medical Protective equipment  and technological companies.

For Dividend Players, depending on the specific segment we focus on, have range of impact to performing ones. Hospitality stocks are significantly hit. Retail Malls are bad. Industrial and DCs are doing well.

STI dives deep into negative territory and at it worst more than -30% in Mar'20. It then do a surprise leap from -25% to -10% range before settling at -11.7% for the year. Including dividend probably around -8% range.

Cory Portfolio do a further rise in a not-so-tandem to STI index and ended up with +5.4% beating the Index by 17% margin or around 13% if we include STI ETF dividends. Do keep in mind Cory portfolio has about 23% allocated to fixed return investment in low yield bonds. All this is relative. Compared to significant Tech rise, Bitcoins and medical stocks who benefitted from the Covid-19 situation, the Portfolio returns is mediocre.

The disappointment for this year is the dividend cap on the banks and the rebates by the retail malls which directly hits Cory Portfolio. While the banks have recovered in stock price, I still wish the cap to be removed. The malls have yet returned to their previous price level. It will takes some time and hopefully we get to see it in Year 2021.

What I did well is to clear hospitality stock before the march crash which have my down side protected. Investment in AGT bears fruit as well. What not so good is to clear all my STI ETF right before the Nov Climb which mute my recovery a little. However this put the portfolio in better yield position in the future.

Right now It appears the Portfolio has reached certain limits and for a breakthrough in Year 2021 the banks need to have the caps removed and Retail Reits will need a more robust business recovery. I may also consider exploring for more growths.

With limited risk mitigated option, Year 2020 investing in CPF is not a bad idea at this moment but we can only do so much as funds are basically locked away for long time. Do we have to explore more in Year 2021 ?

Happy New Year !

Cory

2021-0101

Articles in this Blog is personal take and educational purposes only. Reader should seek their own professional help when making financial decision and be responsible for their decision.

Cory Diary : Performance Nov'20

In my earlier blogging which I mentioned that it is better for me to be in the Green than to widen the lead against STI with Portfolio still in the Red. And my wishes is awarded as such by end of October. The gap final close down to 15.7% which reflects remarkable STI returns within a short span of time cutting it losses just below 13% and probably single digit after dividends. My portfolio returns almost 2.8% in the black on the last day of the month.

If we look how the year started with Covid-19 and how the bleak the situation is, many people would be surprised that we could end in the black for STI. Nothing impossible. We shall see how it performs in Dec. Currently, after a good run, there is some correction.

 

What is hindering STI is probably Vaccines solutions in which countries are rushing them out in record time. The damage to the economy specifically to the Airlines are long term even if the economy recovers. I am also a little reluctant on Hospitality as they will need to do much more to repair their balance sheets. I would think some how we need to price in Virus risk into their stock price.

As for the laggards, Retail Malls which are quite cheap for those that support daily necessity. So this are ones which I am positioning. Others possible contenders will be SBS Transit, SATS and ST Eng. There is some trading play on the Banks but it will remains a key stake as I have emptied my STI ETF.

There are also a few others like MLT and MIT which I decided to KIV unless they comes down enough to improve their yield. I really likely to own them but the situation has to be right. Maybe I will kickstart with small positions if there is further reduction in their prices as AGT has make it way out of the portfolio after the 2nd tranche has been distributed.

Lastly I am tempted to return to Sheng Siong .... except that valuation is not cheap. Perhaps I need to be more patience. 

Cory

2020-1202

Cory Diary : Wash my Cards ( 大洗牌 ) - US Election Fever

This week has been nothing but tumultuous. The past few days market drop send worrying reminder on what happened in this year March. People who time it well that time or yield play has a record recovery while those who left and never seen again have only regrets. This time round is likely due to re-resurgence of Covid 2nd Wave in EU and US Stimulus Talk held up prior to US Election.

The Market has been in the mode where sell down happens very quickly while the climb back up is over a long period of time. Therefore it seems that is usually good that we have opportunity funds or so called War Chest when such event happens. Alternatively, what I do is to reduce my holdings on non-core stakes this week regardless of profit/losses so that I could re-deploy them later. Cash is King as said. I would think about 30% of Non-Fixed portfolio probably.

This time round, Reits are slightly harder hit as you can see from the chart on the dive for reason I think is due to past weeks relatively directionless market. Many of this business are earning good money just lesser due to Covid rebates or lockdown. So in that perspectives, correction could happen but that should be relatively mute compared to businesses that are in long term downtrend. So technically speaking, we should buy more as it goes lower. Just watch the bullets and pace to do it.

Considering we have been working from home for months, robin hood and robo-investing are aplenty dabbling in the stock markets. Property curbs not helping. In all historical crashes my feel is that the market has new players who are not adverse to risk finally meet their fear inflection point who are not in tune of what recession actually means. With a bigger influx this time round driving up DJIA and Bitcoins as we can see in US Markets. With Covid Salary support package reducing, we could see more retrenchment locally. And this could mean a longer trend of poor job prospects.

In YTD performance, the portfolio recovered very well to parity in Mid-Oct but the last few days of volatility basically pulls it back down very quickly to -4.2%. This starts with almost 1K drops in DJIA. ( Pelosi not helping ). Even though the portfolio outperform STI ETF by more than 20%. (STI YTD is -24.7% YTD), there is no celebration budget out from it. The bleeding is fast and furious even though is more a cashflow in nature till we start getting out of market. This is despite the portfolio has about 21% bond allocation. ( Excluding SSB ).

The stop gap measure is  to do a major shake up of the portfolio eliminating non-core stakes such as Koufu, Ascendas-i Trust, and even MNACT which I was just building up... %@^%$(*. The final nail is the just released last Quarter result doesn't look pleasing as seems like the impact is worst than expected. So after deducting all the costs, is kopi money ytd for it.

Another major change in the portfolio is to clear-off STI ETF in my nominee account as banks stake in the portfolio are sizeable enough today. This will help improve the yield further when I re-invest the money.  One other shake-up is to reduce Aims Apac Reit by half (2nd Tier). In YTD perspective, is cut loss but risk lowered significantly for the portfolio. Feel comfortable about it since the DPU is no longer in significant advantage over say some of the core and larger reits can provide.

The goal is to protect capital, maximise dividend, risk adjusted.

Bazooka Ready.

Cory

2020-1031

Cory Diary : Performance YTD - Trump Tests Positive for the Coronavirus

The STI market was going well till it's decided to change downward course again today. This time for very different reason. The News is that Trump Tests Positive for the Coronavirus. He must be very disappointed that DJIA manage to held up (updated with table) as I typed. 

The talk about IN THING nowadays is the K-Shaped Recovery Economy.

What this may mean is 

1. The wealthy are recovering and the lower-earning are not.

2. The professional workers are largely fine and everyone else is doing awful.

3. Different parts of the economy recover at different rates, times, or magnitudes. 

Well, the wealthy usually does better in most recovery. And you can be a pilot and seriously out-of-job. So the first two points are more divisive opinions between the Rich and the Poor which will drives resentment against the Rich or Rightist view. Likely not going to help the poor but make it worst as this will pigeon hole their thinking. Driving ever increasing wealth gap.

I am more inclined on the last definition in general and this is best seen in stock market. A good example will be Cory Portfolio this year.

As you can see above, the general STI Index performs relatively bad. An understatement frankly not because of the heavier weightage of the Banks but in general in the index.

Relative to Cory which also has large amount of banks and STI ETF, comparatively still drives large gap from the index. The performance has widen by 21.3 points (updated) gap. It would have been even wider have I indulge myself in some tech or medical stocks that I have been consistently avoiding. Oh ! my pain.

So YTD, XIRR -1.3% whereas STI has fallen to -22.5% (corrected). Dividend wise it has been crazy because AGT do a major distribution from the golf sales so YTD more than 89K ... That's a huge jump one time in exchange for capital reversion.

Cory

2020-1003

Cory Diary : Aug Performance '20

Is already Mid-Aug and I was pondering whether to do a performance tracker update. The reason I did not do one early part of the month because I knew the coming price adjustment with Accordia Golf Trust and I am also in the process of mitigating the dividend income loss from the Golf Course sales. So with the news more or less definite near term and coming up with a plan on driving returns the chart may returns.

As below Chart, the gap widens to 19.1% against STI Index. I think one partial reason is due to ETF dividend just distributed. Cory returns -1%. Theoretical fund annual dividend has come down to 59k Covid returns.

Chart : Returns Comparison

As the yield gets lower with recovering market, new fund injection has to work much harder for the same dollar amount. However I need to compensate the dividend loss from AGT, and that's easier said than done. For one I try to avoid USD denominated counters as I find it a hassle which Reits are driving higher yields. Then I have enough banks exposures so any increase will be over allocation percentage. I also have same issue with increasing my stake in CMT.

There are few things I could do now.

1.    Increase my fund injection to drive higher dividends

2.    Re-balance my STI Index ETF to something else of higher yield.

3.    Not renew my Fixed Deposits that expired

4.    Reduce my cash holdings

5.    Exchange my foreign fixed deposits to local currency

I hope to do all above partially in measured ways.

Cory

2020-0818

Cory Diary : End June Report - Portfolio Performance

After mute May Month, early June shows enthusiasm but the Market quickly starts to fizzles out by mid-June. STI ended Negative -19.6% YTD. This is one of the bad year to be in the market so far. Generally Banks, Telco, Commodity, Tourism, Transports and Oil related counters suffers. Oil related and Telco counters have been dragging their feet for years which the portfolio did well to avoid.

The market can be worst if people still don't go back to work and learn how to live with the Covid-19 virus. There seem no readily answers and continue to close the economy generally results in higher crimes rate, unemployment, home evictions, millions of unrelated deaths simply people cannot afford or able to seek medical attention for other illness. Social unrest becomes stronger and so is nationalism. 

What is even more critical is the Depletion of saving that can be use for investment to generate money for future retirements. A double blows. So is important for people who is yet ready for retirement to make sure they have a job and take the opportunity to buy the lows.

Cory Portfolio is at -2% which has 17% lead against STI currently as above chart. There is some timing trades this month. Basically SBS Transit lucky timing and the buy over of AGT golf courses. As I said previously, AGT investment mainly follow AK leads in earlier article. 

As for SBS transit, I thought the opening up will stop the downtrend which indeed it did. Since is a speculative trade, I have to take profit.

This are the 2 key events that partially help support the portfolio this month.

Cory

2020-0701

 

Cory Diary : Market Recovery

Market Recovery

We just have the steepest decline in STI in March. And when Circuit Breaker (CB) kicks in and enormous Covid-19 packages to support the economy,  is already on purpose that we will not have V-Shape recovery simply because it was once extended and now follow by gradual openings. So the Index is also more like an "L-shaped" with a bias elevation for gradual recovery as below STI Index chart. With Index at -14.5% and judge by recent just one week 6% recovery, is not impossible that at the ending part to be a "Slanted U-Shaped" though chances are the probability is lesser.

This week Banks make major recovery, though the banks segment in my portfolio is smaller is still a large part of the portfolio, and it just flows with it though slightly slower.  As today, Cory Performance YTD is back to positive by a hairline of 0.02% to be exact and 14.5% above Index (excluding index 1st half div). Theoretical max annual div $59k. Key stocks that I can remember off-hand are Ascendas, CMT, DBS, OCBC. STI Index, Netlink, CRCT .... which totaled about 20 stocks.


Market Relapse

The market may face a situation as we are opening up that we could see spikes in Covid-19 community cases but will we have to return to "CB" again ? Personally I think is unlikely we will face a spike similar to dormitories infection scale in the country. As previously mentioned, we have learned how to manage it through social distancing and mask. Neither will it be tenable for the country to go through CB again and another round of same Covid support packages. It will also be a little embarrassing for the ruling party to face coming election with confidence. 


What this mean is the economy has to continue to open. And if there is major cluster infections, we will have to ride through it. How to work around this with other countries will be tricky. So the economy will churn on. Many of us who can will probably continue to Work-from-Home ( WFH ) to void major cluster happening in Offices. However, most of the businesses such as Show Gallery, Malls and Restaurants are likely to stay open. 


A historical day for Cory of finally breaking even in Investment for 2020. Great day for Dividend Investing and staying vested. Hopefully it will last ! I am sure many others do too. As I type, DJIA staged near 1K point recovery above 27K in trading hour due to better job figures. Looks like Trump may have what he wanted.


Cory

2020-0606

Cory Diary : May'20 Performance and Financial Review

Broad View

For the past 5 months the market has been rattled by Covid-19 and is still on-going. Things seem to get better when they learned more about-the virus and how to manage it more efficiently. The amount of rescue packages are so significant I am not sure how long we can sustain this amount. To be fair, the hope is for a quick V-shape recovery without significant lost in jobs.

Coming June, with the pace of opening up expects to gear up, things may not be the same again. The cost of business is going to get higher which could mean our expenses are going to go up as we have to move past the on-going virus in our community and needs for engagement with the world. Post-Covid will be a phase of managing Covid and not no more Covid. Not unexpected, there will be "Green Lane" between countries providing a network of safe passage for their passengers and therefore their economy. The channels between China-Singapore will be important for tourism.

Over the week we have on-going crisis between US and PRC in which HK is now the battle ground. I have seen how Americans beaten Russia (Cold War), Japan (Economic Miracle), and how they take on Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria,Zimbabwe, Cuba, Iraqi, Indonesia , Ukraine Issues into submission, War or Economic destruction. Each time they prevail by Hook or by Crook. Things could look uglier. "Is a fight like I am willing to take a stab as long you take more."" So one of the concern is will it be like a two steps fall we faced in Year 2008 GFC. 


Investment

The main reason I do investment in stock market is to get meaningful returns to support retirement by not taking too much risk for a gamble on a quick-rich scheme. This is reflected in capital injection in net has been fluctuating zero and as of today is not quite observable so far on additional investment. Due to that as you can see below Pie Chart, my savings are up. Stock Equity portion reduced with increase in bonds.

There is a lot of capital recycle and re-balance through opportunity based quick turnaround trading. So if I am to put broadly between Pre-Covid and now, I would say the portfolio size remains about same (including investment cash), small loss currently but with much higher dividends yield of $58k currently vs $53k in Year 2019.  Squeezing out 5K for a 5% yield product requires S$100k for that matter. So you could say I just got 5k more dividends out of thin air but this is in context that a few of the stocks I have will report lower dpu such as CMT and CRCT (I presume).  The Portfolio is more robust today as is structure with increase bonds and more defensive counters or recovering ones.

In portfolio management I have the experience of being easily succumb to fallacy of large number of counters that we could take reckless risk on the rationale that is just a few percentage of the overall allocation. Therefore I have more than fair share of fees to be paid to the market which over time can be costly to portfolio compounded returns. This have changed much in recent years to control such behaviors of feeling rich.

There are still times where it is unavoidable due to black swan or misstep that we encounter lemons. This is where portfolio sizing comes in and ability to cut loss when needed. I would be careful to say that mitigation is not itself justification for higher risks. As I wrote this, remembered a passage in Michael Leong Investment book on his thought process of cutting loss during major recession which I adapt with some modifications to suit my risk profile and retirement needs. Basically retaining core investment and doing timing trades for obvious.


Performance

For the month of May performance, P/L YTD -3.8% (Xirr - 4.1%). This is much better than STI Index YTD -22% (or very roughly -20% after taking it's div into consideration). So the reduction of bank segment kind of improves a bit. The higher cash build-up and higher dividends in the portfolio is what I wanted for now. I would probably have to see what's next when the economy opens up.

Retail Reits have been enjoying recovery in their prices with easing of Covid measures. To be factual there is still some way to go to Pre-Covid level but regardless one or two steps fall this counter is for long haul. Nevertheless most others Reits are somewhat within the fluctuation boundary prices then or above. Having half the portfolio with Reits/Trust surely enjoyed the recovery provided we do not have lemons within. ie EHT. This is something I need to constantly remind myself to not go just for yield or to gamble recklessly.

To end, do invest safely and with due diligence. This time can be different but we never know.


Cory
2020-0530

Cory Diary : Reits/Trust Portfolio Review Mid-May Period and Performance Report

In 14th April article, I did a Reit/Trust Portfolio review. Here's the link. Since then how has my portfolio goes ? This article needs to read contingent to this link which I won't be repeating here but will be better to have more complete read.

ASCENDAS-ITrust
Some return on this. Took 50% profit and leave the rest for longer term investment. Rationale is Business Park is lesser impacted and DPU will not be badly hit. There is some future DC play but I like to get some buffers.

ACCORDIA GOLF TR
Hold decision looks right as the price is stable. Is still a speculative and asset play. They are a bit slow in the offering which probably due to Olympic delay and trying to time for cheaper price with Covid situation in Japan.

AIMS APAC REIT
Riding with the market. Quite please with the quarterly report.Due to risk allocation I could not expand more. This is small reit but their management looks good. Hopefully they stay that way and not lapse.

ASCENDAS REIT
See some run up since then. Nice rebound. A Core position for me. The yield is not so (typo) high so I wouldn't want to expand more. So happy with what I have as the business is a rock.

CAPITAMALL TRUST
Waiting for up turn when CB measure is relieved. Doing some trading.  Continue to hold as I have confidence in Singapore to ride through this despite recent dormitories issues. Matter of time the public and gov may have to face the Virus head-on and live with it.

CapitaR China Tr
No change ad continue to hold. Positive with the Malls ability to return. Yield is good. And the chinese measures are stringent enough to prevent major outbreak. Life will return to normal but business wise we have to see how it goes politically.

IREIT Global
One of the Reit which corrected quite significantly though unjustly few months ago. At today price, this counter manage to broke even as I trade in/out taking good advantage of investors emotion dynamic with global markets.

MAPLETREE IND TR
Cleared completely for counter consolidation with good gains.

FRASERS L&I TR
Received strong gain for just 2 months investment period. I am out on this one as the profit is too good and the upside is limited imo now. Is a good Reit and the yield still ok but I feel there is time for everything.

MAPLETREE NAC TR ( Updated )
With the onset of possible demo, decided to clear this position. For the short duration investment period, the returns are pleasing. It would have been larger have I sold all earlier.

NETLINK NBN TR
Staying on-course. Happy with the amount of exposure I have. Not much to say except similar to earlier link.

FRASERS CPT Tr
Finally make my return on  this counter with some initial purchase. I think hard on this one as I have CMT but the customers are not exact the same. It also provide some Alpha and the price is quite beaten but the future is there. Retail malls have been hard hit due to CB. The cases in community is getting into the right direction so any relieve from CB is good news. Singapore cannot do without malls.



PORTFOLIO
Portfolio 55% Reits/Trust and 17% Fixed Investment allocations. Currently I feel the portfolio is well-balanced.  All the changes and plan are for peach of mind which mean I do miss out some gains. One misgiving is the non-reit side which I sold Sheng Siong for lesser profit and since ran up much further. Market is funny because it only ran up in the midst of Covid and not earlier. Expanded Bank segment earlier also help to push some gain and dividends but this has to be quickly scale down slightly as i feel the allocation is too large. Hopefully this do not reduce the gap performance with STI.

Cory Portfolio -7.7% P/L YTD.
STI -21.6%. ( exclu. div) so probably -20%.

Some balance cash raised for next round of investment. Two more weeks to go. Looking forward to Worker recovery and business to re-start. The focus in my mind is how to shield from external macro factor slightly more.



Cory
2020-0516

Cory Diary : Warren Buffet - Performance in perspective

One thing good about internet to the investment community is that it narrows the gap between people with privilege information and those who don't. This mean those who are rich or hedge funds do not always have the large edge they once do.



Performance since Year 1990

A quick search on the internet on Warren Buffet performance in Berkshire Hathaway Inc. as follow.

1st Jun 1990 Stock Value $7,300
1st May 2020 Stock Value $ 273,950

Pretty amazing value growth. That's mean for every $7300 invested  in the Year 1990 which is 30 years ago, the return is 38 times at today value even after significant write down by the company due to Covid-19. XIRR wise is 13% over the 30 years period for an Investment Guru. For a Singaporean, the exchange rate changes from 1.74 to 1.42 across this long period. After adjustment will be 12.1%.


Performance since Year 2007

How does Cory performance since Year 2007 compounded. XIRR = 6%. That's half his compared to above. For consolation, STI Index is around 2% inclu. div..... .. ...

How about Berkshire Hathaway Inc. In USD since Year 2007. Is only 7.3%. Surprise ! What-if in S$ ?  That's 6.7%. That's not a lot above Cory. Maybe the company is holding too much cash ?


Cory
2020-0503

Cory Diary : Performance Apr''20

Mentally I have been preparing for the day as when the portfolio gets bigger, every 1% drop translate to much bigger absolute figures. In Year 2008 GFC, the portfolio suffers about 50% losses however the losses amount to $50,000. In Year 2020, the portfolio got hits with more that 24% loss however this translates to $250,000 loss. 5 times highers but with less than half % portfolio reduction. This are just Math and if we are to go through stock market history this can happen. If this doesn't happen, we probably not investing enough.

To mitigate this issue mentally especially so for a salary person, my idea is to Buffer the Fear from the market. This is one primary reason why investment in bonds, gov securities and fixed deposits. Even emergency cash is higher. So what is not seen in equity tracker is SSB, FD and Cash but we do have bonds as it is traded in SGX. There are few times I am tempted to sell my SSB but decided it does not make sense considering they are delivering 2%-2.5% guaranteed for many years to come.

Cory Portfolio has a mixed of STI Index, Bonds, Reits, Blue Chips and a small percentage in SMEs. So when the sell down begins due to Covid-19, Banks, Reits and STI Index are heavily sold down. However, core stock assets continue to be held. In fact some injection is done to collect stocks on the cheap slowly as previously mentioned. There is also some re-balancing to consolidate and invest.

As of today, the stock portfolio is -6.5%.  XIRR about -6.9%. STI Index at -18.5%. So by such measure we are 12% ahead or roughly 10% if we include STI ETF dividends already distributed.

There is still good amount of cash to buy if the market turns south however I am reluctant to tap them unless we have clear trend that the market is getting much worst or the worst is over.

There are few things which I did. One is doing some trading between the volatility. There is not much fundamental to speak of but just a relative risk assessment when market mis-priced certain stocks. This happen a lot more nowsaday.

The month of May will be interesting because we know a lot of dividends get distributed usually on this month which probably explains why "Sell in May movement". This year quite a number of dividends got retained or cut. Well I could be wrong but no plan to do major changes in my portfolio. If the sell down is a little severe I could start my buying again.

As for stocks selections, there are quite a few I would avoid other than the usually S-Chips.
If we go by sector will be Transport, Commodity, Hospitality, Medical and Telco Stocks. Most SMEs and Penny Counters. This left with me STI Index, Banks, Reits and a selected few generally. 



Cory
2020-0520

Cory Diary : Performance YTD 4/18 and aftermath

This few months has been interesting experience. For new investor is harrowing ones. If I could remember we are near the time frame where SARs basically stabilized and market was in recovery process. Covid-19 impact is not the same in the sense we have Trade War, Currency War and Oil Impacts going-on all rolled into one. This Pandemic is much more wider hitting shores of Europe and Americas. How long this will take is anybody guess.

For me personally, birth of 2nd Daughter, increase Job Scope and some personal harrowing life experiences all rolled during this period.  Expenses will be expected to shoot up though not as much as first born. My wife chipping in to help on nappy and nanny expenses. She sold all her shares before Covid-19 really hits. Shiok ah ! More money for my investment. 😂

At one time my portfolio is down $250k which is 5 times of Year 2008 GFC amount but interestingly I do ok mentally but just a bit fuzzy when wife called me on some errands. Well, STAYING VESTED in market is so important because portfolio recovered significantly for my Portfolio setup and selection. I want to mention this because different selection may gives different result. I still have about 50% warchest to play with. Don't think we are out of the wood yet because I can't confirm. LOL

Reits gearing increase to 50% is the positive step to take as this will alleviate needs for rights issue with deferred payment of tenants. Even without this deferment, I think this should have been done for GFC 2008 as well that time. Anyway this is just regulatory paper play. Just like USA unlimited QE. Thanks for this, the world probably adverted Depression. Depression is not the emotional aspect that I am referring to in case some new investors thought this is what I mean but certainly will lead to if the GREAT DEPRESSION is not adverted. This event if one is to search through history is horrible to the poor and middle class. We will stop complaining of the money printing because the cost is much much cheaper. It may rewards the Rich but not everyone.

Taking stock on current portfolio status. Reits/Trusts abut 59%. Fixed Equity 16%. Portfolio yield dropped to 6% because of recent "market euphoria". Is not the perfect description of it as we are still in recovery phase or ...... ( touch wood). Performance wise -8% roughly. We have 10% gap between me and STI Index.  Slightly lesser after considering Index dividends issued. Starting to take stock of my loan, asset, FD, SSB, emergency funds and free cash again for the next stage of development. Yes, the more cash the merrier ... 2 more weeks to go.


Cory
2020-0418

Cory Diary : Survival Badge

Cory has gone through SARs 2002 , Asian Financial Crisis 1997 and Global Financial Crisis 2008. We also have Grexit, Brexit, Tsunami and China Sneeze 2007. Looks like Covid-19 will be another if we survived and why not for a dividend investor. In fact we should thrive to drive through next higher level of dividends.


The main key is capital preservation and allocation. To achieve both, the emotional aspect of an investor is in question. Cory do this by having 25% Bonds today. As family man, state of mind is important especially 2nd daughter just born ! And time is limited to monitor the market as he wishes.


This is a figure that balance reasonable money left for dividend Investing and growth. The other is to size the core equity segment to the size where in worst case situation Cory can hold and sleep. Their business fundamentals are stable. Fill the remaining gap with STI index if picking skills not so good like Cory.


For reit investment,  everything is good at the right price. If the yield is so low that sudden market volatility can erases few years of dpu, it makes senses to reduce or cut them. Cory did that with Ascendas previously. And then buy back some in stages.


Even after all this, the next key issue is home. How do we keep our mental state healthy from loan debt. Some people do this by zeroing out the home value in their net worth even when the property is fully paid up. Cory does it by allocating cash into FD, SSB and larger emergency fund. This aren't tracked in portfolio.


So how do Cory do so far for a Reit heavy portfolio with a declining Feb ? From the chart below, seems like performing better than previous with widening gap against STI.

Next, is how to appropriately deploy the warchest raised across weeks and months. That's a good problem to have.



Cory
2020-0301

Cory Diary : Equity Allocation Feb'20 - Part 2

This is in continuation of Part 1. (link)

The world is greeted with promising cure for Novel Coronavirus(2019-nCoV) aka Wuhan Virus using the plasma of recovered patients. I thought this piece of news is quite credible and provide hopes for the dying. There are already numerous promising solutions made but the death rate keeps climbing. 

One key statistic is that the death rate outside Wuhan is like 0.1%. What this mean is that the "best cure" is simply to not overwhelm the medical facilities and therefore critical to nip the problem in the bud. However the mix of outbreak with propaganda or to be termed exactly Politics is Toxic. They ends badly. There is large similarity with Chernobyl ( There's a 2019 historical drama television miniseries produced by HBO and Sky UK) which may have speed up the downfall of Soviet Union. 

Just a month before I don't' even know Wuhan is in Hubei. Is sad that thousands of people lives are lost due to possible political reason to delay the communications. Hope WHO do not go through this spiral of joining the political game and just focus on Health. Japan maybe in the brink to fall if WHO and Japan do not get their act together. The risk is Olympic may not happen. And this will be really bad.

As a reminder the blog articles are my learning experience and is on personal perspective and there could be error. I aren't financially trained and is based a lot of commonsense and risk mitigation which may not be effective 😊.

In this part II, I would proceed with remainder of SG portfolio

MAPLETREE IND TR

One of the powerful Reit in Singapore with a boost of recent DC acquisition in US. This is not nice story but real example of having a strong sponsor. With current stock price, further acquisition that is accretive is not hard. We could be seeing further growth. What's more this growth segment in US provides geographical diversification. I have a habit to do trading around my holdings ( usually partials ). This breaks when the market is in over zealous mode and I left with nothing to sell. At one point this year I took profit and end up with zero exposure which is oddward for a dividend player. Glad to have this stock building up again after more than 40% XIRR last year. Hopefully I have chance to further my exposure. MIT does has more alpha. 

AIMS APAC REIT

Small but stable, AA Reit provides a nice niche in the SG Reit segment. The management has been able to continue to keep up with the dpu with continuous development. At near to 7% yield, one cannot have enough till capped by portfolio sizing. Being small also means the price is more volatile to news of the company. I am not supportive for one to have significant exposure even if the story is very good unless we have very high confidence. I am yet reach the level where I can sleep with it. Maybe I could if my net worth is doubled.

IREIT GLOBAL

Another counter of strong yield with exposure to Germany but Singapore dollar denominated. The minor risk for my assumption is the Euro earning. Other than that a large part of their properties are dependent on a single tenant. So this is sized appropriate into the portfolio as part of a group of diversified high yield Reits. Strongly suggest people who are interested to read their presentation report which gives good idea of their properties, tenants and financials. They have been reporting about 5% reduction in DPU past quarter. So I aren't surprise this quarter report the same too. The price continues to creep upwards and is now slightly more than 6% yield. That's more than 2 weeks of daily green to arrive at this point. The current market environment would be able to support this pricing since yield is relative with risk in context but ex-dividend soon.

ACCORDIA GOLF TR

This is a high yield trust. The income is less stable. Back on this portfolio and currently awaiting for it being acquired in which the timing now looks bad. Similar to above two, sized appropriately to the level it will not damage the portfolio badly if there are bad surprises. There is no distribution this quarter as is on half yearly basis. One of the concern I have is that Wuhan Virus containment doesn't look well manage in Japan. This may have an impact on Tokyo Olympic if they do not get their act together. In all my counter I would consider this position riskiest. If one is to look at the radar chart, at 5% point is a little too much. A better allocation will be around 3.5% range. Yes, I am greedy on this one and usually quite bad luck on this one too.

CAPITALAND MALL TR

This Reit continues to be a key workhorse to provide sustainable dividends. It has emerged top position in the portfolio. In last SARs, CMT did well 18 years ago so I think it won't fall too far bad this time. The oil price is quite tamed and this will help manage their cost structure. As long SG is thriving, their malls will play a key role in our local life and grow. Quite hard to imagine most of the locals not to have a lifestyle around malls in tiny Singapore.

On relative valuation wise, a close comparison is FCT which is valued much higher compared to CMT. So there is good opportunity for price appreciation if too large a gap is driven. Having say that I have not been touching FCT for long time .... ... ... .

CMT at almost 5% yield, with stable DPU, chances are this stock can and will provided the much needed cash flow and this kind of support my property loan ie. 2.6%. So this is still quite attractive but I wouldn't  want to solely just depend on CMT. This also support my decision not to pay down my loan proactively and why tapping the maximum amount of home loan even when one could pay if we want to. To get the maths right, we have to actively utilize the cash for relatively safe investment.

SPH REIT

Not much luck on this one. After taking pain to build this up to one of key allocated position, I have to quickly release most of it back to the market. One of the key reason not to hold is due to it is already Ex-div last Dec. ( due to acquisition ). Weakness of AUD is a concern. The Australia economy is not in good shape and probably for years to come. With the slightly higher yield than CMT and much fewer properties, is not hard to pick this one out for needed cash in warchest. The left over is more for some diversification into Australia asset and income. 



For the past few trading days the portfolio seen MIT, Vicom and iReit spiking up while Ascendas and CMT holding well. The counter balance between counters is an Art. Rotating around the holding is Fun. However the baseline is still around the core concept of dividend investing. There is still much to be learned. With that I end my take on the portfolio. 

Hope you have fun in yours !

Cheers

Cory
2020-0218

Sector Allocation

Cory Diary :