It has been many years Cory has been preparing from being retired. Don't get me wrong, I am yet to be retired and I am not that old. However, team development is catching up with me and my passion has been waning recently. The Covid-19 makes management worries and company decided finally to promote one of my senior staff who has been working for me for 18 years to management position. Her promotion is not easy because I have been spending time coaching a few whom declined. I hope they are just being humble.
With this move, I will also be taking some new learning of another group of colleagues who recently lose their manager through attrition. This is in-addition with multi-tasking to help the new manager. I need to spend time to convince her that there is nothing to worry because I will support her as long I could. And it is better for everyone that she has time to take on the role while I am still around collecting money happily. Why I say that is because if the business get whacked or there is business rationalization, I could be on the chopping board, and the team could be impacted.
However, to myself every time I think about such possibilities there is a little unease as well. The sense of suddenly losing monthly income and bonuses. The beautiful constantly increasing Net Worth. The insecurity. This reminds me of why people chasing to buy toilet paper. We cannot change others easily but we can change ourselves. So when the time come, if I am to fall into desperation, I have no one to blame but myself but I aren't going to compete with others to buy toilet paper !
Daughters teach me that life is more than money. I probably bought 10 boxes of Pampers for the elder alone in case the market starts chasing for supply. This are non-perishable items and my thinking is that this is something which I could control and not spoiling the market if I get them before there is any crunch. There aren't so far and unlikely will. But as a father cannot do without Pampers and Milk Powders, I do not want to take the risk fighting over it with others. Neither do I want to be behind the horde just to get a pamper home. So this is the only two items I technically "hoarded" for my kids. Frankly, they use up pretty quick to my surprise. And maybe this also help to send signals early down the supply chain on the needs for greater supply buffers. Talking about vested interests.... that's how we push for more supplies.
So how is my dividend investment plan going ? Last year achieved almost $53k annual dividends. This higher figure is unplanned. Some amount due to the mergers and cash-out from rights issue. For current portfolio, to-date theoretical max $56k. The DPU compute is before Covid-19 so there will be cut however the believe is when this is over the DPU may returns in time. About 70% warchest left to play with which potentially due to this crisis to allow higher target than original allowed by another 30% to 45% more with current market condition. This will still leaves me with ample cash for loan payment for 6 to 7 years parked in SSB and FD mainly. I could reduce this amount but prefer not as it can also be used to pay down loan if needed. We never knows how the markets will move as time goes.
One thing for sure, every month I worked, the better my buffer. If I could hit year end bonus, that will be awesome. I know is annual event. I always appreciate that. Never takes good things for granted.
Cory
2020-0405
Apr 5, 2020
Apr 3, 2020
Cory Diary : Making Mistakes
Investment is a lot about mental challenge on how to control the fear and greed. This is especially so when one put quite amount of his wealth at work and he is no longer young. If one plans to retire on equity, Portfolio Management usually is a must to calm the mind and to generate enough to support expenses.
Another easy but dangerous option imo ( Kia-si thinking ) for me is to hand over this hard earn money to fund manager that is stranger to you. Consider the amount saved is your life saving and moving forward which is very hard for you to recover them when loss. Popular and star manager no count by the way. They are still consider strangers. I rather keep my money in CPF, SSB or FD.
In all my earlier articles on which I am a proponent of portfolio balance so that we can ride through the market sanely. Even with proper portfolio allocation to mentally condition oneself in market down turn, the most we are Neutralizing Effect meaning not benefiting from market down turn. Well the whole idea is to not to get rich but enough through mitigated risk.
However to be on offensive during down turn, we need warchest so as to benefit from economic recovery as market can often be very irrational. This money is best start to build when market is getting elevated and not when is about to turn since no one can get it perfect. And continue increasing the amount till the market turns. This is experience learned. The next problem is when to deploy. We can do stagger across weeks and months. As market is not smooth, is more like small bursts each time. Next we need to consider which counter to buy.
What I did is to look for counters I have high confidence to survive and rebound, and do average down when the gap is quite significant. For example STI was 3300. Today Is 2400. Gap of 900 is easy to decide to average down. Gap of 200 is clearly not enough. Some like to use TA to get to the exact. I think is up to individual and as for me when I have the mood and time. I also take this opportunity to look for counters that I took profit and waiting to return. Some for years. Similarly, I plan to collect them back in stages.
There is a wise man out there who propose to always average down on different counter. I have some agreement with that. So if I am to deviate from this advise, I know what I am going into.
Mistakes
I have been waiting the longest time to buy back 3 of my best return counters of Year 2019 and early part of Year 2020. Ascendas Reit, Vicom and MIT. They will sit nicely in the portfolio. So I manage to do all halfway for each when the price dropped enough weeks ago.
As due to great volatility, I accidentally release MIT back to market again. MIT sits well in the portfolio which often counteract other falling counters. Mistake number 1.
And also due to volatility I decide to take profit on some of the newly acquire Vicom which is a great counter balance in the portfolio. Is greed. Mistake number 2.
Wish that the market is kind enough to give me a chance again. I won't .... .... ....
Just sharing my 2 cents inner feeling ...
Cory
2020-0403
Another easy but dangerous option imo ( Kia-si thinking ) for me is to hand over this hard earn money to fund manager that is stranger to you. Consider the amount saved is your life saving and moving forward which is very hard for you to recover them when loss. Popular and star manager no count by the way. They are still consider strangers. I rather keep my money in CPF, SSB or FD.
In all my earlier articles on which I am a proponent of portfolio balance so that we can ride through the market sanely. Even with proper portfolio allocation to mentally condition oneself in market down turn, the most we are Neutralizing Effect meaning not benefiting from market down turn. Well the whole idea is to not to get rich but enough through mitigated risk.
 |
| 7.x% gap against STI (excl STI feb div) |
However to be on offensive during down turn, we need warchest so as to benefit from economic recovery as market can often be very irrational. This money is best start to build when market is getting elevated and not when is about to turn since no one can get it perfect. And continue increasing the amount till the market turns. This is experience learned. The next problem is when to deploy. We can do stagger across weeks and months. As market is not smooth, is more like small bursts each time. Next we need to consider which counter to buy.
What I did is to look for counters I have high confidence to survive and rebound, and do average down when the gap is quite significant. For example STI was 3300. Today Is 2400. Gap of 900 is easy to decide to average down. Gap of 200 is clearly not enough. Some like to use TA to get to the exact. I think is up to individual and as for me when I have the mood and time. I also take this opportunity to look for counters that I took profit and waiting to return. Some for years. Similarly, I plan to collect them back in stages.
There is a wise man out there who propose to always average down on different counter. I have some agreement with that. So if I am to deviate from this advise, I know what I am going into.
Mistakes
I have been waiting the longest time to buy back 3 of my best return counters of Year 2019 and early part of Year 2020. Ascendas Reit, Vicom and MIT. They will sit nicely in the portfolio. So I manage to do all halfway for each when the price dropped enough weeks ago.
As due to great volatility, I accidentally release MIT back to market again. MIT sits well in the portfolio which often counteract other falling counters. Mistake number 1.
And also due to volatility I decide to take profit on some of the newly acquire Vicom which is a great counter balance in the portfolio. Is greed. Mistake number 2.
Wish that the market is kind enough to give me a chance again. I won't .... .... ....
Just sharing my 2 cents inner feeling ...
Cory
2020-0403
Mar 29, 2020
Cory Diary : Unemployment Train
What keeps businesses going is cash flow. When one could not operate for weeks or months, the business becomes unsustainable. At current Covid-19 situation the magnitude is a lot worst. To conserve cash, is to close down or cut cost.
The Virus only hit US hard recently. The impact 3.3 M unemployment. This is no joke. The impact is wide spread and will bring economy down to it's knee and to be exact to a halt. USD being a trading currency has unlimited bullets. In fact the currency gets stronger during this period. It will be good opportunity for China to take this time to help America to help themselves.
Not surprisingly or thankfully Singapore has reserve exactly or unfortunately for such situation that can help us. Once a business collapsed, to recover will be hard, and basically "V-Shape Recovery" is impossible.
The Singapore budget proposed $48B on top of $6.4B to support the economy. That's about $19.4 K each for 2.8M workers in Singapore. Basically the government is feeding each worker $2160 monthly for 9 months ! which reduced their chances of being retrenched largely and keep most businesses afloat.
Recession is the last thing in our mind. What we are facing is a total collapse. With this budget support, there is good chance the Virus will be stopped way before the year ended. I have faith we will get through this even stronger while many nations without strong reserve will be lagged behind. And the only practical option for them is to print through inflation. This will be ugly.
Personally I feel that the Vaccine will be rushed through so if there is a breakthrough within 2 months the sky would change suddenly. I would stay invested and buy slowly into the market. It will be a game changer for the world after all this is ended. As I sold a few positions last week, warchest is filled back up again with some trading profits. Don't get me wrong, I have dividend goal in mind. -14.6% YTD.
Cory
2020-0329
The Virus only hit US hard recently. The impact 3.3 M unemployment. This is no joke. The impact is wide spread and will bring economy down to it's knee and to be exact to a halt. USD being a trading currency has unlimited bullets. In fact the currency gets stronger during this period. It will be good opportunity for China to take this time to help America to help themselves.
Not surprisingly or thankfully Singapore has reserve exactly or unfortunately for such situation that can help us. Once a business collapsed, to recover will be hard, and basically "V-Shape Recovery" is impossible.
The Singapore budget proposed $48B on top of $6.4B to support the economy. That's about $19.4 K each for 2.8M workers in Singapore. Basically the government is feeding each worker $2160 monthly for 9 months ! which reduced their chances of being retrenched largely and keep most businesses afloat.
Recession is the last thing in our mind. What we are facing is a total collapse. With this budget support, there is good chance the Virus will be stopped way before the year ended. I have faith we will get through this even stronger while many nations without strong reserve will be lagged behind. And the only practical option for them is to print through inflation. This will be ugly.
Personally I feel that the Vaccine will be rushed through so if there is a breakthrough within 2 months the sky would change suddenly. I would stay invested and buy slowly into the market. It will be a game changer for the world after all this is ended. As I sold a few positions last week, warchest is filled back up again with some trading profits. Don't get me wrong, I have dividend goal in mind. -14.6% YTD.
Cory
2020-0329
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