~~Towards Barista FIRE~~

This will be a relatively short post, just to update on the transactions for the month. For the month of May, it was a relatively good month despite the news and volatility.  The old adage of “Sell in May and Go Away” seemed to be missing this year, especially when the US and Singapore markets have rebounded strongly back towards the high even when the US-Israel-Iran tensions have not technically ended.  US Treasury yields are hitting new highs, with the 10-year yields crossing above 4.5%, oil prices are still persistently high, and even the Singapore 1-month SORA is climbing up.  However the good earning results from major companies are supporting the financial markets (and under-performers are punished, like ComfortDelgro). Even with widespread retrenchment news, both globally and in Singapore, the stock markets are still inching up.  How long will this last before correction sets in, or recession hits, is anyone's guess. Personally, the return of inflation is w...

Recently I was watching this video by The Fifth Person , where Victor talked about how modern crises nowadays seem shorter compared to the past, and it got me thinking about how different market crashes feel today compared to something like the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized he actually has a point.  Modern market crashes really do feel different now.  They feel sharper, more emotional, more intense, but at the same time, recoveries also seem to happen much faster compared to the past. Back during the 2008 GFC, the suffering dragged on for years.  According to Google, it took 5 years and 5 months for the S&P 500 to return to pre-crisis levels.  It was not just a temporary panic.  It felt like the entire global financial system itself was slowly collapsing from the inside.  Lehman Brothers collapsed, banks failed, housing prices kept falling, unemployment kept rising.  People genuinely feared th...

In early 2026, the headlines in Singapore and abroad feel like a broken record.  Whether it was tech giants "right-sizing" or traditional industries grappling with high costs, retrenchment has moved from a distant possibility to a local reality.  This is exacerbated with rising oil prices and this creates immense operating pressure for many businesses, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs).  Even in the Prime Minister's May Day speech, Mr Lawrence Wong noted that AI will change jobs, and inevitable make some jobs disappear.   As such, even in Singapore associated with stability, job security no longer feels like a given, especially for a non-citizen like myself.  Yet, in the midst of this uncertainty, I find myself in a position I did not fully appreciate until now.  I am not fearless, but I am far less afraid. The 8-Year Pivot This year marks my transition into Phase 1 of my Barista FIRE journey.  It was not an overnight achievement, ...

This month marked the end of a position that had quietly sat in my portfolio for about 7 years - Hong Leong Finance (HLF).  This was not a reactive sale, nor an emotional one.  In fact, it was something I had been observing, tolerating, and reassessing for quite a while. Back in 2022, I wrote about why I chose to accumulate HLF  within my portfolio.  The reasoning was simple and aligned with my dividend investing philosophy at that time- stable income, reasonable yield, and a business model that, while not exciting, was dependable.  I was never expecting explosive growth.  In fact, I explicitly acknowledged that the share price would likely remain range-bound, and it did exactly that. In the recent few years, while bank stocks were hitting new highs again and again, HLF stayed within its familiar price range.  This, by itself, was not a problem, as it was within expectations.  A range-bound stock with stable dividends could still serve a purpose...