~~Towards Barista FIRE~~

This month marks the end of the 2nd quarter of 2022.  Thus it's definitely a good time for me to record the performance of my portfolio to track how it has been. To recap, I started my SG Dividends Portfolio in late 2017, and I began tracking the dividends and all reinvestment done starting 2018.  To date, my SG Dividends Portfolio consist of banks, REITs and defense technology.  On the other hand, I only started the US Growth Portfolio in late December 2021. Currently, my US Growth Portfolio consist of mainly big tech names, bank and exchange traded funds (ETFs). Being a relatively conservative investor, I prefer to dollar cost average (DCA) into the market to slowly build up my portfolio.  The advantages of using Interactive Brokers to buy the US shares via DCA are undoubtedly the low fees and ability to buy fractional shares of mega-cap technology shares like Alphabet and Tesla.  High volatility continues to dominate, and the fear of recession lingers due to high inflation num

One of the hottest debate recently in the financial sphere is to buy or not to buy the dip.  The 2 groups of supporters are sharing their perspectives almost daily, from articles, to YouTube videos.  Financial YouTubers like Ken from Chicken Genius is saying not to buy the dip, as he believes there's more pain to come with Quantitative Tightening.  The removal of liquidity from the market basically removes any possible market upward trend in the near term.  On the other camp, there is Jeremy from Financial Education who supports continue buying the dip because there is no way to know where the bottom is, thus continue to buy into the market at current prices is the way to go.  Both camps have their valid points, and they have their substantiations to their arguments.  So is it time to buy, or wait? Personally I have no crystal ball.  I do not know what is going to happen.  To me, both camps are equally correct.  I like what “ Sunny ”, a Chinese YouTuber has mentioned in her one of

Last Friday, the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for May showed that overall inflation rose by 8.6%.  This is higher than the 8.5% recorded in March, and 8.3% recorded in April.  Core inflation rate, on the other hand, decline slightly to 6.0% from 6.2% in April.  This is not great news as both numbers were above analysts estimates, and this, sadly, probably shows that inflation has not yet peaked.  Main problem lies with energy prices, as price of crude oil soar past USD 120.00.  Energy and commodities prices do not seem to be peaking anytime soon, with Russia-Ukraine war on-going.  Higher inflation number also does not bode well for the market, as seen from last Friday's market movements, with DJIA down 2.73%, S&P 500 down 2.91% and NASDAQ down 3.52% in one day. Besides being affected by market movements, which is beyond my control, I believe many of us will also feel the heat from inflation impacting our daily lives.  Prices of consumer goods and food have increased by l

The blogging scene in Singapore is very lively, especially financial blogs.  It's a pity that I have only come across these wonderful financial blogs from late 2017, where I get to learn loads from these brilliant bloggers.  In this post, I would like to share 6 financial blogs and bloggers that have a huge impact in my investment and financial planning journey.  Every week and every month, I am looking forward to get their updates so I can learn more from their posts.  These 6 financial blogs and bloggers are specially mentioned because their portfolios sizes and compositions are those that I wish to achieve, and their investment styles are aligned with my principles.  Most importantly, their writing styles are interesting and easy to understand for financial noobs like me.  I believe this is the most attractive factor that kept me hinged on their blogs.  Without further ado, let's see who are on my list! 1)      A Singaporean Stocks Investor (ASSI) In my opinion, AK is a ve

Since the US Federal Reserve announced their plans to raise interest rates and start quantitative tightening at the start of 2022, the price of most S-REITs has been declining.  It is known that generally, REITs are sensitive to interest rates as all REITs are leveraged to various extents.  On the surface, it will seem that rise in interest rates will have a negative impact to REITs, as it will increase their cost of borrowings.  However, many REITs have already done their hedging by locking in their borrowing cost.  In addition, many studies and research reports have shown that through history, price of REITs do increase during times of rising interest rates.   Seeking Alpha has a write-up on how rising interest rates has historically been good for REITs, and The Fifth Person also has a YouTube video discussing how interest rates affect REITs. According to The Fifth Person (discussion more directly applicable to S-REITs), they mentioned that the reason for the rise in price of S-RE