~~Towards Barista FIRE~~

This month marks the end of the 3rd 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.  In the near term, the fear of the FED raising interest rates non-stop to induce a recession dominate

As the FED continues to increase interest rates (and announced that they will not lower interest rates in 2023), it made risk-free rates (government bonds and Singapore Savings Bonds are now yielding between 2.7% to 3.3% approximately) higher and more attractive than many S-REITs out there.  Parkway Life REIT is my top holding in my Dividend Portfolio, and the recent crash of it's share price made me wonder if its low dividend yield is the main cause of this (currently stands at around 2.53% yield at $4.20).  Thus I decided to do a quick dig in, to compare the performance of some of the REITs for the past 6 months (note that only bi-weekly price points are taken to estimate the trend of the REITs, and only REITs with Singapore properties are being compared, to remove the need for geopolitical considerations). *Legend: Name of REIT; TTM Dividend Yield; Price/Book According to the above share price trends, it is quite clear that Lendlease REIT held up the best in the past 6 months. 

Other than REITs, banks are definitely the next top choice for Dividend Investing in SGX.  This is especially so in the current rising rates environment, where the banks and financial institutions may get to benefit from the higher rates.  The top 3 local banks are Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), United Overseas Bank (UOB) and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC).  Being a “traditional” dividend investor (in the SGX market), I would like to have all my shares kept under my name in my CDP account, thus I did all my buy and sell via Lim and Tan Brokerage for my Singapore shares instead of the popular low cost brokerages out there like Moo moo, Tiger or Interactive Brokers (but I am using them for US shares).   What this means is, the minimum number of shares I need to buy is 100 shares for every order.  With share prices of DBS, UOB and OCBC at approximately SGD 26.40, SGD 27.43 and SGD 12.93 at the beginning of 2018, my top choice based on affordability will be OCBC.  After a

Just last month, there was the big hoo-ha regarding the topic of retirement.  It started with the podcast where Channel News Asia (CNA) interviewed a Singaporean YouTuber, and it ended with the following: Many people had issues with retiring at 35.  Others had issues with the USD 1M portfolio.  For me, I have no issues with the podcast, because that is not for me, nor that is what I had.  All I can think of, for myself, is what can I achieve, when can I semi-retire/ retire, where should I retire and how can I live my life as a retiree. Based on my current financial position, I believe I will be semi-retiring in Singapore, and commence full retirement in Malaysia.  YouTuber “ Kelvin Learns Investing ”, being a Malaysian, also shared his views why he is not considering to retire in Malaysia.  I do understand his perspectives, and I respect his choice (I just think that he amplified the cons, which is actually common everywhere else).  However, as mentioned, those are his perspectives,

I started my first dabble in the Singapore market in 2009.  On hindsight, it was actually a great time to start investing as markets were starting to recover from all time low at that time right after the financial crisis in 2008.  However, being the noobish newbie at that time, I have no idea about the macro-economic environment, and have zero idea in investing at that time.  All I did was “gamble based on gut feel”.  I admit that I am a slow learner in the world of investing and finance, and I only learn to invest with a strategy in mind in the Singapore market by late 2017 (yup, 8 years wasted).  I only started investing in the US market in late 2021 (yup, a total of 12 years wasted). Looking back at my investing journey now, the main regret I had was I did not invest in the US Growth market earlier, and I attributed it to the following 2 main reasons: 1)    Lack of Knowledge From 2009 to 2021, the stubbornness in me resulted in inertia.  I just focused on the local SGX market, lo

As we enter September (which was statistically the worst month to invest), I got to prepare myself mentally for more doom and gloom after the crash in the second half of August.  As FED Chairman Jerome Powell said in his Jackson Hole speech, Fed will continue to raise interest rates and will not stop until inflation is tamed.  How true this is, it's anyone's guess.  We have been "scammed" too many times by the FED since last year, with transitory inflation becoming red-hot runaway inflation.  Will a "Paul Volcker" moment arrive?  Hopefully not.  My portfolio is back in the red year to date, as if the July and early August rally never happened. With the rising interest rates, my mortgage rates have also increased.  For my Malaysia's mortgage loan, the interest rates have revised upwards for the 3rd time.  Thankfully (or not so), it is buffered by the depreciating Ringgit against the Singapore dollar.  With the returning travel crowd, short term rental dem