~~Towards Barista FIRE~~

This month marks the end of the 4th  quarter of 2022.  Thus being the last post of 2022, 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.  The latest FED meeting in December showed...

2022 has been a turbulent year for many investors, me included.  For the whole of 2022, my portfolio has fallen by 16.8%.  As we enter 2023, what are some of my expectations and speculations for my portfolio moving forward?  Do note that this is purely speculative on a personal level (and based on many analyst reports, articles etc. Point to note, Chicken Genius Singapore predicted that the bottom will be at around Q1 and Q2 2023) and it is definitely not any form of buy/sell/hold recommendations for anyone.   Personally, I speculate that 2023 may be a flat to slight negative year for my portfolio, ending the year down by -2.5 to -10%.  I made this speculative conclusion based on the following reasons. 1)    Interest Rate Remains High Through 2023 Jerome Powell has already mentioned that FED will do that job to suppress inflation back to 2% levels.  As of December 2022, November CPI has fallen to 7.1%, but that is still way above their targe...

On 21st December 2022, there is news from Reuters that Microsoft may set its sight on Netflix as its next acquisition target in 2023!  As the second top holding in my US Growth Portfolio (behind Tesla), I am concern with Microsoft having too many news on its side in this year.  However, as a tech giant, now may also precisely be a great opportune time for the company to look at potential acquisition candidates in times of market crashes, which allows Microsoft to buy them over at a lower price tag.   This also brought my attention back on Microsoft's current plan that has yet near completion.  On 18th January 2022, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire Activision Blizzard, a video game company most famously known for its World of Warcraft and Call of Duty series, just to name a few.  The acquisition, if successful, will cost Microsoft USD 68.7 billion in cash.  The acquisition news came about as gaming has become an increasingly important part of ...

Since late 2017, I have been building up my portfolio slowly to generate dividends as a form of passive income.  Today, my largest holding in my Dividend Portfolio is Parkway Life REIT (PWLR).  Excluding REITs, the largest holding remains to be Singapore Technologies Engineering (STE).  On the other hand, in my US Growth Portfolio, the largest holding is Tesla.  In many of my previous post, I have been talking about how the pros outweigh the cons for PWLR and STE (not so much about Tesla as I believe there's enough hype out there for Tesla among retail investors).  However, the share prices of PWLR and STE proved otherwise.  So am I mentally "married" to them, such that I am investing blindly and just buying more of their shares regardless of conditions? If you follow the markets closely, you will realize that my portfolio sounds like a disaster.  This is because year to date as of 15th December 2022, PWLR has fallen by 27.2% from its high of SGD 5.22,...

As we enter December, frankly speaking, it is all holiday mood for me.  I am not too concerned with my portfolio, as there is nothing I can do.  If it drops, I will continue to dollar cost averaging in by capital injection and reinvesting dividends.  If it rises, I will just leave it alone and hope it recovers in value.  I have no intention to sell as I am building my stream of passive income via dividends.   Although the dividends for December has not been paid yet, but the various stocks and REITs have XD, and I am pleased to know that I am able to achieve my aim of SGD 18K for this year, which amounts to SGD 1.5K per month.  This is definitely good news for my portfolio despite the turmoil for the year.  However, things remain to be seen next year, as dividends may be impacted due to the high interest rate environment.  The distribution per unit (DPU) by the REITs may be negatively impacted next year.  The extent of decline in DPU for...