~~Towards Barista FIRE~~

This month marks the end of the 4th quarter of 2023.  Thus being the last post of 2023, it is 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 signals that it is time for them to

As we progress to the final week of 2023, it is also the time where many Singaporeans and Permanent Residents (PR) in the financial community flashing and showcasing the interests that they earn from their Central Provident Fund (CPF) account!  This seems to be a yearly affair for many individuals out there, and seeing all those eye-popping numbers definitely inspire and motivate me to try to push my numbers up (yes, I take this positively as a form of motivation, and nope, I am not jealous, probably just envy, lol).  As stated in my previous post, I have managed to reach Basic Healthcare Sum (BHS) in 2023, but with the increase in BHS limit in 2024 to SGD 71,500.00, my monthly CPF contribution will still need to flow to my Medisave Account (MA) to achieve the new limit.  For Special Account (SA), I am still very far away from the Full Retirement Sum (FRS), so just got to continue with my contribution and hope to build up soon. Back to the topic of CPF, it has been a hot discussion top

Last year in September 2022, I wrote in this post the 8 reasons why I plan to retire in Malaysia, or more specifically, Johor.  Fast-track one year later, it seems evident that more and more people are also interested in the idea of retiring in Malaysia.  Johor and Penang are the two popular regions for retirement, with Johor in close proximity to Singapore, and Penang with great food and with ethnicity composition similar to Singapore.   So one year later, are there any changes in my plan?  The answer is no. Do note that the following points are solely from my perspectives, and only for my situation.  Being a Malaysian, Singapore Permanent Residence, I do not have any issues with lengthy stays in Johor, and I am privileged to be able to travel between Singapore and Malaysia as frequent as I wish, as long as my renewal of the re-entry permit in Singapore is successful.  Therefore, please do your own due diligence if Visas or any permits for long term stay is required.  The latest My M

Recently the idea by Bank of Japan to follow the rest of the world's central banks to raise interest rate for the very first time since 2015 has rattled the markets quite a bit, most notably on the forex rate.  With the December meeting by the Bank of Japan coming up next week on the 18th and 19th of December, investors are betting currently on a 45% chance that Bank of Japan will raise the interest rates this month as of 8th December.  This caused the Japanese Yen (JPY) has strengthened by 4.4% against the USD in the past month, and up 3.1% against the SGD.    So how will this news affect me and my finances directly or indirectly?  Do not get me wrong, I am not any big shot or savvy trader who does carry trade by borrowing JPY and invest in USD or SGD to earn the difference in interest rates and the strength of the currency pair.  The main concern I have is with my investment in ParkwayLife REIT. It is no secret that ParkwayLife REIT has a natural hedge against JPY with majority o

As we enter the last month of 2023, it will be a good time for a review of my goals, whether I am keeping pace of my timeline, and what will I need to do moving forward to ensure things go according to plan.  This is also the right time as the results of all the companies have been released and I have recorded the total amount of dividends I have received for the whole of 2023. Revisiting this post in March, the most optimistic projection is to achieve my Barista FIRE number of SGD 24K dividend per year by end of 2024 (SGD 25.75K to be exact) and my FIRE number of SGD 36K dividend per year by 2027.  I am pleased to announce that for the whole of 2023, the total dividends collected is SGD 23.29K, and that means I am a mere SGD 710 away from my Barista FIRE number.   In my March post: With the continuous dollar cost averaging I am doing, I am quite confident that I will be able to hit my Barista FIRE number in 2024, even if the REITs are under pressure from high interest rate environmen

This will be a relatively short post, just to update on the transactions for the month. For the month of November, it is a rather stagnant month.  After the release of the better than expected October CPI numbers, and the slightly better than expected retail numbers (though there is a decline), the markets staged a minor recovery as markets believe the possibility of a soft landing, and once again, awaiting the possibility of a FED pivot.  Nonetheless, all the official numbers released to date point to the market expectations of no further rate hikes in 2023 and 2024, and instead, rate cuts starting in 2nd half of 2024. Although this sounds positive to the market, which marks the rebound in my US Growth Portfolio, but higher interest rates for longer duration means the stress for the REITs still remain.  Therefore, besides the exceptional rebound made by the US office/commercial REITs that were previously very badly beaten down in share prices, the recovery of the other S-REITs are q

This is a very short post just to recommend good YouTubers I come across.  For those who likes to watch finance-related movies like "Wolf of Wall Street" or "The Big Short" and the likes, and would like to watch more reviews of such type of movies before selecting personal favorites to indulge in the full movie, I would like to recommend this YouTuber to you, ' 麦肯锡说电影 '.  He has reviews on a wide selection of finance-related videos and documentaries.  What is most precious is when finance-specific terms appear in the show, the YouTuber will have a short explanation of the terms to help viewers understand the show better.  This definitely combines entertainment and education, providing value and learning opportunities to viewers.   However, the only downside is that all commentaries are in Chinese.  Do enjoy the videos if you understand Chinese!  Personally I think his videos are enjoyable and easy to understand, even if it involves complex financial lingos. 

Recently I came across this  video  by Channel News Asia Insider about China's "Full-Time Child".  This is the outcome of the exceptionally high youth unemployment rate in China.  With so many fresh graduates entering the work force yearly and limited job available in the market, the macro-environment inevitably caused many youths to be in a tough situation where they are unable to find employment no matter how hard they try.  This gradually leads to youths giving up, resulting to popular lingos recently like ' 躺平 ' (means lying flat - having a low desire, with an indifferent attitude towards life) or ' 摆烂 ' (means leaving it to rot - actively embrace a deteriorating situation rather than try to turn it around). However in the interview, the youths have a different perspective of this 'Full-Time Child'.  Some are forced by circumstances.  The unfavorable macroeconomic environment makes it doubly hard for them to find jobs.  In October, statistics

This is going to be a relatively short post, to share how I help my mum to manage a part of her cash savings.  My mum is a typical saver, and not interested in any form of investments as she feels insecure with the possibility of losing a part of the capital.  Thus, her cash is usually stashed away in the various fixed deposits, especially those offering promotional rates by the different banks. For regular readers of this blog, you will know that I am a Malaysian, Singapore Permanent Residence.  Thus my mum stays in Malaysia and she manages her Malaysia accounts herself and also with my brother.  For part of her Singapore savings, I help her to manage.  My mum has Singapore savings because she prefers that I give her the allowance in Singapore Dollars, which she believes retain value much better than the Malaysian Ringgit. For now, I have helped her to save a portion of her monies in Maybank fixed deposits and Singapore Savings Bonds, all yielding above 3%.   Although it may seem that

Regular readers of this blog will know that I classify myself as a dividend investor, and based on capital injected, my portfolio consists of 51% in SGX REITs, 28% in SGX Non-REITs and 21% in US Growth.  The plunge in the prices of REITs for the past 1.5 years by about 30% based on CSOP iEdge S-REIT Leaders Index ETF has indicated that the REITs are in a bear territory (there are many other REITs performing much worse like US Commercial REITs which are excluded from the ETF), and where and when the bottom is going to be is anyone's guess.   If we look at the performance of the REITs and Trusts since 21st March 2022 (the week after FED begins propelling interest rates) till 31st October 2023, all of the REITs and Trusts, with the exception of Frasers Hospitality Trust, are in the red. Unsurprisingly, the worst performers are the US Commercial REITs, and on the other spectrum, the best performers were the hospitality trusts that were badly beaten down during the pandemic, and current

This will be a relatively short post, just to update on the transactions for the month. For the month of October, it is a disastrous month for my REITs-heavy portfolio.  With the US government raising money by selling loads of long term US Treasury Bonds, coupled with news that China and Japan are selling chucks of US bonds, it causes the 10-year bond yields to shoot up to 5%.  This is made worst by sudden outbreak of war in the Middle East between Hamas and Israel, which causes the oil price to creep up towards USD 90+ or even USD 100.  This is by no means favorable in any way for the inflation numbers, and that probably means high interest rates would probably remain high for longer duration.  All these news are negatively impacting my portfolio, and finally, my portfolio went down into the deeper red to near the levels back in October 2022. In addition, depending on the upcoming inflation numbers, we may have to deal with another rate hike this month in November or December.  Even

This is going to be a relatively short post and coincidentally, this is the 100th post of this blog!  Therefore I think it is a good time to evaluate how the different 'sectors' within my investment portfolio is doing over the past year till 20th October 2023 in such turbulent times of high interest rates and high inflation. SGX REITs: As seen above, the past one year has not been kind to REITs.  The sharp increase in interest rates over the past year has been a severe drag on the price performance of REITs, which is an interest-sensitive sector due to the leverage they are exposed to.  The past week, which has not been captured in the graph above, has been even more turbulent for REITs as the war in the Middle East and propelling oil prices are reigniting the fears of high inflation, and the creeping 10-year yields towards 5% yield is definitely exerting more stress and pressure on REITs.  Although it seems that the value of the REITs in my portfolio remains approximately cons

On 4th October, I tested positive for Covid for the first time (Yes I was fine through the peak of the pandemic, but fallen casualty now).  It felt horrible initially when I was running a high fever at 39.6 ͦ C, and suffered from body aches.  Thankfully after seeing the doctor and after 2 doses of Ibuprofen, the fever subsided and my body aches went away as well (learnt something new, that Panadol is only effective against fever below 38.5 ͦ C, anything higher will need stronger medication like Ibuprofen). Being a self employed, this meant a lot to me.  Principally, it meant a loss of income, as my body is unwell and that made me unable to even try to conduct online lesson.  So for one whole week, I could do little besides eat, sleep and repeat (thankfully I did not lose my sense of smell and taste, though food does taste a little weird, but it's back to normal after a while).  Although it only greatly impacted me for about a week, but it created uneasiness in me, because a self-em

I would like to first highlight that the title above is just to seek attention.  Personally, I believe there is no best investment strategy and techniques, because if there is one, there won't be so many school of thoughts surfacing on the financial sphere, claiming that their methodologies are the best.  In my opinion, the 'best' strategy is one that is most suitable for you yourself, as a trader, an investor or a speculator.  As such, I do not understand why there are investors out there who openly criticize, to the extent of condemnation, other investment strategies, where they use highly selective and biased data to show the cons of other strategies in order to prove their point that their selected strategy is the best.  I understand it is always healthy to discuss the pros and cons of every strategy, so as to provide various perspectives the supporters of a particular strategy fails to see.  However, berating other strategies is entirely uncalled for.  For me myself, d

'No More Bets' (Chinese:  孤注一掷 ) is a 2023 Chinese crime thriller film directed by Shen Ao and produced by Ning Hao.  " Programmer Pan Sheng and model Liang Anna were lured overseas by a supposed high paying job.  However, it turned out that the promised employment is actually a slave camp-like fraud factory.  Being imprisoned and abused by their handler, they are forced to commit cyber fraud on online victims.  Through their actions, a stranger Gu Tianzhi got addicted into online gambling.  After losing all his savings, Gu attempts su***de by jumping off a building.  Gu's girlfriend called the police.  Police Zhao Dongran started investigations and eventually cracked down the syndicate. " After watching the movie, it really send chills down my spine as it is so close to life.  How did Gu Tianzhi get hooked on online gambling?  It all started with a simple online gambling ad, which is so prevalent nowadays.  Just watch YouTube, and probably some gambling ads may p

This month marks the end of the 3rd quarter of 2023.  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.  The latest FED meeting in September further confirmed that the FED will not pivot in 2023, and in

Recently I watched this video on " 29 years old and already $250,000 in debt ".  The video discuss the investing climate in South Korea, especially amongst the younger retail investors aged 20s to 30s.  Based on the video, studies have shown that the investing mentality in the younger Koreans are geared towards 'gambling mindset' instead of investing.   Many of the Koreans in the 20s are 30s are dabbling in cryptocurrencies and penny stocks.  Do not get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with these investment vehicles, but the main problem lies with them investing with leverage, and getting loans to 'invest'.  This is a big red flag in investing.  Borrowing money to invest is very dangerous because equities are volatile, more so for cryptocurrencies and penny stocks.  Although volatility creates opportunities for traders, but it remains as a double edged sword, either you "go big, or go home".  Once the investments do not go in the direction one 'b