~~Towards Barista FIRE~~

This will be a relatively short post, just to update on the transactions for the month. For the month of August, it is the month of correction, or worse, it may be the beginning of the change in trend, probably the end of the bull run.  It all started with Fitch downgrading US credit rating from AAA to AA+.  This downgrade may make the cost of debt more expensive to the US government, which is already having a ballooning debt issue.  This caused the 10-year yields to shoot above 4% again, causing stress to the equity markets, especially the tech sector.  This marks the beginning of the downward slide in equity markets at the beginning of the month. One week later, Moody's joined in the 'fun' and cut the ratings of 10 US banks, and also placed some big names on the downgrade watchlist.  This does not go well with investors as it successfully reminded investors the panic and worries of the bank failures and bankruptcies that happened in April this year, and that the finan

After dabbling with investing for more than a decade now, I have the following thought of property versus portfolio, and wonder how things will turn out if I have done things differently.  Before I begin, kindly note that all perspectives below are my personal viewpoints, which may be biased and have limited scope, and caters to my personal circumstances of being a single Singapore Permanent Resident and is unable to purchase HDB flat of any kind, hence only able to consider private property.  Do perform your own due diligence. Is it better to build up a dividend portfolio first and then use dividend income generated to save up for the down-payment for a residential property, and subsequently use the dividends to pay for the monthly instalments of the property, or will it be better to buy the residential property as early as possible before building a dividend portfolio? Personally, I did the latter.  One important thing to note here is that the main purpose of the private residential

Recently I came across a post from Dr Wealth, written by JP, a Malaysian staying and working in Singapore for the past 7 years.  In the post, he shares 7 money advice he would have given to his younger self if he could turn back time.  As a Malaysian myself, who has been her almost my entire life since primary 1, I would like to share my thoughts on this post from my personal perspectives, and hopefully it may be fruitful and helpful to other Malaysians in the same situation. 1)     Know Why You Are Here I am in a very different situation as JP.  Personally I started my education since primary 1 in Singapore, all the way till university education.  As such, I am very much more growing up in a "Singaporean-way" more than the "Malaysian-way".  One prominent difference is the proficiency in Malaysia's national language, Bahasa Melayu.  Many Malaysian Chinese are proficient in English, Mandarin and Malay, but I am not.  Having my education in Singapore means I am j

On 31st July 2023, Mapletree Pan-Asia Commercial Trust (MPACT) released their 1st Quarter FY23/24 earnings.  The performance is summarized below: Year-on-year performance is not too meaningful in my opinion, as the performance a year ago was meant for Mapletree Commercial Trust (MCT), prior to the merger.  Quarter on quarter, performance is mixed.  Gross revenue and net property income both increased, but operating expenses and finance cost increased by a larger extent, dampening the amount available for distribution per unit, down 3.1% quarter-on-quarter, and down by more than 12% year-on-year.  This is definitely far from the bright prospects and the positive synergistic effects the management painted prior to the merger. Although the results do not paint a rosy picture, there are little bright spots.  Performance of Mapletree Business City and Vivocity remains robust, and they are the main drivers that helped to support the overall performance of the REIT.  More importantly, their p

In this short post, I am updating on two milestones I finally hit, and a first time ever income received from an unexpected source.  As above, the milestones are that I have achieved the Basic Healthcare Sum (BHS) in my Central Provident Fund Medisave Account (CPF- MA), which is SGD 68.5K in 2023, and for the first time, my portfolio value has exceeded half a million in value (as of 31st July 2023)!  The first time income source is that I made some pennies from my Central Depository (CDP) from the Securities Borrowing and Lending (SBL) Program. Achieving BHS Earlier in April, I made the decision to speed up the contribution towards my CPF-MA by contributing to only my MA instead to all 3 accounts, aiming to hit the Basic Healthcare Sum (BHS) of SGD 68.5K in 2023.  Just for context, I am self employed so I can have the choice to which account in CPF I can contribute my income to. I am pleased that I have finally reached my goal and hit the BHS in August 2023!  A small milestone achieve