~~Towards Barista FIRE~~

This will be a relatively short post, just to update on the transactions for the month. For the month of February, it is a rather stagnant month.  The first half of the month is relatively positive, but after the release of the January CPI numbers, which came in slightly below expectations with CPI still hovering at 3.1% instead of the expected 2.9% (which is a major milestone being below 3%), the market experienced a significant pullback.  This was exacerbated later in that week by the hotter than expected PPI numbers as well.  This may be both a correction and profit taking, as the Magnificent Seven (with the exception of Tesla) or the AI Fives have had a long bull run.  So it may be time for them to take a breather.  Overall, I view CPI numbers with slight positivity, because although it remains above 3%, it has been in the downtrend and that is good news.  The worrying sign probably comes from core CPI, where it remains flat month on month.  Nonet...

On 15th February 2024, Keppel Pacific Oak REIT (KORE) spooked the market by announcing that they will suspend dividend payments for 2 years till 2026, due to the tough operating environment in US Commercial Real Estate currently and hence a possible further decline in valuation in the upcoming quarters.  For readers who are interested to know the details of this event, you can watch this video by Dr Wealth.  Nonetheless, this caused the share price of KORE to plunge by 40% in a single day, and the undesirable effects rippled through all US Commercial REITs, bringing Prime US REIT down by 32% and Manulife US REIT (MUST) down by almost 7% (previously Manulife REIT's troubles had caused it to plunge by 67% from July 2023 to 15th February 2024).  Even United Hampshire US REIT, whose properties deal with groceries, necessities and self-storage were impacted, falling by 4%. Prior to this issue by KORE and MUST in July 2023, another most impactful event was the suspension of Ea...

Back in January 2023, the interest rates reached 4.25-4.50%.  Since then, interest rates continue to gradually climb till 5.25-5.50% in July 2023, where it held constant till today.  As such, it is a good time to review how the crazy climb in interest rates in 2022 impact the performances of REITs, which are highly leveraged and more sensitive to interest rates compared to other listed companies.  In the comparison below, I only focused on the REITs and Trust I hold in my portfolio. 1)     CapitaLand Ascott Trust (CLAST)   " CLAST's properties saw strong demand as international travel continued to recover.  CLAST’s revenue per available unit (REVPAU) in 2H 2023 reached 103% of pre-pandemic levels in 2H 2019 on a pro forma basis, increasing by 10% y-o-y to S$157.  REVPAU also rose 23% y-o-y to S$148 for FY 2023.  In 4Q 2023, majority of CLAST’s key markets such as China, Japan, United States of America (USA) and Vietnam also register...

At the start of 2024, I written in my post that I am going to do some trading for my shares in US Growth Portfolio.  Fast-forward one month later, I already regretted this decision.  From December 2023 till January 2024, I have sold part of my shares in Apple, Microsoft, Google, JP Morgan, Palantir and VOO ETF, returning about USD 33K back into the brokerage account.  As investors and traders would know, in January, the DOW, S&P 500 reached new highs, and NASDAQ is near the highs too.  This meant that after I sold my shares, their prices continue to climb, and within a month, I am already questioning myself why did I make such a decision to sell instead of holding on to ride through.  Under my earlier post, anonymous commented: " US growth Stock picking and timing the market may not be substantiable in the long run. ETFs like QQQ, SPY or other sector ETFs may yield better results and not subjected to individual company risk in the longer horizon. " True eno...

Back in October 2021, I started learning about options from various YouTubers.  The main video I learnt from is this video by ProjectFinance.  It is a long video, but it breaks down the principles of options to small bits, and showed how to trade options with different strategies.   " An options contract offers the buyer the opportunity to buy or sell—depending on the type of contract they hold—the underlying asset. Unlike futures, the holder is not required to buy or sell the asset if they decide against it. Each options contract will have a specific expiration date by which the holder must exercise their option. The stated price on an option is known as the strike price.  Options are versatile financial products. These contracts involve a buyer and seller, where the buyer pays a premium for the rights granted by the contract. Call options allow the holder to buy the asset at a stated price within a specific timeframe. Put optio...