Portfolio Update for May 2024

-

This will be a relatively short post, just to update on the transactions for the month.

For the month of May, it was an interesting month.  The old adage of “Sell in May and Go Away” was definitely back to haunt the markets before the month started, especially with the looming threat of stickier than expected CPI numbers.  However, interestingly, the markets were hitting new highs in May.  The Dow Jones Industrial Index crossed the 40,000 mark for the first time this month, bringing confidence to the performance in the market.

On the other hand, CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon was cautious and said that US cannot rule out the possibly of a hard landing, and stagflation would be the worst outcome for the US.  This speech brought volatility back into the markets and pushed back any hopes of rate cuts to the 4th quarter of 2024 instead of the 3rd.  Personally, I have mentioned earlier that I am not going to be guessing when the rate cuts is going to happen and I am just going to live with zero expectations and that there will be no rate cuts in 2024, so the under-performance of my REITs' portfolio is going to be expected for the rest of this year, and any surprise on the upside is just going to be a bonus.

Consequently, inflation is probably going to remain sticky for the rest of the year.  So far, prices of WTI crude oil is hovering below, but near to USD 80, but the retreat in the USD and with 10-year yield staying below 4.5% had remain as positives for the market, until the last couple of days of the month when the 10-year yield sudden shot above 4.5%, and WTI crude oil creeping above USD 80.  This is due to the hawkish tone of the FED members and threats of further rate hikes instead of rate cuts.  Personally, I am ignoring all these noises and will just hold on to my portfolio.

All in all, the only topic holding up the market now seems to be the development of generative AI, especially after Nvidia continues to report yet another quarter of spectacular earnings.  How long can this trend continue remains to be seen but I believe it will be for a while more.  Although I am not vested in Nvidia, but I hope the positive effects can continue to overflow to the other tech giants like Microsoft and Google, and even smaller players like Palantir, so that my portfolio may benefit from the hype.

In the US market, my portfolio is doing relatively well, with the exception of Tesla and Palantir.  Tesla is going to face some critical events with the vote on Elon Musk's pay package coming up.  How the votes will turn out, and what ripple effects it may have remains to be seen.  It's all in the hands of the major shareholders, who remain very much divided on this recently.  Palantir has also retreated from the highs of USD 25 to currently hovering around USD 21 after the release of the quarterly earnings, which is good, but according to analysts, not exciting nor spectacular.  As such, its share price retreated due to the rich valuation at that point in time.  For all other companies and ETF in my portfolio, I would say they are doing well, supporting and growing my US Growth Portfolio steadily, and I am pleased with that.

In addition, I am also happy that I have finally earned back all my losses from options trading previously, from options trading itself.  Now, I have an extremely humble 2-digit profits from my options trading.  Hopefully it can continue to grow at a slow and steady pace, while constantly remind myself not to fall into greed which will almost definitely make myself lose money.

Closer to home, I am more contended with my SG Dividend Portfolio after the rebalancing done previously.  With the release of the earnings of the companies and REITs and Trusts, all the dividends for the second quarter has been announced, and I am happy that the dividends that I will be receiving for this quarter is approximately 7.7% higher than the same period last year.  Without any hiccups, I should be able to fulfill my Barista FIRE goal this year, achieving more than SGD 24K of dividends for this whole year (hopefully more than SGD 26K as per my goal set at the start of the year).  Details of the dividends received will be announced next month in my portfolio's quarterly updates.

For this month, I injected approximately SGD 11.1K capital buying the following shares:

SGX:    CapitaLand Ascott Trust

             Development Bank of Singapore

             Hong Leong Finance

             Mapletree Industrial Trust

             Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust

             ParkwayLife REIT

             Singapore Technologies Engineering

             United Overseas Bank

US:       Google-C

             Microsoft

             Palantir

             VOO ETF

In addition, I have also reinvested dividends on the following shares:

SGX:    CapitaLand Ascott Trust

             Hong Leong Finance

             Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust

             ParkwayLife REIT

Total Portfolio Value has increased slightly by approximately 1.3% to around SGD 535K including capital injection.  Finally, this is the second consecutive month where the portfolio value remains above SGD 500K mark.  Hopefully, this would mean that the portfolio will stabilize above half a million mark for foreseeable future, and no black swan events will happen anytime soon to disrupt the portfolio growth.  However, of course that is beyond my control, thus I can only hope for the best, and remain nimble.  Shall continue to sit back, relax, and wait for dividends collection in June!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My First Trip To Japan Together With My Mum!

-
Image
This is my first trip travelling out of ASEAN region, where I have to plan every bit of the itinerary myself.  For previous family trips to Sydney and Perth, I am generally tagging along, being a follower.  However this time, it is going to be a duo trip with just my mum and myself, which I am both looking forward to, while at the same time worried about how things will turn out there and then.  Nonetheless, the decision has been made by late last year, and I booked the flights for 2, flying with Scoot to Kansai Airport for our 9 days 8 nights trip.  Feels good that a goal set early this year is materialized! Without further ado, I will share the travel journey below: Day 1 Arrived at Kansai Airport in the afternoon, and we grabbed a quick snack at the famous 551 Horai outlet.  Then after much complications with the Haruka Limited Express, we are finally able to board the Hello Kitty's train direct to Kyoto!   Haruka Limited Express We reached Hearton Hotel Kyoto in the late afte
Read more

Incorporating The Idea of Safe Withdrawal Rate to Living Off Dividend Income

-
Image
Recently in a Telegram group, I come across a debate between Kyith from Investment Moats and a reader, where the reader claims that as long as his portfolio is made up dividend stocks with good dividend growth through the years, he can just live off the dividends with the total capital left intact, while Kyith on the other hand, supports the idea of Safe Withdrawal Rate (SWR).  The reader claims that he would not want to sell any part of his portfolio, and just having to live off the dividends makes dividend investing superior to the withdrawal method, while Kyith explains that the reader's perspectives show a lack of understanding of how the SWR method actually works. After reading the long string of exchanges in the telegram group, I decided to pen this post.  Personally, I am definitely a supporter of the dividend investing group, and I also believe, and strives towards just living off dividend income upon FIRE.  From a dividend income investor perspective, the idealistic scenar
Read more

Coping With The 32% Decline In Dividends

-
Image
As a dividend investor, I have been slowly accumulating shares in REITs and dividend shares to grow the annual dividend income since late 2017.  I am blessed and contented with the performance thus far, as the total dividends received annually continues to grow, despite hiccups along the way.  First major hiccup along the way is in 2020, where the strike of the pandemic and the circuit breaker hit businesses and some REITs in a huge way, resulting in cuts in dividends.  The second major hiccup recently will be in 2022 where the FED suddenly hike interest rates at rocket speed, and that created financial stress on REITs, which inevitably resulted in the drop in distributions by most REITs to varying degree.  Thankfully, with the slight diversification into other dividend-paying shares, they helped to mitigate the decline, and allowed my portfolio to experience dividend growth year-on-year. This year, on 23rd February 2024, Hong Leong Finance (HLF) reported their earnings for 2H2023 and
Read more