Portfolio Update Q2 2024

This month marks the end of the 2nd quarter of 2024.  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 June has once again successfully caused more confusion in the market.  Although the CPI and PPI data (and even the PCE numbers) had shown that inflation numbers has further eased, but the dot plot by the FED showed otherwise.  At the end of last year, Fed was signaling 3 rate cuts for 2024, but the latest dot plot showed that there could probably be only one rate cut this year.  Personally, as I have mentioned in previous posts, I have no expectation on any meaningful rate cuts this year.  I will just treat any rate cut that materialize as a bonus.  If there isn't any, I will just continue to hold on to my saddest REITs and Trust portfolio, and I believe it will be able to weather through the storm.

In the US Markets, S&P 500 once again exceeds most investors' expectations.  Since the beginning of 2024, S&P 500 has constantly hit new all time highs time and time again.  However, this is mainly boosted by the Magnificent Seven (excluding Tesla).  Within my portfolio, all the companies has recently hit new highs in their share price, with the exception of Tesla (however, in the last week of June, Tesla share price decided to slowly creep upwards, though still way below my cost price).  That has also helped to push my US Growth Portfolio value to a new high, which thankfully, helped to counter the never-ending loss from my SG Dividend Portfolio as prices of REITs and Trust continue to dwindle with no end in sight.  In addition, I will also continue to try to earn peanuts on the sideline by selling cash-secured puts with the limited funds I have.  Thankfully, I have recouped all the losses incurred from options in the past 2 years, and now I have a small 3-digit profit from options trade.  Slow and steady, and be mindful to keep greed at bay, so I can continue to earn small profits rather than deal with huge losses.

Closer to home in my SG Dividend Portfolio, REITs are still languishing at the lows (or even lower), and persistent downward pressures remain due to the non-foreseeable rate cuts as mentioned above.  Being a self-proclaimed dividend income investor, I shall remain calm and just sit and wait for dividends to arrive.  I have confidence in the REITs I hold in my portfolio and I believe their sponsors are financially strong to tide through these hard times.  Though I am confident, I will still keep a look out in their performance when they release their financial reports every quarterly or semi-annually, to ensure there are no red flags on any metrics that I need to be wary of.  Personally, I am pleased with the allocation of the shares and REITs in my portfolio after the re-balancing exercise in the last quarter.  Shall continue to hold on to them the way they are for now.

On a happier note, despite the fluctuations in portfolio value, dividends collected in the second quarter has been satisfactory, at SGD 9,277.45 from quarterly dividends from Mapletree Family REITs, Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) and Singapore Technologies Engineering (STE), and semi-annual dividends from Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), Hong Leong Finance (HLF), United Overseas Bank (UOB) and Frasers Logistics and Commercial Trust (FLCT).  The slight positivity is that this amount is about 7.7% higher than the amount of dividends collected in the second quarter of 2023 (this is despite the 32% decline in dividend from HLF).  The overall increase in quarterly dividends is due to the dividend support from DBS and UOB after I added them into my portfolio.  Hopefully the diversification will help to make my future dividends more stable and predictable, especially as I slowly move towards my Barista FIRE path in time to come.

For this month, the total portfolio market value initially crashed then move sideways, before rising in the last week, closing off the month up slightly at a new high of approximately SGD 541k this quarter, including a capital injection of about SGD 2K, which is a slight increase of about 0.7%.  The performance is within expectations because the approximately 50% composition of the REITs in the portfolio definitely pulled down the overall portfolio value with their languishing prices, even though the US Growth Portfolio has hit an all time high.  I will continue to slowly diversify my portfolio so the allocation to REITs will decline to closer to 40%, and the allocation to non-REITs to increase closer to 40%, and the remainder for US Growth Portfolio.  Nonetheless, I am looking forward to the upcoming quarterly reporting, to continue to collect the dividends from my portfolio in the third quarter of 2024.  Barista FIRE, here I come...!

SG Dividends Portfolio

US Growth Portfolio

Total Portfolio Value: SGD 541,303.34 (USD 1 : SGD 1.3556)