Portfolio Update for July 2024

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

For the month of July, it was another interesting month.  The first half of the month seems all bright and rosy, with S&P 500 and NASDAQ hitting all time highs, boosted mainly by the Magnificent Seven.  This helped to propel my portfolio to a new high in the first week, with almost all the stocks in my US Growth portfolio hitting individual all time highs.  Even the lagging Tesla has staged a strong rebound, rocketing from below USD 200 to above USD 250 within 2 weeks!  The strongest hype came when the June CPI numbers were released this month, showing slowing inflation year-on-year and even a decline in core inflation month-on-month.  This immediately caused the 10-year yield to ease and propelled the price of REITs in the following days.  That is definitely a welcome move as it is beneficial to my portfolio, but whether it will last remains to be seen.

I say this because many analysts are also sounding alarm of a correction in the second half of July and most notably in August.  Indeed, in the second half of July, we did see some sort of correction happening, which is especially evident when the technology heavy-weights start releasing their second quarter results.  All the mega-tech stocks suffered a pull back after the hasty runup in share price, and the correction spared no stocks in my portfolio, with the exception of JP Morgan which remained relatively unscathed.  Results from Tesla were bad, which is largely expected, but Google's earning continue to perform well, with YouTube advertising revenue underperforming.  These caused the pullback to deepen, and my portfolio value to drop even more.

For this month, there is a new addition into my US Growth Portfolio.  With the current dip in the S&P 500 and NASDAQ, I decided to dip my toes into Nvidia.  Just adding a small number of shares into my portfolio to put my skin in the game, and if the share price retreats more, I will continue to add more into my portfolio.  Hope I am not too late.

Closer to home, banks started to retreat after hitting all time highs as well.  REITs on the other hand, have resumed their decline after the short respite.  All I can do is to remain positive, especially when the earnings season have also started for companies listed locally.  Thus far, Mapletree family of REITs, ParkwayLife REIT (PWLR) and CapitaLand Ascott Trust (CLAST) have released their results.  Basically its a mixed bag, but dividends are still welcomed.  PWLR remains the star performer in my REITs portfolio, with continual increase in distribution per unit.  However, the weakening of the Japanese Yen is worrisome as it has caused the revenue and net property income of PWLR to decline this half year.  Thankfully it is mitigated by the hedging the manger has prudently forecasted and prepared for, which helped to prop up the distributable income for this half year.  This definitely shows the prudency and preparedness of the manager and their interest are definitely aligned with the shareholders.  This makes me heartened to believe that my decision a long time ago to make PWLR my top REIT holding a correct choice, even though it does not pay the highest dividend yield.  

I will be looking forward to the earnings release by others, especially the banks and Hong Leong Finance in upcoming months.  Hopefully the distributions to be announced with be positive, which will help to bring me one step closer to my goal of SGD 26K annual dividends in 2024.  Details of the dividends received will be announced later at the end of the September in my portfolio's quarterly updates.

For this month, I injected approximately SGD 7K capital buying the following shares:

US:       Apple

             Google-C

             JP Morgan

             Microsoft

             Nvidia

             Palantir

             Tesla

             VOO ETF

On the other hand, I have sold the following shares:

US:       Tesla

Total Portfolio Value has increased by approximately 4.0% to around SGD 570K including capital injection.  Quite happy that the portfolio is able to hit a new all time high despite the volatility.  Hopefully, this correction will be mild and short-term, so that after this the uptrend can continue and be more sustainable.  I would like to think that the AI bubble has yet to be blown out of proportion, and earnings can still support the valuations of the big tech companies, which is one reason why I added some Nvidia shares into my portfolio now.  Hopefully by the end of this year my portfolio can creep towards SGD 600K value, especially if interest rate cuts materialize.  For now, I will just sit back, relax, and wait for my dividends.

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