~~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 was a month of roller-coaster ride.  The first half of the month was a wild ride, with the Nikkei plunging a frightening 12% in a single day.  The main culprit was due to the sudden shock that the Japan finance department decided to raise interest rate by 0.25%.  Technically speaking, an increase in interest rate by 0.25% is nothing worrisome, however this is worsen by the huge sum of monies involved in the 'Yen Carry Trade'.  A detailed explanation of the 'Yen Carry Trade' and its impact on the financial markets has been explained in this post by Dollars and Sense .  The outcome of these series of events resulted in the rise in Japanese Yen against the US Dollar and institutions and investors hurriedly unwind their positions to minimize their risk exposure.  This led to the plunge in the markets, with investors turning the tide from greed to fear in days

Within a short span of two months, the Malaysia Ringgit has appreciated against the Singapore Dollar by an alarming 5.4%, from a low of SGD 1 : MYR 3.509 on 12th June 2024, to a high of SGD 1 : MYR 3.319 on 5th August 2024, making MYR one of the best performing ASEAN currency in the past 6 months (Latest high of SGD 1 : MYR 3.3084 reached on 29th August 2024).  Although the exchange rate seems to stabilize between the range of 3.32 to 3.38 for now, MYR may continue to appreciate against the SGD once the FED materializes interest rate cut in US, and it did.   To understand why this is inevitable, we may need a little economics lesson.  As I am not finance-trained, I shall engage the help of ChatGBT on this matter. " The 'Impossible Trinity', also known as the 'Trilemma', is a concept in international economics that states that a country cannot simultaneously have all three of the following: 1)     A fixed exchange rate 2)     Free capital movement 3)     An indepen

Recently there is a viral trend on TikTok about " Underconsumption Core ", which spotlights frugality and living sustainably.  In this trend, instead of posting large hauls of clothing and beauty products, users are posting videos of their well-used everyday items and a downsized skincare collection.  To followers, the rise of this trend can be linked to the challenges Gen Z and millennials face today, including mounting economic pressures and environmental concerns.  I think tidywithspark.com has a good writeup on this trend of underconsumption core. picture taken from tidywithspark Being a millennial myself (someone born between the early 1980s to late 1990s), I was dumbfounded initially when I saw this report.  In my personal opinion, is it not common sense for an individual to use something completely till it is used up (for consumables) or till it is spoilt before buying new ones?  It is meant to be the normal way of life and I do not understand why it became a viral tr

Do note that this is not investment advice, and definitely not any recommendation to buy or sell, because even I myself do not know what I should and will do. The recent magnitude 7.1 Miyazaki earthquake that rattled southern Japan on 8th August 2024 serves as a stark reminder of the potential for a far more devastating event - an earthquake along the Nankai Trough.  The situation is also brought into world-wide attention due to the  megaquake advisory  released by the Japanese Government.  This region, known for its seismic activity, has a history of producing "megathrust" earthquakes, with the last significant events occurring in 1944 (Tōnankai Earthquake) and 1946 (Nankai Earthquake).  These quakes, which occur roughly every century, could potentially reach a magnitude of 9, resulting in catastrophic damage.   Experts estimate there is a 70 to 80% chance that a magnitude 8 or 9 earthquake could strike the Nankai Trough within the next 30 years.  If such an event were to

In the last week of July, Sing Investments & Finance Ltd (SIF) released their earnings for the first half of 2024, and the results were not pretty, as its profit after tax declined by 2% year-on-year and its total comprehensive income declined by a larger 20% year-on-year.  However, SIF is not part of my portfolio, so why am I interested in its earnings?  This is because, as one of the only 3 listed financial institutions in Singapore, it can somewhat fore-tell how the earnings of Hong Leong Finance (HLF) is going to be.  Recent performance of HLF has not been rosy.  In the last earnings report, HLF reported a massive 32% decline in dividends , prompting me to carry out my first portfolio balancing in March 2024.  With the earnings from SIF, I am wary of the latest earnings from HLF, and decided to make a speculative pre-emptive move to rebalance my portfolio to sell part of my HLF shares while the share price is still at decent levels. As such, on the first week of August, I sold

Parkway Life REIT (PWLR) is one of Asia's largest listed healthcare REITs, and one of the 2 healthcare REITs listed on SGX (the other being First REIT).  PWLR invests in income-producing real estate and real estate-related assets used primarily for healthcare and healthcare-related purposes.  As at 31 December 2023, PWLR's total portfolio size stands at 63 properties totalling approximately S$2.23 billion.   Since I started revamping my portfolio back in late 2017, till I began blogging down my Barista FIRE investing journey in March 2022, I have slowly accumulated shares of PWLR until it became the largest REIT holding in my portfolio, both capital injected and market value wise.  As posted in April 2022 , I wrote about the reasons why PWLR became the largest holding in my dividend portfolio when it has the lowest yield amongst all the REITs.  To this date, 2 years plus later, PWLR remains to be the REIT with the lowest yield at approximately 4% per annum, and it is still the