~~Towards Barista FIRE~~

This month marks the end of the 3rd 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 most important event that happened this month is definitely the FED meeting and the speech by

The last trip I had to Seminyak, Bali was in December 2022.  This year in late August, I decided to make another short trip to Bali to chill for a few days.  As a self-proclaimed dividend investor, I am glad that this trip is once again sponsored from the dividends collected in the previous quarter.  No prize for guessing that the dividends come from the banks and REITs (did I hear anyone saying dividends are irrelevant?)! This trip is another solo trip.  For a start, I made use of my Dragon Pass via HSBC Travel1 Credit Card to gain complementary free access to the airport lounge at Terminal 4, and enjoy the laksa fix for brunch!     SG Laksa at T4 After the meal and short break, it's time to board the plane for the journey to Bali!  The flight took about 3 hours in total.  Clearing of immigration is smooth and fast.  Immediately after exiting, I went to the booth at the departure hall to pay the tourism tax, which is IDR 150K (SGD 12.71).  From the airport, taking the taxi or grab

This is going to be a short post, to join in the crowd to talk about the performance of REITs lately. Finally, the long awaited rate cut by the FED has materialized.  The anticipation began since December 2023, and we have been waiting for a whole 10 months before it finally happens.  On 18th September 2024, the FED has finally confirmed the cut of 0.50%.  This is probably not the one and only rate cut that is going to happen, so what remains uncertain moving forward is the frequency of rate cuts in the rest of this year and in 2025.  That will depend on the health and strength of the US economy moving forward.  Nearer to home, we have seen how this anticipation has been great for Singapore listed REITs.  Since the speech by Jerome Powell on 10th July 2024, REITs have staged a small rebound and I have written a post discussing whether the rally has legs .  Indeed, as of 19th September 2024, based on Lion-Phillips S-REIT ETF, REITs have rallied by about 10% while the CSOP iEdge S-REIT L

There are many strategies and investing methodologies, such as growth investing, dividend investing, value investing, all-weather portfolio investing and index (passive) investing.  Undoubtedly, the followers and practitioners of the respective investing methodologies will have their own reasons and biasedness on why their chosen method is 'better' than others, and I respect that.  Many times, due to our individual biasedness, when we prefer a certain methodology over others, we may also end up claiming that our chosen method is superior over others, and at the meantime, failed to notice some loopholes of the preferred method.  Therefore, it is through comparison, argument, justification and debate that we expose and highlight all pros and cons of the various methods, and hopefully we get to learn and improve from there on. For me personally, based on my character, the way I do things, and the personal data points from the day I started trading and investing in 2009, I conclude

The Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement in Singapore continues to have a dedicated following, but its popularity might vary among different groups.  For a quick recap, there were 5 popular FIRE strategies when I first came to know about the FIRE movement, namely traditional FIRE, Lean FIRE, Barista FIRE, Coast FIRE and Fat FIRE.  If you do not know about these, feel free to see my previous write-up on the different  FIRE strategies .  Some people remain enthusiastic about the principles of saving aggressively and investing wisely to achieve financial independence early in life.  However, the movement has also faced increasing scrutiny and adjustment as people realize the challenges and trade-offs involved in pursuing extreme frugality and early retirement, especially in high-cost cities like Singapore.  This is also evident when books like "Dying with Zero" gain popularity, further undermining the need for FIRE. As such, besides the revamping of FIRE from &q