Portfolio Update for May 2025

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

For the month of May, it was a rather muted month compared to April.  The old adage of “Sell in May and Go Away” seemed to be missing this year, especially when the US markets have rebounded strongly back towards the high, as Trump continues to reach tariff deals of some sort with various countries.  How long will this last before Trump changes again is anyone's guess, and probably only Trump himself knows.  The only triggering event this month is the downgrade of US credit rating by Moody's from AAA to AA1.  Moody's is the last rating agency to 'kick' US out of the triple A ratings club, with Fitch Rating last downgraded US back in 2023.

Another event that triggered me from making many moves this month is the further weakening of the USD.  Back in April, USD : SGD has weakened from 1 : 1.35 to 1 : 1.31.  In May, the exchange rate has dropped below 1.30.  So probably this was a good move for now, but whether it bear fruits in the form of higher dividends, will depend on how the companies perform in time to come.  The sale proceeds were channeled into the SG Dividend Portfolio to boost my dividend income.  As per end of this month, it seems to be going in the right path, as portfolio value was minimally impacted, and dividend income continues to improve.

Another thing I will need to remain cautious on are the long term US bond yields and Japan bond yields.  Hopefully they will not escalate to uncontrollable levels.  Consequently, this also mean that 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.  Latest PCE numbers were also encouraging, showing that inflationary pressures continue to remain muted despite threats from tariffs.  Will this lead to rate cuts anytime soon is anyone's guess.  I suppose with Trump around, the threat of further tariffs madness remains real, and FED is probably in a difficult position moving forward. 

With all the bond yields going haywire and weakening of the reserve currency, I also added a little physical silver into my portfolio.  This may not be the right time and right price to add, because the current price is not exactly low, but this is probably my last addition for silver.  Any further allocation into "commodities" may be into physical gold if gold price retreats.

Closer to home, I am more contended with my SG Dividend Portfolio after the rebalancing done previously and the addition of new companies into my portfolio.  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 ecstatic that the dividends that I will be receiving for this quarter is approximately 30.7% higher than the same period last year.  This is possible because of all the special dividends announced by many companies like the banks and Comfortdelgro.  Without any hiccups, I should be able to fulfill my "level-up" Barista FIRE goal this year, achieving more than SGD 30K of dividends for this whole year.  Details of the dividends received will be announced next month in my portfolio's quarterly updates.

For this month, I injected approximately SGD 24.0K capital (from the SGD 33.6K sale proceeds from the partial sale of my US Growth Portfolio) buying the following shares:

SGX:    CapitaLand Ascott Trust

             Kimly

             Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation

             Riverstone

US:       FXI ETF

             Google-C

             VTV ETF

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

SGX:    Aims Apac REIT

             ComfortDelgro

             Frasers Logistics and Commercial Trust

             Hong Leong Finance

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

US:      Apple

            Google-C

            JP Morgan

            Microsoft

Total Portfolio Value has decreased very slightly by approximately 0.3% to around SGD 665K including capital injection and cash reserves from the partial sale of my US Portfolio.  With about SGD 9K outstanding for deployment into SG stocks from the sale proceeds, the total portfolio value could be regarded as SGD 674K, indicating a possible 1.0% increase in portfolio value compared to previous month.  I sincerely hope that I can be more discipline in the deployment of my cash reserves to build up my dividend portfolio, instead of chasing and 'FOMO-ing' into the markets.  With regards to performance of the REITs, I will just keep them "buried in freezer buried underground" while waiting patiently for reversal to happen.  For now, I shall just continue to sit back, relax, and wait for dividends collection in June!

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