Portfolio Update Q2 2025

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This month marks the end of the 2nd quarter of 2025.  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.  This month is marked by many events which heightened the volatility of the markets.  Most notably is the Israel–Iran conflict.  The escalation began with Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, prompting a sharp 7–11% jump in crude oil prices, hitting one month highs and fueling global volatility.  Investors fretted that prolonged conflict could push oil to USD 130 per barrel, spiking inflation, and thwart anticipated Fed rate cuts.  Matters were made worse with US joining in the air strike on Iran over the weekend.  However surprisingly, the war tentatively did not further escalate, and stock markets were higher on the following Monday.  This shows the importance of not timing the market and the need to resist reactions to every single news.  Time in the market will allow us to capture every recovery and uptrend, especially when we least expect it to happen.

In the latest FED meeting this month, FED chair Jerome Powell has once again reaffirmed that FED is not intending to cut rates anytime soon, citing possible persistent inflation risks due to tariffs and war/ tensions.  However towards the end of the month, some FED members also signal the possibility of rate cuts as early as July.  How this will actually turn out is once again out of my control.  Therefore I shall ignore the noises and just invest as usual.  If rate cuts do materialize as soon as July, it will be a bonus for my REITs portfolio, hopefully.

In the US Markets, S&P 500 is going sideways, hovering around the highs but individual stocks like JP Morgan and Microsoft are hitting new highs, while Apple and Google and languishing around near term lows.  This counter-movements made my US Growth Portfolio relatively stable throughout the month.  I think I will just do nothing to it for now.

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 uncertainty of the timing for 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, especially with my existing allocation towards REITs within my portfolio.  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 further red flags on any metrics that I need to be wary of.  I 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 remarkable, at SGD 12,126.03 from quarterly dividends from Mapletree Family REITs, Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) and Singapore Technologies Engineering (STE), Aims Apac REIT (AAR) and Riverstone (RVS), and semi-annual dividends from Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), Hong Leong Finance (HLF), United Overseas Bank (UOB) Frasers Logistics and Commercial Trust (FLCT) and ComfortDelgro (CDG).  This amount is about 30.7% higher than the amount of dividends collected in the second quarter of 2024, due to new contributions from added shares, and special dividends from various companies.  Combining with the dividends collected in the 1st quarter, the total amount is more than SGD 15K, or 51.6% of the total annual dividends I hope to receive for 2025.  Hopefully the diversification will help to make my future dividends more stable and predictable, especially as I slowly progress towards the first phase of my Barista FIRE path in time to come.

For this month, the total portfolio market value hit a new high of approximately SGD 684k this quarter, including a capital injection of about SGD 5K, which is a slight increase of about 0.7%.  With about SGD 4K outstanding for deployment into SG stocks from the sale proceeds early last month, the total portfolio value could be regarded as SGD 688K, indicating a possible 1.3% increase in portfolio value compared to previous month.  I will continue to remain patient with where to deploy the cash, to continuing diversifying and stabilizing my portfolio.  Regardless, I am looking forward to the upcoming quarterly reporting, to continue to collect the dividends from my portfolio in the third quarter of 2025.  Barista FIRE, here I come...!

SG Dividends Portfolio

US Growth Portfolio


Total Portfolio Value: SGD 683,867.94 (USD 1 : SGD 1.27)

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