Portfolio Update Q3 2025

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This month marks the end of the 3rd 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 has been completely liquidated to pay off my mortgage loan, and moving forward, my portfolio will be 100% Singapore centric.

The most important event that happened this month is definitely the FED meeting and the speech by Jerome Powell on 17th September 2025.  As expected, the FED finally announced an interest rate cut by 25 basis point.  This long awaited event has finally materialize and I believe this bring cheers to many REITs investors like myself.  Moving forward, based on the dot plot, there should be 2 more rate cuts this year, and around another 1 rate cut in 2026.  However, how the sequence of events will eventually play out remains to be seen, as there are signs that the FED may be cornered with rising inflation and rising unemployment rate.  Therefore it is important for investors to note that uncertainty remains, especially the possibility of recession.  

Closer to home, Singapore is also planning 2 new equity indexes besides the Straits Times Index to boost the liquidity of the market.  The new indexes are called iEdge Singapore Next 50 Index and iEdge Singapore Next 50 Liquidity Weighted Index, which includes the next 50 largest listed company in terms of market capitalization and liquidity beyond the largest 30 tracked by the Straits Times Index.  I believe this can help to increase the liquidity and trading interest in these next 50 companies and hopefully boost the overall market performance.  Looking forward to see its actual benefits to my portfolio in time to come.

Focusing back to my personal portfolio, with the rate cut materializing, REITs and banks are instead experiencing downward pressures in their prices.  Currently I have minimal expectations of the market, and not betting on the recovery of prices of REITs after rate cuts.  I will just focus on building my dividend income.  As mentioned earlier, to pay off my mortgage loan, I have liquidated my US Portfolio and sold a part of my holdings in Singapore Technologies Engineering (STE), which amounted to a total of approximately 10% of my equity portfolio.  This action will rectify and improve my overall cashflow and financial position, and most importantly, give me a peace of mind, with minimal impact to my dividend income.

On a happier note, dividends collected in the third quarter has been satisfactory, at SGD 11,421.20 from quarterly dividends from Mapletree Family REITs, Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), Singapore Technologies Engineering (STE) and Aims Apac REIT (AAR), and semi-annual dividends from Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), Hong Leong Finance (HLF), United Overseas Bank (UOB), Capitaland Integrated Commercial Trust (CICT), ParkwayLife REIT (PWLR), Capitaland Ascott Trust (CLAST), ComfortDelgro (CDG), HRNetGroup (HRNG) and Kimly.  This amount is about 26.6% higher than the amount of dividends collected in the third quarter of 2024.  The overall increase in quarterly dividends is due to the dividend support from CDG, HRNG and Kimly after I added them into my portfolio.  Hopefully the current portfolio and allocation will help to make my future dividends more stable and predictable as I progress towards Barista FIRE.

For this month, the total portfolio market value definitely dropped compared to last month due to partial liquidation of portfolio to pay down mortgage loan.  I believe if I did not sell, the US Portfolio would have brought my portfolio to a new all time high.  However, I have made my decision to sell, and that is all that matters, no regrets.  With the sale, my portfolio value is now about SGD 668K (SGD 680K including cash), indicating a drop in approximately 7%.  Last year, I started saving up a portion of my dividend income in a high yield savings account and only reinvest a smaller portion of it, to try out my strategy mentioned in this earlier post as I plan to transit towards Barista FIRE in phases.  Currently I have accumulated 29% (33% by end of 2025) of my expected expenses for next year.  Barring unforeseen circumstances, my monthly dividend (as of 2025) is sufficient to cover approximately 73% of my monthly expenses.  In the first phase of my Barista FIRE, I intend to cover 44% of my annual expenses using my dividend income, and the rest of the dividends will be reinvested.  The shortfall in my monthly expenses will come from my active income.  Looking at the numbers, I think I am on track for my personal transition for now.  Nonetheless, I am still looking forward to the upcoming quarterly reporting, to continue to collect the dividends from my portfolio in the final quarter of 2025.  Barista FIRE, here I come...!

SG Dividends Portfolio

Total Portfolio Value: SGD 668,665.40 

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