Wednesday, 2 September 2026

August 2026 Updates

August is a good month for income. Dividends received amounted to $2,181.24 consisting of:

SingTel @ $824
DBS @ $615.60
OCBC @ $546.14
CDG @ $195.50

This is higher Y-o-Y and total year dividends look on track to beat last year's figure which was somewhat a mini breakthrough for me. 

No trade done for Singapore portfolio this month. Have been queuing for NLT between $0.97 - $0.975 for the past two weeks without getting filled.

Hence the funds for August have rolled over to add on to September funds.

Just took a quick look at the market and it seems a couple more counters are starting to look interesting in terms of share price.

Hope to be able to deploy the funds soon.

For the US market, one of the short Puts expired unassigned with premium in the pocket.

Wrote another short Put on the same counter and closed it three days later for a quick profit.

Last but not least, added more to my existing ABVX position. 

Monday, 3 August 2026

July 2026 Updates

Market exuberance towards month end helped push portfolio passed $270k with $71k profit.

Paper profit, still shiok to see nonetheless.

At this point of writing, portfolio is around $268k.

This month's transactions:

1) Bought 1,400 units of CLI @ $2.48
2) Sold another ABVX 118P @ $2.15 premium

Friday, 3 July 2026

AI-assisted Singapore Portfolio Review (ChatGPT)

Got some time today so used AI to review my portfolio without bias.
 
The results are quite satisfactory but contain some inaccuracies. This again emphasised the need to fact check everything from AI and not accept blindly.
 
And just nice I was looking at Netlink earlier before this review😁. Was deciding between Netlink and Sembcorp, and this review might have just made the decision easier.
 
This is the prompt I used:
 
What do you think about this portfolio and how would you improve it from an income point of view while balancing growth and stability?
 
This is my portfolio screenshot:
 
 
This is from ChatGPT (wordings in blue are my comments):
 

This is actually a fairly solid Singapore income portfolio already. You’ve built around:

  • Singapore banks (DBS, OCBC)
  • Singapore telco/utilities-style cashflow (Singtel, NetLink)
  • Multiple S-REITs
  • Some industrial/logistics exposure
  • A bit of cyclical growth (Venture)

From an income + stability perspective, it’s much stronger than a lot of retail portfolios that are overly speculative.

That said, there are a few concentration and structural issues I would improve.


What I Like About This Portfolio

1. Strong dividend backbone

Your portfolio is clearly designed around:

  • recurring cashflow
  • dividend compounding
  • blue-chip Singapore exposure

That’s good for:

  • long-term wealth preservation
  • future retirement income
  • lower volatility vs growth stocks

The DBS + OCBC positions especially are carrying the portfolio very well.


2. You own high-quality Singapore assets

Some strong names here:

  • DBS
  • OCBC
  • Singtel
  • NetLink NBN Trust
  • CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust
  • Mapletree Logistics Trust

These are generally institutional-grade Singapore income names.


Main Weaknesses

1. Overexposure to S-REITs

You have many REITs:

  • CapLand Ascendas REIT
  • Capitaland Investment (Technically not a REIT. Bought this to diversify away from REITs previously.)
  • Centurion? (if 8C8U is CICT/CENT) (Is Centurion Accom REIT)
  • Mapletree Industrial
  • Mapletree Logistics
  • UOB REIT? (Is UIB REIT. ChatGPT doesn't recognise?)
  • etc.

This creates hidden concentration risk because many REITs react similarly to:

  • interest rates
  • refinancing costs
  • office/industrial property cycles
  • Singapore/China commercial demand

Right now several of your REITs are underwater because:

  • higher-for-longer interest rates compressed valuations
  • financing costs rose
  • yield spreads narrowed (Mapletree!)

You’re diversified by ticker, but not necessarily by economic driver. (Fair point)


2. Banks are carrying the portfolio

Your unrealized gains are largely: (My CICT and Venture also not bad leh)

  • DBS
  • OCBC
  • Singtel

Without them, the overall portfolio performance would look much weaker.

That tells me:

  • your strongest businesses are concentrated in a few holdings
  • some REIT allocations may be too large relative to quality (Good point. Will review.)

3. Missing global growth exposure

The portfolio is very Singapore-centric. (I have another portfolio for US and HK stocks)

That gives:

  • stability
  • SGD income

But limits:

  • innovation exposure
  • global earnings growth
  • AI/tech/productivity trends
  • US market leadership

Singapore is excellent for income. (My thoughts exactly. Aim has always been to build a solid base here while seeking growth from US and other markets.)
It is not excellent for long-term capital growth alone.


My Suggested Portfolio Structure

For a balanced income + growth + stability portfolio:

CategoryTarget
Singapore Banks25–30%
High-quality REITs20–25%
Singapore Infrastructure/Defensive15–20%
Global Equity ETFs20–30%
Cash/T-bills5–10%

What I Would Personally Adjust

Reduce weaker REIT overlap

You don’t necessarily need:

  • multiple industrial REITs
  • multiple logistics REITs
  • multiple similar property exposures

I’d consolidate into fewer, stronger REITs.

For example:
Keep:

  • Ascendas REIT
  • Mapletree Industrial (Above mentioned Mapletree Logistics Trust is high quality asset. Now say keep Mapletree Industrial instead?)
  • maybe one retail/commercial REIT

Reduce:

  • overlapping logistics/office exposure

Quality matters more than quantity.


Add Global ETFs

This is the biggest improvement I’d make.

Consider slowly building:

  • CSPX
  • VWRA
  • QQQM

These add:

  • US tech
  • healthcare
  • global consumer brands
  • AI growth
  • long-term capital appreciation

This balances the slower-growth nature of SGX income investing.


Income Optimization Ideas

1. Focus on dividend growth, not just yield (Good reminder)

A dangerous trap in SG investing is chasing:

  • 7–9% yields
  • weaker REITs
  • leveraged trusts

Instead:

  • prioritize sustainability
  • balance sheet strength
  • dividend growth potential

DBS is a great example:
lower yield historically than risky REITs, but far stronger total return.


2. Build a dividend “core”

Your strongest core holdings are probably:

  • DBS
  • OCBC
  • Singtel
  • NetLink
  • Ascendas REIT

These can form the stable income engine.


3. Add some dry powder

You are heavily invested already.

Keeping:

  • 5–10% in T-bills or cash
    lets you:
  • buy during crashes
  • reduce emotional investing
  • improve long-term returns

Especially useful if REITs fall further.


One Important Observation

Your portfolio currently looks optimized for:

  • dividend income
  • moderate stability

But not fully optimized for:

  • inflation-beating growth over 15–20 years.

Singapore equities alone may underperform global equities long term.

A hybrid strategy tends to work better:

  • SGX for income
  • global ETFs for growth

That combination is very powerful.


If This Were My Portfolio

I’d probably aim for something like:

Asset TypeApprox %
DBS + OCBC30%
SG REITs20%
Singtel + NetLink15%
Global ETFs25%
Cash/T-bills10%

That would likely produce:

  • good dividend income
  • lower volatility
  • better global diversification
  • stronger long-term compounding

while still maintaining the Singapore income profile you clearly value.

Tuesday, 30 June 2026

June 2026 Updates

Dividends received for the month of June come from:
 
1) MIT @ $278.10
2) MLT @ $296.50
3) CICT @ $378.10
4) NLT @ $284.55
 
Total: $1,237.25
 
Total received for first half of the year amounted to $6,614.25. This is slightly higher than the $5,824.36 received from the same period last year.
 
As long as there is no big surprise for the next half year, total dividends for the year should exceed $10k again with the amount higher than last year's too.
 
Portfolio value remained fairly stable month-on-month at quarter of a million dollars since there is no trade done in June:
 

This is about $40k higher than the portfolio value of $210,704.37 from the same period last year. Around $27,500 is from capital injection and dividend reinvestment. The rest comes from portfolio growth. 

Total investment amount should reach beyond $200k by end of year.
 
Next month has various AGMs coming up again. Hope to find time to attend, at least for the MLT AGM.
 
On the US front, I've added ABVX again at $96.80. This counter is facing some headwinds recently due to the report of cancers in the recent maintenance trial.

The volatile price movements give rise to nice opportunities in the options market.
 
I closed an earlier short put with $99 strike for a net premium of $2.17.

Then I initiated another short put at $93 which just expired with $5.08 premium in the pocket. Not bad for a week's holding.
 
Last night I sold another put at $65 strike expiring on 2nd July 2026 for a premium of $2.90.
 
The good news from ABVX released later in the night provided the reassurance investors needed and as a result the share price shot up >35% at this point of writing. That's good. But I wouldn't mind for the volatility to continue longer so I can further build up my position while getting juicy premiums from the options.

Monday, 1 June 2026

May 2026 Updates

Received dividend from a number of counters and did a number of transactions as follows.
 
Dividends
 
1) OCBC @ $673.96
2) DBS @ $615.60
3) CIL @ $132
4) CDG @ $229.50
5) Venture @ $250
 
Total: $1,901.06
 
As usual, reinvested the dividends received along with a portion of my side income.
 
Transactions
 
Bought 1,000 units of CICT @ $2.28
 
Bought 2,000 units of Cent Accom REIT @ $1.08
 
Sold 1 x ABVX put @ $99 strike with $5.30 premium

Thursday, 30 April 2026

April 2026 Updates

Relatively quiet month for me investment-wise.

Actions include:

1) Wrote another Put on ABVX at $98 strike price, expiring 8th May 2026. Received premium of $2.50.

2) Received DBS dividend of $615.60.

3) Received Ascendas REIT dividend of $558.75.

4) Applied for Ascendas REIT PO allocation + excess. Received full amount of the 1,100 units applied.

5) Added ABVX at $109.02.

Earnings season again. Another disappointing quarter from MIT with overseas assets being the drag. The 8% lower DPU YoY is quite a big drop. 

Another Mapletree unit that is raising alarm bells in me is MLT with their Mumbai acquisition. Many Singaporean companies struggle to do well in the Indian market. Hopefully MLT will be the exception. 

On the flip side, luckily Ascendas REIT's result is not bad overall with their >10% rental reversion.


Portfolio value remains stable.

Fund balance: around $2,200 with incoming dividends expected in May.

Tuesday, 31 March 2026

March 2026 Updates

March is a comparatively busy month for me both at work and in the market.
 
Dividends received
 
MLT @ $296.01
MIT @ $285.30
Ascendas REIT @ $1,038.86
CICT @ $331.92
CLCT @ $349.50 (last dividend)
 
Total received for March 2026: $2,301.59

This amount is slightly higher year on year.
 
Transactions
 
1) This month marks the end of my relationship with CapitaLand China Trust aka CLCT after holding it for 6 years.
 
I've sold all my 15,000 units at $0.675. Overall loss incurred is -47.24% including cumulative dividends over the years.
 
This is following my review of portfolio done in January this year.
 
What prompted me to sell is the structural deterioration in the REIT's performance, continuous challenging macro environment and most importantly, I don't see an improvement in sight in the near future.
 
Performance of the REIT manager is nothing short of shocking. Rental reversion is in the negative territory across the three segments of retail, logistics park and business park.
 
Retail, which is traditionally their largest portfolio contributor, seen a fall in both revenue and occupancy rate.

Consequently DPU fell nearly 15% compared to 2024.

As such I have to make the decision to cut this bleeding counter from my portfolio and reinvest the proceeds into other more resilient and promising counters.

It is a painful but necessary decision.

2) Using the proceeds from above sale and dividends received, I added more CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust (CICT) at $2.37 and $2.30.
 
This brought my average price to $1.93. An average up.
 
Dividend yield on average cost: 6%.
 
CICT is one of the few REITs that performed admirably in my opinion. Their latest financial results show a solid performance with both revenue and NPI increasing year on year. Occupancy rate remains high at nearly 97%.
 
I also like the fact that gearing remains below 40% with ICR increasing YoY. Equally important, cost of debt went down to 3.2% and is set to go down even further to about 3.0% in FY2026. Nice!

No qualms in increasing my holdings in this counter which currently makes up about 9.2% of my portfolio.

3) Also using the proceeds and dividends, I bought into Centurion Accomodation REIT (Cent Accom REIT) at $1.09.

This is a counter that I have been wanting to buy after failing to get any allocation during IPO.

Based on a prudent IPO projected dividend amount (they have apparently exceeded this forecasted amount), my yield on cost would be 6.03%.

Even after taking 10% off - the REIT has stated after 2027 they would pay out at least 90% of distributable income instead of the 100% now, my yield would be 5.43%. Still quite decent.
 
So long as Singapore remains a foreign worker-based economy, I'm optimistic about this counter. Looking to build up this holding in tranches.

4) I also applied for the UI Boustead REIT IPO this month and got allocated 3,200 units. The listing couldn't come at a worse time with the war in Middle East raging on.

Share price of this counter went downhill on day one of listing and has remained below the IPO price although I feel this is a reaction to the macro environment rather than structural issues with the counter.

Can add more depending on my funds and opportunities with other counters.

5) ABVX put option that I wrote last month has expired. Premium in the pocket remains intact.

6) Bought ABVX at $119.77 and $102.76 post-earnings. First came across this counter when it was mentioned by Doc TTI. Wasn't in a hurry to enter then as I wanted to wait for the earning release.

It's not about the numbers - For biotech companies at this stage, the financial numbers are pretty meaningless. What I wanted to read is the management comments and business updates. And these didn't disappoint.

Two points I picked up in the updates:

- Firstly, a Chief Commercial Officer is appointed and the Chief Scientific Officer is leaving. I interpret this as: the company do not foresee any issue with Obefazimod and the planned NDA application in the 2nd half of the year. Even if no buyout materialised, the company is prepared to market the drug themselves.

- Secondly the Data Safety Monitoring Board found no new safety signals in the latest ABTECT Phase 3 maintenance trial.

First point spells confidence. Second point further reinforce the first.

The potential of Obefazimod doesn't just ends here. Because of the delivery mechanism, the drug has high potential of application in most other inflammatory diseases as well. The company is concurrently running trials on Obefazimod for Crohn's disease now with the 12-week induction data expected in second half 2026.
 
The more due diligence I do for this counter, the more excited I am. This drug is like a game-changer in that it reduces inflammation in the first place by deregulating the release of cytokines which are pro-inflammatory proteins in our body.

This is radically different from the immunosuppressants that are usually prescribed in current practice which can cause a host of other issue because of weakened immune system.

So in my opinion even if no buyout occurs, the commercialisation of the drug by Abivax themselves isn't a bad thing too.

Risk of this investment is obviously the failure to get NDA approval for Obefazimod. However this is probably a low risk and I am mitigating with position sizing.
 
The question now is how much of the good news has been priced in already. My feel is not fully yet. So I will continue to add and build up for this counter.

7) Took partial profits off my MSFT holdings at $370.28 partly because of the recent price weakness and partly to fund my planned purchases of ABVX.
 
MSFT has been a multi-bagger for me and I still hold the counter after this partial profit-taking.

Conclusion

Same strategy applies for all counters. Since the current war situation is so dynamic - market can move in any direction in the blink of an eye based on one social media post from Donald Trump, I will continue to buy in tranches and at the same time mitigate risk with position sizing.