Monday 16 December 2019

Annual Donation 2019

Just did my annual personal donation via giving.sg.

Every year I try to choose different causes for my donation but generally I tend to gravitate towards the young and elderly.

Though the amount is not big I hope it helps in some way.

Equally important is that I hope this post can inspire others to help the less fortunate too.

While we collect our dividends or make money from the market, let's not forget those who needs some help.

On a side note, I've also decided to do some CSR for my company. Taking a leaf out of CapitaLand, I am thinking of donating 0.5% of my operating net profit after FY ends in Feb.

Let's see how. The ratio might change but the deed will be done.

Moving forward I hope this can be an annual event.

Cheers! 

Friday 29 November 2019

November 2019 Updates

Nov 2019

Portfolio Value after market close: S$122,420.76

Wifey's Portfolio Value after market close: S$62,847.45

Purchase: 5,000 units of Ascendas Reit @ $2.89

Sold: None

Dividends: ESR Reit @ $93.39, Netlink Trust @ $201.60, MNACT @ $77.48 and Suntec Reit @ $94.60.

Ascendas Reit

I have been waiting to enter Ascendas Reit for a long time.

The recent rights issue presented a good chance for me to invest in this well-run company. When the price of the Reit dipped to $2.89 - $2.91 from the previous $3+, I proceeded to buy 10 lots (5 lots for wifey).

Though the price is still a premium to book, it is a price I am comfortable with especially since this is for my long term income portfolio.

Also, I feel the premium is worth paying for a Reit of this quality.

Furthermore if the price dip significantly further, I am prepared to buy another batch.

If not I will hold my bullets for the other counters on my watchlist.

Japfa

Share price of Japfa has ran up nicely over the past two weeks and I was tempted to sell my holdings. However I eventually decided to hold on as the uptrend still seems intact.

Will monitor and see.

ISOTeam

Saw from the news last night that ISOTeam has finally concluded the deal to buy over Mobikes bicycles.

The new assets increased their number of bikes exponentially and I expect this to contribute positively to SG Bike which has already broken even operationally before this.

I have previously written about this in my ISOTeam AGM post here.

This positive news came after the announcment of a slew of contract wins for ISOTeam, including that of projects at Istana and the Botanical Gardens.

Order book remains high and is still increasing. And with the general election coming soon (I guess), I won't be surprised at all if ISOTeam announce more public contract wins.

I am excited by the coming quarters ahead. 

Thursday 31 October 2019

October 2019 Updates

Oct 2019

Portfolio Value after market close: S$103,979.92

Wifey's Portfolio Value after market close: S$47,951.60

Purchase: None

Sold: None

Dividends: Japfa $50

Took up ESR REIT preferential offering allocation and applied excess. Allocated all the excess. This brought my holdings to 10,000 units.

Continue to monitor market for opportunities to enter.

Registered for the trading tournament in InvestingNote but haven't done any trade yet. 

Wednesday 30 October 2019

ISOTeam AGM 2019


This year's AGM is held at Sheraton Towers again in a ball room with about 120 seats at ~80% full.

The AGM started at 10.02 am with a video clip on an overview of ISOTeam business and introduction of board members. 

After that is the Q&A session. 

Q: Big fluctuations on earnings between 2018 and 2019. What are the key factors that contributed to this?

A: ISOTeam has a fixed cost to maintain in terms of overhead expenditures. Managed to reduce that in 2019. 

Q: Any loss-making projects? 

A: No. 

Q: A&A segment went up alot and that segment contributes a big chunk of the revenue. Is this the focus of ISOTeam going forward?

A: A&A is a big margin segment. Moving forward ISOTeam will continue to focus on this segment. 

Current overall orderbook for ISOTeam is about S$140 million. 

Q: Can throw some colours on Pure group? How will they boost ISOTeam? 

A: Pure group is a project management company. ISOTeam is not project manager. We are just a contractor. The S$40 million MBS project is from Pure group and ISOTeam is their contractor and this is not the first time ISOTeam is working with them. 

80% of Pure group business is in Singapore and rest of the 20% is in Thailand, Malaysia and China. 

Q: Regarding SG bike. Is it easier for ISOTeam to just buy the busted bike company (Mobike) instead of buying SG bike?

A: ISOTeam is buying the bikes from Mobike only, not the business of Mobike.

ISOTeam paid about S$350 per bike when setting up SG bike. 

However ISOTeam paid about S$20 for each Mobike bicycle after nett of licensing fee and refundable deposit to LTA.

Following is my opinion: (I think back then when ISOTeam set up SG bike, Mobike has not gone bust yet so this question of buying over Mobike is not really relevant.) 

Q: Government is pushing for BMW (bike, MRT, walk) initiative. Bike might not be as popular a choice. What do ISOTeam think? 

A: ISOTeam is very positive on the bike business. ISOTeam is the only full licensed bike operator now. 

Currently on weekends, all SG bikes are fully taken up.

When the bike count is increased after buying over Mobike bicycles, it should get even better because more bikes can be deployed to other housing estates. 

Q: Operating cash flow every year is negative. 

A: Mainly related to timing difference. Payment timing from customers. But since the government is the major customer, there is little risk of default. And government's payment term is 3 months whereas ISOTeam need to pay their sub contractors first. 

Another reason is also due to working capital for larger contract values now. 

Q: Proposed a lower fixed amount for the 3 founders' salary and a higher variable bonus component as a motivation for management to perform better. 

A: 3 of them don't get the same salary. They have different functions so they received different fixed pay. Variable bonus is devised in such a way that they get the same amount.

Q: Gross profit margin can be further improved from the current 15 - 16%?

A: Is sustainable and can be further improved. 

Q: Has all the savings been realised from the consolidation of operations and company office? 

A: ISOTeam has reduced from 6, 7 different places to one place now. 

The company is also applying for a higher quota to house more workers together. It is pending government's approval. Each worker approved can save the company about 200 bucks per month. 

Q: Any comment on the recurring income streams of ISOTeam? 

A: That is currently quite minimal. Solar Nova 1 is ending soon and ISOTeam is discussing with Sunseap on the maintenance of their solar systems and with Pure group in place, they are discussing with Sunseap on project management next time. 

Q: Is SG bike already profitable? 

A: Operationally broken even. With more bikes coming in things will improve further. 

Q: Is the geopolitical situation affecting ISOTeam? 

A: 99% of ISOTeam business is in Singapore so not affected negatively. 

Q: R&R margin used to be very good in 2015 and 2016. Can ISOTeam improve to that margin again? 

A: 2015 and 2016 are election years. After that the government tenders became smaller in contract value. 

Previously R&R contributed about S$20 million. But this year it already has S$60 million order. 

Q: Any upcoming big HIP project? 

A: Just completed one. Another one about 20% completed.

Q: What is the fair value gain of other investment? 

A: Investment in Sunseap. Fair value stated in accordance to FRS. 

Q: Is ISOTeam trying to expand outside Singapore by buying Pure group and going into project management? 

A: Most of ISOTeam business comes from the government. Stable income comes from them. 
ISOTeam is also moving towards becoming a one-stop soution provider as a turnkey player.

Q: Why are Goodwill and Intangible Assets treated differently? How are they classified? 

A: Both are related to previous acquisition of a company (not Pure group). Items are classified according to FRS. 

After the Q&A session is the customary voting of resolutions.

All resolutions passed with vast majority. 

The AGM ended at 11.15 am. 

As per previous years, the chairman and CEO stayed behind to mingle and answer further questions. 

This is the hallmark of a sincere and responsible management team. 

I had the chance to discuss with Anthony, the CEO on several issues and found him to be candid in his replies as per previous discussions. 

I personally like him as a CEO as I feel he has a very clear vision of the company and how to move it forward. Also feels that he is an 'on the ground' person who can resonate with the lower levels instead of someone who is sitting in an ivory tower. 

There are of course, couple of stuff that have been discussed which I don't think should be revealed in a public blog. 

But those, along with what I heard in the above Q&A, make me decided to continue holding on to the shares and actually make me looking forward to the near future of ISOTeam. 

Lastly I apologise if there is any incoherence or grammatical / spelling error in the above post. 

I have been having diarrhoea since this afternoon (4 times and feeling coming again..) and is rushing out this post using mobile phone.

Happy reading and hope it helps. 


Monday 30 September 2019

September 2019 Update

Sept 2019

Portfolio Value after market close: S$100,099.77

Wifey's Portfolio Value after market close: S$46,091.39

Purchase: Japfa, 10,000 shares @ $0.45

Sold: None

Dividends: Mapletree Logistics Trust $152.21

Bought another batch of Japfa as it hit oversold territory and after the company bought back shares at $0.455.


Total holdings for Japfa stands at 30,000 shares.

Received another round of dividends from MLT for this month.

Also applied for 10,000 units of Lendlease IPO. Let's see what's the allocation.

Friday 30 August 2019

August 2019 Update

Aug 2019

Portfolio Value after market close: S$95,554.49

Wifey's Portfolio Value after market close: S$45,896.71

Purchases: None

Sold: None

Dividends:

SingTel: $535
Suntec Reit: $62.60
CCT: $200.80
MNACT: $78
*ESR Reit: $4.82

Another dividend season is here. Only difference is that I have been so busy recently that I have not even thought about it. Only realised it when I saw the various dividends in my bank account last night.

With the above divvys in, total amount received YTD has broken the $10k mark. A small milestone for me but unlikely to repeat next year.

These few days have been looking more closely at 2 of the local banks.

Wanted to nibble DBS when it dipped below $24 but ultimately didn't pull the trigger as I decided it didn't fit in to my strategy.

The price was good for a short term trade but valuation is still too high for a buy and hold long term person like me. Will make a move at around $22.20 unless emotions get the better of me.

Another one was OCBC. Price has been settling within my TP range at about 1 x BV. But I decided to wait till 1st September to see the effect of the new tariffs have on the market.

Last but not least, Japfa has hit my TP too and seems to be consolidating there. Again will see the price movement next week before entering another batch.

* Added ESR Reit dividend.

Wednesday 31 July 2019

July 2019 Update

July 2019

Portfolio Value after market close: S$98,360.94

Wifey's Portfolio Value after market close: S$47,399.02

Purchases: None

Sold: None

Dividends:

ESR Reit: $77.09

Portfolio value dropped this month compared to last month.

REITs continue to be overpriced at this moment. Might add abit more of Mapletree Logistics Trust (MLT) based on today's closing price.

Looking at a couple of non-reit counters but price is still north of TP.

Meanwhile continue to place my cash in bank to earn the 2% interest. Better than nothing.

Baby M is getting cuter and cuter by the day. Just last week, she actually carried up the walker that she was seated in to cross over the kerb to the kitchen.

At only 13 months young, that showed she has analytical skills at this age already.

On the work front, things are getting busier but not necessarily in a good way. Customer is placing new requirements every other day so much so that I have to put a stop to it.

I look forward to the day that this project is completed. 

Friday 28 June 2019

June 2019 Update

June 2019

Portfolio Value after market close: S$100,533.67

Wifey's Portfolio Value after market close: S$48, 506.66

Purchases: None

Sold: None

Dividends:

ESR Reit: Scrip
MLT: Scrip
OCBC: $5.29

Our portfolios reached a new high despite taking profit on some counters previously. This is due to the run up of the Reits in our portfolio.

It has been awhile since my portfolio value touched $100k.

Still on the lookout for suitable counters to add. But for now most seem overpriced.

Overall was a busy and stressful month for me in terms of work. I can foresee it will be equally if not more hectic at least for the next two months.

This year also marked the first year that my company has to pay corporate tax.

It came as a little surprise as I thought new startups enjoy a 3 years tax exemption. However upon checking I realised the regulation has changed.

It is bittersweet for me. Looking on the bright side having to pay tax means at least my business is making money.

I also overspent by quite a bit this month as baby M turned one!

Had a simple dinner celebration with family members in a restaurant that costs a grand+ and ordered a baby-friendly cake that costs $130.

Also celebrated our wedding anniversary at a mexican restaurant with just wifey and I.

Though overspent, I considered these well-spent. Memories made are priceless. 

Friday 31 May 2019

May 2019 Portfolio Update

May 2019

Portfolio Value after market close: S$93,485.52

Wifey's Portfolio Value after market close: S$44,737.55

Purchases: Japfa x 10,000 shares

Sold: None

Dividends:

CapitaLand: $480
Japfa: $150
MNACT: $78.24
Suntec: $129.20*

Comment:

Japfa

Saw the price weakness and added 10 lots to the existing 10 lots in holding. 

As the often quoted saying goes: when people are fearful you must be greedy..

Hopefully it turns out right for me.

I like their vertically integrated business model though a combination of the swine flu and poor 1Q results affected the share price by quite a bit.

Japfa share price is still consolidating between 0.545 - 0.57. I reckon 2nd half of this year might see better results from them due to higher poultry demands in Ramadan month.

Meanwhile I will continue buying their Greenfields brand for my milk supply which is really one of the cheapest in the supermarkets : )

ESR and MLT

Opted for DRP for both. Will include in next month's update.

*Updated with Suntec's dividend. Forgot to input in the original post. 

Wednesday 15 May 2019

Net Worth (A Quick Estimate)

Recently have seen some bloggers writing about their net worth. With some free time tonight I thought it would be interesting to do a quick estimate of my current net worth for curiosity sake too.

This is a back-of-the-envelope calculation so figures are not 100% accurate.

All figures are based on point of writing (14 May 2019 11.50 pm).

Insurance Cash Value: $105k
Investments: $93k
CPF: $157k
Cash 1: $43k
Cash 2: $140k
Property Value (50%): $250k
Watch: $8k
Housing Loan (50%): ($35k)
Car Loan: ($54k)

Net Worth: $707k

I have excluded the car related values such as PARF and COE rebate.

I bought my watch at $8k+ about 8 years back. Current price for the same watch is around $11k. I have used the purchased price for my net worth calculations.

I guess I am not doing too badly but not great too.

Good news is that I can pay off my housing and car loans anytime.

Not so good news is that I am still a far cry from my retirement plan.

Work hard JASS. Work hard.

Tuesday 30 April 2019

April 2019 Portfolio Update

April 2019

Portfolio Value after market close: S$90,017.44

Wifey's Portfolio Value after market close: S$45,681.02
 
Purchases: None

Sold: 5,000 shares of CapitaLand

Comment:

CapitaLand

Balanced 4,000 shares of CapitaLand at $2.98. Will continue to keep for its ~4% dividend while waiting for its breakthrough.

Cash has been growing with my recent sale of M1 and CapitaLand. Intend to put it back into the market but most of the reits and income stocks in my watch list are overpriced at the moment.

Not going to buy for the sake of buying. Will continue to monitor the market for entry opportunities. Meanwhile the cash will stay in my OCBC 360 account for the 2% interest.

RHT Health Trust

RHT Health Trust is making some interesting movements in the past couple of months with the name change and appointment of a new chairman and directors, some of whom came with healthcare management background.

I don't think these are done for fun. I'm looking forward to the possible good news ahead. Hopefully the new CEO will inject some attractive new assets for the shareholders.

Will continue to hold onto my shares.

Japfa

Japfa still seems to be affected by the swine flu news though fundamentally nothing has changed. Will be monitoring the share price with a view to add more.

Sunday 7 April 2019

Paying $18 For A $54 Meal

So wifey, baby M and myself had a meal at the Gudetama restaurant in Suntec today. 

Prior to that I checked out eatigo (as usual, haha) and saw that there is a 30% discount for the timing we wanted. So I 'fast hand fast leg' made a reservation and off we went.

We ordered a pizza and steak for sharing. Though the portion is filling, I must say prices are not cheap in Gudetama.

Total bill for the 2 dishes came up to $54+. 

After the 30% discount and using the $20 eatigo voucher which I have redeemed previously from my eatigo points, the final bill is $18+.

Nice way for some savings on dining.

I have previously blogged about my experience with eatigo and I think some readers have also used my referral link to sign up for their account.

Whoever you are, thanks for that. Hope you enjoy the voucher / points earned from using the referral. 

Anyway here's my verdict on Gudetama.

Food: 6/10
Ambience: 6.5/10
Service: 7.5/10
Price: 5/10

In a nutshell, I probably won't go back again on my own. For that kind of prices I can have much nicer food at much nicer restaurants. 

Saturday 30 March 2019

Mar 2019 Portfolio Update

March 2019

Portfolio Value after market close: S$106,881.07
Wifey's Portfolio Value after market close: S$44,333.53

Comment:

1) Realised a 4.94% gain on M1 after accepting Konnectivity's offer. Not bad for a 3 years holding considering the prior circumstances.

2) Contemplating whether to take profit on my reits especially for CCT which is at 40+% gain now.

Saturday 23 March 2019

SSB vs SIA Retail Bond

The pros and cons of the SIA retail bond have been written extensively by many bloggers so I will not be doing that with this post.

Instead I would like to just pen my short thoughts on it.

However before that, following are the yields of the Singapore Savings Bond (SSB) since beginning of last year. Interestingly I was browsing them before I decided to write this post.


Yields of the SSB have been falling since last December. And with the Federal Reserve not expecting further rate hikes this year, I suspect the SSB yield will remain flat for the next few months at least. 

Having said that, if we take the annualised yield of 2.16% based on next month's SSB and compare it against the 3.03% offered by the SIA retail bond, the difference is a 'mere' 0.87%.

I would choose the 'risk-free' SSB over the SIA retail bond anytime.

Firstly it is easier to redeem - pressing of atm and forking out $2.

Secondly it's flexible. 

Thirdly it makes no sense for me to take on more risk for the 0.87% premium.

Thursday 21 March 2019

Stock Screening Results - Mar 2019

With the recent cash from the sale of my M1 shares, I have to look for other dividend-paying stocks as replacement(s) to at least maintain and hopefully increase my portfolio yield.

So I turned to my best friend for help. Stock screeners.

Usually I used the StockFacts screener from SGX. However for this time I also tried Yahoo Finance screener for curiosity sake.

The criteria I set for the screen are as follows:

P/E Ratio: < 20

One of the most fundamental of valuation screeners. It is more meaningful if the PER is compared among companies in the same industry.

However in this case I usually set it to 20 as a rudimentary guard against overpaying.

Net Profit Margin: At least 10%

10% is the minimum margin in my opinion, for a company's sustainability.

Debt to Equity Ratio: < 50%

Obviously gearing is one of the most important metrics in terms of risk management. 50% is the most I can accept unless there are very good reasons for the high gearing.

Price to Book Value: < 1

I do not like to overpay for a stock. However having said that I have done it on a number of occasions usually due to a combination of other factors which paint an overall rosy picture of the stock. 

Dividend Yield: At least 5%

Ideally 5% is the minimum for my dividend stocks which is not too high honestly.


As you can see, the criteria I used are geared towards screening of income stocks suitable for my income portfolio. Not so much on growth or other value stocks.

Interestingly the result from Yahoo Finance screener is almost identical to that of SGX StockFacts screener except that the former includes one more counter in the screening result - Metro Holdings Ltd.

Here are the results.

                                                                         

Another interesting observation is that my previous screenings say 1 - 2 years back, almost always yield a 2 page long results.

However this time only 9 counters appear from the StockFacts screening.

Is the market worse or better than before? Or are most stocks overpriced now?

I think apart from the surface results from the screening, we can also delve deeper and we will be able to get a feel on the current market conditions.

Back to the screening results, I will do more due diligence into 1) Frasers Commercial Trust and 2) Sasseur REIT.

Friday 15 March 2019

Goodbye to M1

I knew my relationship as an investor with M1 has came to an end when I saw a huge jump in my bank account yesterday.

True enough, it is the sum from my acceptance of Konnectivity's offer.

In all I made a small net profit of 4.9%. Good enough for me considering I was staring at huge paper loss at some point in time.

On the bright side I'm still walking on the sunshine with M1 for my mobile and broadband.

All the best to M1 for their new ventures which I had and still have high hopes for.

Next step for me is to redeploy the sum of money to another yield-accretive counter.

Friday 8 March 2019

SGX Securities Borrowing and Lending Programme

It seems like a long time since I signed up for SGX securities borrowing and lending programme (SBL).

In fact I have forgotten about this until today when I realised $4.94 was credited to my bank account.

Upon checking my CDP statement, I found out that 11,000 of my M1 shares were borrowed (on loan) for 2 days last month.

In the probably 2 years since I signed up, this is the first time my shares got borrowed.. Haha

And of all shares, M1? This is some logic that I don't understand. Perhaps this is why I remained as an average retail investor.

As I can't find any formula online on the expected returns for borrowed securities, I decided to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation myself.

Calculations

No. of Shares On Loan: 11,000
Closing Price of Share While On Loan: $2.05 & $2.06
No. of Days On Loan: 2
Returns: 4% (this information is available online)

11,000 shares x $2.05 × 4% / 365 days x 2 days = $4.94

Please feel free to correct me if this formula is incorrect.

It's nice to have some additional lunch money sometimes.

Till next time.

Friday 1 March 2019

Feb 2019 Portfolio Update

February 2019

Portfolio Value after market close: S$123,077.32

Purchases: Japfa @ 10,000 shares

Sold: None

Comment:

If price is right this will be a contra trade. If not I intend to pick it up for the potential capital gain.

Japfa just released a good set of results for FY18. It's impressive I must say though the gearing remains high.

Dividends:

RHT @ $7,520 (Special dividend)
MNACT @ $77.08
CCT @ $176.80
Suntec @ $103.60
ESR @ $67.28

Also subscribed to DRP for my Mapletree Logistics Trust dividend.

Sunday 17 February 2019

Yoogane - A Curious Tale of the Missing Tteokbokki and Potato Slice

Two days ago my wife and I went to the Yoogane outlet at Nex for dinner.

We made use of the 50% discount for reservation via eatigo + our $10 voucher from eatigo for this meal.

I guess the dinner crowd is not in yet or simply people are not patronising because including us, only about 5 tables were occupied.

All I can say is going to this place was a wrong choice.

Picture in menu

In reality

We ordered a 1 - 2 pax Charcoal Fire Chicken Galbi set which costs $20.90 and added a rice and noodles as sides.

After the dish arrived we were really surprised. It looks nothing like the picture in the menu.

The fact that there is only one piece of yellow and green bell pepper is not an issue since we don't eat that anyway.

But after we overcame our initial surprise we realised the tteokbokkis and potato slices shown in the menu are missing in our dish.

So I enquired with the waitress who was very helpful as she took a ladle and began digging into our dish seemingly to look for the ingredients.

Finally after a few rounds of digging, she seems satisfied that we were telling the truth.

And in what seems like an afterthought, she told us that the picture in the menu is for 5 - 6 pax and the portion for one person is 1 - 2 tteokbokki and potato slice each.

(we were thinking if that's the case, isn't that blatantly trying to mislead customers by placing the 5 - 6 pax portion picture in the 1 - 2 pax menu page?) 

(i guess picture is really for illustration only but still...)

Anyway I told her okay but that still doesn't explain the missing items. Thankfully she agreed on that and told us she will get the kitchen to prepare the missing items and give us 'MORE' pieces. Yeah!

Our missing items finally came after 10 min.

It is a grand total of 2 pcs of tteokbokki and 2 pcs of potato slices.

Yeah we finally got our missing tteokbokki and potato.

But wait. Didn't the waitress said she will give us more? So if 'more' means 2 pcs of tteokbokki and 2 pcs of potato slices, what does it means by 'normal' portion?

We didn't want to think too much so we hurriedly finish our food and went off.

The surprise doesn't ends here.

When we made payment at the counter, we found out that our order for the noodle side dish was taken wrongly.

Anyway since they said the price for the 2 noodles is the same we leave at that because my annual quota for MSG has been exceeded after eating at Yoogane.

We have to get some drinks. At another place. Anywhere but Yoogane.

In summary

Food: 5/10
Service: 5/10
Price: 2/10

Would I go back again? Probably not.

I can't imagine paying $20.90 for that kind of food portion and I can't accept dishonest / misleading practices.

On a side note, if you wish to register for eatigo and get the voucher, you can refer to my post here.

Wednesday 13 February 2019

New Year, New Car

Hello everyone. It's a new year again.

Here's wishing everyone and your loved ones a Happy Lunar New Year!

Just a quick update for this week.

Over the weekend wifey, baby M and I went to the show room to check out some latest car models as my current COE is expiring next month.

On hind sight I should have started my car shopping earlier due to a reason which I will give below.

Prior to the show room visit, I have narrowed down my choices to two models:

1) Kia Cerato
2) A certain European brand starting with 'S'

Taking option 1 would mean less financial obligations and easier on the wallet for me. I also do not have to touch my investment portfolio.

Taking option 2 would likely involves me drawing down a certain percentage from my investments which would translate to lesser passive income for me from this year onwards and this is something I am very reluctant to do.

However the allure of driving a conti car for the first time is the reason why it is among my options in the first place.

Anyway my original intention was just to take a look, get a package price and decide later. However as we sat down with the SE for the discussion on the price and 'freebies' package, he was able to meet all my requests.

So in the end I decided to book the vehicle with him on the spot.

And my impending new ride is....


2019 Kia Cerato EX
(rims are of another design from this pic)

I am glad I chose the easier on the wallet option. In this way my investment portfolio remains intact, only downside is that I will have lesser cash for deployment.

Pros:

Best bang for buck car in the market now in my opinion
Nice design for both exterior and interior
Easy on the wallet

Cons:

Lead time of 3 months and above
Not so nice rims for the EX variant
(Probably will change them after getting my ride like what I did for my current one.. Haha)

And now it's a waiting game for the COE as I chose the 6 bids non-guarantee COE.

Tuesday 22 January 2019

Review of InvestingNote

Was having my shower just now and my thoughts suddenly veered towards the investment journey I have taken so far.

It all started in 1996, 97. I was like a headless fly buying stocks based on volume and monitoring prices on the teletext. Made some money and after that I took a rather long hiatus before restarting my investment journey some years back.

Since restarted I frequent the Stocks, Shares and Indices (SSI) forum in HWZ.

I remember there was once I created a thread about what is causing the price of a stock to move and I suggested could one of the factors be algorithm trading.

Then I kena 'suanned' by this kid (I call him kid because he is in university and relative to my age) who asked me whether the price of pork in markets is controlled by algorithm also.

That was some unconstructive exchange of views in my opinion.

Anyway I still browse the forum for information and the diverse views.

But the title of this post is about my review of InvestingNote. How does that link up?

I was thinking I have written reviews of companies and my portfolio. So I thought why not write a quick personal review on InvestingNote, which is one of the platforms I frequent daily.

InvestingNote is now one of my daily must-go apps for keeping up with the news and on-goings in the financial world.

I enjoy the diverse views and news report shared among the members unselfishly.

Members are what make a forum.

People like Arsenal, Leslie_Shaffer, Hayashi8, SGNews, etc share news reports everyday.

People like Spinning_Top, uncle178, Grandpa Lemon, Sporeshare, opy, Hachiko, Master_GongJiaowei, CoryLogics, lynlynnakamori, jebus, luxcan, layers are some whose posts I enjoyed.

There are many more. I can't state all.

Functionality-wise, I find the app pretty intuitive. It is easy to toggle around. User experience is great.

Reading the posts, writing one, and making an estimate is very easy. If one can use Facebook and online forums, one would have no problem using InvestingNote.

Number and type of functions at this point of writing is fine in my opinion.

All in all it's a good job done by the InvestingNote team. I hope they can ride on the good work so far, continue to innovate and most important keep it free for members to interact.

Lastly I remember in the early days we were able to use our points to redeem rewards. Is that function still available?

Did not really follow this rewards thingy so any enlightenment would be appreciated. Haha.

P.s. This is neither a sponsored post nor a plp post hor..

Wow can't believe I took an hour to write this post..

Cheers and good night everyone.

Tuesday 1 January 2019

Taking Stock of 2018


Leaving 2018 and entering 2019, time for a quick roundup of my 2018 and my little wishes for the new year ahead.

Work

This year is my company's 2nd year of operation. 

Results so far are a tremendous improvement over last year in terms of revenue, profits and scale of projects secured.

Although revenue is still about $75,000 shy of the target I set for myself, I have two more months to 'chiong' before end of my financial year. Hopefully I can close the FY even more beautifully.

In terms of business offerings, I have added the Design, Installation and Maintenance of Solar Photovoltaic (PV) system to my products and services recently.

This is actually synergistic to the other portion of my business which is environmental engineering, particularly in pollution control systems.

As I mentioned before, one of my investment guidelines is to ride along with the macro trend.

I believe Solar PV system is the way to move forward especially in a country like Singapore. Hence I made a deliberate effort to take up a course in this field and graduated from it recently.

This also means I have achieved my aim of adding a new capability to the company by this year.

Moving forward, my focus continues to be growing the business and if possible purchase an office space as part of my recurring income plan.

Other Incomes

Previously I have set a target of achieving S$7,832.88 for my side and passive incomes in 2018.

Actual passive income achieved for 2018: S$6,069.08
Actual side income achieved for 2018: S$3,042.86

Result achieved for 2018: S$9,111.94 (Target met)

For 2019 I am going to target another 20% growth in my dividend income as I will probably be drawing down a portion of my portfolio for some expenses.

For the side income in 2019, there is actually a much higher room for growth. I am in the midst of discussing a venture which if materialised, will contribute a significant amount to this category.

However I do not want to count my chickens before they hatch. Hence targets for 2019...

Targeted passive income for 2019: S$7,200
Targeted side income for 2019: S$3,000

Equities and REITs

My holdings as of 31/12/2018:


With the exception of M1, all the counters in my portfolio closed at a lower price this year end compared to last's.

In 2018, I've added another 5,000 shares of CapitaLand, added another 4,000 shares of Netlink Trust and bought 4,000 shares of Mapletree NAC Trust. Total capital injection is $25,820.

Excluding the capital injection, my portfolio value returned -13.7% compared to last year. A loss of more than $15k.

I really ought to read more, learn more and relook into my investment style especially in the technical analysis to time my entries better.

What a humbling experience. It shows how much of a fool I am in the stock market.

In summary,

1) Yield of Portfolio 2018: 4.30%

2) Cumulative Yield of Portfolio: 8.10%

Similarly, wifey's portfolio also dropped in value ($41,431.98) compared to last year ($41,919.78) if capital injection is excluded.

 
Personal

Baby M who arrived on Father's day 2018, never fails to bring a smile to our face. She is making lots of funny sounds and lots of movement nowadays.

Really a different kind of joy.

Our biggest wish is for her to grow up happily and healthily.

I always believe we should not forget to help others if we can.

Though my investment portfolio performed less than admirably, I donated $550 to a selection of charities in 2018. This is on top of my monthly Giro donations to Community Chest and NKF.

Thanks to giving.sg, it is so convenient nowadays to make donations and volunteering.

Last but not least, I wish everyone a happy new year ahead. Good health and good wealth!