May 2021 Updates

May 2021

 

Local Portfolio Value after market close (excluding USD and HKD)

S$143,524.80

Purchase

MSFT @ US$245.90

AAPL @ US$126.70

BABA @ HK$220

Sold

None

Dividends

 

DBS @ $108

Suntec Reit @ $81.80

 

Total: $189.80

Short-Term Transactions

1 x expired PINS Put 210521 58 with $1.07 premium

 

Closed early for 1 x PLTR Put 210521

 

2 x expired PLTR Put 210514 17 with $0.55 premium

 

Sold 1 x JD Put 210625 69 with $1.14 premium

Summary

03 May 2021 STI Open: 3,184.76

31 May 2021 STI Close: 3,164.28

 

As a guidance for my investment plans, I mentioned in my last update that I would place closer attention to this month for the market's reaction to the rising cases of local Covid-19 infections.

 

STI closed below its monthly opening for the first time after four consecutive months of rise since the start of this year.

 

Beginning of a drop? I think it's still early to say but it's good to have some spare funds ready to capture any opportunities that might arise.

 

For my SGD portfolio, value dropped by around $3.5k with no transactions done. 

Also received some dividends from DBS and Suntec Reit this month with more to come in the next. 

Spare cash is still not fully utilised yet. Awaiting for opportunities, including rights issue which we might see a few in the coming months. 

There are a few bright spots among the counters in my SGD portfolio. 

1) I am really glad to see MNACT's continual foray into the Japanese market with their latest acquisition of a freehold office building in Tokyo which is expected to be DPU-accretive. 

This will continue to reduce their concentration risk with Festival Walk. 

Post-acquisition, the Japanese assets will comprise about 27% of the trust's net property income. 

However apart from the rosy side of things, I will pay more attention to the gearing level of the trust since this acquisition will be partly funded by debt. 

Overall I must say I am pleased with MNACT's direction so far. 

2) For the long timer in my portfolio, SingTel, it has quite a number of happenings in recent times. 

Firstly, the new CEO announced the new strategic direction to drive the company forward. 

Secondly, there is a voluntary tender offer for its Thai subsidiary, AIS.

It is nice to see offers like this to unlock value be it for the subsidiaries or fixed assets.

Competition in the telco market is getting stiff. ARPU are getting lower.

To regain the former glory and to achieve greater heights, the way I see for SingTel to move forward is to transform itself into a technology company.

Of course the telco business is still an essential and defensive one that SingTel should continue with. There are so many things that can be done using 5G technology for the IOTs. However tech-based business should be the main driver for the company moving forward.

By the way SingTel is the first to launch a standalone 5G network in Singapore recently.

It's great that SingTel has gotten the digital banking license. Enormous potential there as a revenue driver and a tech-based one at that. However the new business takes time to gain traction and that is one of the reasons why I am holding on to my SingTel shares.

I can write a whole thesis on this but that will be on another day.

The new strategic direction focusing on three main tenets actually partly resonate with my views above for SingTel's transformation.

The first tenet to realign its core business towards capturing 5G market share and the second which is to develop new growth engines in ICT and digital services are good drivers in my opinion.

However I would very much like to see SingTel becoming another SEA or Grab. These are companies truely leveraging on technology to provide services to the mass market.

Just look at Grab. It is no longer a car-sharing platform. Rather, it has gone on to build an entire ecosystem of its own including payment service, loan, insurance, food and document deliveries.

The third tenet to unlock the value of its infrastructure assets is timely and logical for funding of the digital banking venture.

I suspect SingTel will reward shareholders in the form of special dividends too. Fingers crossed.

For my Syfe Core Growth portfolio, I am seeing a small positive return so far. Would be more meaningful to see the returns and review the portfolio when it turns one.

 

Have DCAed into this portfolio yesterday and plans to continue this strategy every month end.

For my USD portfolio, I have not done any intraday trading this month.

 

One of my counters briefly hit 'freehold' status before dropping slightly. As of now I am sitting on 81% gain but that is all on paper.

 

Collected S$372.70 of option premiums this month with the expiry of 3 Puts and early closure of one in Palantir and Pinterest.

 

Other than these, I have sold another Put this month for JD.com, expiring 25/6/2021 with a strike price of $69 and premium of $1.14.

 

Lately it seems harder to find decent premium in the options space but that is probably due to my style of only trading in companies that I don't mind holding.

Moving forward I will continue to use options as part of my investment / trading tools to augment my investable income. 

No, have not touched cryptos yet.

 

That's it, a longer update than usual. Got all excited whenever I write about SingTel.