Reviewing my portfolio cost yield

New year new beginning.

 

Decided to do a review on the cost yield of my individual holdings since it is one of the most important metrics to me. I'm an income investor afterall.

 

I also looked at the recent trend of the individual counters to see if they are paying more (or less) over the years.

 

Not looking at other fundamentals for this exercise. Any fundamental analysis can easily take up a blog post of its own.

My target yield is minimum 5%.

CapitaLand Investment (CLI) is an exception to the rule. It is a recent addition to the portfolio and the less than 5% yield was already known when I made the move.

I went ahead because at that time I have no other more attractive counters to put my funds in. Also CLI has given dividend in species previously so I felt the 4.58% yield is acceptable.

 

Question

Looking at the results, it is obvious CapitaLand China Trust (CLCT) is a laggard both in terms of yield against cost and dividend trend.

It is also the worst performer in my portfolio in terms of capital loss as mentioned here previously.

 

Now the question is what will I do for this counter?

 

Based on today's closing price of $0.805, I am staring at a capital loss of $8,015.42.

 

My cumulative dividends for CLCT over the years amounted to $4,868.91.

 

Hence net loss is $3,146.51.

 

Option 1: Continue to hold and collect dividends while waiting for price to recover.

 

Issue with this is I don't see any catalyst for recovery in the market that CLCT is operating in. Rental reversion for all three asset types is in negative territory. The downtrend of annual dividends is a double whammy. There is also the opportunity cost involved.

On the other hand, there might be some bright spark this year from the ROI of their 5% investment in CapitaLand Commercial C-REIT (CLCR) which is currently trading above IPO price.

Option 2: Sell now and reinvest in other counters or assets. This might be a quicker way to recover my loss.

Issue with this is there are no other dividend counters that are attractive enough to me at the moment. Nevertheless I can put the funds in my US / HK portfolio or gold / silver though that will mean my dividends receivable will take a hit this year.

Action

For now I'm inclined to wait for the next financial update from CLCT before making my move. I'm also interested to see what they will do with the ROI from CLCR investment. If it does not flow down to existing unitholders, I guess I would have more clarity in my decision by then.

Why and how I do multiple jobs concurrently

TL;DR: Short answer is of course for the money. But it is not as hectic as it seems. Everything happens within that 8 - 10 hours of a normal office work. 

Deeper answer is because Covid taught me a very good lesson six years ago.

I founded my current company in 2017. It was a bootstrapped effort since day one. Business was not bad in the first two years. I was beginning to plot my expansion plan including getting a commercial property of my own.

Then Covid struck in the third year of operation (2019) which threw a spanner in the works.

While my business survived the onslaught of the pandemic, it could very well join the statistics of companies that closed down had the pandemic continued for another year or two.

Back then businesses were divided into essential and non-essential services. My company which is in the environmental protection field fell under the latter category which meant we couldn't head outside for sales and projects.

For the 2 years of Covid, our total sales amounted to around $30k. I was basically surviving on the retained earnings from the previous two years before Covid!

Because of this episode, I started to contemplate on having diversified (more) income streams.

I modelled my plan on our national water strategy with the "Four National Taps". If one source goes down I have other sources to back up. 

To kick start my plan I thought about what am I good at and what am I interested in other than my main job. 

Side gig 1:

I have been active in fitness since young. In late 2020, I went to get myself certified as a personal trainer (PT) to better train myself and to earn some extra bucks. 

Despite my zero experience as a PT, a gym chain responded to my resume. Two rounds of interviews later, I got hired.

The boss and my senior trainer are nice guys. They trusted me even though I'm new and my senior made time to give me some practical lessons and tips in handling the clients.

I was initially sent to one of the expat clubs in Singapore to train the clients there. It was a steep learning curve but I learned alot in that one year. 

After that I was brought back to the original club where I've been working now for the past three years or so. 

For this arrangement, I received a cut for every session I coached. I usually do between 40 - 60 sessions every month. 

Moving forward to today, I am also training my own clients outside the gym now. 

These clients are usually recommended to me by their family member or friend who shared my service by word of mouth as I do not actively advertise myself. 

For this side gig, I only do for weekday mornings.

A side benefit of this gig is that I get to use a top notch gym for free for my own training. Shiok! 

Side gig 2:

Somewhere around 2022, I signed up for a Master's programme from NUS to deepen and to bridge the gaps in my knowledge related to my course of work. 

It was a part time course held in the evenings which means the time and commitment were pretty heavy.

It was assignments and projects almost every week for that 2 year course. 

Since completing the programme in 2024, I have been looking out for opportunities to monetise it. Last year one of my contacts recommended me to an adjunct teaching position in one of our local IHLs. 

I am open to adjunct teaching because I felt this aligns with my idea of contributing back to the society. The module is also related to my Master's and my field of work. Importantly, it also allows me to create another stream of income.

So I went for the interview which included a mock teaching session to the other lecturers.

I got accepted by the IHL soon after and upon getting the clearance from MOE, I was offered the contract as an adjunct lecturer. 

Salary-wise is quite comparable to what I am charging for my private PT sessions. 

I started on this side gig since October last year and I am only teaching two classes once a week on the same day which works out to be four hours of teaching per week. 

Other income stream:

To keep this short, the main contributor is from the dividends from my local portfolio.

Currently the annual dividend receivable is about $12k.

Final thoughts:

I'm not a superman unlike what some fellow forummers said. I'm just a normal Singaporean guy trying to future proof myself. 

While having three jobs concurrently seem like a busy schedule, the main bulk of all the works happens within 7 am to 6 pm on weekdays with breakfast, lunch and teabreak thrown in. Holidays and weekends are off limits.

This is quite similar to the average employees. 

Also what I'm doing are essentially my interests.

My main job and adjunct teaching are related to sustainability. My PT role is related to fitness.

I am doing what I love and I love what I do. 

I consider myself fortunate.

Last but not least, not withstanding the above I am constantly exploring other sources of regular income stream. Hopefully the next exciting one comes soon. 

Wrapping Up for 2025

Quick wrap up for a year that flew past for me. 

 

Family

This year we went to Bali again for our year end holiday. We stayed 4 nights at the mountainous region of Ubud this time which we really love (last year we stayed entirely at Kuta). Our room opens up to this view:

On the last 2 days we stayed at Kuta to be nearer to the airport. We managed to visit Waterbom Bali this time. I suspect I might just make Bali a yearly visit from now on 🤭.

School work-wise, daughter got an award for Mathematics at the end of school year. Guess it's a good end for her Primary 1.

 

I've never been worried about her school work. It's her stubbornness and temper that I'm concerned with. I seriously think she inherited those from me.

Son's also getting better at being focus at his work. I would like to think his happy-go-lucky character is a blessing.

 

I will be very happy as long as they remain healthy and develop good character. The latter is always my focus when I'm teaching them.

Work

My company remains the main focus. It has been 8 years since I started the business bootstrapped. While it has its ups and downs through the years including surviving Covid, our mission in providing solutions in emission control and protecting our planet never change.

I would consider 2025 a so-so year for the company. While the numbers are not that great compared to past years, the highlights are constant repeat orders from a client - a testament to their trust in us, and a breakthrough into the public sector with a prominent government agency onboard.

I'm looking forward to 2026.

Side line 1:

My side gig as a personal trainer yields better than expected income for 2025. While I was aiming for $20k from this in the beginning of the year, the actual income achieved amounted to $23,640.

 

Not bad considering I only dedicate weekday mornings to this.

This is helped by the signing up of a private client who was introduced to me by her family member who in turn was already training with me.

I find this really fulfilling.

In fact another of his family member contacted me yesterday to enquire about my training schedule.

 

Side line 2:

 

I just embarked on this in October 2025, as an adjunct lecturer in a local IHL. I am only taking two classes per week for now. Income achieved amounted to $2,000.

I'm starting to get the hang of teaching and the administrative work but I must say this side gig is taking too much of my time. Way more than what I expected.

I will most likely continue for the next semester which should be less of a learning curve by then.

CPF

Throughout the year I have made voluntary cash top up to my CPF SA. Total top ups amounted to $5,590. These are taken from the side gig incomes.

In December I also made a transfer from OA to SA to achieve the FRS amount. This is done to take advantage of the higher interest in SA in order to further secure my retirement expenses.

Of course the downside is I have lesser amount to use should I decide to purchase another property in the near future. It is because of this consideration that I have taken so long to make this decision.

Personal Social Responsibility

 

For this year, my choice of causes remain the same: the young, the elderly and the environment.

 

This is just a small gesture to contribute back to the society on a regular basis.

 

Other than this yearly donation habit, part of the reason why I went into adjunct teaching is also to inspire the younger generation. I am teaching the subject of sustainability which is my area of expertise and which is closely related to my work and passion.

If I can motivate more young people to live sustainably and equip them with the knowledge to do so, there is a better chance our future generations can have a decent quality of life.

 

"Sustainability is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (Brundtland Commission)

 

Last but not least, my wife and I also donated our household CDC vouchers to Tzu-Chi Foundation (Singapore).

 

Investment

2025 was a mini breakthrough year for me in terms of dividends.

For the first time since tracking, my annual dividends collected crossed the 5 figure mark.

My number of holdings increased to 12 counters. A number not seen since years back.

I invested about $29k in 2025 which is more than the estimated $20k figure foresaw in the beginning of the year. This amount is largely from my side gig incomes. I didn't really touch my savings or main income for investment this year.

Local portfolio value also hit a new high of $235k.

Cumulative dividends since tracking amounted to $62,714.56.

Total portfolio value (SG, HK, US) amounted to $257k.

In December the last batch of dividends came in from SingTel ($656), MIT ($286.20) and MLT ($295.86).

I also bought CapitaLand Invest (CLI) @ 2.61 in December. This feels like a renewed relationship as I have sold this counter few years back when it was still known as CapitaLand.

 

For non-REITS, other than CLI I also bought ComfortDelGro (CDG) and Venture this year. Lastly I also added more DBS and OCBC.

 

For CDG it's another reacquaintance.

 

Best performers in 2025:

 

1) DBS (+131.22%)

2) OCBC (+108.49%)

3) SingTel (+41.90%)

Worst performers in 2025:

1) CLCT (-41.39%)

2) MLT (-5.73%)

3) MIT (-4.89%)

 

CLCT continued to be the worst performer. Same position as last year although there is a slight improvement compared to 2024 (-46.24%).

For the last two years I have tried to divert my portfolio away from REITs by adding other equities. In 2026, I will adopt a more balanced view with a mixture of both asset classes as I feel the worse is over for REITs.

Having said that I will still be prudent with my cash by holding a certain percentage of it due to the present geopolitical risks and the whims of Trump. This will be achieved by only investing from my side incomes while leaving my main income and savings untouched. Same strategy as 2025.

I will probably only deploy the latter income sources if (a) a compelling buy case arises or (b) more clarity on the geopolitical situations arise e.g. concrete end of the wars, step down of office by Trump, etc. However the trick is to remain nimble as is always the case in investing especially so in this era where dynamics change ever so quickly.

For the US / HK portfolio, I will continue to concentrate force on the tech sector since my outlay is relatively small for too many counters. In the US market, I will continue to build a position in MSFT and NVDA. For HK market, I might add more 9988 if it hits $120.

Talking about MSFT, it is the second multi-bagger achieved in this portfolio with a P&L of +179.18%.

Worst performer: PYPL (-68.44%)