A Review of 2024

 

Happy New Year everyone.

 

Quick review of 2024 and looking forward to a better 2025.

 

Family

 

Overall not a bad year for us. Only thing is jie jie kept falling down and hurt herself. It got so frequent that we are thinking if there is something wrong with her legs or other parts of the body. This is worrying for my wife and I.

 

There was once I saw her fell down in front of me. She just fell to her knees and I thought that was it. But suddenly her body started to lean forward and her head fell to the ground as well. This process is like happening in slow motion right in front of me.

 

The superstitious side of me even started wondering if something unseen is disturbing her. Yes, my worry got to that extent.

Hopefully 2025 onwards will be a better year for both jie jie and didi.

Some personal reflection for me: I realised I have been getting short tempered nowadays and sometimes my reaction can be rather extreme. This is definitely not good and I really got to constantly remind myself to be more chill moving forward.

 

On a bright side, we just came back from a family trip to Bali. Last trip there was 10 years ago with wifey and we didn't have kids then.

 

Had a good time for this 5-days holiday over Christmas although we nearly missed our return flight.

Our hotel is 15 min from the airport. But the trip took nearly an hour because of traffic. Our flight is scheduled for 9.05 pm and we reached the airport around 8.50 pm and the boarding gate at 9.10 pm.

Luckily the flight itself is also delayed and we managed to join the queue.. in waiting. The flight eventually took off around 10.05 pm.

Lessons learnt:

1) I checked-in online the night before and it turned out to be the best decision because by the time we reached the airport, the check-in counter was already closed. Had we not checked-in beforehand, we would not be able to go through the customs, delayed flight or not.

2) Always cater for extra extra time for Bali especially during weekends.

 

Today is also the first day at their new school for both kids. I accompanied didi while wifey accompanied jie jie. New environment, new teachers. Both seem to be coping well.

I hope they enjoy the process of learning and not be fixated on the end results because if they achieve the former, the latter will take care of itself.

 

Investments

 

SGD

 

Have been adding on a monthly basis whenever possible over the past year.

 

Although the plan in the beginning of the year was to diversify and reduce the REITs concentration in my portfolio, only one of the purchases was for a non-REIT - Netlink NBN Trust, which I bought on two separate occasions. The rest of the purchases was for Ascendas REIT, MIT and MLT. I also subscribed and applied for excess for CICT PO.

 

If I have stuck to my plan in 2024, portfolio performance would perhaps, be even better. Really got to be more disciplined and execute my plan this year which is again, to reduce the REITs concentration.

 

I started tracking my portfolio performance in 2016 and hence cumulative dividends is recorded from that year onwards.

 

As of writing, Ascendas REIT is my biggest holding at around 20% by market value.

Best performer is DBS at +119.91% followed by OCBC at +88%.

Worst performer is CLCT at -46.24%.

 

Summary of my holdings and performance as follows.

 

USD / HKD

 

Did some cleaning up of this portfolio in the last two trading days of the year.

Took profit off AAPL (+54.93%)

Took partial profit off MSFT (+47.08%)

 

Got rid of GREE (-99.21%). The speculation of this counter is one of the biggest mistakes of my investing career so far.

 

Cut loss on BABA (-33.73%) because macro outlook remains murky and rounds of stimulus and pep talk by the central government failed to lift the share price. They have also recently did a drastic price reduction on Qwen, which is their AI tool for enterprises. This move is probably meant to gain market share domestically and I believe it will help to a certain extent. I am never a fan of price war and whether this will spark one with other players like Baidu remains to be seen. However one thing is certain, margin for this segment for Alibaba will be compressed by this move.

Portfolio Value (SGD equivalent): $16,626.37

Overall

Total Portfolio Value: S$188,452.35

Business

 

Business so far has been average after the record performance last FY. Still got two more months to go before closing. I am hopeful one of the government contracts we are negotiating will come through soon.

 

Collaboration for the new technology is moving forward albeit on a slower pace than I would like to. We are collaborating with one of the local institutes of higher learning. Maybe that's just how academics work but on and off I need to push them along to move things faster.

 

Nevertheless this is the engine for our next phase of growth and I am determined to make this work.

 

Side Line

Did a tabulation and realised I generated S$19,500 over the past year from my side line as a personal trainer. Not bad considering I dedicated only week day mornings to this hustle. No evenings, no weekends, no holidays. Those are strictly for my family and personal time.

This figure should be higher in 2025 as more private clients are starting to sign up with me. They are mainly referred through word of mouth as I do not actively advertise my service.

I would say most if not all the clients are either c-suite or rich tais tais who are generally not bothered by the price and would not haggle over it so that makes things easier. I just need to focus on helping them achieve their goals.

My current allocation for this side income is:

50% goes to investment

25% goes to SA top up

25% goes to discretionary spending

Moving forward this will remains.

Donation

 

Personal donation is a yearly ongoing affair for me. Other than the monthly GIRO contribution to certain charities, I will usually make ad hoc donations towards year end as well.

 

Same as previous years, this year I have chosen to donate to causes close to my heart - the young and the elderly.

Hopefully this post will inspire readers too.

 

Other than personal donation, I have also donated on a company-level with the latest one in July 2024. This will continue as long as the business continues to be profitable.

Feb 2022 Update

Feb 2022

 

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

S$139,845.54

Purchase

 

PYPL

Sold

AAPL

Dividends

 

None

Short-Term Transactions

 

Sold 3 x SE Put 220520 at $115 strike with $0.60 premium. Closed early at $4.55.

  

Sold 1 x SE Call 220304 at $180 strike with $1.28 premium.

 

Sold 1 x SE Call 220325 at $180 strike with $1.28 premium.

 

Summary

SGD portfolio:

  

Portfolio value remains around the same as last month's, surprisingly. Thought it would take further beating. Market remains very volatile though.

Continue to monitor closely for some additions to the portfolio. Eyeing CLCT and MIT currently.

Syfe Core Growth portfolio:

 

Still seeing slight negative returns for this month. Looks like this robo advisor is not as good as it seems.

USD / HKD portfolio: 

 

Continue to add small position in PYPL and took some profit off AAPL. 

 

Made a loss in my overall option positions in February due to a mistake.

 

The 3 contracts that I sold for SE went into the money for a period and I decided to close them early to cut loss which turned out to be a bad mistake as the share price went up after I closed the positions.

 

Hopefully March will be a better month.

 

I have also switched from a long to a short position in the market as the Ukraine-Russia war situation continue to evolve.

Jan 2022 Update

Jan 2022

 

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

S$139,687.14

Purchase

 

Ascendas Reit @ $2.87

AAPL @ $167

MSFT @ $318

PYPL @ $189

Sold

None

Dividends

 

SingTel @ $360

MLT @ $146.10

CICT @ $261.90

 

Total: $768

Short-Term Transactions

 

Sold 2 x DIDI Call 220520 at $10 strike with $0.17 premium.

  

Closed early at $0.35 for 3 x GREE Put 220121 at $15 strike with $0.60 premium.

 

Sold 1 x AMD Put 220128 at $125 strike with $2.21 premium. Closed early at $24.75.

 

Summary

SGD portfolio:

  

Added 1,100 units of Ascendas Reit. 

Syfe Core Growth portfolio:

 

Seeing negative returns for this month mainly due to the correction from the US market. 

 

Apparently this portfolio is not as resilient as I anticipated.

However this was the whole idea when I started it nearly a year ago - to see how it perform against the market. 

Will monitor further before deciding on next course of action. 

USD / HKD portfolio: 

 

Continue to add small positions in MSFT, AAPL and PYPL. 

 

The correction in the US market this month saw the tech stocks tanking heavily which presented nice opportunities to build up positions. 

However also because of the same correction I made a loss in my overall options positions in January. 

This is due to the AMD put which I sold last month. I decided to close it early without taking assignment. 

Options P/L for this month: -US$2,192.37

Review of My 2021

 

2021 basically flew past for me and 2022 appeared in the blink of an eye. With that it means it's time to pen down the customary yearly review for record which I have since done long ago in my head actually.

 

I'm always been somewhat of a contrarian since young.

 

People buy PlayStation I buy Sega Saturn.

 

People chase after the class beauty, I wrote a love letter to the bespectacled lanky girl with tiger tooth (only to be waylaid by the class fatty whom I suspected had a crush on me).

 

You got the gist.

 

So for 2021 portfolio performance portion where most investors reported stellar results, I will report my loss instead.

Family

Our kids are growing up well. The elder one is attending N2 this year while the younger one will be attending the playgroup at the same centre next month.

 

So far it seems like the younger one is taking after his sister's cheerful nature.

My wife and I noticed that from the time when she was still a baby, often times Jie Jie will start smiling the moment she opened her eyes after she woke up from her sleep. These scenes naturally melted our hearts whenever we see them.

Now Di Di is exhibiting the same thing also. 

 

These two cute little ones added so much more to our lives and we cherish every moment with them.

As long as our kids grow up healthily, happily and with the right values in life, I would be very happy.

Health

In early 2021 I attended a personal training course and got myself certified as a personal trainer as I have always been interested in keeping fit.

It was rewarding and I gained a lot of insights on not only the knowledge on personal training, but also in the human anatomy and food nutrition.

Before I attended the course, I have been doing my own workouts comprising of combination of cardio and weights trainings.

 

The workouts were good for weight loss but that was not what I wanted. My aim was to build strength and lean muscle but I actually lost weight instead of achieving the latter.

So after I got my certification as a personal trainer, I wrote two structured training programs for myself with specific load, no. of reps, sets and amount of rest time, etc for my workouts.

I must say this type of structured resistance training works well for my goal. I am seeing the transformation on my physique and body strength despite less than a year into the training.

If there's a chance I certainly don't mind working as a personal trainer as a side hustle. This is something I love and it would be great and satisfying to share my PT knowledge with people who wants a healthier lifestyle and sexier body.

My overall health in 2021 is generally good except for some episodes of recurring back spasms which could be due to an old injury sustained when I was younger. 

 

To counter this I am doing a series of lower back strengthening exercises daily to build up my lower back muscles.

 

Other than that I don't recall ever being ill in 2021.

Work

2021 is not a very good year for my business. Number of contracts secured and value of contracts all dropped.

Earlier in the year, I rejected a ~$150,000.00 project after receiving the PO from the client.

This is because despite having agreed on the scope of work and quotation, the client insisted on us to sign a separate agreement with heavily unfavourable terms to us.

An example of these unfavourable terms is that they have the right to add items to the project if they think necessary but all costs will be borne by us.

I have seen and signed many additional agreement to main contract for other projects. This is quite common. However in this case the terms are heavily skewed against us so in the name of risk management, I rejected the agreement and with that, the contract.

Apart from the above, we also lost a number of large projects where we had high hopes of securing. In a couple of them we were actually the lowest bidder so it was very disappointing to say the least.

We have one potential big project left for this FY. If this is not secured, this FY will likely to be a loss-making one for us.

Investments

I will start off with my regular monthly update first before moving on to the year end conclusion.

 

Dividends Received in December:

 

1) ESR REIT @ $74.76

2) MNACT @ $137.04

3) Netlink Trust @ $204.80

4) MLT @ $217.30

 

Total: $633.90

 

Counters Sold:

 

1) 4,000 units of Suntec Reit @ $1.50

2) 10,500 units of ESR Reit @ $0.485

 

Counters Purchased:

 

1) 1,600 units of Mapletree Logistics Trust @ $1.84 from preferential offering (allocation + excess)

 

Short-Term Transactions:

 

1) Sold 2 x $9.5 DIDI Call 211231 with $0.37 premium. Expired.

 

2) Closed early at $6.93 for 1 x $55 Apps Put 211203 with $0.71 premium.

 

3) Closed early at $1.74 for 2 x $55 Apps Put 211210 with $0.90 premium.

 

4) Sold 6 x $45 Apps Put 211231 with $0.73 premium. Expired.

 

5) Closed early at $0.75 for 1 x $17.5 GREE Put 211217 with $1 premium. 

 

6) Sold 3 x $15 GREE Put 220121 with $0.60 premium. 

 

Total P/L excluding item 6: -US$269.76 (~-S$365.66)

 

Moving on to the year end review.

 

Year End SGD Portfolio

 

Transactions Made

 

This SGD portfolio continues to stay as my main portfolio, providing me with a stable base and passive income to build on to greater heights.

Didn't manage to grow it as much as I wanted to in 2021. In fact the year end portfolio value actually dropped as compared to 2020 due to the divestments I made in December.

 

So in December I sold off my Suntec Reit and ESR Reit to generate more cash and as part of my rebalancing to buy into more quality income-generating counters.

 

I had shortlisted MNACT and CICT as well but eventually decided to sell the above-mentioned due to their relatively high gearing.

Suntec Reit is also facing pressure on their MICE and retail segments while ESR Reit is having declining dividends over the past few years.

Having said that, with the recent announced planned merger for MNACT, I might be selling that also to avoid odd lots in the future. Will be doing some calculations before deciding. Anyway market price will be a determining factor too.

 

In 2021, portfolio suffered an overall loss because I finally decided to cut ISOTeam and realise the loss which amounted to a not-so-cool 5 digits.

 

This is part of the plan that I have made in the beginning of the year: to clear out dead wood from my portfolio.

 

1. Get rid of the dead wood in my portfolio (was planning to do it last month but the price had a drastic fall on the day I wanted to sell)

 

2. Allocate a portion of my investments into crypto currencies (probably 1% of my portfolio for a start)

3. Invest into the US market

So with this divestment my portfolio ended up in the red for 2021, contrary to many of my fellow investors who had a stellar year.

 

On the flip side, my portfolio will likely perform much better in the years ahead now that it has been tidied up.

It feels refreshing to start on this note.

With these divestments and transactions, my portfolio currently holds 9 counters (compared to 14 in 2020 and 13 in 2019).

 

My investment style for the SGD portfolio remains the same: Income investing into quality companies.

 

Year End USD / HKD Portfolio

 

2021 also marked my first year entering the US and HK markets. Prior to that I have been monitoring the US market for a period of time and the volatility there compared to our local market is like comparing an ocean storm and placid lake.

If the local market is for building my income portfolio, the US and HK markets are for my growth elements.

 

I actually started off quite well. Had the first multi-bagger in my trading journey. Then I made a series of stupid mistakes which I have posted here and which caused my portfolio to turn from nice double digit profit margin to the red number seen above.

I have one lesson firmly etched into my mind from this episode. That is not to allow emotions to cloud my judgement ever again in stocks trading.

 

Moving ahead I will still continue to buy into the Tech and green energy sectors whenever opportunities arise such as last night where the Tech counters fell due to the rising Treasury yields.

 

In the options trading space which I also made my maiden entry in 2021, I made a total of 36 trades which comprise written puts and covered calls.

 

I generated a profit of US$1,970.81 (~S$2,671.14) from these trades. I feel this is not bad considering a base of S$20 K initially.

I will continue to use options to supplement my trading income and possibly buy the stocks at the price I want.

 

If you wish to try the US and HK markets as well you can sign up for a moomoo account here.

Year End Syfe Portfolio

 

In March 2021, I opened an account with Syfe after doing a comparison among the different robo advisors.

I started a small Core Growth portfolio with them focusing mainly on the US and Chinese stocks.

Time weighted return so far for the 9 months period is about 7.1%. I intend to continue DCA-ing monthly and let this portfolio run for a longer period of time before deciding on the next move.

Summary

 

So just to sum up my total portfolios value at the end of 2021: S$162,497.41.

 

Last but not least, here's wishing everyone a blessed and healthy 2022 ahead.

moomoo Welcome Bundle Update (November 2021)

Moomoo November Welcome Bundle

Period: 8th November 2021, 10:00 hours - 30th November 2021, 09:59 hours

 

Eligibility: New users who registered for a moomoo ID after 8th November 2021, 10:00 hours

 

TLDR Version: One free Apple share + One moomoo figurine merchandise + S$40 stock cash coupon

 

Appreciate if you use my referral link to sign up for your account if you are interested.

 

Without further ado, here are the various latest rewards for signing up for a moomoo ID. 

 

1: Register for a moomoo ID

Reward: 180 days unlimited commission-free trading for the US, HK and SG stock market

2: Account Opening (moomoo is the trading App by FUTU)

Reward: Free access to level 2 US stock market data and level 1 SG & China A-shares market data

 

Additional Reward: 1 limited edition "moomoo Oppa" figurine merchandise

3: First Deposit (S$2,700 or US$2,000 or HK$16,000 and above)

Reward: 1 Apple (AAPL) share
 

Additional Reward: S$40 stock cash coupon bundle

 

* A stock cash coupon is just like cash which you can use to purchase stocks up to the cash coupon amount. I have personally verified that so no worries.

4: Share Transfer-in (US and HK stock only)

Reward for transfer value [S$50,000 - S$99,999]: 1 AAPL share (Apple share) worth ~S$195

Reward for transfer value [S$100,000 - S$199,999]: 2 AAPL shares worth ~S$390

Reward for transfer value [>=S$200,000]: 1 set of 256 GB iPhone 13 (limited to 50 sets only, first come first serve!) or 3 AAPL shares

 

If you find this sharing useful, please feel free to use my referral link here to sign up for your account and claim the freebies. Thanks in advance.