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.

Giving Back To Society (Business ESG Efforts)

Company has performed quite well in the last FY with revenue setting a new record.

 

Being in the environmental management business, our business operation itself is already covering the "E" part of our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) efforts.

 

To contribute to the "S" part of the ESG pillars, I have just made a donation to three selected organisations.

 

The causes selected are nature, elderly and children. All of which are close to my heart and with the first one synergistic to my business as well.

 

Now the line between personal and business is blurring. And a Pte Ltd is supposed to be a separate entity from the owner. How ironic.

 

Anyway, the total donation amounted to 0.5% of our operating profit based on our last FY. I've mentioned about this commitment in a previous post.

 

I certainly hope I can do this year after year.

Again, this post is not about showing off or haolian~ing. Rather, it serves to instill some positivities and inspire readers to contribute back to the society.

 

On a separate note, my previous personal donation was done in December last year. How time flies. Cannot keep getting dividends without giving something in return right? I look forward to December this year!

Time Of The Year Again For Giving Back (Personal Donation)

This post is purely meant to serve as a gentle reminder and hopefully, inspiration for readers to do what you can to give back to the society in an amount that you can afford.

 

It is definitely not to show off or to achieve anything to that effect.

 

Apart from the recurring donations that I've been making through GIRO, I have a habit to make yearly donation to various causes at every year end.

 

So just did the latter for this year. Must admit I nearly forgot to do so as I went through the hustle of life. To think I even went on a cruise last week.

 

This year is largely the same as previous years. I made contribution to the causes close to my heart - the elderly and children.

 

In addition, I've made a maiden contribution to our animal friends due to an unfortunate incident that happened to me recently in relation to this subject.

 

 

In case you are wondering, I've made the donations through giving.sg. 

I think they charge 1.8% of the donated amount as administrative fees. To me that is acceptable and I prefer to use this platform as I personally find it has more credibility.

 

As a matter of fact, I hardly donate to fundraisers on the street as I can't be sure on the percentage of donated amount that actually goes to the people who need it most.

It is not to say these fundraisers are not genuine. Rather I just find it a hassle to verify their credibility.

 

As we busy ourselves going through the hustle and bustle of life, let's not forget those who might need a helping hand or two in theirs too.
 

While this post is about personal donation, I will usually donate in my company's capacity, a percentage of the operating net profit after the close of FY in February.

I was inspired by CapitaLand to do this and I hope I can continue to do so annually (Which means my business is profitable every year. Woohoo!).

 

 

Note: I am not affiliated with giving.sg or any of the charities shown in the post. I try to donate to different organisation every year anyway. As mentioned, I just hope to remind and inspire.

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!