Thursday, 11 July 2024

~$100K investment ... nimbling Capland Ascott Trust CLAS

I have held Ascott since the IPO days of Ascendas Hospitality Trust (which is quite a number of years 😂). While my personal preferance is in industrial instead of hospitality reits, due to their higher yield in general and a more familiar sector, I have tried to diversify somewhat to gain some other reits exposure.


Then came the infamous Covid pandemic and global travel was devastated. 3+ years on and the hospitality sector is still on this painful recovery. Of course the rapid rise of USA interest rates was a double whammy to highly leverage reits/trusts.

Still some green shoots of hope are starting to grow in its financials, with gross revenue, profit and DPS steadily increasing into a respectable 6.64% dividend yield for FY2023. From its latest 1Q 2024 business update, the good news seems to be continuing with possibly good 2Q results releasing on 26 July, together with 3.1c dividends estimated, forming 7% dividend yield 12months TTM.

Source: Ascott annual report & business update



Fed chair Jerome Powell has been speaking to Congress these two days, and is hinting on lowering interest rates soon. From CME data, there's 68% probability of a Fed cut of 25bps in Sep. Personally, I think due to USA elections in Nov, the Fed will instead choose to act independent and do nothing until after elections.

Source: CME Group

Today Reits staged a strong 4% rebound with MIT and MLT leading the way. Similarly CLAS ended up with 1.7% gain. Will it eventually form a double/triple bottom chart pattern? Only time will tell 😅

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Monday, 1 July 2024

$71,340 1H2024 income ... $142,697 FY2024 estimate

Was looking to divest abit of DBS last Friday, but was unsuccessful, to prop up my 1H2024 numbers. Well, there's always 2H to look forward to 😂 The major bulk of my income came from dividends of banks, reits, bonds etc. Hopefully should still be comfortable for my family of 4 😅


Markets have been mainly sideways for the past 6 months, as many are waiting for USA interest rates to fall to further stimulate the share prices. With upcoming USA elections in Nov, I doubt the Fed would make further changes to interest rates, to show their supposedly independence from politics. There can't really be full independence as the Fed chair is appointed by the USA President right?! 


For Singapore, we don't even try to hide this dependence between Fiscal vs Monetary authorities. Both should work hand-in-hand for the good of the country right?! The world's largest economy is at times disgusting to watch, as many put party over country, false loyalty over constitution *faint* 😓Still be it whoever wins, it should have little impact over the next 10 years on the S&P500 uptrend. Money truly drives the USA economy, and bad politics can be good for business unfortunately ....


In the meantime, I would add to my VUSD.L (S&P500 ETF) if there's some price correction. Looking also to the longer term for the rise of China. Will most probably start picking up some 2800.HK (Hang Seng ETF)

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Wednesday, 1 May 2024

Apr $10K ... YTD $56K ... 2024 $132K

It's the start of Q2, and dividends are starting to roll in 😎 DBS is a major contributor this month, plus I have a number of 6 months T-bills that had matured ... Would hope to see DBS reporting strong Q1 earnings tomorrow and good dividend payout (this time with enlarged 1-for-10 bonus shares). Banks have really turned out to be pretty profitable for me, as I pivot from non-bank shares towards the 3 local banks over the past few years. Besides dividends, they are also turning out great capital gains too. I had bought some DBS and OCBC with SRS during the end of 2020, that are literally sitting at 70% gains and 10% dividend yields. Hmm should I sell them or leave them alone for bragging rights haha... Leave a comment below if u have any suggestions 😂


Looking at the chart of DBS, it has been a consistent up-trend for this largest Singapore company. After XB, DBS has surprisingly persisted to move onto a new all-time-high price. Moving averages are sloping nicely upwards, indicating a high probability of near term and long term supports of these high prices. 


Coupled with USA inflation data showing a persistent stickiness above 3%, interest rates seem to point towards higher and longer than initially expected, which is good news for the banks. DBS has reported a record FY result, and upcoming Q1 should also be strong. Coupled with strong govt backing and upcoming political handover/elections, everything seems to be going very well for DBS. Despite its record price, there's really no good reason to sell and shift the funds to another "better" stock.

Do you also think DBS is good? Pls comment and let me know!

Press on, you Mighty Man of Valour!

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Thursday, 11 April 2024

2023 Cashflow $142,519 w XIRR 9.0%

As stocks investing is filled with multiple Buys and Sells, constituting lots of Cashflows, I started computing the cash Inflows and Outflows that is similar to a normal business. It is common to say that Cash is akin to Blood and critical to any business operations. Cashflow is kind of related but not the same as Profit. In financial accounting, you can ascribe a profit and yet have a portfolio negative cashflow. It is also easier to financial engineer a profit than a positive cashflow 😅


Received a number of requests from readers of my blog post $983k profits in 20 years (2005-2024) on questions about my IRR... Drum roll please! 😂


As you can clearly see from above, my XIRR values are really not that great. If we do a multi year XIRR, the value would just be in single digits, underperforming the S&P500 markets of around 10% average per year. Why not just save all the trouble and put everything into the S&P500 ETF instead?! I guess there are a number of reasons namely:

1) Yes, yes I am finally starting to invest in S&P500 ETF (VUSD.L and IVV.US), plus they are really at all-time high levels currently
2) Investing in S&P500 index is really boring with nothing much to do 😆
3) Beware of getting caught in a 13-years long sideways USA market. If u had bought at the high of 2000, it would take beyond 2013 to register a profit

I am sure many of us share the same sentiment that Mr. Market knows when we buy (prices drop!) and when we sell (prices rise! Grrr...) It will really take a solid mind and emotions to hold for 13-years just to breakeven. Shares investing is simple but not easy! Hope this simple sharing benefits u  😎

Press on, you Mighty Man of Valour!

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Tuesday, 2 April 2024

My 7-Figures $x,xxx,xxx Porfolio (2024 Q1)

I received quite alot of comments and requests from my previous post $983k profits in 20 years (2005-2024), and decided to refresh my portfolio for the end of Q1 2024. Due to my conservative nature, I hold close to 18% of bonds (Tbills, SSB and yes even some old Astrea 6/7 bonds). UOB has grown steadily to become the largest bank in my portfolio, as I couldn't resist nimbling at it due to its price weakness vs the other 2 local banks. With the hope of interest rate cuts soon, I chose MLT, the weakest of the strong Reits and increased my position to 3%. I probably should have been more aggressive to buy up on the S&P500 ETFs, and instead of accumulating more I instead sold some, as I had expected a pull-back before S&P500 index would break with new all-time highs. Tsk tsk, an error in my judgement, not to trade what happened but what I forsee would happen... 😅  Let me know if u have any comments on how I should improve my portfolio, thanks!


Banks currently form my largest portfolio with around 37%. The 3 local banks have been  the prime gainers of high interest rates, posting record profits and great dividends too at almost 6%. With these high dividend yields does it still make sense to invest in Reits?! Still interest rates are not going to remain high forever, and Reit prices are badly beaten down. There should still be more tough financial quarters ahead as higher interest rates eat into Reits balance sheets. Well, can always start nimbling abit ... 😂  I have basically left Others & Blue Chips (Keppel, Wilmar, Comfort, Singtel, SIA) alone to balance and diversify my portfolio. They have their fair share of trying to refresh their businesses to suit the ever changing competition and financial environment. So this basically sums up my humble portfolio! Hope it benefits u or your curiosity 😎

Press on, you Mighty Man of Valour!


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