Quite a bit has happened for my foreign portfolio since I last posted. As we all should know by now, Scotland rejected independence from the UK. However, asides from the 1 day relief rally that Friday, my UK holdings have been suffering a gradual decline in price throughout the month.
One of my holdings, Tesco PLC, a supermarket chain, has been in the spotlight due to an accounting scandal where they have reportedly overstated their 6-month profit guidance by a staggering £250 million. This equates to almost a quarter of their profits for the period, and the stock price closed 11.6% down on that day, with further declines in price for the next few days.
This brings my paper losses in Tesco to almost 25%, however I have no intention to sell it in the near future, as I am wagering on the new management being able to turn the company around in the next few years. Also, in commoditised services like low-cost supermarkets, I believe that Tesco, being able to maintain cheaper prices compared to its competitors consistently on a large scale, will have an advantage despite having thinner profit margins.
Another of my holdings, GlaxoSmithKline PLC, a pharmaceutical company, was fined 3 billion Yuan for bribery in its operations in mainland China. However I think that the fines were priced in previously, hence there was not much price action on this news.
The UK stock market has been experiencing continued weakness due to the uncertain European economic outlook as well as geopolitical risks both in Europe as well as the Middle East. I took the opportunity to purchase another small batch of stocks, bringing my UK holdings up to what is shown below:
Stock
|
Shares
|
Market Value (£)
|
% of Portfolio
|
GlaxoSmithKline
|
93
|
1,332.36
|
28.55
|
Unilever
|
39
|
999.67
|
21.42
|
Royal Dutch Shell
|
36
|
876.69
|
18.79
|
Royal Mail
|
111
|
444.00
|
9.51
|
BAE Systems
|
77
|
361.40
|
7.74
|
Tesco
|
200
|
383.10
|
8.21
|
British Petroleum
|
61
|
269.14
|
5.77
|
Portfolio Value
|
£4,673.92
|
Dividends (Sep)
|
£7.52
|
Average Monthly
Dividends
|
£18.00
|
On the local front, nothing much has changed for my portfolio asides from pretty lethargic market movements. I have the same holdings, and the market value as of today is S$114705.
On a more exciting note, I will blog about my first foray into a speculative growth stock shortly in the next post!
:D
for these foreign stocks, how do u deal with the dividend tax(if any)
ReplyDeleteHello!
ReplyDeleteFor UK stocks, dividends are not taxed :D However for US stocks, there isn't any way to deal with it besides accepting the full 30% dividend tax. However if you are interested in the S&P500 ETF, there is an Irish-domiciled S&P500 ETF trading on the London Stock Exchange where the tax rate is only 15%. The ticker is VUSA if I remember correctly.
Cheers!