Local Portfolio Log March 2016

A good day to all,

Since my last update, the markets have fallen further, and then rallied back. Unfortunately, I have had not as much cash as I would have liked in my war chest to take advantage of the cheaper asset prices, due partly to emptying out a large part of it in the August 2015 dip, as well as increased expenditure over the past few months for leisure purposes.

Nevertheless, I have added another 5000 units of Keppel DC REIT, as well as 200 shares of UOB to the local portfolio. I decided to add to Keppel DC REIT due to its stable earnings so far (which slightly exceeded post-IPO expectations), decent balance sheet as well as price weakness. Of course the same risks remain; a majority of its debt being due in 2018, as well as the the nature of data centre assets depreciating over time place downward pressure on it's NAV. After this purchase however, I think I will have a 'just nice' amount of exposure to this sector as a total percentage of my portfolio.

For UOB, the reason I got more of it is the same as the in the previous post, and of course price weakness over the past few months. Compared to DBS and OCBC though, UOB's share price hasn't rallied as hard as them in the recent recovery.

You may notice that even though the portfolio value has gone up significantly since the last update, due to share purchases as well as the broad market rally the average monthly dividend has stagnated, due mainly to large dividend cuts by companies with large exposure to the oil and gas sector, Keppel Corp and Sembcorp Industries.

Stock	Shares	Market Value (S$)	% of Portfolio
SingTel	6000	23,340.00	13.08%
ST Engineering	5000	16,150.00	9.05%
SATS	4000	15,640.00	8.77%
SIA Engineering	4000	14,320.00	8.03%
Keppel Corp	2000	12,240.00	6.86%
Keppel DC Reit	10000	10,850.00	6.08%
Ascendas Reit	4000	9,920.00	5.56%
Sembcorp Ind	3000	9,510.00	5.33%
CapitaCom Trust	6000	8,820.00	4.94%
CapitaMall Trust	4000	8,560.00	4.80%
UOB	400	7,716.00	4.32%
VICOM	1000	6,010.00	3.37%
ComfortDelGro	2000	5,940.00	3.33%
Cache Log Trust	7000	5,915.00	3.31%
Suntec Reit	3000	5,100.00	2.86%
Boustead	6000	4,980.00	2.79%
SingPost	3000	4,935.00	2.77%
Super Group	4000	4,280.00	2.40%
Keppel Reit	3000	3,000.00	1.68%
Boustead Proj	1800	1,206.00	0.68%

Portfolio Value	$178,432
Dividends (Feb-Mar)	$920.28
Average Monthly Dividends	$711

No change in composition for my overseas portfolio so far, although the British Pound has weakened quite a bit to the Singapore Dollar.

Until next time,

Cheers!

Happy 2016!

A happy 2016 to all!

Have not been updating this for the past few months due to work commitments, holidays, as well as general laziness. Personally it has been a great year, although the markets haven't really been so.

2015 has been an eventful year, from the passing of our founding Prime Minister, the continuing decline of commodity prices, the rise of ISIS in the Middle East, and the resulting refugee crisis as well as terror attacks in Europe. And of course, the first Federal Reserve rate hike since the Great Financial Crisis.

The STI fell around 14% this year. I did not track how much my portfolio fell by, but I'm sure its taken a pretty large hit too. Looking back at December 2014 until December 2015, the value of my local portfolio only increased by around $24k. I'm pretty sure I had put in a lot more cash than that over the year. My UK portfolio was equally dismal, due to a large part of the portfolio being in Shell as well as GlaxoSmithKline, which have not performed well this year.

On the bright side, my largest holding in my US portfolio, General Electric, is up by around 24% this year, due to the market taking a favourable view to its ongoing restructuring, acquisition of French engineering conglomerate Alstom's power generation and electricity transmission divisions, as well as its successful spinoff of its financial arm, Synchrony Financial.

Since my previous update in September, I have added another 1000 shares of ST Engineering, as well as a small position in UOB. To be honest, I'm still getting the hang of understanding the financial reports and balance sheets of a bank, so my choice of UOB over the other 2 large local banks may be mostly qualitative and questionable. Nevertheless, from my limited understanding/analysis, the reasons I bought UOB was, from a valuation standpoint, a P/B ratio of almost 1 (where it had previously been trading around 1.2 and above), a greater Singapore exposure compared to DBS and OCBC, which have larger overseas exposure, which I deem riskier, given that these exposures are mainly in the emerging economies of Southeast Asia and Greater China.

At the point of purchase, UOB also yields higher than DBS, but lower than OCBC, but I chose to buy UOB over OCBC due to UOB having less insurance exposure than OCBC. To quote a Moody's report, "while life insurance involves low-risks, profits for the sector are associated with some degree of volatility, partly because of complex accounting rules". Furthermore, Basel III rules for capital adequacy may pose a greater challenge for OCBC due to insurance assets being deducted from being included in what is known as Common Equity Tier 1, a measure of a bank's financial strength.

The local portfolio as of Dec 31 2015 stands as such:

Stock	Shares	Market Value (S$)	% of Portfolio
SingTel	6000	22,020.00	13.44%
SATS	4000	15,360.00	9.37%
ST Engineering	5000	15,050.00	9.18%
SIA Engineering	4000	14,800.00	9.03%
Keppel Corp	2000	13,020.00	7.94%
Sembcorp Ind	3000	9,150.00	5.58%
Ascendas Reit	4000	9,120.00	5.56%
CapitaCom Trust	6000	8,100.00	4.94%
CapitaMall Trust	4000	7,720.00	4.71%
Cache Log Trust	7000	6,370.00	3.89%
ComfortDelGro	2000	6,100.00	3.72%
VICOM	1000	6,020.00	3.67%
Keppel DC Reit	5000	5,075.00	3.10%
Boustead	6000	5,010.00	3.06%
SingPost	3000	4,920.00	3.00%
Suntec Reit	3000	4,650.00	2.84%
UOB	200	3,922.00	2.39%
Super Group	4000	3,360.00	2.05%
Keppel Reit	3000	2,790.00	1.70%
Boustead Proj	1800	1,341.00	0.82%

Portfolio Value	$163,898
Dividends (Oct-Dec)	$1197.06
Average Monthly Dividends	$710

No changes to my UK or US portfolios since I last updated them here. But for entirety's sake, my UK portfolio summary:

Portfolio Value	£8897.80
Dividends (Oct-Dec)	£117.23
Average Monthly Dividends	£40.60

And my US portfolio summary:

Portfolio Value	US$4424.4
Dividends (Oct-Dec)	US$30.85
Average Monthly Dividends	US$10.33

Going forward, my financial goals for the year of 2016 (in order of priority):

To build up my cash reserves to $90k (Sum of emergency fund, savings for next car, and additional funds to tide over career related transitional periods). Currently standing at $63k.

To have a combined (local and overseas) dividend income of S$1000 per month. Currently standing at $800.

Local portfolio value of S$200k, and combined UK/US portfolio value of S$35k. Currently ~$163k and ~$25k respectively 

All this without compromising my current quality of life too adversely. Collectively, it will be quite a stretch to hit them, but barring any unforeseen circumstances, should not be impossible to achieve.

Cheers to another exciting year ahead!

160k Milestone :D

Hi all, just a short note today,

After today's rally in the stock markets, my local portfolio has hit the 160k milestone :D

As always, this being the market I expect it to fall below 160k sooner or later. But of course, I'd expect it to go higher than that in the long term also.

Cheers!

Return of the Bear (Local Portfolio Log Sep 2015)

Good day to all

The Straits Times Index, Singapore's stock market barometer, has officially fallen into bear territory, defined by a 20% drop from all time highs. Concerns about China's economy, and by extension the global economy, as well as an impending US interest rate hike are the macro factors depressing worldwide equity markets.

Closer to home, the haze has been quite a pain, and might cause a minor slowdown in our local economy. Back in 2013, the haze caused an estimated loss of US$50 million to our economy. This one, though slightly less severe, seems to be more prolonged, and my guess is that the economic damage would be even more than what we had in 2013.

On the home front, my trusty 9 year old car's clutch (yes, I love my manual cars) and flywheel needed to be replaced, and soon after, one of my brakes started leaking brake fluid, causing it to require a brake replacement. All this has put a large dent in my disposable income. But I guess its one of the prices we pay for the convenience of owning a car in land-scarce Singapore.

The ongoing slump in the local stock market did throw up a few buying opportunities. Over the past month, I picked up another 3000 shares of Cache Logistics Trust, 1000 shares of VICOM, as well as 1000 shares of Singtel. Notably, no new significant company information has surfaced, just general market malaise causing the depressed prices.

I picked up Cache due to its attractive pricing of at or close to book value, reasonably long weighted average debt maturity as well as lease expiry. I've wanted to pick up VICOM for a while due to its large share of the vehicle inspection market in Singapore, with it bringing rather stable recurring income. I picked up more Singtel shares today, due to the steep drop in prices over the past 2 days. Though a 4th telco is in the pipeline, Singtel would be the least affected by it among the 3 major telcos in Singapore due to its large and diversified business.

In other parts of the portfolio, my longtime holding SATS is now a new addition in the Straits Times Index, and prices have been elevated recently, possibly by large capital inflow from index funds. Ascendas REIT also made a large A$ 1 billion purchase of a logistics portfolio in Australia. Though I think it didn't get the properties at that good a price, the low Aussie dollar, the high quality properties as well as the freehold land make it a decent long term purchase.

So my current local portfolio stands as such:

Stock	Shares	Market Value (S$)	% of Portfolio
SingTel	6000	21,300.00	13.55%
SATS	4000	15,920.00	10.13%
SIA Engineering	4000	14,720.00	9.36%
Keppel Corp	2000	13,500.00	8.59%
ST Engineering	4000	11,840.00	7.53%
Sembcorp Ind	3000	10,350.00	6.58%
Ascendas Reit	4000	9,120.00	5.80%
CapitaCom Trust	6000	7,950.00	5.06%
CapitaMall Trust	4000	7,560.00	4.81%
Cache Log Trust	7000	6,860.00	4.36%
VICOM	1000	6,000.00	3.82%
ComfortDelGro	2000	5,600.00	3.56%
SingPost	3000	5,100.00	3.24%
Keppel DC Reit	5000	5,050.00	3.21%
Boustead	6000	4,650.00	2.96%
Suntec Reit	3000	4,470.00	2.84%
Super Group	4000	3,060.00	1.95%
Keppel Reit	3000	2,820.00	1.79%
Boustead Proj	1800	1,314.00	0.84%

Portfolio Value	$157,184
Dividends (Sep)	$390.00
Average Monthly Dividends	$687

Cheers!

SG50 (Local Portfolio Log Aug 2015)

(Admin announcement! I have added 2 pages to the linkbar at the top. They are extracts from my previous posts with regard to personal portfolio performance tracking and asset allocation :D)

Hello all,

A belated happy 50th National Day to all Singaporeans!

August has been a pretty exciting month for the markets. The local economy has not been doing too good, and GDP projections have been revised downwards once again. Coupled with the sudden and rapid devaluation of the Yuan, oil prices trending lower, and an anticipated rate hike by the US Federal Reserve, caused a spike in volatility in equity markets worldwide as well as a general selloff in the local markets.

In view of all this, I have deployed more of my cash reserves to pick up a few more stocks locally, and right now unfortunately am more or less out of dry powder for the next couple of months. I increased my stake in ST Engineering on price weakness, and doubled my stake in Capitaland Commercial Trust, as its prices have been depressed due to the trend of lower office rentals, and anticipated interest rate hikes which would squeeze it on both its asset values and interest expenses. I picked up more of it due to it being priced at a good discount to its net asset value, relatively low gearing, stable occupancy and decent yield on cost. As always, only time will tell whether this is a good buy or not.

Most of my holdings have been reporting pretty flat earnings, and interestingly, noticeably higher finance expenses. Boustead has posted quite a large decline in its quarter on quarter net profit (61%), in part due to the demerger of its real estate division Boustead Projects, resulting in a large rise in profit attributed to non-controlling interests. If it was adjusted to take that into account, it would be a more palatable 11% reduction. That aside, management did state that profits in FY16 would still be considerably lower due to a challenging business environment, in particular the oil and gas sector.

The newcomer to my portfolio, Super Group, also posted a decline in earnings this quarter, due to a decline in Eastern European and South East Asian sales in its Branded Consumer segment, as well as the expiry of a tax incentive enjoyed by an overseas subsidiary. This is slightly offset by the increase in revenue from its Food Ingredients segment. It did however report an increase in its EBITDA, as well as positive cash flow and remains in a net cash position.

As a result of mostly flat earnings and some declining earnings, increased market volatility and a general equity selloff, my portfolio value took a pretty big hit this month. You may notice that even though my holdings have increased, the portfolio value is still lower than it was last month.

On a brighter note, the local portfolio did churn out a good S$2347.90 in dividends this month, which makes me a happy camper. In addition, Sembcorp and Super Group are maintaining their dividend payouts for September, and ST Engineering increased its interim dividend 4 to 5 cents. All this, coupled with my additional holdings, bring up the local portfolio's average monthly dividends to S$628. No changes in terms of my foreign holdings since the last update.

Current standing of the local portfolio:

Stock	Shares	Market Value (S$)	% of Portfolio
SingTel	5000	20,300.00	13.27%
SATS	4000	15,200.00	9.93%
Keppel Corp	2000	14,700.00	9.61%
SIA Engineering	4000	13,920.00	9.10%
ST Engineering	4000	13,080.00	8.55%
Sembcorp Ind	3000	10,770.00	7.04%
Ascendas Reit	4000	9,160.00	5.99%
CapitaCom Trust	6000	8,040.00	5.25%
CapitaMall Trust	4000	7,900.00	5.16%
ComfortDelGro	2000	6,220.00	4.07%
SingPost	3000	5,730.00	3.74%
Keppel DC Reit	5000	5,450.00	3.56%
Boustead	6000	5,340.00	3.49%
Suntec Reit	3000	4,950.00	3.24%
Cache Log Trust	4000	4,200.00	2.74%
Super Group	4000	3,600.00	2.35%
Keppel Reit	3000	3,045.00	1.99%
Boustead Proj	1800	1,404.00	0.92%

Portfolio Value	$153,009
Dividends (Aug)	$2,347.90
Average Monthly Dividends	$628

Cheers!