Managed to catch up with S&P500

 

Finally caught up with the S&P500.

Hopefully can keep up till the end of the year 

Experimental Unit Trust Portfolio: Update 1

 

In May 2026 I decided to start an experimental unit trust portfolio on POEMS focused exclusively on Amundi Unit Trusts with the following target allocation:

• 40% MSCI World
• 20% Prime USA
• 20% Emerging Markets

This is a 2 month update. I have been steadily adding to it. As the market has been going up, the means that the average buying price of these funds has gone up and the percentage return has gone down.

On the bright side, the absolute $ profit has doubled from $1.6k to $3.6k.

This shows that while a high % return looks good, the actual $ profit is also important. Previously, I like to buy after a crash, but when the market started improving, I was reluctant to buy because this meant that I am buying for higher and higher prices. That was the wrong way to think about investing. As long as you are confident that the market is going up, continuing to buy is always good as that maximises your $ return even though your % return looks lower. 

This is subject to the usual portfolio construction rules like asset allocation percentages and concentration limits.

May 2026 post: https://buyaftercrash.blogspot.com/2026/05/experimental-unit-trust-portfolio.html

Dividends Collected: June 2026

 

About $10k+ dividends this month. YoY 10% higher than 2025 so still on track for $20k/mth.

1 out of 7 chance of household income >$30k

 

The Straits Times on 30 June 26 reported that in 2025, 13.4% or 1 out of 7 resident households have a monthly income of $30,000 or more.  

Having a 1 in 7 chance that you are living in a household earning more than $30k a month is not super common, but at the same time not super rare as well. 

Just posting this info here for my reference.

Which Dividend ETF? VHYD, WQDV, QDIV, UDVD?

 

Kyith in Investment Moats did a review of London listed Dividend ETF UDVD. As a Dividend lover, I am always on the lookout for good dividend ETFs. I had looked at UDVD but it honestly did not seem as good as the alternatives, including Vanguard's VHYD and iShares QDIV. The "requirement" that a company keeps on increasing its dividend seems to be a bit 'off' to me.

Google finance graphs, which don't do dividends reinvested, indicates that UDVD is the worst performing of the 3. In order to figure out what happens when dividends are reinvested, I turned to Claude Sonnet 4.6 set at High Effort. It confirmed that ranking in the basic Google finance chart that UDVD is the worst performing of the 3 dividend ETFs over 1, 3, 5, and 10 years. 

However, it is important to point out that the divergence in performance appears to have occurred mainly in the last 3 years 2023-205, which illustrates the point that a 'strategy' works... until it doesn't.

The main reason I buy VHYD is for diversification. The second reason is dividends 😀Claude appears to agree (even if I tell it not to be too agreeable) that adding VHYD to VWRD diversifies the portfolio in terms of sectors and geography. Whether diversification is a good thing, is of course another question.

I am also investing in another dividend ETF WQDV and according to Google finance simple charts it also outperforms UDVD by a large amount. In fact it outperforms VHYD but that could be partly due to it holding more Tech than VHYD.

However, I have not included it in the comparison because it changed the index it follows twice in the time I have held it so its performance would have been affected by that, so not a good comparison. It changed to an ESG dividend index sometime back, but after ESG fell out of favour it changed to the current MSCI World High Dividend Yield Advanced Select Index (what a mouthful...).

Last major illness was in July 2025

 

I had a little bit of a sore throat this week but fortunately did not turn into a full blown upper respiratory tract infection needing antibiotics which would mean I would have to stop exercise for a few days. 

This time, I just gargled with mouthwash and it sort of went away and didn't affect my workouts. But it made me wonder when my last illness was.

Thanks to Strava data, I am able to see when I so sick that I had to stop workouts. I just have to look at the low mileage weeks to see whether I was taking a break or if I was ill. Based on the data, the last time I fell ill enough to have to stop workouts for a few days was in July 2025 (the darker blue bar). As its mid-June 2026 now, it means I have been not had a serious illness for nearly a year and counting.

It could be luck, or it could be the benefit of exercise and a slightly more healthy diet that has boosted my immunity and helping me avoid serious illness. Health is wealth!

SpaceX and Meme stock territory?

 

SpaceX started trading 12 June 2026 and the stock market rose. Meanwhile, the market seems to be ignoring Iran or assuming that a deal will be done (nothing has been finalised). The good news is that my portfolio has moved faster than the S&P500 and hopefully will catch up with the S&P. I wonder if SpaceX will become the next Meme stock and whether stocks are going to move into Meme stock territory.

This could be an opportunity value investors who take a cold hard look at free cash flow and earnings and continue to seek out stocks that actually earn money. I have continued to add McDonalds MCD as a value stock.

In the meantime, I continue to buy the usual ETFs, always adding VHYD/WQDV to my VWRD/VUSD/LSPU purchases in order to reduce my tech concentration.