Looking back at Hong Leong Finance

 

Blogger BFire just posted that he sold his Hong Leong Finance holding:

Finally I Sold Hong Leong Finance

It reminded me of my own decision to exit HLF on 1 July 2025 at $2.57:

Sold HLF

While HLF has been a stable stock (compared to say REITs), there is an opportunity cost to holding it instead of deploying the cash in more attractive investments. I also felt that there was a risk of disruption by fintech and HLF being too small to be able to respond effectively. Finally, I had committed myself to either increasing the size of my smallest holdings or exiting them. I was not prepared to buy more HLF so I exited and bought LionGlobal All Seasons (Growth) Fund using the sales proceeds. Turned out to be a good idea as the All Seasons fund grew from $1.531 to $1.818 which is a 18.75% gain.

LionGlobal All Seasons (Growth) Fund 

FSMOne RSP / JEPG Active ETF

 

FSMOne is trying to "encourage" increased use of RSP by publishing the  RSP amounts for the median/upper quartile/top decile by age group. As I am a big fan of FSMOne's commission-free RSP with decent exchange rates, it is no surprise that I am in the top 10% of FSMOne customers when it comes to monthly RSP.

On 13 May 2026, I compared the SGD:USD exchange rates:

FSMOne: S$1,277.2 to buy US$1,000
SCB: S$1,277.8 to buy US$1,000 (silver tier)
IBKR: S$1.2729+S$2,55= S$1,275.45 .to buy US$1,000 (added US$2 comms)

FSMOne is still slightly cheaper than SCB's silver tier and way better than SCB's blue tier. Both can't compare to IBKR if larger amounts of US$ are changed, but for RSP amounts below US$1,000, FSMOne is very competitive.

________________________________________________________________

One of the latest ETFs that I have added to my RSP list is JPM Global Equity Premium Income Active UCITS ETF - USD (dist). It is basically an active covered call ETF that tries to generate income from dividends and option writing and has a reasonable expense ratio of 0.35%. 

It has basically underperformed the market in 2025 and 2026. Currently its negative -3% year to date. As the S&P500 and World indices continue to shoot up, the price of this languishing ETF becomes more attractive to add a little bit of diversification to my portfolio. My hope is for a steady dividend yield and stable price and I will benchmark this against my USD Corporate Bond ETF because JP Morgan's advertising seem to be pitching this as a better alternative to bonds because this strategy is less affected by interest rates.

Experimental Unit Trust Portfolio

While I have been helping my relatives set up Poems accounts to invest in Amundi unit trusts, I have not done so myself because my main UT platform is FSMOne which doesn't sell Amundi funds. Also, my main method of investing in index funds is via LSE-listed ETFs which are technically tax-advantaged because VUSD has 15% US withholding tax and LSPU has 0% WHT (because its synthetic). Amundi USA, being a physical replication unit trust, is subject to 30% WHT at source (it doesn't matter if it is IE domiciled or not - also note that Amundi also has a synthetic USA fund but that is not sold by Poems).

In April, since I had some spare cash to deploy, I decided to put $20k into an experimental Poems portfolio comprising Amundi funds and to see how it goes. As you can see from the screenshot above, its 80% developed markets and 20% EM, which is 'technically' overweighting EM compared to MSCI All World, but I've always felt that EM is under-represented in the All World Index.

 

Dividends Collected: April 2026

 

SG Companies usually don't pay dividends in April so foreign stocks do the heavy lifting this month. year-to-date I am a tiny bit ahead of dividends collected in 2024 which is a good sign.

Portfolio Performance April 2026

 

There was a big 11% rally in the S&P 500 for the month of April (technically started on 31 March). This momentum was so great that it overtook my portfolio which is now trailing the S&P500 by 0.7%. However, I am grateful that my portfolio climbed out of the red and is positive. More importantly, I continued buying while my portfolio was red, because its always good to buy stocks when they are cheap.

This shows that you should never underestimate the S&P500, at least 50% of my fresh purchases are either S&P500 or FTSE World (70%+ USA). I'm glad to check my records to see that I bought S&P500 ETFs VUSD and LSPU on 27, 30, 31 March and 1 April. 

My AUD investments finally paying off?

 

I had posted in 2017 about Australia and Norway markets being possible commodity proxies. As I pointed out, backtesting shows a meaningful correlation between the Australia stock market and DBB which is the Invesco Base Metals fund. I am also a regular visitor to Australia and my visits to Perth show that the mining driven economy is booming with new business parks (logistics etc) being created near the airport. I took the opportunity during my last visit to drive through these new business parks to see whether they were just empty shells or whether there were lorries going to and fro. 

It is therefore no surprise that the AUD hit a 2-year high recently and shows no signs of stopping. This is good news as it also suggests good demand from China for industrial metals and other exports.

Coincidentally, I bought more ASX ETF IOZ on 7 and 8 April, just as the currency was starting to ramp up. So this brought my capital gain from the increase in the ASX200 and the currency appreciation.

I continue to be bullish on Australia (hence my belief in Fraser's Logistics Trust which has significant Oz exposure).

Previous Post on Australia: https://buyaftercrash.blogspot.com/2017/07/norway-and-australia-and-possible.html

Vomero 18 Coffee Bean: S$99

 

NVO and NKE are competing to be my portfolio's "biggest loser." At the same time, I believe in them. Nike keeps to making stuff that I actually want to buy (and actually use for running). The Nike Vomero 18 is a cushioned and comfortable shoe that is ideal for easy runs. Most importantly, it fits my feet well (crucial to try before buying). The Vomero 17 and Invincible 3 (it would be called Vomero Premium 17 under the current Nike naming convention) had heel lock problems.

So when I saw the special edition Vomero 18 "Coffee Bean" (yes it comes in the usual Nike cardboard box plus a metallic coffee bean bag) on sale for S$99, I couldn't resist and grabbed myself a pair. 

Asics, on the other hand, seems to launch shoes with attractive colorways, then later on, makes only the monochromatic and boring colorways available. Take the current colours of the Megablast for example....