Mid-Year Portfolio Review

I did a quick review of my portfolio holdings and found that 3 more ETFs have made it into my top holdings list. My resolution for 2020 was to buy more ETFs and to spend less time trying to stock pick, so its good to see ETFs taking up a larger part of my portfolio. GSK is almost there, will probably make the list in the next update.

Strategy: July 2020

Did my regular monthly purchases of WQDV and VHYD, plus FSMOne RSP of 2800.HK. Also decided to do small top-ups of various shares GSK, Shell, HSBC, Westpac, Santander, Telefonica, and Ascott Residence Trust. 

Big rally in China stocks in the start of July so that I am not topping up China for the moment. I remain overweight China with Greater China amounting to about 20% of my portfolio. 

Dividends: June 2020

Vanguard ETFs pay out this month and also Comfort Delgro, Sembcorp. 

Strategy: June 2020

After investing quite a bit between March-May 2020, I had planned to scale down my purchases after the 1st week of June. However, I took at the market at end June and decided that there was perhaps some value left, especially since STI was still below 3,000.

So for the last week of June, I bought Singtel @ $2.46 for SRS, and did various small top-ups like Capitaland, Frasers HT, WQDV, and VHYD.

I believe Singtel has reasonable prospects with stable demand for telecommunications and data. It is also a tourism play in that any tourism recovery will lead to a recovery in roaming revenue..

As for Capitaland, I'm actually preferring it to purchasing REITs and will continue to accumulate under $3.

Finally, I also opened a Singlife savings account that promises 'up-to' 2.5% "interest" for amounts up to $10k.  The application was hassle-free and fund transfers to the account appeared after a few minutes. Seems like a good place to park a few thousand dollars and earn a little bit of interest. Its technically not a savings account but an insurance policy but is still protected by SDIC so I have no worries. 

Dividends: May 2020

Due to Covid-19 seems like some Dividends got shifted in 2019, Comfort & UOB paid out in May. This year, they are paying in June.

Lloyds paid out in May last year but they are joining the rest of the Euro banks in not paying dividend this year.

2020 Brokerage Forex Spreads IBKR, SCB, FSMOne.

I have gone back to update my previous posts on the brokerage forex spreads as they do change.

These are the spreads at the 3 brokers I use:

• Interactive Brokers - basically equal to spot, just call it a 0.01%
• Standard Chartered - 0.4%  (a long time ago it was 1%, then it improved to 0.65%, and now its 0.4% I guess competition is important)
• FSMOne - 0.25%

For completeness Investmentmoats reported in a blogpost that Saxo's charge is 0.75%.

Standard Chartered is a full-service bank so apart from a US$ trading account, I have a Priority Banking USD High Account with USD chequebook (I don't use, they just gave chequebook to all account holders free) and USD Debit Mastercard.

The USD Debit Mastercard is very useful for making online purchases. The 0.4% forex spread is better than regular credit card forex spreads (thats why you can get extra points for overseas spending - you get whacked on the forex spread). And I can spend my US$ dividends using this Mastercard so I don't need to 'withdraw' the US$ into S$ in order to spend it (unlike IBKR and FSMOne - IBKR debit card is not available to SG investors).

The SCB USD Debit Mastercard has 2% cashback which more than offsets the forex spread anyway. Overseas transactions incur a 1% charge so nett the cashback is 1% unless you use paypal SG for the transactions. Paypal SG is considered local transaction so no overseas charge and full 2% cashback - always pay by Paypal if possible!

Frankly, I wouldn't get hung up about the small differences in charges. What is important is to start investing! During the GFC I had to pay $28 for each trade... if i was so paralysed by trading comms I wouldn't have made the returns that I did. 

Foreign stocks - Breakeven in 3 months?

This is a snapshot of my IBKR portfolio. 5 June 2020 there was a surprise US jobs report that let to further gains in the stock market and my largest 1 day gain in my IBKR portfolio so far. 

The last GFC I did not breakeven so fast. We are talking 3 months March-June.

 So looking at last GFC, I'm also wondering whether its just a dead cat bounce like what the bears are claiming. But wondering about something didn't prevent me from investing when valuations are undemanding.

STI's recovery is going to be a little slower, but I believe that with sensible government policies and forward planning, the recovery will still come. STI 3,000 in 2-3 years' time should be achievable.