Hardly any S$ dividends this month.
My quarterly Vanguard Dividends are reported this month (I use Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct as the reporting months - in IBKR they are paid end Sep but reported as Oct payments)
Average dividends per month: Jan-Oct2016:
S$3,334.63 -
US$221.281 +
£171.67 +
Average dividend = Total dividend collected ÷ number of months in the year so far
Different from DK style of total dividend ÷ 12 months
Previous monthly average:
S$3,655.54 -
US$169.21 -
£146.99 -
IA considers lower yield target for UK equity income funds
By Sean Butters 20 Oct, 2016
.... The industry body is understood to be consulting members after a number of funds were ejected from the sector in recent years for failing to meet yield requirements.
... A total of 21 funds have dropped from the current IA UK Equity Income basket into the IA All Companies sector in recent years, including Hugh Yarrow’s (pictured) Evenlode Income and Henry Dixon’s Man GLG UK Income funds.
http://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/sector/uk-equity-income-funds/i600/?periodMonths=12&page=1
Chasing yield is harder and harder to do. I am a dividend investor but also a contrarian investor. If investors are hard up about high "current" yield (current yield actually means past yield), then I shall look for counters that give modest yield but have the potential to grow.
Wonder if those income funds that could not deliver income were the ones that bought too much BHP, which is a classic example of not to be too hard up about dividends, which is almost as important as buying after a crash.
Of course, the funds probably gave some excuse like they are changing from income strategy to growth strategy or that they were never an income fund in the first place, which is similar to buying a share for short term gain, but when the price drop, you then say that you are a long term buy and hold investor... (cross reference to "sunk cost fallacy").
Fraser's Hospitality Trust Preferential Share offering results are out. Fewer excess shares received compared to the Mapletree CT offering. My preference at this stage is for REITs with significant overseas revenue to hedge against any SG downturn.
Quarterly DCA of STI ETF at $2.85. I used to buy STI ETF more regularly using SCB. Then I stopped after August because of the $10 min commission. Decided that $2.85 is a decent enough price to buy $5k worth (to optimise the $10 min comm). Hope to restart regular small STI ETF purchases once I get SCB PB.
Sold Lyxor Commodities ETF. I still had some of this ETF left so I finally decided to close my position and take advantage of the small uptick in commodity prices. As commodities do not give dividends, my preference in the future is to look for markets that have a correlation with commodities prices (Australia, Norway). Initiated position in NORW.
Various small topups as part of DCA: Westpac Bank, Prudential, BT
September was a slow month for dividends
Average dividends per month: Jan-Sep 2016:
S$3,655.54 -
US$169.21 -
£146.99 -
Average dividend = Total dividend collected ÷ number of months in the year so far
Different from DK style of total dividend ÷ 12 months
Previous monthly average:
S$3,855.75 +
US$170.55 -
£148.14 -
The Cat from Norway, sat in a Doorway: Norway as an Oil Proxy
I had bought and sold oil (aka USO) a long time ago, but due to a variety of reasons including contango, the returns on USO do not mirror oil price movements that well. I managed to exit with a few hundred dollars profit which was too little return for taking on a huge amount of risk. Furthermore, commodities don't declare dividends.
So one of my investing ideas was to use Australia as a proxy for commodities in general (BHP/Rio etc), though I had no idea whether there was any market that could be a good proxy for oil (Saudi Arabia?).
Attended a talk organised by FSM where the speaker mentioned going long on the Norwegian Krone to express a bullish view on oil as the Krone is an "oil currency." That got me thinking whether some exposure to a Norwegian ETF and thus the underly currency would be useful if I have a long-term bullish view in oil and unsure how to express it (I have a tiny bit of Shell B but the price now is pretty high, also lots of non-systemic risk as apart from Banks, Oil companies are in the news about being fined...)
Buying a US-listed ETF seems to be the simplest way to go about doing this. If I bought direct from Norway, the withholding tax on dividends is about the same and who knows what other taxes... One such ETF would be ENOR from iShares or NORW from GlobalX.
The yield before tax is 4%+ and after withholding tax it drops to about 3%. Looks decent enough to try some buy and hold in order to express a long-term bullish view on oil. Of course, still have to think about the entry point.
Update: NORW is commission-free on IBKR http://etfdb.com/type/commission-free/interactive-brokers/ Of course, if the spread is too large that is also a form of 'hidden charge' but the spread appears comparable to ENOR.
Sembcorp: Averaged down at $2.58
Continuing with the Oil theme, I also averaged down Sembcorp at the end of September at $2.58. I think I have too much Sembcorp but thats the result of Sembcorp's price weakness and my habit of averaging down...
