STI 3,000: What's the plan?

I have always said in the forums that STI will eventually go back to 3,000. So if you buy STI ETF below $3.00, it is highly unlikely that you will lose money. You can also collect dividends while waiting for it to go back.

Now that STI has hit 3,000, we get the usual "will it go up or will it go down" debate with bulls and bears on either side. My strategy, as always, is just to hold on to my shares and collect dividends.

I have only bought STI ETF once when it was above $3.00. Most likely, I will adopt the same strategy this year. The fundamentals won't support STI going to 3,500. It could be a 'hot money' driven rally, but I want to see earnings growth as earnings pays for the dividends I collect.

At the same time, I am collecting monthly dividends of $3k+ and also need to park my income somewhere. If I don't reinvest, what am I going to do with the money?

Most likely, I will still do small regular purchases of regional (multi-country) ETFs to reduce risk instead of single country ETFs like STI ETF.  I can still get Singapore exposure by doing so as CPJ1 and VDPX both hold Singapore stocks and their expense ratio is lower than STI ETF.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I also have debt to pay off in the form of a car loan I took in 2015. The short story is that many car dealers offer packages where you have to take a car loan, so I took it. The silver lining is that because I had taken a loan, I had extra cash on hand when BREXIT arrived. This year, I will repay the car loan early instead of buying STI ETF. I did the same thing with my housing loan. Whenever STI was above 3,000, I did partial repayments of housing loan instead of buying STI ETF.

Finally, I have already said that I am not very good in investing in rising markets. I very much prefer buying after a crash. So I expect that this year will be a quieter investing year for me. In which case, I am not sure whether I can hit my target of increasing dividends from $3,500 to $4,200. Will have to see.

Portfolio Performance 2016

I am happy with the dividends collected and hope to continue to grow them by reinvesting dividends plus adding a large part of my monthly income. If I were to set a dividend target then maybe $5,000 in 2019 (3-year plan to grow dividends).

Foreign Stocks/ETFs

The return on my IBKR foreign stocks is easily calculated since there is a report function. I also have some foreign ETFs in SCB and if I have the time I will probably look at it. At least I am holding IWDA which benefited from the rise in US markets.




SGX-Listed Stocks/ETFs

As for SGX-listed stocks, I am holding quite a few counters and instead of calculating everything, I will look at my top holdings. I see that Comfort Delgro has been hit hard. My average entry price is around $1.60 (guesstimate) accumulated during the GFC and I have not added anything. Maybe next year I will do some DCA as I believe S$ will weaken meaning CDG will benefit as it receives income in other currencies as well.

Any loss in CDG should have been more than offset by gains in other shares as well as purchases through 2016 (GLP was my biggest local winner - all bought under $1.80, now $2.20). Therefore, I will take the STI ETF return as the return for my portfolio, i.e. about 3% due to dividends.

STI ETF ES3

30 Dec 16: $2.94

4 Jan 16: $2.90

30 Dec 15: $2.95

Dividend: $0.13

CDL HT    J85

30 Dec 16: $1.34  

4 Jan 16: $1.32

30 Dec 15: $1.32

Dividend: $0.1018

CDG C52

30 Dec 16: $2.47

4 Jan 16 : $3.00

30 Dec 15: $3.02

Dividend $0.0925

OCBC O39

30 Dec 16: 8.92

4 Jan 16: 8.64

30 Dec 15: 8.85

Dividend: $0.36

UOB U11

30 Dec 16: $20.40

4 Jan 16: $19.09

30 Dec 15: 19.55

Dividend $0.70

FCT J69U

30 Dec 16: $1.90

4 Jan 16: $1.85

30 Dec 15: $1.86

Dividend $0.118