Dividends Collected 2020

 

2020 passive income including CPF: $98.5k

My passive income for 2020 has dropped back down to a little above my 2018 levels. My hope is that 2021 will see a recovery to 2020 levels, followed by further gains in 2022. Therefore, I am setting a target for Financial Independence by end 2022.

25 Jan Edit - missed out $1.5k of Santander Scrip dividends which were paid on 14 Dec. Added to my total but didn't change the graphs.

LionGlobal All Seasons Fund - Ideal for SRS

 

As the year ends, I helped my family member to deposit SRS funds and use them to buy LionGlobal All Seasons Fund (Growth).  This is a balanced fund comprising 70% equities / 30% fixed income with an expense ratio capped at 0.50% (currently 0.49%).

After looking through the options and eliminating individual stock-picking, I found this to really be an ideal fund. As you can see from my own portfolio, I continue to underweight US stocks so this funds weighting of 22.5% S&P 500 ETF (32.6% when considering only the equities portion) is 'just nice' compared to the 56.8% weight in world ETFs like VWRA.

My sole reservation about this fund is that its fund size is still quite small, despite it being a really attractive fund in terms of expense ration and composition. Perhaps with such a low TER, the trailer fees collected by the unit trust platforms are very low, so there is little incentive to push this fund.

December 2020 Portfolio update

This is my bi-annual review of my portfolio to determine which are my largest holdings. 

Thanks to the Covid-19 "Vaccine" rally and my averaging down strategy, there are 6 new entrants into the "Medium" holdings category. There are also downgrades due to the fall in value of my Comfort Delgro and CDL HT holdings.

Dividends Collected: Nov 2020

 

Not many dividends paid out near the end of the year.

3rd Investment Milestone Reached: Nov 2020

The news reported that Biden's transition will formally begin as markets continue their rally. Yellen as Treasury Secretary is reportedly welcome by Wall Street as being market friendly. As a result, my investment portfolio has hit a new high and I have hit my 3rd investment milestone.

2010 approx: 1st investment milestone reached

Aug 2018    : 2nd investment milestone reached

Nov 2020    : 3rd investment milestone reached

2022 ???     : 4th investment milestone / Financial Independence?

I took a long time to hit my 2nd investment milestone as I was servicing a housing loan.

I am still not ready to declare 'Financial Independence' yet because my dividends collected this year have dropped on a year-on-year basis. Assuming that 2021 is the recovery year where my dividends recover to 2019 levels, I will have to wait for 2022 to grow my dividends more in order to become financially independent.

While there may be different understandings of what Financial Independence means, I prefer the definition in Investment Moats, one of the few local finance bloggers worth reading. He has many good articles about Financial Independence:

However, as one of his articles points out, while passive income > expenses/standard of living, one should always be aware that passive income can drop anytime (just like this year). You can adapt by accepting a lesser standard of living, or you can continue building up your passive income in order to have a 'margin of safety' so that your standard of living is protected.

In case you're wondering, 3M is my shortform for my 3rd investment milestone, just decided to do something like the 3M logo for fun.

 

Property Valuation Part II

Having just posted about receiving a 'personalised' property ad from one agent, I promptly get another one. I guess the novelty is going to wear off soon once everyone starts doing it.

I guess with the advent of technology, APIs, and data mining, more property agents are 'personalising' their property adverts with the valuation of your property. 

Quite clever to be able to write an automated script that prints out the mailing address you are sending the ad to and the corresponding property valuation. Edgeprop gets its data from UrbanZoom while ERA got its data from SRX and their valuations were different. 

Frankly, having a "3" in front of my property valuation seems be bit unrealistic. If real, it means that SG property has yet again outperformed the STI. But fortunately, STI has been staging a mini-rally and I think theres a realistic chance of it going back to 3,000 by the end of 2021.

URA Space upgrade

 I was reading about the upgrade to URA Space  which now reports 5 years' worth of private property transactions.  Five year transaction history is really far more informative than the previous 3 years. 

It appears to be interacting with onemap.sg data so you get to see a map whereas a long time ago it was all text based reporting.

There are property agents that are diligently recording down all this information and perhaps you have even received a mailer from one of them. 

I really feel that property prices, especially Condo prices, are getting a bit ridiculous. Developers try to justify the prices by claiming they have added plenty of luxury extras, but seriously, just give me a grass lawn and shady tree over a marble fountain anytime. 

A 3 day rally: Relief?

 

I'm sort of relieved that the rally lasted for 3 days as it means that I'm still holding onto the big gains from 9 Nov. This was the rally I have been waiting for as I continued to accumulate throughout the year, but being realistic, I know there's no guarantee it will last, given the 'troubles' in the US.

On the SG front, the first travel bubble for twice-a-day flights between HK and SG have been announced. Hopefully this will be a confidence building measure that leads to more air travel. 

Rally Continues (10 Nov 2020)

 

Rally continues today for most sectors though there is a rotation (perhaps a much needed 'rebalancing') out of tech.

Waiting to buy some stuff at Lazada's 11.11 sale tonight....

Nice Rally (9 Nov 2020)

This is probably the biggest 1-day move my IB portfolio has made. Its also probably a textbook example of 'time in market' vs 'market timing'.

Stock markets rallied mildly on 5 Nov but exploded today 11 Nov with reports of an effective vaccine. As I am writing Financial stocks are staging a massive rally and many stocks in double digit territory:

Prudential (PRU) +17.91%

Santander (BNC) +21.98%

Lloyds (LLOY) +14.38%

Shell (RDSB) +12.54%

Not everything is double digit of course, stocks like GSK which had a good run up already is merely +1.82% up. CISCO, which I had picked over Zoom (shows how bad I am in stock-picking even though I got the sector correct - Video Conferencing) is at least up 4.5% while Zoom is down 15% (presumably because of the vaccine).

Dividends: October 2020

 

Quiet month for SG dividends - all 3 banks paid their dividends. I took scrip for UOB /OCBC but count the cash value.

On a year on year basis, I've collected more than $10k less dividends compared to 2019.

US Election: Investment Strategy

The market went down further in the run-up to the US election and I bought more Capitaland as it hit an 8-year low. For good measure, I also bought a small amount of STI ETF  at $2.465 and more WQDV at $4.92 (my plan is to buy WQDV whenever it dips below $5).

As I am writing this, the election has not been called yet but the spread-betters are favouring Biden and the market seems to have reacted favourably with a rally. 

I am not sure if I will continue buying in November or whether I should take a break; quite a bit of uncertainty in the market. Regular 2800.HK FSMOne RSP is still coming up though.

Strategy: Oct 2020

 

Accepted my entitlement for Frasers Centrepoint Trust Preferential Offering but didn't apply for excess - share price promptly dropped to $2.25 region. Oh well.

I prefer to buy when the market is going down, so October I have been buying quite a bit, including the UK market, but mainly focusing on my core ETFs VUKE & CS51. Also bought GSK due to its defensive qualities. I buy WQDV when it drops below $5, so bought some tonight as well. 

On the Singapore front, today Singtel was cheap at $2.10 and Capitaland $2.64 so I bought more, together with Frasers Hospitality Trust at $0.41. 

The catalyst for the drop appeared to be Coronavirus fears with US numbers going up and some European countries on the verge of lockdown. Plus I guess election uncertainties.

Frasers Centrepoint Trust Preferential Offering

Fraser's Centrepoint Trust is one of my top 10 largest holdings, mainly because I bought it under $1 during GFC and it doubled in price. For 10 years, FCT never had rights issues and preferential offerings then it starting joining the crowd. Now in 2020, there's a PO of 290 new shares for every 1,000 shares held in order for FCT to buy the remaining interest in AsiaRetail Fund from Fraser's Property (via a subsidiary). With this acquisition, FCT establishes itself firmly as a local suburban mall play unlike some REITs that seem to be randomly acquiring properties. 

I like patronising suburban malls though the suburban malls I regularly visit seem to all be linked to Capitaland, probably because I live in the West. But from the foot traffic that I've seen, suburban malls seem to be doing pretty ok.

Unfortunately, the PO price of $2.34 is pretty close to the market price (on 11/12 Oct, the low price was $2.35, just $0.01 but as of 13 Oct it seems to have inched upwards).

I'm holding FCT in CPFIS and CDP, and I have applied for 9,000 which is more or less equal to my entitlement. Don't feel the need to apply for excess given the small gap between PO price and market price.

Dividends: September 2020

 

A number of UK dividends this month including Aviva and SSE. SSE's dividends are pretty high - as a utilities counter I guess their income is stable. Also dividends from Telstra. Many Singtel analyst reports saying that Optus is losing to Telstra. Always good to diversify.

Strategy: Sep 2020

I sold $20k of SIA 3.03% bonds this month to free up more funds for equity purchases. Glad it is still above $1 despite the depressed market for airlines.

I have been buying a little bit more in September because:

• I am cautiously optimistic regarding COVID19. Infection rates have really dropped in Singapore and the Govt even announced that 50% can go back to their workplaces.
• Abbot's cheap and fast COVID19 test gives hope to a restart of air travel. Airlines/ IATA are pushing the use of this cheap test instead of quarantine.
• September was a down month for the markets (S&P down 5.8%, Nasdaq down 7.3%), and I always prefer to buy in falling markets.

Added to my Vanguard High Yield ETF (VHYD), Euro Stoxx 50 ETF (CS51), and variously individual counters like VOD, SAN, HSBC, Aviva, ING, LGEN.

Also bought some Sembcorp ex-rights at 1.27 then after that the price kept on shooting up. Now I have to figure out whether I want to set a target price for my SembMarine shares since I do actually want to sell them eventually - this specialised O&G sector is not my preferred focus area - I would rather go for diversified O&G like Shell. 

Dividends: August 2020

 

STI ETF dividends this month.

Vanguard HK exiting (ETF delist?)

 The news reported that Vanguard HK is exiting the HK market including their ETF business. There is no news on the Vanguard site whether the ETFs will be delisted and NAV returned, or whether the ETF will so sold to another provider.

This is one of the small risks any investor takes. Its a small risk because you are getting your money back but you incur transaction costs moving to another ETF. That's why I usually hold both Vanguard and iShares ETFs. For HK, I am also holding iShares 2801  and the 2800 tracker fund.

I am vested in 2 Vanguard ETFs 3085 and 2805 and will need to move them to the iShares alternatives. A small annoyance is the fact that the iShares alternative 3010 is listed in HK$ but declares US$ dividends so if I want to reinvest I will have to change US$ to HK$ and pay 0.25% forex comm. Or maybe I just transfer the US$ dividends to my SCB US$ account.

Standard Chartered Complimentary WSJ subscription

 

SCB is offering Complimentary Wall Street Journal subscriptions to PB customers who opt-in as AI, no strings attached. This is very nice of them and I like the WSJ subscription a lot more than the Priority Pass which I have no use for.  If you hit the next tier, which is Priority Private, you even get a Barron's subscription.

Of all the Premier/Priority/Privilege banking offered by our local banks, SCB's PB has to be the one with the most benefits, yet the 'easiest' to qualify because your shares/ETF count towards the $200k AUM.

Strategy: August 2020

 

While COVID19 rages on and US-China tensions seem high, I feel that this is an opportunity to continue accumulating. I have been buying normally through July and early August, topping up 

• Foreign shares:LLOY, AV, GSK, SAN, TEF RDSB, PUK, WQDV, VHYD, 2805.HK, 2800.HK (RSP).
• Local shares: CapitaCommTrust using SRS, topped up some ART and CDG

Sold $25k of SIA 3.03% at above face value (around $1.01) to build up cash reserve. Plan to sell more in the coming weeks. Submitted CDP linkage form for FSMOne so that I can use FSMOne to sell  my CDP holdings at a lower $10 commission.

Based on a rough back of the envelope calculation of my portfolio, my portfolio is 56% Singapore stocks, 44% foreign stocks. While my target is 50%+ foreign stocks, the STI currently looks rather attractive so I am really tempted to continue buying local stocks.

Dividends: Jul 2020

 

Dividends have been reduced due to COVID19

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.

STI ETF above my average 2020 price

I'm looking at my screen over lunchtime on 5 June and noticed that STI ETF has gone back to 2.766. As I have mentioned before, my plan was to buy STI ETF when it dropped below $3, continue to average down, and hold on till it recovers. In a matter of 3 months, STI ETF has gone back above my average price. The last time I did this was during the GFC when it dropped a whole lot more but nevertheless still recovered back above $3. I guess the strategy worked again.

May 2020 Strategy Update

So much for sell in May.

I have been buying regularly in May as valuations are still decent. One of my focus this month was the Vanguard Emerging Markets ETF VDEM and 2801.HK as I added to my current position. I don't mind this being one of my core holdings. It has a signficant China holding which is fine with me as I've always been overweight China. 

VDEM's top holdings are Alibaba, Tencent, and TSMC. Previously I was underweight China tech but given Covid19, I think that equal weight should be the correct approach hence ETFs like VDEM over 3085.HK (which underweights China tech). 

I have also added to RDSB, TEF, SAN, ING, BBL, PUK, LYG, VUKE, WQDV, VHYD, ES3 (small amount at $2.55 - needs to go down 5% before I buy a bigger amount).

If the markets continue to rally, I may need to stop buying in June and start building up warchest (except for the bare minimum regular DCA).

Dividends: April 2020

Hitting $25k in Q1, I would ordinarily be on track for a full year $100k. It may or may not occur this year, though I would expect that after I add my CPF interest to my passive income collected, I should still be on track for $100k.

I checked by SGX statement and discovered I earned some money from the share borrowing scheme - my STI ETF was lent out to shortists.

April 2020 Wrapup

I have become a little more cautiously optimistic as countries like South Korea and China reopen for business. Similarly, Australia appears to be reopening.

As STI had recovered from its lows despite the COVID19 situation not being as positive as other countries, my focus shifted to purchasing foreign stocks, particularly Greater China focused ETFs since China was reopening for business.

STI's rise may be due the market simply following the rally in other markets that are reopening, so I remain cautious on STI since I bought a fair amount of STI ETF already. I did pick up a little bit of Capitaland between 2.64-2.72 since those were attractive valuations and the WQDV as part of my monthly DCA though the price has run up quite a bit, perhaps due to its healthcare holdings.

I used FSMOne quite a bit this month to buy Asia and China ETFs 2805.HK and  2801.HK, together with the FSMOne RSP of 2800.HK. I did not buy my usual 3085.HK as oddly the liquidity and trading volumes weren't very good compared to the others. However, 2805.HK and 2801.HK sit well with the narrative that China is re-opening as they have major holdings of the Chinese e-commerce giants. It appears that e-commerce is a beneficiary of the closing of retail stores. Things may never be the same again for retail

Finally, REITs have not announced any fundraising through share offerings yet, though Fraser's Centrepoint Trust is issuing a 3-yr bond at 3.35%. Given that this is a lower interest rate than the Frasers 3.65% bond I am holding, it bodes well for strong REITs that are able to raise funds at such low interest rates even though most of their buildings are shut. On the other hand, I'm not sure whether the weaker REITs without strong sponsors can secure cash as cheaply as Frasers.

In summary, I put about S$57k into the market in April 2020  into foreign stock which was about half of my March outlay which was primarily focused on the STI.

While a retest of the lows appears less likely than it was a few weeks ago, I'm still not ruling it out. Nevertheless, valuations are still attractive and I'll still be buying in May 2020, preferably after a dip due to the "Sell in May and Go Away" phenomenon (if it occurs).

Dividends: March 2020

March 2020 Dividends. Larger than last year because it includes SIA 3.03% coupon payment.

March 2020 review

I deployed quite a lot of cash and warchest in March 2020. 

I still topped up some Euro banks which have suspended dividends on regulator's advice and whose prices are plummeting (SAN, LYG, ING)

But my main focus was on ETFs and purchased reasonable amounts of VUKE, CS51, 3085.HK, 2800.HK, VDPX, WQDV in addition to STI ETF which you can see in my earlier posts.

Also added some Singtel and Capitaland.

My last STI purchase was $2.35 and I'm ready to average down. I will be surprised if STI doesn't retest the bottom and I'm looking to buy again at $2.23. I queued at $2.23 but I believe the last bottom was $2.24 so now fill. 

Somehow I think there's a chance that the bottom may hold at around $2.23 but if it doesn't, I'll still keep reserved for $2.11 and then $1.99.

Averaging down progress

Continuing to average down in 5% increments. The next leg down will be $2.24. At that point, in order to keep the dollar value of the purchase above $9k, I'll have to start buying 5,000 shares per trade instead of the current 4,000.

At the same time, I have been loading up on other ETFs such as VUKE and VDPX. Will be topping up other ETF holdings this week as well. REITs prices have really collapsed but most of them are still higher than their GFC lows. The stronger REITs have the potential to be multibaggers if bought at the correct time.

Something from the past

I am always skeptical of Friday closing prices. Dow rallied 1985 points. Unsurprisingly some people think that the market has recovered and the bear market is over, because they were still in school during the last GFC and weren't trading?

Anyway, here's a blast from the past. In Nov 2007, there was a sharp V-shaped recovery after a 20% fall in the STI. Did it mean that the coast was clear? 

I am ready to continue buying next week if the market goes down. As long as STI remains under 3,000, I can always accumulate smaller amounts while waiting for bigger moves downwards.

Continued purchasing ETFs this week, STI ETF, VDPX, WQDV, VUKE etc. My STI ETF average price is now $2.76. Looking to continue averaging down next week.

They'll be calling it Black Monday?

Until a bigger Monday fall comes along, I guess they'll call today Black Monday. Oil prices and oil majors basically collapsed. I'm sticking to strategy of ETF-only until there is a sufficient margin of safety to go individual stock picking. Bought STI ETF and VUKE today.





STI ETF
2.975 Entered
2.82   5% down
2.68   5% down

Next stop for my next big STI purchase will be $2.68. But I may buy small amounts of STI ETF 300 shares here and there using SCB while waiting.

Dividends: Feb 2020

Februrary usually skews the graph because of the dividends from STI ETF.

STI ETF under $3.00 (waiting since 2016)

I have a rule that I only buy STI ETF when it is under $3. The last time this happened was 2016 which coincidentally was the year I started this blog.

On 6 March 2020, STI ETF finally succumbed to selling pressure and went under $3. However, this was a Friday, and I'm worried about trading on Fridays because shortists are closing their shorts which may distort the market and things might happen over the weekend. 

So I'm starting small first using my CPF-OA and will start averaging down next week if the downtrend is confirmed.

Given the high volatility, I've also initiated a small position in CISCO as I'm buying into the story about video conferencing a growth industry due to the COVID19 situation.

I do not necessarily want to use all my CPF-OA warchest on STI ETF, so I'm also ready to consider adding to my CPF unit trusts in order to diversify

Then at night, I added $5k worth of VUKE. So my total opening deployment is about S$17k

Feb2020 wrapup.

I bought S$48k worth of shares in Feb 2020 as prices looked attractive. In line with my New Year's resolution, I focused on building up my WQDV and VHYD holdings. At the same time, financial stocks appeared to be on sale, and I view them as less risky than hospitality/travel stocks on sale.

It is the first trading day of March 2020, and STI ETF remains above $3. So while this might be a correction, it is hardly a crash if STI ETF doesn't fall through $3. I'm still waiting to queue for ES3 at $2.99.

The FTSE100 level is attractive and I picked up some VUKE in Feb. I'll continue to buy more VUKE this month

Covid19 Crash

In my last post I thought I was done buying for the month, but the market has gone into correction mode. STI is still above 3,000 at end February, but I am preparing for it to go this level next week.

I have been buying a little bit of various counters this week, but at the same time sticking on my resolution to focus on ETFs, so more or less from Tue to Friday I have been adding small amounts of WQDV & VHYD via Stanchart.

I have added Sembcorp and Comfort Delgro as they both went under $2. While Sembcorp continues to freefall, Comfort Delgro's price is more resilient, underscoring its defensive qualities. European banks/financials also look attractive and I picked up more LLOY, Aviva, ING, and SAN. As the FTSE100 itself looks attractive, I added VUKE. Going forward, I think I should focus on VUKE instead of individual UK stocks.

If markets continue to fall next week and STI goes below 3,000, it would be fair to say that this is the sale that I have been waiting for. I will draw up a plan to buy at STI ETF at $2.99, $2.89, $2.79 and so on, probably exhausting funds at $2.00.

I'm using the same spreadsheet on google docs that I used in 2008-2009, so I can see my earlier workbooks recording my buying decisions then. Of course a few things have changed since 2008-2009:

• I have cheap access to foreign stocks via IBKR, SCB, FSMOne
• I have built up my passive income and paid off my housing loan, giving me a measure of financial security.
• My CPF funds have grown since then, providing an emergency warchest.

Strategy: Feb 2020

It isn't mid-February yet but I have continued my buying. In particular, I am looking at ramping up my position in Shell (B Shares). Shell price went down because of poor results but the investment thesis seems intact. The oil and gas sector is likely to be disrupted but I believe that Shell is in a good position to transition into an energy company (we'll always need energy even if we might not always need oil) rather than an oil company that dabbles in other types of energy.

I bought WQDV at the start of the month and just bought VHYD. So I'm glad I manage to stick to my plan to regularly DCA these 2 ETFs monthly. My 2800.HK RSP with FSMOne seems to be working. The account indicates that the RSP money has been put on hold but the units have not been delivered to the account yet, I guess that occurs after T+3.

Apart from this, I added a little bit of Sembcorp, Frasers HT, Comfort Delgro, and HSBC.

While N-Cov will certainly have an impact on earnings on companies in affected countries, the market is not crashing, perhaps buoyed by the US market which seems to keep on going up. While there is no sudden crash, a stock market adjustment to lower earnings (and likely lower dividends) should logically be inevitable, once there is a clearer idea of how badly earnings are affected.

So while I will occasionally top up small amounts of SG shares, my focus will be international shares and ETFs. I'll still buy STI ETF if it drops below $3, but I'm not counting on it. 

Dividends: Jan 2020

I report iShares/Vanguard Quarterly dividends in Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct for consistency. Some years the dividend is in late Dec, some years its in early Jan.

HK$ and A$ dividends also paid out in Jan but I follow previous practice in only graphing the 3 top currencies and subsequently, the total value in S$ terms.

Jan 2019 dividend was slightly higher due to a US$489 BHP special dividend. Excluding this special dividend, Jan 2020 saw a small dividend increase.

Jan 2020 report: Novel-Coronavirus

N-Cov is a worry for people as well as the markets. Everyone should take sensible precautions; though sensible precautions may translate to lower consumer spending as people spend more time indoors.

I carried out my plan to increase my ETF purchases. While I did buy individual stocks, I also started my regular ETF and accumulated the following ETFs this month

• VUKE  VanguardFTSE100 
• VDPX  Vanguard Developed Asia
• VHYD  Vanguard World High Dividend
• WQDV iShares World Quality Dividend
• VDCP  Vanguard US Corporate Bonds

Next month I will add the 2800.HK ETF to the list when I begin RSP via FSMOne.

My plan to do dollar cost averaging of ETFs every month is not affected by N-Cov. However I still have a "warchest" ready to be used if STI somehow falls below 3,000. But I'm not counting on it. 

On the individual stocks front, I decided to buy a little bit of Spanish Bank BBVA to further diversify my bank holdings and added more Telefonica.  Vodafone was hit by the bad news of the Indian Supreme Court upholding a huge fine. Still, I'll keep on holding it for the dividends.

Strategy: Jan 2020 (FSMOne RSP)

For 2020, I will be focusing more on ETF purchases and have identified a few ETFs that I plan to purchase monthly. 

VHYD Vanguard World High DividendYield

WQDV iShares World Quality Dividend

VDCP Vanguard USD Corporate Bond

LQDE iShares USD Corporate Bond
VDPX Vanguard Asia Pacific

2800.HK HKSE Tracker

The first 5 are in US$ and monthly purchases of US$1k each would add up to US$60k a year. The last ETF is in HK$ and I will apply via FSMOne to RSP about S$900 a month.FSMOne RSP appears to be very attractive - minimum HK$5 comms for monthly RSP means that small purchases of 2800.HK become very feasible. 2800.HK is a bit annoying when it comes to regular trading because it has a larger lot size of 500. FSMOne's RSP ignores the lot size and will even allocate you fractional amounts of 2800.HK.

There are a few other ETFs that I plan to top up on a quarterly basis. Other than that, the rest of the free cash I guess is for picking individual stocks and/or timing the market.

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More on FSMOne RSP
I really have to congratulate FSMONe with coming up with such an innovative low cost product. It is really amazing how they are able to cater on the same platform to (i) investors who don't mind paying platform fees but presumably want a 'high touch' service as well as (ii) cost conscious investors who go for the cheapest option. 

FSMOne ETF Regular Savings Plan allows you to buy a small amount of selected ETFs like the Tracker Fund 2800.HK and pay only a min comm of HK$5 (plus GST/exchange fees).  There are no other hidden costs to this and there is no lock in period. You can terminate the RSP anytime. Furthermore there are no penalties for failed RSP. 

For example, if you don't have enough money for a particular month in your account, the RSP simply doesn't take place that month but the plan doesn't terminate. It will carry on the next month unless the RSP is unable to deduct for 3 months. There is no penalty imposed. 

Some may complain that the selection of ETFs is limited (there are 38 that are eligible for RSP), but to me, this is still a good start and I'll be applying for 2800.HK RSP. If this is popular, I hope that more ETFs will become eligible for RSP.