May YTD report

 My monthly YTD report. Unfortunately no end of month rally yesterday. Still, I remain optimistic that a small summer rally (+5% from current levels) will be starting soon and that I will end the year 'single digit' green. I'm going to buy more today as I have 10k+ unused 'cash refund' from May, then thereafter will also have to start my regular June DCA.

Warchest is still untouched as I believe valuations are 'fair' rather than cheap.

Closing Thoughts for May 2022

 

Unlike the "sell in May and go away" crowd, I am more optimistic as May draws to a close. 

I received more than $70k worth of refunds from SPH, Fraser's 3.65% bond, and I only just discovered, return of capital from Aviva, which is one of my biggest holdings. 

Shows that when you invest in individual stocks, you have to pay more attention. Aviva last month was below £4 and I would have bought more to 'make up' for the return of capital. Aviva has since rallied by 10% so I'm not a buyer at the moment.

Checking how much I reinvested in May, it only adds up to about $60k, so I didn't manage to reinvest all my refunds. This also means that I didn't manage to reinvest my May dividends which in the past is usually >10k (May is a good month for dividends) or my savings from salary. So warchest has gotten bigger.

Finally, and I've updated my Astrea VII post as well, all those who applied for $49k (the maximum amount before balloting occurs) got $12k class A, so that is a decent amount.

Astrea 7 4.125%

I am holding Astrea IV and Astrea V but avoided Astrea VI with its terrible 3.0% interest rate. Astrea VII has just been announced with a far more attractive 4.125% interest rate.

Given the comments on the internet and various bloggers saying that they are applying, it suggests this will be heavily oversubscribed.

Based on previous Astrea issues, it appears that if your apply for $1k-$49k, you will get something like 7-8k. If you apply for $50k or more, you will be subject to balloting. I went for balloting for Astrea V and got $18k so I was lucky.

This time, I think I'll just press for $49k and get the "guaranteed" allocation which should be around 7-8k. The small amount is not going to move the needle much on my portfolio returns, but I guess its always fun to press for a hot IPO. 

 

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Update: Pressed for $49k, received $12k

Strategy: May 2022

 

I've started to accumulate more of my World ETFs during this correction. Prices have made VWRD, LSPU, VHYD and WQDV a bit more reasonable and I would even say fairly valued. However, it doesn't mean that the market won't fall further, its just that I am never able to time the bottom anyway.

Completed my purchase early in the evening (Thursday). As I don't normally trade on Fridays due to market distortions as shortists close their positions, I'll continue buying next Monday.

Portfolio News

WQDV is changing benchmark in June to the MSCI World High Dividend Yield ESG Reduced Carbon Target Select Index. As a result, the number of holdings will be cut by half to 177. 

What is more significant is that the % holdings of IT stocks will rise quite significantly to 22.87% of the portfolio. It will be interesting to see how the ETF managers handle this transition given the downward trajectory of tech stocks at the moment.

While the halving of the number of holdings is not that great from the diversification perspective, 177 international mega/big cap holdings is a reasonable number. For the time being, I'm buying VHYD instead (I hold both ETFs as part of my policy to buy the iShares and Vanguard versions) but I'll return to adding WQDV after the transition is completed.

Dividends Collected: April 2022

 

As April is the tax month, there are hardly any dividends collected. Strangely DBS paid out their dividend this month.