Investing in above-average health.

I spent some money on a Garmin watch recently. I've always viewed spending on health and fitness as a good investment. One thing I like about the Garmin is the ability to download your Spotify running playlist. This means that I do not need to carry my phone with me when I run. It also has various training features which I am trying out as well.

One of my beliefs is that it is always good to be above average (or above median - if the distribution is normal they are close enough so I'll just say 'average').  More importantly, above average outcomes are usually achievable through a bit of hard work plus a little bit of smart work. Whereas extremely high performance is something that additionally requires good genes and/or luck.

For example, for CPF Life to pay off, you need to live beyond the median life expectancy, as those that die before the median are paying for those that die after the median age.

It is nice that Garmin thinks that I am above average when it comes to VO2 max (just barely in the blue zone though). I hope to improve it further, though my 'above average' philosophy doesn't require me to try to push VO2 max into the elite purple zone. I'm just happy to be above average and I don't plan to run a marathon....

On the other hand, when it comes to investing, I have probably failed to make above average returns in the long term (compared to MSCI World, though I have outperformed the rather useless STI index which is not that hard). 

 

IWDA $100 - more May strategy

 

As I had posted in Feb 2024, there were fair odds that IWDA would hit $100 and it has. Today is a 'red' day but IWDA is still marginally above $100. It could fall below $100 this week with some profit taking and that would be a good opportunity to accumulate.

Since I have been focusing a lot of Vanguard World and S&P500, I have not been accumulating much High Yield ETFs (VHYD and WQDV). I will use this week to accumulate more.

When it comes to individual stocks, I have one eye on SREITs but prices are not compelling at the moment. Frasers Logistics went X-dividend with a $0.035 dividend but fortunately, price is still holding up, closing at $0.995 today. 

What is interesting is China and HK. 2801 and 2800 are doing pretty well this year (after a disastrous 2023). I'm keeping up my some monthly RSP of 2801, 2800, and 3010, but might increase my RSP size just a little bit. I'm still pretty much in the red with these ETFs and this might be a good time to average down just a little bit more. But this will still be a small part of my cashflow deployment. Focus is still on World ETFs.

Earlier Post: BuyafterCrash: IWDA $100 in 2024?

May Strategy: Market still keeps on going up

Since my last post about 2 weeks ago, the market has continued to go up with the psychological Dow 40k barrier broken.

I bought 1 batch of VUSD in the last 2 weeks but there was an FSMOne RSP transaction but other than that haven't really been buying. I will continue my next round of monthly DCA in June. I am still considering whether to add a bit more 2800/2801.HK to get onboard a China rebound.

 

May Strategy: ETF + SG Reits

 

I was pleasantly surprised that my portfolio return managed to hit 10%+ in May 2024. May is supposedly a bad month for investing ("Sell in May and Go Away").  My original target for2024 was "high single digit", if the rally keeps on going, I may need to revise my end-2024 target to 15-20%.

It is obviously not going to be a straight line upwards. Markets always jump the gun when it comes to predicting interest rate cuts, so there should be a short correction when the market realises that the rate cut, while inevitable, is not as early as they would like it to be.

SG REITS

SG REITs have been doing terribly of late. My two target REITs are Frasers LCT & Capitaland Ascott. Many pundits and influenzas are saying buy REITs now. However, that is basically the same as saying that interest rates will be cut, which is something that seemingly the entire world already knows. So when rates are finally cut and REITs rise, they will point out their 'correct' stock calls and maybe try to sell you an investing course.

My policy is to buy either VWRD and VUSD the same day I decide to buy any SG REIT. This prevents me from dumping all my cash into SG REITS and allows to be compare maybe at the end of the year, which purchase did between, REIT or ETF....

Returns on regular DCA of STI ETF over 10 years

 

I came across this blog where the writer calculated the returns from diligently dollar cost averaging into the STI ETF over the 10 years. The results are not fantastic but 4% CAGR still beats CPF OA. 

Finance Opti: Is STI really the Super Terrible Index? My returns after investing 10 years

Its great that there are financial bloggers who produce substantive quality content as opposed to financial influenzas who try to stretch out publicly available information you can read in 1minute into multiple long form youtube videos.

As I have shared in this blog and in internet forums, my approach to buying STI ETF is to only buy in when it is below $3. This means that I bought during the GFC, 2016, and 2020 (Covid-19) crashes/corrections. My reason for buying is that it is a safe bet that STI will recover to >3000, and when I buy STI ETF at a discount, it means I am paying "less" for the yield that it offers.

I primarily use CPF-OA to buy STI ETF since there are various restrictions concerning what you can use CPF-OA for. With Endowus and other Robo-advisors today, perhaps the restrictions are not as bad as when I first started out of course.

I also include for reference, current year to date returns of STI vs S&P500:

STI vs S&P500 YTD - 8.8% vs 0.7%

Link to my 2017 blogpost: BuyafterCrash: STI 3,000: What's the plan?

Link to my 2020 STI ETF purchases: BuyafterCrash: Averaging down progress

Link to my 2016 STI ETF purchases: BuyafterCrash: Returns after regularly Investing in STI ETF in 2016

Dividends Collected: April 2024

 

April is usually a quiet month for dividends. 

There is a large year-on-year increase because of the maturing of my CPF T-bills (1yr and 6mth). On maturity, I recognise the interest paid as part of my passive income. As mentioned previously, I use the term 'dividends' loosely when I should be saying "passive income." I also decided to recognise DBS bonus shares as scrip dividend with a cash value. This will be a one-off bump in passive income.