Bought NKE, Pru, GSK

 While the bulk of my buying has been ETFs, I still occasionally dabble in individual stocks.

I reinitiated a small position in NKE, 100 shares under $80, and prepared to average down further as I have high conviction that fair value >$80.

Topped up PRU. I feel Pru is undervalued, having been hit by negative China sentiment.

Topped up GSK. As the price has been flatlining, its an opportunity to continue to accumulate.

2025 Holiday Planning

 

SQ's Annual Time to Fly sale is back for travel period Jan to Sep 2025. I booked two short holidays to Japan and Australia. I was monitoring the pre-sale prices so that I can be 'sure' that the discounts are genuine and they appear to be. SG-Sydney is usually $4.4k but dropped to $3,688 so thats fine. Its an 8 hour flight so its long enough for me to fly Biz. Suites doesn't seem to be part of the sale so not worth it.

I am a regular visitor to Japan but I have never done the "Cherry Blossom" season. For 2025, I have decided to give it a shot with Economy Lite, and will see if I regret it (more people than cherry blossoms?). At least with Krisflyer Gold, I can do priority check-in and security clearance at Osaka KIX, as the economy queues are super long and painful during peak periods.

Remember to set aside some time and funds for 'self-care' activities, such as going on holiday. 

Updated my "Which Bank" Page

 I did some tidying up and updated my "Which Bank" page with this entry. I am PB status with 3 local banks. Its not that hard to retain PB status even if your funds fall below the specified amount. It doesn't cost the bank much to maintain your PB status since the benefits are minimal and why wouldn't they want to retain HNWI customers?

Here's the entry:

____________________________________________

 OCBC Premier Banking:  Visa Infinite Lifetime fee waiver. Reasonably attractive Premier savings account (but as soon as I post this, they will probably nerf the interest rate). Dragon Pass 2 free visits a year.

UOB Privilege Banking: Visa Signature lifetime fee waiver. Good UNI$ to Krisflyer Miles conversion. (I'm still new at the miles game)

SCB Priority Banking: Visa Infinite no lifetime waiver, instead you receive an SMS every year that your fee has been waived. As my spend on the card dropped to $0, I was not confident that the fee will be waived so I cancelled it. 

Priority Pass - I haven't bothered to ask for it since its supposed to be issued with the credit card which I have cancelled.

USD High Account with debit mastercard. Allows me to spend US$ online or when I visit the US. But not all places in US accept the card for some reason (i.e. I get declined/error with some merchants).

Most important feature is no minimum commission for stock trading. This makes it the 'best' PB of all the local banks for me.

FSM+ Diamond Tier: Not exactly a bank, but I treat the autosweep account as a savings account and park about $100k there since the interest rate is relatively attractive and the funds are immediately available for 

stock trading. 

FSMOne Black Debit Card. I'm not sure why they need to indicate the colour as part of the cardname, not as if Black is anything special (OCBC Premier even your ATM/Debit card is black...) but it is a useful way to spend excess cash in FSMOne without withdrawing.  I think it allows you to spend only your S$, which is why I didn't bother to apply for the card.

Lower inflation and rate cuts

The rate cuts are happening, but more importantly, weaker inflation has been reported in the Eurozone and the UK. I have started to deploy my excess U$ into iShares 0-1 Treasury  Bond ETF (IBTU) since there doesn't seem to be anywhere else to park the cash.  US$ stock prices are scary with new all time highs being reached every day it seems.

Short term US Treasuries seem safer than US equities at the moment and the current yield is reasonable with the website reporting YTM to be 4.6%. Furthermore, any price changes are likely to be to the upside rather than the downside.

However, as I have said in the past, I should not underestimate the US market, so I will continue regular DCA of VWRD / VUSD and other ETFs, but like many others, I wonder when is the next (inevitable) correction?

Finally, I'm more in holiday mode at the moment with a couple of short trips lined up, so I don't plan to do any day trading for the rest of the year, unless something exciting happens...

Flying Economy with Krisflyer Gold

 

I am a beginner when it comes to the miles game. I only have a small amount of work-related travel and the miles I earn are not enough to qualify for anything. However, after reaching FI, I have started to take business class flights so that I can get better sleep on the plane (allows for better quality workouts on landing, versus needing to get over jetlag before you exercise). My business class miles + work trip miles finally got me to Krisflyer Gold.

After taking my first economy class flight on Krisflyer Gold, I think there are advantages where the departing airport is not Changi. Changi is so efficient I don't even bother to do business class check-in - its faster to just self-service check-in and bag drop.

However, for flight from Kansai which is full of tourists and long queues. Krisflyer Gold turned out to be useful.  First of all, I could get past the extremely long economy check-in queue, and thereafter to get into the priority security queue and avoid yet another long queue. The JAL Sakura lounge was crowded (all the Star Alliance Gold members will go there) but not too bad. Boarding was nice as I could board early (after the PPS members) and get my stuff into the overhead luggage. The one area I did not take advantage of was the 40kg economy luggage allowance. I don't go overseas for shopping and I think my check-in luggage was under 10kg. On the other hand I can see that many Singaporeans love going to Japan to shop....

I should try to fly more SQ economy while I still have Krisflyer Gold, rather than try to requalify by flying business. After it expires, then maybe I will consider flying more business to quality again. I am looking forward to the SQ "Time to Fly" sale to book a few more short regional holidays.

Dividends Collected: Sep 2024

 

On target for 200k.

REITS: Capitaland Int Comm Trust Rights issue

 

Capitaland Integrated Commercial Trust held a rights offering of 56 units for every 1000 held. I applied for my allocation and for excess rights that was about 3x my allocation, thinking that was pretty optimistic. 

Surprisingly, the valid acceptances of the rights offering was pretty low at 82.0%. This is despite the strength of the Capitaland brand name and the quality of their portfolio. This meant that I got all the excess that I subscribed for.

As a result, my CICT position is large enough to qualify as a 'medium-sized' holding though I will only update my portfolio page at the end of the year.

REIT rally?

The 5-year chart of CLR ETF is informative. It shows just how far REITs have fallen and the recent rally is only a small recovery. If further FED rates cuts are not forthcoming (i.e. slower or smaller than market anticipates), there will still be some volatility. 

On the other hand, a value investor is more concerned with the fundamentals and whether people want to rent units in the buildings the REITs own, and whether customers (for retail/hospitality), went to visit those premises.