Dividends Collected: May 2025

 

$46k dividends. UOB, OCBC, DBS, LLOY, SAN, ING paid their dividends in May. Wonder why all the banks paying out in the same month. 

Confirming FSMOne Flat fee

 

FSMOne recently reduced its flat fees for ETF trades. Together with a reasonabe forex exchange rate, this is one of the best deals in town together with its 0% comm RSP for certain ETFs.

I bought some 3010.HK Asia ex Jpn ETF on HKSE and this is the invoice I got. Basically, the total is HK$46.89 as there appears to be HK$8.89 of assorted fees you have to pay over and above the base HK$38.  Since HK$8.89 = S$1.5, its not a big deal.

The one tip I learnt is that it might be better to change your S$ to HK$ and to buy using the HK$ as exchange rates <could> be better. I'm not 100% sure but previously I published my experience with my ETF RSP where I allow FSMOne to change my S$ to HK$, versus changing the S$ to HK$ myself. There did seem to be a difference, albeit a small one.

The 'problem' with changing HK$ yourself is that you will inevitably end up with some excess HK$. To me that was not a problem because I can 'sweep' up all excess HK$ by using the ETF RSP function.

What is cheap, can get even cheaper

 

Recently, I bought a spare pair of Vaporfly 3 for $153 on the Nike website in white/pink colorway. I considered it a great deal because the usual price is $339 and with the 'usual' discount its around $289. I also said that like stocks, buy stuff when they are cheap. There is a second saying, what is cheap, can get even cheaper. 

At the Nike store, I found them clearing stock of the 'boring black' colorway for $113. Black is not my preferred color as I like more cheerful colours to make running easier, but this price was too good to pass up so I bought yet another pair. Since its so cheap, I'm using this pair as one of my "general" training shoes while reserving the ones with the nicer colour for races and key workouts.

Sorry UOB, you launched the wrong China ETF

 

Just saw a finfluencer website doing an advertorial for UOB's A-share ETF. All I can say is sorry UOB, you launched the wrong China ETF. As for the website they are partnership with, they have to go along with the advertising copy and not mention that A-shares are severely underperforming vs HK/China ETFs. Everyday there is news of some a Chinese company like Xiaomi, BYD or Baba releasing some great AI or tech innovation in China. Any guesses whether these companies are listed in HSI or whether they are A shares? Looks like Lion-OCBC had the right idea when they launched their HSI Tech ETF though frankly, I find tech ETFs to be way too concentrated.

As I have mentioned in this blog. I have been doing regular monthly RSP of 2800/2801/3010 HK ETFs for the last few years because I don't want to look at my losses 😅, so best to just automate the buying process. Thanks to the recent rally, I don't mind looking at my China portfolio now as I should be able to break even soon. I bought more 2801.HK yesterday as well just in case there is a trade deal rally.

It's pretty obvious from this YTD chart that 2800.HK and 2801.HK are outperforming their A-share counterpart 2823.HK

Part of the reason can be found in this FT article. Mainland Chinese are buying more HK listed shares rather than A shares!

Sold my small CISCO holding

I initiated a small position in CISCO during the Pandemic. In other words, I picked the wrong video-conferencing stock as Zoom did much better. Nevertheless the profit for CISCO was decent and including dividends nett of withholding tax, the total gain since 2020 was about 40%. I'm doing some portfolio cleaning and it just doesn't make sense to hold US dividend stocks for the long term because of the withholding, so I sold them tonight and bought Vanguard Dividend ETF (VHYD) instead.

The next US dividend stock to unload will be McDonalds. I'm sitting on decent capital gain but withholding tax on dividends means I should exit all US dividends stocks as quickly as possible.

Posting this as a reminder to myself! 

Recording my CISCO purchase: Previous blogpost

 

Mid-Year Review

Since I was free, I manage to prepare the mid-year review of my portfolio and my health, so I decided to release it early. Maybe the market will crash right after this 😅

Portfolio: Doing well. Hit the 10% mark for the first time this year.

I've created a new category of "Xtra-Large size" holdings. Currently, only ETFs and SSB fall within this category. The closest individual stock to X-Large is LLOY.

T-bills have been removed and replaced by Fullerton SGD Money Market Fund and LionGlobal All Seasons (Standard) Fund

Cholesterol and Triglycerides: Good. LDL can improve further.

VO2 Max: Superior (at the borderline, so it fluctuates depending on whether I have a good set of workouts that week or if I'm tired)

Healthy weight. Focus now is on body fat.

Pimco Income Fund (any good?)

With T-bill interest rates going down, I had written earlier about my thought process in purchasing LionGlobal All Seasons (Standard) unit trust. 

To recap, I have a sizeable amount of cash and non-cash. Apart from maxxing out my SSB at $200k, I have cash in money market funds like Fullerton as well as cash in bank account. Finally, as I am almost at young senior status, I should start considering my CPF funds (above FRS) as near-cash (or at least a 5 year bond to hold between age 50 to 55).

So when my T-bills continue to mature, I should be on the look out for good replacements. Maybe a little more risk for a little more return.

Kyith in Investmentmoats has done multiple articles recently on PIMCO Income Fund. Not exactly sure why the love (or hate) for this fund in particular, but I guess it is a super popular fund so many readers will either be vested or thinking of investing in it.

I had never considered the fund before but his article piqued my interest so I went to have a deeper look. You can read Investmentmoats for more details on what the fund invests in, but after doing my own due diligence, I have decided the fund is not for me. 

Fundamentally, there's the issue of my portfolio construction. I'm not sure how to fit such a fund into my portfolio. It's basically asking me to pay the fund manager a bit more (1.05% expense ratio) and to accept more risk in the hope for better return. My view of fixed income is that it should be the lower volatility part of my portfolio, to compensate for the potential wild swings in the equities portion, so on that note, the PIMCO fund doesn't fit the bill for me.

As a second order issue, the data from FSMOne shows that its 3-year Annualised Volatility as well as Sharpe Ratio is worse than the LionGlobal fund. This is rather embarrassing for PIMCO. How can an actively managed fund be so volatile? 

As you can read from Kyith's article, a 6 month difference in when you entered the fund (buying in Jan versus July 2017) resulted in what could be 2.5% p.a. over 8 years turning into 1.35% over 8 years! This is not the type of volatility you want from a fixed income fund.

Conclusion?

I'm on the lookout for a lower volatility fund with decent sharpe ratio. I don't think the PIMCO meets those requires as its metrics are worse than the LionGlobal All Seasons fund. So I will stick with LionGlobal for now, but when I hit a certain amount of holdings, my usual practice is to diversify into a second fund, so I'll keep looking

 🐧🐧🐧

PIMCO Income Fund E Class JPY hedged and Admin Class  SGD hedged are two of the five best-selling fixed income funds on FSM

Comparing the SGD hedged class, it loses out to the All Seasons Fund in two critical metrics: Annualised Volatility & Sharpe Ratio

Higher Sharpe ratio means better risk adjusted returns. Lower volatility means exactly that, less volatile.

Buy stuff when they are on sale

 

Really good deal. Bought another pair as a spare. Their replacement, the VF4 is not as suitable for beginners as the VF3, with 5mm less cushioning and a more aggressive carbon plate shape.

When there's a genuine sale, you need to be decisive and press buy. Applies to stocks and also to shoes. 😎

FLCT: Time to buy?

 

Apart from the Frasers Centrepoint preferential offering, I haven't added to my REIT holdings for some time as there were more attractive offerings. After taking stock of the latest price moves and interest rate curves, I think its about time to get back into REIT buying. There is more upside than downside from here. 

So I've bought more today at $0.845, taking advantage of FSMOne's $8.88 flat rate commission and free level 2 data.

Australian beef and food products are just as good if not better than USA. If China finds USDA Prime more expensive due to tariffs (which are still there) than Australian Angus, it makes sense for them to buy more from Australia. I suspect increased trade between Australia and China will help the logistics sector which FLCT is heavily exposed to.

While I am a big fan of REITs, in Feb 2025 I felt that everything else was more attractive and more likely to move versus REITs which would be one of the last to move. As you can see from my blogposts, I have been focusing on the overseas market more. Now that everything else has started to move and become relatively more expensive, SG REITs are starting to look relatively more attractive. By the way, anyone who bought BABA in Feb 2025 (I didn't, though I have indirect exposure via 2800 and 2801) would be sitting on very nice returns.

Trade War ended before it really started?

 

I changed some HKD and used it to buy some 2800.HK last week, "just in case" China and USA actually agreed to a trade deal. 

They didn't agree to a deal, but reducing (not even removing) tariffs seems good enough news to move the markets.

Bought $20k of this Unit Trust

 

I actually bought $20k of LionGlobal All Seasons (Standard) unit trust this month. This will entitle me to some cashback which is nice but not the main reason I am buying.

Why buy unit trusts?

I was looking for a low beta instrument with reasonable prospects for capital appreciation. I am already holding a number of US$-centric bond ETFs (IBTU, LQDE, VDCP for instance) so it would have been good to have part of my bond component in S$ fixed income.

The key point of this fund is that it holds a number of LionGlobal equity and fixed income unit trusts and gets fee rebates on those funds so that its overall expense ratio is only 0.41%, which is close to the expense ratio of some basic money market funds!

It holds 70% fixed income and 30% equity, and the equity side comprises ETFs and active LionGlobal funds. The 70% fixed income, which is clearly tilted towards shorter duration and with >50% in S$, will provide a lot of stability and steady returns from interest payments.

Alternatives?

For pure a SGD fixed income play, Nikko AM SGD Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF came to mind. Its 5-year performance is 2.45% which seems worse than simply rolling over T-bills. The SG fixed income market is also so small and the universe of bonds the ETF can invest in is so limited, it makes me wonder whether active management might outperform (as long as the expenses are reasonable, as they are in this case).

Buy Property sure Huat (May 2025 edition)

 

This is purely for entertainment purposes and the figures shouldn't be taken seriously. From time to time I receive brochures in my mailbox from property agents. According to the latest update, I have paper profits of $2.x  Given that property was bought on leverage (i.e. housing loan), the ROI might even be higher than some of my unleveraged stock investments.

In Singapore, buy property sure Huat!

Dividends Collected: April 2025

 

Another month of dividends.

UOB Krisflyer Credit Card 3 to 2.4 MPD nerf

 Milelion.com, which is a pretty informative site, just reported that wef 1 June 2025, UOB Krisflyer Credit Card will be nerfed from 3 to 2.4 MPD, a 20% cut.  I just applied for the card at the start of the year. I am not sure what the alternatives are so I will continue to use this card, given the Visa Signature's $1+1k cap.

end April 2025 update

 

Decent performance in April and still managing to outperform the S&P500.

 

I'm at the Silverkris Lounge this time. Chwee Kueh is always good. As a bonus, you can get freshly toasted Black Forest ham and cheese sandwich in Focaccia. In flight desserts are always lovely to look at. Love the effort put into the presentation.

FSMOne: MMF is better than ELF better than Autosweep account?

 

I have previously talked about how I have parked some cash in the FSMOne S$ autosweep account only to find that I am charged a "Management Fee" for the Autosweep account.

When you dig deeper into the Autosweep account, you learn that the autosweep account invests 90% of the funds in the iFAST Enhanced Liquidity Fund (ELF) with the remaining 10% in a cash account.

https://secure.fundsupermart.com/fsmone/article/rcms323940/ifast-enhanced-liquidity-funds-higher-returns-with-same-day-access

When you look at the ELF, you learn that FSMOne classifies it as a Short Duration Fixed Income fund (and not a money market fund) with an expense ratio of 0.31%. And guess what the fund holds - a lot of Money Market Funds (MMF), together with some sovereign debt and bank fixed deposits

I am not exactly sure if this kind of portfolio is worth the 0.31% expense ratio. There is also nothing that says that they receive a management fee rebate from Fullerton or LionGlobal whose MMFs are inside the portfolio, which means that this expense ratio should be in addition to the expense ratio of the underlying funds. One possible reason investors may prefer the ELF rather than buying the MMFs directly is that ELF, being an iFAST product, offers T+0 settlement (sell before 10am, credited end of business day). But to me that's neither here nor there for me, since it doesn't get credited fast enough to buy stocks during HK/SG trading hours.

Since I am on Diamond+ tier and do not pay platform fees for unit trusts (such as the ELF or MMF), it makes more sense for me to buy MMFs and to leave whatever is needed for ETF purchases. 

The autosweep account can be used to fund RSP of ETFs which is a great thing since you get above average interest while the funds are parked there. Since the interest rate is decent but not as high as an MMF (for the reasons shown above concerning expenses), I don't mind leaving enough for a few months' worth of RSP (versus trying to 'optimise' by moving funds into the autosweep account 4 times a month for the RSPs - another advantage of RSP is that it can happen 4 times a month, which probably reduces the impact of predatory algorithms frontrunning FSM's market orders on RSP days).

Conclusion

Rather than leaving a whole bunch of cash in the Autosweep account, I am moving them to

(i) Fullerton and Lionglobal MMF (0.17%/ 0.31% expense ratio)

(ii) LionGlobal All Seasons fund (standard) which is a 30/70 balanced fund with 0.48% expense ratio. This is pretty competitive considering what the All Seasons fund holds, compared to LionGlobal's own MMF.

Frasers Centrepoint Trust Preferential Offering

 

Due to the legacy reasons, I have FCT holdings scattered amongst CPFIS, CDP, and SCB.

Recently, there was a preferential offering of FCT at $2.05. At the time this was announced, there was a tariff related market crash and the share price dipped dangerously close to $2.05. This was good news to those that applied for excess rights, because the market crash meant less interest in the rights.

As a result, I got all the excess rights I applied for:

Entitled: 2295

Excess: 4205

Total: 6500

Since the price of the preferential offering was $2.05 per share, and the price is currently $2.25, this was basically 'free money', $1300 to be exact.

Back from holiday

 

Back in Singapore after a short break. LSE is closed for trading on Monday but NYSE will be open. Looking forward to buying more stocks. 

One piece of good news, there appears to be a new lounge in KIX and SQ is no longer using the JAL Sakura lounge which was too cramped. The new lounge is pretty large as this photo shows and so it was pretty empty in some areas (its more crowded nearer the food.... ) and I can sit quietly and relax.

Short break from trading (Krisflyer Gold isn't that bad)

 

I probably won't be trading for the next few days (though technically nothing preventing me from logging into my trading account) as I'm taking a short break.

I'm flying economy this time so I get to visit the Krisflyer Gold lounge. While it was perhaps a bit more crowded than the Silverkris lounge, I could still find a seat and it was overall a pleasant experience.

More importantly, the Chwee Kueh in the Gold lounge tastes just as good as the one in the Silverkris lounge. I notice that it was only the locals that take the Chwee Kueh and the Westerners just go for the more boring stuff. Anyway, I don't stuff myself with food when I visit the lounge, so an extra round of Chwee Kueh after finishing the first plate is more than enough for me.

10 Apr 25

 

10 April. I bought VUSD and NVO last night and went to bed. Market was red. Woke up this morning and saw all green....

9 Apr 2025

 

Woke up this morning (9 Apr) and saw S&P500 reversed and went down 1.57%. Current pre-market is another 1.58% drop, so there is an orderly retreat as institutions and investors trim their position. I plan to continue buying when market opens.

7 Apr 2025: Buy LSE ETFs before US market open.

 

I posted on Sunday that my strategy was Monday was to buy ETFs soon after the LSE opened, but before the US market opened but there might be a sudden reversal that usually follows sharp dips. As the 1D Monday S&P500 chart shows, there was something of a reversal and the S&P500 closed slightly higher than its opening price.

When LSE opened, there was a temporary volatility halt for various ETFs including VWRD and VUSD. The first time I've seen such a halt. After trading resume, I quickly bought some VWRD and VUSD.  VWRD was $118 and later than night, there were signs of reversal and so I bought a more at $120.  

Also managed to fill orders for VDPX, NKE, UA, NVO. LULU shot up a lot so not buying more. Bought VDPX because its biggest holding is Australia and there was a big correction in the ASX200 on Monday as well.

4 April 2025

 

Haven't seen a downturn like this for a long time. But at least I've seen a few. There are some investors who have never experienced a bear market, so good first experience for them I guess. On Friday, I bought some VWRD, VUSD, LULU and NVO.

3 April 2025 Tariffs: "I was here when it happened"

 

CNBC before I went to bed

CNBC when I woke up this morning

This blogpost is to record for posterity, what I was doing when US tariffs against the rest of the world were announced. 

Bought VWRD, VUSD, NKE, UA, NVO. Initiated position in LULU.

Dividends Collected: March 2025

 

Slight drop in dividends vs 2024. Some Vanguard ETFs that paid dividend in March 2024 are now paying in April 2025.

Money Market Funds instead of T-bills for cash management?

 I have previously posted about my cash /cash-equivalent strategy which involves among other products, a monthly T-bill ladder. Given the differing maturity dates and application dates, and reduced T-bill rates, I wondered whether maintaining a cash T-bill ladder is worth the hassle.

After looking into Money Market Funds, I decided to add MMFs to my cash management strategy and to discontinue my monthly T-bill ladder and add the maturity proceeds of existing T-bills to an MMF.

This does not mean I will have zero T-bills. I still plan to have a single $50,000 cash T-bill which I will roll over every 6 months. If my MMF funds get too large, I may transfer out some to buy a 1-year $50k T-bill. That should be manageable and simplify my life. At the same time, I'm not too overexposed to MMFs.

Which MMF?

My starting point is always the cheapest/lowest expense ratio. In this case, the Fullerton SGD cash fund with an expense ratio of 0.17% is my no.1 choice. I've started purchasing this using the FSMOne platform (since there are no unit trust platform fees for Diamond+ tier members) and plan to cap my exposure at $100k. 

Unfortunately, my research has not shown me a good no.2 choice as the other MMFs have significantly higher expense ratios.  Lionglobal has a TER of 0.31% and UOB has a shocking TER of 0.42%. Recall that the Lionglobal All Seasons Balanced Fund has a TER of 0.48%. The standard version of All Seasons has 70% fixed income and 30% equities and I would rather buy that than a UOB MMF with 0.42% TER. On the other hand as a UOB shareholder, I would like to thank all customers who purchase UOB funds.

After I reach $100k in Fullerton SGD fund and have bought my $50k x 2 T-bills, I will then have to do more research what is the next vehicle for holding my excess cash.  I might even consider a balanced fund like Lion Global All Seasons (standard). With 70% fixed income and 30% equities, I can do some mental accounting and treat each $1k investment as a $300 DCA into equities and $700 DCA into fixed income, given the low expense ratio.

What Lesson to be Learnt from Chocolate Finance?

I see lots of news articles and commentaries about 'lessons' to be learnt from Chocolate Finance. For full disclosure, I never put any money in Chocolate Finance. I read that CF was started by the ex-CEO of Singlife and I knew it was 'pattern like badminton.' If you recall, Singlife offered a 'savings account' with an attractive interest rate, but cut the rates after a short while. I promptly pulled out all my cash. The Singlife customer base made it attractive enough for Singlife to be acquired.

If you read CF's website, you will know that the high interest rates were just a loss leader to increase customers number and were totally unsustainable. CF's website states that they take your money and buy a variety of MMFs. To be sustainable they can only pay you the returns from the MMF (minus any costs they may incur). If they are paying you more, they are using investors' money to do so.

So the lesson I learnt from CF is that since CF is just buying MMFs, I should just cut out the middleman and buy MMFs directly. 

 

Withholding Tax: Another influenza gets it wrong.

There is an S&P500 ETF listed on the Singapore stock exchange with the code S27. However, it is well known on the forums that this is not the best choice if you want to invest in S&P500.

An influenzna recently posted (in support of the idea that S27 is 'good') that S27 has "no additional tax' as it is 'deducted at fund level'

The error is that the WHT is not deducted at the fund level. The word 'additional' is also misleading. The 30% WHT is a one-time deduction, whether deducted at the fund level, like Amundi Prime USA (a Luxembourg domiciled unit trust) or by the custodian, like when you buy S27 or even VOO. The word 'additional' seems to imply that the competitors to S27 have an 'additional' layer of tax, which they don't.

This is the copy of an actual investor's CDP statement that was posted in HWZ and its highly illustrative. This is a 2015 statement. I doubt the WHT tax treatment as changed since then:

(1) There is 30% withholding tax deducted from the gross amount

(2) SGX charges a S$3.73+0$.26=$3.90 handling fee on the dividend. Even if you don't use CDP as a custodian, you may still be liable for this handling fee. This is shown in the FSMOne fees page which says they will 'pass through' the dividend handling fee to you.

There is therefore a very good reason why the usual recommendation for Singaporeans who want US exposure to buy Ireland Domiciled, London Listed, UCITS ETFs, in order to take advantage of the tax treaty that reduces WHT to 15%.

Alternatively, you can look at Synthetic ETFs that replicate the S&P500 like Invesco's SPXS or Amundi's LSPU (both listed on LSE). These have 0% WHT. I am vested in LSPU.

_________________________

How about S&P500 Unit Trusts?

Amundi Prime USA is a UCITS fund that invests in S&P500 via physical replication. It is domiciled in Luxembourg and therefore subject to 30% WHT. Unlike some influenzas who might simply be cutting and pasting from other erroneous sources, I actually checked the financial statements to confirm the level of WHT.

Does it mean that a UCITS S&P500 fund that is domiciled in Ireland will have a better WHT? For example, FSMOne offers to FSM+ members the UCITS unit trust Vanguard US 500 Stock Index Acc USD IE0002639775

 

Initially, I thought that this would be subject to 15% WHT just like their ETFs. But the wise people in HWZ told me this was incorrect. I checked the financial statements of the fund and HWZ was correct once again, the WHT for IE domiciled UCITS US funds is still 30%. Only ETFs get the 15% WHT.

____________________________

The influenza didn't mention that Amundi is sold in S$, making life a lot simpler for some investors.

One more advantage of Amundi Prime USA / Amundi Index MSCI World is that it is denominated in S$. This makes it extremely convenient for my less savvy elderly relatives to invest in. In fact, I have been recommending the Amundi funds to be less financially savvy relatives and friends as a long term investment.  While the WHT is 30%, at current yields, this adds about 0.3% to costs which in the grand scheme of things, might be acceptable to some (better than stock picking individual SG REITs).

S27 is denominated in US$ which might be a hassle for some.

_______________________________

US Estate Duty

S27 is US domiciled so it is subject to US Estate duty if you pass away. If you plan to hold it as a long term investment till your old age you need to take this into account. Their factsheet gives the ISIN which is US.

Ireland domiciled UCITS ETF are also subject to Ireland Estate duty which is currently zero. 

____________________________

At the end of the day, it takes less than 10minutes to first open up the relevant financial statements to confirm the facts about withholding tax before publishing on the internet. 

Market Rally is a good time to tidy up my portfolio by selling

 

There appears to be a rotation into value and a sustained rally for quite a few of my counters that had previously not moved much. As a result, I am still outperforming the S&P500. This provided me an opportunity to tidy up my portfolio by selling into strength.

In particular, I have been holding some ADRs of UK-listed stock since 2016. I have since decided to hold the 'main' stock listed in LSE instead of ADR to avoid paying ADR fees but never got around to selling the ADRs. Thanks to the rally, I have been selling my Vodafone, Prudential, and Aviva ADRs. I hope to rebuy the London-listed versions for cheaper if there is a correction as these are great dividend stocks. In the meantime, I reinvested the cash into S&P500 ETF LSPU.

On the US stock trading front, I exited INTC at $26.10, and bought more NVO, UA, and NKE. 

Blood Pressure Monitor (spend money on health)

 

This is part of my spending money on health. I have a 10+yr old Omron Blood Pressure Monitor and the LCD screening is fading and harder to read. It often gave me blood pressure readings in excess of 120/80, even after I had lost weight and improved my other fitness measurements.

Therefore, it was time to buy a new BPM and at the 3-3 sale I got a new Omron Complete at a good price. It monitors blood pressure and has a single lead EKG. I'm pleased to note that with the new BPM, my blood pressure consistently registers below 120/80 which is normal. The exact figure also provides me with a baseline reference. 

As for the question whether the new Omron is more accurate just because it is newer, I did my annual health screening and BP was also under 120/80, so it should be.

Speaking of health screenings, I'm pleased that my HDL and Triglycerides are in the optimal range, while my LDL is in the ok range. I attribute my better HDL to increased consumption of sashimi, fish, and nuts. On the other hand, I admit to eating a bit more unhealthily during weekends, in the hope that my healthy eating on weekdays balances it out. Lets see what I can do about my LDL.