In December, I decided to do one last flurry of REIT/Property counter buying this year and bought more Capland Ascott HMN, Frasers Logistics BUOU, Capitaland Integrated C38U, and Capitaland 9CI.
HMN is a large holding and BUOU / C38U are medium sized holding so I continue to increase my position. Capitaland 9CI still has not reached medium size yet. Under my current strategy, I should either accumulate or look at getting rid of it. I decided to accumulate.
With the latest Fed interest rate cut and the inevitably replacement of Powell with a Fed Chairman that will likely lower interest rates further, REITs should benefit. Even if we don't see huge capital gains, the lower borrowing costs should hopefully result in more dividends.
One property counter that I will be getting rid of in 2026 is Frasers Property. I don't have a large position and have lost some money on it. However, the position is small so it fortunately doesn't hurt that much to exit.
I received a 0.15% brokerage comms promotion from SCB earlier this year which was valid till the end of the year. Recently, I received an invite from SCB to sign up for Priority Private in order to extend this promotional rate for another year. As the stock market has been kind to my portfolio, I had enough to qualify.
While some of the benefits depend on holding the requisite SCB credit card (unfortunately Milelion doesn't rate their cards highly and I agree they are not the best), the brokerage comms and the airport transfers do not require an SCB card. The transfers are limited to 2 per quarter, which is fine. Since I stay in the West, that's an approximate savings of $30 per trip. Had the opportunity to book a transfer, got a premium MPV instead of S-class but still more comfortable than a Prius.
In summary, I think SCB Priority comes with real benefits (online trading no min comms + lower comms), and if your online trading is successful, you get even more benefits without ever needing to buy overpriced investment products from your RM.
As my portfolio grows larger, I am always on a lookout for products that can improve risk-adjusted returns or provide diversification. Previously, I have looked at the 2 popular FSMOne income funds PIMCO and Allianz and did not find them to be compelling choices.
Kyith just did a detailed writeup on Allianz on Investmentmoats and I thought I would give my simple thoughts.
The table above compares Lion Global All Seasons Standard (70% fixed income, 30% equities) against PIMCO and Allianz Income funds. The thing that stands out about Allianz is that its absolute return looks pretty good. Lion Global wins with the YTD/1yr returns but Allianz is narrowly ahead on 3 and 5 years despite its expense ratio. PIMCO is hopeless.
So Allianz looks attractive since it generates its profits by investing in securities that are not equities and thus there is a possible diversification advantage. However,the price you pay is huge annualised volatility, which means that your returns could be very different depending on when you invest.
Finally, Allianz Income & Growth had a complete change of fund managers in 2022 with their superstar Douglas Forsyth 'retiring' so there was no guarantee that they would continue to perform.
Overall, Allianz Income does look a lot more attractive than PIMCO but it is not at all clear that it is clearly better than a low cost vanilla balanced fund like Lion Global All Seasons Standard.
At the recent 12-12 sale, Omron's full body composition weighing scale HBF-702T was on sale at $125 (I've not seen it lower than $150 before), so I decided to buy myself a present.
The HBF-702T supposedly gives you a lot of info such as Body Fat, Segmental Subcutaneous Fat and Visceral Fat. As it uses 4 electrodes instead of 2, it is slightly more accurate. It is certainly not accurate for single measurement use, but if one is disciplined enough to do a weigh-in every morning, weekly average trends are probably useful. The Omron App syncs with both devices so I have BP and weight/fat history stored together which is handy.
6 months from the last updates bring the following significant changes to my Portfolio:
Collected more this month than last year, but still lagging last year's dividend YTD.
While I mentioned that I have not been buying Gold, one of my favourite Unit Trusts had taken a tiny position in Gold (0.55% of portfolio) by January 2025 or earlier (the above screenshot was taken in Feb 2025 of the previous month's factsheet). Currently the value of that holding is now 0.99% of the portfolio which I presume is mainly from price appreciation. That should be good for a couple of basis points of alpha which is not that much, but good to know that occasionally active managers can make good trades....
Link to Feb 2025 post: BuyafterCrash: Lion Global All Seasons Fund revisited (SRS strategy)
When I first started this blog in 2016, one of my earliest posts was about Gold and how I felt it was insurance rather than investment. If everything was normal it should match inflation plus a few basis points for 'holding cost.' If something terrible happened, then the 'insurance' function would kick in and the price would spike. The 2016 photo above shows my tiny gold holdings which I have not increased since 2016 (I think I bought a couple more bars/coins after the photo was taken but nothing after 2016).
Instead, my strategy was to invest in economies that have a significant commodities business as any increase in commodity prices would benefit that economy. Specifically, I have a large position in Australia, which is the 3rd largest producer of gold.
Recently, there has been a sustained increase in the price of gold, which cannot be explained by its 'insurance' function. Perhaps the idea of you should pay a price premium for a 'store of value' function has taken root thanks to crypto. Or crypto millionaires and moving some of their crypto winnings to Gold.
I do not plan to buy more Gold as I find it too difficult to value. As I mentioned in 2016, Gold doesn't generate earning or cashflow. Instead I hope to be a beneficiary of the Gold boom indirectly though the Australian market.
My 2016 Post: BuyafterCrash: Gold?
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Postscript: The morning after I posted this, CNBC reported a rare earths investment framework/agreement between US and Australia.
Trump threatened 100% tariffs in retaliation for China rare earth export controls, but market quickly recovered and marched upwards.
For October I bought more VWRD and a smaller amount of VHYD. Also continuing my HK/China ETF RSP with FSMone. Nobody really knows when the next correction will occur so I will just continue adding to VWRD.
One thing I am paying attention to is the (over)concentration of the ETF constituents. FSMOne provides a useful auto-calculation in their ETF pages and I noticed that 3010.HK is on one hand, relatively less concentrated with top 25 holdings comprising 46.13% of total assets and on the other, TSMC is a whopping 13.5% individual weightage.
Looking at Osaka, there is a blackout for the peak Sakura season 12/3-9/4. But the week after that, there are still plenty of cherry blossoms left (I went to Japan in mid-April in 2024).
The availability of tickets to Japan is pretty good (eg: Haneda, Kansai have 3 flights a day and redemptions for all 3 flghts are generally available). I have redeemed a couple of tickets for next year.
As my plan is to go for short trips, I will be able to adjust my schedule to accommodate this and I did this successfully in 2024. I can still take Zoom work calls when in Japan since the timezones are not so different.
As everything seems to be hitting new highs, I have to be really disciplined about steady DCA of ETFs. At the same time, I can't help but look at SREITs again and wonder if they are undervalued. I have bought tiny amounts of FLCT and CDLHT to top up my holdings.
Finally, I had some excess cash in my SRS, and while I primarily buy Lion Global All Seasons unit trusts with SRS cash, the 0.53% expense ratio of the JPMorgan Global Research Enhanced Index Equity SGD caught my eye. While obviously more expensive than an ETF, I think its potentially useful addition to my SRS portfolio. It basically tracks MSCI World and the using Magnificent 7 are all represented in the portfolio. In other words, this isn't a dividend fund so the fact that its subject to 30% withholding tax on US dividends isn't too big a problem.
There is currently an active discussion thread in HWZ on CPFLife, with reference to Mr 1M65's CPFLife Strategy.
As I will need to make the decision on this in the next few years, I put a little thought in it and will use this blogpost to record down my preliminary thoughts
(1) There is an opportunity cost after setting aside the FRS or ERS at age 55 as payments only start at age 65 (or later if you want to defer). The opportunity cost arises because at age 55 you should still be mentally active and still able to manage your investments. On a 10 year holding period, MSCI World should outperform CPF Life interest.
(2) On the other hand, setting aside FRS of about $213k+ is not a huge amount and can represent the 'ultra-safe' fixed income portion of your portfolio yielding a decent risk-free interest. For example, after my $200k of SSB mature, I could roll this over into MSCI World instead of fresh SSB/T-bills, since I have $213k FRS sitting in CPF.
(3) Currently, I'm not inclined towards ERS. CPF gives bonus interest for the first $60k. So the ERS amount set aside, you only get 4% interest. From age 55 - 65, I believe that I will still have enough investing ability left to to beat 4%.
(4) Reading various forum posts, it appears that our views are deeply affected by the experience of our parents, grandparents, and other older relatives.
(5) My parents have hit 80 years milestone and hopefully I have inherited their longevity genes. I hope to stay healthy and fit and collect CPF Life at age 65.
All this may change as I get closer to 55 and get more information / different views. I'm just writing this down now as a reference point.
S$32.8k for August 2025. In comparison $31.8k in August 2024, so only a marginal increase. However, it's not a perfect comparison because several counters seem to be inconsistent in relation to which month they pay their dividends (while some counters never seem to change)
Since I have been investing in US stocks in 2025 and bought a fair amount of LionGlobal All Seasons Unit Trust (which doesn't pay dividends) instead of channelling most of the money to dividend stocks or interest bearing T-bills, the best I can hope for is marginal growth in dividends this year I guess.
I mentioned in a previous post that I was practising trading and one of my test counters was Intel. In round 1 I exited at $26.10 then after it crashed below $20 I bought a 2nd round and now after many ups and downs, I managed to exit at $25.00
https://buyaftercrash.blogspot.com/2025/03/market-rally-is-good-time-to-tidy-up-by.html
It is goes below $20 again, I will buy again. If it keeps on going up (like ETHA is doing now), no regrets since the objective of trading is suppose to be to realise profits....
Separately, I sold some some more Telefonica since it has been hitting a 52-week high. I have one more batch of Telefonica to see then I will have exited it fully.
I have about 1,000 NVO shares (including recent averaging down trades) so the current price means I am suffering losses on this counter. On the bright side, the winners are helping to cushion the impact of the losers so my portfolio is still afloat and outperforming the S&P500 YTD.
I plan to hold onto NVO for the long term and maybe DCA a little bit each month. In terms of position sizing, I will cap it at US$100k.
Thanks to the search function, I can find out that I started investing in the Tracker Fund of HK 2800.HK in July 2018. As the chart shows, this was near the peak, and thereafter there was a series of never-ending crashes. Given the grim chart, it might be reasonable to think that this is just one of the losses an investor has to take and hope that the gains from other counters would offset it.
However, for better or worse, I continued to RSP 2800.HK and benefited from using FSMOne's 0% commission promotion. Occasionally, I would buy some 'extra' over and above my RSP amount.
Finally, in July 2025, I have broken even with my 2800.HK holdings showing a +1.6% gain (in S$ terms). This is capital gain and excludes the annual 3.3-3.5% dividend yield from the HSI that I collected while waiting for the recovery. Keep calm and collect dividends, as the saying goes.
One might say that I could have made more money if I sold my 2800.HK at a loss and bought crypto or Tesla. I would say fair comment and there are some investors who are able to do that. For myself, I am happy if my worst performing counter (looking at the chart I don't think there's anything worse than this, considering the time I entered near the peak) is showing a profit.
Patience and time in market are important lessons for investors to learn.
My first purchase of 2800.HK in July 2018: BuyafterCrash: Strategy Report: July 2018
I mentioned in a previous post that my strategy was to accumulate World/US ETFs first because the outlook was bullish due to expected interest rate cuts. After World/US prices go up, switch to REITs as they will then play catch up.
In May 2025, with S&P500 constantly making new highs, I felt that REITs were primed to move so I bought a decent chunk of FLCT at $0.845 only to see the price drop further and S&P500 continue to make new highs.
BuyafterCrash: FLCT: Time to buy?
On hindsight, one can't time the bottom but at least I bought more at a decent price. Returning to today, FLCT has hit $0.885 and considering the $0.03 dividend that I received in the meantime, this means that FLCT has gone up 8.3% in 2 months. Nice.
With S&P500 hitting yet another high, I have continued my regular DCA of VWRD and VHYD this month, and also picking healthcare stocks which have crashed (NVO, GSK), but REITs are starting to look attractive.
I picked up Capland Ascott Residence Trust (HMN) and Capland (9CI, ok not exactly a REIT) yesterday but didn't manage to fill my FLCT order. Am looking at topping up a few more REITs today.
For the purpose of learning trading, I had built up a small position in ETHA at about $15. I sold half at $22 and closed out the rest of the position at $24.50. It is since gone past $25 but learning to trade means pressing sell and realising profits. I hope to be able to re-enter at a lower price during a pull-back.
In the meantime, NVO's price has been languishing due to tariff related matters but it is finally available in Singapore:
My $100k+ worth of NKE is now green in terms of capital gain, and I have already collected a couple of dividends along the way. My UA is at about breakeven level and I continue to add to LULU. The Indonesia tariff deal is reasonable news as it provides some certainty and is not a ridiculous %.
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