Can I beat the S&P500 this year?

 

Having underperformed the S&P500 in the last few years, can I outperform this year? Basically its all down to how the tech sector performs. If tech sector underperforms, I will probably beat the S&P500.

In absolute terms, 4.13% gain in 1 month is a pretty good start. It makes me hopeful for a double-digit gain again this year.

Happy CNY

 

SCB was the only bank that sent me red packets this year. I don't buy any products from bank RMs so I fully understand why I shouldn't expect to get anything from any bank. So it is nice that SCB still sends me red packets. Maybe its because of all that forex premium I have been paying whenever I buy US$ to DCA my ETFs

 

Hope everyone has a great CNY. There was some volatility in the stock market with the biggest one-day rout of Nvidia shares in US history so I bought some VUSD and more US stocks last night.

 

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As health=wealth and I always eat too much during reunion dinner. I did a workout in the afternoon to burn some calories and it felt easier than normal, probably because I was well rested. The nett result is that Garmin thinks that my VO2Max has improved and that I am now in the top 5%. It will probably drop shortly after this since my workouts usually aren't as good after a day at work.

 

Comfort Delgro

Just a quick snapshot of Comfort Delgro's Dividend History. CDG is one of my large holdings which was adversely affected by COVID. Fortunately it has bounced back strongly (unlike REITS). However, the bounce may well be 'too fast too soon' because the pace of earnings and dividend recovery and 'slow and steady'. Do not expect earnings fireworks from a company that gets revenue but bus, taxi, and train. Comfort is not a growth stock.

As I said back in my blogpost 2 Dec 2023: With higher interest rates, companies that are 'nett cash' like CDG are looking more attractive than companies with massive debt servicing costs. 

 

My 2nd Credit Card

 

In terms of managing finances, one of my first actions in 2025 was to apply for a UOB Krisflyer Credit Card. I currently only have one main UOB credit card for spending but there is a spending cap which I bust every time I buy air tickets.

I needed a 2nd card that ideally would maximise points/miles from big ticket spending. For example, in the last SQ sale, I bought 1 biz and 1 economy tix so the ideal card would give me max value from that.

After browsing various bank websites and reading the reviews in milelion.com, I settled on this card as it has uncapped 3.0 mpd on SQ,Scoot tickets, and other categories like online shopping (which appears to include Amazon.sg) and Kris+. I haven't signed up for Kris+ but I'll look into it to see if it suits my spending patterns.

I'm sure there better ways to optimise the use of this card, but for now, I plan to use it for air tickets and big ticket online shopping that qualifies for the 3.0pmd.

Free Money from Amazon?

 

First time I am seeing Amazon offering re-usable promotion codes when you purchase Amazon gift cards. I am planning to buy a new laptop in a few months so I have bought several gift cards for myself and accumulating the $10 credits.

FSMOne RSP Fx premium

For FSMOne RSP of foreign ETFs, you can direct FSMOne to deduct S$ and let FSMOne change the money for you. This is convenient as it saves you the hassle of changing the FX. In addition, there is no high-interest HK$ account so if you just left the HK$ in the FSMOne account while waiting for RSP deduction, you might lose out in terms of interest.

Because of this convenience, I never bothered to look at whether the FSMOne FX rates for RSP purchases are different from manual Fx rates (i.e. you change the S$ to HK$ or whatever yourself). The manual Fx rates of FSMOne are pretty good, about 0.3%.

However, someone posted in the forum that for FSMOne RSP, the exchange rate premium is 0.7%, which is as bad as SCB's Fx premium. I checked this out by looking at my latest RSP statement.

• 16 Jan: FSMOne SGD to HKD exchange rate 5.667947 (Transaction date)
• 16 Jan 0130 UTC (930am HK Time)  XE.com : 5.69619
• 15 Jan 0930 UTC (530pm HK time - market close previous day) XE: 5.69732

I compared with two different exchange rates, the XE.com rate on the day of the trade, and the rate the day before the trade (as FSMOne might want to lock in the rate one day before the actual trade)

If FSM changed HKD on the morning of the RSP trade, the premium is 0.49%

If FSM changed HKD the day before at market close, the premium is 0.52%

Based on this, it does seem that FSMOne charges a higher Fx premium if you setup an RSP order using S$ and ask FSM to change the currency for you.

Looking at HSI Tracker Fund 2800.HK

 

While 2024 was a positive year, when you look at the longer term charts, HK/China stocks have done terribly compared to other markets. In 2024, I used FSMOne RSP to buy 2800, 2801, 3010, and 3110 and will continue to do so in 2025. One reason I am continuing is that valuations look attractive. Detractors claim that the numbers might be fake and given the experience with some S-chips, they might well have reason to believe this. However, when we are talking about the broader market and ETFs, it is hard to believe that the entire market is a fraud.

That is also where dividends come in. As the books say, "Dividends Don't Lie" and "Dividends still don't lie". In order to pay dividends, the company needs to have actual cash. 

Looking at the dividend history of the HSI Tracker Fund 2800.HK, it is nice that the dividend payout has increased over the last 3 years. There is still a long way to go, but its good that dividends are heading in the right direction.

With a current TTM (Trailing 12 month yield) of 3.97%, the dividend is satisfactory, and I am happy to continue my RSP of 2800.HK.  If TTM hits 4%, I may consider increasing my RSP amounts.

Beginning the year by stock-picking

 In Jan 2022, my resolution was to stock-pick less and buy more World and S&P500 ETF. I managed to stick to this resolution (more or less) in 2023 and 2024 which lucky given the S&P's performance. An older version of me might have been tempted to buy REITs instead which looked 'cheap' while S&P500 looked expensive. But I have learnt never to underestimate the power of the S&P500.

Anyway, I've started the year stock-picking. On 31st Dec I initiated a position in NVO after it crashed and continued to accumulate today. Also bought more NKE and UA.

SGD has been weakening against the USD and I suspect that it will continue to do so. I changed more USD today and put some into IBTU. I will probably add more USD to the FSMOne Autosweep account as well.