Health update: Jul 2024

Since Health=Wealth and I just released my July 2024 portfolio review, I am also doing my July 2024 'Health & Fitness' review. No point reaching new heights of wealth without the health.

BMI

While I have made improvements, I am regrettably still overweight, hovering between BMI 23.0-23.1 (because weight varies throughout the day, BMI is a range).  Therefore, I am at moderate risk for obesity-related diseases. 

My target is to achieve a normal BMI of 22.8-22.9 which will take a bit of willpower and habit change to make it sustainable.

VO2 MAX

I am making good progress with VO2 Max, and my app tells me that I'm in the top 15% for my age and gender which sounds good but one must ask what is the reference population.

There's a high chance (since this is a US-based app) that the baseline could be the US population and according to the CDC, 40% of US adults are obese which is BMI >30.0! This means that the median US adult at the 50th percentile might still be overweight with BMI>25.0. Merely being 'above average' in such population is a very low bar.

Portfolio Update: Jul 2024 (Singtel and Santander!)

 

I had procrastinated doing a portfolio update because there was basically not much to report. Vodafone comes into the list as I had reviewed the portfolio and felt that it was worth upsizing my holding as it appeared cheap under £0.70 and there was some light at the end of the tunnel with the announcing of the halving of the dividend, which could only help in the long term given its debt load..

Singtel and Banco Santander had pretty decent 2024 YTD gains with Singtel even outperforming the S&P500. It took a long time, longer than Sembcorp, but Singtel has finally touched $3.00. The situation is still fluid and the day after writing this, it may drop as those who have been stuck in this counter for a long time may decide to take profits.

Your A$ and £ dividends are worth more

At the start of the year there were those who were fearful of losing money in foreign stocks because of their currency would depreciate against the S$

I was not one of those who believed that S$ could continuously appreciated against foreign currencies. Hence I was happy to continue to buying foreign stocks and REITs with foreign properties like Capitaland Ascott and Frasers Logistics & Comm Trust.

The recent change of government in the UK is not changing the momentum. Instead, the market seems to be bullish on the new Labour government, and the signs suggest that this will be a Labour government that is more 'centrist' than 'leftist'.

 

5th Portfolio Milestone reached: July 2024

  

It took 18 months and a very nice stock market rally, but I have finally reached my 5th portfolio milestone. In contrast, I reached my 4th portfolio milestone after 26 months which was also pretty good given that my portfolio had to spend time recovering from the COVID crash. A good reminder that time in market is critical for portfolio growth.

Dividends Collected: June 2024 (new record?)

 

Another record breaking month of collecting $30k+ dividends thanks to the Euro Financials all paying out this month: LLOY, SAN, ING, HSBC, AV, PRU. Is there some reason they all pay in the same month? I have crossed the $100k mark after 6 months. If this continues, it looks like it will be $200k by the end of the year. 

June update (boring update)

  Its the end of June and I don't actually have anything interesting to report. With the market at currently high levels, stocks look "expensive" so I have continued to add to VWRD, VHYD, WQDV since the last update. I also bought some LGEN which I had mentioned previously and I am thinking of getting some Prudential (PRU) via its HKSE listing. I currently have some PRU listed on LSE but I am reaching my UK estate duty limit soon.

PRU is another way to bet on a China/HK recovery and it also announced a share buyback.

If you look at the financial ratios/statement for LGEN you would notice a huge drop in earnings in 2023. The report explains that they had to make provisions for revised longevity assumptions - insurance companies may lose money if people live longer. A similar problem occurs with CPF Life. 

As I had US$650 spare cash in my IBKR account and someone on the internet recommended PLTR to me, I used that cash to buy 25 shares of PLTR. I have no idea what that is but since this is a price action/momentum play, I don't need to know I guess. Just sell if it goes up by 10%?

Portfolio Update?

I have not done a portfolio update (yet) for June 2024 since there are minimal changes. Maybe physical gold needs to be added thanks to the gold price rally. I read with interest AK/ASSI's recent blogpost where he shared his top holdings. Basically, he is highly concentrated in 3 Singapore banks, 3 REITs, and 2 stocks (Wilmar and Comfort DG). Not the way I would structure my investment portfolio but there are many ways to reach FIRE. 

Health=Wealth

Finally, since Health=Wealth, I am happy to see that I am making progress fitness-wise. My VO2max has been inching upwards with my watch saying I am in the top 20% for age and gender. 

The government website Healthub.sg says we need 150-300 minutes of aerobic exercise a week which seems pretty excessive in my view unless you want to be a competitive athlete. My weekly duration is well under 150 minutes a week. I think its more important to have 'quality minutes' of exercise and be productive and that is where smartwatches can help as they can provide data to help you assess whether your workout was productive and also to warn against overtraining. My workout quantity+intensity is at the bottom end of the optimal training load (another data point from my watch) so I have no worries about overtraining. 

My plan is to be fit and healthy, so that I can make the most of my time left, with energy to enjoy life and energy leftover to help others. 

June Strategy

With S&P500 constantly making new highs, it is tempting to look elsewhere for better value. However, I have stuck to my plan and have continued to DCA VWRD, VUSD, VHYD and WQDV for June 2024 as well as FSMOne RSP.

There was a European interest rate cut but Poweell seems to have implied that a US cut is not so soon. Overall, a rate cut will bring relief to REITs. Recently Mapletree announced a bond issue at 3.85% (12 years senior note) which tells you something since risk free 6mth T-bllls are about 3.7%

I am still interested in Frasers LCT and will probably pick up some (it went ex-Div at $0.035 so current price of $0.95 is roughly the same as $0.995 before ex-div).

As for foreign shares, I note that Legal & General (LGEN) stock price has been crashing. I have a small position at about £2 average buying price but felt that the stock was rather pricey compared to Aviva and Lloyds which is why I had steadily accumulated AV and LLOY but not LGEN.  Now that AV and LLOY have rallied, maybe LGEN is worth a second look. On the other hand, I am probably approaching the UK estate duty limit of £350k so I need to be more fussy about what UK stocks I buy.