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.

 

Dividends Collected: May 2024

 

$30k+ Dividends for May 2024 with OCBC, UOB, DBS, Comfort Delgro all paying dividends in the same month!

Investing in above-average health.

I spent some money on a Garmin watch recently. I've always viewed spending on health and fitness as a good investment. One thing I like about the Garmin is the ability to download your Spotify running playlist. This means that I do not need to carry my phone with me when I run. It also has various training features which I am trying out as well.

One of my beliefs is that it is always good to be above average (or above median - if the distribution is normal they are close enough so I'll just say 'average').  More importantly, above average outcomes are usually achievable through a bit of hard work plus a little bit of smart work. Whereas extremely high performance is something that additionally requires good genes and/or luck.

For example, for CPF Life to pay off, you need to live beyond the median life expectancy, as those that die before the median are paying for those that die after the median age.

It is nice that Garmin thinks that I am above average when it comes to VO2 max (just barely in the blue zone though). I hope to improve it further, though my 'above average' philosophy doesn't require me to try to push VO2 max into the elite purple zone. I'm just happy to be above average and I don't plan to run a marathon....

On the other hand, when it comes to investing, I have probably failed to make above average returns in the long term (compared to MSCI World, though I have outperformed the rather useless STI index which is not that hard). 

 

IWDA $100 - more May strategy

 

As I had posted in Feb 2024, there were fair odds that IWDA would hit $100 and it has. Today is a 'red' day but IWDA is still marginally above $100. It could fall below $100 this week with some profit taking and that would be a good opportunity to accumulate.

Since I have been focusing a lot of Vanguard World and S&P500, I have not been accumulating much High Yield ETFs (VHYD and WQDV). I will use this week to accumulate more.

When it comes to individual stocks, I have one eye on SREITs but prices are not compelling at the moment. Frasers Logistics went X-dividend with a $0.035 dividend but fortunately, price is still holding up, closing at $0.995 today. 

What is interesting is China and HK. 2801 and 2800 are doing pretty well this year (after a disastrous 2023). I'm keeping up my some monthly RSP of 2801, 2800, and 3010, but might increase my RSP size just a little bit. I'm still pretty much in the red with these ETFs and this might be a good time to average down just a little bit more. But this will still be a small part of my cashflow deployment. Focus is still on World ETFs.

Earlier Post: BuyafterCrash: IWDA $100 in 2024?

May Strategy: Market still keeps on going up

Since my last post about 2 weeks ago, the market has continued to go up with the psychological Dow 40k barrier broken.

I bought 1 batch of VUSD in the last 2 weeks but there was an FSMOne RSP transaction but other than that haven't really been buying. I will continue my next round of monthly DCA in June. I am still considering whether to add a bit more 2800/2801.HK to get onboard a China rebound.