February Update: Trying to beat S&P500

 

I had previously mentioned that I have been buying US stocks like NKE etc to learn trading.

So far I exited PLTR, ZM, NKE and LLY at small profits. PLTR and LLY continued to climb after I sold, but that's just trading for you. I immediately redeployed the funds to add to my NKE, MCD, NVO and UA positions.  (I sold NKE at $83 and re-entered below $80).

NVO has been a superstar and because I believe in the narrative that outweight Americans will simply refuse to change their lifestyle and continue to eat unhealthy food (MCD) and whenever a Doctor says they are overweight, they will just take Ozempic, but they will continue eating MCD and gain back the weight. 

NKE's new CEO is back on focusing on sports performance and the Zoom Fly 6 is a great mass market carbon plated shoe. I know because I bought a pair.

Anyway, since I am planning to allocate most of my fresh funds to VWRD, I have decided that I will make 10% of my portfolio net worth available for US stock trading (i.e. shorter holding periods). Hope to learn something about investing in the process and at the same time, maybe I can finally beat the S&P500. So far so good, but I will never underestimate the S&P500.

Lion Global All Seasons Fund revisited (SRS strategy)

 

I have $15,300 to deposit into SRS every year, so if I were to do a monthly RSP that is roughly $1,200 a month

While I have talked about Amundi Index MSCI World being a good choice, its performance is heavily dependent on the US stock market. MSCI World does not include emerging markets (unlike MSCI All World or FTSE All World).

So I have taken a look at Lion Global All Seasons Growth again. The AUM has slowly been inching upwards and its expense ratio as of June 2024 was 0.39% meaning that they someone managed to lower the ER further.

Given current S&P500 levels, my plan is to do a 50/50 split of Amundi Index MSCI World and Lion Global All Seasons into SRS. 

The Failure of Dividend Investing?

 

Recently in the forum, there was a query whether Dividend Investing has 'failed', with reference made to the portfolio of certain dividend investor. 

In order to determine whether something has failed, you need to set a standard. If the standard is the recent performance of MSCI World, its pretty obvious that someone who only buys Singapore dividend stocks will have 'failed'. However this begs the question why MSCI World is the benchmark for an SG investor who may have other priorities, such as saving up S$ to buy a new home and pay for renovations.

At the same time, it is important to take a hard look at our portfolios and admit when we need to make improvements. Those that simply held onto their highly concentrated SG-REIT portfolios instead of diversifying ended up losing more money than they should have. 

At the start of 2022, I admitted to myself that I had underperformed S&P500 and my 2022 New Year's resolution was to start buying more S&P500 and World ETFs:

    January 2022 strategy

I am glad I took a hard look at my portfolio and started buying World/US ETFs. As a result, the concentration of REITs in my portfolio dropped drastically.

Measuring Failure for Dividend Investors?

Personally, I feel that success or failure of dividend investing is linked to whether one is able to invest in stocks (including ETFs) that are able to grow their earnings and therefore pay more dividends.  Capital gain is not so critical to me since my preferred holding period is forever.

I took a look at the 9 largest SGX-listed stocks that I hold (all of which are 'dividend stocks') to analyse whether they have been able to grow their dividends. Overall, the dividend growth looks healthy. The 3 REITs in the top 9 list showed small dips in their 2024 dividends but nothing catastrophic (compared to their share price declines).

So my quick conclusion is that dividend investing has not "failed" though it has underperformed S&P500. 

Dividends Collected: Jan 25

 

The year always starts quietly on the dividend front.

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.