The 19 Year Old Year Review, Reflection & 2018 Resolution

It's the time of the year again. Days to a new year. And here we are. Time really flies and in a blink of an eye, I will be leaving the 1X world, moving to the next digit of my life - 20.

Before I continue, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my readers for the kind words, lessons and compliments for the past months as well as the wise seniors in the local blogsmophere that is providing me with insightful learning through their blog post and comments.

Caution: Very lengthy post.

Portfolio Review of 2017:
Last week, I have done a review on my portfolio performance this far. Nothing impressive. But this practical lesson had provided me with several valuable experiences. Knowing that my performance is heavily dependent on my "homework", this triggers the learning devil inside me to explore and consistently find out more.

For this year, I've set a target initially to channel $15/day into my war-chest/investment portfolio. This sum will come up to $5,475. However, I've achieve this goal in August and have since revised the goal to $7,350. 

In that post, I have revealed that I've achieved the target I've set for this 2017, exceeding the revised version slightly by 3.19% with unrealized + realized P/L at +15.80% and CAGR of overall portfolio performance at 18.69%

For 2017, I've managed to hit both my goals set for my investment portfolio.  

Read: 2017 Overall Portfolio Performance


Review & Reflections for 2017 (Personal, Study, Work, Finances):
2017 had been a really really exciting year for me. This is the first year that I'm into the world of investment. This is the start of my journey towards financial freedom. I would say that I've gain alot of knowledge and insights in this year from blogging, the financial world, work and school.

2017 is a very rewarding year for me and it marks a very important year in my life.

Let's start from personal life:
No, unfortunately, I have not found the cup of tea. It had been a lonely journey for many years now. There is too many hi-bye people around. With the restructuring of my life, I've found out who is the ones that truly matters and will be by your side when the sky fall. This is both a happy and sad thing - happy to know the good quality ones, sad to know that there is so many clowns around. But well, what's new?

On a side note, I've also obtained my Class 2B license this year. Biking is something that I used to love when I'm younger. However, due to insufficient funds at the start of this year, I've struggled through some parts of my course and managed to complete it. Dangerous sport? Well.. There's a devil inside me.

Family wise, it had been a rocky journey and it is not as smooth sailing as it should be. Nonetheless, the opportunity to be "separated" from them for months had allow me to see the loving and soft side of my family. Hereby, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my family members for the support and love they have provided me over the years.

I've also embarked on this "blogging-project" on August to write on my learning to serve as a personal diary for me. Hopefully, the day when I achieve financial independence, I will be able to look back on the journey. If I'm ever married with children, this blog will be a present to them from daddy. Hopefully, they will be able to learn on my mistakes and avoid them.

Through this platform, I also hope to be able to provide some information for people, young adults who are uncertain if they should embark on their financial journey and to how they can get started. Hopefully, it will provides some motivation for them.

Study:
I'm blessed to be granted an overseas opportunity for my attachment program, visiting a country that I always wanted to visit. I'm extremely thankful for this opportunity as well as the knowledge acquired from this event. Apart from learning a new language (unfortunately, I'm still not well-versed), exploring a new culture, understanding things differently. This program had forged several extremely valuable memories and knowledge in my life.

In this program, I'm here for a research and honestly speaking, I'm had a shock when I receive the subject of research as it is something that is pretty much different from what I'm learning. The subject here is more on programming and computer engineering which is not in my field of studies. Nonetheless, in the course of this program, I've worked hard and managed to understand and fulfill the research requirement and project.

Tasting the local food, living the local life, learning deeper about independence. This is something that I will never forget. Having that said, I hope to return to this land of rising sun whenever possible.


Work:
Throughout this year, I have held 2 different part-time jobs and one attachment program. I will not go into detail of what I'm working as, but I will write briefly about them. In my first job, I've learnt things the hard way. Instead of learning things in the classroom manner and how beautiful the world is, I've learnt about how it felt to be someone who work with labor. This is truly an eye-opener for me. It allows me to understand very much on what blood sweat money (血汗钱) is.

There's some people that is asking me previously on why did I take up the first job. My answer to them is simple - I want to experience how it is like to work with labor. In the world today, most teens in Singapore and young adults are studying and playing happily. After graduating from a university, they will be sitting in the air-con environment and working - not mentioning those that are born in a silver or golden spoon. Personally, I'm not born in the silver or golden spoon, but given the education system and school in Singapore as well as working society, it is less likely that one will experience the "harder job" when they step into the world. Hence, I'm very glad to have this opportunity that allows me to understand life differently.

Coincidentally, through the first job, I manage to find a second job. This comes at a very big surprise to me. The second job is something that I always wanted to do. Due to the nature of it, I never had the opportunity to venture into it. Hence, being presented the opportunity in summer 2017, I gladly took the offer and begin working hard there. However, a caveat here is that I'm working slightly out of my usual comfort-zone for the past few year. Therefore, apart from working for something I enjoy and regaining a part of my "extroverted" self, this job had allowed me to learn things that are out of my comfort-zone, creating valuable insights.

Finances:
Would you believe if I tell you I've started and entered 2017 with $3.63 as my net worth? I've to be honest here. I used to be a typical student. A typical polytechnic student. Someone who is paying attention to trends and chasing dreams of others. Years ago, I've been earning money easily from selling things online. Unfortunately, this small business of mine died as the trend ended. With the amount of money I'm earning as a secondary school student back then without working, it is a really impressive amount and I've no idea on where I should be spending on. Hence, a silly younger me decided to spend it on chasing the dreams of others and going for trends.

As much as I love traveling, I've visited 6 countries in 2016. In the same year, I've gotten my Class 3 license and have gone for certain extravagant thing. With my business dying in late 2014, early 2015. my savings that I had previously had been wiped out and I bankrupted myself completely in 2016. Going back to zero.

Did I mention that I used to be an investor? Oh yes. I'm.
In 2016, I've head-started in trading and speculations. I've won big, I've lost big too. Big enough to wipe out my capital back then. Short? CFD? Leverage? I would explore every single option back then haha. However, approaching the end of 2016, when "sleepydevil's crisis" is peaking, I've decided to diligently read up on what truly an investment is. Steps at a time, it brings me to who I am today. Nothing impressive, and I will continue to learn more from this adventurous journey.

Would you believe again if I tell you now that a polytechnic student that is born in a plastic spoon amassing 10k in the year of 2017 from stints, part time job and investing? Perhaps I can write about this soon?

Better not, I might be lying :)

Despite my equities portfolio not doing that well this year, I'm fortunate to have beginner's luck in my favor when I made my debut into the world of cryptocurrency.


Here are some resolutions for 2018:
I will be listing them in point form before going point by point to elaborate more on them. There's a couple more less significant ones which I will not be listing down here.

1. Building up a sizable cash positions
2. Target of S$10,000 - My first 5 digit by 1H 2018 (before my 20th Birthday)
3. Target of S$16,442 by end 2018
4. Visiting 1 country before enlistment
5. Stronger relationship with family

1. Building a sizable cash position
This may sound strange, but I am trying to build up 60% cash position and if possible, more. This will be done by channeling more money into my war-chest. Why am I doing so? Why are you leaving such a big fraction of your dollars to rot in the bank and getting tiny interest?

Well. The world today is richer than it is from the past few market crashes and no doubt, there is still room for further growth in the world's financial market. However, as most of the indexes around the world are reaching all time high, like DJIA and with our local STI market at 34XX. It's true that it is not so easy to source for under-valued stocks and most of them are fairly valued/over valued. Hence, building a bigger war-chest will allow me to capitalize when the stock market GSS comes and I'm preparing to go all-in when Mr Market is suffering from depression.
Nonetheless, it does not mean that I will stop buying shares when opportunity presents itself. In the upcoming months, I will be establishing a separate war-chest that will be recorded in my monthly portfolio update. The funds in this additional war chest will only be utilized when a big crash or correction comes. Regular stock purchase will be coming from my original war-chest which I did not include in the portfolio.

This fund here will not be inclusive of cash for my daily expenses/emergency-funds.

With that in mind, I will be doing a slight adjustment and hope to achieve a 30% cash position for that "separate war-chest" by 1Q 2017.

2. Target of S$10,000 
This will be my target which I hope to fulfill by 1H 2018. It may comes in the form of "cryptocurrency funds", additional war-chest and equities holding - value of my overall portfolio. To accomplish this, I have 6 months starting from 01/01/2018.

With my current portfolio value at S$7,584.66 (as of 19/12/17), this is S$2,415.34 away from my goals. Working backwards, I will need to inject $402.56/month should my investment stays flat.

I foresee that there this target will be coming earlier than intended, however there will not be any revision to 2018 1H target.

3. Target of S$16,442 by 2018 end
This target is originally set in my earlier post on the 19-year-old investor part 2.
This target requires an additional injection or positive performance of S$8,500 based on the target for 2017, which will work out to S$708.33/mth. Now this is a pretty challenging sum for a student. But as I will be graduating soon and will be in my waiting phase before the NS, I hope that I will be able to better capitalize on the time and achieve this goal as soon as possible.

Similarly, the sum of S$16,442 will consist of equities investment, additional war-chest, cryptocurrency funds and so on.

4. Visiting 1 country before enlistment
Now, it might sounds even tougher here. Having to contribute S$708.33/mth, living expenses and going overseas as a student! Well, at the current moment, I have not made any plans on where to visit yet.. as I'm still aboard.. But I will soon be doing a research on the country that I wish to visit. There's just too much in the list, and I will need to handpick one from the list. I'm sure that this trip is going to be a very exciting and adventurous trip!

5. Stronger relationship with family
As much as I might be occupied, in the year of 2018, I will be taking more time out to spend with my dearly family members before my enlistment. I'm planning and also hope that I will be able to do things that we've never done together as a family. I believe this is going to be a very valuable memory for the family.




Nonetheless, I will be back soon. 
And it's time to continue working hard for the next year!

How have your year been thus far? :)
 

A letter to my 30 year old self - 10 years ago

This post is inspired by SGYI's post - A Letter To My 20 Year Old Self 10 Years Later

In SGYI's post, he was writing about the roads he have walked through in this few years, from a diploma student, to being conscripted into National Service, to entering the workforce with his first job, saving up for university and finally to who he is today.

I thought it would be very meaningful for me to revert to this letter when I'm 30 year old, 10 years down the road and look back onto the roads I've walked through and the thoughts I bear today.

On a contrary, this post today will be the reversal of his letter. Instead of a letter to my 10 year old self, which is really strange, I thought it would better to write a letter to my 30 year old self.

Dear 30-year-old self, 

At this point of writing, I hope that you remember vividly that it's -7 degrees now with the beautiful snow flakes falling off your roof. The moment you read this letter, it will mean that you've successfully entered the next phase of your life. I understand as life progresses, priority changes and things will start to change. I honestly have no idea if you'll remember this letter that I'm writing here today or if you'd ever chance upon it. But I sincerely hope that you'll not forget who you are and persevere.  

Here's a quick question - Do you remember who you are 10 year ago? 

10 years ago, you're 20. This is the age that you've successfully graduated from your diploma program and is currently waiting to be enlisted into the National Service, which will be the next chapter of your life. 

Just before I go onto Chapter 4, do you remember Chapter 3, 2 and 1?

Chapter 1
In the first chapter of your life book, you're just like any little kids out there. Not knowing what is going on around the world. All that is in your mind, is to enjoy yourself and make yourself happy. With a happy family, everything is beautiful. You can vividly remember standing outside the door each evening waiting for your daddy and mommy to return home so that you'd be able to play with them. As you're slightly older, you started to attend school. 

You've absolutely nothing in this chapter. No house, no wife, no kids, no success. Nothing. But you know what happiness is! 

School used to be really fun in your nursery and pre-school ages. But as you step foot into your first "official school" - primary school. Things started to change. The meaning behind "fun" changes too. From waiting for daddy and mommy to return home, you started to seek for permission from them to go over to your friend's house and have fun, in return, they'll request for good academic results from you.

Congratulations. You managed to do it well each time! Do you remember being the top in your cohort and the smile on daddy and mommy's faces? Your wish is easily granted. However, soon later, you become complacent. When that happens, you start to hate studying and start to rebel and many times going against traditional beliefs. Congratulations again to you for managing to secure a decent set of PSLE results despite that! This brings you to chapter 2 of your life. 


Chapter 2
In chapter 2, you became MORE complacent. This time round, you totally DID not give a bloody damn about studying, but you're still getting a decent result. On top of that, you start to realize what money is. At that point of time, you're doing an online business and your business is really good. With more money in your pocket at this age, you're a little lost on what you should be doing and you started to spend your money unnecessarily.

Now, this leads to your one of your biggest downfall you've experienced then. As things started to get worse in this chapter, you've lost many many things. From your academic, to your friends, and even to your dearest kins! As a result of your complacency and extremely rebellious self, you've caused yourself a very near-miss to saying good-bye to your O-levels certificate as well. Very fortunately, just months before your O-levels, you woke up one day and realize that you REALLY needs to do something to your life and not waste it.

Congratulations to you once again. With months of study to recover 4 years of education, you manage to do it and successfully graduated with a O-level certificate. Now this brings you to your next institution and the next chapter of your life.  

Chapter 3
This chapter now, chapter 3 is a very meaningful chapter in your life and you started to change very much. Piecing up bits and fragments of your fall in the previous chapter, you started to organize them and think about your future and who you truly are. Nonetheless, you had fallen down many times too. Your online business "folded" and you've "bankrupted" yourself in this chapter. This is also the chapter for your transition period. Despite that, you kept things going. 

You've realized that academic is important as well as the power of knowledge. You wanted to learn more. You started to attend classes like a normal student. You started to read news. You started to venture more into topics that are beyond your field of knowledge. You started to know who you are. You started to understand how things work and how create value for yourself. At the same time, you realize that earning more is not the only answer to the being "rich". Now, this is when you started venturing into more financially knowledge. Exploring on savings, earning more, investing. To learn more, you've started reading books, looking for resources online and even starting with practical lesson. This goes to another extend when you start to write them down! Writing is something you always hate! But! The journey of penning these lessons down has created another lesson for yourself too! During this time, you've gained more knowledge about things from pointers and comments in your blog and other's blog! Now, you know you want to be financially free in the future. Not because other people want it. It's because you want it yourself. 

You want it so that you'd be able to spend more time with your family in the future rather than spend more time in the office. 

You want it so that you'd be able to spend more time with your kids in the future and teaches them the right thing and guide them along the way. You want the best for them.

You want it so that you'd be able to do things you truly love. Even if it's not for money! 

You want it because you know time is limited and the lesser time you spend earning money, the more time you'll have!

Fortunately again, you're still really young. It might sounds like you've been through many things despite your age. But wait. This is just the beginning. 



Chapter 4
Now, as chapter 3 is coming to an end, you're about to go into chapter 4. In this chapter, you'll be conscripted into the National Service, and I believe this will be another important lesson for you in your life. It may sounds extremely terrible to be locked out of 2 years of your time. But always remember, this is how you take to compensate for the 2 years that is taken away. Either give your best, learn and make your time memorable. Forge valuable memories. Or dwell your way through it. You know it yourself. At this point of time, do not forget who you truly are and the lessons from chapter 2 and 3. This will also be the time you will think more on your next steps and to what you will be finally doing in your coming chapters.

Remember the goals you've set for yourself!

Just as you leave the NS, you will be entering the next chapter. Chapter 5. This will be the chapter where you will move on to further education in a university and maybe further on. This will be your final chapter as a full-time student, do not forget to enjoy each and every moment of it. Perhaps, you might be a part-time student due to finances. But don't give up. Remember the lessons from Chapter 2 and 3? Now you've a bonus! The extra classes from Chapter 4! Don't forget your family! They're waiting to see you when you book-out each time! I'm sure as a mommy/daddy, nothing beats seeing your own kids and spending time with them!


Chapter 5:
This will be another big transition chapter. You'll be going to your first full-time job! Now here, you'll finally draw your first pay check and it should be able to better fund your goals! In this chapter, you will learn many things as well. You will learn about what truly working is and how it felt to be squeezing in the MRT in early morning peak hour. How it felt to be screwed by your superiors. How to deal with annoying people.

If you're lucky, you may skip all this and go ahead with being your own boss! If you're even lucky, you may jump forward to chapter 6! I don't know which day will chapter 6 comes, and it may probably never come. Should it come before the age, you may wish to take a look below. 

Today now, you're getting older. Don't ever forget. Time do not stop for anyone. As you progresses with age, so do everyone around you. Remember to spend more time with those people and not only care about earning money! I'm sure you'll have more ups and downs as compared to what you're experiencing in your younger years. Don't ever forget your belief and who you are. 

Chapter 6:
This is the time whereby you've found your dearly. Your partner for life. And in this chapter you will learn about how people get together and live together. How to accommodate with each other and how to start your own family. Now you're promoted! You're gonna be a daddy! At this point of time, I honestly do not know which chapter this unicorn will appear out of and how the magic happen. But now. You must remember. You're no longer who you are in chapter 2. You've been through chapter 3,4 and 5. You've your goals. You are who you are. And soon later, you will have to impart the right things and give the best things for your kids! 

Hey! Don't forget your parents! Now, you're really getting older! Your dearest kins is never as young as they are when you write this letter! 

As your kiddos grow up, I'm sure you'll have many life lessons along the way. 
You'll also feel how your daddy and mommy felt when you're going through chapter 1 and 2!

The letter is now coming to an end, and hereby now, I wish you all the best in your coming years ahead and the coming chapters of your life. There may be nobody that will ever remember you. 
But, you, yourself. Please remember who you truly are. 


Yours Sincerely,
Your-20-year-old-self

2017 Overall Portfolio Performance

Days more before the count-down to 2018. Time flies.

December is the month that many would take a look into their portfolio performance, reflect and plan for the coming year. December is also the month that many are extremely busy on their works, family and vacations. Despite, being a student, it's the same here! The weather in Japan is getting really cold ranging from sub zero to -5 throughout the day with thick piles of snow forming. 

Look at the thick snow!

I've been rather busy lately due to my research/attachment and is unable to write much. There's tons of draft which are still in the queue, waiting for me. This is also the first year that I'm in the market along with my first "year review on portfolio".

Ok, time to go into the topic.

Oh wait. Just a moment. Before dabbing in too much.
Would you believe if I tell you that my biggest return till date is from cryptocurrency?
Sure! Why not? 

In this post, I will be writing on the performance of my SGX equities portfolio, Cryptocurrency performance and Overall Portfolio performance. As cryptocurrency is part of my portfolio, I think it is fair for me to include it in for the overall performance. At the same time, it's just days more before the start of a new year, I believe that there will not be any big movements nor trading that will occur, hence the summary is done today.

Based on my earlier target  to channel $15/day into my war-chest/investment portfolio. This sum will come up to $5,475. However, I've achieve this goal in August and have since revised the goal to $7,350. Today, in this post, I will announce that I've hit the goals I set for myself in 2017. *confetti throw*

As of today (19/12/17), my total portfolio value stands at S$7,584.66.
This sum here is 103.19% of my target, which suggest that I have exceeded my target slightly by 3.19%. Having that said, I'm contented on the performance this far.

Caution: Lengthy post ahead.

1. SGX Equities Performance
Anyway, back to the topic, despite STI surging past 3,4XX. My SGX equities portfolio under-performing the market and is in RED! (if I exclude dividends received). The performance is positive if I factor in dividends received and yes, it's really pathetic.

This is due to some heavier weighting counters in my portfolio that is currently red such as ComfortDelGro, FEO and Wilmar. Another factor is also due to the relatively short duration of time that I'm in the market.

For CDG case, this is pretty much a value and contrarian play, as explained in my previous post on CDG. At the price today, I do see some value presenting itself and will likely pull the trigger to average down more when it hit the price I have in my mind.

FEO on the other hand is an asset play with no guarantee that the value will realize anytime soon. For asset play, patience is needed. I've initiated this position 2 months ago, hence a small dip for an asset play is nothing to be shouting at.

Wilmar, is a counter that is attracting most of my attention now. The recent fall back to my initiation price is very very tempting for me to accumulate more shares from them. I do see the shiny, bright and attractive value at the current price and will be happy to accumulate more shares from them.

Another thing to note is that I've excluded dividends from Singtel & AA REIT. The shares are in XD but payment of dividends have yet to be received, hence they will not be factored in.

The following are the details of my equities portfolio ending 19/12/17:
Total Capital Injection = S$ 5,882.09
Total Value of Portfolio = S$ 5,776.34
Total Dividends received = S$111.23
Value (including dividend) = S$ 5,887.57 

Unrealized P/L (excluding dividends) = -S$ 105.75 (-1.80%)
Unrealized P/L (including dividends) = +S$ 5.48 (+ 0.93%)

The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is the mean annual growth rate of an investment over a specified period of time longer than one year. Hence, having that said, it might not be a very good idea to calculate my CAGR base on the relatively short time frame and none of my investment has exceeded one year.

However, I'm still going to do it.


CAGR's calculation:

Formula extracted from investopedia.com

Personally, this is my first time calculating CAGR, hence please correct me if there's any mistake spotted. Taking my total capital injection as beginning value and based on my first stocks bought in Feb 2017, I arrive with this equation below:

CAGR = (5887.57 / 5882.09)^(1/0.83)-1 = 0.11%
If anyone notices, the CAGR is exceptionally low due to the extremely small gains as well as the duration of holding. 

XIRR wise, is the internal rate of return. They are used in capital budgeting measuring the profitability of potential investments. For now, I'm reading more on how I'm going to do the calculations and to more. Having that said, I've pulled out the XIRR from stocks.cafe for reference.

Pathetic isn't it? Haha.

Read:
FY2017 Full Year Dividend
Accumulating CDG
Portfolio Update - Far East Orchard
Portfolio Update - CDG & Wilmar




2. Cryptocurrency Performance
For this section. Read at your own discretion. You may skip this section and not continue if you're someone that is "anti-crypto" and/or thinks that it is inappropriate for one to include their crypto returns in their portfolio performance review.

Hate me please. Why is this young kiddo so lucky? Beginners luck is still helping him! Wait. There's many others with far better performance out there - Be it hodlers or traders! 

Anyway. Pertaining to my previous post on my month review as a cryptocurrency trader, I've revealed that I've successfully book 100% profit from the crypto-world and this amount of USD is sitting happily in my DBS Multi-Currency Account. This account is originally created for my overseas attachment program. But right now, I've found another use for them!

Having that said, with the funds in cryptocurrency reduced significantly, it makes it much harder to book significant profit from trading. A 10% profit for a $200 investment is merely $20, which is extremely insignificant comparing to a 10% profit from a $1,000 investment - Account size really matters. As such, I've changed my game play and is hodling onto crypto which I feel is under-value. (Yes. I'm not diversified)

In my previous post, I've also explained briefly on the withdrawal and reason for doing so. The withdrawal has booked 100% profit of the table and the remaining funds in crypto are basically free-hold. It's true that I've been losing out a hell lot of possible profits for the recent weeks due to the withdrawal of funds. But, I do not regret on my decision. Having to play with "free-chips" beats anything. It would be really interesting if I'm able to show people that how much I'm profiting from the market with merely USD 200 of free chips.

But remember - Not profiting DOES NOT EQUATES to losing money. 

Why is this guy stupid or out of his mind? Withdrawing his funds from a surging bull market? He's gonna lose out on so much! Whatever.

Below is the summary of details for this segment, ending 19/12/17 (based on USD=1.3381):
Total Capital Injection (USD) = USD 500.00
DBS MCA Funds (USD) = USD 1019.97
Value of Crypto-holdings (USD) = USD 331.44
Total Value (USD) = USD 1,019.97 + 331.44 = USD 1,351.41

Total Capital Injection (SGD) = S$ 684.70
Total Value (SGD) = S$ 1,808.32

There will be 2 different P/L in SGD and USD. The difference is due to forex spread. Nonetheless, I will be taking the results for SGD for computing.

P/L (USD) = +170.28%
P/L (SGD) = +164.11%

Now this is really really explosive. Similarly, for the fun of it, allow me to calculate the CAGR for this section. At the same time, I doubt that the crypto world will have that many years more for such exponential growth too.

Taking my beginning value at S$684.70, holding for one month. Ending value at S$1,808.32.

CAGR = (1808.32/684.70)^(1/0.083)-1 = 120,676.41%

Read: A month as a cryptocurrency trader - Results



3. Overall Portfolio Performance
The overall portfolio performance is an overview of both cryptocurrency investment and equities portfolio. The performance is greenish here due to the bout in cryptocurrency. Yes it's beginner's luck. Nonetheless, I'm thankful for what that had happened.

I heard it's really difficult to cash out from crypto. Did you really manage to cash out your gains from cryptocurrency? Yes.

Total sums and Overall performance:
Grand Total (Capital Injection) = S$ 5,882.09 + 684.70 = 6,566.79
Grand Total (Value) = S$7,584.66
Unrealized + Realized P/L ($) = S$5.48 + 1123.62 = S$1,129.10 
Unrealized + Realized P/L (%) = (7584.66/6566.79)-1 = +15.50%

STI has return 21% till date from the start of 2017. Hence, with this performance you see here. I'm unable to beat the market in 2017.

Assuming the holding period throughout is 10 months (based on my first investment):
CAGR = (7584.66/6566.79)^(1/0.83) -1 = 18.96%

This concludes my overall portfolio performance for this year.
As I'm really new to this, kindly suggest to me on how I'd be able to further improve on this performance review so I'd be able to include it in the performance review post next year.

The year of 2017 have been rather rewarding in some way. And soon, we will be entering 2018. In the coming post, nearing the end of December, I will be writing about the review & reflection of 2017 along with the resolutions of 2018.

Hope everyone is having a good holidays now :)

Should I invest in cryptocurrency?

"No no no no no no no no no no. 
It's a bubble. It's speculative. It's fundamentally unsound!"

But how about the returns? I heard about Bitcoin having astonishing returns!
"Hmm.. Well..As of this moment of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $19,535. 
It's $959 on 01/01/17"

WOW? IS THIS IS A 20 FOLD RETURN?

"Yes. You're right you didn't see it wrongly. 2000% return.
$1000 invested means you'll have $20,000 today."

Oh my god. If I've invested $100,000..
"You would have $2,000,000 today!"

I heard about alternate coins too! What's that?
"Nothing much.. Just another ponzi scam out there that are named differently :)"

Can you name some?
"Sure. Why not? Ethereum, DASH, ZCash, IOTA Litecoin, Monero..."

I can't wait. I'm missing out too much now. FOMO game is strong here! I need to get started! Can you please tell me how?
"No..no..no.. Don't dip your toes in please. The bubble is going to burst soon!"

Many of my friends have started playing with Bitcoin recently. One of them even mentioned that he wants to quit school to go full-time in crypto investing. He profited close to USD 3,000 last month from crypto-investing. This is more than a fresh university grad salary!

I want to get started! Can you tell me about your journey this far?
"Nah. Better not. My journey is nothing impressive and I don't recommend investing in cryptocurrency."

Why don't you recommend investing in crypto when the whole world does and they're earning a hell lot from this crazy surging market? I understand about the risk. Tell me one investment that is risk-free!
"Invest in yourself :)"

Go big or go home! Low risk small return. High risk, high return. Tell me more please. Don't worry, I'll be able to sleep soundly at night. I will snore still! Can you tell me on the exchange you're using?
"Take a look at this here."

Wa. From the link you gave me, I saw another post by this fella. This guy smelly smelly play one month also got 143% return leh.
"This guy is out of his mind. Don't follow him."

Then follow you la. You tell me more.
"Nah. Told you to not invest in cryptocurrency already!"

Aiya.. you. Nevermind. I wait for this fella post. See whether got any lobang anot.
Anything happen, his fault!
 
.... -.-

Is investment really so difficult?

Do you hate mathematics when you're studying in school? Maybe.
Investment is all about mathematics and numbers? Not really.
Is investment really so difficult? Well, not that, but this is up to yourself to determine :)

What a mess here?

Let's play with some equations today.
And some simple equations forward.


High reward, short time = High risk
High reward, low risk = Long time
Short time, low risk = Low reward

Looks pretty simple? Don’t worry, it revolves around this few constants.

So how to deal with it? Frankly speaking, the answer varies pretty much for the different situation. 

High Reward + Short time = High Risk

So you want a high reward in a short time frame? You will need an extremely volatile market in order for that to happen. With an extremely volatile market, you will be exposed to a greater risk and prices are bound to swing and bounce up and down. If it goes up, congratulations. The risk you’ll be facing here is IF it goes the other way.

Speaking of short time frame, you should be considering on trading and not investing. This will also mean that you’re buying and selling for the capital gain.

Examples of tools or investment that will be able to help you with it: Cryptocurrency, Leverage, Technical Analysis.

Now a good question you should ask yourself is: Can you stomach the risk and sleep soundly at night? Or perhaps you may not even be holding it through the night!

High Reward + Low Risk = Long Time
Now, it does not necessarily mean LONG. But for sure, you must have the mentality to hold onto it for a decent period of time. It might be months, years or even decades. By saying low risk here, it does not equate to NO RISK. Disruption might come kicking the ass of the company you own, causing the growth to slow down or even travel southwards!

To mitigate or to further lower the risk, the key here is diversification. The more diversified you are the lesser the risk. Diversification does not only mean diversifying your equity holding to hold stocks of different sector but beyond it.

If you’re a DIY investor, handpicking your basket of stocks from the market, it will be good that you pay attention to news and reports of the company you hold for a clearer picture of what is going on. 

There’s many types of investment that will satisfy this criterion such as bonds, stocks etc. and one good tool you can here is fundamental analysis.

If you are looking for even lower risk, go for fixed deposit. The additional risk that you’re taking for investment in the stock market will be compensated with a greater return. 

Short time + Low Risk = Low Reward

Now this is related to point number 2 up there. With a shorter time-frame, the returns will not be as significant when you compare to a longer duration. Needless to say too much about this.

The most important part is the decision making part towards how much you allocate to each part.
Diversify your investment to these 3 areas and you'll be benefiting from each of the scenarios. 

How you want your investment to go will determine on how much you "risk" and allocation you place into the type of investments. But please remember that, regardless of situation, nothing beats sleeping soundly at night :)

A month as a cryptocurrency trader - Results

The crypto world today is getting more and more chaotic with big amounts of fresh funds coming in driving the price of Bitcoin up to 17k last Friday. Just a month ago, it's hovering around 7k mark before dipping to the 5k region. So to those who purchase a month ago in the dip, selling it last Friday will gives you a handsome return of 340%!! Impressive isn't it?

The rapid rise of price in Bitcoin has caused market capitalization of BTC has ballooned up from 120 billion to crossing 280 billion! Hold on right there!! Before making any rash decision, remember - whenever you buy something. It will means that someone is selling it :)

By saying this, I do not mean that the crazy bubble is about to burst or anything. But I'd like to take this opportunity to caution everyone that this is a high risk investment and please do your due-diligence before entering any positions.

Bitcoin

Unfortunately, I did not hold onto it. How nice would it be if I'm holding onto it right?
Let's not be greedy :)

I've been rather busy lately and my frequency of trading around is getting lesser and lesser. Allow me to remind myself for another time here - "The initiation of Crypto-investing/trading comes with 2 intention - to build a bigger war-chest and at the same time learning from the crazy and volatile alternative market. (Though, there's no guarantee that it will be assisting me with building a bigger war-chest.)"

I've embarked on this adventurous journey a month ago on 12/11/17. And weeks ago, I've posted on the results of being a cryptocurrency trader for a week. Today, in this post, I will be writing about my results for this month (ending 12/12/17).

One important lesson that I've learnt is to never chase the boat. Once it left the port, wave good bye to it! Another one is to never be emotional to your trades. There will always be a better time to buy or sell. Do not chase for the perfect timing.

However, as I'm taking a small little break from the crazy trading or speculations what many is calling it, I've decided to write about the results this far, today.


This time round, I will not go into the detail of the lengthy crypto-crypto transactions. So let's jump straight into the summary.


Here's the summary for this month: 

*the ending funds are in consideration of the withdrawal fees. Pre-withdrawal ending funds stands at USD1,234.41

DBS forex rates

*Buying TT rate of 1.3439 is used in the calculation above










For verification on the cost of withdrawal as well as taking back my cost along with booking 100% profit, I've initiated a partial withdrawal from Gemini and received the funds in my DBS MCA the next day. Also to confirm, Gemini does "charges" a USD7 for the withdrawal (despite the official site claiming that withdrawal is free) and at the same time DBS charges approximately S$10 for the handling fees. Hence, the "withdrawal fees" worked out to roughly S$20. Pretty expensive here.

I'd advise those that are using Gemini to not withdraw as and when you like and to keep the USD there to save on the cost.

With my initial injection of USD500 at the rate of 1.3694, my starting funds stays at S$684.70
Through the tradings, the funds at the ending of the month comes at USD1,219.97

This comes up to a profit of 143.99% / USD719.97 (in USD) or 139.45% / S$954.82 (in SGD).
The difference is due to Forex spread between the buying/selling if I convert the funds back to SGD.

Now, the game changes as I'm playing on my free chips. Let's see how the game goes now. However, I believe that the pace will probably slow down as I'll having more schedules in the coming weeks as well as the reduced capital.

At this very point of writing, I hold no positions in any coins and funds are all in USD. For now, I'm more than contented, should I miss out on more "potential profits". Till today, I'm still very amazed by the crypto world and again, it must be beginners luck :) The crazily volatile market has also taught me a lesson. Nonetheless, this performance is nothing compared to many out there who is holding onto them.

With this event, my warchest is successfully "bumped" up.

Read:
A week as a cryptocurrency trader - Results 

Note: Investing in cryptocurrency is very risky. Please do your due-diligence before any actions. Having that said, I'm prepared to lose every cents that I've input into the crypto world should anything fall through. I do not recommend investing in cryptocurrency.
 

CDG ties up with Uber!

8 December 2017 - ComfortDelGro Corporation Limited and Uber Technologies, Inc. today announced that they have entered into a strategic agreement to joint venture that brings together one of the world's largest land transportation companies with the world's leading ridesharing service to leverage their operational and technological excellence.

Under the agreement, CDG will acquire a 51% stake in Uber's wholly-owned car rental subsidiary, Lion City Holdings Pte Ltd which has a fleet about 14,000 vehicles for a cash consideration estimated at S$295 million (based on the NAV of S$642 million based on the value of 12,450 vehicles). LCR will be able to benefit from CDG's fleet management and operation while CDG taxi's driver will be able to receive ride requests on the Uber driver application, increasing their potential earnings.

This deal is CDG's single largest deal-to-date.

Currently, they are finalizing on the additional partnership opportunities and will make further announcements in the upcoming months.

CDG's price had been badly beaten down in the recent week, dropping to their new 52W low and closing at 1.91 today. Just moments ago, they've finally released the news on the strategic alliance - announcing that CDG and Uber has entered into a strategic agreement.

I've been in the queue today, queuing at 1.90, hoping to nibble a little bit more on CDG's share. Unfortunately, my queue is not filled.

I'm having some mixed feelings with regards to the announcement made. With the partnership confirmed, this will allow CDG's driver to tap onto Uber's network for more bookings. While this event does not directly creates more revenue for ComfortDelGro, it helps by protecting the existing taxi drivers' interest as well as preventing more drivers from leaving which will result in further decrease in revenue for their taxi business.

I'm a little surprised by the decision that CDG has acquired a big fraction of Uber's business in Singapore.

On paper, it look like a good deal having to acquire 51% stake of 12,450 relatively new vehicle. A simple calculation will bring me to the sum of 46k/car - based on (295m/51%/12450 vehicles).

Looking at the other side - the acquisition of LCR. LCR's fleet of vehicle is relatively new and I'm pretty interested to know on how many cars are exactly rented out. Without a number it's a little difficult to determine if this is a lucrative acquisition. Only when more numbers are revealed, the directions will be clearer.

Acquiring a 51% stake is pretty big here and a question will come if they will be able to recover their investment. Also, to remember that the rental price in LCR is cheaper and provides a lower margin. A big question also come by when CDG is having difficulty in managing their own fleet of vehicles and they're currently acquiring more vehicles.

Back to basics, as a consumer point-of-view, I believe most people that uses private hirer like Grab/Uber is using them because of the cheap prices and the ease of getting one. Having a price war is inevitable for companies like Grab/Uber who wants to steal a pie of CDG's plate. Hence, coming to the real issue here, it's the battle between prices. When lesser people is taking CDG's taxi, the drivers are earning lesser, and when the option of earning more comes (Uber/Grab), they will be jumping to another boat, which is why CDG is facing this problem now. However, if they were to reduce the rental fees, this will impact on their earnings negatively.
 
Before any much comments on how lucrative or not this acquisition is, I believe that as a shareholder, it is a good that the management is taking an approach to deal with a problem. I'll be looking to more updates from CDG to get a clearer picture of the situation.

Resources:
CDG's announcement can be found here.
CDG's Media release on strategic alliance can be found here.
Business Times news on CDG's alliance can be found here.

FY2017 Full Year Dividend

This will be the final post for 2017 dividends well as my 2nd post on quarterly dividend updates.

Throughout the 4th Quarter of 2017, I've received dividends from:
- FCOT
- Starhill Global REIT
- AA REIT
- Guocoland

Frasers Commercial Trust
For Q4FY2017, FCOT has paid a distribution of $0.0241/share. Similar to last quarter, I've subscribed to their script dividends and I'm allocated 4 shares of FCOT and having the balance of $1.85 back to my bank account. The dividend of $0.0241 is equivalent to 1.86% of my entry price at 1.295.

HPS has departed from ATP, and the space they vacated constitutes to 17.1% of the total NLA in ATP. It has not be announced whether HPE will be vacating from ATP, but I'm ready for that news.

Read: Fraser Commercial Trust (FCOT) - HP Vacating from Alexandra Technopark



 
Starhill Global REIT
SGR has declared a $0.012/share dividend for FY2017 Q4. As a result of the distribution, I've received $6 and this translates to 1.61% of my entry price @ 0.745. SGR continues to stay in my watchlist and I'm looking to accumulate more shares of Starhill.

AIMS AMP Capital REIT
AA REIT has declared a $0.0255/unit distribution and will be paying it later this month of the 21st. The distribution of $0.0255 will mean that I'm receiving $10.20, which is 1.86% of my entry price earlier this year back at 1.37.

With reference to the receipt of new units created from the private placement, this exercise has created 42,145,500 new units in AA REIT. Adding onto their existing outstanding issued share at 639,980,000 units. This will bump the total units up by 6.52 % to 682,125,200 units. Revised NAV from latest financial report (30/09/17) following the 6.52% increase should be 1.2713. Upcoming yield should the performance stay flat will be hovering around 7.29% based on the price of 1.35.

Guocoland
The declared dividend for FY2017 by Guocoland is $0.07/share, which is 2 cents higher than their usual $0.05 yearly dividend and I've received $14. There is a drop in their share price recently, falling from the 2.3-2.4 range to closing 2.1 last Friday. It seems like there is some price weakness in their share again and perhaps it's time I go shopping. At 2.1, they're trading at 34% discount to book value.

NAV as of end FY2017 stands at $3.18.

Read: Guocoland FY2017 Results


In the next quarter, I'll be likely to receive dividends from:
Singtel, AA REIT, SGR, FCOT. 

Total dividends received in Q4 = $37.53
Total dividends received in 2017 = $111.23
Average dividends/months = $9.27

My 1st $100 from Mr Market :)

$9.27/per month. I'll need to topup 73 cents in order to afford 2 Fillet-O-Fish meal. Terrible, isn't it?
I will be working towards the goal of buying myself more meals in the coming future. And hopefully, one day, the dividends received will be able to cover all my expenses :)

The total dividends of $111.23 is equivalent to 1.9% of total stock holdings. This is because most of my stocks are purchased in the last quarter of this year and I've missed out on their dividends. Not to forget the heavy concentration I've placed on growth stocks rather than income generating stocks.

I look forward to receive dividends from companies like CDG, Wilmar, Far East Orchard in the coming year. The annualized dividend yield of my portfolio is currently at 4.92%.

Looking back, the income-generating stocks (REIT) is only 19.6% of my entire portfolio based on the latest portfolio update! I guess it's time I shall do some portfolio re-balancing and possibly add some REITS to increase my yield.

Portfolio - November 2017

Current Portfolio (30/11/2017)

No.	Counters	No. of Shares	Market Price (SGD)	Total Value (SGD) based on market price	Allocation %
1.	ComfortDelGro	700	2.00	1,400.00	20.17%
2.	Far East Orchard	800	1.50	1,200.00	17.29%
3.	Wilmar Intl	300	3.12	936.00	13.49%
4.	AIMS AMP Cap REIT	400	1.35	540.00	7.78%
5.	Singtel	140	3.73	522.20	7.53%
6.	Guocoland	200	2.08	416.00	5.99%
7.	Frasers Com Tr	308	1.45	446.60	6.44%
8.	Starhill Global REIT	500	0.76	380.00	5.48%
9.	Cryptocurrency Funds	1	1,098.69	1,098.69	15.83%
	Total SGD			6,939.49	100.00%

It has started to snow in Japan and snow is piling up right outside my window! November had been a very interesting month thus far, having to see STI reaching 3,4XX and learning pretty much on the crazily volatile crypto market. Also, on a side note, I've been pretty busy over the last 2 weeks due to work and having that said, I've not been able to trade frequently.

I've also decided to include my Cryptocurrency funds into my portfolio. As the funds are in USD, I'll be converting them into SGD based on DBS forex rates prior to jotting them down. And as of today, USD/SGD Buying back rate from DBS stands at 1.3327. As such, with my funds of 824.41 USD, it will be equivalent to S$1,098.69. 

Currently, at this point, I do not hold any position with any coin, hence they're all in USD. And I'll be able to cash them out into SGD at any point of time.

The month of November is also a dividend racking month. I've received dividends from Starhill Global REIT, Guocoland and have subscribed to FCOT's script dividend. No share transaction this done this month. 

On a side note, my SGX portfolio is being slapped and most of them fell this month and some companies are falling into my radar for more accumulation. Fortunately the gains from cryptocurrency is pulling it up healthily. Seems like I must be gearing up for a shopping session soon.

Singtel has announced it's 2Q18 financial report earlier this month and declared a special dividend of 3.0 cents for the successful divestment of Netlink Trust on top of it's usual interim dividend of 6.8 cents. It is known that the dividend payout for FY2016 and 17 has exceeded the FCF generated by a mere percentage for the respective years, which comes into question if the dividend of Singtel is sustainable.

I believe that this is due to the upgrading works to their infrastructure to accommodate with the latest 4.5G network which will boost data speed by 200x. It has since be completed in August 2017 (link here) and they're planning to roll out this service soon. Hence, I believe that the CAPEX for the coming years should decrease, improving their FCF. Along with the recovery of it's regional associate, I believe that the FCF will be better in the coming years. 

A big question also comes in when Singtel's mobile business in Singapore is under threat by the entrant of 4th Telco - TPG. However, as Singtel derives only 11.5% of it's revenue from this business segment. I feel less threatened. 

This one time event of divestment gain from Netlink Trust has also bumped up the FCF, improving it's situation. This also creates more cash for Singtel, which they would be able to use the proceeds and channel it into other investments.

Singtel continues to be in my watch-list and I'm a happy shareholder of Singtel. 

I'm prepared to accumulate more shares of Singtel should the price fall.

Read: Singtel - Special Dividend of 3.0 cents per share

Cryptocurrency is something that I had my toes dipped into this month and I've been trading them. However due to my schedules, I've not been trading very much recently. I've learnt pretty much from the crazily volatile market as well as reaping myself a small little gain, all thanks to beginner's luck. This week had been a bloody week for the crypto and most are in reds. I view this as a healthy event where traders are taking profits off their tables.

I've entered the game with 500.00 USD and today, I'm having 824.41 USD in my cryptocurrency funds. This translates to a 64.88% gain over the past 2 weeks. On a side note, USD has depreciated against the SGD and the rates are getting from bad to worse.

Here's an overview of my crypto transactions:

And summary here:

Taking DBS Buying OD rate of 1.3327, if I were to convert them into SGD, I will be receiving S$1,098.69 back from my initial capital of S$684.70.

DBS Forex Rates (01/12/17)

Translating them into %, the P/L in USD = 64.88% while P/L in SGD = 60.46%.

Should I convert the sum into SGD, it will means that the trades are having a P/L for 60.46%

Some may notice here that, if I were to hold any pairs, I'd probably have a better P/L off trading it. Oh well. I must not be greedy and be thankful for the beginner's luck. 

Read: A week as a cryptocurrency trader - Results

AIMS AMP Capital REIT has also announced a private share placement last week and will be giving an advance distribution for FY2018 Q3 till 30/11/2017. A dividend of 1.91 cents will be distributed on 17/01/18. Proceeds will be used to pay off debt, creating additional debt headroom for future acquisition and AEIs.

This private placement will actually cause the shares to be slightly diluted and impacting on the upcoming DPUs. In another words, I foresee that there will be a decrease in the upcoming DPU, as the same pie is being shared by more people now. However, should there be some positive rental reversion, this event could be waived off, let's hope that AA REIT will be baking a bigger pie for more this time round!

With reference to the receipt of new units created from the private placement, this exercise has created 42,145,500 new units in AA REIT. Adding onto their existing outstanding issued share at 639,980,000 units. This will bump the total units up by 6.52 % to 682,125,200 units. Revised NAV from latest financial report (30/09/17) following the 6.52% increase should be 1.2713. Upcoming yield should the performance stay flat will be hovering around 7.29% based on the price of 1.35.

Receipt of new units created form private placement can be found here.

Dividends received in November: $27.33/-

Current Portfolio Value: S$6,939.49 (+14.55% m.o.m due to capital injection, dividends and portfolio performance)

Capital Injection for November: S$684.70 
Total dividends received in 2017: $101.03
Average dividends/month: $8.42