2019 In 10 Mins

Carrying on from the last episode of 2018 In 10 Mins, now we’re fast forward to 2019. 

The disaster from 2018, has awarded be with 3 words and a change in my Physical Employment Status. This also means that, I’d be a normal soldier that draws the least pay! Now, this is actually a very remarkable difference if you’re to work it out mathematically, especially with the vision to earn the 2nd Year Academic Fees... 

The difference in pay that I will draw from a simple calculation would set me back by at least SGD 7,000 apart! This amount is a little shy of “a year of school fees” if one were to visualise it in another angle. 

Anyways, as a seclusive person by nature. A virtual me, and a physical me will draw a very significant differences, which after sometime, it shy me away from writing as I’d like to have more personal spaces, which now explains the hiatus after my recovery. 

Coming to think back now, the years as a man, does not reward me too poorly too as I became a right-hand man to a senior advisor in the force, which allows me to see and learn more thing from a different angle, top-down. 

The workload was insane, especially with the several safety timeouts from army due to some mishap that the forces experience in that work year. Being the right hand man to the senior managements in the unit does allow you to learn very extensively about what is going on and the pressure that you carry, is very different from your peers, that are on the ground. 

Now, it comes to a point, I figured out that, I have to make very good use of this well opportunity that I have, to learn as much skills as I can and make this 2 years (1 year 10 months in actual fact) a rewarding one. There should be no excuses because I do not want a regret later on in life that I wasted 2 precious years of my life. 

Even if I’m not on route financially, I must not shy myself away responsibilities. It comes to a point that I begin to dislike the bunch of people who took the easier way out for their own benefit, especially when I’m in the shoes of the senior managements. After sometime, I must say, the lesson learnt from this experience, I would say is by far one of the most fortunate thing that happened to me.

Anyways, the year of 2019 is a very “army” year to me. And yes, being in the army, you’d also come across many different type of people that I probably wouldn’t think they existed. There is also plenty of “investment gurus” we can see or “people that have successful parents, very successful parent or super successful parents”…Opps.

In 2019, there is not much big movements to my portfolio. While interest remains attractive at that period of time, the amount of liquid cash in my account does enjoy much better interest than it would today. 

Oh yes, did I forget? With the blood of a biker, it must a shame to abandon this passion after an injury right? As you’d probably guessed, I actually upgraded my bike license and bike LOL. In turns out that this purchase was one of the best purchase I made in 2019. At an expense which cost me less than SGD 150 a month to own a 400cc bike, with fuel, insurance, season parking all accounted for. Interesting? Probably riders here would like to make a guess, but I’d say NEA rebate does help!

Ahhh. Where is my financial summary again. I must remind myself that I must also talk some finances! In 2019, I’ve also decluttered my portfolio, experiment with some trades as well as decided to focus fire to hold lesser counters as the capital is little and it makes no much sense to waste too much on the brokerage fees. 

In a summary:

1. In the year of 2018-19, I’ve accumulated SingTel sufficiently, starting from my first purchase of 140 shares to it becoming my greatest position, an average price around 3.10 before selling every share of SingTel at 3.52 in July 2019. This position turned out to grow to more than 15 times of what I first purchased.
2. I’ve also did a trade for APTT late in 2018 at 0.170 and sold it for 0.179 in April 2019. With account to the final “big” distribution from them, this trade turns out to provide roughly a 15% ROI. 
3. I’ve also decluttered my portfolio and sold away Wilmar (turns out to be a big mistake today) for a return of 33%, SGR for a return of 10% and FEO for a loss of 25%
4. I’ve performed a trade for UOB in June 2019 @ $23.68, before selling them at $26.00.
5. I’ve accumulated a small position in Suntec REIT @ $1.80, OCBC @ $10.50, IREIT Global @ $0.76
6. I’ve performed a trade for Hong Kong Land for a returns of about 5%

With this, I close the year with only 5 positions namely; 

• OCBC Bank
• ComfortDelGro
• AIMS APAC REIT
• Suntec REIT
• IREIT Global 

On the investment front:

• I manage to close the year with a performance of +20.05% vs STI of +9.08%
• A XIRR rate at +27.74%
• Collected a dividend of SGD 392.85 which translates to roughly SGD 32.74 monthly
• Realised P/L of SGD 515.50 for the year
• Portfolio at this juncture (2019) closed with a value around SGD 20,000 where there is a massive hoarding of cash towards the end of the year, which in turns, work out extremely well in 2020. 
• The portfolio did not have much injection this year due to the very small amount of allowances that is drawn month on month when I’m a soldier.
• As such, the year closes with a portfolio value + cash holdings of roughly about SGD 40,000

Towards the end of the year, I manage to have an opportunity where I begin to divert some of my attention to after camp hours, to work on a project that by a twist of fate got executed right after I leave the service, which indirectly affected FY2020 and 2021. 

At this juncture, it is year 3 in this journey and I’m 21 years young, in 2019.

Till then, we'll see more in 2020 in 10 Mins. 

Full episode:

2018 In 10 Mins