20th Birthday Post

Today, I have bid farewell to the 1X club and officially entered the 2X club.

While I'm still relatively young as compared to majority of the peers around, this does not indicate that we are different.

Age is just an indicative number that tells us how long we're around on planet earth. What's more important is our mentality towards dealing with issues that cropped up in our lives.

We are all humans. And having to mention about this, I vividly remember one of my favourite sentence in AK's blog.

Source: AK71

Link: Chinese New Year of Dog (2018)




Much contradicting to my statement above, but we should take a look at the key in this statement - We must know ourselves.

Hence, I felt that irregardless of age, we are not different and we have to know ourselves. 

As we live longer on this planet, we've obtained something in return for our time - Experience and Wisdom.

I've been very busy lately which explained the reduce in blog post over this couple of months. Nonetheless, I still have many drafts awaiting for my to write on and publish.

Hence, to the regular readers who is looking forward to my post, I deeply apologize for it and please pardon me for that.

As this is a birthday post, I shall do a brief review for the my 19th Year of planet earth:



1. Finances
In my 19th year on this planet, I've embarked on this financial route. I started reading extensively on the topic of finances. I've also started to pen down my thoughts, learnings and route in this small little area here, despite having a poor command of English.

Personally, I'm not born in with a golden or silver spoon. Or rather, I should be. But that spoon happen to went to another side of the family 2 generations ago.

By a twist of fate, I ended up with a plastic spoon. But, I do not blame the fact that the spoon fell off and in fact, I embrace that situation.

Coming to it, as a single-parent student that is born in a plastic spoon. This has taught me many valuable lessons in life and finances.

Having this situation above, I'm unable to make significant contribution to my wealth building pot, but I know this deep down that this shouldn't be one thing that is stopping me from taking up this financial path.

Looking back, when I first set foot onto this journey. I've made a plan to allocate $15 into my portfolio each day, to a sum of $15 x 365 = $5,475.

Read: My First Post



After 10 months of hardwork, the plan materialize with a small help from the market and a huge contributing factor to it would be the income I receive from my part time job to finance this goal.

This allowed me to understand that your Primary Income is a big supporting factor and a push for you to finance your goals towards financial freedom.

Read: My First Pico Milestone - Conquered

I've made some adjustment then and have decided to go with a target of $7,000 by the end of 2017. As a lonely guy in Japan back then, I've decided to start with some trading and selected the cryptocurrency market to be my tool.

I do not know anything about TA prior. As I'm not a smart guy, I took a couple of months to understand it. Sadly to say, even till today, I'm not proficient in TA either.

I got lucky, and my wish once again came true with the help from my cryptocurrency adventures.

Now, in this episode, I understand that In order to achieve our goals, a plan is required. A big pushing force would be your luck.

Read: Portfolio - December 2017
 



Just before 2017 ends, I've made plans to obtain my first 5 digits in my portfolio before 1H2018, which is just before my birthday.

Once again, with the help of the bull market and the injection from my meagre income. Today, I'm glad to once again announce that I've achieved my 3rd goal I've set ever since I embark onto this journey.

The amount is little and insignificant to many around. But this lesson to me is indeed remarking. I've also made several adjustment to my portfolio this month and I'll soon be giving an update about it in my Portfolio Update for May 2018.

In the process of obtaining my first 5 digits, one of my adventures with CDG has allowed me to further understand the bigger concept behind Account Size and Market Timing. 

Read: Free Shares from CDG



There's still many lessons awaiting me ahead. All I could do is to get myself geared up and be prepared to learn.

There is a great number of people who are extremely curious about my transaction cost and how silly I am to take a huge shave off my gains from these expenses due to my peanut-sized portfolio and holdings.

Today, I'd also like to take this as an opportunity to share some of my thoughts about it.

This is an adventure taken by me to achieve financial freedom. And being educated is a part of it.
One can always not start if they feel that they're uncomfortable with fees being paid. Afterall, investing is not the only way towards achieving financial freedom.

There is many ways available. It's important to find out the way that is most suitable for you.  



2. Personal
I'm glad that things are starting to fall into places after some plannings made a year ago. Probably this is telling me that my hardwork is starting to get paid off? However, I guess I'm still a silly guy afterall.

I've missed out on many things.

I will not jump in too much on this area. But I guess I will have to learn more about things around me and how to better optimize myself.

In this year I manage to understand myself better and differentiate things better.

Sometimes, theory lessons are really simple and easily understood. But practically, it becomes a big problem for us.

To keep things short, there are 2 different things around us.
1. The Controllable
2. The Uncontrollable

If we are always thinking about the uncontrollable factors affecting us. We will soon be affected by things that are controllable. 

Exercising self discipline and controlling factors that are controllable is what human should be doing. But it seem that sometime, our heart takes a better lead.

I guess.. I shall not continue too much about this here. And today, I shall be a sleepy devil. A true sleepy one.

Good night.

Free Shares From ComfortDelGro

It had been some time since I last wrote anything about CDG.

Recalling back, the last time I officially wrote something about CDG is back in December 2017 regarding the alliance with Uber.

Source: ComfortDelGro

In the recent days, CDG had a good run. Which is probably also one reason why I decided to write a little about it today.

Source: Google - CDG's Share Price

The title of this blog post may sound really misleading but I'm sure that some readers would probably guess it right from reading the title.

I'm not lying!




Feeling bored from work some days ago, I've also decided to a do a simple TA on ComfortDelGro to understand a little bit more about the recent price actions.

To cut things short, I've decided to reduce my exposure with CDG and sold 600 shares of ComfortDelGro at 2.38 in the market today.

To simplify it, with an average price at $2.07 per share, I'm looking at a profit of 37.5 cents per share (including dividends), which will translate to $262.50

Along with the dividends received, I've sold 600 units in the market today, taking back the first dollars I've injected into CDG. Thus, making the 100 units in balance free-of-charge.

For the slightly mathematical person, based on the closed positions, I'm looking at a gain of +15.5% from this divestment or an annualized return of 23.4%.



Who doesn't like free thing!?

Personally, I'm a cheapskate and enjoy free things.

This time round, I'm enjoying some free shares from ComfortDelGro.

I'm sure things will look much better if I have a higher vested interest/capital to deploy for CDG. Not forgetting if I have a lower average price or that I've bought more when it's hovering around 1.90.

In this episode, I've also learned that market timing and account size is very important too!




A very brief and quick look into CDG's 1Q18 Financial Results
CDG has also released it's 1Q result last Friday which have posted a slightly better outlook as compared to the latest result.

Source: CDG 1Q18 Financial Presentation - Slide 3

The financial summary in comparison to 1Q2017 showed that despite increasing revenue, the profit has been decreasing. However, with a decrease in EPS for this quarter, a simple calculation of multiplying it by 4 will show me that CDG is still able to pay its dividend of 10.4 cents (assuming dividends remain constant) within it's FCF for the coming year should they not increase their CAPEX unnecessarily.

With the improving sentiments in the local taxi business and foreign acquisitions, this might be an avenue where CDG will be able to bring their EPS up and back, which might bring smiles onto the faces of investors.

With this in mind, assuming that all 4 quarters EPS is to remain at 3.06 cents, this will bring me to earnings of 12.24 cents. Taking the price at 2.30 into consideration, we're looking at a P/E ratio of 18.79 which is no longer cheap in my opinion.

It's not exactly accurate to measure the earnings in this manner as they're subjected to its upcoming business performance. However, only with greater earnings to come, this will make CDG at this price today a cheap business to own.




Comparing to its P/E ratio today to months ago and days during a crisis, CDG is no longer a cheap company to own and I'm definitely not looking to buy into CDG at this price.

Source: CDG 1Q18 Financial Presentation - Slide 7

Despite the increase in gearing, CDG's net cash position has also gone up decently by $23.7 million or 8.6%.

Source: CDG 1Q18 Financial Presentation - Slide 21

The business outlook posted by CDG in this financial presentation is rather conservative too. A good thing to note is the upgrading of outlook in its Taxi Business.



I'm thankful and felt that I've been lucky as an investor of CDG to receive some freebies from them. But as a novice, I must remember to not be greedy as greed is the root of all evil.

Having to divest partially from CDG, I honestly felt that there is still room for CDG to improve on as a company despite facing headwinds in the local taxi businesses, although Uber's departure would probably subdue a little effect in it.

CDG have been looking for opportunities to invest into the foreign market such as the recent acquisition of Dial-A-Cab in UK and Tullermarine Bus Line in Melbourne to diversify their earnings beyond the reliance on taxi business in Singapore. CDG is also trying to hook up with Go-Jek, an Indonesian ride-hailing company as CDG's ride-hailing partner in Singapore.

In the latest news, CDG has also added 200 new Hyundai Ioniqs to its fleet to accommodate more returning drivers from the PHV business. This addition of fleet has not happened since the last 1.5 years. 



All these events on top, if lucrative will also provide CDG with a greater earning and revenue to come.

With these paying off, I'm sure CDG will be recovering from the damages sustained in the last technology disruption. Not saying that the technology disruption has ended, but for now, the effect is lesser as compared to the days in a triple threat match. Nonetheless, Grab today still pose itself as a competitor against ComfortDelGro and I will not be surprised to see more news and attempts from Grab to battle CDG once again.

As such, I've decided to be a contented investor of CDG and keep this 100 free shares from them.
I'm a little sad today to say goodbye to its future outlook and the number of free burgers that I'll be possibly receiving from them annually.

But on the other hand, I'm glad that this 100 free shares will translate to 2 free Fillet-O-Fish meal each year for me.



So it this considered as a compounding free gift!?

CDG's 1Q18 Financial Presentation can be found here.
CDG's 1Q18 Financial Statement can be found here.

Read:
Accumulating ComfortDelGro
Portfolio Update - ComfortDelGro & Wilmar

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22 Years Old, Stepping Into The Field Of Investing

Reader:
Hey there,

I'm XX, ladyyoucanbefree introduced me to you when we have a quick chat. I have look across your blog and it was very impressive and eye opening for a guy at your age to have such planning on future.

I'm 22 this year, and would like to step into the field of investing. I'm currently working full time and studying part time now, and as what you quoted, I'm definitely not interested to be sticking at my office for more than half of my life. I'm very new to this game, and if you don't mind, can you guide me through how to start off in this journey? 

Side note, just curious, how much are you putting in for invest per month?

Thanks and hope to hear from you soon!

Me:

Hi XX,

First and foremost, a warm welcome to my blog. I'm really glad to know another young adult that is interested in taking the path towards financial freedom. A big thumbs up to you for the courage to venture into the field of investing. 


Ladyyoucanbefree is a very wise and experienced senior in our local financial blogosphere. Personally, I enjoy her post really much and have learned much from her. 
I've to first say that I'm in no position to provide any financial advice and I'm still learning along the way too :)  

Nonetheless, I'm more than glad to share my journey and thoughts with you.

To start off, let me answer your question on 'how much are you putting in for invest per month' - I do not have a fixed amount that I invest every month. As I'm previously studying full time and engaged in different part-time jobs, my income fluctuates pretty much around. I follow more closely to a fixed % rather than fixed amount. This % is a variable and you may tune it to your own comfort :)
Do note that this war chest is used strictly for investment only. In another word, funds for investment. The funds here will be used to purchase different investment vehicle such as stocks, bonds etc. 

The war chest is only used when I see opportunity in investment. Else, that funds will be inside, waiting for Mr Market to turn moody. When my income is lower, my war chest will have a lower amount and the opposite when my income is higher. 

In that sense, I understand that higher earnings in important, and that I will be able to live comfortably when my income is not that high for a particular month. 

1. Emergency Funds & Understanding your risk appetite:

For your case, I believe having a full-time job, your income is pretty much stable and fixed and it will be much easier for you to follow a fixed % if you should. Discipline is important for us and we must remember to set aside an adequate amount of emergency funds (based on your 6-12 month's monthly expenses).  This emergency funds will have to come in first before any investment so that in any case that an emergency comes, such as job-loss (loss of income) etc. you will not be suffocating from paying your day-to-day expenses. Having that said, your war-chest will not be utilized in an emergency for non-investment related activities. When your funds in war chest are used for non-invested related activities, this defeats the purpose of having one.

Some might be fine without emergency funds, some prefer more, some prefer less. 

This ultimately voices down to your risk appetite and level of comfort.
 
It is very important to first know yourself to determine this and certainly to choosing your investment gameplay/vehicle.

You may wish to refer to this post of mine for some a little more clues about my various accounts: 
How many accounts does 19-year-old student have?

2. Decide your investment vehicle (eg. Stocks, Bonds, FOREX, Precious Metals, Commodities, Cryptocurrency etc.) and Gameplay:

Next up, it's also important to differentiate and choose your gameplay in the market. Eg. Investor or Trader as both of their game works differently. An investor buys shares and keeps them for a really long-term whereas a trader trades for profit.

After choosing your gameplay, this is when you will need to identify the tool you will be using to "amplify" your wealth. It does not make perfect sense for me to invest in precious metal for dividend as they are non-income generating assets. 'Investors' of such asset classes typically buy into such asset in an attempt/believe for its value to appreciate. This is when they sell it to realize the capital gain/profit.

In that aspect, it may probably sound better to trade them as traders "earn" by the difference in price between buying and selling.

If you're into investing, there are another 4 routes for you to choose - Growth investors, Income investors, Passive Investors or certainly Speculative Investors and the common vehicle used here is the equities market (shares).

Growth investors or even value investors buy into things where that they see a growth/value in. Do not be confused by them although both growth and value investors sound pretty similar. In that aspect, they are looking into the fundamental of the company they are buying into and would tend to hold for a really long time.

Growth stocks receive returns from future capital appreciation (the difference between the amount paid for a stock and its current value), rather than dividends while Value stocks are those that tend to trade at a lower price relative to their fundamentals (including dividends, earnings, and sales).

For a simple analogy, it's just like buying a condominium at 800k when it's worth 1m.
For this condominium, there are future developments like MRT that are currently under construction and in an area near town. Hence, when the developments are completed, the value of this condominium is likely to fetch a higher price. The owner can then chooses to sell the property or certainly rent it for a higher price.

Income investors invest primarily in equities for the regular dividend. Eg. REITs or Business Trust. Likewise, we have to also understand the fundamental well for the REIT we are buying into and not a value trap. For a simple analogy, it's just like buying a house and renting the house out for rental income.

Speculative investors are more commonly seen around where they will buy into a particular investment vehicle with no homework is done or purely based on what they hear.

For example - John and Brock are good friends. Brock recommended Creative to John when Creative is trading at $10 after surging from $1 in 2 weeks. John, after hearing this piece of news, eagerly cashed in $10,000 and went in to buy stocks from Creative at $10. He then speculates that Creative will continue to surge past the $20 mark. However, the price is seen tumbling to $5.86 today. The question now is - Is Brock to be blamed? 

There's also another type of investors - the Passive Investor which invest in ETFs and maybe even robo advisor. Some common methods that they employ are the DCA (Dollar Cost Averaging) and Buy-and-Hold approach. Passive investors aim to maximize returns over the long run by keeping the amount of buying and selling to a minimum. The idea is to avoid the fees and the drag on performance that potentially occur from frequent trading. Passive investing is not aimed at making quick gains or at getting rich with one great bet, but rather on building slow, steady wealth over time.

This long-run could easily stretch over decades and several market cycle.

Read more: Passive Investing - Investopedia 

Related post:
Is Investment Really So Difficult?
Transaction cost - Are You a Trader or Investor

3. Setting up the required accounts for your gameplay:

I'd first have to admit that I'm more of an equities investor than a trader. Hence, I believe that my knowledge in the other field is inadequate.

  

Let's say you've decided to go along with investor and have chosen equities (stocks) to be the vehicle you would like to use, the next step for one to be engaged in Singapore equities will be to have a brokerage and CDP account.
The brokers will act as an agent for which you buy and sell your securities from and CDP account will act as an account for which your shares and bonds are deposited into/withdrawn from. There are many brokers available around and personally, I do own 2 different brokerage account - POEMS PCMA and DBS Vickers Cash Upfront. I have been using more of the latter recently due to the attractive commission they're charging for the moment.  

CDP account can be easily created when you register with your brokers and this is a one-time thing. When you decide to change your brokers, simply link your CDP account to your new brokerage account.  

Now, this is easy and it will only involve some waiting time and probably a visit to the broker.

For passive investing, one could use certain tools like OCBC BCIP, POSB Invest-Saver, POEMS share builder or Maybank MIP to purchase some shares or ETFs.

4. Preparing for the fight

Now next step is to do some homework. This can come by performing Fundamental Analysis (FA) to look into the fundamentals of the company you're buying into. FA will equip you with the necessary knowledge on how the company is currently priced at, their earnings, financial situation, cash flow etc. For this, you will look into the balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement, financial report and annual report for more clue. 

Another approach most commonly used by traders is Technical Analysis (TA). This is a tool which will tell us the probability of the price movement in the shorter term. We will also be able to identify if the counter is overbought, oversold, resistance level, support level, divergence etc. This can be used along together with FA for a possibly 'better' entry price.  

I will point you to some of my different post I've written previously and you may wish to take a look for some clue. 


Unfortunately, with my tiny capital and insufficient knowledge, I'm not a successful investor like what many would see around and I still have much to learn along the way. 

There are many bloggers around which have really insightful and comprehensive analysis around. Similarly, do take note that this is not a buying/selling call and take them with a pinch of salt!   

TA: Wilmar's Technical Analysis

FA: Wilmar's Analysis

There's many senior, wise and very experienced blogger around the local blogosphere which I would recommend for different insights and learnings as well.

1. AK71 - ASSI

2. Lady - Lady You Can Be Free

3. Uncle CW - CW8888

4. B - 3Fs

5. STE's Stock Investing Journey

You may also wish to drop by TheFinance.sg

TFS is basically a blog aggregator for the local financial blogs and you will be able to find many other bloggers around :)

Having that said, I hope that I've answered your queries and that you find the information above useful for you.

Do feel free to get back to me anytime, I'm more than glad to be of your service and will reply at my very first availability.

Regards,

sleepydevil

Singapore Savings Bond (SSB) - 1.68% (June 2018)

Now, this coming round of SSB in June 2018 is more interesting offering up to 1.68% interest for the first year!!

Image taken from SSB's site - www.sgs.gov.sg

I've previously blogged about 2 previous edition in May 2018 and Feb 2018, speaking about how attractive the interest look as compared to fixed deposit.



You may refer to the 2 articles below:
Singapore Savings Bond (SSB) - 1.65% (May 2018)
Singapore Savings Bond (SSB) - 1.55% (Feb 2018)

As a recap, on my thoughts about the shiny part for the Singapore Saving Bonds:

1. The flexibility in your funds
2. A risk-free place for you to park your money with no capital loss
3. A relatively lower amount required compared to FDs.  (In fact, SSB is offering a higher interest as compared to FD today)

Below is the interest rate table for the upcoming SSB June 2018:

Source: SSB

I've mentioned this in my earlier post on SSBs. But as a quick reminder to newer readers which might have missed out on that, one must bear in mind that it may seem really attractive for a risk-free bond to generate 1.68% on a short term of 1 year, only proceed on when this fund here is a spare fund to you and that you can last for at least a month while waiting for proceeds from redemption.



This is due to the waiting time in between your redemption of SSB for which the redemption of SSB will be only be closed on the last 4th business day of the month and proceeds will only be paid on the 2nd business day of the following month.

For more information on redemption, please check on from SSB's official website here.

Here are some important dates for this bond for anyone who's interested to consider:
Issue Date: 1 June 2018
Maturity Date: 1 June 2028
Interest Payment: 1st interest payment will be made on 1 Dec 2018, and subsequently every six months on 1 Jun and 1 Dec every year.

Application Period: 
Opens: 6.00pm, 2 May 2018
Closes: 9.00pm, 25 May 2018
Results: After 3.00pm, 28 May 2018

Similarly to the previous months, I will be looking to allocate my opportunity funds into the upcoming SSB edition.




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Portfolio - April 2018

Current Portfolio (30/04/2018)

No.	Counters	No. of Shares	Market Price (SGD)	Total Value (SGD) based on market price	Allocation %
1.	SingTel	500	3.52	1,760.00	18.10%
2.	Wilmar Intl	500	3.26	1,630.00	16.76%
3.	ComfortDelGro	700	2.25	1,575.00	16.20%
4.	Starhill Global REIT	1,700	0.72	1,224.50	12.59%
5.	Far East Orchard	800	1.48	1,184.00	12.17%
6.	AIMS AMP Cap REIT	400	1.42	568.00	5.84%
7.	Guocoland	200	2.17	434.00	4.46%
8.	Singapore Saving Bonds	1	1,000.00	1,000.00	10.28%
9.	Warchest	1	350.00	350.00	3.60%
	Total SGD:			9,725.00	100.00%

April has been a relatively silent yet happening month for my portfolio here. Despite having no capital injection, the value of my portfolio went up rather steadily with the increase in prices for a couple of my bigger holdings like ComfortDelGro and SingTel.

April is also a month where dividend farmers get themselves prepared for the harvesting of their fruits. And for the whole of April, only one small action took place in my portfolio, which is the shifting of $500.00 from my opportunity funds up there into May's edition of SSB.

The rationale behind doing so is to simply maximize my gains while I wait for an opportunity. It's important to have an adequate amount of cash inside the warchest while waiting for GSS.

To newer readers, it may seem really funny that this kiddo here tries to complicate things up by having several different warchest. But, guess my mental accounting bias is restricting myself from doing so.




Just in case anyone forgets, the warchest you see up there in my portfolio is an "additional" warchest I've established which I'll call it opportunity funds for which the funds inside will only be deployed during big financial events. The purchase of shares usually comes out from another warchest that I have on hand which is not listed here.

Read: Singapore Saving Bonds (SSB) - 1.65% (May 2018)

Upon writing this, I'm also rather shocked to learn that I'm actually in the market for 1.2 years already. Well. This is a very short duration. But as much as I always remember, it felt like I've only started investing days ago. Time really flies.

Nonetheless, I would once again like to take this as an opportunity to thank all the seniors along the way who have educated me well through the comments, blog post and even the readers for the continual support.

For now, I'll try to build up a more sizable cash position and is likely to do a capital injection in the coming days into my opportunity funds you see up there and might even look into the opportunity to do some portfolio balancing.

CDG, SGR, and Wilmar will undergo XD on 03/05/18, AA REIT on 04/05/18 and finally FEO on 14/05/18.

In a blink of an eye, 1H2018 is approaching in a couple of days time.

Will I be able to attain my target of SGD 10,000 in my portfolio value? I guess it's not too far for me to inject some capital in. By doing so, I will also be able to increase my liquid cash holdings.

$275 to go!

Overall Portfolio Performance (as of 30/04/18):
Total (Capital Injection) in 2017 = S$ 5,882.09 + 684.70 = 6,566.79
Total (Capital Injection) in 2018 = S$ 1,377.22

Total Capital Injection 2017 & 2018 = S$ 7,944.01

Realized P/L = 19.39% or S$ 1,586.35 (Based on cost)
Unrealized P/L = +0.55% or - S$ 43.91 (Based on cost)
Cum. Dividends = S$ 119.23
Realized + Unrealized P/L + Dividends = $ 1,749.49 (22.02% base on cost)




Current Portfolio Value: S$9,725.00 (+2.96% m.o.m due to capital injection, dividends and portfolio performance)

CAGR = 18.72% (Based on start date at 14/02/17) - Days Count: 440
XIRR = 16.29% (This high % you see here is due to the wild card from Crypto in 2017 and relatively short duration)

Should I discount the gains from crypto off and base them purely on SGX equities, I'm only looking at an overall XIRR of 6.77% in this crazy bull market. To be more specific, a 3.71% XIRR in 2017 and 10.8% XIRR in 2018.

Guess I've much more to learn about.

Both XIRR and CAGR % is on a relatively high side due to the short duration that I'm in the market.

As the time goes on, the % will be significantly reduced and adjusted based on time. A big contributing factor is due to crypto gain which takes up a significant part of my portfolio. I'm lucky and fortunate to have profited from this event, but this is just a one-off event.

A simple bear market will be more than sufficient to wipe out all the % you see on top.




Current Cash Position (based on Opportunity Funds + SSB) = 13.92%

 

Dividends received in April: $ 0
Total dividends received in 2018: $39.91
Average dividends/month: $3.32




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