What's Going on the Market?

I have no idea, and I do not care. I think I only see and feel like its a Great Singapore Sale going on!

I executed a couple of positions, my existing position got bad drawdowns, but I'm feeling no panic because I am in for the long run.

My 500 shares of Sembcorp Marine bought at 3.04 has been dropping ever since, partly due to fall in oil price, and now the panic seems to be spread from the China market. I have no intention to sell at the moment, probably leave it in the cold storage.

I have transacted STI ETF at 3.23, 3.10 and 2.90, at 100 shares each.

Suntec REITs at 1.51, Mapletree Industrial Trust at 1.40.

These should basically sum up the core of my local portfolio.

Current allocation:
Local Equities: Sembcorp + STI ETF (including POSB invest saver position) = 65%
Local REITs: 10%
Local Bonds: 15%
Foreign Equities: 10%

My target allocation:
Local Equities: 50% (STI ETF as core)
Local REITs: 10% (Suntec + Mapletree Industrial, as both are not tracked under STI)
Local Bonds: 20% (ABF Bond Index ETF as core + Cash warchest component)
Foreign Equities: 20% (Vanguard FTSE All-World ETF + iShares Core MSCI World ETF both under London Stock Exchange, as core)

Not sure if I should lower my REITs component to increase my foreign equities allocation, because I like the dividend yield on local REITs.

As for Bonds, I plan to put in place a small portion in it in future, namely these two:
1) iShares J.P. Morgan USD Asia Credit Bond Index ETF (SGD)
2) iShares Barclays USD Asia High Yield Bond Index ETF (SGD)

Local investors are sucker for yields, because we are not being taxed so heavily like in the US for capital gains or dividends.

I am saving hard, not hard enough though, to see my plan in place.

Monthly Investment

The following is a piece I got from an investment book calls "The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing".

John C. Bogle, founder and retired CEO of The Vanguard Group, received a letter from a Vanguard shareholder. The person wrote that he had been investing with Vanguard since the mid 1970s. Since then, the value of his portfolio has grown about $1,250,000. And the most fascinating part is, this shareholder never earned more than $25,000 a year in his life time!

Moral of the story is to be start investing early, so that you can make use of the magic of compounding. Set aside your monthly paycheck for fixed expenses, insurances, bills, donations and savings, before setting aside a fixed amount of the remaining to spend.

Reason why I suggest fixed amount to spend is that as your salary increases as years goes by, your misc expenses may unknowingly increase, even though you have already set aside the fixed expenditures.

Since 5 years ago, when I started out in the workforce a couple of years, my misc expenses such as dining & entertainment has always been allocated the same amount. Of course there are times when I overshot! Besides having more bills to pay after having my own house, I channel the additional salary (after these years) to my savings.

Once my emergency cash has been built, the time for investing comes!

My first step out was in POSB Invest-Saver, starting really small as I build up my emergency cash. Monthly dollar-cost averaging into investing Nikko AM STI ETF.

This is an exchange-traded fund that tracks the Straits Times Index (STI). By purchasing this, you technically own the top 30 blue chip companies ranked by market capitalisation on the Singapore Exchange.

Have been on it a year now, it is affordable and hassle-free as it deducts from your bank account on every 12th of the month. You do not have to time the market, you do not have to wait for your order to be filled.

I will share more on this next post.

New Journey

As the title suggests, this will be a boring investment blog. Then why create it? I just simply miss writing lol.

My reason for this to be an 'insipid' investment blog is that my current investment strategy will be very dull and straight forward. No more daily trades like in my forex days years ago. And notice the word investment instead of trading. I am now taking long term horizon instead of swing trading, and specifically, in equities, and sometimes bonds.

Online poker has been banned in Singapore. I did not top-up my busted forex account. As per my last update, I have moved into my own house, and there are many things to handle, especially household errands, relationship building etc. Life has been great and I hope to be more focused on career building, better relationships with family and friends, and passive wealth building. No more active trading and hours facing charts for me.

Let's fire & forget. Go grab a beer and enjoy life.

After going back to square one in terms of savings due to house renovation, I am aiming to slowly build up my investment portfolio and time goes, after setting aside emergency cash (6 months of expenses). I did a lot of self-research and forum surfing for the past one year, and moving forward, my insipid strategy will be investing in index ETF, equities and bonds mixed.

I will do occasional updates on my holdings and transactions. This blog will be updated non-regularly as I do not wish to Buy or Sell so I can write. I am learning how to display my puny portfolio into a page using google sheet for live update.

Finally, after all these while, I can be back !