I took the plunge recently with the small pot of savings I have to invest in a venture (call it venture A). This would be significant risk and may jeopardize many things such as marriage and ability to say f**k you at work. If it turns out well, not only would I stand to hold significant capital gains, it would likely fulfil my criteria of 6%yield on a long term basis.

Since this venture place a significant dent to my warchest, I would be on a semi-hiatus for my stocks portfolio, likely rotation play and yield accumulating only.

I would also need to cut expenses and rack up savings to prepare for new warchest and also fund the venture A.

In a sense this is also a good discipline exercise for me to save up. I am not getting any younger and I figured that a need a way to force myself to save. Rather than taking my chances with insurances and endowment I would rather spend my money on a venture.

Stocks wise, I bought back into UMS after seeing it reached a support of 0.9SGD and felt that it was oversold. It is now $1.SGD and I feel more is to come once bonus shares (1 for 4) is confirmed.

I also bought a few lots of Accordia Golf Trust as a form of replacement over Croesus Retail Trust's hi-yield role in my portfolio. I would buy more if it dips as this trust carries more risk than CRT. Looking at Dec dividend of 4.5% to 5% based on its monthly reports.  - Update 2018 Sold AGT in Late 2017 for 1.5 yr gains on yield due to lower utilization rate. Good decision to take quick profits.

Investing for Hi-yield 2

So one of the short cuts I take when searching for stocks to purchase would be to scour the net (forums, magazines, bank investment articles and such) for some ideas. Two ways to work on this: one is to research on the recommendations, the second method is to avoid those recommendations as you would assume that all attention is being placed heavily on it and it is probably fully valued or the BBs are creating a hype to unload it to retailers. (comfort anyone?)

I saw a mention of Pan Hong Holdings some weeks back, being an undervalued counter (way below nav I think -50%?) and it pays out pretty high dividends of >5% I started to look into it. Normally I am skeptical of anything related to china , especially if these related to properties in less than ideal 3rd tiered cities. However the valuations and figures are so compelling, assuming it was slightly overvalued, there is still much meat left. I took the plunge with a small position and it all turned out well shortly after with the company announcing a div in specie to unlock shareholder value by distributing shares of Sino Harbour. Two weeks, 25% gain including div. Some hindsight as a lesson to myself:

1) always do enough groundwork- work caught up with me recently and I did minimal research which led to selling too soon (no confidence) and not averaging down (when it drop from 23c to 19c)

2) I forgot to look at float. At 74% (cant recall) privately held, PH is definitely something like FCL and Simlian where majority shareholder would feel the pain of a low share price. Its high dividend policy also suggest that like the aforementioned two companies, the "returns" are distributed via dividends. Simlian took themselves private due to the severe undervalue and in that year (2015?) they were slated to distribute around 10% yield. Why share the profit with a bunch of fools who doesn't not value your wonderful company? I would take myself private too. lol

3) always have a clear pre-buy list ready. You never know when you will be busy to the point where you are unable to make off the fly decisions. I missed out on Wilmar and CWT as I was unsure, but in end it was a clear free angbao by the BBs which many of my friend took advantage while I was out of the picture and was too late.

4) not keeping up with news. I didn't even realized NK shot some missiles till my colleagues told me.. oh man...

Investing for Hi-yield

The local stock market has been extremely buoyant lately and to add on the stock picks I've achieved exceptional returns for some stocks due to entering much earlier than analyst calls. I felt its 50% luck 50% effort. I do not think I would be able to achieve the same type of returns at the 2H 2017.

UMS - 70% returns for 5months time
Hotung - 35% for 5 months time
FCL - 15% for 3 months time (ex div)
Croesus - Pte offer 32% up (this is a sad lost)
I am still holding on to Design Studio. (30% gain)

The issue with rising prices and chasing for yield is when big boys sweep up good companies which are undervalued. I'm now stripped of the following ;8% yielders since 2015: Croesus, Saizen, Sim Lian, UMS, Hotung (first 3 being completely privatised so there is no hope of coming back).

Now what do I do with the profit? Too little to purchase property to lock up value.. I'm stuck with a market that offers APPT, BHG, IREIT, LIPPO for high yielders ... ugh... the quality pales in comparison.

Non-reits which off >7% are increasingly rare and usually these dividends fluctuates. I shall hold on my cash for now.. but this surely would hurt my dividends in 2018 if I could not identify replacement stock for Croesus reit past Q3 2017.