Capital preservation vs Capital appreciation.
Now that I have purchased my own home, both my wife and I are deeply in debt (hahaha)
It's in a nice location really near our workplace and is considered really near town, think walking distance. According to the widely practiced financial calculations it is within range of the 3: 3: 5 calculations. (although is more to the higher end) We opt to kept our downpayments low to hoard cash and max out borrowings at 1.95% for two years. This gives us both arbitrage of 0.55% via our CPF and with the amount of money we have there is overall savings.
Some friends asked and I thought i should pen down my thought process. Why Bank Loans?
Reason is simple, if the USA raises the interest rates in the long term the CPF board will adjust accordingly. Just because the interest is stuck at 2.6% for the last 10 plus years doesnt mean it wouldnt happen. I did a bit of historical checks and thought that might be the case. Also with the current rates we saved around 0.55% for two years.
I have also sold my current flat and the proceeds should be in by end of this year. based on what I have now i am inclined to have 50% locked up in some low risk bonds (AAA if possible) but non of the options I have could give me near 3%. You need at least 250k a pop for the really good products.
Thursday, November 8, 2018
Sunday, October 7, 2018
How poor management leads to spiraling decline
When we talk about poor management most of the time we refer to the guys sitting at the top giving directions to the organization. But from what I see unique in my kind of workplace is the middle management. The guys at the middle who typically lead small teams (relative to organization size) .
One common trait is to hide all bad news and attribute painful decisions to top management but simple truth may be it doesn't affect them and hence they did.nothing to fight against it. A smaller work station? Good idea, but I have my own private office , type of stuff. They do not take much ownership of projects in their team, preferring to manage remotely due to either a lack of interest or technical expertise (which they should have! ). Thirdly, they do not know how to manage people. That can manifest in many ways but the common one would be making the guys who work without complaining work more And leaving trouble makers alone .Over time, good staff who realise the inequalities will leave. This is similar to the doves and hawks theory of large multinational organizations.
I came to a point where I felt my efforts only amounts to probably 25%of my success, and the rest is putting on a show, staying out of trouble, and years of services, and luck . Shall leave my efforts to focus on other endeavors in life
One common trait is to hide all bad news and attribute painful decisions to top management but simple truth may be it doesn't affect them and hence they did.nothing to fight against it. A smaller work station? Good idea, but I have my own private office , type of stuff. They do not take much ownership of projects in their team, preferring to manage remotely due to either a lack of interest or technical expertise (which they should have! ). Thirdly, they do not know how to manage people. That can manifest in many ways but the common one would be making the guys who work without complaining work more And leaving trouble makers alone .Over time, good staff who realise the inequalities will leave. This is similar to the doves and hawks theory of large multinational organizations.
I came to a point where I felt my efforts only amounts to probably 25%of my success, and the rest is putting on a show, staying out of trouble, and years of services, and luck . Shall leave my efforts to focus on other endeavors in life
Sunday, September 2, 2018
September updates and a new perspective
Investment
The bad sentiment for the local market has led to poor performance by the index as well as my own portfolio. In a hurry to liquidate or establish better ratios from the heavy Singtel / Jumbo / DS I had bought into MLT FLT and added position in UMS.
I felt that I was kind of in a forced situation, wait out the bad tide or do something. In the end I tried to do something that is out of my usual habit and thus it reflected poorly in my portfolio performance.
Work
Work wise, it was a rather disappointing year. My team went through several manpower changes and with each shuffle and reappointment I seem to get the bulk of the duties with no recognition. There is also a culture of sweeping past mistakes under the carpet as long as we can point all mistakes to the last person who quit. I have just completed my annual review and this time round I sense its not going to be positive. It was to be expected, as I was literally set up to failed.
I was loaded with my almost two persons portfolio and all they could comment was minor inconsequential errors. with the resignation of my section head, I was taking over majority of her portfolio plus my own and a previously transferred manager's work. on the other side of the room I have people leaving at 5pm daily. One can only be "positive" for so long before he snaps. The last two years I came to understand and experience for myself how true top performers would eventually leave a poorly managed organisation
Burnt weekends, midnight reports and political badmouthing by people within the same team. It makes me wonder if all was worth that illusionary jump in grade, the difference is probably $1,000 while the workload is unjustly high (unless you are one of those who jiak liao bee). R passed away last Wednesday and it struck me how meaningless to feel upset over an organisation that sees us as numbers, and focus on selected few … truly 3rd tier and substandard. The biggest joke that happened that day was our office was busy verifying the staff survey completion percentage.... when someone had passed away !!!
I have decided to take a step back and just do the bare minimum. My renewed focus and drive should be on external income for early FIRE. I shall work hard for myself. I shall OT and work on weekends for myself. I shall upgrade myself and achieve my personal goals
Life
I also advanced to the next stage in life, having met someone wonderful. We have decided to purchase our home. This marks the next big responsibility and I wonder if it has to do with my recent urgency / stress at work. Maybe I wouldn't care so much if I wasn't taking a bank loan?
Its a cosy place with everything I wished for as a kid.
The bad sentiment for the local market has led to poor performance by the index as well as my own portfolio. In a hurry to liquidate or establish better ratios from the heavy Singtel / Jumbo / DS I had bought into MLT FLT and added position in UMS.
I felt that I was kind of in a forced situation, wait out the bad tide or do something. In the end I tried to do something that is out of my usual habit and thus it reflected poorly in my portfolio performance.
Work
Work wise, it was a rather disappointing year. My team went through several manpower changes and with each shuffle and reappointment I seem to get the bulk of the duties with no recognition. There is also a culture of sweeping past mistakes under the carpet as long as we can point all mistakes to the last person who quit. I have just completed my annual review and this time round I sense its not going to be positive. It was to be expected, as I was literally set up to failed.
I was loaded with my almost two persons portfolio and all they could comment was minor inconsequential errors. with the resignation of my section head, I was taking over majority of her portfolio plus my own and a previously transferred manager's work. on the other side of the room I have people leaving at 5pm daily. One can only be "positive" for so long before he snaps. The last two years I came to understand and experience for myself how true top performers would eventually leave a poorly managed organisation
Burnt weekends, midnight reports and political badmouthing by people within the same team. It makes me wonder if all was worth that illusionary jump in grade, the difference is probably $1,000 while the workload is unjustly high (unless you are one of those who jiak liao bee). R passed away last Wednesday and it struck me how meaningless to feel upset over an organisation that sees us as numbers, and focus on selected few … truly 3rd tier and substandard. The biggest joke that happened that day was our office was busy verifying the staff survey completion percentage.... when someone had passed away !!!
I have decided to take a step back and just do the bare minimum. My renewed focus and drive should be on external income for early FIRE. I shall work hard for myself. I shall OT and work on weekends for myself. I shall upgrade myself and achieve my personal goals
Life
I also advanced to the next stage in life, having met someone wonderful. We have decided to purchase our home. This marks the next big responsibility and I wonder if it has to do with my recent urgency / stress at work. Maybe I wouldn't care so much if I wasn't taking a bank loan?
Its a cosy place with everything I wished for as a kid.
Friday, March 2, 2018
2018 Spring Ramblings
I have been quite busy due to the added portfolio at work. I have always told my friend D that one of the reasons I do not like to trade as often as he does or go for low yield counters is that I would not have time to monitor and take profits off it. The start of 2018 hasn't been kind to me and in ways which I would have expected or rather knew.. it happened. My portfolio took quite a hit.
Ramblings on my noob investments
A few things to learn, risk management in the most simplest form of percentage of holdings. In hindsight I have too much of Singtel and Design Studio followed by Jumbo. The combined weightage is easily 45% and thus a serious change in fundamentals off singtel and drop in business profit from Design Studio impacted my portfolio greatly.
Jumbo was doing well as a business, however from shareholder point of view their high capex would mean that profits per share remains muted and this does not bode well for my original intent to buy for growth.
There are good news too, RHT seemingly found a way out and the sale of asset might very well be on the way.. fingers crossed as the Singh brothers are known to flip prata. (pun intended) With that it brings closure to another one of my original high yielding companies.
FCL has been renamed to Frasers Property Limited, other than that nothing much has changed it is however slowly becoming more of a property management company with half of its revenue in recurring form. The only reason not adding more is the weightage on my portfolio, rising ir issue as FPL is already at a debt lvl of 80% iirc.
Things I could have done better for Q1 2018 investment
Selling Singtel for what could have been more than 3-4 years of yield. instead of holding a dying industry. This is a counter which move sideways. What made this worse was that it was the same situation with m1 and starhub many years back. I truly believe that most GLC lack the creativity as well as business acumen to navigate these times. Too many parachuted scholars with no real working world experience?
Not holding on to my Semi con stocks. At 7-10 years of fwd yield I wouldn't say I sold too early, however I would feel occasional pang of envy watching UMS, Venture and other semicon stocks seemingly fly to endless heights.
Buying Wheelock too early- just bad TA, blame no one but myself - however this is a really interesting stock it is holding 750mil of cash and zero debts lol !
Things to do for Q2 2018 - investments
Balance the holdings so that none of the counters exceed 15% max
Watch out for Design Studio's direction- it was a bad year for them. while not much details was mentioned, I suspect the previous CFO and CEO did something unprofessional and thus casued a major loss for Q4-despite the price tanking almost 30% I believe that the brand name of the group as well as its cash position should be able to steer the ship back. Hold.
Saving up for Venture A
Venture A was a major risk I decided to take on due to my circumstances. I would require both strength of mind and heart. Slowly but surely persevere towards it
The daily grind
I very excited and nervous about my upcoming report card at work. The hours of late nights and weekend work which I had put in are not only taxing but also a huge change in my personal habits being a gamer (-_-). 3 weeks left to announcement, and I've done all I could. My backup plan would be to rotate to new department or new organization should nothing pans out. Fingers crossed.
Ramblings on my noob investments
A few things to learn, risk management in the most simplest form of percentage of holdings. In hindsight I have too much of Singtel and Design Studio followed by Jumbo. The combined weightage is easily 45% and thus a serious change in fundamentals off singtel and drop in business profit from Design Studio impacted my portfolio greatly.
Jumbo was doing well as a business, however from shareholder point of view their high capex would mean that profits per share remains muted and this does not bode well for my original intent to buy for growth.
There are good news too, RHT seemingly found a way out and the sale of asset might very well be on the way.. fingers crossed as the Singh brothers are known to flip prata. (pun intended) With that it brings closure to another one of my original high yielding companies.
FCL has been renamed to Frasers Property Limited, other than that nothing much has changed it is however slowly becoming more of a property management company with half of its revenue in recurring form. The only reason not adding more is the weightage on my portfolio, rising ir issue as FPL is already at a debt lvl of 80% iirc.
Things I could have done better for Q1 2018 investment
Selling Singtel for what could have been more than 3-4 years of yield. instead of holding a dying industry. This is a counter which move sideways. What made this worse was that it was the same situation with m1 and starhub many years back. I truly believe that most GLC lack the creativity as well as business acumen to navigate these times. Too many parachuted scholars with no real working world experience?
Not holding on to my Semi con stocks. At 7-10 years of fwd yield I wouldn't say I sold too early, however I would feel occasional pang of envy watching UMS, Venture and other semicon stocks seemingly fly to endless heights.
Buying Wheelock too early- just bad TA, blame no one but myself - however this is a really interesting stock it is holding 750mil of cash and zero debts lol !
Things to do for Q2 2018 - investments
Balance the holdings so that none of the counters exceed 15% max
Watch out for Design Studio's direction- it was a bad year for them. while not much details was mentioned, I suspect the previous CFO and CEO did something unprofessional and thus casued a major loss for Q4-despite the price tanking almost 30% I believe that the brand name of the group as well as its cash position should be able to steer the ship back. Hold.
Saving up for Venture A
Venture A was a major risk I decided to take on due to my circumstances. I would require both strength of mind and heart. Slowly but surely persevere towards it
The daily grind
I very excited and nervous about my upcoming report card at work. The hours of late nights and weekend work which I had put in are not only taxing but also a huge change in my personal habits being a gamer (-_-). 3 weeks left to announcement, and I've done all I could. My backup plan would be to rotate to new department or new organization should nothing pans out. Fingers crossed.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Recently, I have read a book title "Whisky . Japan" and it inspired me to plan for a whiskey distillery trip in Japan.
While planning , reading and stuff I chanced upon some old libraries around the world and I thought wow maybe I should do a library tour too. Library of Alexandria, Harry Potter library etc etc..
So there.. in case I forgot Whiskey Tour and Library Tour
While planning , reading and stuff I chanced upon some old libraries around the world and I thought wow maybe I should do a library tour too. Library of Alexandria, Harry Potter library etc etc..
So there.. in case I forgot Whiskey Tour and Library Tour
Recently I feel that I am on the brink of evolving or growth. I have plenty of thoughts and ideas, most of which I have not panned out the execution portion of them. I feel that there is a need to pen down my thought process and perhaps one day it will become a great business idea, a good nugget of information or just laugh it off at my younger self's thoughts.
Work is definitely getting busier ever since I decided to gun for a promotion. But at times I wonder if the extra hours and effort is worth the end rewards? Although my organization is a stable paymaster and compensation packages are fairly good (especially during bad economic climate) the scope of work I am doing does not seem to propel me for future growth. Nor do I feel that it is able to link me up with the future opportunities and trends.
I must remind myself to read broadly and selective in the way I spend my time, should I wish to be able to stay healthy and enjoy ample time to pursue the things I truly love.
Hopefully, before age 45 or so I would be able to reach my goals and embark on my new phase of life.
Work is definitely getting busier ever since I decided to gun for a promotion. But at times I wonder if the extra hours and effort is worth the end rewards? Although my organization is a stable paymaster and compensation packages are fairly good (especially during bad economic climate) the scope of work I am doing does not seem to propel me for future growth. Nor do I feel that it is able to link me up with the future opportunities and trends.
I must remind myself to read broadly and selective in the way I spend my time, should I wish to be able to stay healthy and enjoy ample time to pursue the things I truly love.
Hopefully, before age 45 or so I would be able to reach my goals and embark on my new phase of life.
Sunday, October 1, 2017
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.
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.
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