How much have I earned and lost in 2023?

 Objective for 2023 was "To continue to load up on FD if rates stay at 4% and above, and buy stocks when yields are attractive. By attractive, I will look at prevailing 1 yr FD rate +3%."

I was extremely lucky to have deposited FD when FD rates peaked at Dec 2022 and Jan 2023. Every month after that had seen FD rates going lower and lower until 3%. When the FD matures, the prevailing rate now is around 3.5% which is still decent.

I was extremely lucky to have applied and allocated the Dec SSB issue where 10-year interest rate was 3.40%. The maximum allocation was $20,000, and I applied for $20,000, so I am grateful. Every month I had to evaluate whether to redeem an earlier issue, while balancing the odds for partial allocation, and to maximise SSB returns. For example, do I redeem 3.0% to apply for 3.2%, and what if I redeem $20k, but I only get allocated $10k in the new issue due to over subscription? or do I redeem my 2015 issue that is currently paying me 3.3% for another 2 years until Oct 2025 to apply for 3.4% for 10 years, but what if I get partial allocation?

In Jun, I wiped out a large sum of savings to make partial repayment for my mortgage loan so that my monthly repayment remains the same. After my 1% fixed rate was up and the float rate was like 4.5%! As I don't know where rates were heading, I signed a 3-year fixed rate of 3.38%. In the freak event that rates drop to 1.8% and below next year, I will pay the 1.5% penalty for early loan redemption.

Stocks was so-so for me. I decided to buy into the dip for REITs, which I thought is right for my portfolio, but I must also set a disclaimer that the risk premium for stocks is not justiable. Risk free rate is 3.5% but Reit stock dividends are just 5-6%. So it does seem that there are cash rich investors who are loading up on Reits too anticipating a rebound.

Stocks I bought for the year:

Prime US Reit (Jan, Jun)

Seatrium (Feb - because of Keppel Corp sold away their oil and gas business to Semb Corp, so shareholders were given shares in the new entity Seatrium)

AIMS AMP Reit (Jun)

Keppel Reit (Jun, Nov)

Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Reit (Jun, Aug, Oct)

Stocks I sold:

Singtel (Jun)

SIA Engineering (Jun, Jul)

Unfortunately my "managed funds" are all losing a lot of money. Those double whammy kind where I have to pay the investment specialist 1% and still make a loss of 50%. Total amount of money in this managed fund portfolio is 50k (in China unit trusts and US ETFs). I won't add anymore to it and also won't be cutting losses because I can't guarantee that I can recover the losses in another investment because there is definitely economic slowdown in the various China industries from the government's clamp down efforts to prevent escalating debt, banning monopoly, banning tuition, banning gaming, and we don't know what else.

What caught me by surprise was the CPF SA and MA rates were  revised upwards slightly to 4.08%. Who would have thought that the the 4% floor rate could change? 

Finally the silver lining to the less than ideal investments made in managed funds, my passive income is slowly rolling and reached $2k/month this year. Yield was 6.1% largely due to increasing Reit holdings and record profits from banks. It's amazing to think that I persisted for 20 years, reading financial reports and reading even more financial reports and not getting sick of it. Many of my colleagues and friends say that I am one-of-a-kind now because my investment philosophy is seen in everything I say and do everyday and for every kind of situation, be it family, personal, work, or any other random situations.

I thought a technical recession will hit this year but it didn't. I thought it was mathematically impossible for interest rates to remain high because many companies will go bankrupt, and it's still high and hasn't come down.

My objective for 2024 will be to add more Reits for as long as valuations are attractive (i.e. > 95% occupancy and good location and >7% yields). Reits are becoming like investment funds where some funds can just go bust if they don't manage their cash flow and maintain their assets and customers well. 

Market Observations - Jun 2023 - Bargains appearing

As we approach the mid year, I am jotting down some of my thoughts. I also re-read the pieces written the past few years to reflect and assess if I need to calibrate my decision-making process.

Compared with the first six months of last year where crypto went through a boom and bust, and Russian sanctions disrupted raw material supply big time, the first six months of this year was peacefully quiet. The contrast is so stark that it feels like we are in the eye of the storm -- no sound, no wind, you can hear a needle fall on the floor, market frenzy indicators (bond yield curve, inflation rate, debt-to-GDP ratio) are all shouting abnormality, yet economic indicators (unemployment rate, non-performing-loans, salary growth) looks like a normal market expansion.

With that backdrop, I will be sharing a bit of what I did in the past six 6 months in a few areas.

Singapore Savings Bonds (SSB)

I had been applying for SSB every month since Jun last year, redeeming lower yield issues, and replacing them with newer higher yield issues, and the last issue I bought was the May issue (apply in Apr, issued on 1 May). As a result, I now have SSB from 9 different issue dates, and the lowest 10-yr rates is 2.9%. Why I couldn't bump out my 2.9% issue was because I balanced returns and risk not being allocated the issue due to multiple over-subscribed issues, such as SBDec22 GX22120S 3.47% where the maximum allocated was $14,500. Had the Jun issue been >3%, that 2.9% issue would have been recycled. As you can buy and redeem in the same cycle, you need to have enough cash "float" -- which means if I want to redeem $30,000 from a previous issue, I need to deduct $30,000 from my bank account to apply for the next issue first, then wait for 4-5 days for the $30,000 from the redemption to be returned to my bank account. 

My objective was to create a "bond ladder" -- stagger $200,000 (which is the SSB max threshold) over 6 months so that there is interest payout every month, hence each issue I recycled was also about $30,000, except for some months where SSB was over-subscribed and there was a cap. I am happy with this part of portfolio which I don't need to worry about for the next 10 years if savings interest rates were to fall. If rates rise, then I will continue to recycle the cash. Just for my future musing, these were the issues with allocation cap:

• SBAug22 GX22080V 3.0% - $9,000
• SBNov22 GX22110A 3.21% - $10,000
• SBDec22 GX22120S 3.47% - $14,500
• SBJAN23 GX23010Z 3.26% - $172,500

So if you had been lucky enough to apply $172,500 in Dec for Jan issue, you will be guaranteed 3.26% interest over 10 years. 

From the SSB rates, we can see that rates peaked in Dec 2022. 

Fixed Deposit

Dec was also the month I rushed to place 1-year fixed deposits at CIMB at 4.15% p.a. I deployed all my cash into FD. The cash I got from my stock sale were all put in FD and SSB. You will only understand the cash strapped feeling when you actually have to calculate your daily expenses needs to ensure you don't run out of cash, yet at the same time maximise the returns of redeeming older issues and applying new issues. There were a few days where I felt like I had miscalculated and out of money, and I had that few moments of understanding of what people living in poverty feel everyday. I borrowed some money to cover some big expenses, and also deferred certain payments until I get some money back in early Jan, and my T-bills maturing in Mar.

FD rates also peaked in Dec. 

REITs

REITs in Singapore was relatively overvalued where blue chip dividend rates were 4.5% vs 4.15% FD, so I bought Prime US REIT which was one of the better distressed pure-US REIT (the other SGX listed REITs were Manulife, KBS, Digital Core). There was a momentary rebound in Jan-Feb where you felt like you struck lottery buying them -- rising 20% in a week at one point, and then the next moment, it will crash down lower. To give you a sense of the descend, I will list my transactions:

• 21 Oct 2022 - buy 8,000 @ 0.45
• 9 Jan 2023 - buy 10,000 @ 0.385
• 1 Jun 2023 - buy 15,000 @ 0.20

My average price is USD 0.32. The "usual" dividend is 6.8 cents (which is 31% yield based on the last done price of 0.22). How I worked out my margin of safety is to assume a 50% reduction in dividend, and I decided to add more to reduce my average price, to translate to 10% yield if dividends drop by 50%. Of course if dividends drop by 75%, then my yield will be 5% instead, and if dividends drop to 0, then my yield is 0, but this is just risk-return trade-offs. Overall, sizing matters and this is about 3% of my SG-stock portfolio. Prime US REIT is the only stock I bought since my last purchase of UOB stock in Aug 2022 where banks look super attractive because their yields were higher than blue chip REITs.

Warchest

If not for the fact that I did partial capital repayment to reduce my mortgage loan (to reduce interest payments), I would have nibbled a little on SG REITs (the Keppel and Mapletrees are really very attractive now). :P This is the classic investor's dilemma, when bargains appear, you are likely equally to be cash deprived, and my strategy is to maintain a warchest to capitalise on windows of opportunity. If tomorrow the REITs I am eyeing on become 7% yield players, I will deploy my warchest. Until that happens, risk premium isn't attractive enough to slaughter a 3% paying 10-yr risk-free bond - SSB.

Housing Loan

I was very lucky to secure 1% p.a. fixed 1-year loan early last year for my mortgage loan. I recently did loan repricing and secured a 3.38% p.a. fixed 3-year loan. I had to sign a new contract because without a new contract, I will need to pay 4.5% p.a. I will only know if I am lucky 1 year later. There was an article about 38% of residential mortgage loans are now on floating rates loan package, 7 months ago the figure was 37%, so if there is anything to read into the 1% increase, it's that consumers generally expect rates to fall. Fixed rates in banks across the board have fallen from the Jan peaks of more than 4%.

Why I chose a 3-year loan as opposed to a fixed 3.65% 1-year loan was because I don't know where rates are heading in the future. If I had known that rates can rise 500% in 1 year, I would have opted for the 3-year 1.85% p.a. loan back when I chose the 1-year loan. If rates fall back to 1.85% within 1 year, I will just pay the 1.5% penalty to break the contract and switch bank.

Conclusion

We are not in blood-on-the-streets yet. We averted a crash thanks to the US central bank committing to guarantee all Silicon Valley Bank deposits above the deposit insurance limit of USD 250,000. That bank run would have crashed the markets. Today's market feels very similar to 2011 where there are signs of fragility in pockets of the economy and when Syria war started, every little jiggle triggers some panic and risk evaluation. This is the start of the bargain market. Back then I described the market as having the various large central banks applying a "damping function" to slow the impact of a crash over the course of a few years. Since 2011, I had the same "feels like 2011" feeling in the 2015 china flash crash where bank stocks crashed from trading firm bankruptcy, bribery scandals and oil price crash, and then the 2016 REITs crashed, and when everyone thought there was more to come, the REITs crash were the last. Post Mar 2020 covid crash, there was the same "feels like 2011" after that.

If there is going to be any recession in the second half of the year, my guess is that it's going to be a technical recession. Based on the track record of how various central banks respond to these mini crisis, it's hard to foresee a full blown market crash like that one we saw in Lehman brothers where the "Big Short" movie portrayed the Fed as the last potential saviour who did not bail out the first casualty fast enough.

How much have I earned and lost in 2022?

 Objective for 2022 was "Stay the course and trim down the non-performers."

2022 was really volatile and most of the times, I was in self-doubt, which also explains the lack of blog posts. I wasn't even sure if my analysis was 51% correct or 51% wrong. Fed's tightening started many corrections. Each time after a correction happens, there is a rally, and no one knows if it's a bear rally (which means just up a bit but head down even more) or bull rally (up up and away).

Stocks I bought for the year:

Astrea 7 4.125% (Mar)

Daiwa House Logistics Trust (Jun)

UOB (Aug)

Prime US Reit (Oct)

Stocks I sold:

Isoteam (Mar)

Japan Food Holdings (Sep)

ST Engineering (Nov)

STI ETF (Nov)

Full year dividend income for my SG portfolio was higher at $13.8k (4.9% yield), mainly because of dividend recovery post- pandemic. I also sold some shares to cover losses for some of the non-performers. The shares I sold were at prices where their dividend yields were below the 4% SG gov treasury bills yields.

I was buying every single issue of Singapore Savings Bonds to the max of $200k/person, and then redeeming earlier issues that had lower yields to recycle them into the higher yield issues. I also put some money in FD when it was 4%, and 6 month treasury bills when it was 3.3%. I don't know, but somehow stock yields are just 5% and it's like a no-brainer to put money in FD that is risk-free and pays 4%.

My objective for 2023 will be to continue to load up on FD if rates stay at 4% and above, and buy stocks when yields are attractive. By attractive, I will look at prevailing 1 yr FD rate +3%.

Overall, my gut feel is that we are already in a recession, but it's a balance sheet recession kind of recession. Maybe a technical recession will be logged in 6 month's time, but we are deep in one now. Inflation will likely remain until the next black swan event which we won't know what it will be.

Interest rates increased a lot in the last 6 months. My view is that it's mathematically impossible for loan interest rates to remain high because many countries and companies will go bankrupt. The question without an answer is how much non performing loans can the market absorb. We had been fortunate live through 2 decades of growth fueled by loans and no one can imagine the impact with loans are reduced.

And finally... a glimpse of my boring chart. Passive income went up a teeny bit, but still in the same range of 1.3k/month.

Market Observations - Jul 2022 - Turning Tide

 The past 6 months could have been a fiction book if we didn't live through it: 

• Crypto currency Luna levitated to godlike levels and crashed to almost 0 (less than 1 cent). At its peak on 5 Apr, it was $119, and newfound wealth led to newly crowned "crypto investors".

• Russia's invasion into Ukraine led to trade sanctions, which led to a supply crunch of almost everything you can name on earth, resulting in prices spiking and then crashing down. It didn't help that it happened at the same time when Luna went to the moon.

• Interest rates doubled in a matter of months. In Jan, Singapore floating mortgage interest rates were still below 1%, and in Jun, it's just under 2%. It's similar in other countries too, as the Federal reserve increased interest rates.

The construction sector resumed work last year, and it caused a worldwide shortage of building materials such as steel, sand, and even small items such as screws, and it was just supply crunch in 1 industry. What we saw with Russia was disruption at a wide scale, not as serious as when China went into lockdown mode, because everyone had started to diversify their supply chains and stockpile critical materials, but it comes in at a close second -- fuel, food, shipping, labour, all increased one after another in a chain reaction. Even nickel prices went to the moon. The only thing that probably won't reach the moon is my income *cold joke*. 

Nickel prices in the past 1 year

Why I believe that the tides have turned?

• I don't hear man-on-the-street talking about buying crypto. Earlier this year, I get to hear such conversations in MRTs, buses, restaurants, hawker centres. I haven't heard anything in the last 1 month.
• I don't see as many advertisements about investing in REITs for retirement. I believe that marketing money is smart, when the baits work, there will be a lot of them laid. So the hype is over.
• I don't see as many advertisements about buying property for investment. I believe this is a sign of increasing market activity -- agents don't have to try so hard to attract buyers.
• It does not feel like we had reached a "blood on the streets" phase after a market wipeout, and we may not even see one because job support has been the #1 priority in the pandemic support budget.

What data points do I look at?

• Pandemic support budget -- All the schemes have tapered off.
• Non Performing Loans -- Local banks financial reports report steady NPL rate of about 1.5%. As new loans are also growing the loan portfolio, proportionally, the increases in NPL (which are past loans) are not obvious. Banks also can be selective with their customers and don't need to fight to increase market share (and get lower credit quality loans as trade off).
• Retail rental and occupancy rates -- Although the pandemic caused many businesses to close, it didn't lead to widespread vacancy. Shopping malls that hit the right notes with location, footfall, amenities, are still commanding high rental and occupancy rates (see Mapletree Commercial, SPH REIT). As long as people are still spending money, the economy is good.
• Debt -- Debt is ever increasing in China and personally I don't have a good feeling about it. The good thing is USA has even bigger debt and they are still alive. The bad thing is no one knows the impact of unwinding debt at a China scale, but when that happens, I definitely want to be holding on to tangible cash flow producing assets.

Valuations

• As the risk free Singapore Saving Bond (SSB) rate is 3% p.a. for 10 years, I am using that as a benchmark to compare the risk premium. Mapletree Commercial REIT's (MCT) current price of $1.80 has a 5.2% dividend yield. for 2.2% more, will you take the risk? Historically, MCT's yields are around 4.5% when risk free rates are 1.5%, so if we apply the same risk premium of 3%, MCT's dividend needs to be 6% to make sense. If we look at DBS/UOB dividend yield, it's 4.6%, and it makes you wonder if buying a bank stock makes more sense than say MCT?
• Price Earning ratios of Singapore companies are not too expensive, and not at bargain ranges either. The STI ETF is at $3.15, which is about 10% below its Apr highs. Historically, there is a higher chance of maintaining at this level, than either moving up or down. Usually bank stocks trade at < 3% yields.

What I will buy

• At current prices, I see the most value in bank stocks, for reasons stated above.
• If I have to make a second choice, I will choose food manufacturing businesses because they have more control over supply side costs.
• All other sectors have their fair share of risks. Air travel hasn't gone back to even 25% of pre-pandemic levels. Tourism and hotel REITs will also have to expect bumpy restarts. Transport companies have have to cope with erratic oil prices with the ongoing "fight" between US and Russia. Energy companies have to cope with high cost of operations and they don't have much pricing power to begin with (personally I feel that another energy crisis will result in energy companies being nationalised again). Telcos still are handicapped without their data roaming and business travel income stream which traditionally forms 20% of their telco revenue. F&B and basically any service industry that is highly dependent on human capital will have to struggle with high rental and manpower costs.

Opportunities that I will look for

• Maximise SSB deposits if rates really continue to increase beyond this month's 3% p.a. to the mystical 4%. 
• If that happens, we almost certainly will have a stock market correction of another -20%.
• Personally, I believe if everybody expects a 4% p.a. FD rates in dec, will it ever happen? If only market timing is this easy... 

Disclaimer: The writer owns shares in DBS, UOB, STI ETF, SPH REIT. 

How much have I earned and lost in 2021?

"Objective for 2021 will be to buy more good stocks. I can't predict what the future will be, I can't control the dividend income, but I think that there will be more opportunities to buy good stocks at discounted prices because of market volatility. I will be targeting companies with property and/or high cash flow."

I will say I met the objective as I bought property counters. More of that below.

I tried really hard to find good stocks and it was really really tough because asset inflation has set in unfortunately. Monetary policies remain loose, hence cheap money is still reigning. I didn't write any detailed financial analysis of any stocks, mostly because prices just didn't meet my screening criteria. There are signs of bubbles everywhere, but we will never know when it will pop, so if you see advertisements touting to be able to "help you" be prepared for a market crash or continuous inflation or even hyper-inflation (hyper-inflation is very far-fetched but marketing is all about playing on fear), do yourself a favour and apply some common sense.

Here's how to prepare yourself:

1. Check your cash flow. MAS has a really good ratio which everyone should follow 55%, which means your monthly debt repayment amount should not exceed 55% of your gross income.
2. Check your debt level. Ensure that your assets > debt. Assets = property, investments, bonds, cash.
3. Check your emergency cash level. Many people tell you to have 3 or 6 or 12 months of your monthly income. Personally I suggest you calculate your monthly cash flow surplus (i.e. the amount after debt repayment and monthly expenses) as well. If your surplus is > 75%, probably 3 months income will tend you through. If your surplus is <25%, you may want to have 12 months income because it means you are living on a rather tight budget.
4. Plug any leaks. Terminate any non-income producing business ventures or assets. Review any recurring monthly expenditure, and switch to more cost effective alternatives where possible.
5. Don't quit your job. Continue to work for as long as you can.

Stocks I bought for the year:

VICOM (Jun)

Daiwa House Log Trust (Nov)

Capitaland Integrated Commercial Trust (Dec)

Stocks I sold:

Wilmar (Feb)

Singapore O&G (Sep)

Hongkong Land (Nov)

Full year dividend income for my SG portfolio was lower at $13k (3.5% yield), mainly because of dividend cuts. I also sold some shares and received $4k profit.

This year I also calculated how much interest I get from my CPF accounts, and it's 3.2% across all the fancy account names and bonuses. Although it's a can-see-cannot-touch-until-55 account, I think it's a good mental exercise to condition yourself with a risk-reward threshold. If you can't beat 3.2%, you really should max out your CPF accounts first or hire someone to do the job, while you buy time to improve your competency.

I also diversified to managed investment services with Autowealth (30k) and a Manulife Financial Advisor (12k/year commitment) mainly to buy into US and China markets. While I could buy the unit trusts myself, I decided to pay for services while I learn the ropes. The financial analysis aspect is really too much work, or rather, the level of detail I expect of myself cannot materialise with the amount of spare time I have now.

Objective for 2022: Stay the course and trim down the non-performers. I really need to analyse whether I should hold or cut loss on the lagtards.

This year I decided to also plot cumulative passive income to give myself a moral boost. It's almost 100k after all these years!

What did I buy and sell between Jan to Jun 2021?

The stock market rallied for a good 7 months from Oct 2020 until Apr 2021. Usually when the market rallies, I will look at selling stocks which I feel have reached prices that exceed their market value.

I sold Wilmar in Feb 2021, which was a stock I bought in Feb 2018 when the market was sluggish. The thing about Wilmar that I liked back then was that it had very very good cash flow and it wasn't pricey, near historical mean. The thing I dislike about Wilmar now is that it's debt laden and pricey, way above the historical mean. Although fundamentally they are a lot bigger, they IPO-ed some parts of the company, but as a whole, they took on a lot more debt and I wasn't convinced that they were yield accretive acquisitions. It was a good run with 80% capital gain and 11% total dividends, so overall it was up 91%.

I bought Vicom in Jun 2021, few days ago. I didn't have to buy anything, but I thought I should buy something since I haven't bought anything for a long time (since Sep 2020). REITs are fairly/overvalued, so I decided to look at other stocks and settled with Vicom, which is a stock that I had been looking at but had never initiated a position. What I like about Vicom is that it is a boring and transparent business with high cash flow. It's also like a monopoly business because vehicle inspection and certification services are highly regulated and you won't have new players enter the market so easily. It also has low float, low volume, so it's unlikely to be in the radar of big fund houses -- I like such stocks, because prices are relatively stable.

Autowealth bought some ETFs for me in Feb 2021, mainly US ETFs, under their portfolio that charges performance-based fees instead of the standard yearly management fees. I generally don't know how to choose funds, although some people tell me that funds are not meant to be individually analysed like stocks. So for now, I am paying others to choose funds and manage them for me, while I continue to pay myself to choose and manage stocks. Only time will tell if this is a good arrangement.

My friends had asked me if it's a good time to buy stocks. I would say that if you are just starting out, you probably can just get into any stock at any time, but don't go all out, because historically, prices take a breather in Aug and Sep and sometimes through Nov. If you already have stocks on hand, then you probably can afford to wait a bit because usually stocks go on sale 1 or 2 times a year (about 10% correction from peak for the year, which could mean STI at about 2920) and this year, it had not happened yet, so if you think you will be lucky, then wait for it. It may not happen too, like in 2009, where prices only went up, up and away.

Personally, I am expecting the "pandemic effects" to set in this year, i.e. government hand-outs will be less generous, savings dry up, lenient loan policies will be tightened, interests will slowly rise, income will be squeezed. I also feel that some sort of "balance sheet recession" effects will hit the mass market non-essential retail businesses, where people opt for cheaper alternatives or totally cut back on spending. Although the economic forecast is positive growth, I believe that the growth will be rather invisible, in the form of bio medical or electronics production and property asset inflation, and will not translate to salary growth.

How much have I earned and lost in 2020?

Objective for 2020: Maintaining the current level of passive income works -- Income was $16,200 ($1,350/month). I thought it was a simple objective but I didn't meet it. In fact, income was $0 because I had to write-off some of my capital.

After so many years of setting objectives, not one was remotely close too achieving target, which shows how unpredictable the markets are.

Average stock dividend yield in

2017 = 4.56%

2018 = 4.73%

2019 = 4.55%

2020 = 3.83%

This year, the verdict for Hyflux was out, and I wrote off my Hyflux CPS investments. I can imagine how painful it is for the rest of the creditors who have to write off >$3.3b investments. I was fortunate that I sized it small (3000 units during IPO), although I made the mistake to buy more CPS (added 10000 units) just 2 months before they were due to redeem the CPS. I learnt an expensive lesson.

I sold off my loss-making stock - Silverlake Axis, because they haven't been able to grow their profits, and they have a lot more competitors today as compared with 5 years ago.

I reduced position in Keppel Corp, mainly to not have more than 10% of my stocks in 1 company. I still like Keppel Corp because of their property.

I profited 20% from Dairy Farm and Comfort Delgro trades. They just happened to present good value, and they just happened to increase 20% after I bought, so I decided it was better to take profit because I couldn't convince myself that their business had fundamentally improved to warrant the higher prices.

I bought SPH REIT, AIMS REIT, STI ETF, Haw Par, Hongkong Land, mainly because I am bullish on property. Liquidity will definitely lead to inflated property prices in a matter of time.

I only managed to use a fraction of my warchest because the market corrected only for a few weeks. Sometimes when I read about people who criticise people (like me) who only buy on dips (actually I buy when prices are discounted and present good value), I wonder why they are so eager to preach their strategy. In any case, the more important thing is to stick with one strategy because switching between these two strategies is a certain wealth destruction strategy. Eventually, both sides will win, just that somehow one side makes a lot more noise than the other.

As the hurdle savings accounts all cut their interest rates this year, I decided to make housing refund to CPF. I bet many people did that too because it made the most sense. For those who say that CPF money cannot be touched if you were to do a refund, it's true, but you still can use it to buy stocks and funds and property with it. So I will treat it as my warchest too, just more restricted. I still hold cash, but not as much as before.

I am still holding my money in Autowealth. I like Vanguard funds, diversified and low-cost.

I bought into a few funds via Manulife ILP when prices were lower in Jun. It was a case of wanting to buy in Mar, but because of some admin issues, I didn't end up buying. Trying a new financial advisor for this case. Friends told me that I have too much money to experiment.

For all my effort, I barely broke even this year. Considering how many businesses had to close down this year, I think I am just lucky to be not affected (yet).

Objective for 2021 will be to buy more good stocks. I can't predict what the future will be, I can't control the dividend income, but I think that there will be more opportunities to buy good stocks at discounted prices because of market volatility. I will be targeting companies with property and/or high cash flow. Volatility is likely going to run through the whole year because 

1. industries are undergoing structural changes due to changes in demand, changes in consumer behaviour, caused by travel restrictions, this will translate to many jobs lost, and new jobs created. The new jobs will likely have talent shortage, which drives up manpower costs, and hinders the progress; 

2. markets have prices in hopes in the vaccine, and that economic recovery is certain in the next 1 year. However, if another pandemic hits, or if the vaccine faces an issue and need to be recalled or halted, or if the virus mutates and the vaccine is deemed useless, or if the vaccination takes longer than expected to be effective, or if travel restrictions need to remain longer, etc.; 

3. many governments will start to run out of pandemic budgets and have to tighten their spending on many keep-the-lights-on stuff, which will cause a government-induced demand contraction. The services required will likely remain the same, but the government will pay a lower price, consequently, down the food chain, margins are squashed because the government sets the prices. 

It's been a memorable year.