And it's a wrap! - Wedding Celebration Done (and some other minor updates)

Hey all! It's been quite a while since my last update, hope everyone's doing well!

Wedding Celebration
I'm pleased to announce our traditional wedding and the wedding banquet is finally completed. Better yet, I am thankful we broke even. Being the main person to manage our finances, that was my biggest source of stress and worry for the past several months.

Our families on both side, as well as our groomsmen and bridesmaid, also did a huge part in making the event a successful one, and I am really thankful for that.

Wifey also did exceptionally marvelous in supporting to keep our expenditure down, with her bargain hunting on Taobao for the wedding clothing, traditional accessories, as well as engagement of Emcee, Singer/Musician, Photographer/Videographer and hiring of groom car.

To that end, we have decided to share their contacts  If you are planning to "ala carte" on freelancing services instead of packages, you can consider engaging their services.


Emcee/Musician-Singer - PUDGY

• Facebook Page
• Rate Card

Photographer/Videographer/Groom car

• Frank (HP: 88136030, Whatsapp/Wechat)

Makeup Artist

• Olivia (HP: 83637866, Wechat)

(No I'm not getting paid for this, haha - but these freelancers seriously deserve a shoutout as we were pleased with their services).

Outside of our wedding celebration, and aside from my investing journey, life's been busy but good.

• We had spent some days taking care of wifey's families and relatives while they flew here to attend the wedding and enjoying a vacation.
• It has been 6 months after joining my new company, and I have just been confirmed in my new job! So far, I am pleased with my experience here. There are plenty of things to learn, opportunities to develop, and colleagues are nice and down-to-earth. I hope to grow fast and be able to do outstanding stuff for my current organisation in my career.

What's next

Maybe Baby?
Generally, I don't wish to have one so soon. Having kids is going to be the ultimate commitment and I want to be adequately ready to provide for my family in addition to having the means to continue investing and adding position at a reasonable rate into the market.

But just how long more? Ideally, say, start trying in a couple of years to save up on an emergency fund as well as having a decent-sized capital to invest with.

And here's the dilemma - it is also is a race against time, being torn between wife's age (wifey prefers to have one sooner) and overall readiness - at minimal financial readiness. At the very least, I wish to save up 30K in emergency funds ("minimum savings target" for the remainder of this post), but I am having thoughts of extending the goal further to a larger amount - gonna say due to a couple of fellow bloggers' posts.

Mr & Mrs Budget - We Need To Save Up S$46,000 Before Having Our Baby! That’s A Bit Too Much.

Heartland Boy - My Cost Of Raising A Baby In Her First Year

I mean OMG, >$40K in the first year? We're so, so not ready.

Anyways, back to the savings goal. $30K is a more conservative sum aimed at surviving at least 6 months of expenditure (food, shelter, necessities and insurances) paid solely in cash. This sum do not take into account having access to CPF-OA to pay for HDB mortgage loan.

Assuming no unplanned expenditure, I should be able to expedite hitting the minimum savings target by end of year 2020.

Vacation/Honeymoon
Beyond our yearly trip back to wifey's hometown, we do have some vacation plans.

Wifey and I have plans to check out Japan at the start of 2021 - it's been on our bucket list for quite some time and we are well on our way to making it happen. Saving up for this trip will not affect saving for my minimum savings target.

But wait, where does that leave our honeymoon?

While we do want to have a honeymoon (in my mind, it will be a longer and more exotic trip to several countries in a continent), I imagine this then won't be anytime soon for again, monetary reasons, and we probably want to get this done before having a baby either.

Investing Front
Previously I have mentioned plans to write a dedicated post on Alita Resources (formerly Alliance Minerals / Tawana Resources) in here. While the planned contents have largely changed, and it has been past said several weeks, I have not forgotten about it.

In addition, I intend to write on or reflect on a investment recovery plan moving forward. With the wedding celebration out of the way, I finally will be able to have the energy to pen down my thoughts.

As with all failed investment, one has to write it off or cut losses (in my case, expecting to get nothing in return although we will have to see how things turns out), but behind every failures is a valuable lesson. I have plans for this to be a long detailed post and want to take it slow. Could even be likely it come after 4th Quarter Portfolio Update.

I suppose I should also be thankful for starting to add REITs at a time when I needed more diversification than only holding a significant position in Alita Resources.

Expect some new updates in the coming weeks. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in advance!

Thanks for reading.

Portfolio Update 3Q2019 / Week 1 of October 2019

Hi guys, hope everyone's doing well! 3 months flies by pretty quickly when one's busy - now it's time for a quarterly portfolio update. I'm also going to cheat a little here and add in transaction done for first week of October 2019 as well.

	Income Portfolio
	Counters	Units	Market Price (SGD)	Overall Value based on market price (SGD)	Allocation
1	Cromwell European REIT	3000	0.772(1)	2316.42	46.19%
2	Prime US REIT	1000	1.296(2)	1296.26	25.85%
3	Lendlease GCREIT	1500	0.935	1402.5	27.97%
	Growth Portfolio
	Counters	Units	Market Price (SGD)	Overall Value based on market price (SGD)	Allocation
4	Alita Resources(3)	50000	0	0	0.00%
	Cash and other Assets
	Counters	Units	Market Price (SGD)	Overall Value based on market price (SGD)	Allocation
5	Warchest	1	0	0	0.00%
	Total SGD			4947.86	100.00%

Note 1:EUR/SGD of 1.51
Note 2: USD/SGD of 1.38 
Note 3: Alliance Mineral Assets Limited is now known as Alita Resources.

There are 3 major things done to my portfolio since the last quarterly update.

(1) Write-down of Alita Resources (SGX: 40F / ASX: A40)
Things went downhill ("Bald Hill" Geddit? geddit?) for my position here and it is currently in Voluntary Administration (VA). The worst case scenario here, which is quite a high chance of, is the stock losing all its value and I thought it will be most prudent to write down my investment here to 0 at this point.

I knew and accepted the risk I was getting myself into when I bought in - nevertheless I will recover from this and come back stronger and more knowledgeable as an investor from this.

Having said that, there is still chances of Alita Resources, no matter how remote, depending on how the VA plays out. If it comes back from the dead, the portfolio will once again reflect its market value.

(2) Addition of Lendlease Global Commercial REIT (SGX: JYEU)
I have been eyeing Lendlease Global Commercial REIT (LGC-REIT) ever since its planned listing came out on the news few months back.

Unfortunately I did not get any units from LGC-REIT's IPO. I foresaw this given the hot reception and my history of unsuccessful balloting for hot IPOs.

Nevertheless I decided to nibble a bit on the open market - paid a little more than I would have liked but this is fine as I am looking further ahead. It is considered part of my positioning to prepare for any rights issue. I am just keeping my fingers crossed it will not happen so soon while I rally my resources.

Given its current valuation and its gearing ratio, I believe management will be prudent and any injection of properties will likely need to be supplemented from rights issue or private placement.

It was also highlighted that Forever 21, a tenant of 313@Somerset has declared bankruptcy. I believe that in the grander scheme of things, this is nothing and people are blowing the matter out of proportions. Some other tenants will just take over in due time if they are gone.

(3) Addition of Prime US REIT
Got a small parcel (1000 units) from Prime's IPO earlier on. I wrote about this sometime back here.

My reasons here are two-fold. Aside from compounding my dividend gains, it is also to put myself in a position to subscribe to any rights issue as I also expect prudence from the management not to over-gear and supplement acquisition with rights issue and/or private placements. This is similar to my taking up of position in LGC-REIT in this sense.

Closing thoughts
My purchase of LGC-REIT is expected to be my last adding of position for the year, barring any rights issue relating to my REIT holdings.

My resources will continue to be tight until the end of next year and I hope any rights issue does not happen until we are at least a few months into 2020. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Lastly, I am working on a reflection relating to my investment in Alita Resources and my directions with investment moving forward but I will be taking my time before it is published. Probably a few weeks time?

Thanks for reading. You can also access to my Portfolio and past portfolio updates here.

Musing - Lowering yield on income stocks?

Recently I came across these terms reading this article by STE's Stocks Investing Journey.

As someone who is most comfortable with income investing, it struck a chord with me. And when someone thinks of income investing, S-REITs naturally comes to mind.

At the present I feel the reputable S-REITs in general are too richly valued for my liking. Even if I were to have the extra resources to put into the market, I simply cannot see myself wanting to add positions at this price barring exceptional circumstances.

(And this is also why Lendlease Global REIT IPO-ed at such a timely period - I hope I manage to jip a tiny bit. Looking forward to the IPO ballot.)

It has never occurred to me what I will do if these stocks being more richly valued and hence compressed yield of 2-3% becomes the new norm in Singapore market, nor do I have much ideas how to properly tackle such a scenario moving forward.

(AFAIK 2-3% with continual growth in dividend payout is common for investment in US Market - correct me if I'm wrong).

If the conventional way of determining asset value based on fundamentals becomes obsolete, then how does one decide a good entry point instead of resigning to Dollar Cost Averaging or looking for alternatives?

It also begs the question in my mind:

Have we been spoilt silly by the yield from selected stocks in Singapore market?

I came to the conclusion that while it's fine to be most comfortable with a specific investment strategy, one must be prepared to be adept at other strategies as well. I still got ways to becoming a good investor.

We must adapt and overcome.

How In-Camp Trainings can help you financially

 Update 30-09-19 - Made some minor amendments for my misinformation in blue.

This one is dedicated to the boys!

A lot of guys who went through their 2 years in full-time National Service (NSF) have to go through In-Camp Training (ICT) for reservist after ORD - I am no exception.

I actually just finished an ICT this week, and it was a good opportunity to catch up with existing camp-mates or get to know new ones.

The boys come from all walks of life. Naturally, you will have some camp-mates who does investment, trading, or otherwise have very useful snippets of information to share with you to give you a different way to look at things. I overheard people discussing about blockchain or bitcoins while queuing to get essential items in the eMart. There are such opportunities even during one's NSF days, but I believe these are much rarer given the age demographics.

Okay, so how does ICT actually benefits you financially? We look at these through 2 areas - networking and incentives (IPPT, Marksmanship, NS Excellence Award).

Note: Context for investment in this article goes beyond equities - it can cover career related ones as well.

Networking
I get to talk to fellow camp-mates who invests or trades and hear out their point of views on market sentiment, their way of managing their investment, as well as their analyses on various investments.

Beyond that, I get to learn more of non-investment knowledge that can be applied to how one analyse businesses - and consequently, can be applied to analysis of the business of stocks.

#1 - Camp-mate involved in marketing field
I have a camp-mate who is in the marketing field and shared how smaller companies can be more aggressive than bigger companies, and is generally more agile to capture market shares in their line of business.

Basically, smaller companies need not pay so much heed to being politically correct with their marketing efforts, while bigger established companies has an image to uphold and cannot do likewise, needing to appeal to social justice warriors.

He also went on to link the effect of marketing onto the business and share signs of how to tell if, for example, a fast food restaurant is doing well in a mall.

From time to time, you may notice how popular fast food restaurants are doing very well and consistently packed suddenly undergo renovation. When they are done, they may feature more seating. Conversely, if the fast-food business is not doing well enough, they probably do not undergo renovation for a looooong time. Or worse, go poof.

This could probably relate to analysing how well a mall that is under a retail REIT is doing, given that retail REITs are essentially landlords of shopping malls under their brand.

#2 - Engineer Camp-mate
I also have another camp-mate who is an engineer and we shared engineering knowledge with each other. Besides that, he has a goal to develop intellectual properties (IP) and applying for a patent in the future. Patents are potentially another source of income via royalties. He shared the process and the cost of applying for a patent.

For engineers, engineering knowledge is an asset that is their lifeblood and is one that needs to continually be accumulated. Such moments could potentially give you opportunities to do a joint venture or work on a patent and work on something groundbreaking or cutting edge as a team.

Update - My bad - this is misinformation on my end. Patents are for defending your IP.

Beyond
Beyond all that, who knows, maybe an employment opportunity via a camp-mate's recommendation may be onto you (or vice-versa, an opportunity to do good, giving your peers an employment opportunity at your company)?

Well, so on as you are on good terms with them and do not sabo your camp-mates lah.



IPPT
If you are taking your IPPT during ICT (although this is applicable to non-ICT IPPT as well), that is an opportunity to get incentives for keeping yourself IPPT-ready, and these can be used to offset your expenses or pump into your investments.

Sit up tight, let's run some numbers and then pump them into a quick calculation (forgive the puns - I had to):

I'll go with the following assumptions:

• ORD at age 22
• Start first ICT at age 23
• Consistently clear ICT annually.
• Can continue to maintain your gold in IPPT (that's $500 each) during your 10 years (7 high-keys / 3 low-keys) and then MR at age 33.
• Reinvests annually with consistent annual returns of 6% - before compounding.

(1) The principal sum adds up to $5000
(2) When you MR, you would have $6691 - That's a total returns of almost 34%.
(3) Thereafter, for the next 12 years, you continue to reinvest consistently and get consistent annual returns of 6% before compounding, be it reinvesting dividends, getting scrips or recycling your funds, your returns after MR will be approximately doubled - your investment will be worth $13460 (that's +169% total returns from the initial sum of $5000).

Note - of course investment is not that straightforward and your returns is subject to what you invest in and prevailing market conditions. But I need to express it with a simplified example mah.

Marksmanship
At times, you may need to do live firing and there are live firing activities which are potentially opportunities to get a little bit of cash. Again, these can be used to offset expenses or pump into investments.

NS Excellence Award
If you are amongst the top performer in your unit, you can get credits which can redeem freebies and again, these can potentially offset your expenses. At worst, these can give you free treats. These probably may not mean much when you are in your early 20s.

But when you are married and have a family? Every cent matters for a run-of-the-mill working-class guy or his family. Probably?

TL;DR - ICT can be a fantastic opportunity to benefit you financially directly or indirectly, via incentives or networking, be it in career, opportunities to do joint venture, investment or trading. If you are going for ICT, may as well make the most of it, you know?

Prime US REIT (SGX: OXMU) - Got my small parcel of IPO shares / Opening day performance

So balloting results for public offering of Prime US REIT (SGX: OXMU) is out since a few days back, everyone applied got something! And then they debuted at 2pm earlier today.

I got what I applied for - 1000 units and I have updated this in Stockscafe. Just a few days back, I blogged about my application as well. I will do the update to my portfolio when it's time for 3Q2019 updates. :)

Prime US REIT - Applied for small number of IPO shares

Balloting Discussion
Overall, the receipt is lukewarm - It's been attributed to the following:

• REIT IPO Fatigue
• Sentiment of US Economy

But hey, at least it was not under-subscribed, and I think that's what mattered.

Several bloggers in the community also shared their view on the balloting results and you may want to check these out.

InvestmentMoats
Financial Horse
Singapore IPO

Opening Day results
Here's some data for the opening day performance - Courtesy of Investor.io

Prime US REIT (SGX:OXMU)'s day 1 trading on SGX Mainboard today -

IPO price: US$0.880
Open: US$0.865; High: US$0.880; Low: US$0.865; Last: US$0.880.

10,723,800 units changed hands at average price of US$0.873, out of which
- 3,767,500 units were brought back under stabilising action with the price ranges from US$0.865 to US$0.880.
- 50,000 units were short sell at the price of US$0.865.

Overall, it debuted just as I expected. Investors who were gunning for better pricing after debuting had some opportunity to pick up at a small discount for today provided they bought it at sufficiently large quantities (depending on the commission fee of their brokerage).

The IPO was an opportunity for me to compound on dividend gains as well as to increase my holdings in REITs. Let's see how things go over the next few quarters aye?

Have a good weekend all~