Portfolio - March 2019

We have hit a new high/milestone this month with a portfolio of $400k! Technically, we can sell off all our shares now, pay for our 4 room BTO and we will be debt free. lol. Of course not, we will never do that and I have blogged about it previously - Chiong Housing Loan or Take It Slow?

Our portfolio increase by 5.38% to $400,263 - $1,469.57 of capital withdrawal and $21,919.17 of capital gain. The one in blue is the StashAway portfolio, green is SGX and the total is in black.

If you prefer to look at numbers, this is the raw data used to generate the above bar graph. These numbers are as of the last day of the month.

"Cash Flow" is the amount of money being injected/withdrawn from the portfolio (buying stocks = +ve cash flow while selling stocks and collecting dividends = -ve cash flow)

SOLD
- APAC Realty (8,000 units) @ $0.665
- QAF (3,000 units) @ $0.755

- Hong Fok (16,500 units) @ $0.940

We purchased 8,000 units of APAC Realty @ $0.57 last month and blogged about its risks. I set a trailing stop loss as the price went higher and higher and eventually, the stop loss was triggered. This gave us a 16.67% return or $760 profit. We are still holding on to the remaining 12,000 units that had a much higher entry price of $0.86 for dividends.

I have given up on QAF after looking at its latest financial results and decided to sell it after ~2 years.

Their earnings/profit has decreased by >50% and although QAF continues to pay out the same amount of dividends for FY 2018 (note that the payout ratio is 351%?!), it is not going to be sustainable... Once QAF cut their dividends and the price will tumble/react accordingly too which is something I would like to avoid. We lost -$1,559.73 in total and that translates an annualized return of -23.3%.

Hong Fok started running up in the last few weeks way before the new URA draft masterplan was announced. We noticed it and decided to set trailing stop loss as well which eventually triggered a day after it hits $1. Fundamentally, PB = 0.33 and PE = 3.32, Hong Fok still looks extremely undervalued. Having said that, I don't believe Hong Fok will ever reach PB 1 and its dividend yield of ~1+% is just not aligned with our long term goal. We made a profit of $4,988.25 in total which is an annualized return of 12.4%.

BOUGHT
- Pacific Century (14,000 units) @ $0.445
- Mapletree Commercial Trust (500 units) @ $1.810
- Frasers Commercial Trust (7,500 units) @ $1.460
- Suntec REIT (5,000 units) @ $1.970
- First REIT (3,900 units) @ $0.990
- Far East HTrust (160 units - DRIP) @ $0.632

We initiated a pretty speculative small position Pacific Century (~1.5% of our portfolio) after reading this report by stockresearchasia.com - Pacific Century Regional Developments (PCRD) rewards shareholders' patience with bumper dividends of 8.7 cts. Ideally, we should be getting 6-8% dividend yield per year until it gets privatised.

Our initial plan/strategy to invest in a REIT ETF on a monthly basis was no longer valid (read this - Lion-Phillip S-REIT ETF - High Cost and Low Yield) and the money had to be redeployed somewhere. With the office rental recovering/growing, we bought the above commercial REITs to "ride" the wave.

First REIT has fallen from grace due to many uncertainties in its sponsor/parent company, Lippo Karawaci. It used to trade at around 5-6% dividend yield but is trading close to 9% dividend yield now. I will not go into the details but this is definitely quite risky.

Dividends
No dividends for this month :(

Total dividends collected for 2019: $2,467.84
Average dividends per month for 2019: $822.61

StashAway

KPO

CZM

Capital: $18,000.00
Current: $18,810.99

You might be interested in previous months update too:
- Portfolio Performance in 2018 - $354,145
- Portfolio - January 2019 - $376,381
- Portfolio - February 2019 - $379,814
- Portfolio - March 2019 - $400,263

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

Expenses - February 2019

We spent almost every weekend meeting IDs and they are all charging so differently. Most have GST while some don't. When we prompt further, we were told that they have multiple "companies" under their name and they can split it such that customer will not incur GST. Another annoying thing is that the payments have to be made in either cash or cheque, no credit card means no miles/cashback back for such big spending. Anyway, we will be taking a break from the renovation/IDs and do some fun stuff!

We managed to grab some preview tickets for our family to Jewel Changi Airport on 13th April!

We were also lucky enough to get tickets to the first Pokemon Safari event in SEA on 20th April! Back to our high expenses for February 2019 @_@"

Current Profile: 29 years couple who got married recently but staying separately with our own parents while waiting for the BTO project to be completed this year.

Our total expenses were $7,301.63!!! The breakdown would be as follows:

KPO Expense Fund (our common fund): $2,758.45

KPO: $3,285.15

CZM: $1,258.03

Vacation

Vacation continues to be our biggest expense. I have color-coded them for easy reference.

I will be going on a tour by Hong Thai Travel to Eastern Europe with my parents and $1,838 is the remaining payment. Made the payment in advance in order to hit the Citi Premier Miles CNY $8,888 promotion.

We will be travelling to the USA/Canada due to Cathay Pacific blunder - Thank You Cathay Pacific! Another First Class Flight on American Airlines. This is the deposit/installment (1/4) for a private glacier kayaking and camping tour we signed up for by Compass Heli Tours. The plan is to take a helicopter into the middle of nowhere in British Columbia, kayak in the glacier lake and camp/stay in the 5 billion stars hotel where the temperature could go below zero. Hopefully, the experience will be as magical as the price (~SGD$5,165). We also booked some accommodations (1 in Vietnam and 1 in Canada).

We went to Bali for 3 days 2 nights and spent $831.75 in total. I think we spent a lot considering that our accommodation (Furama Xclusive Villas & Spa, Ubud - Lagoon Pool Villa) was free. Everything in Bali was just so expensive! As for what we did, CZM has a post still in draft mode and I will leave it to her to update you guys. Haha.

Parents
$1,360 - This is the total amount we are giving to our parents as allowance.

Food
$597.18 - Our combined food expenses are still on the low side because we are still staying with our parents and I usually skip lunch.

Gift
$288 - Attended a wedding at Conrad Centennial (with CZM)

$248.88 - Bought birthday presents for my younger sister and CZM's dad.

$50 - Housewarming ang bao/red packet for a friend

$9.50 - Valentine's Roses for CZM from NTUC. Hahahaha.

Treat
$160.05 - CZM treated me to Cheek by Jowl – Michelin-Starred Modern Australian Restaurant for my birthday.

$125.25 - Treated family to Chin Huat Live Seafood.

The rest are just tea/coffee for friends/colleagues.

Transportation
$108.85 - Our EZ Link/Account-Based Ticketing (ABT) for the month

$93.30 - Cab

Insurance
$177.00 - This is a fixed monthly cost for the basic coverage - term life and hospitalization.

Others

$88.00 - CZM goes for facial or massage once in a while.

$71.95 - Health: I fell sick and went to Raffles Medical (supporting my own stocks). lol. Not an actual expense because I can claim all of them back from my company.

$40.00 - Lost money playing mahjong during CNY.

$21.85 - Watsons: It seems that CZM will always buy something from Watson almost every month for it to become a category by itself. No idea what she bought. Hahaha.

Our combined expenses would have been only ~$2,900+ after removing those large one time expenses (Vacation and Gift). Till next time!

Summary
January 2019 - $11,712.06
February 2019 - $7,301.63

Total expenses for 2019: $19,013.69
Average expenses per month for 2019: $9,506.845

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)

Lazada Surprise Box - Save or Waste Money?

Lazada had its 7th Birthday sale recently (27th March 2019) and I was shopping away. The surprise box concept is not new but this is the first time I actually purchase it. Essentially, you do not know what you are buying and pay $37-$47 to get a box of surprise/unknown items worth $120-$150. Some of them have sneak peek (like below) which allow one to guess what will be in the box. The box that got my attention was the Lazada x Spigen Surprise Box because I knew that the case + wireless charger is definitely worth more than $37.

Surprisingly, I was able to apply the $3 voucher and paid only $34 for the surprise box. lol.

It was delivered to my house 2 days later.

These are the items in the surprise box. They even have a breakdown of the cost/value of each item and the total came up to $126.60 (~73% savings).

Being a KPO, the next thing to do is to check how much it is really sold at the Spigen Lazmall shop:
- Spigen Galaxy S10+ Liquid Crystal Case @ $25.90

- Spigen Galaxy S10+ Neo Flex HD Screen Protector @ $29.99

- Spigen Essential F305W Fast Wireless Charger @ $49.90

- Spigen Velo A700 Sport Armband @ $32.90

Total: $138.69 (~75% savings)

I am pretty sure cheaper alternatives can be found in other shops/platform too but the savings still be quite significant >50%.

Sent the above photos to CZM and being the person that understands me the best, I find her response to be hilarious. On a side note, I also do not own a S10+ yet because my contract only ends in May. Hahahaha.

So did I save (~$100) or waste money ($34)? lol.

Do like any of the following for the latest update/post!
1. FB Page - KPO and CZM
2. Twitter - KPO and CZM
3. Click here to subscribe using email :)
4. Instagram - KPO_and_CZM (Did you see those delicious food photos to the right --> Unfortunately, you can't see it on mobile.)