Recent Buy - Low Cost Portfolio

Bonus time and decided to re-invest some into my low cost portfolio ...

Bought HSBC (0005.HK) 400 shares @ HKD 48.85
Bought Chow Tai Fook (1929.HK) 5800 shares @ HKD 4.88

The Long Weekend

My wife suggested that we spent this Friday holiday in Johor. We had not been there for a while, and it might just be a good time to enjoy nice affordable restaurant and visit JPO to buy some new clothing. I thought, why not. So to Johor we went. We left home at 9am.

I wasn't feeling good seeing the long queue for 170X to Johor in Kranji MRT station. I wanted to suggest we change our plan, but wasn't having better ideas either. We asked an uncle wearing an SBS uniform, which queue for 170X. He suggested that we crossed the overhead bridge, and took 168 or 170. I saw the queue on the other side was shorter, so we crossed the overhead bridge and queue.

We finally boarded the bus at around 11 and reached Woodlands checkpoint shortly. We're fortunate the queue for immigration clearance was short. After we cleared immigration, we boarded the bus again towards Johor. Traffic was very heavy and barely moved. It was almost 1pm and we had not reached Johor. Some passengers requested to get off the bus and choose to walk. We did too when the complex was about 10 minutes walk.

We entered the building and it was just super crowded with people queuing to clear immigration. We quickly made our way to the last few counters. It was almost 3pm when we finally managed to pass the immigration. We're hungry and tired. It's almost late evening, so we cancel our plan to go to the JPO.

We went Canton-I in City Square, ordered some food and had our late lunch. When we're hungry, all food taste heavenly and the kids finished the food fast. Then we strolled inside the shopping malls. The kids bought their toys and my wife bought some Malaysian snacks. We spent time until evening before we had our dinner in Bornga before we returned.

Fortunately it's much faster when returning. I guessed because most people planned to spend their weekend in Johor and would only returned Sunday night. Overall a pleasant journey, and the whole family was having a great time and food! The precious time spent overcame the 6 hour ordeal, though we agreed we would not want to go there again during a long weekend next time.

Happy Pass Over everyone!

How Great Is Thy Love For Me - The Finale

Read previous post: How Great Is Thy Love For Me - Part 3

In 2011, a book titled "Crash of the Titans" was written by Greg Farrell about the company I used to work for. A lot of people think that insiders are the ones getting the news first. That's absolutely not true based on my personal experience. Most of the time, most employees came to know about what happened to their company from the news, instead from their employers. Only a few CxO level will have the privilege to highly confidential and classified information about the company.

I still remembered very clearly, when the news headline appeared on Sunday, 14 September 2008: "Bank of America to Buy Merrill Lynch for $50 Billion". I and my colleagues knew from news on Sunday and there was internal announcement that we're sold to Bank of America the following Monday. There wasn't even a bit of hints, and we thought John Thain, who was the new CEO then, would bring Merrill Lynch back to it's hay day.

Fast forward to early 2015, an ex-colleague contacted me and asked me if my current company was hiring. The company he worked for was reducing their head counts. This was the same person that I used to help in the past, but turned his back on me when I was desperate looking for job (read: Part 1). See, we shouldn't burn the bridge and help whenever we could, but I learnt what went around came around. We reap what we sow! And if not because of God's grace, we'll die in our sin, reaping what we sow.

I was grateful God forbade me from joining "that" company, though I was very disappointed at that time. Now I understand that God sees far into the future. God knows what is best for His beloved. He knows what will happen in 2015 and beyond, though I - due to my short-sightedness - felt very discouraged and disappointed then.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." - Rome 8:28 NKJV

In January 2016, news about "that" company started to fill the headlines: "ABC Cutting 1,000 Jobs, About 230 Eliminated in Asia", "ABC laying off 100 employees in Singapore" ... All these events happening in my life just mere co-incidents? Randomness?? Really ??? Or there is Someone up there looking after me. I believe the later, but not because I'm deserving good more than anyone else, but because of His grace alone. Amen.

"The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not want.

He makes me to lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul;

He leads me in the paths of righteousness

For His name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil;

For You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me."

-Psalm 23:1-4 NKJV

February 2016 - Unit Trust Portfolio Update

My unit trust portfolio was holding up well despite the intensifying sell-off in early February. Indeed it made slight recovery toward the end of months. YTD performance was -2.23% by end Feb vs -2.43% by end January. I received a dividend of $143.82 for February.

United Gold and General Fund was the star performer, recovering from -18.64% in January to 5.47%. Watch out for gold and gold miners as there is a high possibility that they have hit the bottom from a multi year downtrend.

I'm planning to reduce my allocation to junk bonds and re-allocate the proceeds to equity and bonds.



Link to Yaruzi's unit trust portfolio allocation as of Feb 2016

February 2016 - Low Cost Portfolio Update

In the height of panic with the sell-off in stock markets and oil, global bank stocks were hammered badly. Triggered by concerns on Deutsche Bank capability to repay it's debt, news were flashing everywhere as we're going to have GFC all over again.

Seeing the news flashing, I just knew instinctively that I'd need to buy Deutsche Bank or ANY bank stocks. I had to say I hesitated to get Deutsche Bank as it had riskier investment banking business, and decided to go with the "safest" bank in Asia instead. I thought if it's GFC all over again, I wanted to hold onto banks that had the highest probability to survive. So I bought 300 shares of DBS @ 13.19 on 9 Feb 2016.

No fresh fund injected in Feb 2016 and the portfolio received dividends and cash distributions of USD 64.51 and $368.89 from the following:

• ABF Pan Asian Index Fund USD 64.51
• STI ETF SGD 214.20
• Capitaland Commercial Trust SGD 103.44
• First REIT SGD 52.25

Link to Yaruzi's low cost portfolio as of Feb 2016

Life After The Exam

A Little Celebration

My family had been craving on sushi and sashimi ever since our trip to Japan last December. Since I was burning weekends to prepare for my exam, we had not really spend time and enjoy our weekend out as a family.

So the weekends after I passed, we went to Sushi Tei. Then followed by our movie dates, watching Zootopia with a large box of popcorn and large cup of coke for the whole family to share. The dinner and movie cost around $150, but the happy look on the kids' faces and the time we got to enjoy together was just priceless!

And yes, we didn't forget to give thanks to our Lord and pray together as a family before we had our little celebration.

New Blogger Friends

GV from GiraffeValue was very kind to share with me a complete guide on Singapore REITS investing. It consisted of 7 chapters and GV spent more than 100 hours writing them. It's definitely worth your time, especially if you're interested to invest in Singapore REITS. The complete guide can be found on this link.

TFS from The Finance Smith, who are like minded working professionals aiming for financial independence. TFS invest in ETF and dividend stocks.

I'm adding their blog links in my blog roll.

Exercise Again!

I resumed my exercise routine. I added some resistance training as I reduced my cardio duration.

Return of The Bull

Global stock markets sprang back into life with the return of the bull. So much for all the mumbo jumbo that the end of world had arrived. The good thing is my portfolio manage to regain some ground. The bad thing is I'm not sure if I can continue buying cheap, especially when I expect to receive my bonus in March.