SGX Outage

As many would be familiar by now, trading at SGX halted at 11.38am on last Thursday.

It is reported that the cause was due to a "hardware issue".

However, as a long term investor, the outage did not bother me one bit. While i kept abreast of the news, it mattered little to me whether there was active trading or not.

Of course, this does not diminish the pain of shorter-term traders who live by every tick of the market. I can see how the exchange shutdown will hurt them. However, this method of investing does not square with my current investing philosophy.

As Warren Buffett famously said:

Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.

Are you confident with your purchases?

First CD!

KSH Holdings Limited made the announcement today that it will be distributing a final dividend of $0.015 per share and a special dividend of $0.005 per share. XD would be 11/8/16.

At an average buy price of about $0.55, this would make it about 3.6% dividend yield.

And happily, this is my first declared dividend! Another milestone achieved! :)

Step-by-step we progress...

June 2016 Report Card

Apologies for the lack of posts. I was struggling with an examination recently and that really sucked the life out of me.

Exams, you say? Yeah... such is life.

However, the exams are over!!!

Yaaaaay!

As we transit into the 2nd half of 2016 (how quickly time flies!), I would like to share a short report card on my current holdings, taken from the excellent site SGXcafe.com:

Currency	# Stocks	Day Change %	P&L %	P&L + Dividends %
SGD	4	0.53%	2.28%	2.28%

Name (Currency)	Port %	Current Yield	Div Strength	Avg Price	Close	P&L %	P&L + Div %
STI ETF (SGD)	60.84%	3.46%	N/A	2.835	2.89	1.95%	1.95%
CapitaCom Trust (SGD)	13.53%	5.75%	81.30%	1.412	1.5	6.20%	6.20%
KSH (SGD)	12.99%	5.65%	67.29%	0.55	0.54	-1.76%	-1.76%
OCBC Bank (SGD)	12.63%	4.11%	94.16%	8.394	8.75	4.24%	4.24%

And a pithy few hundred in cash.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the results so far. This little start of a portfolio has endured its first (mini-)crisis and emerged reasonably unscathed. 

Regrettably, I was unable to average down some of my holdings during the Brexit sell-down. After the initial purchase-burst in May, there was minimal savings that could have been used to take advantage of the low prices. Again, this is (largely) due to renovation and household items. Admittedly, there was some lifestyle inflation this month as we spent more in restaurants and an expensive NTUC trip. As it is, my credit card bills for this month may cross $3k. Sigh...

Goals for second half of 2016:

1. After settling down, I hope to be able to start saving again, as per usual habit. It would be great not to have to look at 3-4 digit spendings every few days or so. Still debating whether we should purchase a TV hmmm...... 

2. I would also hope to start building some holding cash aside from my emergency funds (typically referred to as warchest). The recent market dip has taught me 2 things (i) Holding power is important, one should not be forced to have to sell your investments, especially during times of crisis (ii) Opportunities do not come knocking frequently. Take advantage of them when they come. 

3. Related to the above point, purchase appropriate insurance for the missus, and getting a better grasp on mine. We have been procrastinating this for almost half a year. It is time to figure out what we are covered and how much we are paying for this cover. Yes, I have been paying for insurance without knowing what I am covered for (at an expensive cost per month!) as many of the plans were passed to me from my parents when I started working. And for her, I believe she has been procrastinating as well (typical Singaporeans we are). I think it is time to sort this out.

4. I hope to blog more regularly as well. As mentioned before, this blog helps to record my thoughts and remind me of my own plans as I start to take charge of my own financial health. I hope to be able to look back some time down the road, and identify my strengths and learn from my mistakes during this journey, and be able to educate my daughter as she begin her own journey as well.