High Dividends

 For some reason, April and early May have brought in bumper dividends and other passive income!

This makes me super happy.

I am wondering where to park them.

Should I reinvest the dividends back into the high yielding stocks? Or should I use this opportunity to buy new stocks that I can pride over the fact that the entire purchase was ‘free’?

Recently also looking at higher yielding UCITS ETFs to help balance things out, such as SHYU, VHYD, VHYL. They are listed on the London Stock Exchange and are more tax efficient. US stocks we always end up having to pay 30% withholding tax, which erodes whatever yield we achieve.

My dream is to be able to earn $5-10K of regularly dividends every month passively. Also where the dividends do not erode the NAV of the stock/bond.

Without going into the specifics of my current high yielding portfolio, I need to reduce its volatility and make sure I don’t blindly chase yield. This has happened to me in the past and I ended up being burnt. So definitely some lessons learnt and aiming not to let history repeat itself.

Let’s see if we can achieve that sooner rather than later.

NVDA

 Finally jumped on this bandwagon a week back and oh boy is it printing brrrrrrrrr!

NVDA is the hottest of the magnificent 7 right now that’s propping up the whole NASDAQ.

Hoping to see it cross $1,000!

HUAT AH!

Second Berserker Rage Of 2024

 Argh not again.

Last night was NFP and the market shot up.

I took a gamble again on USDJPY and was wrong.

I took a gamble on NASDAQ100 and was wrong.

Ended up losing another SGD 7K.

Gosh I need to stop bleeding financially like that.

Need to cold turkey myself.

Small Windfall

 Just received a small windfall.

Funny how things come along nicely.

Very grateful but it’s come right at the time when I might have one big expense upcoming.

So it is very timely.

I have to really derisk very aggressively.

Thinking of stopping all my margin trading altogether.

Just whack risky stocks at best. Search for more 2, 5, even 10 baggers.

Huat ah!

Mr Market Coming Down

Aaaaaand the market is coming down.

The NASDAQ has reached 17,000 while flirting with ATH of 18,500 just a week ago.

NVDA was done 10% to $760 last night.

TSLA is at $147 last night too.

And this night just be the start.

Even after the war in the Middle East was deescalated.

War in Ukraine still ongoing. Hope Ukraine can find a way to win and soon.

Tensions in the Taiwan Straits rising. Hope nothing happens there.

But the real reason is this.

Markets are worried inflation is too sticky (I really told you so!).

That means we might NOT even have an interest rate cut this year, when stupid market was pricing in up to six cuts this year! How misaligned is that?!

USD Treasury debt is growing uncontrollably.

At this rate all industries relying on loans will struggle. The leveraged banks. Tech. IT. Property. REITs. BDCs.

Crypto is a conundrum. No one really knows what’s gonna happen after the halving. And that is happening tonight.

Gold is flying through the roof, hitting past $2,400 yesterday.

All I can say is to keep some powder dry and have some cash in hand to seize any good opportunities. It feels like volatility is coming back in quite a big way.

Good luck and stay safe!

First Berserker Rage Of 2024

 Argh.

I feel so stupid.

Knew this would happen but I let it play out the way it did anyway.

Bet too heavy of ultra-leveraged USDJPY.

Kept feeling like the BOJ would intervene at some point.

Also kept pushing my stop too close so it was really easy to get stop-hunted.

And it happened.

Ended up losing $6K.

Ouch so painful :(

Global Worries

 Feeling a little worried lately about global developments recently.

Ukraine seems to be losing the war against Russia the aggressor. In the war of attrition, it is already quite a miracle that they’ve held strong on for three years now, but they are beginning to lose ground quickly as more supporting countries turn more right winged.

Israel’s invasion of Gaza over Hamas’ Oct 7th atrocities has turn global moral opinion against them and now seems to be escalating wider with Iran and the US possibly drawn in.

Myanmar civil war where the resistance appears to be gaining ground is a positive thing considering the repressive junta. The junta’s recent law to draft conscripts is so worrying.

Philippines’ South China sea confrontations with China over their nine-dotted line claims appears to be escalating. 

Trump looking more and more likely to win the coming US elections and then he’s going to cause a lot of havoc in global affairs such as stopping support for NATO, escalating trade wars with China and totally neglecting SEA. So worrying.

These current affairs make me think about how and what I need to do to position myself financially, mentally, emotionally and maybe even physically!

UOBOne Account Nerfed

 Boooooooo…

The best high yield savings account (HYSA) has been nerfed, but still quite good among the rest.

Probably in anticipation of interest rate cuts in the US, UOB has gone ahead to nerf their power HYSA, what a pity.

From earning 5% pa with a monthly average balance of $100K, now it has been reduced to earning 4% pa with a monthly average balance of $150K.

Sadly we can’t complain too much as there are not many better alternatives out there.

So I’ll still to it and pump some more savings that way.

The next best is still OCBC360 but it might be a matter of time before that one is nerfed too.

I know some have mentioned Maribank, but right now I use Trust as the third option. Maybe I’ll open an account with Maribank and try too.

IREIT Global Update

 This REIT I have followed closely since the popular finance blogger ASSI took a big position in it.

Unfortunately the price keeps dropping because of the uncertainty in global interest rates and uncertainty in Europe (its properties are entirely in Europe).

Yet, when it is dividends time, this REIT continues to pay really well, yet without overtaxing itself. It is prudent and management makes very good decisions aimed to benefit shareholders.

What a bumper dividend this time round! I will use the proceeds to either reinvest or to buy something else undervalued in Europe (I like that its dividends I’ve chosen to pay out in EUR), as I’ve done with the last few years of its dividends.

But the market keeps devaluing it.

I do question myself what’s wrong but I can find as much issues as another big holding of mine, PSNY.

So I do feel quite convicted to not only keep holding but to find some opportunities to average down.

Hopefully they are as undervalued as I see them.

HUAT AH!!!

A Taste Of Retirement

 In any case wanted to mention my taste of retirement.

This week is the school holidays so I took a whole week off.

We travelled to Ipoh which I’ll blog about later but came back on a Wednesday.

Then yesterday I took to exercising the whole morning to burn off that 2-3kg of awesome Ipoh food. By noon the kids had come home and I just nuahed around and napped from 3-5pm.

By evening we had a dinner and then I binged on Netflix this new Korean drama called Dr Slump.

Could this be my early taste of retirement?