My Saxo P&L 2019

Sadly, this year's performance is in stark contrast to last year's performance.

Have achieved losses of approximately SGD13.4K this year.

You can also see my 2018, 2017 and 2016 performance on this account.

My most profitable products were GBPUSD, GBPUSD Options and USDJPY.

My least profitable products were HSI CFDs, Tesla CFDs and S&P500 Index CFDs.

It's been tough when the US stock market is near all-time highs while my investing and trading portfolio is so red.

Hopefully I can buck this trend in 2020 and much much more money instead.

My Saxo P&L 2019 December

December has been a continuation of November's red mess.

In fact I stopped by the second half of this month so that I won't lose even more money.

Nothing much left to say.

Just look at that red downslope on the right.

Here's to a greener 2020 for this account.

2019 Dividend Accumulator Full Year

What a stellar year 2019 has been on this front.

I've finally seen some real serious passive income coming from this stream which I've worked hard to achieve. Considering how I've mismanaged so much of my funds in the last two decades, here's hoping that this new decade will ring in a much greater positive return for me. This year, I've managed an enormous annual dividends collected at almost SGD7K! Which is way above my 2019 resolution to achieve $500/mth passive income!

Here's my https://siglapscrapbook.blogspot.com/2019/12/2019-dividend-accumulator-december.html performance which was another good monthly one. The bumper month was actually October 2019 when I actually achieved more than SGD1K in dividends in a single month!

Just a quick recap, in 2019, my total portfolio achieved the following:

Total Dividends for 2019: $6,998.96
Average per Month: $583.25
Total number of stock counters holding now: 25
- Singapore (6)
- Hong Kong (1)
- US (17)
- Australia (5)
- Japan (0)
- Germany (0)
- UK (1)

So here's another pat on the back for myself.

Hopefully I can achieve much more in 2020.

2019 Dividend Accumulator December

December has been a really good month to end the year. A lot of year end dividends came in this month.

On this road towards passive income and financial independence, things have been really positive.

I will round things up in my year end post on this Accumulator series.

04 December $20.68
05 December $60.71
06 December $125.00
12 December $27.27
18 December $107.16
19 December $182.70
23 December $150.00
24 December $26.22
26 December $31.10
26 December $61.26
26 December $36.19

Total Dividends for December: $828.29

Total Dividends for 2019: $6,998.96
Average per Month: $583.25

My Saxo P&L 2019 November

And as if a nasty rebuke to my stellar October performance on this account, my November performance went so deep in the red it was crazy.

It wasn't even the berserker rage type of crazy.

My bets on HSI and S&P shorts just got killed terribly.

The indexes just refused to come down regardless of the fundamentals.

This has dragged on into December as one can see.

And now my 2019 performance is utter shite.

Sad.

2019 Dividend Accumulator November

November has been moderately okay given the stellar few months prior.

I have managed to maintain holding many of my dividend stock positions despite the market continuously making all-time highs and I resist the temptation to sell my stocks.

It has been a good year for dividends to say the least.

If only my other investments were on a similar positive trajectory.

05 November $20.83
13 November $77.00
14 November $19.05
19 November $101.10
22 November $49.48
22 November $90.87
22 November $24.06
26 November $69.77

Total Dividends for November: $452.16

Total Dividends for 2019: $6,170.67
Average per Month: $551.90

Singapore Fintech Festival 2019

Another year, another booth.

This is turning into our annual flagship event.

What an enormous turnout this year!

Our booth was teeming with visitors, and that kept us so busy all three days.

We needed to bring in a lot of staff to cover too.

This year's event covered over 60,000 delegates and 6 halls of the Singapore Expo!

Saxo Fintech Conference 2019

Another fantastic event by Saxo Capital Markets this year, riding on the back of the MAS' Singapore Fintech Festival.

This year's lineup was quite stellar, and had the support of MAS even.

The standout speaker was Chris Colbert of www.chriscolbert.com and his views on disruption and innovation. Basically innovate or die. Also a very valuable recommendation to read about Project Aristotle and the tremendous impact it has had since.

We also had Rebecca Martin from MAS' APIX speaking about the latest API Exchange.

As usual were the evening networking drinks.

All in another fantastic event.

My Saxo P&L 2019 October

Ooh la la!

What a beautiful month October has been for me.

Just look at that. 3.9K in the green.

It has actually given me hope for the remaining two months of the year, with a 75 trade limit, to try to work towards breaking even for 2019.

Let's go for that!

Of course, November has begun nicely though as I lost a wee bit through the HSI volatility.

Need to be careful and find better and more certain winners!

HUAT AH!!!

2019 Dividend Accumulator October

October has been another really good month for dividends!

Many of the stocks I hold for dividend income paid out in October, so it's been a bumper month.

This is probably the most I'll ever earn in dividends in a month with what's left of this year.

Long may this continue as I work my way towards FIRE!

Must aim for even higher payouts next year!

03 October $78.12
03 October $21.14
04 October $117.19
10 October $46.82
11 October $19.33
18 October $78.54
22 October $6.77
23 October $165.24
23 October $303.44
23 October $80.46
24 October $225.06
25 October $54.00

Total Dividends for October: $1,196.11

Total Dividends for 2019: $6,170.67
Average per Month: $514.22

Fourth Berserker Rage of 2019

It really pains me to write this.

I thought that I was over this drug habit.

The last time it happened was all the way in March?! Can't believe I had a relapse :(

Anyway, this was purely Tesla fault. Damn you TSLA!!!

Tesla announced its Q3 results which were through the roof, and its share price rocketed 20% the day after the news broke.

The night before, I'd always made about $800 shorting TSLA as I felt the price overshot too much and I read many articles detracting the Q3 results as trying too hard to push for profit and yada yada.

Last night as the market was about to open, I was still sitting on a nice couple of hundred profit.

Then it began shooting even higher and I kept shorting TSLA!

From $298 at the open, it just traced up slowly but surely all the way to close at 4am at $328!

Who can believe that?!

Anyway I in-out a lot and kept losing.

I would win a bit if I longed, but then I'd short again and lose tons.

All in, I lost all my profits plus another $2,100.

Tamade.

Pui!

#TSLAQ

Gold ETF Luncheon With SSGA

Was invited to participate in the State Street Global Advisors' Singapore luncheon with Gold as their main focus of the lunch.

It was quite interesting because this was in tandem with the representatives from the World Gold Council.

Here were the two main slides to take away.

Should I buy gold now?

It Was Only Just A Dream

Some words of inspiration.

For the investing front.

My Saxo P&L 2019 September

Darn.

A poor reversion to the red.

I was actually green all through the month until the last week when a serious of bad trades like shorting TSLA, Crude Oil and some FX screwed all my profits up and went into loss.

I have three months remaining to try and shore things up to make my investments look more decent.

Jiayouz!!!

2019 Dividend Accumulator September

The month that has gone felt like a rather dry month.

Might be a September thing, but I also trimmed various positions in anticipation that October will be a turbulent month.

Hopefully can keep good dividends coming!

05 September $21.29
13 September $19.47
20 September $143.02
25 September $25.67
25 September $21.47
25 September $39.44
25 September $52.11

Total Dividends for September: $322.47

Total Dividends for 2019: $4,974.56
Average per Month: $414.55

My Saxo P&L 2019 August

Oh my.

This is my most profitable month this year.

It is still not a lot, but firstly, green is great. More importantly, I've managed to stem the red tide somewhat.

Hopefully I can go on to go green for the rest of the year!

I actually still have quite a large deficit to make up for this year.

Will keep trying.

Spirits up!

2019 Dividend Accumulator August

Another good month on the dividend front.

I seem to be getting good at this.

Hopefully Mr Market is also kind to me.

Much of my cash is fully deployed with only about 1% cash right now.

Long may this continue.

05 August $25.56
13 August $19.47
16 August $321.00
19 August $103.36
21 August $42.50
22 August $32.66
22 August $60.00
22 August $35.55
23 August $36.79
30 August $145.79

Total Dividends for August: $822.68

Total Dividends for 2019: $4,652.09
Average per Month: $387.67

Invest Fair 2019

So the company participated in this year's Invest Fair 2019.

It was a very successful event and it was much more crowded than I remembered it last year.

More importantly, we were given several speaker slots and I took up one of them to speak about the US markets.

It was quite a nervous and thrilling experience speaking to a public audience about the markets. Normally my only public gigs were on my pet topics of management, hiring, online trading or FinTech expertise. See this.

Seemed like it all went pretty well!

My Saxo P&L 2019 July

It's been another terrible month.

The prophecy is real. Everything that I am investing in just ends up in losses.

This month its been the AUDSGD. Just can't seem to get my timing right. Should I even be timing my FX trades?

Terrible.

Just look at it, EVERY single asset class I've touched has turned red! EVERY SINGLE ONE!

I should just stop gambling so that I flat-line my losses to what it is today.

And yet how can I resist?

2019 Dividend Accumulator July

Yet another bumper month for me! This is an all-time record high for me, which makes me so proud!

Was expecting a big flow of dividends from my four 2X Leverage mREIT positions and boy was I not disappointed!

Much of my cash is currently deployed with only about 4% cash. The world is still uncertain and there has been a bit of volatility heading into the weekend.

Hopefully not much disturbance to my distributions.

04 July $62.42
04 July $117.18
05 July $25.37
12 July $19.33
24 July $268.12
25 July $189.05
25 July $347.16
25 July $98.35
26 July $66.78

Total Dividends for July: $1,193.76

Total Dividends for 2019: $3,829.41
Average per Month: $319.12

Funny But True About Finances

US REITS To Buy And Hold For Long Term

This list is quite useful to archive.

The 20 Habits Of Eventual Millionaire

This makes a ton of sense.

I hope I will be a millionaire soon :)

Foreign Property

Recently, it was reported in the news that Singapore could hit past 40deg Celcius in 20 years time.

This was quite alarming for me as I am a very strong believer that climate change and global warming are both changing the way we live, and more importantly, the way our children will live in the future.

That was when I thought it'd be a good idea to start hunting for foreign property.

My preferred locations would be either in Australia or New Zealand.

Currently, Australia stands out because the SGD is at an all time high against the AUD. (SGD 0.95 = AUD 1). Also, Perth is a really nice and pleasant city, that is only 4hrs flight from Singapore.

The hunt begins now.

Bicentennial Note

As part of Singapore's Bicentennial celebrations, the MAS released a new and very nice $20 note.

Manage to buy on off a colleague for cost price.

Can't really show the note but this is the cover.

It makes a really nice souvenir, and likely will appreciate in price in the future.

My Saxo P&L 2019 June

It's been a relatively dormant month.

After the trauma of the last few months continuously bleeding away, I'm glad I'm finally seeing the rub of some green, even if it is a small amount.

Hopefully the second half of the year will be kinder and more prosperous for me!

Towards better returns in 2019!

2019 Dividend Accumulator June

It's been another bumper month for me last month!

Another great month for dividends, surprisingly. Even though I had cut back some of my holdings.

Currently holding about 20% cash at this stage. The world is not all safe and the stock markets are hitting all time highs!

11 June $25.24
12 June $117.53
13 June $19.19
18 June $78.10
24 June $149.10
24 June $22.51
24 June $41.34
25 June $27.46
28 June $227.80

Total Dividends for June: $708.27

Total Dividends for 2019: $2,635.65
Average per Month: $219.64

My Saxo P&L 2019 May

The worst month for me yet.

The losses came very early early in the month.

Then I placed an FX trading ban on myself until 1st June and it's stuck well since.

Hopefully can slowly but surely fight back.

Seeing all this red ink is very demoralizing.

I have seven more month's left to try and fight back.

Towards better returns in 2019!

2019 Dividend Accumulator May

A bit late for this posting, but nonetheless the stats don't change. It's been a bumper month for me last month!

Another great month for dividends. Although in June I've cut back on some holdings owing to the global uncertainty.

03 May $25.06
06 May $9.67
13 May $21.42
14 May $124.02
17 May $49.15
17 May $300.00
23 May $27.90
23 May $49.96
23 May $36.34

Total Dividends for May: $643.52

Total Dividends for 2018: $1,927.38
Average per Month: $160.62

Slow Burn

Have been on a slow burn in the last few months.

Every week, I'd lose between 1.5K to 2K, wallow for a week and 'ban' myself from trading FX, and then after a week's hiatus, I'd be at it again. It's been at least 4 repetitions of this and I've lost more than 6K in total now.

When will all this madness stop?

I really have far less self control than I imagined.

This is another 'ban' I've imposed on myself and I've gone a week 'clean'.

Hopefully I can properly ban myself from trading FX till at least 1st June.

Even More Wise Words

Somehow, this spoke to me about my poor FX trade record.

Very Wise Words

My Saxo P&L 2019 April

Another terrible month for me.

It should have been better, but again I screwed it up. Seem to be doing so time and time again.

I have eight more month's left to try and fight back.

Towards better returns in 2019!

2019 Dividend Accumulator April

Pushed out all quite a bit of cash into REITs. Then suddenly all I read about is sell in May and go away :(

Nonetheless it's been a good month for dividends.

01 April $58.00
03 April $115.20
03 April $25.06
11 April $45.08
11 April $21.42
23 April $112.40
25 April $141.48
25 April $67.32

Total Dividends for April: $585.96

Total Dividends for 2018: $1,283.86
Average per Month: $106.99

Family Office Dinner

To actually manage a gathering of so many individuals working in Family Offices is nary impossible.

But for one night, the company actually managed it.

We arranged for dinner at Nostra Cucina at MBS, booked out a private room, and made it a roundtable discussion event with even a moderator thrown it. This arrangement made it SO successful.

Funny Business Owner

This is what its like to have your own business and be savage about how you run your shop.

Saxo Investor Launch - Investing For the Future

And so, on Saturday 30th March, Saxo launched its 3rd platform in Singapore. This platform is targeted at all the buy and hold investor types who do not want leverage or margin products.

On this platform, you can only access Stocks, ETFs, Mutual Funds and Bonds. All at ultra low commissions.

Do check it out over here!

Or download the app on your Android or iPhone.

Here are some pictures of the launch. Reception was way better than any of us expected!

My Saxo P&L 2019 March

A slight reprieve from two months of horrendous trading activity.

I have had a few good FX runs (even though I tried to ban myself), and then there is that XiaoMi position which feels like a thorn.

At least I am up $500 in the green.

Towards better returns in 2019!

2019 Dividend Accumulator March

Still didn't get into any very significant positions since.

Still it has been more than an OK month for dividends.

04 March $52.79
04 March $25.06
13 March $21.42
25 March $10.67
26 March $17.42
27 March $39.00
27 March $51.53

Total Dividends for March: $217.89

Total Dividends for 2018: $697.90
Average per Month: $58.16

>$3 Billion

After almost 12 months of en bloc fever that I've written about here and here, all Mandarin Gardens managed to canvass was 65% of the votes approving the en bloc.

In a last ditch effort, they raised the sale price even higher! Meaning each unit would get even more money! Pity they didn't do this earlier as I might've been moved to sign away my home.

Too bad!

Third Berserker Rage Of 2019

OMG.

Another month into 2019, another berserker rage, bigger than ever.

Even after last month's big losses, I went into this trying to punt on the BREXIT saga currently unfolding. Losses were piled up on GBPJPY and somehow I just couldn't stop.

Yet again using IG Markets (they must love me as a client), I failed to control myself and kept going on maxed out positions with minimum stop loss in order to get maximum leverage.

In the end I lost a total of SGD4,260.

That's the same price as my upcoming Melbourne trip flight tickets.

Goodness, even trying to enforce an FX trading ban can't help me.

I really don't know what to do to stem these losses.

2019 has been especially bad for me. I've lost 2,500 + 2,820 + 4,260 = $9,580 already from these berserker rages.

My Saxo account is doing not much better, with a sitting $4K loss over there since the start of the year.

How?

I'm really lost now.

I want to say enough is enough and no more of this bullshit.

But when will the next berserker rage come?

Justin Fieber's FIRE Fund

Justin Fieber is the blogger who owns the site Mr Free At 33.

I am a big fan and he has really inspired me a lot.

He was the one who really introduced the FIRE concept to me, and one that I would like to emulate, albeit with a bit of tweaks. He's into Lean FIRE while I'm gunning for Fat FIRE.

I recently got hold of his latest portfolio which had 100+ stocks.

Hopefully can try to invest into a similar portfolio of good, valuable stocks like he has that can provide me with a healthy passive income.

His current portfolio is worth about USD$380K and giving him yearly dividends of about USD$13K, giving a yield of about 3+%. Really very decent stuff.

My Saxo P&L 2019 February

A continuation to the terrible start to my year!

I'm already down ANOTHER $2K in February!

I REALLY need to stop trading for a while.

2019 Dividend Accumulator February

Because of the ongoing global uncertainty, I haven't have had much balls to pump my cash back into dividend paying stocks. My problem is that those that I have liquidated have continued to move up and so if I tried to buy now, I'd be paying an extra premium. Was I wrong to sell? Only time will tell.

Still it has been an ok month for dividends.

04 February $75.74
04 February $25.24
13 February $21.58
18 February $40.45

Total Dividends for January: $163.01

Total Dividends for 2018: $480.01
Average per Month: $40.00

Casino Wars

Funny that for a gambler like myself, I've managed to successfully keep myself out of the casino for quite a long period of time.

Then last week in the space of several days, I actually went on two occasions, meaning I had to pay the $100 Singaporean levy twice.

The first time, a friend and I lost $1,000 within half an hour, and then we spent the next three hours winning it all back. By the end of my night, I went home with a $50 profit.

The second time, thinking I could repeat the feat of a few days ago, I went with the big bosses of my company. By the end of my night, I went home with a $500 loss.

Casino gambling definitely is a loss-making venture for any individual.

FX Trading Self Ban

Thanks to the first and second berserker rages I've had in 2019, plus a few accumulated smaller losses, I've decided to ban myself from FX trading until 1st April.

I went to the extent of setting it as a reminder on my mobile just for the sake of it!

Second Berserker Rage Of 2019

OMFG.

Yet again, after what I did last month!

And this is my biggest loss in quite some time.

Geez.

I really can't stop gambling it seems.

Again using IG Markets, I failed to control myself and kept going on maxed out positions with minimum stop loss in order to get maximum leverage.

Ended up losing SGD2,820.

Let's hope this is the last time I ever fund my IG Markets account.

Sure lose money account!

Hopefully my year gets better from here.

2019 Dividend Accumulator January

Continuing from where I left off last year.

The goal is to earn even more dividends in 2019 than I did in 2018. The total amount to beat is $2,175.12.

Bear in mind that I am currently holding about 40% cash because I think the current situation is rather unstable and volatile, and yet the market continues to defy gravity :( I've actually liquidated many of my profit making counters, including those strong dividend counters. Looking to buy back when the market eventually comes back down. If it does.

Still it has been quite a good month for dividends.

02 January $54.21
02 January $79.97
11 January $21.58
11 January $68.00
31 January $93.24

Total Dividends for January: $317.00

Total Dividends for 2018: $317.00
Average per Month: $26.42

REITs 2019

Thinking of plowing more investible funds into my passive income portfolio.

Came across this table on the Business Times on the flight back from Ho Chi Minh.

But the uncertainty in the markets is giving me the creeps.

My Saxo P&L 2019 January

What a terrible start to my year!

I'm already down $1.4K!

I need to stop trading for a while.

Look at how green it was just 3 months ago!

Ikigai

Ikigai (生き甲斐, pronounced [ikiɡai]) is a Japanese concept that means "a reason for being." The word "ikigai" is usually used to indicate the source of value in one's life or the things that make one's life worthwhile.

Read more here.

SIM INC Youth Investment Forum 2019

I had the honour of gracing this investment event organized by the Singapore Institute of Management's (SIM) Investment & Networking Club (INC) as a panelist. Generally I do not like to take speaker slots, but employment in the industry was something very relevant to what I currently do, and I felt that I could contribute somewhat. If all I accomplished was to change at least one person's mind about his career decision making, in a more realistic and positive manner, I felt this Saturday spent would have been worth my while.

The Youth Investment Forum 2019 (YFS2019) was very well organized. As a panelist the organizers in INC did a very good job making sure I was well chaparoned wherever I went, from the moment of my arrival. The program itself was very well structured as well, and relevant.

The format was fairly simple.

First was a Market Outlook panel discussion.

Followed by a Fireside Chat.

And then my session, which was a panel discussion on Employment in the Face of Disruptive Innovation.

I hope my insights were helpful and positive.

The Trading Losses Are Piling Up

Following last weekend's declaration that I would impose a trading ban on myself, I actually violated the ban.

I went to short the S&P500 @ 2,579 on Tuesday.

I went to short the USDJPY @ 108.12 on Wednesday.

Both are bleeding as of weekend close.

S&P500 is currently at 2,596.

USDJPY is currently at 108.56.

:'(

This is bad.

For the coming week, I would like to stay disciplined with my stop orders and not trade anymore for the week if I get stopped out.

My stop for S&P500 is at 2,640.

My stop for USDJPY is at 109.10.

This might really not be a good trading year for me :(

HUAT AH!!!

One Week Trading Ban

Following last week’s disastrous trading losses, I have decided on a self-imposed ban on trading for at least a week.

Let’s see if I can stick to it resolutely.

This might instill better discipline for me.

HUAT AH!

First Berserker Rage Of 2019

OMFG.

Just as I blogged about trying to avoid it.

I ended up in a trance trying to make money on the latest USDJPY spikes.

I hate using IG Markets trading account because it is precisely when I get into these spells that they allow you to put a 10-15pip stop loss and then release more margin for you to open even more positions.

Ended up losing SGD2,500.

I really should make this berserker rage my first and the last of this year.

Stay away from FX, people!!!

Boo hoo.

Stocks In My Dividend Portfolio

Here are the stocks in my dividend portfolio that I blogged about yesterday past midnight.

Not all of them are aligned with my passive income strategy and this will have to change for the better in 2019.

And not forgetting that the portfolio is currently down 15% due to the recent market volatility.