Regular Investing

Although in my blog I somehow hint that I am doing regular investing, but truly speaking, I have not been doing so in the way I had initially wished for. This is partly due to my prudent nature where I wish to see some returns before I put in more money into the stock market.

However, recently I begin to re-consider again the idea of putting a fix sum per month from my income to invest regularly. This may or may not be a good idea as the general valuation of the stock market can be pretty high now, and it also means that there may not exist enough Margin of Safety for the stocks I buy. Nevertheless, my self argument to this is, I need to put my money to work hard for me rather than staying idle in the bank accounts. I need them to help me to generate more stream of income as soon as possible, and I believe, through averaging, although I may not get the best deal, they should be quite decent enough.

So right now, I need to go back and make a proper plan for it. I will update in my blog when it begins.

My investment Review (2010 - Now)

Before I review my investment, I think it's good to relate what actually had inspired me into investment.

It all began when "Rich Dad Poor Dad" was so popular that I picked it up and started reading, from cover to cover. By the time I put down the book, I realised it had inspired me a great deal, as if a whole new world was opened up for me. The real issue then was, the book did not tell me HOW to do it, and what should I invest in.

In about the same period, I chanced upon some investment talks and books regarding market investments such as Options Market, Stock Market, Commodities Market, etc. I attended free talks, paid seminars, bought tonnes of books and threw myself to study them, feverously. I came out realising that Stock Market is a better choice for me, at least until now.

So, like every other newbies in the Stock Market, at first I do know a little bit about the Stock Market, but I did not understand how it works or, what I should do to approach it, in a fruitful way. I started to learn to read charts and technical analysis. I bought more books to educate myself. Likely if you name it, and I would have the book you mention.

With some knowledge back me up, I started to experiment with real money into some stocks. Overall, I win some and I lose some.  This continued until the Great Financial Crisis that was going to happen.  Luckily for me, at the time, I didn't feel good about what was going on.  So I sold all my shares. This wise decision left me totally unscarred when all the world stock markets took new dives down almost every other day.

I took that lull period to re-examine my investment results. I felt after all the years risking my money into stock markets, I didn't really gain much on the average. I began to think and do soul searching as well. Again, I chanced upon some books introducing Income Investing. This interested me (not really excited at that time). After some research and reading, I realise this could be a better way of investment. I believe this could also put "Rich Dad Poor Dad" core idea into work! So I began to invest in Reits and plan to expand my portfolio with other income stocks when my finance allows me to do so.

In case for those who did not have the time to read "Rich Dad Poor Dad", the core concept of it is to

1. Reduce Liabilities
2. Generate income
3. Use the income to buy asset(s)
4. Main income and assets will generate multiple stream of incomes
5. Use the new stream of incomes to buy more assets
6. Rinse and Repeat Step 1 to 5

Now back to my present status. How is my investment doing?

If you notice, I have been away for quite some time, and this is due to some personal and family commitments that I had to stop expanding my portfolio during that period. But my income investing strategy does what is suppose to do - continue to give me income (albeit too little, but it doesn't matter) while I'm not doing anything at all.

And how significant is this, you may ask? Well, I have a piece of good news for you and myself.  The income I collected so far, it's already been able to recoup a portion of my initial investment, so much so that, I can now declare one of my three stocks on hand is deemed as free gift (see sidebar)! It means that it is as if someone has given me this stock as a present, free. Now, this is exactly what "Rich Dad Poor Dad" has preached - converting income into assets to generate more income!

Well, I think I need to stop here to catch some sleep. But I am looking forward to be active again for my investment journey. For now, bye!

Hi friends, I'm back again after many changes and disruption since my last post in year 2012. I hope I can start to contribute to this blog again soon.  See ya~   :>

Fresh And New Investment Year

Hi, I'm back.

My last blogging was in August 2011 and did not update for a pretty while. This is because I have landed on a new job and it requires my full attention at that period of time. But now things are settling down, so I have some personal time to continue with my blogging on my investment journey.

It has been a dramatic change since my last blogging - 

1. PST is delisted
2. FSL has a huge cut in DPU
3. AimsAmpReit has undergone a share consolidation
   

These unexpected events (at least for me) will have great impact on my goal and dream to arrive at a sustainable and consistent income stream to finally achieve my financial freedom.

This put me into thinking recently, while watching events unfolding themselves, what have I done correctly or incorrectly? What can be done to ensure a more predictable Average Monthly Dividend Achievement (AMDA) for myself?  I am going back to the basic to find out the answer.

Take for an example, I happen to come across one blogger, Musicwhiz, who has had divested his holding in as early as 3rd August 2010 at an average price of S$0.41125. His reason for divesting was purely based on his fundamental analysis of the company that it has unsustainable business model. Fast forward to today, on hind sight, he is right about it! This leads me to re-think my investment methodology  and realize I should not chase for risky high-dividend yield, because like everything else, there is a price tag for what it is.

With this in mind, I will want to ensure my future purchase of any stock to meet the following criteria:

1. Reasonable fundamental analysis using value investing method
2. Continue to buy only companies that are paying consistent and sustainable dividends
3. Avoid super high-yield candidates, medium ones that are giving 3 ~ 5% yield are acceptable

The above criteria is not still not finalized or crystallized yet because I still have other ideas in mind which I shall share with you at a later part.

At the moment, I am sorting the records I have been missing out during the period from my last update till now. I will publish them once it has been done.

Last but not least, if you happen to drop by this blog, I want to wish you great fortune and great health in this new fresh year!

Sign off with best regards.

A review soon

I have been very busy with my studies in these few months, but I will do a review on my portfolio again soon. :=)

New Year, New Start

uhmm ... I have not been updating my blog recently, because there aren't much things to update. Perphaps that is the boring element in investing.

A review of this year's investment plan, I have mentioned that I will begin to buy some blue chip stocks slowly, and I mean really slowly, little by little. The reason being, I am parting some of my funds to invest in myself for continuing education. I believe that is very important too, because with better education, I should be able to command a higher paycheck, and be able to invest more in Singapore Stock Market, and the cycle repeats itself.

Nonetheless, I will still keep a lookout for good buys and update my purchase in my blog regularly.  :=)

2010 year-end thoughts

It is almost Christmas and a new year is about to begin.

Looking back at this year, it has been wonderful to me so far. First of all, I formalised my passive income investing plan and it is progressing well. Secondly, I managed to increase my average monthly income from S$36 to S$147, and expecting it to hit S$200 per month. Although it is still a far cry from my target plan of S$3000/mth, I strongly believe when I do the right things and the things right, this target is achievable.

Looking forward into next year, I plan to accumulate blue-chip stocks into my humble portfolio slowly. As usual, I will update my portfolio once they are bought.

At this point of time, I will like to wish all a Merry Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year !!  :=)

Capital appreciation or income distribution ?

I read somewhere someone commented it is better to focus on capital appreciation than income distribution, if one has not achieved a certain level of wealth. There is some truth to this, however, from my personal experience, this is not an easy task to do.

From hindsight, we could have bought some stocks that would see a sharp recovery from the trough in March 2009 and obtained quite a fortune through capital appreciation. But there exists a single problem - who would have known it at that point of time ?

In reality, I have had been trying to do exactly that - identifying potential stocks that might appreciate very fast in price so that I could earn the most in the shortest span of time. I spent much of my time reading up Technical Analysis and its related topics, indulged a lot of personal hours into scanning charts. The result ? I was able to find some good ones and earned some coffee money. Yes, after spending so much time and effort, I managed to only earn a little money enough to buy some nice cups of coffee. This is because I always had sold much too early when they ascended or breakout from their base. Aside from that, I had my fair share of picking the bad eggs too, and I had to cut losses fast in order to protect my capital. My deep involvement in the market had also affected my performance of my day job too. All in all, when I now look back at the past few years, I realise I am about break-even, not much gains or losses. Now, this is something serious that requires me to re-consider and re-evaluate the way I should go about in the stock market.

During the bear market of 2007/2008, most stocks would simply just sink, day in and day out. The stock market was basically DEAD. I could not even earn coffee money back then, but luckily, I still have a job to cling on. What about shorting, you may ask. No, shorting just isn't my cup of tea as I view it as a lot of risk involved. Hence, since I had got nothing much to do, I returned to reading some investing books.

I chanced upon some investing books that cited examples on how, if one had invested a dollar in the US stock market back in the beginning of last century until now, this person would now have amassed quite a substantial fortune, just by re-investing his dividends. This amazed me. I went on to read more on this and found out that there were actually studies made and confirmed this. The most successful example, needless to say, is Mr Warren Buffett. From then on, I decided to change my investment plan.

Coming back to the topic - Capital appreciation or income distribution ? I will definitely go for and have since decided on income distribution. I understand that I am a very small player in this market, but I have a strong belief now that with determination and self-control, I will be able to snowball my little investment and grows it to become bigger and bigger in the future. Hence, I am now working towards my goal as stated in the first post of my blog.

Wishing myself good luck [grin].

I have a dream

A dream that I always have.

Yes, you guess it right, it's being financially free. Being able to enjoy what life hands to us, but yet do not have to worry over the bread & butter issues. Imagine, for one moment, I can be gone fishing, or choose to travel wherever and whenever I prefer, without the concern for and bogged down by work commitments. Or, I am able to extend a lending hand to social work and help out those that are in need, probably financially. With financial freedom, I can do much more !!

But how to do it, you may wonder ?

Here's what I plan to do to achieve this goal in my life :

1. Have a budgeted plan on my income earned through my salaried job(s)
2. Regulate my expense and spending to the least possible
3. Save as much as possible
4. Channel a part of my savings into stocks that provide dividends regularly
5. Re-invest all the received dividends back into Dividend Stocks
6. Repeat Step 1 - 5
7. Invest in physical gold whenever I have spare cash
8. Invest in real estate whenever I have enough cash

For now, I am doing Step 1 - 5, and hopefully it'll snowball fast and big enough for me to carry out Step 7 & 8. I have detailed my current stock holdings and average monthly dividend income goal on the right-hand side of this blog.

I will update any new purchase and add it into my stock portfolio. I will also aim to increase my monthly dividend income, at least on a per quarter basis.