STE's Stocks Investing Journey

Was having a casual conversation over the dinner with friends last week and some knew that I am not working since 2015, asking if my investment income will be able to cover my expenses. I told them that I am still able to save $60-80 K a year after deducting all my yearly expenses including holidays and staycations. “Then you are saving too much for your retirement !”, one of them said that .. I was stunned like: huh ?? saving too much ?? …Uhhh!

image credit to Open-electric.sg Everyone seems happy recently (including STE ) as our pocket will   have some extra money from saving of our electricity bill by switching to some other’s retailers, other than SP Power. STE just signed up with Keppel Electric on their FIXD24 plan at $0.168/kWh vs current tariff of $0.2413/kWh (before GST ) which is around 30% discount from current tariff + $20 NTUC voucher.    😄

image credit to edgeprop.sg Guess this is the hottest business news headlines since the announcement made last week : CapitaLand buying Temasek unit Ascendas-Singbridge in $11b deal While everyone seems excited about how it will transform CapitaLand -> CapitaLand 3.0 to be one of the Asia largest real estate group and world No.9 in term of AUM, with 8 listed REITs entity on SGX.

image credit to todayonline.com Right after 31 st Dec 2018, I guess everyone was busy logging in to their CPF account to check what is the latest balance they have in their CPF account. Yes, CPF interest will be credited on that day and one will be able to see how much he/she got on interest income for the year of 2018. STE doesn’t have the opportunity to feel the joy of getting year- end bonus since 2014 but instead, receiving the interest income from CPF on the first week of each year make me happy same as getting the bonus. ( Not from the employer but from “Ah Gong” ). We normally work hard to get a bonus but in this case, we let our money work hard to generate the interest income. :D Total $29,348.70 been credited to our CPF accounts ( for both STE and Mrs. ).

As we leave 2018 behind and roll into 2019, first and foremost allow me to wish all A Very Happy & Prosperous 2019. I am sure 2018 was   a tough year for all investors as compared to 2017 where most of us may end up having a negative return on our investment portfolio.   This is a big contrast to 2017 where we have achieved double digits growth in our portfolio. If you are still enjoying double-digit +ve return this year, congratulation !! you must be an exceptional and extraordinary good one in picking winning stocks. STI closed at 3068 in 2018 with -9.9% return since early 2018. For me, my portfolio ended up worse than STI with -13.2% (including writing-off of $117K of Hyflux 6%CPS ) vs the return of +24% last year.  This year will be the second year where my portfolio under-performed STI by 3.3% and another year was in 2013 where REITs was badly hit.