STE's Stocks Investing Journey

  Time flies, it has been almost 9 months since we registered the first case of Covid-19 in Singapore on 23 Jan 2020, the start of a chain of events that would lead to unprecedented closures and restrictions of movement. World economy suddenly halts and stop which have also lead to “havoc and chaotic” economy and affecting our life.   The world economy plunged into recession, millions of job losses all over the world and thousands of companies been affected and some would have to file for bankruptcy, for those badly affected by the pandemic like “aviation, hospitality “ and to some extent retail industry. The World after Covid-19 is unlikely to return to the world that it was before. Many trends already underway in the global economy and changing our life. This is especially true in the accelerating of the digital economy, things like “ distance learning “, work from home (remote working), telemedicine, food deliveries services will become the new “ digital behaviour “ which...

A Shrinking “ Panadol ”! I think this is the predicament for all of us as “income or dividend “ investors, seeing our dividend received have a big " cut" or totally disappear like the case of “ HSBC ”. We have noticed that most  REITs start to be more prudent in their latest distribution and conserving more cash during this Covid-19 pandemic. So far, banks like DBS still trying to maintain their quarterly dividend but I guess at some point, they also would have to cut their dividend if this crisis prolongs. As investors, we will also need to be more “realistic “ in our expectation, a 6-7% yield of stocks might become a thing of the past, especially if we look at the “ultra-low “ interest rate environment. Look at the interest rate for the latest SSB ( Singapore Saving Bond ) , for 10 years AAA bond is merely around 1%. Just guess how much you will get from the bank’s FD rate? Suddenly, I felt more than happy and contented with my money i...

image credit to newscientist.com In the past few months, we have seen the significant impact on Covid-19 pandemic to our economy and life in general. The world economy suddenly stops due to lockdown, the stock market plunged into a bear market in fastest speed. We have many unprecedented things happened recently, oil future dropped to negative territory, US jobless claims hit 30 mils in just six-week after lockdown, the  unlimited stimulus plan (money printing) from world central bankers, world country’s PMI plunges to record low etc…