STE's Stocks Investing Journey

Christmas is just around the corner and some of us may be busy doing the Christmas Sales shopping to buy a gift or present for your loved one and some may be "worry ", looking on the screen seeing DJ dropped by few hundred points each day. Yes, guess there will be no so-called " Santa Claus Rally " this year as the market expected to be in a volatile mood and swing viciously. Santa Claus Rally ( from Investopedia.com ) More than half of S&P 500 stocks are now in a bear market   ( from MarketWatch.com) Although the US market has corrected by more than -12% f rom the peak in early 2018 but is still far from long term mean level and not to mentioned about crisis level.

image credit to equitymaster.com Finally, I have completely sold all my remaining share of M1 at lost of -$14,226.78 , while some might still waiting or hoping for a better counter-offer from another major shareholder. Yes, it is a negative XIRR of -5.5% after close to 4 years of investing. Have to admit that I have underestimated the impact of "regulatory risk " after the government announced the new permit for 4th Telco and the subsequent disruption from severe "price war" not even the start of operation of 4th Telco.  The share price of all the Telco dropped by more than 40-50% from the peak since after the announcement of possible 4th telco in 2015 and confirmation of successful bidding of NESA from TPG Telecom of Australia in Dec 2016.

image credit to Izquotes.com Yeah !! Is time to update my dividend & interest income to be collected in 4th Qtr 2018. This will be a short and quick update as I am heading to JB for 2 nights staycation on 20th & 21st Oct and follow by another on 25th & 26th Oct to Lexis Hibiscus Port Dickson . From now till January 2019 it will be a quick pack for me as school holidays just started and will have more fun and spend more time on outdoor activitie s with my kids, as usual like rock climbing and ice-skating or even planning to climb " Bukit Timah Hill Summit   " ,,, yah Singapore's " Mount Everest ".

Yes, not by -8 % or -38% but -81.5% !! This is what happened when APPT (Asian Pay TV Trust) announced their result and dividend payout for next quarter this morning. I think most of the so-called " income investors " (including me)  were stunned by this sudden news and of course, the share price dropped by -49.2% and closed at $0.16 today. I still have a small position of this stock in my portfolio ( 0.4% ) and expected it (dividend) to be cut by 50% to around 3 cts which is a more sustainable level and close it's FCF and may still give us an approx 10% yield at the price of 30+ cts . Although it just a small position, but sitting with such huge "paper loss "now is no joke and a really painful lesson learned, I am sure those vested will have the same feeling.

Winning the lottery can be a huge, life-changing event. Imagine you'd just won few millions $$ from TOTO and not to forget the  probability   of an ordinary S$1 bet winning the jackpot  is 1 in 13,983,816   chance .   You must be “damn lucky “ in winning the TOTO but what happens to your life after receiving such big “windfall “. Will your life change better or worse, according to a study, “Lottery winners, despite overwhelming odds, are a rare few to win millions on the turn of a dime. Many are simple people just struggling to get by.  Having their financial concerns suddenly vanish must feel good. However, there’s a darker side to winning the lottery. Many winners end up worse off than they were before, broke, deeper in debt, divorced, or worst of all, dead. Like the old saying goes, more money, more problems. ” I am not so sure about Singapore’s case as no study been made on past lottery winner, but from below articles, it see...

I know we worry about a myriad of issues concerning stocks market because it affects our portfolio value day in day out. Our heartbeat increase when we look at the news headlines about “ trade war “, “Interest rate increase “, “ EM slow down”, “US Mid-term election”, “Sanction on Iran “ etc.. But should we press our panic button to “ buy or sell” every time we saw these news headlines which cause the market to fluctuate up and down? Read this before you make a hasty act on trading your stocks base on “ News Headlines “ . Buy American. I Am. By WARREN E. BUFFETT OCT. 16, 2008

Today mark the last trading day of Oct 2018, Yes! Indeed, it's a "choppy and volatile" month for STI and world markets. DJ could swing more than 600 points intra-day from positive to negative. Well, that is really the characteristic of "Mr Market", it swings like a pendulum. Again, many of my friends are asking me if I am selling my stock as the market seems very volatile and 'risky" ( for them ), but my answer to them is the same, "No", I am not selling but just do some "portfolio reshuffling " on some of my holdings ( which I will update more in my next Dividend and Portfolio Update).  In view of such "crazy market " , some might be thinking of getting out of the market and holding 100% in cash . I am not so sure if this is a wise move, of course, if one could avoid the "40 days with biggest losses" from the market, he/she could really achieve an "extraordinary" result, but in reality, can we rea...