STE's Stocks Investing Journey

image credit to Izquotes.com Finally, is my turn to update the total dividend and interest income that I will be getting in 2 nd Qtr 2019 , after my last company i.e Accordia Golf Trust announcing its result yesterday. I’m really excited because second quarter is normally the highest dividend amount I will get as most of the blue chips are given out their dividend in this quarter. Total Dividend & Interest Income 2 nd Qtr 2019 = $59,007 vs 2 nd Qtr 2018 ($60,325) , decrease by -$1318.

image credit to mymoneyblog.com When buying TOTO, everyone thinks ( or at least hopes ) that they will be the “lucky” one to become the next “millionaire” and we all knew that winning 4D or TOTO is just pure luck, but how about investing? My friend ( Chirs ) from (Growing Your Tree of Prosperity ) have blogged about it here which caught my attention to write about my case and “luck factors “ which have much impact on my of investing.   ( What is your Return on Luck (ROL) ? ) <link>

image credit to Forbes.com The Market for Lemons From Wikipedia , Akerlof's paper uses the  market  for  used cars  as an example of the problem of quality uncertainty. It concludes that owners of high-quality used cars will not place their cars on the used car market. A car buyer should only be able to buy low-quality used cars and will pay accordingly. The market for good used cars does not exist. " The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism " is a well-known [1]  1970 paper by economist  George Akerlof  which examines how the quality of goods traded in a market can degrade in the presence of  information asymmetry   between buyers and sellers, leaving only "lemons" behind. In American slang, a  lemon  is a car that is found to be defective only after it has been bought.

image credit to uob.com.sg Sometimes my friends or even relative just wonder how I could survive without working or having “active income” for the past 4 years.   I told them that I have my own “ATM Machine “ that will generate consistent cash flow, quarter by quarter, of course sometimes I can withdraw more money from this ATM and sometimes less.   It has consistently given me the cash without fail even during GFC ( Global Financial Crisis ) , it just a matter of giving out more or less. Yes, it is dividend payout from my shareholding which I’m depending on since 2016 to pay for my monthly expenses and holidays. Of course, I’m not saying is easy to build this ATM Machine, it takes a long time ( very long, almost 20 years for me ) with hard work and saving, investing and reinvesting on the dividend received…taking advantage of the power of “ compounding effect “ as well as spend within your mean ( try to avoid “ Lifestyle Inflation “ ).

I have done less transaction in 1st Qtr 2019 vs 1st Qtr 2018 although the market has gone up much from the low recorded at the end of last year  In line other with world stocks market, STI also performed well in 1st Qtr, up by +8.02% to 3315  as of writing and my portfolio managed to outperformed market by few % points with ROI of +12% YTD, mainly due to better performance from REITs. Five Best-Performing S-REITs Average 20% Total Return in YTD   <from SGX.com>

This is probably one of the hottest topics where you can see and read from all over the business news headlines in the last two weeks. What is “ Inverted Yield Curve “ and why is it so important that draw so much attention from financial strategist/economist/investors/fund managers all over the world. Discussing, pondering and arguing about the impact and direction of the economy due to this so-called “ Inverted Yield Curve”, relentlessly.

If you may notice, I think K-Reit is the only REIT that is actively buying back its own share among all REITs listed on SGX. I fully understand the benefit of “share buy-back “ as it has been carried out by many companies who see the value of their share when the price might be temporary plummeted due to market condition or caused by certain bad news. What is a Share Repurchase / Buy-Back ( From Investopedia.com)