STE's Stocks Investing Journey

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…

What makes me want to stop working in the midst of high career path and promising career advancement? You don’t suddenly wake up and walked into your boss room ， tender your resignation letter and saying that you want to R.E (retire early) although you have achieved F.I and unless you have other plan like setting up your own business or helping the family to run the business etc.     First of all, allow me to share a few good blog-posts on   F.I and R.E   and some misconception of people about F.I.R.E before telling the " untold story " about my decision to R.E . As I mentioned before, to achieve F.I is a must and should be our ultimate goal, whereas to decide whether to have early retirement or not is very personal and depends on individual's wish and circumstances, R.E is just an option.

image credit to Bloomberg.com via seekingalpha.com We have experienced the fastest and furious " Bear" ever in market history. It only took less than 20 days for Dow Jones Index to reach the bear market ( i.e corrected more than 20% from the peak). This is the situation we never experience even in GFC 2008/09 . We have seen some of the REITs dropped in double digits % continuously in a few days and we can see that most of the REITs are having 50% sales now.

<image credit to focuspointtechnologies.com> Nothing last forever, everything moves in a  cycle like four seasons, we have a rough and roller coastal ride on our stocks market in the last two weeks.  World stocks market finally succumbed to this “deadly and widely spread Covid-19 “ pandemic and most of it enters bear market territory in just two weeks of continuous & severe plunging. The magnitude of the fall accelerated by the “tumbled “ of oil price due to OPEC’s failure to come to an agreement on supply cut, it doesn’t help during this low demand situation due to Covid-19 pandemic, a kind of double whammy impact.

Just to share some interesting quotes /wisdom from Howard Marks latest memo as below:  " Buy, sell or hold?   I think it’s okay to do some buying because things are cheaper.   But there’s no logical argument for spending all your cash, given that we have no idea how negative future events will be.  What I would do is figure out how much you’ll want to have invested by the time the bottom is reached – whenever that is – and spend part of it today.   Stocks may turn around and head north, and you’ll be glad you bought some.  Or they may continue down, in which case you’ll have money left (and hopefully the nerve) to buy more.  That’s life for people who accept that they don’t know what the future holds."

OK, my “little bear” finally wake up after many years of hiding / hibernating in the jungle. Ah! You still can’t really see him “ roaming or running “ around as he was just “ peeping “ out from the woods once awhile. The market suddenly realize the “danger” and the impact of COVID-19 to our economy as a whole and some industries specifically. Demand for certain industries like hospitality, aviation, retail, transportation and oil will be severely impacted due to lockdown and quarantine measures taken to contain the virus. It was a terrible week for the US stock market ( and Asia Stocks markets to some extent). The three major stock indexes posted their worst weekly percentage drops since the financial crisis, as coronavirus fears mount. Dow drops more than -1000 points in few consecutive days.