STE's Stocks Investing Journey

One of the reader email me and asking about the idea of attending an investment course which cost him a few thousand dollars. I am quite reluctant to give advice in this regards as I never attended any investment course before and not sure about the useful and effectiveness of such courses. For me, investing is a long learning journey and one need to read extensively and learn from your own mistake not just sitting in the classroom for a few hours or days , listening to some “experts “advice or slides presentation on how to be a successful investor.

In stocks investing, you probably heard about the “ growth stocks “, “dividend stocks “, “large-cap / mid-cap “ or “ blue chips “ etc .. and depending on your “desired and expectation” of the ROI of your investment, you may choose what kind of stocks to be included in your portfolio. For most investors, I am sure you would have included some “income stocks “ into your portfolio as part of the diversification, and also hopefully dividends can keep the value of your investment rising even when market performance sours.

image credit to trackinsight.com Time flies, It has been more than a year after my first published of STE Smart Beta concept and bench-marking against STI Index. FYI, I have started my STE Smart Beta on 28th Aug 2016 with a capital of $100K with equal weighted investing in 14 stocks which fall under the criteria of PE<10 or Dividend Yield >5% . You may find the detail in this link ( here ).

There was an article about the importance of “ Market Timing vs Time in The Market “ by Mr Goh Eng Yeow , Senior Correspondent, The Straits Times on 20 th Aug and you may find the detail as below : Beating the investment pros at their game This is a never-ending argument or debate on which is more important ie Timing or Time In the Market , and from most of the articles you read, you may find that most of them are more inclined towards “Time in the Market “ rather than Timing the Market.

image credit to izquotes.com After getting the result announcement from Croesus Retail Trust this morning, all the company I have vested has announced their quarterly result respectively. Is time for me to update my Dividend & Interest income which I will be receiving in 3 rd Qtr 2017.   Total Dividend & Interest Income ( 3 rd Qtr 2017 ) = $46,539.36 YTD 2017 Dividend & Interest Income = $146,097.02 The total income received for this quarter will be much lesser as compared to 2 nd Qtr mainly due to absence of biannual dividend income from Accordia G Trust ( around $9K) and Interest income from short term corporate bond (around  $5K) which only be received in 2 nd and 4 th Qtr respectively.

Pursuant to my previous blog post about market cycles and “ 4 Seasons Investing “, there is another way of explaining the market cycles i.e “ Investment Clock “. The idea of an investment clock has been around for decades and it captures two very important things in investment :   1) Business and Market move in a cycle  2) No sector or asset class exist in isolation or can sustain without being affected by business cycles.

道德经中有：道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物。还有一句话是无极生太极，太极生两仪，两仪生四象，四象生八卦 太极生两仪，两仪生四 象 两仪 编辑 两仪 指天地或 阴阳 。一些武术家借用此词来引申到拳法中，如武术家 孙禄堂 就将动为阳、静为阴，合称动静为两仪。 关于 “ 两仪 ” ，综合历代易学家的理论，计有七说：一说为阴阳，一说为天地，一说为奇偶，一说为刚柔，一说为玄黄，一说为乾坤，一说为春秋。但通常是指阴阳。 四象 编辑 四象 即为：太阳、 太阴 、少阴、少阳。 而其又名：少阳、 老阳 、少阴、老阴。 从数学角度论四象为：四、九、八、六。 从方位角度论四象为：东、南、西、北。 从一年季节论四象为：春、夏、秋、冬 。 从人的名字论四象为： 孟章 、 执名 、 监兵 、 陵光 从飞禽走兽论四象为： 青龙 、 玄武 、 白虎 、 朱雀 。