Investment Portfolio 2019: Rewind

Rewind

Time flies and we are coming to the end of 2019. I recalled in December 2018, things were not as rosy as compared to this year. The Fed raised interest rates and REITs had a 'correction'. My portfolio even went into unrealized lost territory. That's was when I blogged that I will stay vested despite the correction. Luckily, things turned out fine. 

Singapore Savings Bond became a hit, and was trending as the interest rates raises. It was giving out approx. 2.5% interest rate for a risk-free investment. Things took a turn in Jan 2019 and the market starts recovering, especially REITs. Without saying, the REITs had a spectacular performance in 2019. You could even termed 2019 the year of the REITs.

This year, I had the opportunity to add all the 3 banks to my portfolio. The allocation is still considerately small and I would be accumulating more next year if there is opportunity. The second half of the year were dominated by REITs M&A. I took part in every preferential and rights offering, and even applied for excess. This is where the bulk of my capital injection went into.

I have also recently signed up for the Manulife CancerCare insurance via DBS online (Disclaimer: I do not endorse the product and intend to terminate the policy after 12 mths). This is purely to clock the 3rd category (investment, credit card spending and insurance) for the DBS Multiplier account to get interest on the next $50K. The insurance can be applied online and cost only around $8.90 per month (with 35% off for first year).

Since the cash in my Multiplier account acts as my emergency fund, this would mean that my emergency fund would be increased to $100K. As a result, my warchest would be greatly reduced and probably need sometime to save up before my next capital injection.

I also did my first contribution to SRS and had invested all the funds this year.

Overall, 2019 was a great year for my portfolio. 

Hits and Misses

Although I did not set any specific targets for year, there were some noticeable milestone that are worth a mention. I normally do not set any targets as my investment philosophy is quite simple. That is to set aside money for emergency, and invest the rest. I do not have to specifically plan a budget for investment or cut any expenses to reach any investment goals. 

Hits - $500K Portfolio Value

This year, my portfolio value exceeded $500K, largely from capital injection though. Portfolio value is not everlasting and it fluctuates with market volatility. If the market corrects or crashes, this milestone could just be gone like the wind. 

Hits - $100K Realized Gain

I also manged to accumulate $100K of realized gain. Most of my realized gains came from dividend as I seldom do trading so there were not much gains or losses from selling and buying. There were only 14 buy and 3 sell transactions for the whole year.

Misses - $16K Dividend

Around $16K dividend was received this year but I would classified this as a missed. This was closed to the amount I received last year although portfolio value has increased. I would give my portfolio more time for the dividends to realized as some of the accumulations only came in the later half of the year.

Misses - Lendlease REIT IPO

The other thing worth mentioning is the Lendlease IPO. This is purely attributed to bad luck as I was not successful in the balloting.

This concludes the year for 2019. Details of performance for December 2019 will be out in the following weeks. 

Lastly, I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year in 2020!

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