January 2019 Portfolio Performance Review. Final Farewell to M1.

As of 31st January 2019

Since Inception
Total Portfolio Unrealised Gain/ Loss: $13,479.14
Total Portfolio Realised Gain/ Loss: $75,378.86
XIRR (Including dividends): 5.61%

January result was exceptionally good as the market turned bullish. My portfolio has moved from a region of unrealised loss to a significant unrealised gain. The unrealised gains were the highest for the past 5 months and all these gains were recovered within a month. As the saying goes, 'a rising tide lifts all boats', and I just happened to be in a boat. The prerequisite is that you have to be in a boat, so always stay vested. I also came across many bloggers with spectacular results for the month of January.

I do not know whether this is a bull trap or not but my strategy has always been for the long term so it does not matter. Your crystal ball is as good as mine. There are news mentioning that the US-China trade deal could be extended, which is seen as a positive news. If the deadline is extended, this shows that US is not willingly to increase the tariffs further to 25% and prefers a deal with China. But we will only know when the time comes.

I will be including an additional chart on portfolio value for the monthly portfolio results update. The purpose of this chart is not to show off, but I normally use this chart to be determine when I should do capital injection and the size of it. In general, I would want the chart to be increasing over time. So if there is any significant dip, I would try to compensate by injecting capital. You would have heard about 'Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA)' vs 'Buy the Dip' method, so in that sense, I preferred 'Buy the Dip' method. It is challenging to do DCA for a portfolio with so many stocks and different asset classes.

There is an interesting article, 'Even God Couldn’t Beat Dollar-Cost Averaging', shared recently suggesting that DCA beats 'Buy the dip' method. I do not agree with the article definition of 'dip' as 'anytime when the market is not at an all-time high'. Therefore, I think the debate is still open as to which is a better method.

Portfolio Value (excluding Cash and SSBs)

Lastly, Axiata has accepted the offer by Konnectivity which means that Konnectivity gains majority control over M1. The offer will become unconditional. For shareholders who have accepted the offer will be receiving the money within 7 days from the day it becomes unconditional. For those who have not accepted will have at least another 14 days from the day it becomes unconditional to accept the offer. After seeing how Starhub crashed, I am glad the deal went through although I will be exiting M1 with a loss. This at least allowed me to exit gracefully.

With the additional cash coming in, I will need to quickly put the money back into work.