Half-Year Portfolio Review

Half-Year Portfolio Review

2017 was the first full year that I am working full-time and this has taken time away from my investment hobby and more or less contributed to a poor performance against the STI. As I had written in haste previously, I bought and sold stocks in frenzy in order to ride the wave of the bull market. Thereafter, I calmed down slightly to properly review my portfolio and make a mental note of which is a investment stock and which is a trading stock. For myself, I separate my stocks according to these two types and my strategies differs respectively.

Investment Stock -

• Stocks are researched to some degree before buying
• Investment horizon is generally longer
• Willing to take some loss in order realise the supposed value (current limit is 30%)
• Embarrassingly, I do not have a proper exit plan yet (this is the reason for why SingPost is utterly dragging my portfolio down or else I usually wait for an event that trigger me to sell ie. takeover, market starts turning down)
• Recent example: Tianjin ZX, ST Engineering, Falcon Energy and HPH Trust 

Trading Stock -

• Stocks are bought on sentiments though I do make sure there are some safety nets like an existent dividend yield and reasons for the stocks to chiong
• Usually sold when there is a quick gain 
• Stop-loss limit to a tune of -5% or when I know there is no longer any impetus for stocks to chiong 
• Recent example: HC Surgical, M1, HRnetGroup (I bought and sold M1 and HRnetGroup within such a short window that I did not update here)

When I group the stocks according to my objectives, I am more prepared when the prices actually hit the sell price, be it a profit or a loss. Therefore, I advocate to investors out there to know the difference between investing and trading. While I had advocated for a investment slant, I do trade from time to time to feed the itch.

Dividends

In my 2016 Investing Report Card, I had made $1100 as the dividend target to hit this year. As of me writing this post on 16 July, I have accumulated $635.39 in dividend or 57.76% of the target. While it is lagging behind the time equivalent of the year, it will catch up eventually as some stocks do not declare every quarter. However, given the poor performance of SingPost, I will eventually miss my dividend target this year unless I heavily increase my capital. I am not inclined to do so as the market is very high right now.  

Performance

For the first 6 months this year, I have accumulated a XIRR of 2.867%. This return is abysmal compared to the general market. This is really attributed to the fall of SingPost, which is frankly quite unrelenting. SingPost has been the gem in my portfolio and I have refused to sell it despite the many pitfalls and signs it had been displaying. The advice of not falling in love with any particular stock is really true in this case and I have been considering to write a post on how to sell a stock in order to keep myself disciplined.

However, as I am only writing this half-year review post now in July, there had been a offer for GLP to be taken private amongst other movements and I hope it will contribute to an improved full year returns.

So that's all for my half-year review. STI has been huat huat for a while now and I feel that there are increasingly lesser value stocks around. The theme should switch to hunting turnaround stories as the bullish market will handsomely reward these turnaround. At the same time, we should be nimble in our buying or selling so as to not be caught off guard if the market turns. All the best in your investing journey!