2015 Investing Report Card

In my previous post, I mentioned that my "financial year" ends on 13 January 2016, since it was the date I started tracking 2015 investment returns. Now that the day had past and I finally handed in my Final Year Project report, I can finally sit down to type out this post!

2015 Annual Return: -10.412% (for year ended 13 Jan 2016, using Excel's XIRR function)

With a portfolio that is down more than 10%, it was definitely not a good year for me. The consolation is that using the same calculation metric, the 2015 return for STI ETF was actually -16.099%. 

Hence comparing my portfolio against the STI index, I had technically "beat the market" for the year of 2015. Since many books had mentioned professional fund managers have trouble beating the market, I take pride that I had achieved the feat in 2015. It was a tough year especially with China's economy not doing well and oil price being so depressed. As a graduating student, I can sense that Singapore's economy is not doing well at all. This is so because of the tight job market available for me. My wish for 2016 is for me to get a job and start my own monthly investment plan, putting a part of my salary in STI ETF. I do not mind that the stock market tanks because over the long term, buying in a bear market inflates your returns. Buy when others are fearful!!

Note: Recently, someone introduced me to Holding Period Return as a way to calculate portfolio return, instead of XIRR. I am still not sure which is more accurate. Hence for 2016, I will keep track of my investments using both methods and observe how far they deviate from each other.


Here are some of the fun facts about my portfolio performance in 2015:

• Dividends are probably the reason why my portfolio managed to outperform STI ETF - receiving $863.19. 

• Dividend yield for portfolio is 4.80%, Excluding stocks that did not give dividend, the yield goes up to 6.17%.

• I'm not a perfect investor. I trade sometimes (or technically, gamble). With 5 sets of Buy-Sell trades, I made a loss of $438.45. Portfolio return would have been better if my hand had not got itchy.

• Narrowly missed losing a whole lot more if I did not sell Ezra in time. Ezra closed at $0.0900 that same day.
  

• 2015 was also a bad year because none of the stocks I bought for investment purposes finished the green. Stocks included K-Reit, k1 Ventures and Straco. The only positive investment which I sold off was Apple Inc, which I bought in 2014 and sold in March 2015. 

2015 was an overall bad year while 2016 remains uncertain and volatile. Within the first 2 weeks, STI had already dropped 8.46% and the future of oil rigs giants KepCorp and SembCorp look threatened. Having started investing in 2011, I have not met any bear market or recession. No one can claim to be "experienced" if he/she have not gone through a financial crisis. Hence I am actually excited for 2016! Bull or bear, I will still be in the market, seeking my private returns. 

My Stock Holdings (December) & Happy New Year 2016!

2015 stock market closed without a bang, neither a plunge. But it's undoubtedly a bad fairly lousy year. Starting the year at 3370.59 and ending it at 2893.19, STI dropped 14.16% excluding dividends. Oil price had bottomed to a 11-year low and does not seem to be recovering any time soon. Relevant companies in the oil industries had taken a hit, in particular Keppel Corp and SembCorp.

In my own portfolio, SingPost dropped almost 8% partly because of its CEO's departure and corporate governance problems. In my previous posts on SingPost, I mentioned how much I admired Wolfgang Baier's leadership in transforming SingPost. Now that he is actually gone, a closer watch on SingPost's performance in e-Commerce will be warranted.

Consistently under-performing stocks in my portfolio will also be reviewed soon. (once I submit my FYP report) These stocks actually include Bank of Ireland (BKIR) and HPH Trust. Since buying them almost 2 years back, they had returned almost zero returns. In fact, accounting for inflation and further brokerage fees and foreign custody fees, they were probably negative returns. In the long term, I am pessimistic about HPH Trust since there is little impetus for the share price. Management guidance of allowing dividend payout to follow cash flow should further compress dividend yield. For Bank of Ireland, there should be a slow recovery of its business towards declaring dividend late 2016 or early 2017. However, holding BKIR incurs foreign custody fee at POEMS and it is very vexing. Given the time, I would love to assess whether switching out BKIR and HPH Trust are preferable. (using capital budgeting concepts I learnt in FIN2004X!)

Rounding the "My Stock Holdings" posts for the year, below is the distribution of my portfolio at the end of December.

I received $150 from k1 Ventures through its capital reduction exercise. Adding it all up for the year, I had received $863.19 in 2015!

Since I will be working in mid-2016, I shall aim to achieve $1000 worth of dividend in 2016! This means putting some portion of salary into the stock market, maybe through dollar-cost averaging of STI ETF! Lastly, I shall write another post regarding my investing performance for 2015 as I started my records on 13 January of last year. Included will be breakdown of my Buys and Sells etc. Since I have not sat down to look at my records, writing that post is equally exciting for me!

Once again, Happy New Year and here's wishing everyone out there a prosperous and joyous year ahead! HUAT AH!

My Stock Holdings (November)

November brought down prices of a lot of my stocks, most notably Singapore Post and ST Engineering. I would probably not average down any time soon unless capitulation takes place. At the meantime, their dividends will keep me satisfied. 

I had also bought k1 Ventures at a price of $0.20 on 10 November. This was prior to the capital reduction exercise conducted by the company, in which it gave out $0.015/share to shareholders. k1 Ventures is a investment company and has a great track record of delivering returns to shareholders. It is a bit of a pity that I had noticed this company so late. Between 30 October 2013 to 29 January of this year, the company had return $0.11 of dividends. That's 50% of the price I paid, excluding any capital gains! A risk involved in buying the stock at such a late stage is that most of the monies made from divestment gains had already been given out, hence returns may not be as great as before. Future investments made by k1 Ventures may not be as successful but given the track record, I am willing to place a small amount of money with them in hope of reaping a good returns. However, writing on hindsight with the price standing at $0.183 now, it is unnerving that the stock seem to drop with everything I might touch. The opposite of Midas Touch, perhaps the market is currently not optimal for new investments despite good fundamentals. 

The pie chart shows the current distribution in my portfolio. In the month of November, I received dividends from Keppel Reit and Singpost. Hence the dividends I had received from start of the year to date is $713.19.