As written in the earlier post, I have sold some REITs that I bought in November to reload my opportunity fund. I have also pared down my Kingsmen Creatives stake after it announced a weaker full year results. Took a loss of 3% at average selling price of $0.505. With some spare cash and upcoming dividend, I took two new positions.
CapitaLand Retail China Trust
I had a short relationship with CRCT in 2016. I was attracted to the yield then but sold when it reported a lower DPU for that year. Since then I had not look at it until yesterday when I decided to take a look at its latest results. It was an interesting read and the management seems to have done a good job over the past few years with their strategies leading to a stable distribution with growth in distributable income, rental reversion, shopper traffic and tenants sales.
I am satisfied with what I read and feel that the CRCT should be able to at least maintain it current DPU for the next few years. That gave me a yield of 6.9% at my purchased price of $1.48. Of course, I would love it that the management can surprise me with increasing DPU in the next few years.
Hong Leong Finance
A search on my spreadsheet shows that I actually had Hong Leong Finance before. In 2007, I bought it at $4.20 with CPFIS, held it for 4 months before selling at $4.06. Since then, it never appeared in my radar. So why the sudden interest now?
I just happened to chance upon it and saw that it has a very strong year with more than 50% growth in its net profit over 2017 for the first nine months.
A check on their past dividends show that it varied from $0.08 to $0.13 over the past decade. It increased its latest interim dividend to $0.05, a 25% increase over the previous year. I am betting that it would hike its year end dividend by at least 25%, given its strong performance for the year. Hence I am expecting at least an 11 cents dividend to be declared. I also think that it will continue to do well in the next one to two years, so it will declare 13 to 16 cents dividend, which gives me a yield of 4.5% to 6% at my purchased price of $2.67.
On the US Front
After announcing a strong set of results, Arista Networks have rebounded sharply and I am in the green again. Decided to pare down my stake as I have limited understanding of their business. Sold at US$281.6 and took a 5% profit. Will hold on to my remaining stake.
I have wanted to use part of the above sales to grab a small stake of Stamp.com after it plummeted by 55% last Friday. But as I was selling ANET, STMP has gone up by more than 10%! Decided not to chase it and queue at US$88 instead. Good if I get it but I am fine if I don’t.
Towards Financial Independence 