Yes, my new portfolio turns one month today! Originally planned to celebrate its good start but the Novel Coronavirus concern has dampened the celebration. Nonetheless, I am grateful that despite the recent health emergency, my portfolio is only slightly down by 0.4% for the month. Singapore portfolio is down by 1.0%, while US portfolio is still up by 1.2%.
Actions for the month
Feeling uneasy about the situation in China and the unresolved Singapore Flyer closure since November last year, I sold out my stake in Straco on Chinese New Year’s Eve at an average price of $0.608, taking a loss of 10%. My gut feel served me well this time round as the group announced the temporarily shut down of its 3 China attractions after Chinese New Year, which essentially mean that it will generate no revenue temporarily. While I believe that it will overcome this setback, this incident highlighted its risk of having only a few attractions. The repeated long closure of Singapore Flyer added to the uncertainty of its business. With the above concerns, I am probably going to stay away from Straco for a while.
The sales proceeding has been redeployed in the past few days on a few counters. On the local front, I just took a small position in Ascendas Reit at $3.12 yesterday. Based on its pro forma on the financial impact of its latest acquisition, I will be getting a yield of about 5.2% for this purchase.
On the US front, I have added more ISRG at US$568 (avg $581) SBUX at US86.19 (avg $87.7) and DIS at US$135.89 (avg $144). ISRG and SBUX have both reported good numbers in their latest quarterly reports but have dropped quite a bit over the past week. The drop for ISRG is probably attributed to a lower than expected growth forecast for 2020. On the other hand, SBUX’s drop is due to the temporary uncertainty of its China business due to the Novel coronavirus. Being a long term investor, the drop in prices is an opportunity for me to increase my stake in these good companies.
Coming up
Dividend from REITs will come in next month and it is the season of quarterly reporting. It will be interesting to see how many of the local counters that I have will continue to do quarterly reporting.
I do not how the Novel coronavirus situation will pan out in the coming months. Of course, I hope it will stabilise or be contained for the sake of everybody’s health. On the investment front, I am going to stay vested with my current holdings and if the market continues to trend lower, I will start to deploy my opportunity fund accordingly to my plan below.
down by 5%, deploy the first 30%,
down by 10%, deploy the next 30% (60%),
down by 20%, deploy the next 20% (80%),
down by 30%, deploy the last 20% (100%),
hold and wait for recovery if drop continues.
Towards Financial Independence 