It’s another quarter of positive return, making it the fifth consecutive quarter of green after last year’s market crash. To be honest, I am quite amazed by how consistent the returns have been for the past five quarters. Definitely, not expecting this to carry on.
Performance
Market (especially US) continues to stay volatile and am definitely happy that at the half way mark, portfolio is already up by 23%! This is the same return as last year and in terms of absolute value, current year’s profit is 120% of last year’s. Besides the strong performance by iFAST which contributes to about 46% of the return, the sudden strong run of US tech counters recently plays a major part too.
In fact, my US portfolio was still lagging SPY by a whooping 14% on 16 June. However, 2 days later on 18 June, the gap was reduced to 1.5%, and now I am level. I would never have caught this movement, so staying in the market works well for me.
| SG | ES3 | US | SPY | |
| 2021 Q1 | 17.5% | 11.4% | 1.6% | 6.4% |
| 2021 1H | 26.5% | 11.2% | 15.2% | 15.2% |
| Since inception (Jan 2020) | 44.3% | 2.3% | 59.5% | 36.4% |
The return since inception of 49% is beyond my expectation. It already hit my minimal goal of compounding 8% over 5 years (total return of 47%). Hopefully, the portfolio can continue to go strong and hit my minimal stretched goal of CAGR of 12% over 5 years (total return of 76%).
Allocation
| Planned | June 2021 | |
| Equity:Cash | 75:25 | 83:17 |
| Income:Growth | 60:40 | 51:49 |
| SG:US | 70:30 | 69:31 |
The amount of money in the market is higher than the allocated primarily due to the recent deployment. Just going to hold on to this for the moment and if opportunity arises in the second half of the year, I will rebalance this ratio. With my growth counters powering the return, the income counters stand at 51% only. I will be on the look out for opportunity to add on my income counters in the coming quarter.
Dividend
A total of 6.6k of dividend collected for the quarter, 23% higher than previous year. The higher amount of dividend is primarily attributed to the earlier distribution by AReit and MINT before their PP and PO exercise. For the full year, dividend should just be slightly higher than last year’s.
Top and Bottom Five
Now that I have put my counters in various tiers, I have decided to exclude those in the Unknown Tier in Top and Bottom Five. With a much smaller weighting, their performance would hardly move the portfolio. Having said that, I would think they would be worth a mention if any of them has gone up or down by at least 30%.
| 1H Top 5 | Q1 Top 5 | ||
| iFAST | 172% | iFAST | 105% |
| UMS | 42% | TSCO | 29% |
| SHOP | 35% | UMS | 23% |
| ANET | 31% | Micro-Mechanics | 20% |
| TSCO | 27% | OCBC | 17% |
| 1H Bottom 5 | Q1 Bottom 5 | ||
| Venture | 1% | TEAM* | -8% |
| NFLX | -0.7% | MELI | -10% |
| CLCT | -1% | OKTA* | -12% |
| MELI | -5% | CRWD* | -12% |
| Keppel DC | -10% | TTD* | -13% |
iFAST continues to lead with an even higher gain as compared to Q1. With the strong run in the past few weeks, ANET and SHOP replaced Micro-Mechanics and OCBC in the top 5. Among the counters in the Unknown tier, Docusign stood out with a gain of 35%. The price of Docusign shot up after it announced a strong Q1 performance.
In terms of absolute value, the list is slightly difference due to position size. UMS which is the fifth on the list has a gain of $7.4k, while Keppel DC registers largest loss of $2.7k.
| 1H Top 5 | Q1 Top 5 | 1H Bottom 5 | Q1 Bottom 5 |
| iFAST | iFAST | NFLX | Keppel DC |
| ParkwayLife | Micro-Mechanics | CapLand China Trust | MINT |
| Micro-Mechanics | OCBC | MELI | MELI |
| SHOP | DBS | Frasers Centrepoint | APPL |
| UMS | UMS | Keppel DC | ISRG |
Unit Trusts (CPF)
The return from the unit trusts is more muted as compared to last year. Nonetheless, based on capital deployed, the overall return is 5%, still 2.5% higher than the CPF-OA. It is 23% up since last year, so beating CPF interest easily.
Coming Up
Another round of quarterly reports is starting soon. This is what I am expecting and hoping to see.
- Steady performance from the Reit. Looking forward to the announcement of dividend from Capitaland China Trust but at the same time telling myself not to over expect the amount.
- Hopeful that MAS will relax the cap on dividend distribution but I do not think it would go back to 2019 level yet.
- Semi-conductor related counters should continue to do well in the second half.
- US growth counters will continue to report good numbers but as most have guided it won’t be as spectacular, given the high base last year. Price wise, it should remain volatile.
- iFAST is expected to report another strong quarter. Will be looking forward to its report and from there we should be able to have a clearer picture of its performance for the rest of the year.
Towards Financial Independence 