Thursday, December 22, 2016

Top/Worst performers in my portfolio for 2016

It's coming to the end of the year. In one week's time, we will be ushering in 2017.

So how did my income portfolio fare for 2016? I will officially be recording and tabulating the results on 31 December 2016, but it doesn't hurt to review the performance of my counters thus far. I'm not the type who monitors the prices of my holdings daily, so some of the top/worst performers were somewhat surprising.

I define returns as follow:

((Current Market Price + Dividends/Distributions received) - Purchase Price)/Purchase Price

I have included transaction costs in the above calculation as well

Worst Performers

1). In first place, the worst performer for the year goes to Sabana REIT, with a -35.44% return. I have nothing to say about this. Move along now, move along. Damn paiseh.

I've learned some valuable lessons from this, and it's my first "tuition fee" that I paid to mister market. Since my capital is small, I have lost only $280 for this. It's painful, but not catastrophic. I have since divested this counter.

2). Second place goes to Kimberly Clark Corporation. This counter shouldn't be here actually. I managed to catch it at its lowest due to newbie luck. As my strategy is to nibble in multiple tranches, transaction fees dragged it to the second worst performer, with a -7.63% return.

3). Third place goes to iFAST Corporation, with a -6.96% return. I purchased it when it fell to its IPO price. It still fell further. My investment thesis still stands so I'm not too worried about it.

4). In fourth place, we have VICOM, with a -6.73% return. Similar to iFAST, my investment thesis still stands. However, I purchased it at the wrong price. I will be detailing this mistake in a subsequent post.

5). Rank 5 goes to Starhill Global REIT, with a -3.91% return. After purchasing most of the REITs at their lows at the end of last year/start of this year, Starhill Global was the only REIT that has not moved proportionately as compared to the others. Hence, I got in at a slightly higher price, which explains the negative returns here. No worries here either.

Top Performers

5). In fifth place, we have Japan Foods Holding, with a 14.57% return. Newbie luck here again. I managed to catch it at its lowest. Compared to other restaurant counters, JFH is one of the strongest ones out there. Lean business model, good cash hoard, decent ROE, profit margin, synergy between its franchises, etc.

4). Fourth place goes to Parkway Life REIT, with a 14.63% return. Nothing to comment on here.

3). Third place goes to Dairy Farm, with a 18.99% return. Interestingly, I recall buying Dairy Farm when B of Forever Financial Freedom sold his entire stake in it.

2). Okay, second place is somewhat surprising. It goes to ST Engineering, with a 20.62% return. I know it's a quality counter in my portfolio, but I didn't expect it to do that well. Again, newbie luck here. Managed to purchase it at its lowest.

1). First prize goes to......................*cues music*.............Lippo Malls, with a 27.40% return. After purchasing this counter and after improving my fundamental analysis skills, I came to realize that I may have made a wrong purchase. There is quite a lot of stuff that I don't really know about this counter. I've spent many a times scratching my head as I try to make sense of the corporate actions that were undertaken. The information detailed is quite convoluted and I am unable to make sense of its ramification for unitholders.

And then, you have to look up "north" as well. Veteran bloggers shy away from this counter while newbie bloggers flock towards this counter.....hmmm, I foresee myself divesting this counter some time in the future.

Bonus
Actually, the best performer goes to Saizen REIT, with a 44.28% return. However, since this is a one-off issue, I did not want to classify it as the top performer.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

November updates

So what has Unintelligent Nerd been up to? I'm pretty much occupied with my new job and school. School work is tough. Considering my background, I think I got more than I bargained for by signing up for the 1-year programme in engineering school. For the first couple of weeks, the terms used by the lecturer flew past my head. My understanding has gotten a bit better since then, but there is still much work to be done. I'm done with 3 tests and am left with 2 more next week before the term closes for a much needed break.

The following are some updates in my life:

Work
I'm settling in nicely at my new job. The colleagues are great and we gel well. The only grouse I have is that my commute time has increased to a whooping 3 hours 20 minutes journey each day (1 hour 40 mins to and fro).

Formal Education
One of the goals which I have set for myself in life is to try to achieve a perfect GPA. It is possible to achieve such a goal for these 1-year programmes; there are fewer modules so there is lesser chance to screw things up.

I failed to achieve my goal in the previous 1-year programme I took. This current 1-year programme starts with a blank slate. If I don't screw things up, I could reasonably achieve my goal. However, I'm getting cold feet because it's engineering we are talking about here.......

Informal Education
At the same time, I'm taking a Coursera course on Micro-economics. I find that reading up on the level 1 CFA syllabus without receiving any feedback on my progress/understanding is a sub-optimal strategy to take. With Coursera, at least I'll be able to gauge my understanding of the concepts (in this case, econs) through their built-in quizzes.

Book Reading
Personal development from book reading is put on hold. I think I'm quite distracted lately. I've been reading multiple books halfway. Either I lost interest or do not have sufficient cognitive resources available to digest the materials.

Personal Finance
I have opened a CIMB FastSaver account and have designated it to receive my monthly salary from my employer. Sure, I could get more than 1% interest, but considering all the hoops I have to jump through, the no-frills FastSaver account is more suitable for me.

I have been eyeing some counters on NYSE and Bursa Malaysia. In fact, I have opened a US trading/settlement account with Standard Chartered to trade in the former market. I have just placed an order on a particular US counter and hope the price would fall enough for my order to be filled. The counters I'm eyeing have dropped substantially, though I'm expecting them to drop more. As such, my entry position is but a nibble. If they fall more, I have multiple tranches of cash prepared to average down hard. If it goes up, just sit back and collect the dividends.

I'm still exploring what brokerages could be used to to trade in Bursa Malaysia securities. It does not make sense for me to nibble if custodian fees wipe out my dividends totally.

Recent Transactions
I initiated a new position in Mapletree Industrial Trust in two tranches in November when the price dipped. It is a counter which I have been eyeing for quite some time.

I added to my silver holdings as well.