Portfolio Update: April 2017

April seems like a pretty short month.

Same as the past month, there is no addition of shares to the portfolio.

Some of the stocks rose, while some fell. However, at the end of the month, the portfolio is still able to eke out a 0.76% gain.

Nothing bad, but nothing fantastic either. Below is the updates of the portfolio. Overall, it seems like the portfolio is losing steam. Perhaps it is time to get a quick rest so as to let the bull runs a little further.

I'll be tracking the STI ETF performance from next month onward, so as to compare it with the portfolio performance.

Code	Stock	Port%	Shares	Last	Value
BN4	Keppel	10.69%	2500	6.51	16275
C38U	CMT	7.77%	6000	1.97	11820
O5RU	AIMS	7.33%	8000	1.395	11160
S6NU	Croesus	7.81%	12200	0.975	11895
B2F	M1	7.13%	5000	2.17	10850
J69U	FCT	6.93%	5000	2.11	10550
U96	Sembcorp	6.17%	3100	3.03	9393
T82U	Suntec	4.65%	4000	1.77	7080
SV3U	Soilbuild	4.37%	10000	0.665	6650
RW0U	MGCC	4.22%	6000	1.07	6420
CC3	Starhub	3.67%	2000	2.79	5580
N2IU	MCT	4.19%	4000	1.595	6380
N01	NeraTel	3.39%	13400	0.385	5159
P40U	Starhill	3.54%	7000	0.77	5390
TQ5	Frasers Cpt	3.99%	3200	1.9	6080
D5IU	Lippo	3.35%	12000	0.425	5100
AW9U	First	2.66%	3000	1.35	4050
S63	ST Eng	2.49%	1000	3.79	3790
AU8U	CRCT	2.09%	2000	1.59	3180
C2PU	PLife	1.68%	1000	2.56	2560
BUOU	Frasers L&I	1.53%	2300	1.01	2323
E5H	GoldAgr	0.24%	1000	0.36	360
T8JU	Saizen	0.11%	5000	0.035	175
		100.00%			152220

Portfolio Update: March 2017

I know. I have missed out the update for February 2017.

I missed out knowingly, because there is really nothing much to update for my portfolio. I did not do any transaction at all. Thus, no blog post on portfolio update. Bad AK! Bad AK!

Wait... what has it got to do with AK? AK is my idol among all the financial bloggers and if you don't know who is AK, you must be living in a world of your own or new to financial blogs. AK's blog is singaporeanstocksinvestor.blogspot.sg


Anyway, below is my portfolio update for March.

Code	Stock	Port%	Shares	Close	Value
BN4	Keppel	11.48%	2500	6.94	17350
C38U	CMT	7.82%	6000	1.97	11820
O5RU	AIMS	7.33%	8000	1.385	11080
S6NU	Croesus	7.19%	12200	0.89	10858
B2F	M1	7.05%	5000	2.13	10650
J69U	FCT	6.98%	5000	2.11	10550
U96	Sembcorp	6.53%	3100	3.18	9858
T82U	Suntec	4.74%	4000	1.79	7160
SV3U	Soilbuild	4.47%	10000	0.675	6750
RW0U	MGCC	4.05%	6000	1.02	6120
CC3	Starhub	3.81%	2000	2.88	5760
N2IU	MCT	4.05%	4000	1.53	6120
N01	NeraTel	3.64%	13400	0.41	5494
P40U	Starhill	3.50%	7000	0.755	5285
TQ5	Frasers Cpt	3.68%	3200	1.735	5552
D5IU	Lippo	3.14%	12000	0.395	4740
AW9U	First	2.60%	3000	1.31	3930
S63	ST Eng	2.47%	1000	3.73	3730
AU8U	CRCT	1.96%	2000	1.48	2960
C2PU	PLife	1.67%	1000	2.52	2520
BUOU	Frasers L&I	1.50%	2300	0.985	2265.5
E5H	GoldAgr	0.25%	1000	0.385	385
T8JU	Saizen	0.09%	5000	0.026	130
		100.00%			151067.5

As it turns out, I did not do any transaction in March as well.

Since the last update for the month of January, the portfolio has grown about 4% or 5k without me doing anything. As the market slowly increases, I am silently growing my warchest so as to take advantage of any market dip that may happen in the future. I have just opened an UOB One Account last week. With this account, I hope that my warchest can at least earn a decent interest while I wait...

Portfolio Update - Jan 2017

Happy Lunar New Year.

Below is my portfolio update for the month of January 2017.

Name	Port%	Shares	Close	Value
Keppel Corp (SGD)	10.64%	2,500	6.17	15,425
CapitaMall Trust (SGD)	8.03%	6,000	1.94	11,640
AIMSAMP Cap Reit (SGD)	7.50%	8,000	1.36	10,880
Croesus RTrust (SGD)	7.19%	12,200	0.855	10,431
M1 (SGD)	6.93%	5,000	2.01	10,050
Frasers Cpt Tr (SGD)	6.90%	5,000	2	10,000
Sembcorp Ind (SGD)	6.73%	3,100	3.15	9,765
Suntec Reit (SGD)	4.77%	4,000	1.73	6,920
SoilbuildBizReit (SGD)	4.38%	10,000	0.635	6,350
Mapletree Com Tr (SGD)	4.22%	4,000	1.53	6,120
StarHub (SGD)	4.10%	2,000	2.97	5,940
Mapletree GCC Tr (SGD)	3.95%	6,000	0.955	5,730
StarhillGbl Reit (SGD)	3.69%	7,000	0.765	5,355
Frasers Cpt (SGD)	3.48%	3,200	1.575	5,040
NeraTel (SGD)	3.42%	13,400	0.37	4,958
Lippo Malls Tr (SGD)	3.23%	12,000	0.39	4,680
First Reit (SGD)	2.63%	3,000	1.27	3,810
ST Engineering (SGD)	2.28%	1,000	3.3	3,300
CapitaR China Tr (SGD)	1.96%	2,000	1.42	2,840
ParkwayLife Reit (SGD)	1.68%	1,000	2.43	2,430
Frasers L&I Tr (SGD)	1.49%	2,300	0.94	2,162
Vard (SGD)	0.34%	2,000	0.25	500
Golden Agri-Res (SGD)	0.29%	1,000	0.425	425
Saizen Reit (SGD)	0.18%	5,000	0.051	255
	100%			145,006

Basically, I did nothing much in January, except being forced to accept an unbelievable offer of $0.25 for Vard Holdings, as the offer has turned unconditional. My purchase price was $1.255, and this means my loss in this counter is a whooping 80.08%. What a lucky number. This is by far my worst counter in my entire portfolio and investing history.

Nevertheless, the portfolio did turn up a +3.6% month-on-month, which I think is still not too bad, though it still did not beat the STI Index ETF. Hope that the rest of the year would turn out better.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Dec 2016 Transaction and Portfolio Update

Happy New Year!


Below is my portfolio update in December.

Name	Port%	Shares	Close	Value
Keppel Corp (SGD)	10.34%	2,500	5.79	14,475
CapitaMall Trust (SGD)	8.08%	6,000	1.885	11,310
AIMSAMP Cap Reit (SGD)	7.49%	8,000	1.31	10,480
Croesus RTrust (SGD)	7.28%	12,200	0.835	10,187
M1 (SGD)	7.00%	5,000	1.96	9,800
Frasers Cpt Tr (SGD)	6.79%	5,000	1.9	9,500
Sembcorp Ind (SGD)	6.31%	3,100	2.85	8,835
Suntec Reit (SGD)	4.72%	4,000	1.65	6,600
SoilbuildBizReit (SGD)	4.57%	10,000	0.64	6,400
Mapletree GCC Tr (SGD)	4.07%	6,000	0.95	5,700
StarHub (SGD)	4.02%	2,000	2.81	5,620
Mapletree Com Tr (SGD)	3.99%	4,000	1.395	5,580
NeraTel (SGD)	3.83%	13,400	0.4	5,360
StarhillGbl Reit (SGD)	3.70%	7,000	0.74	5,180
Frasers Cpt (SGD)	3.60%	3,200	1.575	5,040
Lippo Malls Tr (SGD)	3.17%	12,000	0.37	4,440
First Reit (SGD)	2.71%	3,000	1.265	3,795
ST Engineering (SGD)	2.31%	1,000	3.23	3,230
CapitaR China Tr (SGD)	1.96%	2,000	1.37	2,740
ParkwayLife Reit (SGD)	1.69%	1,000	2.36	2,360
Frasers L&I Tr (SGD)	1.52%	2,300	0.925	2,127.50
Vard (SGD)	0.36%	2,000	0.25	500
Golden Agri-Res (SGD)	0.31%	1,000	0.43	430
Saizen Reit (SGD)	0.18%	5,000	0.051	255
	100.00%			139,945

Basically, there is not much changes to the portfolio, except that I have bought another 2000 M1 shares @ S$1.94. Total dividend income is S$15,088 for the entire year (inclusive of the special distributions from Saizen Reit and NeraTel). If exclude these two, dividend income is S$7,657.


In reflection, it was a bad year for the portfolio. The portfolio is unable to beat the index, and also some of the buys turned out to be bad (e.g. NeraTel, no thanks to The Fifth Person). I will be more prudent in my stocks purchase this year by analyzing each potential buy. Hope that Year 2017 will be a better year for the portfolio.

How To Get >5% Cashback For Your Telco Bills

There are many different credit cards which offer cash rebates when you charge your Telco bills to the card. Some of the banks even have a card specially for a particular Telco (they call it the co-branded cards). These cards would require the Telco bills to be charged directly to the credit card every month (through credit card GIRO) in order to enjoy the higher cash rebates. If you are living in Singapore, most likely you are paying bills to either of the 3 Telco companies (i.e. Singtel, M1 and StarHub). (I put StarHub last because I believe 10 years down the road, it will have the smallest share of consumers among the 3 Telcos.)

For Singtel, we have the Singtel-UOB Platinum card. As the name implies, this card is only offered by UOB.

This card offers cash rebate of about 1% -6% of your Singtel bill. But considering that only very few people have monthly bills of $500 and above, we shall ignore the last category for this discussion. So this card would ultimately offers cash rebate of about 1% to 3.33% for your Singtel bills.

For M1, there is the Citibank M1 Platinum Visa Card. This card is offered by Citibank.

The cash rebates that one can earn from this card is as follows:

It offers a cash rebate of 1.5% to 2.5% for your M1 bills, which is less than the 3.33% offered by Singtel-UOB Platinum Card if you are spending more than $300 for your Telco bill, but more than the 1% offered by Singtel-UOB Platinum Card if your monthly Telco bill is below $50.


If your Telco is StarHub, then sad to say that there is currently no co-branded card with any bank yet.


Of course, you may choose other cash rebate cards, like Standard Chartered SingPost Platinum Visa Credit Card (which offers 7% if you pay your bills online). However, do note that this card requires a minimum spend of $600 per month in order to enjoy the cashback.

 

If you are using StarHub and not spending a lot each month, you may consider using Maybank Platinum Visa Card instead to chalk up the rebates.

As discussed thus far, we can see that most cards offer less than 5% cash rebates for your Telco bills. So how do we actually get that elusive >5% cashback?

The answer is easy.

First of all, you would need to have a BOC Family Card from Bank of China. This card already offers a 1% cash rebate when you charge your Telco bills to this card. However, this method is not really recommended as it is not really significant.

Secondly, you would need to have a NETS Flashpay card and register for the Auto Top-Up (ATU) feature to allow the auto top-up through your BOC Family Card  (or you can also register for the NETS Flashpay ATU function using your BOC Family Card (which is also a NETS Flashpay card) if you do not have a NETS Flashpay card, but do note that a $0.25 will be charged by BOC for every ATU transaction). Do note that a $0.25 convenience fee will be charged by NETS for each ATU transaction. The link to register for ATU is here: https://atu.nets.com.sg/schemeatu/showreg.action

Lastly, pay your Telco bills using NETS Flashpay through one of the SAM kiosks you can find near you. This will effectively allow you to qualify for the 5% cash rebate for NETS Flashpay Auto Top Up (first 4 top ups), as you are depleting the funds in your NETS Flashpay and thus quicken the pace of ATU.

But wait! You may ask, "Hey, so that's just 5%, and some more there is a convenience fee being charged by NETS / BOC, which makes it less than 5%!"

This is where the trick comes in... The trick to obtain more than 5% is to continue to use your existing cards (be it UOB, Citibank, Maybank or Standard Chartered). After which, pay your credit card bills using NETS Flashpay through any of the SAM kiosk. This way, besides earning the cashback for paying your Telco bills using your credit card, you also get to qualify for the 5% cash rebate for NETS Flashpay Auto Top Up. So that makes it more than 5% cash rebates for your Telco bills!

For example, for a monthly Telco bill of $42, rebates for the different cards would be as follows:
1) Singtel-UOB Platinum Card: 1% + 5%
2) Citibank M1 Platinum Visa Card: 1.5% + 5%
3) SingPost Platinum Visa Card: 7% + 5% (minimum spend of $600 per month is required)
4) Maybank Platinum Visa Card: 3.33% + 5% (minimum spend of $300 per month for each quarter)

So there you have it. This is how you get >5% cashback for your Telco bills!