Why a Trader Should Invest Too

I was at a traders' fackbook group when someone asked which stocks should he buy for investment. Immediately there were a few replies and most actually said that they will ramp up their trading capital and trade bigger lots. Why need to invest in stocks they say when they can earn bigger bucks by increasing their trading capital and trade bigger. Agree?

Hmm this I do not quite agree. In fact, I think that all traders should invest in stocks, property or other business assets. Even for those good traders who can profit consistently needs to invest too.

Why? Very simple because trading is an active income too just like a job. If your hand or brain stop, your trading income will stop too.

This is the same question I popped up to my boss too when I asked him if he has done any investing. Well he said that he doesnt have any time for that and doesnt need to invest :P He is risk conservative. He cannot stand losing money or paper loss.

Our job is active income. Meaning if our hands stop, our income stop too but our mouth cannot stop :D Just need to do some passive income eg investing in stocks or property or any other business assets which will continue to generate income even when we are not working anymore eg retrenched, retired or unfit for work, etc

Hope you get my point :)

Half Yearly 2016 Portfolio Review

Its the mid of 2016, let's just do a little checkpoint to see how much am I closer to my target :) I started building my portfolio in Oct 2014. So close to 2 years of results.

STI vs my portfolio:

My portfolio already beat STI for many months with the cumulative amount of dividends collected, but if you count only capital gain, then its almost a fair fight.

Portfolio by stocks:

I am currently still in the process of diversifying my portfolio such that they should not exceed more than 5% of my total portfolio. I am still looking out for more high dividend stocks to buy so that I will be more diversified. The recent bear market has allowed me many opportunties to pickup blue chips and mid cap chips with high dividends I have 22 stocks with me now and will be targeting to reach more than 30 of them.

Portfolio by sector:

In the sector diversification, my Capital Markets sector has come down due to my buying up of other sectors. I also bought in quite a number of shares in the Industrial conglomerates which consists of Keppel Corp and Sembcorp Ind and REITs, it is now about 14% and 13% respectively. I am targetting probably not more than 20% for each sector of the other stocks.

Checkout my portfolio → portfolio

Target:

Target	Targetted Portfolio size	Targetted Monthly dividends	Period	Yearly CON	Dividends Reinvested
1st target	$85,000	$495	2015	$30,000	$5,900
2nd target	$120,000	$700	2016	$30,000	$8,400

My 2nd target is to invest up to $120,000 and receive monthly dividend up to $700 per month. I think I already met my 2nd target! and we are only halfway through 2016
I have invested $148k and expected to receive monthly dividend of about $700 :)

Checkout my target → target

Dividend:

Total dividend is $5k+
Dividend per month is $719

Checkout my dividend → Dividends

Portfolio Analysis:
My worst performer is Noble Group (-75%) Grrr. I was trying to catch the bottom at 69c but it went down even further. Now, it is offering rights issue at 11c. Super big discount to its trading price :( Noble has gone through worst time during 2008 crisis but the lowest it went there was 42c I think. Let's hope Noble can pull through and recover *pray* haha

My best performer so far is UMS(25%). This one was bought during my early days and was collecting dividends and some capital gains :)

Overall, my portfolio still ends negative in mid 2016. Some credits for the diversification of stocks. My risks are spread out throughout my list of stocks. Cant imagine if I have a big share in Noble then my portfolio will look really bad. But things are turning around and I can see my portfolio recovering near to breakeven already. Just a few months more ...

At end of mid 2015, I already invested close to $148,000 and receive monthly dividend of $700. Based on the projection of my expected annual dividend of this current portfolio, I should be getting around $8400 which is about $700 per month. So I should have met my 2nd year target. We will confirm this when we do a full review of 2016 at year end. I will continue to follow my strategy of allocating $5000 each month to buy high dividend stocks and march towards my 3rd target which is ...

Target	Targetted Portfolio size	Targetted Monthly dividends	Period	Yearly CON	Dividends Reinvested
1st target	$85,000	$495	2015	$30,000	$5,900
2nd target	$120,000	$700	2016	$30,000	$8,400
3rd target	$161,000	$920	2017	$30,000	$11,000
4th target	$213,000	$1200	2018	$30,000	$14,900
5th target	$257,000	$1500	2019	$30,000	$18,000
6th target	$320,000	$1800	2020	$30,000	$22,400
7th target	$372,000	$2100	2021	$30,000	$26,000
8th target	$428,000	$2490	2022	$30,000	$29,900
9th target	$487,000	$2800	2023	$30,000	$34,100
Final target	$551,000	$3200	2024	$30,000	$38,500

Checkout my strategy → Strategy

Dividend Stock Tracker
I keep track of good SGX dividend stocks such as 10 years consistent SGX dividend stocks, REITs, Business Trusts, etc with real time information update. Checkout the link below:
Checkout my Dividend Tracker

Jun 2016 Portfolio

This month we are all blessed to witness the greatest history of our time ie Brexit! At least our generation witnessed this event and will live to tell our tales. I am more of a Brexit guy and support those British who voted for this. Britain is one of the richest nation in EU. So EU was very anxious esp Germany to make Britain stay in EU. But EU was plagued by many poorer nations such as Greece, Spain, etc. And because of the easy travel access among the EU, many people from these countries flooded into Britain looking for jobs at lower wages. This caused the British to lose their jobs and there's also a lot of social problems. I believe in the longer term, Britain would perform better when they are out of EU. However, stock reacted negatively when Brexit and fell to lows. I was waiting to pick up more shares after the BRexit but market quickly rallies for a few days, thus making me no chance to buy anything from the market for the last few days of Jun. Guess there will be buying opportunities in Jul. Have no fear :)

STI vs my portfolio

My portfolio is still hovering in the negative region :( but good news is that I beat STI at least a consolation prize :)

Period	STI	My Portfolio (Realised)	Verdict
Jan 2016	-20.78%	-15.15%	I win
Feb 2016	-18.98%	-12.11%	I win
Mar 2016	-13%	-8.28%	I win
Apr 2016	-13.55%	-6.50%	I win
May 2016	-14.46%	-6.27%	I win
Jun 2016	-12.95%	-5.18%	I win

Total 22 stocks in portfolio



This month I received dividends from a few companies :)



Checkout my Dividend history

Dividend Stock Tracker
I keep track of good SGX dividend stocks such as 10 years consistent SGX dividend stocks, REITs, Business Trusts, etc with real time information update. Checkout the link below:
Checkout my Dividend Tracker

May 2016 Portfolio

Guess every dividend investors were enjoying themselves with the dividends showering on them during the month of May. I too have my fair share of monies 'falling from the sky' :) This month I also received a nice little surprise from CMPacific. I just got it just once or two months again. It was announced that they will be delisting and offer a premium price of 20% more ie $1.02. This will be my first stock to be 'sold' in my portfolio. Well, I always envy those people who were so lucky to own stocks which were offered a premium price of what they are holding and got a nice profit from it. Stocks such as Saizen, Tigerair, Osim, etc. So this time its my turn to be the 'lucky' guy :)

I also added Hyflux prep cap into my portfolio. Not sure if this is a good move but I always wanted to add some delicious preference shares into my collection but heard quite a handful of negative comments on this. The thing about prep cap is that the company can choose to defer paying dividends if they want to but Hyflux has been very consistent and paid up every time for its preference shares. Well anyway just buy a bit and hold for the long time and collect dividends along the years.

STI vs my portfolio

My portfolio is still hovering in the negative region :( but good news is that I beat STI at least a consolation prize :)

Period	STI	My Portfolio (Realised)	Verdict
Jan 2016	-20.78%	-15.15%	I win
Feb 2016	-18.98%	-12.11%	I win
Mar 2016	-13%	-8.28%	I win
Apr 2016	-13.55%	-6.50%	I win
May 2016	-14.46%	-6.27%	I win

Total 23 stocks in portfolio



This month I received dividends from many companies hehe



Checkout my Dividend history

Dividend Stock Tracker
I keep track of good SGX dividend stocks such as 10 years consistent SGX dividend stocks, REITs, Business Trusts, etc with real time information update. Checkout the link below:
Checkout my Dividend Tracker

Successful: Short Silver

4H chart silver chart was showing signs of weakening and that silver is going down. Took a short at silver and got to endure abit as it went against my trade for abit before crumbling down :)

Trading Plan:
1. Trade with the trend
2. Trade when there is a price action reversal with the trend continuation
3. Place SL on previous high/low candle (Limit my loss)
4. No TP. Let market decide when to exit (Let my profit run)

Successful: Short Gold

4H chart gold chart was showing that it is going down soon. When the entry was taken yesterday's morning, gold didnt came down immediately. Instead it went on a roller coaster ride upwards almost hitting my stop loss and was shy away before it finally came down during the US session around 10pm. *phew*

Trading Plan:
1. Trade with the trend
2. Trade when there is a price action reversal with the trend continuation
3. Place SL on previous high/low candle (Limit my loss)
4. No TP. Let market decide when to exit (Let my profit run)

Successful: Short GBPUSD

Shorted GBPUSD but was not doing well so exit for a small profit. Luckily, as it went higher and would result in a loss.

Trading Plan:
1. Trade with the trend
2. Trade when there is a price action reversal with the trend continuation
3. Place SL on previous high/low candle (Limit my loss)
4. No TP. Let market decide when to exit (Let my profit run)