Milestone

With a recent purchase, the goal of being able to receive dividends every month has been achieved. Here's the chart!

2018 Annual Report - Continued

2. What didn't go well this year?

Well, it is hard to pinpoint as I am generally not a negative person, yes there will be disappointments, however I do not dwell on them or take it so seriously that it affects my life. I'll try to squeeze out something over here. 

Investing. This was my first full year as a real investor, and needless to say, it did not go as I hoped. Portfolio is negative due to the recent market dips. Something for me to work on, and I am focusing on being more disciplined in looking at financial metrics, though I am also highly convinced by Nassim Taleb's idea that there are so many randomness in life. This applies to stocks too. So likely, I will just stick to ETF investing and will look to pump more capital in as the index drops further (with fingers crossed!)

I guess there is really nothing much here as I am happy with things at the moment, probably the getting a higher pay, which everyone wants. This is something I will work towards to.

3. What am I working towards to?

Work experience. I will seek out another opportunity for a posting overseas again for a project, as I have made it a mini aim of mine to experience another culture. It could be a trip back to China, which I do not mind at all. Of course, with this, I am also hoping for a pay raise, which if I am not satisfied with what the company has to offer, I will start hunting for the next jo b.

VBA/Excel. I am considered slow on this aspect, but lately I have been fascinated by the automation of things, especially through Excel, which is such an underrated software in my experience as I still see people pretty much do the same few things all over again. I've started subscribing to a channel on Youtube, Learn Spreadsheets. I have benefited alot and new ideas keep flowing in on how I can improve my existing spreadsheet after learning about the features which I was not aware of. Productivity increase, and I do hope this little investment will prove to be worthwhile in my career. Came across this VBA Tutorials, which I love so far, as the author takes you step by step to learn more and at the same time, have tutorials for you to try. VBA semi-professional by the end of the year!

Learn, Learn, Learn. Learn batch files script, learn a new course on Edx, specifically the one recommended by Four Pillar Freedom. 

Investing. Deploy more capital into the markets as it continues to drop?

Ok nothing else more.

Happy New Year to Everyone out there!

2018 Annual Reflection

*This is inspired by Four Pillar Freedom's Post - Here it is

Three Questions

1. What went well this year?

2. What didn't go so well this year?

3. What am I working towards?

What Went Well This Year? 

Work Experience. Had the opportunity of a lifetime to be part of a project in China and stayed there for close to 8 months. It opened up my eyes to the world and I spent a part of my time travelling to see the different cities with my colleagues. It left an indelible mark on me to make it a point to travel and experience the beauty this world has to offer. I realized I had such a micro view of the world in the past (yes I did travel, but was not really impacted by those trips) and all I was concentrating on while living in Singapore was to grow my savings rate (which limited me to the options I can have). 

I learnt how to YOLO a little and not be too tight arsed on how my money was spent. (Well, the compensation received played a huge part in this too). Experienced a different culture and mindset and it was is so refreshing. 

With this, I was also blessed to be in charge of a segment of the project, something that allowed me to learn about project management as well as grow my skills. At least now I can say I know something. 

Grateful for the project manager who was supportive of the things I wanted to learn, and giving me space to pick up the skills. At the same time, the seniors who were so ever willing to teach and not grumble when I approached them. This was such a dream team and a breakthrough for my career. 

Books. I set up a reading challenge through Goodreads to reach 35 books this year. Fell short of it and managed only 27 books. Still, it was great. I have subtlely (if ever there is this word) opened up my eyes to this world and it is always great to learn from others. To ever learn something about a person, read the books they write because reading is so different from listening.

Most impacted book definitely would be The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis. I realized as I read this that I have always been curious about behavioural economics/science. Or in short, why people make decisions and how they decide on why they want to make it. This book was like the Bible that opened up my eyes. It led me to read other fantastic books like Predictably Irrational, Emotional Intelligence, Influence and Never Split The Difference (all similar yet different).

I'm currently reading Robert B Cialdini's  Pre-Suasion.

For me, such books make me aware of techniques people use in their daily interactions or how they handle situations and it helps me to be aware of cognitive biasness. Oh, and it helps me in my interactions, since I am not much of a talker myself.

Finance - Investing, Savings, Tracking. 

Investing - Suffered capital losses on paper, but I'm in this for the long run. Waiting for the market to dip further with all the uncertainties before purchasing more. Yes, capital losses are not fun, but I have increased my dividends by about four times in the coming year with my capital injection. And learn from how I can execute future stock purchases. I've hit my initial goal of $50/month dividends this year, and moving on to next year, I intend to have on average $200/month.

Savings - With the blessing I had from the work opportunity, my savings account more than doubled this year. I'm hoping for more of such goodies. Coupled with the frugal mindset, so so important.

Tracking - Expenses/Investing. Have been using Google Sheets to track my spending/investment/networth growth for 2 to 3 years. Was lazy to work on it, but what was good was that I fined tuned certain parts of it from time to time when I felt the need to and had the inspiration. Over the past couple of days, I finally consolidated them into an excel (which has increased capabilities) and I am excited to continue work on this. With this, I will work on charts. Google Sheets will still be my main platform to track expenses, but detailed investment purchases and analysis will be handled by Excel form now on. I'm excited.

Continuous Learning. Am in the midst of taking a cert in Big Data Management. I realised I love systems. Though the teachings are not in-depth and coupled with my commitment to the overseas project, my learning has really been minimal. But still its good to grow the knowledge at almost free of charge with the skills future credit available. I'll continue to explore more from my Alma Mata university for my next learning journey.

On Friendship/Relationships. I've made the decision to cut off certain relationships. This was a huge part of my life for the past 10 years, but I've never really felt like I fitted in. They are very nice people with great heart. I'm happy now that I do not have to provide 'fake smiles and small talks'. Don't know if I will regret this, but at least I'm so much happier now.

Newcastle United. Nothing exciting about the team under mike ashley's management. Benitez is doing an excellent job stabilizing the team. The only highlight here would be the sight of a real Magpie when I was climbing a part of the great wall in Tianjin. So happy that day.

Cheap Thrill: Will enjoy Business Class flight back to SG on 30th with company footing the bill. Enjoy life without paying for it.

Lastly, to anyone who is reading this out there, feel free to approach me for any thing you might want to know about China.

I'll leave the other 2 questions for another day.

Ciao.

So far away..

Have been away for long, and do I even miss writing these posts? Probably not. I guess this is the litmus test as to whether I will end up becoming a blogger. Truth is I love reading, and specifically financial blogs. But I find it such a hassle to write, or think of things to write about. What brought me back here today was simply because I was explaining how insurance works to him and he told me I should be working on my blog to share the stuff. But frankly, to be honest, most of the knowledge I learnt was from reading so many other financial blogs. So I shall attempt to keep it going.

Best blog of the moment for me? Definitely Early Retirement SG. I love how he analyzes so many simple issues in life, and to be honest, I find myself nodding ahead to the many things he wrote. I hope to be able to write like him!

One happy thing was the sharing of Singsaver to my friends, and I am glad they took my advice to get free vouchers while signing up for credit cards!

Things have changed though, started a side business, hope it works!

Lastly, its a quote I gotta write. Read from a lovely book.

"They say find a purpose in your life and live it. But sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind. And now that I had fulfilled mine, I felt aimless and adrift."

Something to ponder on

Some thoughts on Investing

Most of us as retail investors go through this process, to be a "pro" we spend all our time either perfecting our Technical Analysis skills (reading of chart patterns as people believe they can predict these movements based on past results) or Fundamental Analysis (reading of financial reports and being able to see the potential strength/weakness or growth/decline).

Some spend their whole life thinking that Financial Analyst are god-send and follow their advice religiously.

Some gets sucked into the rumors that were spread and jump in without making their own judgement.

Some buy and do not even know what they are doing (i recently heard a story where a person bought a single lot of a stock and was so proud that she owned a stock, but didnt even factor in brokerage fee, and a host of other things)

And we all think we are pros in our own ways doing these things

BUT here's the big question:

Do CEO of companies look at fundamental or technical analysis or go around listening to rumors just to run heir company? Its a good question because if they do, then all the more we should improve on those skills. However, I believe they do not look into those when running their company, but rather think of ways to grow their share price/profits/revenue/etc..

So, this leaves us with the dilemma, if they do not do what the retail investors do, why then are we doing those things? Are we looking at the wrong thing?

And just a last thought on listening to rumors/analyzing big investor movements when we make investing decisions. Many times we read reports of this or that big investor selling their share and we think that we should follow suit.

However, here's the thought: There are many reasons for selling, but only one reason for buying (and that is for the price to go up). The big investor could have sold due to

- re-balancing of portfolio
- have cash for other opportunities
- to purchase a home?
- for unforseen things in live
- to bring family on a super duper expensive holiday

But when we buy, we are only hoping for 1 thing, and that is the price will hopefully go up.

Best Savings Account?

So this is my journey on maximizing my returns on my bank account. It led me to days of research here and there and finally I decided on Maybank Save Up Programme. Most people would be very familiar with OCBC 360 or UOB One, since they are more highly advertised. They started as great accounts with fantastic returns after fulfilling the criterias, HOWEVER, they re-adjusted their interest returns and it does not look attractive anymore.

Exactly how good is MayBank Save Up? It allows one to have an effective rate of up to 3% on the first $60,000 after the person fulfills 3 out of any 9 services stated. At first glance, it seems like it is hard to fulfill the conditions, since most of us of just started working are not really going to get any housing loan of at least $200,000, nor education loan of $100,000 nor a unit trust of $300 each month (DUE TO HIGH FEES).

However, I was attracted to the $300 Monthly Giro Bill Payment service and wanted to see how I could get the best out of this. This "additional" criteria was something that would put off someone who's first priority is to save up and not have extra spending. This is in contrast to it's competitors, who just requires the person to credit salary and spend $500 on their credit card.

So Magpie cracked his head and tried counting the monthly expenses that could contribute to the $300 Giro Deduction, at the same time not having to spend extra on Credit Card. Ideas came forth, such as making voluntary contribution to CPF through Giro, however he was disappointed to find out it was not recognized as a valid Giro Deduction. He went one step further since he has a current POSB Invest-Saver and checked with the bank if they could actually deduct from the Maybank account instead of the POSB account. Again, it was a straight no.

Magpie never gives up when it comes to good deals. He was already looking into Maybank Kim Eng's Monthly Investment Plan(MIP) and was wondering if he could actually open an account and use the Maybank account to have a Giro Deduction for the MIP. The first few email exchange with Kim Eng did not seem favorable, and it seemed like it would not work. Hence, Magpie would actually face the possibility of having to actually increase spending.

He tried for one last time, this time by walking into the bank and speaking to the banker. The banker was stunned by such a request and casually mentioned that very few people know of such a thing (The MIP). However, the banker did not have answers to the question of whether the Giro Deduction could be used for the MIP, since there was a small fine print in the conditions stated that payments to Maybank would not count.

They started contacting their product team and Magpie was shocked that they needed so long to confirm such a query. It took close to a week before they got back. And the answer was YES it is a valid arrangement.

What a FANTASTIC news! So here you go, this is what I feel is the current best savings returns for someone who just started work and is receiving a modest pay, and trying to save up as much. With the following criteria,

- Credit Salary of at least $2,000
- Spend $500 on Credit Card
- $300 per month Giro Deduction

the person NEED NOT increase spending just to hit the $300 per month Giro Deduction, however the extra amount needed to achieve the criteria for the highest savings rate possible could actually be channeled into the MIP which gives higher returns over time.