As 2011 comes to a close, its time for all investors to take a slight breather from the underperforming market this year. For the entire year, news of the European debt crisis and the poor US economic conditions took turns to depress the stock markets, causing most markets to slump compared to the end of 2010.
Although the problems mostly came from the west, it is the stock markets of the East that took the hardest hit. The Nikkei, Shanghai Composite and Hang Seng Index all fell by around 20%, and within the South East Asia region, Singapore STI was the worst performer, with a 17% decline compared to the start of the year.
In line with the macroeconomic conditions, my portfolio has also been hit and resulted in net losses for the year. On a total weighted average, my portfolio was down approximately 15% for the whole year. The main draggers are Rotary, First Ship Lease Trust and Wingtai, which are largely affected by cyclical downs in oil and gas industry, shipping industry and the cooling measures in the Singapore property market respectively. Top performers in the portfolio are largely the same as last year's, namely Mapletree Logistics Trust, Parkwaylife Reit, Soup Restaurant and UOB Kayhian.
This month, I have added Singpost in my portfolio. Having seen the counter drop from a 52-week high of $1.21 to S0.96 which reflects an attractive dividend yield of 6.5%, I snapped up this counter to boost my portfolio's annual divident payout. For year 2011, the annual dividend returns is 4.1%, which is much higher than any bank's interest rate. Although this percentage is still below the high inflation experienced this year, I believe this sustainable and consistent dividend payout is still attractive.
2011 has ended on a rather bad note. Fears of Eurozone crisis still lingers into 2012. No one knows how the financial condition of 2012 will turn out to be, as of now, I can only learn to be more prudent and nimble with my investment.
Although the problems mostly came from the west, it is the stock markets of the East that took the hardest hit. The Nikkei, Shanghai Composite and Hang Seng Index all fell by around 20%, and within the South East Asia region, Singapore STI was the worst performer, with a 17% decline compared to the start of the year.
In line with the macroeconomic conditions, my portfolio has also been hit and resulted in net losses for the year. On a total weighted average, my portfolio was down approximately 15% for the whole year. The main draggers are Rotary, First Ship Lease Trust and Wingtai, which are largely affected by cyclical downs in oil and gas industry, shipping industry and the cooling measures in the Singapore property market respectively. Top performers in the portfolio are largely the same as last year's, namely Mapletree Logistics Trust, Parkwaylife Reit, Soup Restaurant and UOB Kayhian.
This month, I have added Singpost in my portfolio. Having seen the counter drop from a 52-week high of $1.21 to S0.96 which reflects an attractive dividend yield of 6.5%, I snapped up this counter to boost my portfolio's annual divident payout. For year 2011, the annual dividend returns is 4.1%, which is much higher than any bank's interest rate. Although this percentage is still below the high inflation experienced this year, I believe this sustainable and consistent dividend payout is still attractive.
2011 has ended on a rather bad note. Fears of Eurozone crisis still lingers into 2012. No one knows how the financial condition of 2012 will turn out to be, as of now, I can only learn to be more prudent and nimble with my investment.
My Current Portfolio:
Performance for the Year 2011:
Lessons learnt: Investing strategy may have to be changed, as the market conditions now are deviating from the fundamentals of the individual counters. It seems like investing from a technical perspective will be a better approach for the year ahead.
