Soup Restaurant (8th Jan 10 to 9th July 12)

Soup Restaurant is the first F&B counter I invest in, as well as the first ultra penny stock that I traded.  It is due to the low share price and the huge effect of a 0.5 cent movement of the counter on my profits and losses, I dare not venture too much on this counter.  Hence after some thought, I decided to buy 15 lots of this counter, at a price of $0.10 per share.

As this counter is very thinly traded, the share price has been rather stagnant.  However, due to the rather high dividend yield from this counter, it is worthwhile to keep it for some time.  This is the case until July 2010 when the interests in this counter suddenly rose and its share price rose with it.  I believe that was the time where many traders realize the potential of this F&B counter that caused them to flock to it and hence pushing up the price.

All these interests pushed the share price up to a new high of $0.160 at around March 2011, which was an impressive 60% above my purchase price.  However, due to greed, I was hesistant to sell it and hence missed the opportunity to realize the hefty gains.

In late 2011, when the Singapore budget was announced, the share price of Soup Restaurant begins its downtrend, as most of their employees were foreigners.  The Singapore government has announced an increase in the levy for hiring foreign workers, causing an increase to the operating expenses and thus result in a downward pressure on its profits.  

True enough, ever since then, the share price of Soup Restaurant hovered around the $0.120 and $0.135 band.  After a few quarters of decline in operating profits the company announced a cut in dividend payout.  The situation was made worse by a legal tussel between the main shareholders of Y.E.S. group and Soup Restaurant.  Although the matter was soon brought to rest, I believe with the cut in dividends and the heightened difficulties to increase their operating profits, it is time to for me to realize my gains in this counter to look for better investment opportunities.

My thoughts at that time: Due to greed, I have already missed out the opportunity to sell at a high profits.  If I don't sell now, the dividends I will continue to get may not be more than the possible gains I may make if I reinvest this sum in other stronger bluechip counters.  Moreover with STI climbing above 3,000, this may be a signal for me to sell and reposition my portfolio.

Lessons learnt:  As always mentioned, in investing, always set a buy and sell target for every counter, and stick to it.  This will prevent any regrets later.

Mapletree Logistics Trust (13th Nov 09 to 5th July 12)

Mapletree Logistic Trust has been my favourite counter all these years.  It has been constantly providing me with decent dividends and steady capital appreciation.  I was fortunate to have been able to purchase 5 lots of it at $0.71 per share.  Since then, the share price has been steadily appreciating.  Even its dividend payout has also been steadily improving, providing great returns for all shareholders due to the continuous efforts of the management of the Trust to find value and enhance the portfolio of the assets in the Trust.

Hence, when the management announced preferential offerings to existing shareholders to raise funds, I made no hesitation to buy all that I could, and even more to make up a complete lot at $0.815 per share.

However, things took a turn in March 2011 when triple whammy hit Japan, with the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis.  As a substantial number of Mapletree Logistics Trust's assets were in Japan, though only a few were in the affected areas, it resulted in a momentary panic sale.  As a ill-disciplined investor, I jumped into the bandwagon as well to sell half of my holdings.  The share price took a dip further, and my fears overcome my logical thinking, so instead of adding more of this counters when the price is low, I stayed away from it, fearing further decline. 

Within a span of 2 weeks, the share price took a roundabout and shoot up again.  Having missed the bottom, I could only get more of it at a price near my previous selling price.  This time, I made the decision to buy more that what I sold previously, increasing my total holdings to 9 lots.  I never regret this decision, in fact, I wondered why I did not buy more, as it has been proven time and time again the defensive nature of this counter and efforts of the management to add value to this Trust made it a high yielding counter.

This year, the share price started to hovered above $0.90 for a long period of time.  Having holding on to this counter for more than 2.5 years, I decided to be disciplined and follow my initial plan to sell my holdings if the fundamentals have changed or if it hits a new high of $1.00 per share.  Fundamentals were still intact.  In fact, I do not see any pressing issue for me to sell.  However, as I have always told myself to stick to my plan, and to move on, I shall learn with this counter.  Therefore I made up my mind to sell all my holdings in this counter when it hits $1.00 per share, and it did.

Thoughts at that time:  As Mapletree Logistics Trust has become one of my favourite counters, I am very reluctant to sell it, as the thought of losing the consistent dividend yield after the sale makes me lose a substantial part of my dividend income.  Nonetheless, with a total capital appreciation of approximately 27% and an accumulated dividend yield of approximately 15%, I am very satisfied with the performance of this counter.

Lessons learnt:  As long as I stick to my plan, I won't feel much sadness even if the share price continue its climb upwards, and no regrets if the share price suddenly took a turn and plunge, because I am sticking to my plan. 

Monthly Review- June 2012

This month marks the end of the first half of the year.  Due to the surprise in the outcome of the European meetings where loans from IMF is not longer given to the government of the European countries before being issue to the troubled banks, as this results in higher debt burden for the government.  Instead, loans will be given directly to the banks.  This cheered the markets and in the last few trading days in June, bringing the Straits Times Index to above 2,900 levels.

This brings good news to my portfolio as the optimism pushed the value of my portfolio up by approximately 37%.  Top performers that helped to increase the amount of unrealized profits were ST Engineering, which rose by 5.0%, CapitaMall Trust, which rose by 5.2%, Parkwaylife Reit, which rose by 3.9% and SingPost, which rose by 3.4%.  Another counter that was worth mentioning is SMRT, which rose by 4.6% to minimize the losses that I suffered for this counter. 

As STI heads towards the 3,000 level, I will have to make plans to reposition my portfolio.  I will sell my holdings in Mapletree Logistic Trust if it hits SGD 1.00 per share, as that is my target price and $1.00 is the 52-week high for the counter.  I believe that realizing my profits for this counter when this share price is reached will be a positive move after holding it for more than 2 years.  If it does not reach SGD 1.00 per share, then I will continue to hold on to it, as Mapletree Logistic Trust has been a great dividend stock and will be a good stock to hold on for future dividends.

In addition, when STI hits 3,000 or when the share price of CapitaMalls Trust hits SGD 2.00 per share, whichever earlier, I will also sell of my holdings in CapitaMalls Trust.  This counter has been a good defensive play, as it generates decent dividends despite its volatility.  However, I believe that it is time for me to realize some profits to prepare myself for the upcoming mega IPO of Integrated Healthcare Holdings (IHH), which comprises of mega hospitals in Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey and India.  Due to the limited number of healthcare counters, I believe that this will do well as healthcare stocks are usually defensive and valueadd. 

I believe that these divesting moves should be a positive one, and when opportunity arises, I will continue to look out for other dividend generating counters, as selling off these two counters will mean a huge decrease in my dividend income. 

My Current Portfolio:

Lesson learnt: Although I have been telling myself to hold on to winners till the target price has been reached, while sell off the losers when the cut loss point has been breached, I still lacked the discipline to do that, causing myself to earn decent profits, but suffer massive losses, which tend to erase accumulated profits.  I need to learn to stick to the plan and always remind myself.

Monthly Review- May 2012

This month, worries in the Eurozone amplifies, with problems in Greece and Spain worsening.  The exit of Greece from Euro seems inevitable, especially with the inability of its Parliament to form the new government.  In addition, the bail out required by the fourth largest bank in Spain causes the yields of Spanish bonds to go above the worrying 6% levels.  All these events caused the STI to fall by more than 9% for the month of May.

In line with all the gloominess, my portfolio also shrank by a larger 22%, dragged down by Rotary, which alone fell by 22%.

However, bucking the trend was Wingtai Holdings, which rose by 8% following the news that the Chairman is buying back 15% of the shares from retail investors at a price of $1.39 per share.  Considering the volatile situation currently, this will be a good opportunity to liquidate some of my holdings without suffering any losses, as my average holding price per share for Wingtai is currently at $1.373, excluding commissions paid and dividends collected.

In addition, this month I have added Breadtalk to my portfolio, after it plunged by more than 10% after XD without any known reasons.  Since its fundamentals are still intact, and its share price has been hovering between a range of $0.45 to $0.55, it seems like a good time to buy some for a small gain.  However, after the purchase, the share price continued its decline, but still well supported at $0.46.  For this counter, I shall be discipline and stick to my plan to sell it once it rises back to the $0.54 levels.

Despite the falls, there are also good news from some of my counters.  Parkwaylife Reit has announced a dividend of $0.0256 per share and Singpost also maintained its dividend payout of $0.0250 per share.  This brought the total dividends collected for the first half of 2012 to approximately $1,200.

Currently, turmoil in the market still persist.  However if the contarian view is being acted upon, it seems like a good time to enter the market now.  Judging from the situation, volatility is here to stay.  Whether do I purchase more or not depends very much on my ability to stomach the volatility.  However, if real value shows up, I may plunge in, with the risk that the money is needed three years down the road for my home loan partial repayment.

My Current Portfolio:

Lessons learnt: Patience and discipline is the key to ride out all volatility.  In addition, always check if the fundamentals are intact.  If not, you will just be holding on to a losing counter, and any wait for a rebound is just a false hope.

Monthly Review- April 2012

This month has been a draggy month.  Problems in the Eurozone begins to resurface, with Spain in focus this time.  This has once again caused jitters in the market, resulting in the tight range movement of the STI, fluctuating above and below the 3,000 mark.

This month, I made the decision to include SMRT into my portfolio, after it has dropped till $1.70, to boost my dividend portfolio.  At $1.70, it translates to a historical 5.0% dividend yield.  However, due to the plunge in quarterly profits, SMRT decides to cut its final dividend to 5.7 cents, which is lower than the previous 6.75 cents.  This gives a dividend yield of approximately 4.2%.  I believe in the long term, 4.2% dividend yield is still rather attractive, however, all waits to be seen how SMRT will perform in the upcoming months, especially with regards to the inquisition carried out at this moment.  I still believe that being the main monopoly of the public transport system in Singapore, the demand will still be there, which will be the primary support to their revenue.

This month is also the earnings report season for the first quarter of 2012.  For this quarter, the results were mixed, with many companies reducing their dividend payout to retain more cash holdings in view of moew uncertainty ahead.  Soup Restaurant has reduced its dividend payout to $0.00175 per share.  On the other hand, CapitaMall Trust has reported a dividend payout of $0.0230 per share while Mapletree Logistic Trust reported a dividend payout of $0.0170 per share. 

After this month, we enter the month of May.  Will the saying "Sell in May and Go Away" pan out this time round?  No one is sure about what is about to happen, but uncertainties are looming, as results of elections in France and Greece are still an unknown.  I believe volatility is here to stay, and if opportunity arises, I intend to increase my holdings in my dividend counters to increase my dividend returns during times of volatility and uncertainty.

My Current Portfolio:

Lessons learnt: Learn to add on winners, and reduce losers.  I will need to be very discipline to learn this, as eliminating losers is the hardest thing to stick to.

Monthly Review- March 2012

This month marks the end of the first quarter of 2012, and the Straits Time Index is back to above 3,000 levels. This is good news to traders and investors like me, as my portfolio's unrealized profits increased by approximately 11%.

Overall nothing much has changed to my portfolio within the month. The only thing that "shook" my portfolio was the law suit between the 2 groups of directors of the management of Soup Restaurant. This law suit caused the share price of Soup Restaurant to be very volatileduring this period of time. I hope this law suit will be settled soon and not result in any material impact on the fundamentals of the company.

At the end of the first quarter, another thing that worries me was the high sales volume of private property. From the launches and the high sale volume, the risk of implementation of new cooling measures by the government is increasing. I am worried that this will have more negative impact on the property counters, especially the property firms that concentrate mostly in the local high end property market, like Wingtai.

I believe the only strong positive boost was Singpost, whose share price rose to above $1.00 for the first time since its decline last year. This helped to boost the outlook of my portfolio and I hope that Singpost can stabilize above $1.00, followed by a gradual trend upwards again.

My Current Portfolio:

Lessons learnt: I need to understand more on the fundamentals of the company that I am investing in, so that I can take note when did the fundamentals change.

Monthly Review- February 2012

This month marks the turnaround in my portfolio. After the realized loss last month with the sale of First Ship Lease Trust, the remaining counters in my portfolio continued their small rally. With the boost from Dow Jones Industrial Average crossing the psychological barrier of 13,000 since 2008, investors confidence returned to equities and placed the Euro crisis on the sidelines.

This month, Rotary, Soup Restaurant, Wingtai, ST Engineering, FJ Benjamin and UOB Kayhian released their results for the quarter ending December 2011. Amongst these counters, Rotary, Soup Restaurant, Wingtai and UOB Kayhian reported a decline in profits compared to the same quarter year-on-year, due to lower contracts, higher operating costs because of foreign worker levies, property cooling measures that dampened sales and lower trading volume respectively. On the bright note, most of them still pay dividends for the year. Rotary has announced a dividend of $0.0200 per share, Soup Restaurant announced a dividend of $0.00175 and UOB Kayhian announced a dividend of $0.0600 per share, all lower than previous payouts year-on-year, and mostly awaiting confirmation of payout during upcoming annual general meeting.

On the flip side, FJ Benjamin and ST Engineering announced higher profits for the quarter year-on-year. ST Engineering also announced a dividend of $0.1250 per share, an increase compared to last year's declared dividends. In addition, the share price of ST Engineering has also rose back to levels when I first bought it approximately 1 year ago on the back of encouraging earnings report.

Overall, my portfolio has improved tremendously, with total unrealized profits increased by an approximate 72% compared to the previous month. This is one of the best performing months seen in the past few months. However, it seems like consolidation is coming as the rally seems to be losing steam with Dow Jones Industrial Index failing to stay above 13,000 and Straits Time Index failing to stay above 3,000. Hence, I hope the performance in the upcoming month will be flat rather than a drop in unrealized profits.

My Current Portfolio:

Lessons learnt: When good opportunity arises for solid counters, just buy. Waiting will cause the opportunity to pass by and lost. If I really cannot convince myself to buy, then I should turn to dividend counters for long term payouts instead of focusing on capital appreciation.

Monthly Review- January 2012

With the start of a new year, the outlook remains uncertain for the macroeconomy. However, for my portfolio, things seem to be in a better shape. This is not because the market has rallied to a large extend that all my losses turned into profits, but because I have wiped out the biggest toxic asset in my portfolio by selling it and realizing all my losses for it.
All along, due to my unwillingness to accept losses, I hold on to First Ship Lease Trust, hoping that one day the tide will turn, its share price will improve, and even if it didn't, the dividends collected from it will cover my losses. However, I have come to terms with myself that all along, I am just consoling myself that things will improve, while the fact remains that it was in a bad shape. All of these optimism ended when they declared a 90% decline in dividend payout, that made me realize it is time to let go and realize my losses. Hence, my portfolio took a big hit in terms of realized losses, and I started the year with a big dent in my portfolio.
However, not all was doom and gloom. Mapletree Logistic Trust has another great quarter, announcing a dividend of $0.01700 per share. In addition, Parkwaylife Reit, CapitaMall Trust and Singpost has also announced quarterly dividends of $0.02470 per share, $0.01280 per share and $0.01250 per share respectively. Furthermore, due to the good responses in a few property sales launched recently, property counters made a comeback, with Wingtai recovering almost 25% from the bottom. This gave a great boost to my portfolio.
It seems to me that only my dividend shares are doing well, churning in substantial dividends for me annually, while my growth stocks are mostly under water. I believe that with these, I need to reevaluate my investing methodologies, and be overweight in dividend counters and keep less of the growth counters.
With my decision to realize my losses for First Ship Lease Trust, my entire portfolio made a turnaround. For the new year, although my realized profits were totally wiped out and became a net realized loss, my total paper losses for my portfolio were greatly minimized. Including the total dividends collected, my portfolio has improved its total profits to date. I believe that in the near future, my losses will be recouped soon, provided that the market continue its drive forward. However, with the Eurozone crisis still a major concern at this point of time, I should continue to stay vigilant in my investments.

My Current Portfolio:

Lessons learnt: Do not be attracted and fall in love with stocks that gives high dividends (above 10% per annum), especially penny stocks. When they offer such high dividends, it is usually accompanied with high risks.

First Ship Lease Trust (30th Apr 10 to 20th Jan 12)

This counter has been plagued with bad news since the purchase of it in April 2010. Soon after the purchase, the share price plunged tremendously due to the default of two vessels. However, due to my unwillingness to stop loss and the thought that the high dividends will in time cover my losses, I decided to average down my buy price by buying more lots at the lower price.

Over time, I have seen major fluctuations in the share price of First Ship Lease Trust. Although I was presented with many opportunities to sell along the way during the temporary rebounds, I hesistated due to greed and keep on telling myself that it will rise back to my buy price, or even higher. Even if there are no rebounds on its share price, with its high dividend payout, with time, the losses can be broke even.
However, all these thoughts come to an end when First Ship Lease Trust announced that they will reduce their dividend payment by a hefty 90% from USD 0.0095 per share to USD 0.0010 per share! Although the management explained that they need to retain higher cash reserves to better position themselves in the uncertain economic conditions ahead, the drastic drop in dividend payment caused me to lose all faith in this counter. I believe now is the time to handle to massive losses and move on.
With the final average purchase price that I had, the sale of all my holdings translate to a loss of 60% of my capital invested in this counter. However, with the dividends collected so far, my losses on this counter is reduced to approximately 46%. Nonetheless, this is still a huge loss to my portfolio, and the losses in this single counter has erased all my previous realized gains from other holdings. No matter what, I can only blame myself for not cutting losses when prices were much higher.
My thoughts at that time: I was in a panicky mode when I see the drastic plunge in share price. I did hold back my decision to sell, but I too realized that for the past 1 year plus, I have been hoping for a rebound that never came. I believe its time to let it go and realize any losses, get back any capital that I could, and move on.
Lessons learnt: Being the first massive loss in the new year, it made me rethink my investing strategy. I suppose what I have been doing all these while does not serve me well, when I keep on trying to average down the losers instead of buying into the winners. It has been proven that if I keep on doing this, no matter how many winners I have, one loser is enough to wipe out my entire profits.

Monthly Review- December 2011

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.

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.