Singapore Dividends for Financial Freedom - First REIT - to be or not to be?

First REIT has taken a battering recently, with its share price bouncing about like drunken town crier. The counter has been on my watch list for sometime, and I've been waiting for the opportunity - and the cash -  to invest more into the counter as a long term play.

Of course, it's been down-graded based on Flinch's assessment of Lippo Karawaci, the main sponsor and tenant of First REITS properties. Now, this move gives First REIT's investors cause for concern, but I think the crazed market sell off has been based on emotion rather than rationality. Also, compounding matters are recent allegations of its corruption case pertaining to the Meikarta Project. But even with this thrown into the mix, I still feel it's been over sold.

For those interested in the stock keep the following in mind: 

1. After the sell-off the REIT is now trading at at 1.0x price to book (previously investors paid a higher premium)
2. The divided is deliciously attractive, standing at over 8%.
3. Gearing is under 35% which gets a thumbs up moving forward. Also, the REIT has a steady record of paying and raising its dividend contribution.

Earlier in the week First REIT's price dropped to 0.94, prompting me to take a rather large bite. Since then, it's been bouncing around and even dropped 4.36% today. As I've said before, this doesn't bother me, for what I'm looking for are long term dividend players. I believe based on the financial numbers and performance of the REIT, combined with its impressive portfolio of health care facilities, it seems people have gone a bit crazy on this one. I think FIRST Reit has a long way to go. Of course, I could be wrong, but that remains to be seen. Until then, I'll continue to collect my dividends and reinvest as I see fit.

Sometimes you can lose more standing on the sidelines.

By the way, do your own research before you invest in any stock. I'm just ranting under the stars.

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Singapore Dividends for Financial Freedom - Marxists in the SGX, Pleasing Others and The Zombie Apocalypse

How are you all tonight? 

As you probably know, Sunday morning is my usual time to let my mind run amok and deliver you all a generous slice of my thoughts. But, here we are on Tuesday, and I find myself drawn inescapably to my Blogger account. What is going on? 

Am I witnessing the early signs of a massive breakdown? 

Is my life going to implode and spiral embarrassingly out of control? 

Am I becoming a social deviant? 

LOL! I think not.

All this frantic typing could has its roots in more fertile soil (or so I hope). Perhaps sub-conscious desires to become a better writer or, even, a better person, are pulling me ever more frequently towards the keyboard, for it's from here I spill my inner thought onto the 'page' for you to read. 

If you enjoy my spontaneous outbursts, I reach out and shake your hand. If you think my blog is about as useful as a Marxist in the SGX, then that's OK, too. 

For me the process of writing blog posts is purely for fun. If I can make a few people smile along the way, then that's super. 

However...

As the poet John Lydgate brilliantly wrote...

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't …” … please all the people all of the time” 

My goodness, have truer words ever been spoken?

Anyway, in the spirit of self-reflection and desire to write a post worth reading, let's see if I can give some advise to would-be investors or early-stage investors. 

You know the types I'm talking about. People who still can't quite decide what investment style they want to commit to (growth/income etc.)

From the beginning of my investing mission (I refuse to use the word journey here for cliche reasons -other bloggers please take note) I've always been interested in income. By this I mean receiving a dividend from my investment at regular intervals. For me, the thought of having the majority of my stock investments in growth stocks/indexes that don't pay a juicy chunk of return regularly is a bit freaky. 

Imagine all your hard-earned capital gains zapped my a big crash close to retirement or in the middle of it. This would have a devastating effect on your financial well-being, and potentially, could make you ill. I know you could re-balance your portfolio annually, increasing you bond allocation to your age in years as a percentage etc. But sometimes people don't bother, and when the time comes, the effect is like a guard's stick in the kidneys. Wack!  From this point, it's tears on the pillow and sobs so deep and loud you become a public nuisance, and possibly a social misfit (think Crime and Punishment here). Ouch!

Because of this, I choose to invest in dividend paying stocks. The cash I receive from the investments is re-invested into the same counters or any others trading at a reasonable price. I try not to over-complicate the process and just make sure the companies are solid financially and will be around in the the medium to long term. 

This is essential as you want to make the most of the time you have to let compounding's magic fingers do their thing (Note - once again, I'm going to spare you an Einstein quote on the powers of compound interest here - bloggers take note) 

Although you just dodged an Einsteinian moment, this Ben Graham quote sums up compounding beautifully:

'The real money in investing will have to be made – as most of it has been in the past – not out of buying and selling, but out of owning and holding securities, receiving interest and dividends, and benefiting from their long-term increase in value.'

I'm with Ben on this point, but of course we could both be proved wrong when the zombie apocalypse comes along.

Please feel free to say your comments etc. below in the comment box. I'd love to hear from you.

Have a nice evening. Over and out.

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Singapore Dividends for Financial Freedom - Aristotle, Friendship and Investing

Morning all you crazy cats. I trust life is treating you well.

Here we are on another Sunday morning. Time does fly by. I've been bashing out this blog now for 4 months and it feels good. Some people go shopping to lift their mood; others eat or puff on a cigarette. None of these work for me. Typing gives me time to order my thought in a linear fashion, while breathing deeply and pondering the mysteries of this strange planet.

This contemplative time is becoming ever more important in these crazy times as social media and instant messaging play a pugil bout with our attention. Never before in human history have we had so many options to alleviate boredom. Perhaps we've seen the end of boredom, only to see it replaced with a kind of semi-satisfied stare at a glaring screen.

We all know the face: it's attentive, yet not 100%. Occasionally, a half-smile appears, but it's short-lived, for within a second it disappears. With every passing You-Tube blooper this process repeats itself, dopamine and endorphin flood the brain. These chemicals tell us we are content and keep us in a comatose state bombarded by advertising.

Is this happiness? Is this contentment? 

Zombie consumer generation? 

What worries me more than the mindlessness of the aforementioned is that nothing is being learned. Sure, we're getting better at scanning articles for main ideas etc. but where's the deep learning.

When was the last time you tried to read a novel? I challenge you to read some classic fiction such as a Dickens novel and see how far you get. Try it and feel the graving for instant gratification burn into your mind like a branding iron.

How would you cope? With nothing to Like or comment on. It would be just you and the words on the page. Scary stuff, eh?

Anyway, this post is drifting far far away from what I intended to write about. So, let's get back to the program before I bore you all to distraction.

Aristotle once said:

'Without friends, no one would want to live, even if they had all other worldly things'

If you haven't read Aristotle on friendship, you can here

The wise man identifies three different types of friendship:

1. Friendship based on utility

These friends are useful. Perhaps you share a car journey together or maybe teach each other languages. The friendship is built upon mutual benefit, and once this burns out so will your patience for each other.

2. Friendship based on pleasure

These friends are fun. In our free time, we go for a beer or exercise with them. Perhaps we're part of a club and thus surround ourselves with folk who share our passion. Again, we toss these friends aside with ease.

3. Friendship based on virtue

These friends are hard to come by. These are people with whom we have a deep emotional connection. We share our secrets with them and call them when times get tough. These friends tell us how it is and want little in return. We can 'be ourselves' in the presence of them and don't feel the need to perform or impress.

I'm sure, like me, if you think about your life presently, you can easily place your social circle into these three groups. Some people flirt on the boundaries; others sit snugly in one or the other. That said, no one occupies the third type and another. This is impossible.

Aristotle felt we should strive to have more of the third type, for the first and the second are ephemeral. I agree with him 100%. Sure, friends you party with are exciting for a while, but soon the flames of fun die down, and the phone calls dry up. Soon, they become a faded, fleeting memory.

Also, friends who are useful at a particular time, disappear from your phone book when they are no longer needed.

So, the question is how does all this ethical noodling fit into an investment blog? 

Why bother reading all this bumf?

That is a good question.

I think we can link the wise words of the bearded Greek to our investment portfolios, and this is how.

Let's place our stocks into the three categories above and see what happens.

1. Stocks based on usefulness

These could be high yielding stocks. From my own portfolio is would place the follow equities in this group:

- Global Investments (B73)

I have a small amount of my money (1%) invested here, but it's purely a yield play. I know you should never chase yield etc. etc. but on in this instance I hold my hands up.

- Starhub (CC3)

Again I have to hold my hands up here. This investment (3%) of portfolio sees me chasing yield like a man possessed. Honestly, I don't like Starhubs' business, and I don't see it doing well moving forward, but I still think it will pay an OK dividend for the years to come. Thus, it is useful.

2. Stocks based on fun

- Accordia Golf Trust (ADQU)

Golf excites me and so does this stock. I feel the market has beaten it down so badly that it can only do well in the years to come. There's some shockingly good value to be had, presently, and I can't work out why investors are so bearish on the business. This stock also pays a tasty dividend which looks set to continue into the future. I think the business model is solid and sustainable, and the management knows what their doing. Thus, Accordia ticks all boxes for fun in my book.

- Keppel DC REIT

What could be more fun than Keppel DC? A first mover in an industry that's only just getting started. Where will the data storage game be in 5/10 years time? Demand just keeps growing, what with cloud computing etc. These are exciting times for the REIT and its investors. Go on DC!!!

3. Stock based on virtue

- Singtel (Z74)

Who doesn't feel like they can be upfront and honest with this benevolent behemoth? Singtel's paternal cuddles help us all from time to time. A generous yield and Temasek backing make for a relationship that's built to last.

Anyway, maybe you agree with me or maybe you don't. But I feel good old Aristotle's words of wisdom resonate even within the Singapore investing community.

It's a bit of a stretch, I know, but hey isn't that what blogging is all about?

What do you think?  Let me know your thoughts in the comment box below.

If you like this post, you can following be for more shenanigans at Twitter and Facebook:

           

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Singapore Dividends for Financial Freedom - Drink Less and Read More

Good morning on this beautiful Sunday. With blue skies and a delectable cool breeze from the east; this is going to be a good day.

I trust all of you are well or as close to well as can be. I'm buzzing today actually, and I put this down to a couple of factors, which I'll talk about today.

1. Cutting down on the beer

All my adult life, I've flirted with booze. Thankfully, I've stayed away - on the whole - from the harder stuff and stuck to mainly larger. That said our relationship has been long term and at times intense.

This started at a young age, for I come from a county (which will remain nameless) that prides itself on heroic consumption of alcohol. Thus, as a teenager, my friends and I would spend weekends in parks, up mountains, in forests and down beaches huddled together, sipping cans and enjoying nature.

Booze became, very quickly, an integral part of socializing and having fun.

This continued into university, albeit to a more intense degree, with a marked increase in not just the amount being drunk but also the frequency. What with 20,000 young people on campus and daily drink promotions the in the university bars, how could you refuse?

'It would be rude not to.' - as we used to say.

or

'Sure, you can't afford not to be pissed.'

PARTY!!!

After a heady, hazy few years of tertiary education, I moved to the other side of the world to peruse my career, only to be surrounded by folk who also enjoyed supping more than they should. Again, my social life circumnavigated the bar scene, and heavy consumption became the norm.

Now, this is not to say that I had lost control or anything like that, I hadn't. But it's just interesting how integrated into one's daily life drinking becomes: you go to meet a friend in town for a drink; it's your day off tomorrow so you get in a load of beers; it's your day off so you go for a few drinks in the afternoon; you're on holiday at the beach so you drink all day etc etc... It's like a insidious, incremental drip, drip, drip... an endless, joyless, pointless jaunt from one drink to the next without stopping and reflecting on the damage being done both mentally and physically.

Once you takes this step back and think about how life is ticking by with a booze fueled predictability, you start to re-think how life should be.

These days I run long distances on jungle trails and love the feeling of freedom and the fizzing of endorphins around by brain. I've found over the last week without alcohol this feeling has intensified.

While running with a fully detoxed body, I feel like I'm looking out on a new world, a fresher world, a world of intensified colors, smells and sounds. Gone is the heavy head loaded with uncertainties and anxiety, and in in its place is a head brimming with positive thoughts and possibilities. Therefore, when I weigh up how much I get from and alcohol and how much it take from me, it's irrational to keep drinking like before.

Churchill said, 'I've taken more out of alcohol than it has taken out of me.' 

I used to feel this way, but now I've changed my mind. Drinking on a regular basis, no matter how much, becomes a habit loop that's difficult to break because you associate the bars and the friends that go there as part of your identity. If you gave the beer up, you'll lose part of your identity, an that's a scary thought. But this is an illusion.

However, when you finally take some time off, you see the world unveiled. This morning while running I had feelings about nature that I haven't had since I was a young kid. Suddenly, I felt more in tune with the greenery around me, more appreciative and observant. This is the way I want life to go on.

2. Reading more 

Presently, I'm reading Ray Dalio's 'Template for Understanding the Debt Crisis' and also Richard Dawkin's 'The Ancestor's Tale'. In the former, Dalio shows how the short term and long term debt cycles are predictable and inevitable. With painstaking research, he looks all all the major market crashes of the last century and analyses why these came about. I'll say little more about this as I don't want to spoil it for any potential readers. But what I can say is that it's food for thought and dam well written.

The Dawkins' book - as always - is peppered with delicious metaphor and analogy. It always amazes me how original he can be with his use of language. The book set you on a 'pilgrimage' from the present day back to the dawn of time, mapping the history of our species. Not coming form a scientific background, I love read Dawkins as he paints vivid pictures about complex scientific ideas. And, more amazingly, even a scientific dunderhead like myself can piece together the puzzle. Dawkins is worth reading for the science and also for the smoothness of his prose.

Thus, I come to the end of this week's post. Sorry, this weeks offering contains zero about investing etc. but sometimes when you start typing and get into a flow it's worth seeing where your thought process takes you. Today, it took me on a lovely little journey of self-reflection and mindfulness. For this, I'm thankful.

The two take-aways from this post are drink less and read more.

More next week. Have a good one.

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Singapore Dividends for Financial Freedom - Trail Running and Investing

Jungle Running and Investing: Two Peas in a Pod

Alright folks. Here we all are again on another Sunday morning. And, my goodness aren't we having fun?

October was a bumpy ride in the markets, prompting many to freak and run to the hills in the grips of an atavistic freak out: Agghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Last week I commented on this in my post Chill Out in which I asked the spooked masses to think again before they do something silly, based on emotion rather than rational analysis.

So, how has your week been? I hope you've had a good one.

Something I've never shared with you is that running is one of my great passions. In particular, trail running. I've only been at it for a couple of years, but my God I love it.

While belting down a jungle trail, jumping over buttress roots and ducking under ferns, I feel a tremendous sense of freedom. With my heart thumping in my chest, I inhale long and intoxicating lungfuls of delicious air. At this time, niggling anxieties melt away and my brain, fizzes with endorphins and feels content.

So how does all this running chatter fit in on an investment blog I hear you mutter? Well, there's a lot of crossover between investing and trail running.

Let me run you (pardon the pun) you through a few:

The first is preparation. Before I set out on a jungle trail, I must make sure I am well hydrated. This involves drinking at least 2/3 liters of water in advance. Running trails in the tropics is a sweaty business and to avoid heat stroke, you must make sure to be nicely watered. Similarly, before you invest in an equity, you must analyze the necessary metrics, the management and the future prospects. Failing to do so would be childish and reckless. Real investing takes time; speculation doesn't. Thus, both runners and investors need to prepare.

The second is resilience. Running jungle trails is an extreme sport. Its physical demands are obvious, but it's the mental challenges that separate the men from the boys. As a novice trail runner, the mind has great power to control your physical output. For example, in the first six to ten weeks running if the mind says:

'You're too tired to climb another incline. Sure, why not walk for a bit and relax.'

In these early stages, you listen to this interior monologue and obey. What the mind says, goes. But as time ticks on, and so does your mileage, you learn to ignore the voice in your head. Pushing through the pain barrier time and time again, turns down the voice's volume. Its nattering fades into the background.

These days, I enjoy the challenge and am prepared to push though the burn. Why stop when you can push on?

Investing, likewise, requires similar resilience. Newbies, will observe their portfolio decline in value by 10% and panic. The voice in their head screams at them:

'Sell the lot! You've better off in cash. What if you lose the lot? This is time to get out of the game and wait for the next bull market!'

We saw this in October, with the blogging world pulsating with fear. Otherwise sensible people were airing existential crises for all to read. Many didn't sleep; hairlines receded. 

Let me ask you this: after spending years repeating the Buffet mantra of 'Be greedy when others are fearful' etc. why do the opposite. What's needed is a healthy dose of resilience, folks, and I recommend grabbing some soon before you whittle your hard earned money away. I believe by building up resistance to the voice while running can help you as an investor when times are tough. Give it a go and see if it works for you.

Finally, I think trail runners and investors both share focus. Imagine you have to run 20kms over three steep mountains, through leech infested swamps and via pineapple fields where cobras lurk... If you failed to visualize your path and got sidetracked by the whats and the ifs, you'd never get to the end. Your scattered mind would lead you off in the wrong direct, ending your chances of reaching the finishing line.

Investing, too, require a goal, usually referred to as an 'investing horizon'. Thus, do you want to hold share for 5, 10, 15, 20 years? Or do you want to be in the game for life? It's important to set up this goal before you invest a dollar because if you do, you're much more likely to stick to your game plan. Focus in investing is imperative to avoid irrational silliness.

OK, so that's the end of my wee rant for this week. I hope you enjoyed it. Please feel free to comment, but be nice to me. I'm a sensitive soul.

Until next week...

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