A personal review of 2015

I thought it would be useful to review the past twelve months ignoring the portfolio side of things, which has taken a hit. The annual portfolio review will still be carried out at the end of the month in a separate post.

2015 Action Item versus Deliverables

Blog: I intend to blog lesser but have interesting posts of at least 400 words.

Reality: I blogged slightly more than last year mainly because of the postings on my collar bone injury. (35 vs 32 posts). The posts on analysing and predicting the General Elections were the more interesting ones in 2015.

For 2016, I intend to post at least 40 400 words posts and they will contain more photos and charts. 

Investments: I pumped 30k in capital in 2014.

Reality: I pumped 21.5 k in capital in 2015.

Bought more Petra Foods perhaps at a wrong time

After playing contra with Super towards the end of November, I decided to go long on another of my favourite consumer stock, Petra Foods. On the first day of December, I keyed an order for 4 lots and had it filled immediately at 2.37. Due to the Fed hike, I am sitting on close to 1,000 dollars of losses on this transaction. I am currently fully exposed to the stock market with no cash reserves. We are in the eight month of the bear market which I believe started in mid-April 2015. The next 2-10 more months will be on the continued down trend and I believe one more round of sharp correction is in order before we can see any uptrend. The first correction was the rout that started in July and ended at the start of October.

Eleven more days before I can write the review on my portfolio.

The chill of winter is real

It has been an unsettling time in the office the past few weeks. There have been news of restructuring and layoffs. Over the past year, the market has been bad for my company and I have heard of a few people being let go. Over the recent two to three weeks, I have heard that close to six people have been let go, bearing in mind my company has about 140-plus people in the office.

I have yet to see my new organisation chart and there is a chance that I will be blogging more often. At this point in time, the downturn is feeling a bit too real for me.

7 months in a bear market

I wrote one month ago that we are in a bear market. We are seven months in and there should be another three to eleven months of volatile, if not depressed prices. Your guess is as good as mine but I will probably dip my hands into the market at the shorter end of the time boundary.

Quick updates with regard to my life. I was feeling upset for a good two to three weeks because my client cancelled on my presentation which I was supposed to fly over to Australia to conduct. I received my Invisalign and I will definitely post something about it since it cost quite a bit. On the education front, I have signed up and commenced a course at one of the polytechnics. It is heavily subsidised for Singaporean citizens but the time cost is quite high as I have to allocate three nights a week. On a higher note, I recently attended Taylor Swift's 1989 concert held at the indoor stadium. It was overall enjoyable although I am not familiar with some of her songs and that the presence of teenage girls screaming was overwhelming.

One more month to the end-year portfolio review. Not doing so good.

Dead STI cat bouncing?

My lengthy absence is due to a torrent of work. It did not help that the index went into a sustained free fall the past few weeks after the General Elections. In between, I managed to read Subhas Anandan's two books, The Best I Could and It's Easy to Cry. I found his book very illuminating, giving us a lawyer's view of Singapore's justice system. I felt him talking to me through his book mainly because he was somewhat a media personality and that I saw him in person in his later years. Once, I was on a bus towards Holland Village and saw him seated at a back of a Jaguar. I immediately recognised his face, his white hair and beard. The other time, he was in a hospital robe with his family in the SGH. From the book, I learnt that he had heart problems even from an early age. 

Anyway, my portfolio has declined 17% on a year-to-date basis. I thought of bailing out at some point of time, but I remember that we have to sell in strength. My short view is that April 2015 was the peak of the secular bull and we should expect a bear market to last for 10-18 months. So far, we are only six months into the bear market at the recent uptick I believe is just a technical rebound. Keep cash and wait a bit more.