Recommended Readings

Taking a break from writing proper posts considering my work year will begin in earnest. Nonetheless, here are some articles scoured from the various blogs and websites that I found to be interesting. For instance, I calculated my XIRR after reading CreateWealth8888's post and found it to be 49.6 percent. Side note, considering that it only costs US$10 to have a custom domain, I am tempted!

1. Auric Pacific
2. Will Sarin Shine In 2011?
3. Thoughts about STI
4. Measure, measure, measure (4) 
5. Scrip Dividend Scheme - The Details
6. Is property truly affordable?
7. NextInsight Stockpicking Contest

Happy reading!

Bought Auric Pacific Group

Bought 3 lots of Auric Pacific Group at $0.68 with some of the savings as well as dividends from last year.  This makes it $22,000 of capital injected pumped in so far. Hesitated a bit about what price to enter but given the stock's relative lack of liquidity, I scooped them up somewhere between hi-lo price for the day. I really hope to stop buying stocks for the rest of the year or I will be holding not enough emergency funds.

Nonetheless, I am keeping my fingers cross that most of my stocks that are due to report their full year results in end February, declare sweet dividends. For the calendar year 2010, I received dividends of $1,280, which works to 6.8% yield-to-cost. That amount is still much smaller than the five figures that MusicWhiz got for the full year that has just past.

So for the first two days of trading has been positive with the STI surging past 3,200. Let us hope the momentum continues for the rest of the year.

How much are you making compared to your peers?

Something for you to reflect on 2010 in terms of how much money you are making for your job compared to your peers. This is a follow up to the post where we found that most readers here make more than $75,000 per annum.

Returns and Volatility of the STI: 1988 to 2010

The chart above shows the day-to-day returns of the Straits Times Index from 1988 to 2010 group according to months. Based on the data, April and December have presented investors with the best day-to-day returns, showing gains of 0.141% on average. August and September were the worst months to trade, providing on average days with negative returns of 0.127% and 0.06%.

Stock Portfolio Review 2010: "Better than I had expected"

The S&P500 index started the year at 1115.10 points and ended at 1257.88 or 12.8 per cent higher. Despite the possibility of a double dip recession, the American stock market managed to chalk up positive gains on the account of more stimulus from the Federal Reserve, notwithstanding the lack of jobs created.

Over in Singapore, the story was much brighter. Not only did the economy surge by double-digits, unemployment rate was also supposedly at its lowest. The Straits Times Index started the year at 2897.62 and added 10.1 percent to close 3190.04.

If you were able to recall, many analysts were very bullish at the start of the year, calling that that 3,200 mark to be easily broken by the middle of the year. The STI only traded in that region for the month of November and has since been weak. I myself was calling 2010 a year that the market will move up a little and this has been accurate to the extent that I did not give specifics.

For 2011, if this is part of a long term secular bull run, I am guessing that the STI will move up 5-8 percent. At the moment I can envision plenty of scenarios that will cause the stock market to trade weaker - China raising interest rates, America raising interest rates (very unlikely), Eurozone meltdown II - but I am a net optimist because there is just too much money avoiding the developed countries. The inflow of capital to Singapore and the region will be the main driver of higher asset prices. That said, I do hope that the MAS increase interest rates to prevent the US dollar from slipping to ridiculous levels against the Singapore dollar. 

How did the portfolio do?