TPG, the upside

Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. There are plenty of bandwidth hungry apps that consume massive mobile data. It's pretty addictive. I guess it's a form of lifestyle inflation? Or is it a practical reality of digital norms, a sign of "progress"?

And so TPG (https://www.tpgmobile.sg/) appeared on the local scene, coming in as the 4th Telco. The net effect was that my Singtel shares went south, somewhat. Starhub is already struggling from their self-induced escalating impact of high dividend payout in the past. And M1 was taken private.

The saving grace is that TPG is offering a one year $0 plan as they aim to seize market share, even as they are gradually rolling out their network. Really, ZERO. Coverage is not great for now. But can't complain right? It is ZERO.

I signed up and got my hands on the TPG SIM. And voila, Samsung phones can take in two SIM cards! So I downgraded my current Telco plan (not ready to risk switching), and configured my mobile phone mobile data to feed off TPG's. Infinite data, infinite. To infinity and beyond! No need to hunt for a free Wifi and conserve usage. Yeah.

The trade offs? No coverage in underground buildings and MRT lines. Live with it.

Let's see what happens in a year's time. And hopefully I haven't become a bandwidth addict by then. Meantime, it's saving me cold hard cash every month.

ElderShield - A Severe Disability Insurance Scheme

Well, so as expected, and rightly so, CPF Board cannot release information of its member without being authorised by the member. [Dilemmas Dealing with End-of-Life]

But what CPF Board was able to accede to was to check if she is covered under ElderShield.  Must say CPF Board was responsive and helpful. 

So here's an extract of their response:

"ElderShield was first launched by the Ministry of Health in September 2002 as a severe disability insurance scheme which provides basic financial protection to those who need long-term care, especially in their old age. It provides a monthly cash pay-out of $400 for a maximum of 72 months to help pay out-of-pocket expenses for the care of a severely disabled person. The maximum entry age to be eligible for ElderShield cover is 64 years old.  Your mother was not covered under ElderShield since she was above 64 years old when it was launched." 

Unfortunately, it turned out that my mother was not covered.  Too old lah.  Oh well.  *shrug*

p/s: Are you covered?

Dilemmas Dealing with End-of-Life

It's complex enough building up a wealth portfolio towards financial independence. I think the end-of-life part gets equally complex and deserves attention.

Here's the scenario and I welcome any suggestions how to go about it ...

My 90-year old mother lives with two of my siblings. She has not been in the best of health in recent years. Most recently, she suffered yet another fall at home and was evacuated to A&E. While at the hospital, she suffered a stroke. She is now bedridden and totally unable to communicate, or do anything whatsoever on her own accord. 

Nobody in my family knows whether she is on ElderShield.  If she does have ElderShield, I am quite sure she would qualify for the payout.  She satisfies all the conditions.  But how can we go about checking if she has ElderShield?

[Else, any ElderShield insurance she may have is as good as useless?]

Nobody is aware if she had made a CPF nomination.  There is a general consensus that she did. But nobody has a clue who she nominated. Is there some way to check?  The thing is that I was entrusted with a sum of her money to take care of for her.  Her CPF Medisave Account is apparently depleted. So I thought, why not top up her account with some of this money so that there is ready cash to pay her mounting hospital bill.  And if unused, it would earn 4%+.  But then one of the siblings pointed out that if she should unfortunately pass away, the CPF balance would get distributed to whoever was nominated.  And this may be inconsistent with her Will (for which she did do one). Is there any way to check who she nominated?

[It led me to think. If my wife and I made CPF nominations, and we both knew what each did. But our children don't know. Should one of us have passed on and the other is bedridden, how will our children be able to deal with the situation?]

What can be done now?

10 Years @ 8.6% and a Year of Zero

So ends 2018, and with that, my 10th year of investing in the stock market. I guess 10 years can be seen as long term enough for investing?

For 2018, STI has been down -9.8% (not inclusive dividends). My portfolio has achieved -6.4%. Kind of oxymoron to use the word "achieved". After all, what is achievement here when it has been negative? Can I console myself that I over-performed the STI by 3.4%? Oh wait, but my dividend yield for the year happens to be precisely 3.4% too. That means I only matched the market? Nope, most definitely a C- year.

Compared against 10-year average out-performance of 5.6% (or 2.33% given average yield of 3.27% dividends), 2018 has been a drag on my 10-year outcome.

Overall, the 10-years internal rate of return achieved has been 8.6%.  Not too shabby, since my FIRE planning norms was based on 7%.

Against the backdrop of the recent downturn, what has been my reaction? Excitement! Yet another opportunity to pick up things on the cheap.

Happy New Year 2019!  Great health and good wealth.

Bit by Bit, the Coin that wasn't

So the euphoria of BitCoin and all variants of cryptocurrencies appear to be going the way of the dodo bird.

I must say it took a lot of conviction to resist from throwing some money into it when it looked like it was never going any way but up over the past two years.  Up, up and away.

But what kept me on the sidelines were those exponential graphs of its jet-thrust trajectory.  It reminded me of similar graphs of the Dot Com era, the S-Chips craze, etc. They always have the same consistent look.

All good things must come to a fiery end.

I hope those who threw good money at it did make some decent money somehow. If not, it's been an expensive jackpot game.

Meanwhile, I'm happy to learn how the Digital Ledger Technology actually works, code wise. Fascinatingly simple, to some extent - at least the basics of it.  Guess I'm a bit of a geek. 

When My Luggage Went Wandering

Wifey and I flew from Singapore to Belfast recently on British Airways, transiting through Heathrow Airport. It was a luxe trip as we decided to go with business class for the outward bound flight. We figured we could splurge and have a decent sleep on the way there, especially as we would be arriving in the morning and had to drive up from Belfast to our eventual destination.

It was a decent trip.

The British Airways lounge at Changi wasn't something to crow about. Decent, not too crowded, but limited food options (although decent tasting) and we felt, drab looking design. Could do better.

Service on the British Airways flight was much better. Great, first class even! But the business class layout is rather strange and I didn't particularly like that. Kind of exposed on the aisle. And the chap in the inner cubicle had to walk over my legs when I'm sleeping. Damn strange. The movies were kind of meh. I didn't particularly like their selection.

Heathrow is a strange airport. The aircraft arrived early (rare thing?), but ground crew was nowhere in sight! Sheesh. Took awhile for the aerobridge to connect for disembarkation. Too early, no service. 

Transiting, we boarded the connecting flight over to Belfast City Airport. It was a short flight. The airport is a very small one. Luggage started streaming out and were steadily collected. One, two, .... oh wait, where's our last piece!? *groan* It never appeared.

We went to the bored looking ground desk and sought help from the lady manning the desk. The lady was helpful. I guess she finally had things to do at this sleepy looking airport. Clickity click on her keyboard she went, but no go, nothing found. But she assured us, "We're very good at finding these things, don't worry. We'll send it over to your forwarding address." We thought we might never see it again. But that at least sounded reassuring.

And so the chase started, since we weren't staying put at one place, but moving from place to place. Nothing was heard till the following day. I received a message that our luggage had been found at Heathrow and it was being flown over later that evening to Belfast. But we weren't at Belfast anymore.  We were north of Belfast and travelling 3 hours south to Dublin. But not too bad, there was a website to update the forwarding address, which I promptly did.

It didn't arrive at my Dublin hotel that night. There was a message later that night indicating that our luggage had arrived at Belfast Airport and a freighting company would be shipping our luggage over the next morning.

On the evening of the 3rd day, our luggage eventually arrived at our Dublin hotel. It had finally caught up with us! Yeah.

Fortunately for us, we had packed our items more or less evenly split into two luggages. So we actually had most things needed to get by for the first few days. The inconveniences had not been too major.

The best part to all this was that it was claimable from our travel insurance. There was a sum claimable for every 6 hours of delay, up to a maximum of $1,200. The claim submission was straightforward as we had a good agent who helped process the paperwork, with everything done via e-mail. It helped that I have a printer-scanner to print the forms and to scan in after filling. It was hassle free, and the insurance company replied that it was being processed a few days later. A letter came a few more days letter saying it was approved with a cheque enclosed.

I'm glad we bought travel insurance as always. Peace of mind in case of emergencies. In this case, absolutely yeah! Guess we got a discount for this trip.

Don't forget to buy travel insurance for your next trip!

Age of Disruptions

Nothing lasts forever when change is a constant. Oh wait, that's a lot of cliche in one sentence. Overdose of it perhaps? Getting back to the subject ...

ComfortDelgro is being disrupted by the likes of Uber and Grab.

SPH's print media is being disrupted by digital media, even as it plays catch up while diversifying into retail malls and community care facilities.

SingPost snail mail is being disrupted by e-mail, while its eCommerce offers patchy slivers of opportunities.

Singtel is shifting from a pure play telco into a digital technology company.

It's hard for an incumbent business to adopt digital technology as it has to be accompanied by new business models. It's not just about bringing the traditional medium to a digital platform. The shift is hard.

Plus, there will be a lot of irrelevant work force that is ill suited for the digital age. Does the company stick to the past, or build for the future? With the workforce that is being displaced, what should it do? Should it listen to the heart or listen to the mind? Is there a place where both can coincide? There is too much at stake.

Will traditional consumer staples remain relevant? Can companies like QAF maintain its relevance in food if there is a changing pattern in food consumption? The fight against diabetes could have repercussions.

Will retail malls remain relevant with the increasing shift to eCommerce? Do consumers still shop?

Marine, oil and gas industries need no saying. While some may argue it's all about what Saudi Arabia chooses to do and that it's cyclical, long as it may lasts, perhaps it's also about disruptions from renewable energy?

Disruptions all over. Kodak moments, if you are even old enough to still remember Kodak.

Traditional Blue Chips start to look pretty blue ...

But it is in times of doubts and uncertainties that opportunities exist. Who will survive?

Multiple Streams of Income

A stocktake of income streams ...

At age 55, excess funds in CPF after deducting for CPF-RA (to fund CPF-Life)
From age 62, Supplementary Retirement Scheme
From age 65, CPF Life

And throughout, complemented by passive income streams from ...

Savings accounts - interests (<0.5%)
Money market funds - interests (0.5-2%)
Savings account with special/high yield - interests (1.5-2.5%)
Shares - dividends (3-4%)
Preference Shares - dividends (4-6%)
REITs - dividends (5-7%)
Bonds - coupons (4-6%)
P2P Loans - interests (12-25%; effective interest is lower due to defaults)
Blogging income - click-ads (pathetic)

Additional sources with constraints ...

CPF-OA - interests (2.5-3.5%; subject to policy changes)
CPF-SA/RA/MA - interests (4-5%; subject to policy changes)

Everything starts to look more interesting as age creeps towards 55.

No Taxis In Sight

You know taxi companies are in trouble when ...

- You land at Changi Airport and there's no taxi available to bring you home.
- You try the limousine/Maxicab service and it say no vehicles are available!
- When you eventually get into one, the driver seems to have difficulty breathing.
- The driver signals right and the signal remains 'right' all the way.
- You start thinking whether you should take over the wheel?

Uber and Grab have reshaped public transportation.
[Even if London has chosen to reject Uber.]

- My son decided not to meet us at the airport because surge rates had risen to more than $40 for the ride to the airport.

SMRT has already been taken private by Temasek Holdings. How about ComfortDelgro? Perhaps its relationship with VICOM will become reversed over time. Is that at all conceivable?

Speculating. Contemplating.

Losing Weight is an Expensive Affair - Or Not?

There's somehow this idea that to lose weight, one needs to eat "healthy food" and that costs more. That's a whole load of crap! Perpetrated by those who want to profit from the ill informed.

It's a matter of eating less (which is actually enough), coupled with exercise. Everything consumed should be in moderation. For the occasional binge, exercise more. A lot more. So if you're eating less, shouldn't it cost less?

There's is really no need for all the fads of specialty diets. No need for some miracle "weight loss" chemicals.

But I have heard of an interesting explanation from a friend though. He never could find the motivation to eat less, exercise more. Instead, he found it works when it hurts his pocket. So he signed onto a programme. Because he has to pay for it, he felt compelled to follow through. I guess that's one way.

I know of a relative who said she was dieting. She skipped rice and ate everything else in moderation. Yet, she was not losing any weight. I wondered why. Found out the reason. She didn't mentioned she binged on potato chips in between meals! Guess what? 20 chips is about 150 calories. That's 3,000 steps of walking to get rid of (roughly, 20 steps = 1 calories). It all adds up. Munch on a packet worth and that's probably the whole day's intact allowance! No wonder her so-called 'diet' wasn't working.

Check out "Basal Metabolic Rate" on the Internet. It's a good topic to start with. Simple maths. Or chemistry. Or biology. Depending on how you prefer to read it.

Was having a Classic Angus burger at Hungry Jacks in the Land of Oz (Burger King in Singapore), it's apparently close to 1,000 calories. And that's without even the fries and soda! Phew. That's half a day worth of intake for most people. The koalas have it good. They munch and sleep all day, get fat, and still look cute.

But I'm no koala. Time to go for a walk ...

Hitting Rock Bottom

Here's one advice in a recent article:

"... if the stock has hit rock bottom, but is set to rise aggressively, then it is better to just invest a lump sum to take advantage of the rise."

Oh right, that is so obvious. Surely.

But ...

How does one know that the stock has hit rock bottom? Only hindsight can tell.

How do you know that it is set to rise? That requires clairvoyance. God mode needed.

Conclusion: Got say like never say. Smart sounding piece of utterly useless advice.

Electronic Bills are Evil

I hate the move towards electronic records.  I get it. Save paper right? Save postage costs right? So everything in electronic form is good? And somebody decided to do automatic opt-in. Seems like a smart thing to do. Environmentally friendly and all that.

The thing is, when there is a printed copy mailed to me, I read. But when it's electronic, all I get is an e-mail notification. Then I have to go login, multi-factor authentication, clicking a whole bunch of menus, before I get to the electronic record. So I don't bother.

So recently, I finally realised that I have not been receiving my monthly credit bills because the records have gone electronic. And to my disgust, I realised that I was charged an annual fee without me realising.

Shitz. Shoot me. WTF.

An Ubery Experience - 3's a Crowd, and High End Uber

I've pretty much stopped taking the conventional taxis these days. Grouchy drivers, strange driving habits, uncertainty of flagging down any when I most need, smoky oxygen-deprived cab, #hotlikefxxxbutairconcantgetanycolder - just too many downsides to name. Nothing personal against honest drivers making a living. But really, I don't owe them a living. So if there is a cheaper and (to me anyway) a better alternative, I'm just going to switch camp.

Uber or Grab? Up to you. I've tried both, can't quite tell the difference in price. But Grab's UX sucks, compared to Uber. Simplicity is good.

Anyways, I'm cheapo. So I usually take UberPool. On lucky days, I end up travelling alone. Most days, I would be sharing with one other. Encounters ranged from complete indifference (ignore the stranger) to best buddies (as if we knew each other).

But this one day, there I was - the third party on the ride. 3 persons, 3 destinations. Geez, it was a looong ride. But a very cheap one. I was the last person in his drops. Took an hour. I might as well have taken the bus-and-train option for 1/6th the price. Sheesh.

On the last leg, I was comparing notes with the talkative Uber driver on Ubering in Singapore and in London. I mentioned about taking a Uber that was a Mercedes Benz in London. He told me there are Uber vehicles of high-end models in Singapore as well - Jaguar, BMW, etc. Huh? I was surprised, and have not encountered any so far here. Why would somebody who can afford such cars want to offer themselves for Uber services?

He said I will NEVER be able to get any. These are always driven by guys, and they hang around places like Clarke Quay on ladies' nights in the wee hours after midnight. They will only take bookings from ladies. Oh! 

Apparently, phone numbers do get exchanged, on occasions. Oh boy. It's an underworld. A different world. Are society norms evolving, or is it simply emergent behaviours from a complex adaptive system? Dunno. But I wish them well.

p/s: The way Uber and Grab is shaping the local scene, I can't quite figure out how Comfort Delgro is going to do well in the longer term. Disruption afoot. Perhaps another Xerox in the making. But for now, believe Uber is not even profitable. So judgement is still to be seen.

A Trip, a Fall, and a $115 Bill

My daughter is pretty enthu' about badminton. So in pursuit of her interest, she had joined her school badminton team. The twice a week night training span 3 hours each time. A typical session will see them doing all kinds of dexterity and stamina exercises before proceeding to skills training and practices. I think it's good for her. 

On one such occasion recently, they were jumping over shuttlecock casings serving as makeshift obstacles. I guess her dexterity was low that day. She mistimed her jump and tripped over the casing. It toppled, and rolled onto the side. She landed on it awkwardly. That was it. Accident. Injury.

Dear oh dear. Limp limp limp. 

As concerned parents, we sent her to the nearest hospital A&E. My guess was that it was nothing more than just a sprained ankle. But how to tell? Better safe than sorry.

2+ hours plodding through the hospital system of admission, triage, X-ray, seeing the doctor, getting bandaged, settling the bills and discharge, collect medicine, and LOTS (and I mean LOTS!) of waiting. Eventually done. 

Fortunately, nothing more than a common sprain. Of course, her ankle was looking like an elephant trunk by then. But, not too bad. Nothing broken, nothing more serious. Relief.

The bill? Apparently $200 for the A&E services, which seemed to be inclusive everything. But there was a $85 government subsidy. So the final bill was $115.

It so happens that one of the insurance policy I had previously bought for my daughter has an add-on component that covered any injury for medical claims up to $1,000 for each accident/injury. 

My insurance agent came over to collect the original receipt and took care of all the paperwork. I hope to see the cheque soon.

Guess I should put off terminating this policy. For now.

Paying $1 a Day to Reap Half a Million

My son has started his National Service (NS). As he charts his journey serving that nation, progressing from boyz-to-man, it's perhaps also timely to set him on the journey to manage his personal finances.

As a national serviceman, he is entitled to sign up for the MHA/MINDEF group insurance scheme with Aviva. It is really a steal. $500,000 term insurance coverage (inclusive disability benefits) is only ~$20 per month. Enrolling onto it was easy as he doesn't even need to do the extra work of medical check ups given his NS status. We added on another $100,000 of personal accident insurance, so there's some added cost for his coverage. Renewal seems to be annual. In fact, it seems like his spouse and children can sign on to the same plan too in the future.

I did something similar for my daughter, signing her up with AIA for $505,000 term insurance and total permanent disability, plus $150,000 critical illness. Works out to under $480 a year for a 30-year term. That will cover her till age 47. Don't ask me why the odd $5,000, but it was quoted as such. It was pretty hustle free too.

I made it clear to both of them that this term insurance will not benefit them directly. After all, the only returns to be collected is upon morbidity! Rather, it is to protect their 'dependents'. In the near term, that will be us, the parents. In the longer term, their own families when they are married. And if nothing is ever collected, it's a good thing!

The whole point of term insurance is to replace the lost income when one dies too early, and family members are dependent on you. So it suffices to cover till one reaches financial independence. Obviously, as one builds up his/her own investment portfolios, the amount of term insurance coverage needed decreases over time. So it probably makes sense to have multiple term insurance policies, each ending at different ages. Effectively, "reducing the coverage over time".

I figure that they may want to add on another $300,000 or more when they are older, and to have term coverage that will span them till their estimated retirement age. I don't know when that will be for them, perhaps 55, 62, 65? Who knows. I shall leave that to them to figure out when they are older. The term insurance is therefore to cover the gap till it can be met or surpassed by an investment portfolio to provide the desired income for the dependents.

But for now, they can be assured that they are duly covered for $0.5m each.

Next, time to terminate their existing whole life and investment-linked policies, and free up the cash to put to better use!

$Thousands Moved in a Minute

There is so much pent up demand to invest cash, even when the opportunities are basically short-term junk bonds.  Each time Moolahsense launches a peer-to-peer loan campaign at 2.30 pm on a "First Come, First Served" basis, the loans are fully subscribed within a minute.

My goodness, it has become a case of fastest finger wins!  A short pop by the toilet and I missed that window. What the shit, literally.  Want to lend money also difficult. Why do they launch these campaigns at 2.30 pm anyway?

What surprises me is that most recent campaigns have been in this format while offering a high of 18% interest. "Huat ah!"

I wonder why the companies do not seek the "auction" format where the interest is likely to be lowered due to competitive offers by lenders? Is this a sign of the extent of desperation for quick cash to tide over their business needs? These companies are probably in serious cashflow deficit situations.  Cash is king.

Of 21 loans I have participated in thus far, two have experienced late payments. Potentially, they could default. The business climate is difficult.

Most lenders put up between $1,000 to $3,000 per loan. The most extreme I have come across was $10,000.  So I guess most are taking the approach of spreading across many loans of small amounts. They are really junk bonds, so some defaults are to be expected.

As a lender, notwithstanding the defaults, it has remained profitable so far. Let's see how this keeps up.

Happy Rooster New Year! *squawk*

Health365 and Counting

So I've been trying to clock 5,000 to 10,000 steps per day to walk off the calories. The logic being that 5,000 steps is approximately 250 calories expended. Doing that 30 days a month equates to 7,500 calories, which is about 1 kg of weight. [More on this: Investing and dieting - wealth and health]

It's not too difficult to reach 5,000 steps a day really. Walk to the MRT on the way to work. Walk out for lunch and back (I know, weather might suck). And again from MRT to home at the end of the day. A little each way and it all adds up.

But reaching 10,000 is an altogether different challenge. It means deliberately walking from the office to the MRT station without taking the feeder bus. In terms of time, it takes only marginally a few minutes longer. So it's not really a hustle. But it is a hustle doing so in working attire with a load in my bag, especially the laptop. Back-breaking killer.

I guess it helps to fiddle with the phone, catching a few pokemons and swiping at pokestops along the way. A mild distraction.

Wouldn't it be great if one could make some money doing this as well? Actually, there is. Not much, just a little.

The Health Promotion Board (HPB) started another season of the National Step Challenge not too long ago. All I needed to do was to download the Health365 app from the AppStore, and sign up for the challenge. With the S-Health app on my phone that does the step counting, I only needed to run the Health365 on some days to sync the step count.

[There's an alternative option of getting a free step counting device (Fitbit-like or a watch type) from HPB.]

The steps are accumulated. So every step counts. There are several levels of rewards as certain step counts are reached. A few click on the Health365 app on the Rewards page and an NTUC voucher gets mailed to me a few weeks later.

Free money for doing nothing more than keeping up my health. Isn't it great? Stay healthy yah.

REIT on!

Owning a property can be a real pain, especially when you are still servicing a loan. Presuming it's rented out, then comes the pain of maintaining the property and dealing with the rent collection and such. There's also the income reporting and tax deductibles. Seems like quite a bit of work.

But there's an easier alternative of course. Outsource it! Let someone else manage it, and you are effectively engaging them to do it for you. Of course they take a cut, but you still get rental returns. With just one property, there's however no economy of scale. So the overheads involved can be high.

And then we have REITs. Effectively the same thing after all, but with the property manager handling multiple properties, collecting rents, while maintaining the properties. It's diversification.

I'm quite for REITs, particularly as they can serve to generate an income stream. It's not without risks though. There will be times when they raise funds from shareholders to fund some acquisitions. Each time they do so, they could very well be collecting whatever income they paid out!

And then, we now have the Phillip APAC Dividend Leaders REIT ETF. So we can own a slice of multiple REITs even! But I have some doubts if it's worth the while right now.

• With an estimated yield of 5% dividends, its 0.5% management fee would drive it down to ~4.5% yield. I would expect to get 5-7% yield on typical REITs. So getting below 5% seems like a letdown.
• Significant chunks of the REITs are non-Singapore based. While that offers country diversification, it comes with a foreign exchange risk.
• And finally, it is a dividend-weighted ETF. If I understand it right, that means high-yielding REITs dominate. My sense is that a high-yielding REIT is not necessarily a good thing. Examine the local REITs and you can see that those yielding above 7% tends to be the ones whose total returns are huge negatives!

For now, I will keep to buying individual local REITs that are backed by parents with the muscle to provide a pipeline of properties to feed them. Capitaland, Ascendas, Mapletree. There are enough choices.

Reaping property incomes without owning any single property nor servicing any loans. I like.

Portfolio of 8 Singapore Stocks - Oct 2016

It's been over a year since I started a Portfolio of 8 Singapore Stocks on 28 Aug 2015 for fun. How has that theoretical $100,000 portfolio fared after all the gyrations of 2016?

Stock	No. of  Shares	28 Aug 15	3 Oct 16	Value
OCBC	1,300	$9.280	$8.650	$11,245
Keppel	1,700	$7.200	$5.300	$9,010
M1	4,200	$2.920	$2.440	$10,248
Boustead	14,600	$0.855	$0.815	$11,899
Kingsmen	15,200	$0.820	$0.650	$9,880
VICOM	2,100	$6.000	$5.720	$12,012
HourGlass	17,000	$0.735	$0.650	$11,050
GKGoh	14,900	$0.840	$0.810	$12,740

The portfolio is now $88,084 (dividends not considered) and completely red. It's been a complete wash-out. I guess if I am a fund manager, I'm pretty much out of a job by now.

At the start of the year, I had stretched my neck out with a prediction that the portfolio would be positive by the end of 2016. Looks like I have stuck my neck out a tad? It's been a fairly horrible year. 

With only two months till the end of the year, is there still hope yet?  Perhaps a bridge too far? Time to recall the 1st British Airborne Division from Arnhem. The ghosts of Operation Market-Garden beckons.

Disclaimer: I have not bought such a portfolio on those dates. I am only doing this exploration for fun. But it is true that I do have all these stocks in my holdings and did buy more of some of them during Aug-Sep 2015. And I am certainly not clairvoyant, so I can't predict the future!

Related:
Portfolio of 8 Singapore Stocks - 31 Dec 2015

When Junk Bonds Default

Opening disclaimer:
I should first declare that this is not about some oil and gas company going under!

It had to happen at some point. After a few months of trying out peer-to-peer (P2P) loan on Moolahsense, I've finally experienced the first delayed payment.

The company concerned made two monthly payments promptly for a 12 month loan, but it was only able to provide a partial and late payment in the third month. Not good. It is a potential default case.

As of now, I have 15 loans, each varying between $1,000 to $5,000. So it's still well within the 5% provision I made (see When junk bonds become my moolah).

It's still too early to count the rate of default. It's only been four months into this journey. Fingers crossed.

In 2005, when I first came across this form of P2P locally (Crowd funding comes to Singapore), the number of loan offers ("campaigns") were few and far in between. I guess those were its infancy. This year, the pace seems to have picked up quite a bit. Sometimes, there seems to be one every other day. Then it goes quiet for a period. Quite patchy. It's not yet a steady stream.

But once the portfolio has a number of loans made, it's kind of shiok to see notifications of payments almost every other day. It's probably mere coincidence that the loan payments fall on different days.

An Uber Shiok Ride

I am a late starter I guess. I've been patiently waiting for taxis on evenings after work, to catch the ride home. But it was only last week that I got round to trying out Uber. More specifically, UberPool, which is potentially a shared ride.

The experience was seamless!

After keying in my pick up location and destination, I got a response instantaneously. The Uber cab was only 2 minutes away. Must be my lucky day. And on the app, I could see his vehicle number, car model, where he was at that moment, and the route he was taking. I could even make out that he was making a U-turn! Talk about real-time tracking and total situation awareness.

But as I was waiting along the roadside without an obvious landmark at the pick-up point, I was worried he might miss me. Likewise, I might not notice him in time since there would be no taxi markings. But no worries, the cab came with his headlights blinking away. That was his way of signalling to his passenger. How thoughtful.

Although I had booked it as a UberPool ride, there were no pick-ups along the way. So I was alone for the entire journey.

On reaching my destination, I only needed to get off. No time wasted fiddling around with my wallet and change. As my account was already linked to my credit card, the payment was automatic. Seamless.

Soon after, I received an e-mail detailing the ride, the path taken, and the final bill with discounts accounted for. The journey I took normally cost more than $25. The trip, even at a surge rate of 1.2x, cost only $23.90. And since it was my first ride, there was a discount of $10. So the final bill came to only $13.90. With the rate defined up front, there was no worries of variation depending on where he went, or conditions due to traffic.

Thoroughly seamless. And cheaper to boot! Uber-wonderful.

The driver was a nice chap to chat with. He was a retiree and was driving only to past his time. He typically drove 3 hours in the morning and another 3 hours in the afternoon. That was enough to make a few hundred dollars a day to supplement his income. As an Uber driver, he also enjoyed fuel discounts of 30%. Sounded like a damn good deal to me.

I gave the driver a 5-star rating on the app.

And in case you're as much a noob as I am, here's a discount code for your first ride: "8J72RG53UE". According to the Uber advert, you should get a $10 discount on your first ride, and I will likewise benefit with a $10 discount too.

Have a pleasant ride and a wonderful weekend!

How Much Cash is Needed for a Hospitalisation?

So my aged mother had a fall. She is statistically above average in age. It's a blessing that she has been largely well all these years. But it had to happen, sooner or later. Any fall at this advanced age is likely to have consequences.

She has decided to forego an operation given her age. And she'd rather live with the pain and a slow recovery (if ever), rather than subject herself to the risk of an operation.

It's been a fortnight of hospital stay, followed by weeks in the rehabilitation ward at the adjoining community hospital. Hospitals can be quite seamless with this modern clustering design.

Class C ward can be a very noisy affair at the primary care hospital. Lots of fellow patients groaning throughout the day and night, the occasional smell of overflowed urine, the psychological fear when there is an unfortunate death, etc. Many negatives.

But the rehab ward was a different matter altogether - significantly quieter, a lot more airy, spacious and fascinating layout of eating and resting spaces that try to prepare the patient towards conditions that are closer to the home feel. The nursing care has been quite an eye opener and pleasant surprise. Such cheery looking staff! They are wonderful people.

What's the financial damage? Well, for a Class C ward, the total bill after Medishield was a few thousand dollars which was taken care of by Medisave. So that's been zero cash outlay so far. It's so important that we have these safety buffers.

Pokemon-Go and what it means to daily life

Over the past weekend, the level of human activity in Singapore has surely increased significantly. There are visibly more human beings walking around, albeit a bit strangely? Never have I seen any product that could create that kind of impact on human behaviour overnight. Welcome to the Age of Pokemon.

Anyway, as I trolled around neighbourhoods, staring at my mobile phone and the battery draining Pokemon app, I had a few moments of insights ...

How is Pokemon-Go good?

- Long waits at Polyclinic may become more bearable. There're two PokeStops outside a Polyclinic I came across. May well be a bad thing too. People don't want to leave when their visit is actually done!?

- Parks are in fashion. It has encouraged more people to step out and about. There're numerous PokeStops around the park trails. Health Promotion Board and N.Parks should be happy.

- Quiet National Park trails become popular. I noticed a string of 10 or so PokeStops along that otherwise quiet trail off Casuarina (nearby the Prata shop). Don't fall off the trail!
[p/s: Don't bother with Coney Island though - nothing there except sand-flies apparently! Sheesh.]

- The Zoo is now worth more than the animals. Comes with virtual ones too. Kids are going to get thoroughly confused with the proper names and species of animals. Rats and birds will never be the same again.

- It's going to create an increased demand for portable battery chargers. Challenger will be most happy.

- You will feel like a celebrity, because people seem to be pointing their camera phones at you. Actually, they're just chasing Pokemons. Don't feel that your privacy is being invaded. You're not that handsome/pretty after all.

Time to start selling Pokemon toys and anything Pokemon? Sounds like a retail business.

Meantime, I've clocked more steps a day on average ever since. It's quite life changing. For now.

Oi, is that a rat in your ramen?

When Junk Bonds Become My Moolah

Equity hasn't been kind in recent years. While a historical performance of 10-12% (with dividend reinvested) may have been the norm of past, it's been far, far lower of late. But income investing has remained decent with 3-4% dividend payouts while REITs have been giving me 5-6%.

With a combined family portfolio that has crossed seven digits, I felt that I can afford to ante up my risk palette. So I've started placing a small percentage of investment funds into a P2P platform, specifically, Moolahsense.

Spreading my investments into numerous blocks of a few thousand dollars each and across multiple loans, it's effectively creating a DIY junk bond fund isn't it? The nominal loan interests have averaged 17-18% across the portfolio so far. With many of the payments being made on monthly basis, after a while, it seems like there is an incoming payment every other day. Is that shiok or what?

But the shiokness can be deceiving. Logically, I would expect some percentage of defaults. I mean seriously, why would any company take up loans of 17-18% if they could borrow from banks at lower rates? It's almost as bad as owing credit card debts. Clearly, the banks see them as so risky that they are not even prepared to offer them a cent. So, everyone of them is a potential default case.

Like banks that make provisions for non-performing loans, I'm making a provision for 5% defaults. In simplistic sense, if a $100,000 portfolio is making 17%, that's an interest of $17,000. With a 5% default on principal, that's a loss of $5,000. But, the overall outcome would still be 12% gain in net income. Not bad.

But, if the defaults climb above 17%, I'll be in the red.

I'll see how this turns out after a year or two.

Supposing a portfolio of $1.3 million with a spread as follows:
- $1,000,000 of stocks @ 3.5% dividends = $35,000
- $200,000 of REITs @ 6% = $12,000
- $100,000 of P2P loans @ 12% = $12,000
That would generate a passive annual income of $59,000, or almost $5,000 a month.

4 Apps and a Whole Load of Freebies

Digital wallets and e-transactions have taken some time to materialise. But surely and certainly they have. There now seems to be a myriad of options. I finally succumbed to this form of electronics transaction.

In truth, I didn't have much of a motivation to do so. Most, if not all, credit cards already have this pay wave option, and most transactions below $100 don't even need to be signed anymore.

I finally got round to installing Android Pay, but only because POSB/DBS has some offers to link their credit cards to Android Pay with the first five transactions offering 25% rebates till 30 Sep 2016. So why not?  Anyway, the installation and linking to my credit card was quite seamless and went without a hitch.

Using it, however, was another thing altogether. Must say I'm a noob on this. Wifey told me McDonalds was offering a further $2 rebate with payments via Android Pay. More discounts! So I gave it a go at the McCafe when we went to one outlet for breakfast over the weekend.

Took a few tries before I got it to work though. Other than switching on the NFC function on my phone, and activating the app, I couldn't figure out where on the reader machine I was supposed to place my phone against. Sheesh. Pretty embarrassing. Felt like an old fogey who couldn't handle technology. The staff was not much help, so I guess I sought some consolation in that. After some trying, it eventually worked. Looks like need to place the phone over the right corner of the reader.

Have a cuppa and enjoy discounts over discounts ... at least, for the first few transactions anyway.

And in addition to that, since I was ordering McCafe coffee, might as well use the McCafe app to earn the rewards to lead to a free drink. 5 cups of McCafe coffee will get you that freebie. Speaking of which, here's a trick when ordering at McCafe - you can order the normal McDonalds menu items too. Skip the lengthy queues at the normal McDonalds queue!

And since the McDonalds was at a CapitaMall, there's also their CapitaStar loyalty points programme. Snap a picture of the bill above $20 and get points that can be redeemed for a cash voucher.

So there you have it - 4 apps and a whole load of freebies: Android Pay rebates, McDonalds discount, McCafe free coffee, CapitaStar cash voucher.

Menya Musashi vs Ajisen

I can't quite figure it out. Why is Menya Musashi so much better than Ajisen? I'm referring to their ramen. Menya Musashi's offer a range of "white", "black" and "red" ramen. The "red" ramen is probably for the masochists. I go with the "black" - it has a strong onion flavour. Burp.

The more cozy look and feel of Menya Musashi outlets are a lot more interesting, giving a more Japan-like "feel". Even the service staff seems a lot more motivated. Perhaps the smaller stalls allow them to provide a more steady rate of service? Or maybe they are better paid?

Or perhaps it's just the locales. Different place, different service?

Both are part of Japan Food Holdings. I think they should just consider replacing the Ajisen's with Menya Musashi's.

Japan Food hasn't been doing well of late on the stock market. It has been going downhill all the way for months. Yet, the company is holding steady with its revenue, although profitability has fallen. Dividend remains good, although nearly equivalent to its earnings. It has remained profitable.

Food is such a competitive market and is totally sensitive to labour costs. Given Singapore's labour shortage, it is quite a challenge for such businesses. It needs to find more productive ways of delivering the service.

I wonder if those 3-4 men shops that serve out ramen with long queues flowing out of the stores which I experienced in Tokyo may be a better deal? Rental is the other killer given our property prices.

Productivity, finding the next boundary to leap over. May be easier to catch a Pokemon?

4 Credit Cards with Great Cashbacks and Discounts [updated]

Here are 4 credit cards that I use regularly. The first two cards from UOB and Citibank both offer rebates that are sometimes so similar I may not be getting the best deal if I use the wrong card. The other cards offer various discounts.

So this post is a reminder to myself to use the right cards when I frequent such places! Haha.

Citibank Dividend Visa Card

Esso - up to 20.88% (min $50 fuel)
Shell - up to 20.88% (min $50 fuel)
Burger King - 5%?
Prima Deli - 5%?
Starbucks - 10%?

8% discount only for >$350 in each category of Petrol, Groceries, Dining.

[Source: https://www.citibank.com.sg/gcb/credit_cards/citi_dividend.htm]

UOB One Visa Card

Singapore Zoo, River Safari - 5%+10%
Xpressflower.com - 5%
World of Sports - 2%
Metro - 2%
Caltex - 2% + 14%
Homefix - 2%
Cathay Cinema - 2%
Bengawan Solo - 3%
Breadtalk - 3%

Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf - 10%
Hard Rock Cafe - 3%
Overseas spending - 2% (max $100 rebate)

* Above are on top of SMART$ and a separate quarterly rebate of up to 3.33% based on consistent spending each month of the quarter:

Spend $500 per month for 3 months, $50 rebate.
Spend $1,000 per month for 3 months, $100 rebate.
Spend $2,000 per month for 3 monts, $300 rebate.

[Source: http://www.uob.com.sg/personal/cards/credit/uob_one_card.html]

OCBC Robinsons Visa Card

Robinsons, Marks & Spencer - 5%
Royal Sporting House - 5%
KFC Delivery - 10% (min $35)
Tajimaya Yakiniku - 10% (min $80)
Singapore Zoo - 20%
Night Safari - 5%
Golden Village Cinema - 4 for price of 3 (Fri-Sun only)
Agoda.com - up to 8%
Swissotel Equinoz - 20% off Sunday Brunch (till 2 Oct 16)

[Source: https://www.ocbc.com/personal-banking/Cards/robinsons-visa-platinum-card.html]

POSB Everyday Mastercard

Popular - 1%
SP Services - 1%
Starhub - 1%
Sheng Siong - 5%
Watsons - 3%
Hotels.com - 8%?
Hertz - 10%?
Overseas spending - 2%
All others - 0.3%

[Source: https://www.posb.com.sg/personal/cards/credit-cards/posb-everyday-card]

--
The above is not comprehensive. I am only listing those that I am more likely to patronise.

For a wider comparison of credit cards, you may want to try: get.com

Ladies may find this interesting: Infographic: 2015's Best Cashback Credit Cards For Women In Singapore

Related:

How can we stretch the interest on our bank savings account?
4 ways to reduce spending

When the Market Over-reacts - London Bridge is Falling Down

Judging from the office bet that was going on then, I guess Brexit has been yet another Black Swan event in recent history. The bet was 8 for Brexit and 22 against. So most people from this side of the Commonwealth were very much expecting the UK to stay in the EU, notwithstanding the fact that the UK had never made the switch from their Pound to the Euro.

The day the results came out, the market took an immediate nosedive. My Singapore stocks went downhill, and was followed that same night thereafter with my US stocks as well. It was a universal wipe-out.

It was too late to do anything by the time I came home from work. It was Friday. What did I want to do? Actually, nothing. I didn't know how things would go the following week. Would it be an immediate recovery? Or would there be more panic and capitulation? No clue. Black Swans are ugly birds. So I remained indecisive and just stayed in the market and watched.

On Monday, things reversed very quickly. Whatever losses that happened on Friday were recovered by the end of Monday. I guess the irrationals had a weekend to ponder their regrets, much like a lot of Brits who finally realised what they had done.  In fact, since then, the market has been steadily climbing up further.

With the English team knocked out of the European Cup, the joke on the market was that the Brits had exited from the Euro twice in succession.

"London Bridge is falling down ..." 

"Oi, but this is Tower Bridge lah noob!"

Quite a non-event. Well, not quite. The Pound has been pounded. Time to plan on a holiday to London!?  Hurrah, ol' chap! Time for the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Related:
Yawning with the Bears of 2015
In Times of Fear, How Did You React?

The Great Pacific Andes (De)Fault

When you have a stock whose name sounds like the San Andreas Fault, I guess it's only a matter of time before it follows its name sake disaster movie. So yes, Pacific Andes has gone Chapter 11 since.

Years ago, before I became discerning about value investing, I was pretty bought in to any "reasonable" story as a reason to buy a stock.

So what the devil was the story then?

Well, it was about the growing population of China and Asia in general. And with a growing population, demand for food will increase. Fishery provide the nutrients for the diet of a growing world. Blah, blah, blah.

So if you're holding on to any of its shares now, good luck. A million shares at $0 per unit is still $0.  Fortunately for me, all I have is 125 shares. I can live with it. How did I end up with 125 shares? It's another sob story.

I was lucky to have bought a few thousand shares in 2009 at $0.20 and sold them off at $0.34 less than a year later. It was speculative luck. I got out while the going was good. But I forgot about a scrip dividend taking place then! Oh well. Overall, it was still a profitable trade.

[When an associated company (Oceanus) had its whole abalone stock die on them, it was kind of a warning indicator to me. Super RED FLAG!!]

Lesson learnt:
Forget all the fanciful stories. Ultimately, it's about a well run business, in a market where its products sells and can clearly generate recurring income with very little capital investment. One with positive free cash flow, good ROE, ROA, and gives out a sustainable dividend, year after year, in good times and in bad times.

Related:
Considerations in Stock Picking

The Taste of Hong Kong - Tai Cheong Bakery

I remember when wifey and me were last in Hong Kong on a free-and-easy, we went trudging up an upwards sloping street, searching for this supposedly famous bakery. Good food, have to work for it.

We couldn't find it at first as the unit didn't seem to exist. Walking up slope after a heavy dinner is tiring business. I was starting to feel disappointed, and wifey was getting upset that I made her walk up a quiet street to the middle of nowhere. That's until we realised it on the other side of the road! It was night time and my eyesights are bad at night. That's my excuse anyway.

It looks like we don't have to do that anymore. Tai Cheong Bakery has opened in Singapore. Here's the small little store front on the basement of Takashimaya at Ngee Ann City.

It's alongside several bakeries near to the fountain area. Business is presently thriving, with an extended queue that continues out to the walkway. I'm guess it's a passing fad? Service can be kind of slow as they slowly bake fresh trays of egg tarts. Doesn't help that customers are ordering dozens at a go!

Can't quite figure out if it is indeed as good as its Hong Kong originals. But it definitely is tasty enough.

Enjoy!