Fast, its week 8 already. After weeks of selling, I started to open up my war chest and buy in the last fortnight. Most of my purchases were in Singapore and USA shares.
Of the three markets that I pay most attention, Singapore continued to underperform against USA and Hong Kong in the last fortnight. STI dropped about 2% while USA was flat and Hong Kong gained 4% (Yipee!!)
The constant underperformance of Singapore versus USA and Hong Kong bothers me a bit.
It made me feel like I kept missing the boat.
But having said that, I am more knowledgeable about Singapore companies and therefore, I naturally feel more confident in investing in local companies directly. For USA and Hong Kong market, I tend to buy index ETF or unit trusts to gain exposure. Excuses aside, I think I just need to brush up my knowledge of companies in those two markets quickly.
The swing from Sell to Buy was mainly triggered by the weakness in local SG market.
I bought shares in a few companies that I like and I felt I can safely get dividends from them – they are Manulife Reit, MapleTree Logistics Trust, Singtel and Comfort Delgro. Comfort may be an exception as its dividend was heavily cut this time but I think the worst is over for them, though it would probably take a long time to go back to Pre-COVID days.
For USA, I bought Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Palantir and Verizon Communication.
I did some reading up and thought that these three companies are in either in pretty good shape for cash, profit or growth. So I decided to invest in them.
For Verizon I was really lucky. A few days after I had bought it, Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett’s company) announced an $8.6 billion stake in Verizon and the latter’s share price literally moved up a few percentage points after that. But the euphoria seemed to be over as price is coming back down.
For Palantir, I bought it before its share price crashed two days ago. But it has since recovered after Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF and ARK Next Generation Internet ETF had acquired 6.8 million shares of Palantir in the last week. So, I am in a breakeven zone for Palantir now.
I am feeling pretty happy with these 3 new US companies in my portfolio.
With my US purchases and the rally in Hong Kong stocks, my overseas portfolio has grown to be about 24% (from 23% at end Jan). Still some way to go towards my end 2021 target of 28% but it is in the right direction.
Last but not least, this week focus must also be on interest rate.
The US 10 years Treasury yield had climbed to 1.34% by close of Friday. It even rose to 1.36% at one stage. For those who remembered my last post, I also commented on the rise in interest rate. It was 0.4% in early March last year and 1.15% a fortnight ago. It is now 1.34% and the upward momentum doesn’t seem to be breaking.
I think some Reits investors are getting nervous as you could see the share prices of SReit responding and trending downwards in recent days.
It is not necessarily a bad thing unless you just entered big time into SReit in mid-Jan. This may be an opportunity for the rest of us to accumulate good SReit companies at a cheaper price than what we could have paid for a month ago.
Furthermore, with COVID situation improving, it should directionally help the Reits too. If the share prices of SReit continue to decline, I would add more to my portfolio – particularly those from the Ascendas, the MapleTree and the Capitaland group.
Meanwhile, take care and enjoy the remaining day of the weekend.
Have a great investment week ahead.
Regards
Warriortan
Invest For Yourself 
Howzabout buying Berkshire Hathaway instead?
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Probably not at the moment. BH valuation is predominantly held up by Apple. I would rather invest directly into Apple. But having said that, BH is super cash rich and won’t harm to hold a stake.
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Nice write up. I am pivoting towards USA and HK as well and looking for access to China.
The market caps and depth of investors in these markets are just too significantly large compared to the Singapore market.
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Indeed, time to pare down my SG exposure relatively to US and HK but most of them are good companies distributing good dividends, so I would like to hold them too. But new money would probably go to US and HK
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