Portfolio Transactions Update (March 2020)

Updates for my portfolio for March 2020

Frankly, I haven't had time to do my watchlist due to many things on-going in life.

• Sell VICOM at 7.91
• Reasons 
• Valuations remained high with not much room to grow
• A small position in my portfolio, decided to just close the position, take profits and raise cash levels
• Sell SBS Transit at 3.32
• Reasons 
• I have missed that SBS share prices have been trending down, but there wasn't much switching opportunities around the peak though
• Like VICOM, the position was small too
• Decided to take profits and raise cash levels
• Sell Ho Bee Land at 2.25
• Reasons 
• Valuations have been stagnant for a long period of time
• In view of a crisis with more quality companies at a cheaper valuation, closed the position at breakeven to raise cash
• Another risk was a privatisation during the crisis, which I do not wish to see that happening
• Buy OCBC at 9.91 and 8.75
• Reasons 
• The first entry was not supposed to happen, I totally forgot about my GTD order and the market plunge past it, filling it at 9.91 before continuing to drop. 9.91 is about 0.95x PB and 5.4% dividend yield which is lower than the past 5 years
• 8.75 entry is 0.84x PB and 6.1% dividend yield is starting to be almost GFC's valuation which is 0.75x PB and 7.1% dividend yield
• OCBC was chosen over the other two banks because of valuations mostly and that they have never slashed dividends before, even during crisis unlike DBS (most of the time) and UOB (rarely). OCBC is professionally run yet family owned too.
• In hindsight, I should have fired at 8.75 only and averaged more with my CPF funds.
• Buy Illumina at 257.64
• Reasons 
• Illumina is a market leader for human genome sequencing which I feel would be a theme for the future for personalised medication and even insurance risk factors. I used to use these machines in my previous job too
• The industry can probably grow at a double digit return in the near future too
• Illumina has an average PE of about 64x, current entry PE was around 38x which was close to around 2012-2013 lows
• Share prices plunged further by more than 10% after that before recovering but I had no money in my brokerage account as I was queuing for other shares
• Buy Microsoft at 137
• Reasons
• Microsoft is doing surprisingly well, their office productivity software has gone on a subscription model and the new things like Microsoft Teams and more have been well accepted. I see many Microsoft applications at work, including my Intranet seems to be using Microsoft Azure services too.
• Microsoft average PE is about 32x, with a low of about 24x and entry was about 27x
• The sizing was smaller purely because I ran out of cash in my brokerage account while waiting for funding.
• Hope I can accumulate more
• Sell PSQ 34 Calls at 0.7
• Reasons
• Market was heavily sold down and there was a short term rebound on the charts, took the opportunity to sell some Calls to collect some tiny premiums
• If this crisis, goes full blown, share prices will fall, and this NASDAQ short will prove to be a good "war chest"
  
• Buy OCBC at 8.74 (CPF)
• Reasons 
• Same reasons for OCBC above

That's all for my money for now.

Previously, I wanted to sell my Eagle REIT but it has been suspended. To be conservative, I have assumed a 100% loss.

I am looking more towards tech, blue chips and financials that can ride through this storm first. Perhaps once it starts to recover, can I start adding mid and small caps. I am also sold on Asia as the next growth region but they will probably recover slower due to their developing economies, can accumulate them later too.


Conclusion

This month alone has been very exciting with some emotional roller coasters. Surprisingly I was not as scared as I thought I would have been, instead I was rather excited, though I was worried I run out of cash to deploy.

I seem to have lost less compared to VT YTD, but it is humbling to see the long term performance reduced to zero and underperforming VT hugely. 

That being said, I have mostly moved my portfolio from dividends to more growth.  

 

My cash position has been building up, from 12% to 18%, and hopefully the projects I am working on will lead to some additional cashflow, both as a hedge to employment income concentration risk, while providing some capital to grow the portfolio.
I also have about a balance transfer the size of 10% of my portfolio to be triggered just in case somehow it becomes a V shaped recovery.

We can see prices falling off the board, even my Endowus CPFIS account is down about 20%. I have increased my monthly recurring investment by about 10%+. I might also be interested in adding the some First State Regional China Fund to my CPFIS portfolio using Dollardex, but I will have a look at my CPF contributions again before doing so.

USD is strengthening while SGD is weakening, this is going to make purchases harder but I feel in the long run, we will be fine.

But I finally finished my project and starting another one right now. I would be writing a post regarding the first project soon, stay tuned :)

Related Posts:

• My Thoughts About my Eagle Hospitality Trust Mistakes
• Portfolio Transactions Update (February 2020)
• Portfolio Transactions Update (January 2020)
• Portfolio Transactions Update (December 2019)