Tuesday, January 31, 2023

It hard to balance

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here! 


Everyone wants to work on things that can generate results directly, instead of backend which seems insignificant.

And everyone wants to go after the big fish, instead of the small ones.

This is especially true when you go up.

Photo by Sven Brandsma on Unsplash

But more often than not, results are not entirely up to us. There are always factors we cannot control.

As a result, sometimes, the only thing we can do is the backend staff or the small thing.

In that case, doing the small things well is the only right thing to do.

It is hard because we have to convince or force ourselves to endure the boredom and suffer from the feelings that no progress has been made, despite our hard work.

Photo by stefan moertl on Unsplash

And then it comes the harder part — to sustain.

Are we sure these are the only things we could do now?

How can we be sure that we are not using the small things as excuses to avoid facing the bigger problems?

And sometimes, the questions are justified because we are using them as excuses.

So we might constantly swing between the two ends. The consequence is usually the worst — we accomplish nothing in the end.

Photo by Johann Siemens on Unsplash

It is hard to balance.

But below can carry us a long way.

  • Have a strong sense of security towards ourselves
  • Maintain a cadence and habit that are satisfactory to ourselves
  • Do not be a slave of laziness — do what you have planned

To us all!

Sunday, January 29, 2023

My Market Transactions — Wk4 2023 - Again 0 allocation for T-bill

 

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash
  

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!


Transaction for past week: Nil.

The 12-month T-Bill had cut-off yield at 3.87%, which was expected to be lower than 4%. Again, I got 0 allocation.

 

Have a great week!!!

Thursday, January 26, 2023

2nd Working Day in the Year of Rabbit

Photo by Olga Deeva on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here! 


Today is the 2nd Working Day in the Year of Rabbit and it is pretty full.

Same as yesterday, which was the 1st Working Day in the Year of Rabbit.

I guess there wont be any grace period after the CNY break.

With the macro being uncertain, I suppose some of you, my readers, might feel the pressure as well.

But I firmly believe the Year of Rabbit will bring us luck and carry us through.

So let’s look up and march together!

Photo by Bao Menglong on Unsplash


Sunday, January 22, 2023

My Market Transactions — Wk3 2023 - 0 allocation for T-bill

    

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash
  

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!


Transaction for past week: Nil.

The latest 6-month T-Bill had cut-off yield at 4%. I bid 4.1% and got 0 allocation.

I am not sure why the interest rate starts to drop, probably because it is over popular. Will continue following the subsequent issues.

 

Have a great week!!!

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Monthly Net-Worth Update — Jan 2023

 

Photo by micheile dot com on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!


We are already half way through Jan 2023. It seemed like yesterday that we were still talking about ending 2022. 

How time flies!

Wish all my readers a Prosperous, Happy and Healthy 2023!

Photo by Dmitry Demidko on Unsplash

Regarding the monthly update, you might have noticed that the timing of update has been pushed to more of the middle of the month, rather than the end of the month.

This is because towards the end of the month, depending on the exact date of update, our salary may or may not have come in, which creates the undesired inconsistency in our monthly numbers, i.e. some months might include no salary while other months might include two months of salary.

Therefore, going forward, I will try to publish the update before 22nd of each month, which means our Jan salary will be counted in Feb and Feb salary in March etc.

This is not ideal, but at least the consistency is kept.

Photo by Ibrahim Rifath on Unsplash

Here is the snapshot of our Total Net-Worth for Jan 2023.


Net-Worth increase from last month: 34K SGD, -0.38KG Gold

Typically, we will have a bigger increase in Jan, due to AWS, bonuses, CPF interests etc. 

But this year, we were hit by further losses from my wife’s portfolio. She found time to do a detailed portfolio check, only to find out that our losses were far more severe than our quick estimate. 

The losses were recorded in this update.

On top of this, we also suffered some loss due to exchange rate in this cycle.

Luckily, the market has been doing well after the new year and our portfolio recovered a bit, which, together with our work income and CPF interest, was able to make up for the losses.

In terms of Gold, our little TNW increase was easily erased and more by Gold price increase. We had negative growth this month.

Photo by 金 运 on Unsplash

Investment: -8.27% annualized return, incl. dividend

This is a big improvement compared to last month. But this is not a true reflection of our portfolio performance as this is mainly because we placed quite some money in T-bills and SSB, increasing our investment base.

In plain and painful words, our losses did not reduce significantly. We are still in deep deep RED.


Till next time!