December Portfolio Update + Quick Review of 2010

December was a rather quiet month.

The main changes to my portfolio are

1) First Reit. I initiated a position in First REIT rights at 0.165, and subsequently exercised the rights by paying another 0.50, bringing my price to 0.665. This gives a yield of about 9.64%. This is a stock I wanted while it was 40c region, but procrastinated too long. While, hindsight is 20/20.

2) Silverlake. I initiated a position at 0.33, and I have written 2 posts about this.

3) CapitalMallsAsia. I initiated a position at 1.86.

4) Cut loss on China Sky at 0.22. While on hindsight, I could have done better and sold it this week with a profit instead of a $500 loss.... :(

5) Took profit on Breadtalk. Again, on hindsight, I could have earn more if I sold it this week, but then again, it's hindsight, and my number of lots is so little it would have mattered much anyway.

6) Subscribed for LC Dev rights. 



A short summary of my core holdings:

Portfolio cost: $168k
Portfolio value: $184k
Percentage gain: 9.82%

Dividends reached $1115/mth on average, after all the changes in my portfolio above. Of course, this can change over time, either through portfolio shuffling, or through changes in business of the stocks I hold. In the month of Dec, dividends came in from Starhub, SPH, CitySpring and AIMSAMPIREIT. I have already spent some of these dividends on a new All-in-one PC from Dell (Price $2k) :)

The percentage gain dropped a great deal because I have inserted quite an amount of spare funds into the market this month. These fresh funds have yet to gain much. In addition, a number of my holdings went XD, so some of the gains were realised back as dividends.

Adding to the $24k in the basket I hope to sell off at the bottom, my total cost stands at $192k, an increase from the previous month's $177k. Adding these to my MMF units, I have reached near $205k.


Trading Basket -- Hoping to sell off

I want to sell these off when I can, or cut loss when I can take the loss :(
Portfolio cost: $24.3k
Portfolio value: $18.4k
Unrealised loss of around $5.8k

(red = freezer stocks to remind myself of my mistakes)

30 lots of Hor Kew at 0.125

27 lots of LC Dev at 0.177 (accepted the rights + 3 lots excess)

2 lots of Cosco at 2.67

160 lots of Berlian Laju at 0.065

Quick Review of 2010
The year of 2010 went rather well for me. At then end of 2009, my investible capital (by cost) amounted to $112k. At the end of 2010, today, my capital has reached $205k, an increase of about $93k for 2010. This include both realised gains ($11k) from the market and from savings from active income sources ($82k).

I made quite a few mistakes in my timing of exits; i.e. I exited China Sky and Breadtalk on a down day. But it does give me a peace of mind and some opportunity cash to lie in wait.

Year 2010 also saw my amount of technical analysis reduced by a fair amount, and having a greater focus on the fundamentals of companies. While my analysis on fundamentals, balance sheets and businesses is still at the extremely basic stage, at times, I ponder over whether one should spend a substantial amount of time to delve so deeply into a company's statements apart from picking a few critical points to look at. Time is of essence, and returns per hour is of priority to me. I like the checklist that cookieguy has for analysing stocks (must get it from him!). What he does is to analyse the stock based on his pre-determined checklist which he has made from his investing experience.

I will try to get a post on my views and goals for year 2011, and how I would set out to achieve them.