The market was pretty flat throughout the last month but there’s still a healthy increase in the valuation of our shares. Excluding the monthly $600 injected into the Philips Sharebuilder Plan and the additional $2,000 parked in my CIMB StarSaver account, there’s still a $5,000 jump in value! This is largely due to significant price increases in Boustead, Challenger and Kingsmen.

Together with the previous month’s increase of $8,000 in the valuations, the capital gains have been compelling. But this also means that the shares I own are getting more expensive. The good news is that the price of some Reits have been weakening and with bonuses coming in, I might start monitoring stocks like Suntec Reit and Plife Reit again. Getting these Reits would also help to boost the dividend yield of this portfolio.

On a separate note, the dividends received in October was $0, a massive drop compared to the previous month’s healthy $881.50. This goes to show that dividends are ...