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My Lazy Man Portfolio in 2015 – Who Stole My Dividends?
By Derek  •  December 28, 2015
I was chatting with several Financial Bloggers on how they track their portfolio returns and I was swarmed with a 1001 different metrics e.g. Internal rate of returns (XIRR), yield on cost, yield on price etc. Everyone has their own way of calculating and there was a healthy debate on the pro and cons of each. There are also those who find tracking of their portfolio meaningless and are more interested to know how far they are from their aim of say $1,000/month dividends. After some thought with my trusty Asahi (Photo Credit: Tora-rin) in hand, I decided to settle on just two metrics XIRR and total dividends collected. My Lazy Man Portfolio 2015 Lazy Man Portfolio 2015 Click here for a tabular view of my portfolio. Summary
2014 2015
XIRR (YTD) - My Lazy Man Portfolio: 28.79% -1.46%
XIRR (YTD) - STI ETF: 10.38% -8.51%
XIRR (Multi Year) - My Lazy Man Portfolio: 5.41% 4.30%
XIRR (Multi Year) - STI ETF: 4.16% 3.02%
Dividends: $1,786.15 $1,682.20
My YTD and Multi Year XIRR fell to -8.51% and 4.3%. This was within expectation given the fall in share prices amid a weakening economic outlook. However, a drop of $103.95 in dividends was surprising because I did not sell any stock in 2015. In fact, I added more. This will make for interesting analysis in my stock breakdown below. Dividends Dividends 2015 First REIT Dividends was pretty stable. There is news of a potential delisting next year. I hope it will not happen as this stock has provided me with consistent dividends and fining another one is going to be difficult. Hong Leong Finance A $80 drop in dividends - could this be a culprit? The last time it happened was in 2010. I am still making a paper lose and although interest rates have risen, I do not expect the stock to rise. Their main customers are SMEs and SMEs are the first to feel the pinch when the economy slows down. I do expect dividends to be consistent at $400 to $480 in 2016. Ascendas India Trust Dividends has risen slightly but I expect it to fall again next year. Sabana REIT Dividends has been dropping since I bought it during IPO. If the dividends continue to drop in 2015, I will axe it from my portfolio. CapMallA3.8%b220112 A retail bond fund with consistent dividend. Maxi-Cash One of several speculative stock gone wrong. Blame it on Michelle Chia. LOL Will more people be visiting pawn shops in a weakening economy? Croesus Retail Trust I finally found the culprit. A fall of $211.00. Dividends in 2014 was 0.1064 as compared to 0.0642 this year. I believe the fall is largely due to its new acquisitions funded by rights and debts. I am expecting to see a rebound in dividends next year. AIMS AMP CAP Industrial REIT I bought the stock at the end of Q1 2014 missing out on the first quarter dividends. Dividends should remain constant in 2016. MM2 Asia Bought this stock to support the local film industry and I am pleasantly surprised to be sitting on a nice profit. Chinese New Year will see several new movies which may push the stock higher. I will consider selling it after that to lock in the gains. Accordia Golf Trust Golf anyone?. A favorite stock for some due to its high yield. Let's see how it performs in 2016. Sembcorp Marine Another speculative buy thinking that O&G will rebound. Still no light at the end of the tunnel. OUE Commercial REIT Bought this to try my luck in the Rights Issue. With smaller board lots of 100 shares, I did not get as much as I wanted. Keeping my fingers crossed that the dividend for 2016 will be the same. STI ETF Started nibbling only in mid August this year. Can't wait to collect the dividends in 2016. Saizen REIT Bought it immediately after the announcement to delist hoping to make some money from arbitrage. I am hopping to get one round of dividends before being delisted. There is still a chance of the deal falling through. Let see what happens next year. Others I made a few speculative buys this year purely for capital gains - MM2 Asia, Sprott Physical Silver Trust, DBS, Semb Corp Marine, Soo Kee and Medtecs. The first three were profitable and I made a loss on the other three. The lesson I learned from Maxi-Cash is that I should have a stop loss. With a hit rate of three from six, I am satisfied to have made some small change. 2016 Outlook and Strategy I believe it is going to be another challenging year. Oil and Gas will remain weak and I won't be touching them. I am also hearing lower retail sales and hotel occupancy. From what I read, there will be more office spaces next year and rentals may drop. All these does not look good on REITs and Trusts. Bearing a market meltdown, my strategy will be to continue to build my war chest. I am looking to off load a small portion of my employee stock option to lock in some capital gains. I will continue to nibble at the STI ETF if it falls below $2.80. I will also set aside a small portion for speculative stocks and commodities. I have been dabbling in abit of silver this year and will read up more on commodities. Jim Rogers books will be a good start. Final Notes My portfolio is still a modest $50K which is still a long way to my first target of $1,000/month. I did not include my employee stock option into my portfolio because I treat it as a part of my total employee’s compensation package and I treat the dividends as a form of bonus spending money. However come next year, I will be adding the dividends into my War Chest. My portfolio will still grow but not as aggressively as before because I am transiting to the next phase of my life. What about you? How did you fare in 2015 and what is your investing strategy for 2016?
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By Derek
Derek is an investor who follows Peter Lynch style of investing. He prefers to use simple and straight forward information for stock analysis. He started TheFinance.sg with the intention to bring together all bloggers and professionals who are interested or already in the area of Finance and Investing, and to create a community where everyone is free to write and to share their articles, experience and opinions.
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8 Comments

8 responses to “My Lazy Man Portfolio in 2015 – Who Stole My Dividends?”

  1. Frugal Daddy says:

    Hi Derek

    Your xirr in 2015 is black! Your lazy man portfolio beats many. Not lazy at all, smart

    • Derek Lim says:

      Hi Frugal Daddy,

      Thanks. This year might be a not so good year but I think most value investors who has invested over a 10 year period are also in the black.

  2. Dividend Hermit says:

    The most important metrics is whether one has outperformed the market (STI). If not, it is more rational to invest in STI itself. A lot of people spent so much effort only to underperform the market. Might as well DCA into STI and spend more time with family. Since your XIRR is positive, you should have beaten the market. Cheers!

    • Derek Lim says:

      Hi Dividend Hermit,

      I agree with you but we won’t know until we try ya? When I first started, I had the feeling of invincibility thinking that every stock I buy will be a multi-bagger. I had many falls before I released that I am only human.

      Oh and it is more sexy to say that I am a shareholder of DBS than the STI ETF. kekeke

  3. Cory says:

    Just curious is your XIRR measured year to date. Meaning referencing 2015 Jan close price or multi-year performance ? Reason i ask is because most of your stock appears lower than the jan 2015 stock price. Or is it due to quick trades within the year such as saizen reit that push your result above ?

    • Derek Lim says:

      Hi Cory,

      I calculated based on multi-year performance and I include the dividends too. My first stock was purchased in Dec 2006 so my XIRR for 2014 and 2015 is from 2006 – 2014 and 2006 – 2015 respectively.

      I am curious too. Is this how you use XIRR or do you use it in another way?

      • Cory says:

        Hi Derek, I do both YTD and Multi-Years.

        Year-to-date ( ref. 2015 Jan) – This is discipline myself that i need to to outdo my performance consistently and not to treat past profit as free to lose. Many people make this mistake i feel personally.

        Multi-Years – Is a benchmark after many years of investing on overall performance. Is XIRR of all my trades of my investing life. This one tells me should I put our money in STI Index or FD instead and forget about stock investing if i fail to beat the STI Index after say 10 years of investing.. :)

        Yes, same like you i have dividends included into the XIRR.

        thanks
        Cory

        • Derek Lim says:

          Hi Cory,

          Thanks for sharing. I like your views on calculating YTD to maintain a consistent performance. However, this will also mean that I have to actively monitor and make changes to my portfolio. My investment style is quite passive and prefer to only make large purchases during a downturn. Nevertheless, you have pip my interest and I will do a YTD calculation too. ;)

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