This blog is created as a personal financial journal and to share some ideas on investing globally for dividend and interest income.
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
2022 - My Year of Revenge Travel
Wednesday, January 4, 2023
2022 FY Finance update -
December Dividend/interest received is about SGD $5.2k and this brings my 2022 annual dividend/interest income to $91K. 2022 investment income received increased by 23% compared to 2021. From my annual Dividend/Interest Income chart in the last 10 years, it can be seen that my return has been languishing at low 10-15k annually prior to 2016 but I have increased my investment income by almost 6 times in the last 7 years since I took up dividend investment around mid 2016. My cumulative dividend/interest since 2016 has hit around 406k. However, it was not plain sailing with dividend investment in the last 7 years. When a crisis hit the financial market, the quality of your stock matter the most. I was hit badly with realized loss on some lousy reits and MLP in 2020 and that really eat into the dividend I have earned throughout the years.
2022 was a brutal year for investors as almost all major markets suffered the worst downturn since 2008. However, I have suffered less realized loss compared to 2020. This is due to more diversified portfolio where most counters weighting is between 0.5-5%. After cleaning up my portfolio in 2020 by getting rid of low quality reits and MLP, my 2022 portfolio has been more resilient and only suffered ytd -6% despite investing in some of the worst markets like HKSE and LSE. If I include my annual dividend and realized gain of $8.7k, my ytd portfolio performance is only a small -0.1 % in 2022. The dividend collected really help along the way in a bear market. In 2022, my dividend/interest earned has hit record every month from Apr to Oct.
In 2022, I continue to inject a record $181k into equities. I also added $61k SSB and USD100k into US T-bills and short term Investment grade Corporate bonds. Cost of portfolio has increased to 1.67 millions. The SSB and IG bonds shall sort of cushion my new equities investments if the bear market continue into 2023. Those bond investments will also help to optimize the yield of existing cash holding which has been sitting at low yield bank and money market accounts.
In 2022, we see sharp decline in both equities and bonds markets. However, the sharp increase phase in rate hike is almost done which will bring rate to around 4+ to 5%. I believe government and IG bonds price will stabilize but stocks will remain under pressure as long as rate stay high. My view is that bond rate will probably peak in 2023 and I am hoping to lock in to the higher interest rate bonds with 3-7 years maturity.
With the new investment, I am projecting dividend/interest income to increase to 98k in 2023. However, I am also expecting dividend cut on some of my counters in 2023 as well. Overall strategy in 2023 is to stay offensive by expanding dividend-bearing equities holdings while staying defensive with government and short term IG Corporate bonds investment which will reduce overall volatility in my portfolio.
2017 to 2022 Monthly Dividend/Interest earned from Investment Portfolio :
Dividends received in Dec2022 from Foreign Investment (Stocks): USD $1632
Interest received in Dec2022 from Foreign Investment (bonds): USD $1106
Interest received in Dec2022 from banks interest/FD/others in US: USD $899
Realized gain/loss in USD: $0
Dividends received in Dec2022 from SGX: SGD $1249
Interest received in Dec2022 from banks interest/FD/others in Spore: SGD $209
SGX Realized gain/loss SGD: $0
Total dividend and interest from my investment portfolio + bank/money market/retirement account + trading gain/loss generated in Dec2022 : SGD$6369
Dec2022 Dividend earned from investment account only: SGD $4946
Counters from my investment portfolio contributing to monthly Dividend/Interest in Dec2022: