Review/Reflections for 2013

It is time of the year to do a review again. Thinking through what to write for this post, I thought readers out there might be bored to read the same old things again. Because there is not much change in what I had been doing in 2013 as compared to 2012, which means there is nothing new to write. Except for adding onto my existing portfolio and also reducing my stake in some old ones, there is not much change in the way I manage my portfolio.

But of course, if I want to write about market "noises", there are plenty of them but I shall leave that to readers to follow the news instead. Just a summary, STI did pretty much the same from the start of the year to near the end. Therefore, it is really a stock picking market this year.

Coming back to my portfolio, I have lost around 17 stocks this year through M&A deals like general offers, delisting etc. A few of my top holdings had been taken out, with familiar names like Viz Branz, Guthrie GTS, UIS and maybe Superbowl. They had not been replaced and I just added onto my existing holdings to "promote" some of them up to my top 30 holdings. I guess this is a good way to re-invest back to the portfolio since I know these stocks pretty well rather than looking for new companies which I might not be comfortable with.

As usual, I have also been participating in rights issues, scrip dividend schemes etc for my existing holdings this year.

For my CPF OA and CPF SA portfolios, they are pretty much the same. For my CPF OA portfolio, I did add onto my existing unit trusts and also make minor changes to the stock portfolio. But since I did not make any contribution to my CPF since mid-2011, it is simple business of just re-investing dividends and also proceeds from M&A deals. My CPF-OA stock portfolio is a subset of my cash stock holdings, therefore, there is no need to generate new ideas just for CPF-OA stock investment. I just need to select stocks that can fill up my capital since there is a stock investment limit involved. For unit trusts, it is just adding onto my existing funds.

As usual, I have not computed my returns for the year so don't ask me about my returns. I have explained the reason for that previously and I shall not repeat here. But I do monitor my portfolio every now and then and I reckon that I did better in the first half than the second half of the year. All in after deducting my monthly expenses, my portfolio value is higher than the end of last year.

I have maintained the count of attending more than 100 company meetings this year which includes AGMs, EGMs, briefings etc. I try to change companies every year so that I will not attend the same ones every now and then. But unfortunately, sometimes I have to follow some companies closely and therefore there will be times that I attended more than one meeting of a company in a year. I have met some old friends and also make some new friends at company meetings this year.

I have continued meeting up with my friends in my investment group this year. I had been invited to other investment groups but I have not prepared to be involved in so many groups currently. As I am a full-time investor for only around 2.5 years, I need to build up my company "database" more before getting more involved in so many groups. Also, there is a time limitation as I need to be committed to the group if I joined them. Since I could not spare the time currently, I shall stick to only one group.

Finally, for my blog, I had continued to maintain my post count of around one review every month this year. Of course, I will post every now and then when I have some interesting ideas or strategy to share. Remember my style is always - no spreadsheet. Not much company specific posting also unless I have some story to tell like the UIS story. Readers who are interested in company specific research should refer to some of the links at my blog. Sorry, but I rather want to focus my blog on discussion on my portfolio and strategy of managing it. Of course, if you have any company specific questions, I will be more than happy to engage you if you ask for my comments.

I guess this is pretty much I wanted to review for 2013, and let us hope that 2014 will be a better year. I certainly hope that my readers had made money in 2013, and I will be looking forward to many more good returns in 2014. I hope you do too!