The Most Dramatic Day Of My Life

I just want to pen this down for now... maybe I'll fill in the blanks later when I'm in the mood.

Summary:

“很久很久以后我才知道，当一个女孩说她只把你当作永远的好朋友，不是真的只把你当作永远的好朋友。”

原来我们和爱情曾经靠得那么近

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Afternote: Things went back to "normal" after that fateful day.

Truthfully speaking, even I am not very sure of my own feelings - perhaps because I am so inexperienced in this.

The only thing to do now is to let nature take its course?

Why Does It Hurt...

I think I am really 犯贱。。。

It is like I did not realize the importance of what things mean to me until I lost them.

Haiz...

I really deserve to be forever alone haha...

Side Note:

Don't know if it is due to age getting on me, but I feel quite emotional with regards to some ridiculous things.

For example, even closing a bank account I used for 3+ years made me kind of sentimental...

I think it is somewhat true that the older you get, the more resistant you become to change.

Letter To Shareholders (16) - Performance Review 2019Q3

Economy Commentary
The insane Q2 rally was gone in an instant - led by continued trade war threats and Hong Kong protests.

Surprisingly, premium REITs continue to hold up.


Performance Review Highlights / Acquisitions & Developments
Fired one bullet on Eagle Hospitality Trust - while we understand the various risks, the near 10% yield is imply too tempting to ignore, especially when compared to current valuations of Singapore based REITs.

We also applied for Lendlease near the end of Q3 - hottest IPO in the past 5 years, 14.5 times oversubscribed , 30% chance and did not managed to get it. On the positive side, it means 1 extra bullet for the upcoming downturn.

The biggest surprise was Sembcorp Industries plunging yet another level to near $2. $2.4 was really historical low, and I really did not expect another 15% drop. Once again humbled by the market.

On a positive note, we distributed over $3000 (Singtel, STI and Kimly) worth of dividends this quarter! That's more than our annual dividends just 3 years ago in 2016, proving how far we have come.

Operating Highlights - Income
Income was about 15% YoY higher this time due to higher salary, proficiency incentive and of course dividends.

We also received a nice $200 marksmen bonus from MINDEF, and minor $100 profit from clearing old items on Carousell.


Operating Highlights - Expenses
Regular expenses were about 30% higher due to shopping expenses - multiple video & board game ($200), clothes & bag ($200), external hard drive ($150)

1-time expenses were essentially same YoY, just higher income-taxes.

Total expenses were about 20% higher.

Operating Updates
N/A. 

Outlook

Thanks to the record dividends, our saving total after salary this quarter is 99%! Continue to maintain total saving rate at around 80%. This year has been a rollercoater ride - bad Q1, insane Q2, bad Q3 again.

One big news coming up is the launch of IBKR Lite, should it become available in Singapore. From initial review:

"With IBKR Lite the commissions will be per IB's Fixed Pricing schedule, i.e. US$5 minimum per IWDA or VWRA trade. But that's way better than Standard Chartered's US$10.70 minimum, unless you happen to be a "Priority Banking" customer. There will be no monthly minimum commission with IBKR Lite, and you still get Tiered Pricing (and the ridiculously narrow bid-ask spreads) on your currency conversions."

IBKR is also setting up an office in Singapore, which hopefully means better support/promotion? 2020 could be the year we finally get started in the global market.

We will continue to maintain our strategy of investing for the long term - building our dividend portfolio bit and bit.

Waste of Resources

Chasing women, ie attracting them physically, mentally and pecuniarily is nowadays a unnecessary waste of a man's resources.

Having a wife at home, bringing up kids, paying for the home and vehicle; whilst slaving away at the grindwheel is crazy. Just ask yourself why you are putting yourself through all that for the next forty years?

Mostly it seems that you are doing it for parents, grandparents and because "it is what we do".

Truly Embarking on Minimalism

I've been speaking about it, but I haven't really take only concrete actions.

Lots of excuses like troublesome to sell on Carousell, etc...

Recently, I've started actually dumping old stuffs from ages ago. Things that I would definitely not use again, but still kept them for whatever sentimental reasons.

Now, I have began on my journey towards Marie Kondo joy sparking minimalism philosphy.

- Old Chinese / English Video Games
- TCZ Collectables
- 4 Years worth of University notes
- 10+ Comic book series
- Digitizing whatever I can and throwing away all physical copies of Old VCDs/CDs/DVDs (e.g. chinese albums, wwe ppvs, movies, educational audio tapes, dramas)

Even S.H.E stuffs - it finally came to this, but I have disposed all the posters, magazines, collections and lots of rubbish items like stationary and notebooks. Looking back, I have no idea why I brought these cause I really did not touch any of

Now, I can sort of understand why youngsters just want to collect every single item of their idols. Years and decade later, they will become useless and do nothing more than dust collecting.

Except for very few memorable items, I am intending to dump them all.