— some areas of visible improvements

• focus on div yield, not windfall appreciation. See mail to Ashish on 2 Oct.
• usage of limit orders
• usage of zero-commission broker
• experience with high-yield Reits
• experience with name-brand vs unknown stocks

In Nov 2014 (email below) I set a target of SGD300/month cash payout from equity+bond investment. I did hit that target using my rental properties, but my original target was “using equity+bond”. Now I see a way.

My Unit trust experiment was disappointing and too time consuming so I just left some SGD 50k in there unattended. I guess my dividend yield was 3-4% but NAV was highly unstable, often dropping more than 4% a year. So I think my overall average return was below 3%/year. In conclusion, my experiments show that Singapore unit trusts are ineffective tools for generating cash income.

What I need is a portfolio with reliable dividends + more stability in NAV than I have seen. I believe it is possible — with U.S. dividend stocks. Many retirees seem to rely on stock dividends.

I’m sure those high-dividend unit trusts also invested in these same U.S. stocks, but the killer is management fee. If the portfolio generates 4.5% dividend payout, I can only get 3% in the form of cash payout.

Now 3% dividend yield is not very high in the U.S. stock market. I think I can earn more than that.

Another advantage with stocks is, i can choose my allocation , and take on riskier dividend stocks, to generate 6-8% dividend annual payout. SGD 300/Month = USD 2666/Year = $38k x 7% so I only need about USD 40k. Over the next few years I plan to deploy up to 50k in U.S. dividend stocks, to generate SGD 300/M.

On Sun, 30 Nov 2014 at 13:04, Bin TAN (Victor) wrote: >

> “Going forward, perhaps i will invest more aggressively, take on more risks, > > lose bigger amounts, learn more lessons, before I cut down.” > > Rong: “lose bigger amount” != found cutting edge. I lost a lot. When I look > > back what I did, my lesson is it’s unnecessary to use real money to try and > > error. Reading more books has the same effect but cost much less. >
In order to justify the 3H/week precious time spent, i need to > generate higher profit, which usually comes with (the chance of) > bigger losses.

So what dollar amount is “higher profit”? Right now, my dividend cash > (deposited into my bank account) is $500 – $600 a month.

The other investment profit (mostly unrealized) amounts to $20 – $100 > a month. The actual average is close to zero because some months my > portfolio loses value.

For me, higher profit means average monthly non-dividend income of > $300, to be achieved by 1) a bigger eq portfolio, and 2) a bigger bond > portfolio.

I have to say it’s not straightforward to measure my monthly > non-dividend income. So I don’t spend too much making accurate > measurements. $300/month is a rough (and tough) target.