Updates on my journey so far

      The second half of 2019 is definitely not an easy one for me. Lots of things happened during this period and I decided to briefly pen down my thoughts here.

My Career

      Perhaps it is true that I am not entitled to anyone's opinion, until I get paid for it. I learned this lesson the hard way. Well, to cut the story short, just because I am quiet and generally don't like to get involved in political affairs, my superiors decided that I was underperforming their expectations. As a result, I was being "coached" and "advised" on how I should conduct and behave myself. Since I refused to change, I was being micromanaged. All these happened after a new CEO came in to downside several departments and roll out multiple cost saving initiatives.

      After several rounds of difficult discussions, I decided that I should make a move to quit. Fast forward, I am now working in a highly regulated industry which is completely different from my previous one.

      This is a good reminder to me that as long as my finances are completely dependent on someone else, I will always be at their mercy. When situation is becoming dire, they will manipulate and dispose me like a damaged good. In order to avoid the pathetic fate of me being someone else's slave for the rest of my life, I need to have another income source as my backup. Hence, this entire unpleasant experience has strengthened my resolve to grow my investment income as quickly as possible for me to live a life of dignity.

My Investment Knowledge

      Due to my new job nature, I am not allowed to have margin accounts with any financial institutions. This is unfortunate because with margin account, you can unlock some funds at anytime you want when opportunity of buying new shares arises and then pay back those borrowed funds later even though you have limited cash at hand right now. Because of such restriction, now I have to set aside more idle cash into my investment warchest to wait for investment opportunities.

      The good news is, my knowledge on brokerage/investment industry as a whole has been rapidly expanding. For instance, I saw the backtesting data and learned that even some of the famous trading gurus' trading strategy will not always work and most of the time you will make losses. Yet, they were constantly advertising on how well they earned and then charged you exorbitant trading course fees and subscription fees for real time trading alert. In addition, no matter how well research/investment article is being written, I must take it with a grain of salt. I think that most of the content writers wrote articles solely to attract people to trade with them but they may not neccessarily put the money to where the mouth is. After all, if they invest based on what they wrote and if they are consistently correct, they should have achieved financial independence long time ago and not to report to office anymore. Also, brokerage firms generate revenue through commissions, trading fees and finance charges. So, they are incentivised to encourage people to trade frequently with them. Regardless of whether you make or lose money, you have already lose money to these trading commissions and charges first.

      Perhaps, to avoid becoming a loser in stock market, I must believe in my own research and not someone else and only invest in good companies for long term at the right price for as long as they perform.

My Investment Portfolio

      As for my investment portfolio, I have made some changes.

      Now, I will avoid companies that have to rely on contracts with their customers or campanies that has major customer concentration risks even though their financial metrics and track records are impressive right now. I don't like to see dividend cut or suspension on top of share price falling by over 10-20% because they are unable to secure new contracts or something undesirable happened to their major customer. Also, the company will always be at their major customer's mercy and thus they will not have much bargaining power in pricing their products or services.

      I will also avoid companies whose revenue and income are mostly contributed from mainland China. They are prone to accounting fraud allegation and once such news came out, they often end up being suspended by the exchange for further investigation. You can refer to Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Holdings Ltd (SGX: BS6) and Best World (SGX:CGN) corporate action this year in SGX for reference. For Best World, it was suspended from trading on May 2019 and now is still being suspended. To save myself from such trouble, I would rather skip these companies all at once.

      Also, I decided to allocate at most 30% of my portfolio into growth stocks because I want to grow my wealth slightly more efficiently. After all, capital gain is the larger component of total stock market return, not dividend income. I am looking at the US stocks right now because I think that US companies have huge addressable and homogenous market within the US and thus they have huge growth potential, unlike Singapore and Malaysia market. Not to say that the latters are bad, but I do think that most of the growth stocks over there are suitable to hold for about 2-5 years only as I saw most of them grows consistently for 2-5 years before their performance degrades.

      The growth stocks I added this year are Guan Chong Bhd (KLSE:5102), Kronologi Asia Bhd (KLSE:0176) & Visa (NYSE:V). The two Malaysian counters were added into my portfolio first before I decided to venture into the US market and subsequently I added Visa (NYSE:V) into my portfolio. I may add a few more growth stocks next year.

      As for my portfolio performance this year, it seems like I was saved from my Singapore REITs because most of my Malaysian stocks are not performing well. Perhaps, it was all thanks to the new Malaysian government's fiscal tightening policies on top of new taxes coming up next year, KLCI index has been consistently falling down and foreign institutions are withdrawing funds out of Malaysia. This lesson has taught me to diversify my portfolio geographically and not to place all my funds in Malaysian stock market alone. I am lucky to have Singapore brokerage account.


      Well, I think I will spend more time to hustle as a part-time tutor again next year in order to generate more cash for my investment.

My Random Thoughts #2

      Regardless of any choices you make, there will always be regrets in life because you forgo other alternatives. Economists called this phenomenon the "opportunity cost". This is part of life because our energy, time and capital are limited. Life is an exchange. If you want something, you got to exchange it with something else. Nothing comes free, there is always a trade-off.

      To me, my vision in life is to retire early without financial worries. I can enjoy finer things in life whenever I want at my own pace and at my own time in peace. However, to retire early means my path will not be rosy as I choose the road less taken.

      First, I will be judged, be criticized and looked down upon because I have given up pursuing social status and symbols which most people valued the most. I don't bother much about these things but since I am still functioning in corporate world, I do receive "advices" and "tips" from bosses, colleagues and friends to often tell me what to do to boost my chances to get promoted and hence better pay raise. Although having pay raise could push my early retirement plan slighly faster, I will have to work overtime more often because of heavier workload and bigger responsibilities, thus diluting my overall hourly salary rate and giving me more stresses in life. In view of this, I think I am better off taking it easy in my career development and take on multiple tuition jobs which has better hourly pay rate. This also means I will be watching my friends and colleagues rise to higher ranks and enjoy better titles and privileges while I become stagnated.

      Second, taking this path of early independence from corporate slavery means I will be embracing singlehood until I achieve my mission. This sounds unusual, especially coming from a guy who is in late 20's where by today's society standards, he is supposed to find a partner, travel around the world  and settle down with her. But I have a dream. To me, freedom is everything. I want to be free from the shackles of the golden handcuffs. I want to bid farewell to my bosses who brought misery to my life once and for all. I want to be able to wake up when the gentle sunlight strikes my face every single day. While having lifelong partner will allow me to share my joy and sorrow with her, she will get in my way because our future requires huge financial commitment. You can save on yourself but you can't save on her. With this in mind, I decided to focus wholeheartedly on building capital in equity markets. This is for her own good as well.

      As the eldest son in my family, I am aware of the expectations my parents have on me. Like typical asian parents, they wish to see that I have a good career ahead and getting married and start a family. But, my life is up to me how I choose to live and I only life once. I understand that I am selfish and there will be a time where I must reveal my grand plan to them and break their hearts in the process. I am not sure whether I still can cope with the pain in my heart on that day.

      I can only hold on to this English poem I learned in secondary school:

"I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

- The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost

      Yes, that has made all the difference. Regardless of any choices you make, there will always be regrets in life because I give up on other choices. I choose the path to freedom because it is an unconventional path to most people and it is all that matters to me. I will seize it!

My Random Thoughts #1

      Perhaps, it is a form of luxury to know what you must no do in life and you are able to do it without the fear of not having enough money to survive later on.

No goals in life! No plans in mind! Nothing!

And you know what?

I like it this way very much, truly.

No politics and related bullshits to deal with so that you can truly focus on enjoying the present in great peace.

Just lazy strolls, sitting on a beach, reading some books with some nice, calming and soothing music being played in background.

Perhaps, such moment is yet to come. I really want this day to come true.

I miss it, madly.

My resolve for Chinese New Year 2019

      Late 2018 to beginning of 2019 is a difficult period for me. I am forced to take urgent leave to travel back to Ipoh because of some crisis happened to my family. As a result, I have no more annual leave to spend on celebrating Chinese New Year in my hometown this year. This is humiliating because my freedom of making choices in life is now being restrained by my employer. If not for the month end salary, I would have casted the ultimatum and say goodbye to the corporate world once and for all already!

      One good thing about this experience is that it strengthened my resolve to achieve financial independence as early as possible. This will enable me to make choices freely in my life without having to negotiate or yield to anyone else who have the ability to make my life miserable. As for now, I must endure, be patient and work harder to build my passive income portfolio. This is what I can do now.

      I will swallow the pain and remember this humiliation well! I will! This will be the key to my "vengeance" on the corporate world one day!

About Professional Ambition

Nowadays, conversational topics like career advancement, salary and romantic relationship are becoming increasingly common in my social gatherings with friends and colleagues. While most of them are eyeing on glamorious job titles and wish to climb the corporate ladder as soon as possible, I couldn't care less about my career development. To me, being deeply rooted in corporate world will only add further sorrows in my life as my career will consume more of my personal time and put extra stress to my life. Of course, in exchange I will have additional digits in my bank account every month and the sense of job satisfaction which has short shelf-life and is subjective in nature.

I prefer to earn extra bucks through scalable work such as teaching on part-time basis. At least the amount of effort I put in is proportional to my pay. Getting promoted doesn't provide me this scalability and you are expected to sacrifice more personal time to work overtime. Despite saying this, if my boss decides to promote me one day, I will have to take the offer because I do not want to reject and offend him/her indirectly in the process. Unfortunate!

Some people will criticise me as being "unambitious", "lazy" & "loser". While they are partially correct in the sense that I do not fit into societal's definition of success, I have different views about it. To me, freedom from compulsory work is one of my major milestone I strive to achieve before 40. As I am going to retire early in my hometown Ipoh which has much slower pace of life and lower living expenses, I have extra buffer to not to aim high in professional development in Singapore while building my retirement income portfolio at the same time. If I am being criticized of having this mentality, so be it.

To be able to choose my lifestyle without having to worry about cash flow is my definition of success and it is much easier to achieve as compared to climbing to the top corporate ladder. Till then, I shall wait!

About Me

Welcome to my blog!

I am The Ipoh Investor, an ordinary man from Ipoh in his late 20s currently working in Singapore & striving to retire early by 40 in Ipoh. I am constantly thinking of ways to earn more, save more and manage my investment portfolio prudently so that I can consistently beat the market. I believe that only through discipline, hard-work & patience, I can achieve the dream of retiring before 40 and I know I can achieve it! Life is not just about compulsory work. It has to be more than that.
Thus, this blog shall exist with the sole purpose to document my investing journey, thoughts and lessons learned along the way for as long as I utilize it.


My background

I graduated with an engineering degree at NUS. Engineering courses trained me to be attentive to details and analyse information from sets of data and charts. But interestingly, I was insensitive to my monthly expenses because either I don't really care about money in the past or I was plain lazy and carefree. However, things changed when I get exposed to the ugly side of human nature in corporate world.


How I got into investing

I had complicated feelings towards my first job as I have learnt some of the most important lessons from corporate world. Just like video games, you need to know how to play the corporate game in order to survive and thrive to the top. All these "wisdom" reduced me from a passionate person to a typical ordinary wage slave, just like the rest of people with emotionless face (perhaps with little frustration) you will expect when squeezing through tiny spaces in MRT every single day.

Despite my relatively young age, I begin to feel sick from playing this kind of game. I can't imagine myself to continue like this for decades. So, I spend quite some time to figure out how to get out of the rat race. It was through reading blogs and self-help books, I realize that I can get out of it through having passive income streams with enough cash flow to at least cover your living expenses. To me, there are two ways to build such income: entrepreneurship or investing. As I am timid, reserved & laid back, entrepreneurship is clearly out of my league. So, I decided to spend more time perfecting my investing skills.

My Investing Styles

There are two ways to earn money from stock market: Capital Gain or Dividend.

I am more inclined towards income investing, meaning I will invest in stocks that provide dividends in cash because the dividends I received do provide me a sense of security. However, I soon learned that one shall not blindly chase after dividend yield alone, especially when the dividend yield is above 8% under un-depressed stock market condition. Such high dividend yield is unsustainable and sooner or later the company will cut its dividend payout, causing its share price to drop further.

So, after researching on multiple books and blogs on investing, I decided that I will go for dividend growth investing - invest in stocks with consistent dividend per share growth over the past 5 to 10 years.

Occasionaly, I will invest in value-growth stocks and asset-play stocks for some capital gains.

My Investment KPI

The word "KPI" surely will stress people out as your employers often use that to access your performance during performance appraisal or career promotion justification. Unfortunately, it is a necessary evil because we need it to quantify and track performance. Even Singapore market itself has Straits Times Index to do the job.

As of now, my current KPI is to achieve the first SGD 100k by 2023. If I commit to save 20k per year, I can achieve this KPI easily.

My end-game KPI: to achieve monthly passive income of at least RM 3500 (I intend to retire in Malaysia) + settle all my student loans before 40 years old. Then, I will settle down in Ipoh to enjoy my life of freedom.

Thanks for reading!