A Taste Of Retirement

 Been a while since I blogged.

Will catch up with my posts soon.

In any case wanted to mention my taste of retirement.

This week is the school holidays so I took a whole week off.

We travelled to Ipoh which I’ll blog about later but came back on a Wednesday.

Then yesterday I took to exercising the whole morning to burn off that 2-3kg of awesome Ipoh food. By noon the kids had come home and I just nuahed around and napped from 3-5pm.

By evening we had a dinner and then I binged on Netflix this new Korean drama called Dr Slump.

Could this be my early taste of retirement?

PSNY

 One of my worst investments ever!

In a good year for me financially, this has continued to turn in a fail report card as it just keeps sliding down to oblivion.

Mind you, this was once my largest single investment for a good while. Today it is but a mid table investment that I might have to write off.

Pui!

Gearing Up For Taylor

 Am so excited to be going for Taylor Swift with my daughter!

Been practicing all her setlist songs and still I’m probably not good enough.

Hay Thi and Sunny are coming with us and we’re buying bracelets!

Gonna also try to get TS merch!

Also planning to go at least one night of Cat10 (no ticket outside stadium)!

Excited!

Super Huat Ah

 Got the lion to bless my work table again this year.

Huat ah!

Chinese New Year 2024

 This year is a rather somber one.

The visits to aunts and uncles have been long awaited, because we skipped many of them during Covid period. So it was no surprise to see everyone so much older but also a reminder that getting older is part of life and we all have to deal with it in our own different ways.

To add to this theme, the sis-in-law’s father passed away on CNY eve. Meaning we had to attend festivities the first three days followed by attend the funeral on Day3 evening.

It was quite sobering for everyone.

Hopefully we all will be prosperous and happy this year.

Coldplay Gaga

So I ended up catching Coldplay’s live performance a total of four nights out of their six shows here in Singapore.

After the first night, I went back for two more Cat10 nights - basically hanging out at this specific spot outside the stadium with all the other Coldplay fans with no tickets.

Cat10 got bigger and better with every night that went by.

The final night I was invited to the Suites to watch them.

Gosh they’re so awesome.

Taylor Swift The Eras Tour

 Will be going to Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour this March!

Super excited! And she’s performing here for six nights!

Madness.

Anyway I was saying that after the beauty and highlights of Coldplay here, together with Taylor Swift and then Bruno Mars, I really hope that the highlights of my year will not be just watching all these performances.

I’ll need to find more personally fulfilling highlights for my year 2024!

Bullish 2024 Ahead

  2024’s tilt is towards a bullish stance.

Bar some type of major war on a global scale (I know there are worrying pockets all over the world right now), it looks like the global economy can chug along nicely.

Interest rates in the US are sufficiently high, with no increases in the horizon, means we are either going to see expected rate cuts or a surprise of zero cuts. In between the expected three cuts vs zero cuts, my personal stance is one cut this year and maximum two cuts.

Main reason for this is that inflation is going to be sticky. And we’re seeing exactly why the stock markets are heading up. Inflation also causes the stock market to go up.

So here’s my own hypothesis below and I am ONLY TALKING TO MYSELF SO THIS IS NOT ADVICE IN ANY SORT OF WAY.

This is bad of course because at some point, people will not be able to afford (people are cutting back heavily on spending since start of the year, layoffs in tech and finance is crazy high) >> consumer purchases will come down drastically >> companies cannot keep up with their overly inflated sales numbers >> flushed institutional liquidity has to invest to keep up with inflation and expectations >> PE will skyrocket >> bubble territory and ATHs.

We are in ATH territory already but is this a bubble yet? My opinion is that we are not even close yet. PE multiples are still not at euphoric zones and you have stocks like the magnificent seven (GOOG, META, AAPL, MSFT, NVDA, TSLA, AMZN) that’s powering into this year with overwhelming strength. 

I also think it is a good time to load up on the magnificent seven but to be very nimble and be ready to sell when we are possibly at the top of the bubble. Of course we will never be able to time where this bubble is so chances are is I will end up buying at the high or selling too early. I am already DCA-ing regularly into a few of the seven, that’s at least my own strategy.

Meanwhile, resist the attempt to short the US markets all through Q1-Q3. Review again in Q4 and see where we are then.

Meanwhile, keep other portfolios separate! 

Dividend portfolio should be kept separate. High interest rate environment has not been kind to it last year but this year it is already recovering and providing some token passive income so I’m glad that I stayed the course. Looking to grow it further as interest rates come down.

Cash portfolio is also growing stronger and this will serve as potential war chest or emergency funds if other portfolios do not perform well. Just save a bit here and there where possible and resist always replying everything into the markets.

Crypto portfolio is STRONG. Just stay for the ride, no expectations but this should 2x or 3x if everyone says BTC and ETH and where it’s supposed to go. Going into the new year up 30% is already a big yay.

Gambling portfolio stopped altogether in 2024 to save money. Lots of money to be saved here if I resist gambling at all and so far so good this year! Just resist losing money to stupid bets.

Hope to huat big big this year!!!

Singapore Motorshow 2024

 It’s been awhile since I went to a Singapore Motorshow.

This years was quite underwhelming considering I had to pay $8 per pax but I was thinking of checking out the EVs for a potential car change (I need to huat a little more first and hope COE comes down soon).

Here are some pix of the best cars imho.

Coldplay Live In Singapore

Had the best time watching them on Day 1 of their Singapore tour where they were putting up six shows!

Brought the whole family, really lucky I managed to get four tickets.

We were at their 2017 show and I really loved it then, but this was a whole new level. I cheered, I sang, I laughed and I cried. It was so beautiful.

Favourite part of the night was when Chris Martin began playing The Scientist on his usual piano and it broke down. He then did it solo with a guitarist and it was the most beautiful rendition ever. Then a reverse of all that in video to transition to Viva La Vida. Just so beautiful.

I went back to the Cat10 seats (basically no tickets so hang around outside the stadium to listen) three days after and pick up a tour T-shirt as well.

Might go back for one last time Cat10 tomorrow just to listen to them. This whole week they’re here is just so magical.