In August, the fate of the so-called “Magnificent Seven” has begun to diverge. Nvidia (NVDA), Amazon (AMZN), and Alphabet (GOOG) have far outperformed Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Meta Platforms (META), and Tesla (TSLA). Looking at the heat map from Finviz, the rest of the S&P 500 seems pretty mixed.
The market staged a recovery towards the end of August after Jackson Hole, despite hawkish comments from Fed chair Jerome Powell. Quick check of CME FedWatch Tool, the market expects the Fed to maintain rates at the FOMC on 20 Sep 2023.
Over in China, the stock market has been back and forth between cheering some government easing actions, yet worrying that the Chinese authorities might be too conservative in their policy actions. Recently, Chinese states have eased mortgage rules in a bid to revive the property sector. On the flip side, Chinese banks have reported rising bad property loans. Another large property developer Country Garden has also made headlines after concerns that the company might not make debt payments. Hopefully, the Chinese can get the property crisis under control again.
On the fixed income front, Oct SSB has just been announced with a pretty attractive 3.16% average 10Y yield. T-bill cut-off yields have been on a decline though, the last auction for 6M T-bill on 31 Aug sporting a lower 3.7% yield.
On the cash management front, fixed deposit rates have somewhat stabilised at substantially lower yields vs government bonds. On the bright side, robo-advisors have recently introduced guaranteed yield cash product like StashAway Cash+ Guaranteed and Syfe Cash+ Guaranteed offering yields of 3.6% and 3.7% respectively and backed by fixed deposits from banks.
See also my Fixed Income Tracker and SSB tracker.
The big and sad news was the announcement that MoneyOwl would be closing down. I have quite a bit of cash in MoneyOwl WiseSaver yielding a projected 3.94%. I’ll probably be moving all my funds out, since I need to withdraw to pay for my upcoming home renovation anyway.
On the banking side, GXS bank has lowered the yield on Savings Pockets from 3.48% to 2.68%, falling closer to the 2.5% offered by Maribank and Trust bank.
See my Portfolio page for more details on my portfolio value, holdings, and strategy.
Family Portfolio
- Value as at end Aug: S$226K
- Aug performance: -4.3% vs SPX -1.3% vs NDX -1.5%
- YTD performance: +20.7% vs SPX +18.1% vs NDX +42.6%
- All-time performance (since Aug 2016): +3.1% (+5.2% including dividends)
- Aug dividends: S$89 (+99% yoy)
- Bought: VT, QQQ, ARKK, SGX:HST, PYPL, SQ, SE, TSLA
- Sold: None
Besides the usual RSP into ETFs, I continued to add to beaten down tech stocks PayPal (PYPL), Block (SQ), and Sea Ltd (SE), all of which fell in price post-earnings especially for Sea. Also took the opportunity to add a bit of Tesla (TSLA) on recent weakness.
Read also: Automating Your Investments With FSMOne
No additional lump sum added to Syfe portfolios last month, just the usual DCA. Syfe managed portfolios is currently valued at $15.9k with total returns of -$95 (as at 5th Sep 2023). No change to regular monthly contributions of $200 into each of the Core Equity100 and REIT+ portfolios. Around $4k more to go to qualify for Black Tier ($20k) which comes with a lower 0.5% annual management fee vs the current Blue Tier rate of 0.65%.
Read my reviews of Syfe Income+, Syfe REIT+, and Syfe Core Equity100.
Personal Portfolio
- Value as at end Aug: S$59.4K
- Aug performance: -5.5%
- YTD performance: +63.5%
- All-time performance (since July 2020): +7.0%
- Bought: TSLA, DIS
- Sold: PLTR
Tesla (TSLA) and Palantir (PLTR) were down -6% and -24% respectively in August, impacting the Personal portfolio substantially. I managed to trim some PLTR on the way down, and used the proceeds to buy TSLA and Disney (DIS).
Read my investment thesis on TSLA here.
I’m waiting for opportunity to add PLTR at lower prices, but the stock seems to have found a support around $14. At these prices though, I prefer the risk-reward of TSLA and DIS.
The fairly new position in DIS is more of a value play, as opposed to TSLA and PLTR which are growth plays. However, DIS has recently broke support of $85 and languishing around $82, so I’m hesitant to add more until I see a reversal in fortunes. Hopefully Bob Iger can turn things around soon.
How did your portfolio perform in August and what are your plans for September?
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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. I am not professional financial advisor nor do I work in the finance industry. Anything I write here is purely my personal opinion. Please do your own research and due diligence before investing into anything. All investments come with associated risks. Best to consult a financial advisor if you’re still unsure.
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