The Value Fund Portfolio Report for FY2025

1. This is the 2025 full year report for the Value Fund. As the fund size grows, i feel there is a need to be reflective and strategic with my investments. Risk management has become an equal priority to investment returns with increasing size of portfolio and my age.

To set a high bar, I deliberately do not include Property, Options, CPF, SSB, T-Bills and Unit Trust/Mutual Funds as investments into this Value Fund. Consequently, those returns are not counted but can get added as captial injections. However, I do include my SRS portfolio as that is SG equities.

2. The Value Fund had a very good performance compared to 2024. For 2025, TWR & XIRR was 26.2% & 26.5% respectively. Compared to the previous year where my investment strategy muted my returns, this year my investment returns exploded. Better late than never I suppose.  My strategic moves into JP Banks+Trading Houses, CN/HK Tech+Bank, SG Bank+Reit markets  and US AI Tech paid off handsomely all at once. I was one year too early. :@)

Please note that my returns are in SGD as a base currency. I regard this a a higher benchmark compared to those USD based.

3. The Value Fund performed well against all the three benchmark indexes of  ES3(+28.1%), SPY(+11.6%%) and VT(+15.7%). Ironically, I still failed in my long term goal to exceed ES3 by at least 5ppt significantly. SG bluechips dominate the ES3 with their market capitalisation and surged in price with MAS/SGX finally waking up, edging me out by 2 ppt. Sigh, just can't win.

4. The fund's absolute gain again hit a new all-time high at +$983.6K consisting of a realised gain of +$236.0K and unrealised gain of +747.6K. Major contributors to the realised gain were MUFJ, SMFG, MITSUI, TENCENT, ALIBABA. GOOGL, AMZN, DBS and OCBC. The prior years of investments into dividend/income shares also started to pay off with annual dividends also hitting a new high at +$153.1K. Growing dividends has become an upward slope due to the increase valuations across all markets which means it is getting hard to buy anything with both growth and dividends.

5. However, there are Losses and Misses too. Major losers include NVO and TENB while I missed out on the Gold and EU Defense surges. Thankfully, I broke even on my INTC investment and exited with my skin.

6. In terms of capital injection, I added  to the portfolio with my dividends, option premiums, salary bonus, and leverage from wealth lending. Total capital injection into portfolio was +$1,271K for the year. This will not be repeated as I reached the maximum deployment level of my investment capital funds already. 

For those wondering if I use leverage, the answer is yes, a little bit. However, this is LTV against my unit trust/mutal funds which are not included into this Value Fund. So there is no distortion in total portfolio value. At most, I get wiped out in the unit trust/mutal funds and there will be no impact but I seriously doubt that will happen as those are in diversified income funds. It would take a 10 standard deviation event to materialise that.

7. For 2025, Total Stock Portfolio reached $5.18M for the reasons described above. 

8. Against my 2024 Financial Goals Scoreboard, my results are :

    a. Grow my Stock Portfolio Value to $3.5M. (Exceed Target - $5.18M)

    b. Raise dividends to $170K per annum. (Below Target - Only $153.1K)

    c. Exceed or Maintain CAGR of 10%. (Exceed Target - 26.2%)

    d. Top-up CPF Medisave on 1 Jan 2025. (Meet Target)

  e. Review and Refine Options & Risk Strategy to raise returns to SGD4K p.m. (Below Target - Not Enough Time !)

9. For 2026, I need a new investment strategy as everything panned out all at once and contributed to this superlative performance. The risks are also rising on all fronts at once. I need to circle the wagons around my portfolio but need ideas for upside gains to maintain a long term 10% CAGR. This is work in progress.

Going forward into 2026, my (stretch) investment goals are:

a. Grow my Stock Portfolio Value to $6M.

b. Raise dividends to $200K p.a. 

c. Exceed or Maintain CAGR of 10%. 

d. Top-up CPF Medisave on 1 Jan 2026.

e. Review and Refine Options & Risk Strategy to raise returns to SGD3000 per month.

10. My current portfolio can be found at https://stocks.cafe/user/profile?username=thevaluefund

The Value Fund Portfolio Report for FY2024

1. This is the 2024 full year report for the Value Fund. As the fund size grows, i feel there is a need to be reflective and more changes to strategy if necessary. Risk management has become an equal priority to investment returns.

2. The Value Fund had a good performance compared to last year. For 2024, TWR & XIRR was 15.1% & 15.7% respectively. This year, my portfolio diversification strategy prevented the fund from fully exploiting the US market's superlative performance as the SG market tanked, no thanks to the SG Reits which I have substantial holdings. Although the SG Bank and HK portfolio did help to lift the performance of the fund. 

3. The Value Fund performed poorer against all the three benchmark indexes of  ES3(+22.1%), SPY(+22.1%%) and VT(+19.2%). I still failed in my long term goal to exceed ES3 by at least 5ppt significantly. SG Banks dominate the ES3 with their 50% market capitalisation and surged in price, leaving me in the dust. Sigh.

4. The fund's absolute gain hit a new all-time high at +$373.1K consisting of a realised gain of +$228.1K and unrealised gain of +145.0K. Major contributors to the realised gain were PLTR, IBKR, JPM and GRE. The prior 3 years of heavy investment also started to pay off with annual dividends also hitting a new high at +118.5K. It will be very hard to repeat this feat in 2025.

5. In terms of capital injection, I added siginificantly to the portfolio with my dividends, option premiums, salary bonus, and leverage from wealth lending. Total capital injection into portfolio was +$402.9K for the year.

6. For 2024, Total Stock Portfolio reached $2.96M for the reasons described above. 

7. Against my 2024 Financial Goals Scoreboard :

a. Grow my Stock Portfolio Value to $2.5M. (Exceed Target). 

b. Raise dividends to $120K per annum. (Below Target). I achieve $118.5K which is slightly below target. This due to poorer SG Reit distributions and my new share purchases were 2H2024 heavy which did not contribute much to dividend payments.

c. Exceed or Maintain CAGR of 10%. (Below Target). Although we managed to achieve a 15% return, the Covid years had negative or mid single digit gains sapped the long term performance. I would have to sustain a (high) double digit return for a few years to recover my CAGR to 10%. Sigh.   

d. Top-up CPF Medisave on 1 Jan 2025. (Meet Target). Done. All Medisave contributions are accuring in the SA as it climbs to ERS limit.

e. Review and Refine Options & Risk Strategy to raise returns to USD3K(SGD4K) per month (Below Target) . I have collected SGD33.6K of premiums to date which is below the target of SGD36K. I was on track to meet this target due to large losses in Oct and Nov on call options that went to the moon (poor discipline to cut lost) and I was away for most of December.

8. For 2025, I plan to continue my value and growth based investment strategy (with leverage) supplemented with a basic options strategy. Meanwhile there is a need to manage the risks from leverage and options in the event of a recession or suprise spike in inflation. In terms of volatility, 2025 is expected to have higher structural risk due to the change in governments in the US, Germany  and France. Right wing themes dominate which has reversed globalisation and international trade. 

9. I turned out right about the future interest rates. Everyone (and Mr Market) had unrealistic expectations of inflation and interest rate for the US. EU is in a recessionary situation and the ECB is lowering interest rates to help. Most governments are hemmed in with budget deficits running at all time highs. It is going to be volatile 2025 !

10. At the end of 2024, I have been entrusted to invest a sum of 2.5M which I did not ask for. This brings about significant deployment risk and cash drag if incorporated into the portfolio on day one. I don't like this as it adds pressure which can cause (big) mistakes especially in frothy and loose capital markets. Therefore, I will place this captial in safe capital guaranteed financial instructments and slowly deploy out when an opportunities present themselves. 

11. Going forward into 2025, my (stretch) investment goals are:

a. Grow my Stock Portfolio Value to $3.5M.

b. Raise dividends to $170K per annum. 

c. Exceed or Maintain CAGR of 10%. 

d. Top-up CPF Medisave on 1 Jan 2025. (Exceeded FRS and working towards ERS)

e. Review and Refine Options & Risk Strategy to raise returns to SGD4000 per month.

12. My current portfolio can be found at https://stocks.cafe/user/profile?username=thevaluefund