The Boy who Procrastinates (TBWP): September 2019

Portfolio Review for Sept 2019

By The Boy Who Procrastinates - September 28, 2019

Even though Xi and Trump have agreed to a trade truce at the G20 Summit in late June, the tit-for-tat trade war appears to resume with greater intensity. At one point, the PBOC has let the Chinese yuan fall about 4% to cushion the blow of US escalating trade tariffs. In response, China was labelled a currency manipulator by US Treasury.

At this stage, there does not seem to be a respite insight for this ongoing trade war as both sides have threatened with new tariffs and hikes to the existing duties in the months to come.

This quarter, the US Fed has lowered the interest rate on 2 occasions on 31 July and 18 Sept respectively, putting the range of the fed fund rate at 1.75% to 2% amid uncertain economic outlook.

Back at home, the STI has fallen from 3,372.26 at the start of July to a low of 3,054.84 in August before recovering to 3,125.63 in September, accounting for a relatively substantial drop of 7.31%.

The SGX S-REIT 20 Index has behaved in a similar fashion, declining from 1,446.659 in July to a low of 1,374.699 in August before climbing back to to 1,460.161 in September, recording an overall gain of 0.93% in the short span of 3 months.

Action in Q3

With the escalating trade war, I have been taking a back seat this quarter and have not taken any action to load up or sell any positions.

Portfolio

The portfolio value has not really fluctuated much against the backdrop of decreasing interest rate and bitter trade battle between US and China. Overall, the market value of my portfolio has dropped by approximately 0.68% in this unexciting quarter.

Dividend

The dividends collected this quarter is 61.16% greater than that of 3Q2018, with it being the quarter with the highest dividends this year thus far and hitting the goal of $500 per month.

The dividend collected from this quarter is contributed by the following securities:

Month	Payment Date	Security	Dividend
July	1 July	SSB Jan 2019	$49.97
	3 July	Far East Orchard	$24.00
	31 July	Cromwell European REIT	$609.30
August	8 August	SIA Engineering	$240.00
	21 August	STI ETF	$96.00
	29 August	Starhill Global REIT	$187.00
	30 August	Raffles Medical	$187.00
September	13 September	Far East HTrust	$109.20
September	27 September	CapitaRetail China Trust	$314.50

Total Dividend Collected : $3,880.27
Average Dividend/Month : $431.14 (over 9-months period)

* Exchange Rate
1 EUR : 1.508804 SGD
1 USD : 1.382125 SGD

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Credit Card

Getting the Most Out Of Your Credit Cards

By The Boy Who Procrastinates - September 14, 2019

As a cardholder of CIMB VISA Signature (back when it was offering an epic 10% cashback at the start of the year), I have relied heavily on information from online forums, Facebook discussion groups and crowd-sourced Google Sheets to figure out whether a transaction falls nicely under the eligible spending category.

With its t&c revamped in June, the CIMB VISA Signature has certainly fallen from grace in my opinion. Nevertheless, it is heartening to know that we can always count on crowdsourcing for the information we seek.

This is especially so with the invariably vague and indefinite terms and conditions for credit cards and it can frustrating at times, trying to ascertain if your expenditure belongs to a particular category.

Launched in May 2019, WhatCard aims to alleviate this issue through a comprehensive database of Merchant Category Code.

Merchant Category Code (MCC)

On a technical note, the Merchant Category Code (MCC) is a four-digit identifier that denotes the type of goods and services provided by merchants or businesses. Credit card issuing banks commonly utilise these assigned codes to track and categorise transactions and award cashback/reward points according to the eligibility of the spending.

Even though the world of MCC may seem disconcerting and complicated, the understanding of its mechanism goes a long way towards maximizing your credit card rewards

WhatCard

Built on online crowdsourced resources on MCC, WhatCard.sg functions as a free merchant search engine that allows its users to gather information on the usage of various credit cards that reaps the best rewards.

Simply key in the merchant name in the search box and it will display the best credit cards to use, ranked in the order of the amount of cashback/miles awarded.

For example, the result page displays the list of credit cards that I can use to earn maximum cashback at Cold Storage. It comes with information on the minimum spending per month and the maximum cap for the grocery category.

Furthermore, there is an option to toggle between cashback and miles credit cards so as to cater to different camp.

Due to the immerse value and convenience it can potentially bring to the masses, I did not hesitate to pen down my review after Dexter (co-founder of WhatCard) has approached me for a complimentary write-up.

Even though the project is currently in its beta phase, I understand that the team is working towards expanding and updating the database with quality credit card and merchant information.

WhatCard Community

Credit card enthusiasts can participate in the discussion forum with like-minded people on WhatCard community.

A game-changing revelation of earning cashback for payment of taxes and insurance bills was made known to me through a blog post on WhatCard.

I have yet to try it out myself but the gist of it involves the acceptance of Grabpay as one of the payment modes on the AXS app which can be used to pay for taxes and insurance.

Together with crowdsourcing information on the forum, there are certainly more credit card hacks to be discovered on WhatCard. Do give it a try!

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Disclaimer: Kindly note that this is not a sponsored post. The author is in no way affiliated with WhatCard and does not receive any form of remuneration for this post. The Boy who Procrastinates has compiled the information for his own reference, with the hope that it will benefit others as well.

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Portfolio Review for Sept 2019

Action in Q3

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Getting the Most Out Of Your Credit Cards

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