14/05/2026
Performance Review 2025.
The main retirement portfolio (Portfolio A) was delivering a total return of 21.36% for the financial year of 2025, 1.31 percentage points below the STI Index returns of 22.67% for the same period. Due to its different composition of asset classes in Portfolio A :- Equities, Fixed Deposit (FD), and Fixed Income, it would not be able to outperform the equities index of STI 30 which is tracking the 30 largest & most liquid listed stock on the SES. This is a structural issue and unless all the fixed income & FD are redeployed into a all equity portfolio, it is likely to always underperform STI index due to very low returns from FD and low returns from Fixed Income as their low returns are commensurate with the low risk profile of these asset classes.
As I have 2 other sub-portfolios (all equity without dilutive effects from fixed deposit & fixed income), there are a more comparable asset class to STI Index returns. Portfolio B invested in only on dividend stocks listed on SES, it has delivered a return of 26.58% for the Financial Year 2025, outperformed the STI index by 3.91%, benefited significantly due to the outsize performance from DBS, OCBC and iFAST in financial year 2025.
The control portfolio C – is consists primarily of CLR (Lion-Phillip S-Reit ETF), ES3 (STI Index ETF), Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO), and NASDAQ ETF, generated a blended total return of 18.09%. The underperformance is quite significant because of the overweight position in CLR, thinking that the cut in Fed Fund rate would cause cost of capital to decline significantly and provided a quick uplift to S-Reit ETF, this did not happen in FY 2025, hence a moderate returns in the blended ETFs portfolio. With the expected further cut to the Fed Fund rate in 2026 no longer in view, S-Reit ETF is likely to continue to underperform this year.
Top 10 holdings
1. iFAST
2. DBS Bank
3. OCBC Bank
4. Alphabet
5. UOB Bank
6. Insurance Australian Group
7. Mapletree Logistics Reit
8. Lion-Phillip S-Reit ETF
9. META
10. GRAB
6 SGD Stocks, 3 US stocks, and 1 Australian stock
What did I do well in 2025?
On reflection, 2025 was a volatile year, with significant crash in April 2025 due to the Liberation Day when President Donald Trump announced a slew of Tariffs on all countries in the world. Instead of following the market, I bought further into DBS, OCBC & some other dividend stocks on SES. This has proven to be a good move as global equity markets rebounded sharply when President Trump tweaked most of the tariff policies & postpone some, based on negotiation his government with other trading partners. By end Dec 2025, major equity indexes recovered from the April 2025 crash and moved even higher.
What lessons learned?
The key lesson learned is that investor should not just follow the market blindly. One would do well if they understood what they are invested in, willing to hold through the volatility period by taking a long-term approach. If you are on the right stocks, long term holding could generate outsize returns.
2026 outlook and what I will do.
I think this year is going to be volatile as well, with equity markets going up and down when major news happened such as interest rates cut announcements from Federal Reserve, sudden military operations such as the capture of Venezuela President and his wife by the US military on the morning of 3 Jan 2026. Then the Iran war since 28 February.
We do not know what is going to happen next, but a steady approach and continue to hold on to quality stocks would be a profitable approach I think for my 3 portfolios. I will continue to hold on to my core holdings; but selectively add interesting stocks when opportunity avails itself.
Year To Date Rebalancing:
Sold:-
1. All holding in FIRST Reit as this reit is heavily exposed to Indonesia and Rupiah depreciation is a constant problem. The high yield assumption is constantly compromised by dividend reduction per year constantly.
2. 2/3 of Frasers Property, the initial theory on privatization is not panning out, despite attending 2 AGMs and collected 2 full year dividends already that reduced the total holding cost. In terms of ROE, this company continue to under-perform and not able to lift its ROE to be more than 5%. Significant holding in hospitality asset and big exposure in Thailand made investment thesis on this company less exciting over the years. Exited with low 30% total return to re-deploy capital to quality companies with higher ROE & divided yield.
Bought:-
1. Bought additional shares in DBS, OCBC, and iFAST after 28 February.
2. Centurion & Boustead – alternative property asset plays with higher ROE than Frasers Property. Boustead is particularly interesting to spin off UI-Boustead REIT and special dividend is on the way.
3. Pawnbrokers Valuemax and Moneymax, both has a much higher ROE than Frasers as it is closer to franchise model, with captive audience go to either pawn houses to buy gold during good time; or to pawn/sell during bad time. It is also an indirect hedge as if one holding a gold position, but with dividend as added advantages. Both these 2 pawn houses are in the “Consumer Discretionary” sector which I am under-weigh all this while, it started from negligible allocation to currently 3% of total portfolio and I plan to increase it at the right time to between 5% to 7% in terms of portfolio allocation.
