TJJ Learning Journal | Dividend Investing for FIRE

I was browsing through some old market analyses recently and stumbled upon a fascinating blog post about DBS , written all the way back in 2018. The author made what, at the time, must have seemed like an incredibly bold prediction: that DBS was a "titan-in-the-making" and had a minimum price target of S$53.42. Seven years later, just last month DBS stock crossed S$53. It got me thinking: what is the next audacious but plausible milestone for a company like DBS? I believe it's possible that DBS could become Singapore's first trillion-dollar company by market capitalization. Path to a Trillion Dollar Valuation Today, DBS has a market cap of roughly S$140 billion. Reaching S$1 trillion would require the company to grow by nearly seven times its current size. This can be a multi-decade journey. But just as the 2018 analysis said, we can see the pillars that could support this future growth. The original author pointed to factors like Asia's secular growth cycle and...

Shares of CapitaLand Investment (CLI) are trading lower ever since their half-year earnings report released. A miss in headline profit numbers might seem concerning, contributing to a period of price weakness. But as long-term investors, a period of price weakness is always an opportunity to dig deeper and look for good deals. What is CapitaLand Investment? CLI is a global real estate manager . The most important thing to understand is that their strategy is "asset-light." A typical REIT would be like a hotel  owner , who owns the physical hotel building, bears all the costs, and keep the profits.   CLI is like a  manager  rather than an owner. It manages assets for owners and earns a reliable fee for its expertise, without having to carry the huge cost of the buildings on its own books .   CLI still owns a portfolio of investment properties and stakes in its managed REITs and funds. These generate rental income and fair-value gains but tie up capital....

For Singaporean investors, there has always been a fundamental trade-off when choosing a brokerage.  Do you opt for a low-cost discount broker, where your shares are held in a custodian account? Or do you go with a traditional broker and pay high fees to have your shares held securely in your own CDP account?  Moomoo has announced in MooFest 2025 their plans to offer full CDP linkage, allowing users to buy and sell stocks directly to and from their Central Depository account. This is a feature I've been waiting for, and it's a huge win for all long-term investors using moomoo SG. Full details such as pricing plans have yet to be announced, but the feature is set to launch this November or two months from the writing of this article. Why Does This Matter? The Central Depository is the national, government-backed custodian for SGX stocks. It serves as the ultimate safe for Singapore shares for all Singaporean investors. Holding shares in CDP makes you the direct, legal owner of...

The news is out. The US Federal Reserve has just announced another 25 basis point rate cut as of 17 September 2025, continuing its path towards a looser monetary policy. For months, this has been the event that analysts and investors have been waiting for. And yet, the market's reaction has been a collective "shrug" one day after. The S-REIT index, which many expected to soar, are trading slightly red. The banks, which many expected to fall, are holding steady. This non-event is one of the most powerful lessons in investing: the difference between news and expectations .  What "Priced In" Means While the news of the 25bps rate cut came in last night, pretty much everyone in the markets have been expecting this result. The market is a forward-looking machine. It does not trade on what happens today. Rather, it trades on what it expects to happen in the months to come. For months, the Fed and various economists have given indications of rate cuts to come. By the ...

DBS Group Holdings, an important core position in many of our portfolios, has broken through to all-time-highs above $53 last week. The stock rallied defiantly in the face of headwinds possibly coming this week. The US Federal Reserve is largely expected to announce interest rate cuts on 17 September 2025. Some people are asking a very logical question: "Aren't rate cuts bad for banks?"   The Trap: Market Timing and Macro Watching Market movements and hot stock prices are among the many situations that tempt investors into making mistakes.  Buying/Selling because of the High: "Prices have soared this year, we are entering a bull market!" "Prices have soared too much, it is time to take profit!"  Buying/Selling because of the News: "Rate cuts are bad for banks, I should sell now to avoid the inevitable drop." "Rate cuts are good for REITs, I should buy now because highs can go higher." Both are a losing game. They are attempts at rat...

In the previous Financial Literacy article, we talked about a system for creating a savings surplus. We now have cash that needs to be deployed. Before we think of buying our first stock, we need to build our foundations. One very critical piece of this foundation is our  emergency savings fund , and the right place to build it is in a  high-yield savings account . This will be our financial safety net.  What is an Emergency Fund? An emergency fund is a pool of cash set aside specifically to cover large, unexpected expenses. This isn't money for a planned vacation or a new phone; it's for true emergencies like:  Sudden job loss Unexpected medical or dental bills Urgent family needs Home or car repairs The standard rule of thumb is to have at least 6 months of living expenses stashed away. "Living expenses" refer to rent, food, utilities, transport, bills, etc. Essentially, you want to have enough money to last you 6 months in case anything happens to your job and inc...

Our portfolios are hitting all-time-highs every other day. It’s a great feeling. But with the recent rally in both banks and S-REITs, a new challenge emerges for the long-term investor: where can we put fresh capital to work? Let's keep our eyes on the prize: Buying good businesses at fair prices that let us sleep well at night while our portfolio makes money for us.  My Simple Toolkit for Finding Value  Among the blue chip stocks in my portfolio, I prefer to fall back on simple, powerful financial metrics to ground my decisions.  Price-to-Book Value: For Banks and REITs, this is an important metric due to their nature as asset-heavy businesses. The historical average P/B value is one useful yardstick to use when deciding whether a stock is cheap, expensive or fairly priced now. Dividend Yield: As a stock's price rises, its dividend yield falls. If a stable blue-chip's yield drops to a multi-year low, it's often a clear sign that the stock is getting expensive. Divid...

In our last post, we talked about our financial scorecard: the Net Worth. The only way to increase this number is by creating a positive cash flow, where Savings = Income - Expenses. While some of us are ever focused on building multiple income streams to raise Income, we are first going to tackle the Expenses part of the equation. Forget Tracking, Keep It Simple Some people overcomplicate budgeting by turning to "expense tracking", meticulously keying in every expense and looking ways they could cut spending. This system is complicated, tedious and requires a lot of willpower to uphold.  I prefer a simple approach that looks forwards and determines how much you should spend in advance. This is one of the oldest and most effective principles in personal finance: "Pay Yourself First." The "Pay Yourself First" System The system revolves around automating savings and investment, while enabling you to spend money guilt-free. We achieve this by maintaining mult...