TJJ Learning Journal | Dividend Investing for FIRE

Silver and Gold are having their moment to shine in 2025. Prices are climbing, and the headlines are screaming about the collapse of fiat currency and the safety of precious metals. I have been pondering this question multiple times this week: "Should we be allocating some of our portfolio to Silver?" Investing 101: Stacking Shiny Metals If you want exposure to Precious Metals, you generally have three paths in Singapore: Physical Bullion/ Coins : Buying these physically from dealers like UOB or BullionStar. You hold it, you store it. Stock Market : Buying paper gold and silver on the stock exchange to profit from the price movements of metals.  Digital Gold and Silver : Dealers may allow you to buy fractional amounts of gold, silver and other precious metals, backed by real metal in their vaults. You have the option to redeem this digital metal for real bullion, typically with some minimum weightage like 100g of gold. Precious Metals are hard assets that serve as another hed...

2025 is in the books with only 2 and a half trading days left.  2025 is the year I initiated my dividend portfolio and embarked on this hopefully decades-long journey with dividend investing. My portfolio was steady and already printed cash like it was supposed to. In 2025 my  Net Assets  increased by 45%, of which around two thirds can be attributed to personal savings and one third can be attributed to investment returns (capital gains + dividends). Here is a breakdown of the number of dividends I can expect to receive by month next year: Jan: None Feb (3): Kimly, SGX, Suntec Mar (6): Keppel DC REIT, AIMS APAC REIT, PLife, CICT, MIT, MLT Apr (1): DBS May (7): DBS, OCBC, UOB, CLI, CDG, SGX, Suntec Jun (3): AIMS APAC REIT, MIT, MLT Jul (1): Kimly Aug (6): DBS, OCBC, UOB, CICT, CDG, Suntec Sep (5): Keppel DC REIT, AIMS APAC REIT, MIT, MLT, PLife Oct (1): SGX Nov (3): DBS, SGX, Suntec, Dec (3): AIMS APAC REIT, MIT, MLT I currently hold 15 individual counters, giving me...

 It's that time of the year again. In the background, we hear monsoon rain and thunder here in Singapore. In the background, we also hear the narrative of the "Santa Rally" from our financial news channels. Open any investing app right now, and you will see the headlines. "End-of-Year Surge!" "Catch the Wave!" It sounds like a real gift from Santa. Does the market sentiment suddenly shift to euphoria just because it is late December? Ask anyone with a clue and they can tell you there is no such thing as magic. The year-end rally is just a temporary mechanic. Echo Chamber of Empty Desks Walk into any workplace now and it is a ghost town. The senior portfolio managers—the ones who move billions—cleared out days ago. They are skiing in the Alps or sitting on a beach in Bali. Who is left? The junior traders. The algorithms. And the retail investors reading headlines. When the big players leave, liquidity dries up. The "order book" (the list of bu...

We often judge our investing success by a single number: Total Return. But as we know, wealth is multi-dimensional. A portfolio that doubles in value but costs you your marriage or your mental health is a bad investment. How do we ensure that our system serves us, and not us serving our system? Check 1 Is our portfolio growing over time?  Forget the daily or monthly fluctuations, or your PnL statements even.  Simply check if your portfolio is growing in value, if you are accumulating more and more shares over the years.  If the answer is "No", you might be over trading or picking too many speculations that died down. Our dividend farm should grow slowly, quietly and inevitably. Check 2 Is your cash flow higher and higher? This is my favorite metric because it is harder to fake. Prices are opinions, while dividends are facts. Did your dividend income grow? Are you reinvesting enough to compound that growth? Even if our portfolio value is flat or down for the year, you are ...

It is one of the oldest temptations in finance: using other people's money to get rich. The logic is simple. Borrow money from a broker or bank at 4%, buy dividend stocks that pay 5-6% dividends, pocket the ~2% difference for "free".  When something looks like a free lunch, it's usually a trap. Picking Pennies In Front of a Steamroller When we buy stocks with cash, the worst thing that can happen is the price drops. You wait. You collect dividends. You go on with life. When you buy with leverage, you introduce new risks that can kill your portfolio overnight. Margin Calls can happen when the value of your shares dropped to the extent of breaching the agreed Loan-to-Value (LTV) or security ratio. This forces you to deposit more cash or sell assets to cover the shortfall. You face a wipeout on your investments, locking in losses permanently. Stock returns and dividends are never guaranteed. The "spread" between your loan interest and dividends can easily disap...