10th Year Anniversary of this Blog and its Returns

I think the earliest form of content creation is writing blogs.

This was during a time when there was no YouTube, no Instagram, no Facebook, etc.

I recall some articles advocating writing blogs for a living in those days.

Inspired by the above, I started this blog in 2015.

Below are my earnings each month versus the number of articles I wrote.

 

Earnings each month versus the number of articles written.

In general, the more articles written each month, the higher the earnings.

In fact, the correlation of articles written each month vs. earnings is 0.63, which can be considered a strong correlation. 

Here's how monetization works in Blogger - every time a visitor clicks on an ad, you make some money. When it accumulates to 150, you can cash out the money.

You can also see from the above chart that my total earnings are much less than the required 150 to cash out, even after 10 years.

However, no regrets writing this blog as it helps me to chronicle my FI journey every step of the way. 

So I will continue documenting my FI journey on this blog!

My learnings:

• The more articles you write, the higher the earnings
• It is tough to make a living by writing blogs
• If you want to jump on a trend, jump in right at the start of it, not at the end - but this is not easy, as everyone is likely preoccupied with one thing at any point in time (kids, work, caregiving, etc.)

Returns of my STI Portfolio after 10 years + STI ATH @4478

Today, the STI reached another all-time high(ATH) at 4,478.15.

Today STI reached 4,478.15 all-time high.

In fact, it is now commonly referred to as the Super Terrific Index. 😀 

So I decided to write another feel-good post about my returns from investing in STI, which should be higher than the 8.2% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) reported in my previous post. 

I have collected $25,734 in dividends over the last 10 years. I started DCA on 24 Aug 2015. 

So, how much have those returns netted me?

To get a clear picture, I looked at the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of my investments. Think of CAGR as the smoothed annual rate of return—it tells you what your average yearly growth rate would have been if the investment had grown at a steady rate from start to finish, without considering the ups and downs in between.

This CAGR is computed using the FV() formula in Google Sheets, which stands for Future Value. In my case, I plugged in the lump sum invested at the start, the number of periods invested in months, and the final portfolio value.

Without dividends included, I achieved a CAGR of 6.0%. 

CAGR without dividends included.

With dividends included, my CAGR increases to 8.8%!

CAGR with dividends included.

With this CAGR of 8.8%, it means my portfolio will double in 8-9 years.

Results are as of 28 Oct 2025.

 
In summary:

Metric	Value
Dividends Collected	+$25,734
Unrealised Profits	+$41,433
Simple Returns	+46.7%
CAGR (Excluding Dividends)	+6.0%
CAGR (Including Dividends)	+8.8%

Let’s compare this to the ever-popular S&P 500 index.

According to Wikipedia, since its inception in 1926, the S&P 500 has delivered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 9.8% including dividends (around 6% after inflation).

So yes, my STI portfolio CAGR of 8.80% still trails the long-term performance of the S&P 500 by exactly 1%. But this is home ground for me, and I’m genuinely happy to see the Straits Times Index (STI) holding up reasonably well—especially with dividends included. It goes to show that solid, long-term investing in local markets can still yield respectable returns.

Anyway, since I’m Singaporean, don’t mind me blowing my own trumpet a bit here (referring to the Singapore stock market). 🇸🇬📈

STI is poised to go higher. Let's see what the future brings!

SG Portfolio Snapshot - CAGR and Breakeven Price Oct 2025

Here's a snapshot of my current SGP portfolio:

CAGR of my current portfolio.

The column 'cagr' represents the compound annual growth rate of that stock.

The column 'cagr_inc_div_drp' shows the compound annual growth rate including dividends paid out and additional stocks obtained through distribution reinvestment plans.

The column 'cagr_benchmark' shows the compound annual growth rate of the benchmark. The benchmark is the SPDR STI ETF, stock code 'ES3'.

The column 'cagr_benchmark_status' shows yes if we beat the benchmark.

The column 'returns_one_year' shows the returns in the past year.

The columns 'cagr', 'cagr_inc_div_drp', 'cagr_benchmark', and 'returns_one_year' are shown in percentages.

Here's a comparison of the stats with previous years:

Statistics of my portfolio over the years.

Here's a chart depicting the stats above:

Bar chart of my portfolio statistics over the years.

Here's another snapshot of my portfolio based on the breakeven price:

Indication of whether each stock broke even.

The column 'price' indicates the current price of the stock.

The column 'breakeven_price' indicates the breakeven price of the stock with dividends and stocks from the distribution reinvestment plan included. As long as the price of the stock is above the breakeven price, I can sell the stock for a profit.

The column 'breakeven_price_status' indicates if the stock price is above the breakeven price.

Here's a comparison of the stats with previous years:

Breakeven statistics of my portfolio over the years.

Here's a chart depicting the stats above:

Bar chart of percentage of stocks that broke even.

Here are the returns of my portfolio versus the benchmark:

CAGR of my portfolio over the years. 

Here's a chart depicting the total dividends collected for this SGP portfolio to date:

Total dividends collected.

The value for the 'Weighted CAGR with div and drp included' is a bit of an anomaly this year, because of the issuance of Keppel DC Reit rights a few days earlier. The time period is too short, and hence the computation of the CAGR is probably not accurate.

Here's my comment from this topic in 2023:

        If 2022 was a bad year for stocks, 2023 is even worse. Mainly due to the ongoing Ukraine war with no end in sight, and now with the Israel-Hamas war. Interest rates are still at an all-time high. On the other hand, as long as interest rates start to fall, my bond and REITs are in position.  

Happy to share that 2025 is a much better year. The Israel-Hamas war seems to have wound down with the help of Trump, and interest rates have come down from all-time highs. Financial markets are at all-time highs. The only worry now is of an AI bubble. But my stocks have ridden the wave. 

SG Portfolio Returns vs Holding Power

This is a post that I am only able to write after 10 years.

This is because it took me more than 10 years to collect this data, as it requires me to hold a stock for at least 10 years. 

First, a bit of background. 

In my readings on investment, I came across a chart that looks like the one below multiple times:

https://thesmartinvestor.com.sg/is-holding-stocks-for-the-long-run-worth-your-time/

Interesting finding from the article above: 

In a single day, your probability of winning in the stock market is roughly similar to a coin toss, about a 50-50 chance. 

Extend that out to one year, and your chances increase to over two-thirds probability. 

Stretch that to 10 years, and almost 90% of every 10-year period is positive. 

Do it for 20 years and more, it is 100% positive, and you never lose any money.

I was intrigued.

If I can make money by doing nothing, how good will that be?

I can free up more time for my work or pursue other things of interest. 

Hence, I calculated the returns of my stocks versus the holding period:

The longer the holding period, the better the returns.

Each dot represents 1 stock.

The blue dots are simple returns of the stock. The blue line is the trendline of the blue dots.

The red dots are simple returns of the stock with dividends and DRP(dividends reinvestment plan) included. The red line is the trendline of the red dots.

Without dividends and DRP considered, the correlation between returns and holding period is 0 (no correlation).

With dividends and DRP(dividends reinvestment plan) considered, the correlation between returns and holding period is 0.29 (weak correlation).

OK, I thought the correlation would be higher, but it is what it is. 

In case you are wondering which stock each point belongs to, here it is below.

The best and worst stocks.

The stocks in the top right (DBS, Sempcorp) are my best stocks with the highest returns (with a long holding period). 

The stocks in the bottom right (Keppel Reit, CDL Hospitality Trust) are my worst stocks with the lowest returns, even after a long holding period (more than 10 years).

The stocks on the left are my 'hits' (Boustead), for which I got a high return even with a low holding period.

Yes, I find that the longer I hold a stock, the higher the chance that I will not lose any money. Hence, now even with a loss-making stock, I won't sell. I simply wait until it recovers through sheer holding power. 

Next, I think it will be interesting to see a bar chart similar to the one above, where I calculate the percentage of stocks with positive returns given the holding period. 

But that will be for another article. Stay tuned!

Portfolio Returns for Oct 2025

I felt it would be good to track the returns of my portfolios regularly since they fluctuate frequently depending on the stock market.

Here are the movements for this month. There is an upward tick across most of my portfolios. Only Crypto and USA portfolio has gone down a bit.

                             

For the Robo-Advisors, also an upward trend across all my portfolios. It's interesting how correlated/aligned the Stashaway General Investing and Endowus General Wealth Acc funds are. This is the 2nd positive month for Syfe Reit+ after a long wait.

                                            

Additionally, I think it will be interesting to see the breakdown of my portfolios in percentages (below). 

                                  

Market trends from the last 30 days: 

• The stock market is volatile, with trade tensions between the US and China easing, then increasing again
• Gaza war was declared over, with Trump doing a victory lap in the Middle East. However, from the news of the last few days, due to Hamas' failure to return all the dead bodies, it seems the end of the war is increasingly in doubt. 
• Increasing talks of an AI bubble, which caused the stock market to pull back a bit
• Gold is at an all-time high

One of the biggest crash in my Crypto portfolio

On 11 Oct 2025, I experienced one of my biggest crashes in my Crypto portfolio.

Since early this year, I have begun to track the biggest movements in my portfolio.

Here are the movements in my portfolio for 11 Oct 2025:

You can see that although Crypto dropped by 10%, my overall portfolio only dropped by 1.48%.

This is because less than 1% of my assets are in Crypto.

The 3 golden rules of investing comes to mind:

Number 1 rule is diversify.

Number 2 rule is diversify.

Number 3 rule is still diversify!

Some related links:

https://mothership.sg/2025/10/crypto-investor-found-dead-ukraine/

https://sg.yahoo.com/finance/news/crypto-anger-speculators-claim-insider-145044600.html

If you can't handle the volatility, don't invest in crypto!

Dividends for Sep 2025 - Towards 5k a month

Here are my dividends for Sep 2025:

                                    

So I collected $3,738.39 in dividends for this month. 

 
In case you are wondering, some stocks are repeated because I have 2 brokerage accounts.

Here are my monthly dividends over the last 6 years:

                                 

Here are the dividends I collected every year until the current day:

                          

Already surpassed the yearly dividends from 1 year ago.

Here is the progress of my average monthly dividends over the years:

                         

The value for 2025 is just based on 9 data points, though, and it may decline as we get more data points.

I plan to first receive $2500 (achieved), then finally $5000 in dividends every month on average.

By simple projection of the above chart, I will only hit my target of 5k a month in dividends after 2027...

Additionally, I share the interest I received from the various banks for the deposits this month:

                                        

Since all the banks above nerfed the interest rates, I expect this income to fall in the following months. 

To counter this, I have moved more of my spare cash to Chocolate Finance, which still offers decent interest rates. 

Also, in this month, I made $62.10 from my side hustle - GrabFood delivery. 

All in, I made $4,435.78 this month from dividends, interest, and food delivery.

Onwards!