We are finally at our final month of the year.

I also did some window dressing to the portfolio going into 2018, knowing that I will be busy in the month of Dec. In fact, I was just back from work traveling this week and will be flying again for holiday next week, so I think this will be my last portfolio update for the year before I round it up with my overall xirr portfolio return updates after I come back from my holiday.

From portfolio movement, you can see that I trimmed away some of the companies such as FEO, Straco and Sabana Reit out of the portfolio after their recent financial results which does not meet my expectations.

For Straco, the untimely cut in their visitors arrival due to limit on their Xiamen Aquarium means that growth expectations will need to be reconsidered again. There are still expectations about Straco M&A some time in the future but I decide to allocate the funds elsewhere.

For Sabana, their recent strategic announcement news meant that I would need to reconsider the thesis, especially nos that they are restructuring the organization with new management and faces so I have also decided to allocate my funds elsewhere. 

I added more Ho Bee Land into the portfolio as I believe this is still a nice sector play which has not been fully appreciated by the market yet. Going into the commercial sector up cycle, I think Ho Bee will benefit massively for the next few years, and with more cash in their hands, I think another acquisition in the UK is on the table. 

I also added ST Engineering after they had secured a record contract which would almost secure an EPS for this year and next of about 16 cents. Given their pattern of paying out almost 90%, a 15 cents dividend would translate into near 4.7% on this company, which I think is decent enough for my grade equity bonds. 

I also added more Comfortdelgro after they plunged into recent 52 weeks low. This is a company which I am still comfortable with its value and proposition so it's a slow add for me as they get cheaper.

There was news about its strategic acquisition with Uber for the LCR stake on their rental business. Collaboration like this usually benefits the incumbent party more but without further detailed information, it will be difficult to distill if this is a good collaboration. On the surface however, it appears that it will result in more bookings for the Comfort driver since users are now able to book using Uberapps which means more revenues for drivers.

The portfolio ended the year with $613,516 which is down from the previous month. I've been struggling to keep up with the trend since the beginning of the second half of this year and the stagnant movement of the portfolio has mostly sum up the whole situation. 

In terms of cashflow,  I was able to add more to my position as I received my AWS this month and savings rate continues to be strong as I continued to allocate them into some companies that I believe in.

In my next update,  I will break down my overall 2017 xirr performance in detail with specific breakdown of the profits and losses in the company that I own and the lessons that I've learnt out of it from this year.

Happy holidays!