What I thought to be an easy January month turned out to be different as we head towards the month of February.

Volatility in the market is back and already we've seen the DJI drops more than 1000 points in two sessions. The STI index has also given all its returns back this year and is currently marginally negative year to date.

This is actually a great period to accumulate some of the companies who has been impacted by the market selling and you can see that I have used up much of my warchest for this month to add on further. While it's still early days, my strategy is to continue adding for as long as they look attractive to me. And at 5% yield, it's hard not to add some blue chips into the portfolio.

First, I added a small portion of Tuan Sing which I blogged over here. The results were well expected and with contributions from the completed Robinson in FY18, I think they'd do pretty well. In terms of share price, it gets affected like most other companies during the market selling over last couple of days so in theory, valuations only get cheaper there. I'm rather skeptical though adding it aggressively because the company pays out so little dividend to shareholders and it's not part of my larger strategy. I'll monitor though how this pans out over FY18.

Second, I made a reallocation from EC World Reit to adding more FLT during the market selling. I think this was a bit of hasty decision because I have a clear plan in my head about not getting into Reits as valuations are not attractive at all but the hand took over faster. I think this is something I am still learning how to handle. On the same news, the CEO of EC World Reit has just resigned so I think there's something to be looked on there. Perhaps, the sponsor has their own ideas.

Third, I made a purchase of Singtel which I thought to be a good one over the long term. I know we are talking about the drop in earnings, especially coming from their regional associates in Bharti and Telkomsel but this is not something we've heard for the very first time. Back in 2013, earnings are so competitive in Indonesia and India as well but they've managed to come out of it stronger. I think we'd see something similar coming out of telcos over next couple of years. At 5% yield, I really think investors don't have to seek far away for what I thought to be a pretty decent return to park their money.

The portfolio has increased from the previous month of $615,330 to $633,860 this month (+3.1% month on month; 28.6% year on year).

There is more capital injection this month as I reallocate a bit more from the emergency funds into the equity portfolio.

I think we'll see a lot more up and down over the next month or so but all we can do as investors is to stay calm and pounce on opportunities. The last thing you want to do is to panic sell in a market like this. If you have been buying on contra or leveraging, then I think this exercise is a good preview of what's to come during consecutive sessions like this.

If your investing horizon is a long time, there's really nothing to fear on markets like this. In fact, wealth are made when there are opportunities like this. Often, my wealth creation builds up exponentially from coming out of market correction like this.

Do get into good companies with good valuations. The rest will take care itself.

Lastly, I'd like to wish everyone in advance a happy CNY and a great start to 2018.

Thanks for reading.