I apologize for the lack of recent updates in the recent weeks as I was busy transitioning into a new job since late February. As there's more focus being given to the handover, I didn't manage to think much about writing as yet.

The month of March has finally given us a glimpse of opportunities of what the market can do to us. Within just a few days surrounding the fear of treasury yield going back up, we have seen an increase in volatility as rotation within sectors take place into the recovery sectors which include the laggards and badly beaten down banks, oil & gas, hospitality industry, and airlines.

With the increase in volatility across the market, I managed to do some rotations from within the portfolio itself to take advantage of the situation.

Portfolio Updates

I divested three of my lower-weighted non-REIT holdings in my portfolio as I began to raise for more cash.

The first divestment was Hotung on the back of very strong full-year earnings and an increase in dividends, the share price shot up by about 10% the day following the announcement. I was a little hesitant whether I was going to keep for the longer term, but I decided to divest it nevertheless given a better opportunity to park the funds elsewhere.

I also divested non-core holdings - Comfortdelgro and Netlink Trust, mainly to allocate them for better opportunities given that they are consolidating and are likely to return low single-digit return likely this year. CDG's dividend for full-year earnings was also somewhat disappointing and doesn't make up for the wait for now.

I took this month to load up on Manulife Reit after the share price was beaten down quite badly following the XD session. I still believe that this represents upside in both recovery play as well as USD strengthening, so I think there's a lot of story to like about Manulife and other US Reit going forward. For those who are curious about the recent updates on MUST, you can view my AGM article here.

I have also dedicated more of my funds towards the US market for this month as there seem to be some opportunities in the US market that I could take advantage of.

Most of the positions I have for the US market are currently in the options market with long-dated put options. Because these are derivatives leveraged positions and not direct positions, I will not update them here. However, if you are interested, you may follow my Facebook or Instagram page where I will at times update my live position there. 

Networth Updates

Steady but slow - this is in stark contrast to some other position such as meme stocks or cryptocurrency.

The good silver lining is the equity portfolio is still climbing up slowly to a year-to-date high of $358,590 despite a slow start this year.

I am still positioning my portfolio to be extremely low risk in my opinion and I will continue to remain patient in waiting for the big moment to arrive where I will go take on a slightly more risk-on mode.

I am also waiting to receive the dividend payouts in later weeks this month which will be a good booster to the portfolio should we see further opportunities in the market.