Dear Students of Batch 34,
It's
been a great honour and privilege to conduct a 5-Day Early Retirement Workshop
for you.
As I
cover this latest batch of students, interest rates are still high, and 2024 is
expected to have just one interest cut around the year-end period after the US
elections. The pessimists might say that the portfolio we build still faces
some downside risks as REITs continue to underperform. Still, optimists would see
this as a bargain opportunity with a longer stretch. After all, the projected
yield of the portfolio built by this batch is high at 7.42%.
Community
observers who follow the construction of ERM portfolios should note that this
class would have selected a large variety of local stocks, as
dividends are pretty high across the board. However, I removed a few counters to
make the portfolio more manageable and accommodate folks with a smaller amount
of capital, so please refer to the rejected list of stocks for details.
I am
a realist. Students should see some capital losses if inflation remains high in
the US, which is why I hedged with one banking counter. Otherwise, the
portfolio will outperform if we get lucky and interest rates come down early in
2024.
Returning to the class, I wish to thank this batch of students for keeping me
entertained and curious. The conversations in the classroom make the class come
alive, and I’m grateful to be able to tap into your broad life experience today.
I particularly enjoyed the conversations about Chinese society, what working in
China feels like, and how the nature of involution has shaped Chinese society
today. They gave me hope that the situation in Hong Kong has bottomed out.
Lastly,
I hope Batch 34 will participate actively in the FB group. I look forward to seeing you at the following community seminar, which is slated for Q3 2024.
All my focus is now on bringing LLMs into this program
Hope
to see you then!
Christopher Ng Wai Chung
No comments:
Post a Comment