Letter to Batch 36 of the Early Retirement Masterclass

 

Dear Students of Batch 36,

It's been a great honour and privilege to conduct a 5-Day Early Retirement Workshop for you.

The markets are still experiencing a roller coaster ride after the conclusion of the US elections, and we are seeing some evaporation of previous gains as markets begin to digest what a Trump presidency might mean in 2025. In Singapore, banks advanced, and REITs retreated as there was this belief that Trump tariffs would generate inflation for the US economy. Interest rates continue to trend down, giving Singapore investors an extended bargaining period to collect high-yielding counters for a longer period.

The current yield of this portfolio is 7.35%. Once again, as the batch size remains small, we have created a very focused portfolio of 12 stocks, not counting Bank of China, as we welcome our first Singapore Depository Receipt (SDR) into the ERM portfolio. In future batches, we will gradually increase our exposure to high dividend-yielding SDRs, which will see at least one high dividend counter coming from Thailand in March 2025.

Also, for this batch of students, students employed ChatGPT on SUTL Enterprises, and an AI-generated analyst report is also attached to the materials herein. ChatGPT is getting better and better with each iteration, and it is our wish that we can decouple our program from analyst reports one day.

Lastly, I hope Batch 36 will participate actively in the FB group.

Hope to see you then!

Christopher Ng Wai Chung