Recent action - UMS and Keppel Corp

Despite the recent rate hike, the market continued to hitting new high. Since the beginning of this year, I have been reviewing my current portfolio, selling the weaker ones and taking some profit on the strong counters. After the last GFC, I felt that it is better to realise some hard profits and keep them in my pocket than to see them vaporising on paper.

Last week, I finally took the hard decision to cut loss on my Kepcorp. This was a counter which I bought at quite a high price, and when it corrected, I should have adhered to my usual cut loss of 20%, but I didnt and thus a price to pay. I have taken the decision to cut loss so that I can redeploy the capital to other counters that I am watching now.

At the same time, I have also taken profit on UMS. The stock price awoken due to more investors taking notice on this counter and buying it for its' decent dividend (I presumed). I was told to leave the party when it gets crowded, although after I sold, it went up some more. UMS was a counter which I hold since 2015, and over the years, it has given me pretty good dividend. With the recent run up, I pared down my holdings and left with just 1/3 of it. The remaining 1/3 is at ZERO cost to me now, thus even if the share price corrects, I can still sleep well at night. Once again, this also tells me that both 'Timing the market' and 'Time in the market' are equally important.

Lastly, as the market continue to rise, it has been challenging to find value in the market. I am looking at a few (some can be found in my list using the Greenblatt formula) and will be sharing shortly.

I took profit for these 2 counters

President Donald Trump has done it again, through his latest speech, it had resulted in DOW JONES hitting new high and thus rallying along the rest of the world indices including STI and blue chips. 

STI ETF

STI has a good run since last year, it has given me more than 5% gain (excluding the dividends). From the TA indicators, it is in the over-bought zone, I thought it will be better to take some profit first. I still keep some shares as it gives me quite decent dividend yield. An interesting thing I observed in the chart below, in Apr 2011 and May 2015, there was a huge surge in volume and few weeks later, the STI index corrected. Last week, we saw the same huge volume surge, will it happen in the next few weeks? 

DBS Bank
I have also profit take and sold off my DBS holdings, it has been the star performer for me in 2017. The decision to sell for this counter is more maths than anything else. The average dividend over 10 years is 0.614cents. Based on 30 times, anything more than $18 is considered not cheap(last week it rallied above $19). The stock price may still go up further, nobody knows. But I will leave that last part to those with a strong heart.

In 2017 and beyond, we are expecting the market to be volatile and there will be many uncertainties, guess at some point we should take some profit off the table. After all, we invest because we want to make our money work, and if we dont take profit, we are not doing justice to our $$. Just my own views.