Investment Portfolio Update Mar 2020 and Circuit Breaker
Many things have happened over the last month from the government encouraging work from home to a lock down but termed as circuit breaker that is happening on 7th April.
Let me quickly go over my portfolio.
Snapshot of portfolio at the point of writing. It did worse than last month with paper losses amounting to over 20%. Below are the changes:
For SG listed stocks:
Sold Mapletree Commercial Trust at $1.87 and bought back at $1.60
Sold Mapletree Logistics Trust at $1.50
Bought Sasseur REIT at $0.605 and sold at $0.63
After the government announced that entertainment venues will be closed for a month, there was a noticeable drop in shoppers and malls were looking empty. This translates to bad news for retail industry especially REITs as they are going to take another beating. With poor public sentiments, it seemed like a good time for me to cash out my REITs stocks during the bounce while they are still in the green and buy back when REITs get sold down.
Considering that circuit breaker measures are going to be implemented, things will worsen particularly for businesses that aren't essential and unable to operate remotely.
For US listed stocks:
Bought SQQQ at $21.21
This is an ETF that shorts the Nasdaq because I think US economy is going to suffer with jobless claims reaching a record high of 10 million last month. On top of that, confirmed cases of COVID-19 has grown to almost 400,000 with over 10,000 deaths now, not to mention the disruptions it caused. It's crazy how US market is still green despite the dire situation.
Let's see if I'm wrong..
Was circuit breaker a little late?
Before this, the government left the crucial portion of controlling the spread to us hoping that we will be socially responsible by maintaining social distancing. Sadly, there will always be minorities doing the opposite and putting the innocent people at risk. With some still not understanding social distancing and went to queue for IKEA.
100 cases became 1000 in a month and now it has found its way into foreign workers dormitories housing 20,000 people. So, the number may go up to the same amount at worst case scenario which will put further strain on our medical staffs, facilities and cost huge amounts of money. If I'm not wrong, the 6 foreign workers in ICU still haven't recovered until now so that's some food for thought.
Was the circuit breaker a little late? I believe so. The situation could have be more manageable if we took the idiot proof approach of locking ourselves down earlier for maybe 2 weeks.
Anyway, stay at home and safe everyone!