I managed to meet my target of 5% dividend yield for 2019 by delivering 5.25% for my equity portfolios (growth and income).
But this is a drop from 2018 when I got 6.0%.
The absolute amount of dividends that I received is slightly lower than last year. I managed to grow my equity portfolio slightly and that helped to make up some lost grounds on yield dividend.
On closer examination, I realised that I had reduced my exposure to SReits given the steady climb in their share price over the 12 months. Interestingly, they seem to show some weakness in the last 2 weeks and I am wondering if it is a harbinger of what may be coming …
I transferred the funds that I got to SSB, SG Govt Bonds and Index portfolio for “safety” and diversification reasons. However, they provided a much lower dividend yields compared to my equity portfolios as we would expect … Lower risk lower return.
My Top 10 dividend contributors for 2019 are … (I also provided 2018 for reference):
| 2019 | Remarks | 2018 |
| Singtel | … same | Singtel |
| Manulife US Reit | up | Asian Pay TV |
| OUE CT | up | Starhill |
| OUE | new | M1 |
| CapitaRetailChina | new | Cache |
| HPH Trust | new | Ireit |
| Ireit | down | Manulife US Reit |
| FrasersProperty | new | OUE CT |
| Cache | down | SPH |
| Netlink Trust | new | HPH Trust |
Quite a change as you can see .. 5 remain while 5 are new.
Singtel continues to be the my top dividend contributor and that is the only thing unchanged. I hope they can continue to keep the current dividend distribution.
Asian Pay TV fell off the list as they slashed their dividend significantly. Starhill Global also fell off as I reduced my exposure to it significantly. M1 was for the obvious reason that it was taken private by Keppel and SPH.
Rounding up, I am still happy that my passive income is still largely intact.
Although it is not sufficient for me to declare that I am ready for FIRE yet, it is making progress and a step closer.
Will share more details of my individual portfolios and plan for 2020 in subsequent blogs.
Meanwhile, take care and have a great investment week ahead.
Regards,
Warriortan
Invest For Yourself 
I think the 5% dividend yield can be used as just a guide, there’s a lot more than dividend yield when it comes to making the right investment choice or not. But yes, like you mentioned, a higher dividend yield does provide a more certain “ROI”. In general dividend paying stocks also do better in the long run. I also use dividend yield often to decide whether to buy a stock or not. That being said, I’m very glad you achieved your goal for this year!!
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Some people said that I was giving myself a easy target … 🙂 But nevertheless, 5% gain is better than no gain or a loss. If I can ever accumulate $1 Mln cash investment, then 5% is already $50k, very very nice!
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That is very true! But $1M is hard to reach! >_<!!!!!! at least for me
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