Who Will Win The Trade War?

On 4th of March 2025, US has imposed 25% tariffs on import from Canada & Mexico, and at the same time increased tariffs on China import to 20% from 10% just imposed a month ago.

The stock market reacted negatively as there are lots of uncertainty.

Trump stressed that the tariffs will revive US manufacturing sector and create more jobs, and will not increase the cost of living of its citizens. Is it true?

Anyway, it's almost certain that those countries being imposed the tariffs will suffer, and they will retaliate with tariffs against the US.

In the end, who will win? Or may be there will be no winner?

My Portfolio Feb25

Summary of February 2025

Portfolio @ End of Feb25

Feb25 is a very bad month to my portfolio which fell 6.8%, with YTD loss widened to 8.8%.

As you can see there was only one stock which made a tiny gain in the month while the rest all suffered loss which a few losing more than 10%.

This is probably due to the Trump effect which causes lots of uncertainty.

Are investors bracing themselves for a bear market in 2025?

Case Study: Property Investment No.1

 

My first property purchase, which was also my biggest investment at that time, was a home for my family.

It was in August of 2009 which was around 15.5 years ago.

The property is a newly launched double storey semi-detached (DSSD) house in a gated community bought at a price of RM348,000 directly from property developer.

I was lucky because at that time the property boom was just about to start.

The selling price of new similar properties in the vicinity increased rapidly, in which new launches were snapped up like buying vegetables in the market.

At the time when I moved into my new house in the fourth quarter of 2012, the market value was already close to RM500,000.

Currently the launching price of new smaller size DSSD in the same area is well above RM700,000.

My Portfolio Jan25

 Summary of January 2025

Portfolio @ End of Jan25

The stock market made a bad start to the year of 2025. KLCI dropped 5.2% while my portfolio shrank by 1.9% in the first month of 2025.

In the same month, I added KFIMA into my portfolio, as I think it has low PE, decent DY and some potential of growth.

I also applied for IPO of KOPI and I was very lucky that I got it successfully. However, as you all know, the number of shares allocated was very small.

At IPO price of 44sen, initially I planned to sell at 88sen with 100% gain but suddenly I changed my mind to sell all shares as soon as trading started because I would not have time to monitor its share price in the whole morning.

Anyway, it's still a 70% gain, despite relatively small in value.

My Portfolio Dec24

 Summary of December 2024

Portfolio @ End of Dec24

My portfolio gained 2.1% in Dec24, making the whole year of 2024 an average year with a 13.2% return.

It is just on par with KLCI's 13% annual gain.

This feels like a disappointing year for me, as my portfolio declined from over 40% gain in the middle of the year. 

Anyway, it's still a positive return and I should be satisfied with it.