Blog statistics: January to August 2010

It has been more than eight months since I started this blog and I am still blogging away. By now, regular readers could probably read me like a book.  I am, after all, almost forty and probably quite set in my ways.  The following is a summary of how my blog has performed in the last eight months:

The number of monthly unique visitors reduced dramatically in the month of June, from 19,449 in May to 15,500. That's a 20.3% decline!  The number of returning visitors fell from 10,297 in May to 8,173.  A 20.6% decline!  Terrible.  What could be the reason?  Well, I had the least number of posts in June, relatively.  Only 46, to be exact.  So, maybe, that has something to do with it.

The numbers recovered modestly in July and improved dramatically in the month of August when the number of monthly unique visitors formed a new record at 19,578.  This trumped the high formed earlier in May which saw 19,449 unique visitors.

I have no doubt that I have some very loyal readers who are spreading the word.  Your support is encouraging and you can bet that I will continue blogging!  Thank you. :)

Related posts:
Blog statistics: January to April 2010.
Alexa.

A minimum of $50k in annual passive income.

Anyone who has been reading my blog would know that I seek to build a strong stream of passive income through my investments in the stock market. On 29 May 2010, more than three months ago, I mentioned that "between LMIR and AIMS AMP Capital Industrial REIT, the annualised income distributions I receive could be as much as 4x my monthly salary".  In aggregate, this has not changed.  However, I have made some changes in allocation and shifted funds from LMIR to AIMS AMP Capital Industrial REIT.  This is because I am a little disappointed with the former and at the same time, I am feeling more optimistic about the latter.

In my post of 29 May 2010, I also said that "things should get better from here as from the month of September, income distribution from Saizen REIT would add to my passive income stream. I might just stop trading the market and sit back, relax and let the passive income stream in.  Of course, it remains to be seen if my calculations as to Saizen REIT's potential income distribution would come to pass."

I was pretty confident that things would go the way I think they would but we can never be too sure of anything. As things turned out, happily, Saizen REIT's results and DPU were better than expected.  It seems that their CEO is much more astute compared to LMIR's and did not engage in any 100% currency hedging.  To recapt, "LMIR announced a DPU of 1.04c payable on 27 August 2010.  This is lower than the 1.2c paid in the last quarter. This is due to a higher realised loss on the foreign exchange forward contract."

I did some back of the envelope calculations as to the passive income I would be receiving from my investments in Saizen REIT, AIMS AMP Capital Industrial REIT and LMIR in future:

Assuming that all of Saizen REIT's warrants are converted to regular units and assuming that YK Shintoku's CMBS is successfully refinanced with a conventional bank loan with an interest rate of about 4%, I estimate the DPU to be about 0.4c per quarter or 1.6c per annum from December 2010.

As for AIMS AMP Capital Industrial REIT, with the impending rights issue, I would probably increase my investment in the REIT by at least a third and enjoy a higher yield at the same time.  This would increase the amount of passive income I receive from this REIT from December 2010.  DPU is estimated at 0.52c per quarter or 2.08c per annum.

For LMIR, although I believe in the strength of the Indonesian economy and the strength of its currency, the management's decision to continue using foreign exchange forward contracts is likely to limit any DPU growth.  In fact, it has led to a DPU reduction in S$ terms so far as the Rupiah strengthened against the S$.  However, I expect the S$ to appreciate more robustly in future and it is unlikely that the DPU would reduce much more.  Conservatively, I estimate the DPU to be 1c per quarter or 4c per year from December 2010.

With Saizen REIT's contribution, I would probably exceed the target I have set for myself which is "to create a minimum of $50k in annual passive income from investments in the stock market alone."  I shared this aim here in my blog on 27 Feb 2010, more than half a year ago. Like with everything, however, this needs confirmation. Let us see what happens in December 2010.

Related posts:
Create more passive income with limited capital.
LMIR: DPU reduced 20%.
AIMS AMP Capital Industrial REIT: Steady performance.
Saizen REIT: Better than expected DPU.
Seven steps to creating passive income from the stock market.