Net worth grows 23.82% this year compared to the start of 2024. The growth is mainly contributed by saving, dividends and capital gains (on paper).
The growth curve is not smooth and the power of compound interest starts to show its effect.
Stream of dividend incomes
I started investing since 2013 in Malaysian stock market. Out of many different styles of investing, I picked dividend investing as there are a lot of success cases where retirees live off their dividend income. Since the base rate is good, I thought I could reproduce it too. Also, dividend investing allows me to reinvest the dividend to leverage the power of compound interest.
There is argument that says dividend stocks are not optimal as there are taxes. We can buy stocks that don’t pay dividend but could appreciate in price so that we can sell the stocks to generate the income we want from the capital gain. Based on my observation, this is only true for a handful of companies like Berkshire Hathaway, where they have great capital allocators in charge of the companies. These companies are not obvious.
Most companies destroy wealth when they retain their earnings. They can’t pass the “one dollar retained to create as least one dollar of market value” test, which is also called Buffett $1 test. Therefore their market value won’t appreciate as much. It is better for them to distribute the profit to shareholders as dividend.
Below are the monthly dividend collected for the whole of 2024 from Malaysia, America, Singapore, Europe and Hong Kong.
| Year-Month | MY | SG | HK | EU | US |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-12 | 5715.86 | 1295.77 | 1542.3 | 38.82 | 119.05 |
| 2024-11 | 628.87 | 255.36 | 1394 | 1.1 | 13.98 |
| 2024-10 | 2545.38 | 432.91 | 2415.74 | 61.67 | 153.18 |
| 2024-09 | 3284.36 | 2940.27 | 5832.71 | 28.51 | 155.25 |
| 2024-08 | 1231.49 | 2684.08 | 3860.68 | 81.5 | 36.36 |
| 2024-07 | 2778.55 | 382.46 | 5187.29 | 91.67 | 339.13 |
| 2024-06 | 2477.78 | 1407.29 | 6233.8 | 128.29 | 188.63 |
| 2024-05 | 3284.82 | 6036.58 | 1969 | 917.51 | 204.67 |
| 2024-04 | 3384.27 | 313.39 | 198.22 | 62.79 | 6.58 |
| 2024-03 | 2234.28 | 813.1 | 3715.13 | 15.46 | 475.95 |
| 2024-02 | 825.61 | 453.35 | 56 | 35.84 | 147.57 |
| 2024-01 | 1197 | 24.75 | 2544.08 | 68.38 | 201.88 |
| Total over 12 months | 29588.27 | 17039.31 | 34948.95 | 1531.54 | 2042.23 |
| Total over 12 months (RM) | 29588.27 | 56221.72 | 20192.05 | 7146.36 | 9118.55 |
The last row converts the amount to MYR (ringgit) using these conversion rates as of 30 December 2024 from Google:
- MYR/USD = 0.2239642
- MYR/SGD = 0.3030734
- MYR/EUR = 0.2143104
- MYR/HKD = 1.730827
Total dividend collected for 2024 in RM 122,266.96.
This is roughly RM 10,188.91 per month or RM 13.95 per hour for the whole year.
Whether I am sleeping or busy having fun, these countries are working hard to make me wealthier around the clock. Life can’t get better than that.
To learn more about dividend investing, books are your friends:
- The Single Best Investment: Creating Wealth with Dividend Growth
- Shareholder Yield: A Better Approach to Dividend Investing
Happy new year!