Choose to be financially free.

This blog will highlight the start of my 10 year long journey to do something that many may deem ludicrous; that of retiring by the age of 35. In order to do so, I would need to ensure a few things are in order. Firstly, I would need to keep at least 50% of my salary and utilize it to purchase stocks.
Secondly, I would have to obtain at least 12% returns annualized, with injections every half a year.

For me, retirement means a house to live in, enough income to live comfortably and to do what I like. It would not require me to have a condominium, a yacht, nothing of that sort. As I joke with my friends, I just want my daily chicken rice.

A little about me. Although I am a business graduate, from SMU, I chose not to major in finance and took other majors instead. However, my interest in stocks, especially in value investing, has grown significantly since I chose those majors. I believe that I have the ability to beat the market as much as I can; and if I legitimately cannot, I will choose passive investing and put  my money into ETFs, keeping in mind, however, that there is still a dividend tax if I choose to invest in a US ETF.

Now for the interesting part. My methodology for investing is 80% value investing and 20% speculation. I have to admit, that once or twice I have deviated and bought growth stocks (Alibaba and Alphabet), as examples, while the rest of my investments are in value stocks.

Let me highlight the stocks I am currently holding on to right now.

No.	Stock Name	No. of Shares	Price Bought	% of Portfolio
1.	Bank of Zhengzhou (6196: HK)	8000	4.02/4.50	15%
2.	Barclays PLC (BARC:LN)	1300	182.40	10%
3.	Frasers Logistics and Industrial Trust (BUOU:SP)	4500	0.985/1.04	12%
4.	JPHCL Bio-Pharmacy Company (HK 8049)	4000	1.51	3%
5.	Daimler AG (DAI:GR)	28	68.44	7%
6.	Singtel (ST:SP)	800	3.38	7%
7.	Alibaba (BABA:US)	9	168.88	5%
8.	Alphabet Inc (GOOGL:US)	3	1081.46	11%
Cash				30%
Annualized Growth				37%

I will elaborate more about my reasoning for the choices above in further posts , and my annualized growth includes a previous stock purchase which I had made on BYD (1211:HK) which I had liquidated. I started this portfolio in April 2017 and this is how far I have gotten with my investments. Going further, I hope to accquire more value stocks and perhaps even some growth stocks, in a mostly 80/20 ratio (value stocks to growth stocks).

Onwards towards my goal. I choose to be free.