The Pharmacist Investor- The Quiet Compounder

 June 24th, 2026. SCHD's ex-dividend date. Which means: if you held SCHD before yesterday's close,  this quarter's dividend belongs to you. I hold 1.5656 shares. At approximately $0.26–$0.27 per share,  my estimated payout comes to: About $0.41–$0.42. The money hasn't landed yet — payment date is June 29th  but I wanted to write this today.  Because there are some things I want to say while the moment is fresh. What Is SCHD and Why Do I Hold It? SCHD stands for the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF. It holds a basket of American companies with strong dividend histories and solid financial fundamentals. Healthcare companies. Consumer staples. Industrial businesses. The kind of companies that aren't particularly exciting to talk about at dinner, but have been quietly generating cash for decades. It's not a glamorous ETF. It won't make you sound impressive at parties. But it pays every quarter, maintains an annualised yield of around 3.3%, and  the compani...

 Yesterday, June 23rd, something dramatic happened in South Korea. The KOSPI — South Korea's main stock index — dropped 9.99% in a single day. Trading was halted for 20 minutes after circuit breakers were triggered. Foreign investors dumped over 4 trillion Korean Won in a single session. Retail investors rushed in to buy the dip. It was, by any measure, a historic day. How Did It Come To This? South Korea's stock market has been one of the hottest in the world this year, riding the AI wave almost entirely on the back of two semiconductor giants — Samsung and SK Hynix. SK Hynix alone surged nearly 350% year-to-date at its peak. Retail investors piled into high-leverage ETFs tracking these stocks. Margin accounts stacked higher and higher. The market was a balloon inflated to its absolute limit. Then the foreign money started leaving. Leveraged positions got force-liquidated. Margin calls cascaded. Retail investors who had bought on borrowed money were wiped out before they cou...

 Last week, a notification appeared on my phone. A dividend payment from Realty Income — $O. The amount: $0.08. In Malaysian Ringgit, that's roughly RM0.35. Less than a piece of candy from a vending machine. My First Reaction Honestly? I stared at it for a moment. Not because it was a lot. Because it was so little. A voice in my head said: "Does this even matter?" I sat with that question for a while. And I came up with an answer that actually made me feel something. How That Money Arrived The day that $0.08 landed in my account — what was I doing? I was at work. Sitting at a desk, answering emails, attending meetings, getting through the day like everyone else. Then I clocked out, picked up my son, gave him a bath, sat with him through dinner. After he fell asleep, I picked up my phone and saw the notification. Realty Income had put money into my account while I did absolutely nothing. I didn't sell anything. I didn't provide any service. I didn't tra...

 Honestly, when I first saw the news,  my immediate reaction wasn't "let me research this." It was: "What does this have to do with me?" I'm just a regular salaried dad, slowly building my portfolio one paycheck at a time.  A company like SpaceX feels like it belongs to Wall Street giants — not someone like me. But I kept thinking about it. And I decided it's worth talking about. First, Let's Understand How Big This Actually Is SpaceX has officially filed its S-1 with the SEC and is heading to Nasdaq. Expected fundraising: USD 75 billion. Market valuation: USD 1.75 trillion. Reported order book: Over USD 250 billion   more than 3x oversubscribed. This would break the record previously held by Saudi Aramco for the largest IPO in history. Why Is This Company Worth So Much? Most people think of SpaceX as a rocket company.  The kind that burns through cash and promises a future on Mars. But the story has changed. The real engine behind that U...

 There's a kind of silence that you only understand after you've lost everything. Not the peaceful kind. The kind where you sit there, run the numbers for the fourth time, and hope the answer will somehow be different. It never is. That Year, I Was 40 That year, I sold the pharmacy I had spent years building. Not because business was good and I was riding off into the sunset. Because I couldn't hold on anymore. Bills. Debts. My son's medical and therapy costs — coming at me one after another. It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't the kind of story that makes the news. I was the kind of person who still showed up to work on time, still smiled at people — but inside, the numbers never added up no matter how many times I ran them. I was 40. I thought I had life figured out by now. Turns out, I really didn't. The Hardest Part Wasn't the Money Everyone assumes that starting over is hardest financially. It's not. The hardest part is identity. I ha...

In 2025, I made a decision I could no longer avoid. I closed the pharmacy I had built and poured years of my life into. And I walked back into the workforce — as an employee, starting from scratch. The business had never really turned the corner. For months, I stopped drawing a salary just to keep the doors open. But when the weight of reality stacked up all at once — my eldest son's therapy costs, the family's daily expenses, the bills that kept arriving regardless of how the business was doing — I knew I couldn't keep delaying the inevitable. If it had only been me, maybe I could have held on longer. But that's the cruelest part of this kind of failure. You don't fall alone. Your whole family falls with you. So when it was time to cut, I cut. From Boss to Employee The family needed stable income. The grand ambitions I once had quietly gave way to something far less glamorous — a pile of debt and a fresh start at the bottom. This isn't a declaration of ...

Salary in. Transfer done. Shares bought. May was another quiet month on my end — no panic selling, no dramatic moves. Just the same routine I've been building since I started this rebuilding journey. The portfolio climbed 2.15% this month , bringing the overall return to +2.22% since I started. More importantly, the total value grew from USD222.05 to USD278.20 . Not life-changing numbers. But for someone who started from zero, watching that figure climb steadily every single month feels more meaningful than any percentage ever could. 📊 May Portfolio Breakdown Stock Shares Opening Closing Change BRK.B 0.048 $22.73 $22.78 +0.22% NVDA 0.15 $29.94 $31.67 +5.46% O 0.4 $25.70 $24.51 -4.85% SCHD 0.8043 $25.79 $26.14 +1.33% VOO 0.1443 $95.32 $100.36 +5.04% The stars of the month were VOO and NVDA , up 5.04% and 5.46% respectively. The broader market clearly had a better mood in May compared to the turbulence we saw earlier in the year. The only red was O (Realty Income) , down 4....

  Time Is No Longer on My Side — But Investing Can Be I'll be honest with you. For most of my adult life, I kept telling myself I'd start investing "properly" — someday. When things settled down. When I had more money. When the timing felt right. That day never came. And then, before I knew it, I was in my forties, starting from zero. How It Used to Look For years, my investments were almost entirely in Bursa Malaysia — local stocks, familiar companies, things I could read about in Bahasa or Chinese. I did open an overseas brokerage account at some point. Technically. But it just sat there, untouched. The transfer fees felt like a barrier. The minimum investment amounts felt out of reach. The exchange rate made every transaction feel more complicated than it needed to be. So I told myself: maybe later . Later never came — and my portfolio paid the price for it. Then Everything Changed What's different now is the access. Investing in US markets from Ma...