Last week, a young girl named Maya had a novel suggestion for The Economist: create a Good News section.
The youngster lamented that she sometimes finds the news a bit too gory and depressing.
Wouldn’t it be better if the UK magazine added some good news, perhaps about a species being saved from extinction?
Or discuss things that work, and if not, consider adding puzzles or comics.
How true.
We could all use some good news today.
Or any day for that matter.
Misery loves company
In the media world, bad news often overwhelms good news.
Oftentimes, when a piece of unsavoury news appears, many investors will spend time digging into the details.
That’s fine.
By all means, learn about what is happening.
The problem starts when you dwell on the bad news for too long.
Here’s what you don’t want to miss: when you focus on going through the details (and you need to!), this single-mindedness can also put blinders on to everything else that is happening.
In other words, in the pursuit of clarity, you may overlook the good news.
And let’s be frank.
Can we really say that we know what is happening with Trump’s tariffs and policy changes?
The US President’s unruly behaviour, threatening high tariffs one day, only to back off a couple of days later, sucks up all your time.
In the process, you may miss out on the good things too.
And that’s why Maya’s plea for good news is so critical at this point.
Some good news in the form of dividends
Coincidentally, the month of May has always been good for Singapore dividends.
I’ll give you a little peek into The Smart Dividend Portfolio, our flagship Singapore stock service.
For May 2025, the portfolio received more than TWICE the amount of dividends compared to a year ago.
That’s nearly S$1,800 in dividends in a single month.
This is a good amount of money just in time for the school holidays, too.
How did this happen?
How can the dividends increase by so much in such a short span of time?
Well, a big chunk of the income came from a large special dividend paid out by Haw Par (SGX: H02), the owner of the popular Tiger Balm brand.
It’s a nice reward for a stock that the portfolio has held since June 2020.
The buy was done when the news wasn’t great during the depths of the pandemic.
That’s not all.
The Smart Dividend Portfolio has been accumulating more shares since its first buy, including adding to the stock once in 2022 and twice again in 2023, with all three buys under S$10 per share.
Again, that’s when the news wasn’t exactly the greatest.
The buys were made when Haw Par’s stock price hadn’t moved much from the portfolio’s initial buy.
Let’s be frank, if a stock price doesn’t move for two years, some may have thrown in the towel.
But the portfolio was patient.
Look for good news amid the bad
While the stock was not moving, the business was improving.
That’s the difference.
In particular, the Smart Dividend Portfolio recognised Haw Par’s growing free cash flow, and most of all, its large cash position on its balance sheet — an anchoring factor the portfolio saw right from the start.
The special dividend would eventually come from this huge cash pile.
What’s more, because The Smart Dividend Portfolio increased its Haw Par position by five times since its initial buy in 2020, the portfolio got a sextuple shot of special dividends as a reward.
But wait, we’re not done yet.
There were another nine stocks which paid a dividend in May 2025, with seven of them increasing their dividends compared to a year ago.
Most of all, when things around the world get a little messy, it’s always nice to be reminded of the reasons why you invest when the dividends are deposited into your bank account.
Get Smart: Be like Maya
As investors, we could all use some good news from time to time.
Here’s the trick: when the news turns sour, you can bet that there is good news being buried beneath all the hullabaloo.
You just have to look for it.
To be sure, it’s not about ignoring the bad news.
But there is nothing stopping you from looking for good news, too.
Unlike the unsavoury news, these valuable nuggets of good news wouldn’t be served to you on a platter.
Like Maya, do yourself a favour and look for the good even when the bad dominates the headlines.
After all, life’s too short to be depressed all the time.
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Disclosure: Chin Hui Leong owns shares of Haw Par.
