As Year 2011 comes to an end

In case you are wondering, I do know that year 2011 still has one more month to go. But I do think it is time to start reviewing and plan ahead for the next year.

This is the link to Goal 2013 which I had set myself in November last year.

Year 2011 was super busy because of the following goal:

4) Setting up a publishing company and publish my notes
I'm currently about 35% done with my first A level guidebook. With most of my students having finished A levels from my side, I will have lots more free time come end Nov and Dec. This is the time to power up and increase my authoring.

Target timeline: Book completion (Mar 2011), Publish (Apr 2011), Sales (May~Jun 2011)

Sad to say, this was not achieved at all. I'm only currently 75% done with the book due to my heavy involvement in tuition. Nevertheless, I do think I have spent an enormous amount of time on this book.

I have to say I respect people who managed to author good books. It was a rather daunting task. There were much more challenges than I had thought. Writing good notes isn't simply (like some guidebooks out in the market) just putting information and leave it as it is. This leaves students in the lurch, only able to memorize from the notes without deeper understanding. No, I want students who use my notes to truly benefit, to truly appreciate Physics. In fact, I have been giving snippets away for free here and there to students who truly need it, and who truly wanted to learn.

While I didn't achieve this goal at all, there was progress. Which means the goal setting was still useful. Moral of the story: Aim far, and even if you do not achieve your goal eventually, you are still one step nearer to it!

An errant forumer using momoeagle

Notice

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Latest Update: I have emailed the admin at ShareJunction.com, and he has banned momoeagle from posting in the forums there.
I thank the admin for such a speedy response in upholding the integrity of online sharing.
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It has come to my attention that an errant forumer has been using my nickname, momoeagle, in ShareJunction. Please take note that momoeagle in ShareJunction is not me, nor do I share or believe in his analysis.


Apparently, this user has been masquerading with my username in InvestIdeas, and the admin at InvestIdeas has kindly deleted his account and I have registered under myself.

The reason for this post is that this particular user is bent on misleading others using my nickname.



Please take note that I do not support the counters that this clone recommends using that name, nor the "analysis" he wrote. There have been a number of people who asked me privately why I posted "this and that" on InvestIdeas. A real life friend, MusicWhiz, even sent a private message to the "momoeagle" at InvestIdeas.



There is no need for this clone to have any integrity in posting when it is under another person's established nickname, and I believe this defeats the purpose of true sharing among forum members in the investing community.

momoeagle is now my username in a number of stock forums, and no other:
1) ChannelNewsAsia
2) Valuebuddies
3) InvestIdeas
4) NextInsight
5) RMAO forum
6) HardWareZone
7) LowYat Stocks forum



This clone goes by a few nicknames and apparently has no support for his analysis and counters. Hence his current actions.



Meanwhile, I will be back to being busy in real life, i.e. setting up two businesses on top of my full-time job. No time or $$ for stocks, really.


Signing off.

Quick Thoughts on STI

Some quick thoughts:

1) History likes to repeat.

http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?s=^STI&t=my

The 97 market crash resulted in a V-shaped rally which followed in a quick crash to bottom in 2003.
The 07 crash resulted in a V-shaped rally as well. The bottom may well be at 2013, probably near the STI 2000~2500 level if the percentage drop is similar.

2) Pivot point analysis
STI has pivots at certain numbers, and it has been pivoting around these numbers for the last few years.
The next three pivots to watch out is 2450, 2200 and 1950. Expecting around 2200 to 2450 when combined with part 1.

3) 61.8% fibonacci retracement level
61.8% is the golden ratio.
Based on market top at 3313 and bottom at 1455 (1678 difference), the 61.8% (1037 points) is around STI 2275.

4) The Feb of 1996
STI topped at 2504. Probably some support at this level.


Based on the 4 points, the probability of STI moving towards 2500 level is very high. That is at least another 200 points more to go down.


My 2 cents. I have not liquidated much of my positions yet.

Excerpts from The Intelligent Investor

The recent market volatility prompted me to post two excerpts from the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. His wisdom may show some light:

Excerpt 1

A serious investor is not likely to believe that the day-to-day or even month-to-month fluctuations of the stock market make him richer or poorer. But what about the longer-term and wider changes? Here practical questions present themselves, and the psychological problems are likely to grow complicated. A substantial rise in the market is at once a legitimate reason for satisfaction and a cause for prudent concern, but it may also bring a strong temptation toward imprudent action. Your shares have advanced, good! You are richer than you were, good! But has the price risen too high, and should you think of selling? Or should you kick yourself for not having bought more shares when the level was lower? Or—worst thought of all—should you now give way to the bull-market atmosphere, become infected with the enthusiasm, the overconfidence and the greed of the great public (of which, after all, you are a part), and make larger and dangerous commitments? Presented thus in print, the answer to the last question is a self-evident no, but even the intelligent investor is likely to need considerable will power to keep from following the crowd.

It is for these reasons of human nature, even more than by calculation of financial gain or loss, that we favor some kind of mechanical method for varying the proportion of bonds to stocks in the investor’s portfolio. The chief advantage, perhaps, is that such a formula will give him something to do. As the market advances he will from time to time make sales out of his stockholdings, putting the proceeds into bonds; as it declines he will reverse the procedure. These activities will provide some outlet for his otherwise too-pent-up energies. If he is the right kind of investor he will take added satisfaction from the thought that his operations are exactly opposite from those of the crowd.

Excerpt 2

Imagine that in some private business you own a small share that cost you $1,000. One of your partners, named Mr. Market, is very obliging indeed. Every day he tells you what he thinks your interest is worth and furthermore offers either to buy you out or to sell you an additional interest on that basis. Sometimes his idea of value appears plausible and justified by business developments and prospects as you know them. Often, on the other hand, Mr. Market lets his enthusiasm or his fears run away with him, and the value he proposes seems to you a little short of silly.

If you are a prudent investor or a sensible businessman, will you let Mr. Market’s daily communication determine your view of the value of a $1,000 interest in the enterprise? Only in case you agree with him, or in case you want to trade with him. You may be happy to sell out to him when he quotes you a ridiculously high price, and equally happy to buy from him when his price is low. But the rest of the time you will be wiser to form your own ideas of the value of your holdings, based on full reports from the company about its operations and financial position.

The true investor is in that very position when he owns a listed common stock. He can take advantage of the daily market price or leave it alone, as dictated by his own judgment and inclination. He must take cognizance of important price movements, for otherwise his judgment will have nothing to work on. Conceivably they may give him a warning signal which he will do well to heed—this in plain English means that he is to sell his shares because the price has gone down, foreboding worse things to come. In our view such signals are misleading at least as often as they are helpful. Basically, price fluctuations have only one significant meaning for the true investor. They provide him with an opportunity to buy wisely when prices fall sharply and to sell wisely when they advance a great deal. At other times he will do better if he forgets about the stock market and pays attention to his dividend returns and to the operating results of his companies.

Recent Updates

On Portfolio: Overall -5%. Fortunately less than total dividends received over last two years

Did a series of buy transactions recently.
SGX at $7.13 (average $7.36)
CMA at $1.44 (average $1.65)
AIMS at $0.205 (average $0.201)
SMRT at $1.88
Capland at $3 (average $2.32)

Sold all GRP at $0.205.
Drew up a list to sell, but was too slow in executing.


Frankly speaking, I'm unsure why CMA and Capitaland continues to trend down whether market went up or down. It's ridiculous and this is making CMA look even more like a con job. What the hell is the CEO and board doing? Is there any point getting awards, getting record profits, but not caring a hoot on shareholders' value?

I'm still clearing some cobwebs and loose ends in my head, and looking to restructure my portfolio, probably realizing an estimated paper loss of $20k (on past mistakes when I first started) to clean it up. Cheap deal for 3 years of lesson I would say. More to read up.



I'm looking to do something different in the year 2012. Somehow life's events are pushing me towards a path where I once pondered if I embark on. Let's see how it goes.

STI EW count?

Been too busy.
This is a latest EW count?

Just my 2 cents.... It could be wrong. For viewing pleasure and for entertainment value.

Primary 4:
A: 3314 ~ 3118 (-196)
B: 3118 ~ 3280 (+162)
C: 3280 ~ 2916 (-364)


Primary 5:
1: 2916 ~ 3208 (+292)
2: 3208 ~ 3000 (-208)
3: if 1.618 of 1, then +472 = 3472   (3165 is critical due to downtrend line not drawn in)


Alternate count:
Primary 4 has not ended.
A-B-C-X-A-B-C


My 2 cents. That's all. Back to work.

Ceasing Updates to this blog

I'm ceasing updates to this blog. Simply have no time nor mood. I might return if and when I have more time after I complete some of my targeted goals.

Please kindly visit the following blog links instead. I will be back, but not so soon.

Blogs on Singapore
The Finance.sg
Passive Income Investing
CookieGuy's KT Wealth
AK71
SingaporeanInvestor
Rick Kid Wannabe
Dividends Rich Warrior
kmchang's investment journey
DIY Value Investing
Sanye Investment Portfolio
A Investor -- Alvis
Ghchua's Investment Portfolio
AC88 Blog
Bully The Bear
Investment Moats
SGBlueChips
SGMusicWhiz
SGFinancialFreedom
My Willy Nilly Thoughts
The Wealth Journey
NTU Chartist
Synapse Trading
Holy Fish Shrine
A Notable Quote
The P-T Trader
Hahalol
My Market Opinions
Singapore Stocks Picker
Create Wealth 8888

March 2011 Portfolio Update

March saw a terrible disaster at Japan, leading to my holdings of companies with Japanese exposure going down substantially. In addition, panic selling brought down prices further. Unfortunately, I have used my opportunity funds to enter Singtel the previous month. But fortunately, Singtel did not go much lower than my buy-in price at all, displaying the resilience of this telecom company. Neither did Starhub budge much too.

Since I have no opportunity funds, I did not enter this month. The good news: prices have not substantially recovered since the Japan crisis. The bad news: my rate of growth of opportunity funds wasn't as fast as I would like it to be.

While we profit from the crisis, do spare a thought for the Japanese by donating to Red Cross or the little donation box at Yoshinoya counters around Singapore.

Follow Up Quick Views on Eratat

In my earlier post on Eratat, I stated my views of the business and the events happening without taking a good look into the balance sheet. I got interested to pour through Eratat's business, etc, because it appears that quite a number of people are interested in it.

In this post, I will share some quick calculations on Eratat.
Also in this post, let's assume that the financial figures presented by them is correct and all cash is indeed there, else all calculations would be wrong anyway, which sorts of defeats the purpose.

Finally, I take all calculations rounded off, and an exchange rate of 1SGD to 5RMB for simplicity of calculations. Some of my calculations will be in SGD and charts are in RMB.

My views on China Eratat

Recently, I noticed quite a bit of interest in this S-Chip counter called China Eratat. Upon doing some really basic research (note: just basic one), I came upon the conclusion that it isn't worth a punt. While it may eventually turn out to be a multi-bagger, I wouldn't place my bets on it.


I posted some of these in http://www.sgforums.com/forums/2092/topics/423944. I rather not share this over at CNA forum because I know, once people gets extremely bullish about a stock, some would snare, insult, or exhibit some form of mentally incapacitated animalistic behaviour. Might as well share it at places where people are more willing to take note or share with. As CW88 puts it, analysts like to give bullish views because that is what most people like to hear.

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My initial views
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China Eratat is a sportswear company operating in China. To me, China Textile companies aren't a good fundamental buy at all.

1) Low barrier to entry.
2) Highly competitive.
3) Traditionally low margins. It would be very suspicious if the margins are high.

Feburary 2011 Portfolio Update

Feburary was a down month. Lots of selling. Many of my holdings went very red, especially Capitaland and CapMallsAsia. I guess it has something to do with what the China govt is doing to their economy to put on a brake.


My entry this month was GLP, 3 lots at $2 and 3 lots at $1.88, giving me an average of  6 lots at $1.94. I believe GLP will benefit in the long run from the growth of China as an industrial play. My average is slightly below its IPO price, and I do think it offers a marginally safe entry point.

I also entered Singtel at $2.89. This is for yield, and I will ride Singtel for its ups and downs if possible.

Personal Updates

As you might have realised, my updates are getting less and less frequent.

I'm bogged down by work and tuition as usual. But my time for writing blog posts have now been mostly re-directed to working on authoring my A level physics guidebook. As such, I will be reducing  updates to this blog substantially till I complete this book, this aim, this dream of mine.

Granted, such a guidebook will not yield high margins when it gets published. According to http://www.business.gov.sg/, publishing gives the lowest margin compared to other businesses. Indeed, the ROE is probably between 50% to 100% after most expenses are deducted if I'm the author.

Then again, while I do need the money for food (I'm being practical), I'm more concerned on getting a book out and attempting to make a small contribution/impact on the learning of physics in Singapore. I find that a number of students get disillusioned about physics around O levels, and most ceased to take it at A levels, or perhaps struggled at A levels physics because of self-beliefs that physics is hard.

In my opinion, schools have to take a responsibility, and I do think that most schools perhaps do something wrong in teaching physics. I have my own beliefs and ideas, and by implementing it, I have successfully gotten a total of 5 As out of 7 students I taught over the past year for O level physics. That is 71.4% of my total number of O level students in my group class. The remaining students, 1 received an unexpected B3 of which he was sorely disappointed, the other received a B4 of which he was extremely happy because he fought back from a fail grade without giving up, perhaps because I did not give up on him.

A Quick Take on the recent results of some companies I own

Quite a number of my holdings released results over the past two weeks. The companies are
Starhub, AIMSAMPIREIT, Saizen REIT, Silverlake, new purchase GLP, CitySpring, Starhill, CCT, K-Green, First REIT, GRP, ST Engg

Time is really tight for me, with family commitments due to Chinese New Year, with my recent take up of being a trainer for a sec sch's Junior Physics Olympiad team and the long hours spent on preparation of materials, with my continuous authoring of my planned A level physics guidebook, and with my engineer work.

I took a quick look at the recent results, and but I know time doesn't allow me to do and post a detailed analysis on each and every counter. The main thing I garnered was buying cheap defensive blue chips giving good dividends in a recession seldom go wrong.

My comments collated over the last few weeks:

1) Starhub
Overall, the results are in line with expectations. Dividends remain at 5c for this stable defensive counter, and intends to remain the same for FY2011.

This is one counter where I had been truly successful by being contrarian. Most of my purchases were done when they announced a loss of EPL contract to Singtel. I still remember that was the time where many analysts were calling for SELL because of the EPL loss.

Starhub was distributing 4.5cts dividends per quarter at that time, and on the following quarter, started distributing 5cts per quarter. The analysts that were calling for SELL immediately decry that this is not sustainable, and maintained SELL.

Digiland.... Beware again....

Earlier, I posted about Digiland...
http://wealthbuch.blogspot.com/2010/06/digiland-beware.html

We had Digiland calling for a 'massive' rights issue - a 1-for-1 renounceable non-underwritten rights issue of up to 8,526m new shares at $0.001 per share, to raise $8.25m!

It failed. SGX did right.


Digiland did not give up. They gave placement shares, amounting to $8.2m in total.
http://info.sgx.com/webcoranncatth.nsf/VwAttachments/Att_A21A84CBFA42A2064825780A00300423/$file/Anncemt-PlacementShares31Dec10.pdf?openelement

A total of 1.7b placement shares was issued to add to the 8.5b float.....

Robert Kiyosaki's Who Took My Money

Recently, I finished reading this book from Robert Kiyosaki, which I think is a good read after Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

In this book, Robert stressed on the three asset classes (business, real estate and paper assets), the velocity of money, and the accelerators for money. He stresses a lot on using Other People's Money (OPM) and Other People's Time (OPT).

The reason why he thinks employees have the greatest risks is because
1) you are not guaranteed any job security at all
2) your income is taxed after expenditure, which doesn't make sense to him

As a business owner, while interviewing for potential staff, he looked around and saw all the young guys, and thought to himself: "I wouldn't hire myself". The reasons, he mentioned, included being older than everyone else, more expensive than everyone else, and finally, less technologically savvy.

January 2011 Portfolio Update

January was supposed to witness the Capricorn effect. Indeed, the first few days of January registered a STI increase. I've read somewhere that if the Capricorn effect did not materialise, then the market would be worse off in the later part of the year. This happened in 2008.

The only change to my portfolio this month is that I purchase another 23 lots of AIMSAMPIREIT at $0.215 2 days ago to round it up nicely to 120 lots. Apart from that, I didn't see anything good for buying for myself. I'm getting more and more cautious at the moment, only entering very selectively. There's a time to buy, there's a time to wait, and there's a time to sell. To me, I believe this is the time to wait, to be excessively patient and cautious. While I believe markets can still rise, most stocks at this level have a low margin of safety as compared to before, so I would wait.

Musings and Ramblings

Seriously, I have no idea what to write for this post, but I'm just rambling along.

Much as I would like to have a more relaxing 2011, Jan 2011 turned out to be a crazy month so far. I had so many things on hand.

As my dividend investing strategy continues, I realised that my cashflow gets better over time. While having achieved a $1.1k average monthly dividends does not ensure retirement, it does give some form of flexibility if I ever want to strike out on my own. Given my current circumstances, if I were to remain in my current state, I could retire if I want to right now, giving the occasional tuition and doing the occasional trading.

But I'm not going to do so. Why? It's not really about money, although more would be nice. It's about my passion, it's about what I want.

Why do I teach tuition? I really find it fun, but that's only one side of the equation. The best reward comes from successfully turning a failing student into acing the exam! The most recent example would be my 7 O level students with a score of 2 A1s, 3 A2s, 1 B3 (had expected an A2), and 1 B4 (from failing). It's a feeling of euphoria that I can't really describe with words when I know that these students who ace their exams were once lacking confidence, scoring badly, and looking for me to help pass their exams.

Growth Strategy for 2011 and beyond

Happy new year to readers in the year 2011!

Year 2010 was a rather good year for me in terms of networth growth (nearly doubled). It was a year where I was super busy, but monetary and spiritually rewarding. Why I said it is spiritually rewarding is because I believe it is my calling now to assist and help students do well in their studies, through active teaching and through books.

Year 2011 and beyond is indeed more exciting than ever before. This post is not going to be about any new year resolutions, because I have already set myself in place with Goal 2013.

Apart from Goal 2013, this is my view of the economy and market in concise form: