Caveat Emptor

The year of the rat was greeted with the onset of an extreme infectious disease. Although the means of transmission are dissimilar to the bubonic plague / Black death of the 14th century, the fear and rumour mongering on social media in China and SG is perhaps equally contagious.  Seeing red during CNY on the stock market is not exactly an enjoyable experience although I was emotionally prepared for it. I am happy to have stockpiled my war chest to prepare for market corrections like this. Although I do not exactly rejoice on the fact that people are dying and suffering from possible loss of their loved ones, my job as a contrarian investor is to seek out undervalued opportunities in averse market sentiment.  Short term impact  Healthcare stocks  Raffles medical - solving of overcapacity issue on Chongqing and Shanghai.  IHH Healthcare, which has eight ParkwayMedical health centres in China Medtecs, a manufacturer and distributor of medical consumables, San...

20/20 Foresight is something that everyone loves to have. 20/20 hindsight is something that is much more achievable. Steve Jobs famous quote below highlights a useful point about uncertainties of the future and how to plan your journey forward in an unknowable future.   Quote   You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Unquote  For a invetment / personal finance blog that is crowded out by personalities seeking to pursue financial freedom and flaunt their CPF statements, the fact that a high capital base is required to achieve FF is grossly neglected. Much is discussed in the investment blogger space about ways to min/max spending and savings, but mere mortals still need to focus on increasing their reliable income through their career / side jobs to build...

Quantitative Measures Beta = 0.76, VaR = 8.92%, Expected Shortfall = 17.43% Overall - Time = 19.99% Performance Review for 2019 Beating the STI ETF benchmark is not difficult this year. As a market capitalized ETF, STI ETF was a late buyer in the REIT rally, which highlighted the downside of this methodology. Moreover, a lot of retail investors with larger proportion to REITS performed way better than me. My returns were also punished as I averaged down on Silverlake Axis on the recent price correction. I also sold off a percentage of STI ETF to increase my war chest instead of reallocating to US Stocks, resulting in the missing out of the Christmas rally and the year end momentum play. The S and P 500 trounced the returns of most market participants. I am not certain whether the blind money / DCA via index investors resulted into this phenomenon. There is significantly high PE stocks in the index constituents. Stocks could be simply getting more ...