Caveat Emptor

High level overview Singtel is one of the largest holdings in my pip squeak portfolio. I have started averaging down on it since it has dropped from its previous highs to around SGD 3.70, as I believe the company is  fundamentally sound despite the threat of the forth telco. I have started accumulation at the occasional dips /bears after considering technical analysis and resistance lines, as well as the quarterly financial reports. Singtel is a company that most people will view as boring and a dumb pipe, while in fact it has been restructuring to a digital business and engaged with exciting business prospects. Singtel has been actively looking out for opportunities and threats. Presently, due to the emergence of emerging technologies such as whatsapp, we-chat as well as the TPG telco, it is diversifying out of sunset business such as traditional voice call, SMS and MMS business. It is trying to leverage on its existing infrastructure and doing wholesale

Keynesian animal spirits The financial markets and news on the Internet nowadays are more of gossip and entertainment rather than well rooted to any fundamentals nowadays. From yield curve to trade wars and North Korea reconciliation and overheated china economy, the average investor is simply drowned in a sea of information where most news don't make sense or point you to a defined direction. I see the value of bottom up analysis for traditional fundamental analysis. Annual reports are not particularly exciting, but it will keep you occupied for a buy and hold strategy, and also give you data and numbers that are most likely reasonably accurate, and a growth story defined by the chairperson. If I have doubts in even this basic assumption, I should not consider the company no matter how attractive they may appear. Market sentiment is another jungle altogether with its exciting and colourful v ocabulary. Take for example. Central bank policy Doves (laissez-faire) and hawks (clo

https://www.success.com/article/7-practical-tips-to-achieve-a-positive-mindset 1.   Start the day with positive affirmation. How you start the morning sets the tone for the rest of the day. Have you ever woken up late, panicked, and then felt like nothing good happened the rest of the day? This is likely because you started out the day with a negative emotion and  a pessimistic view that carried into every other event you experienced . Instead of letting this dominate you, start your day with positive affirmations. Talk to yourself in the mirror, even if you feel silly, with statements like, “Today will be a good day” or “I’m going to be awesome today.” You’ll be amazed how much your day improves. 2.  Focus on the good things , however small. Almost invariably, you’re going to encounter obstacles throughout the day—there’s no such thing as a perfect day. When you encounter such a challenge, focus on the benefits, no matter how slight or unimportant they seem. For example, if you ge

http://financials.morningstar.com/ratios/r.html?t=600&region=sgp&culture=en-US https://www.gurufocus.com/news/155687/peter-lynch--a-simple-way-to-benefit-from-utility-investments Better late than never! Hyflux has been a distressed asset play I have been holding since April 2017. A boring and unexciting business turned out to be headline worthy when Olivia lum initiated a trading suspension in the exchange,  suspension of the dividend, and the restructuring of the debt position of Hyflux with the courts . This is followed by the leaving of the COO which is long overdue considering the heavy operational blunders . Hyflux is working to reach an agreement to arrange a haircut discount on its liabilities and every Tom dick and harry is suddenly an expert on Hyflux, the same as bitcoin a few months ago. Even the housewives are talking about it as some of its perpetual are issued to the retail market. I take this as a symptom that this stock has reaches the point of maximum pess

http://m.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2146635/us-trade-war-when-micro-chips-are-down-chinese-cash-flows-israel 1) Diwosifying into areas not within its circle of competence. Poor capital allocation. China’s technology triumvirate comprising Baidu, Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings have become some of the country’s most active investors, spending billions of dollars in a variety of industries, whether to support their own core operations or to diversify into exciting new areas. 2) Poor capital management.  Pursuing aggressive debt fuelled acquisition instead of stable organic growth. High likelihood of inflated goodwill in balance sheet that may not transit to value. “Companies like Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent have become like investment companies. They are sitting on top of piles of money and they are figuring out how to try and make the best use of it,” said Shaun Rein, managing director at China Market Research Group. “The rate of investments is increasing because

DCA of STI ETF I have started my investment journey since June 2016 in the depths of the Singapore recession. Graduating at the onset of a recession is a calamitous time. Nonetheless, after I have built up sufficient savings to meet any immediate needs for the next 3-6 months, I started on DCA of STI ETF (ongoing) on a monthly basis and OCBC (discontinued since Apr 2017) since then. There had been many bloggers espousing on the merits of the STI ETF and equally vocal opponents criticising on its numerous limitations. On my personal front, I adopt a hybrid (passive  + active) approach towards my portfolio. My passive approach is to allocate fixed sum of my monthly income into DCA STI ETF.  My tactical approach whereby I actively screen and pick stocks. I will plant them in my watchlist and monitor them if they have dropped down to attractive valuation levels. I will set aside a war chest to capitalise on potential market dips / heavy correction / general optimism and pessimism an