2015 Review

As we approach the end of the year, I'll take this post to take a look back at some of the highlights of this year for me (and the market) as well as some of the lessons learnt from them.

Fed rate hike

It seems like this has been in the news for some time with people looking at the possibility of it happening and the potential results. But now it's happened as the Fed increased its federal funds target rate to 0.25%-0.50%, ending the period of near-zero interest rates. So, what does this mean for us?

Understanding Financial Statements (Part 5) - Notes to the Financial Statements

Adding this to the Understanding Financial Statements series as I've started to realise that this is another area where we can gather more insight into the companies that we are investing into and help us make a more informed decision before investing.

Opportunity Loss

What is an opportunity loss? For this post, I'll take it as the loss in opportunity to make more money by investing our money rather than keeping it as cash in the bank, or in other words, the returns that we have given up by not investing our money. 

Sembcorp Industries: A Short Update

I'm writing this to update my previous post on Sembcorp Industries, after the recent fall in the share price of Sembcorp Industries and Sembcorp Marine.

On Dec 1, Sembcorp Marine issued a profit guidance saying that it expects a net loss for the last quarter of this year and a significant decline in the profits. After the news, the price of Sembcorp Marine and Sembcorp Industries has dropped and they are currently at $1.88 and $3.10 respectively. 

Previously I was already thinking of buying into Sembcorp as it seemed quite good (wasn't too sure at the time) but with the recent drop in the price I decided to pick up a few lots. I guess it was sort of expected that Sembcorp Marine will not be doing very well but with the utilities making up the majority of the net profit for Sembcorp Industries, I think it should be able to tide over this rougher period.

If you have enjoyed this post and would like to receive notifications on new posts, you can subscribe to my blog via email or like this blog's Facebook page

REITs

I realised that I hardly touch on REITs in my blog posts, so thought I should share some quick thoughts on them as well as acting as an update on an earlier post that I did on REITs. I still don't think that REITs make good investments at their current prices, but I may reconsider this in the near future as market conditions changes.

Outcome Bias

People judge decisions based on their outcome instead of the process of reaching the decision. This is a flaw that we should recognize and try to avoid as a good outcome can come from a less than ideal decision making process through luck while an unlucky event can lead to a bad outcome even though the decision making process was good.

Should We Look at Book Value?

Is book value an important consideration for you before you invest in a company or do you focus more on the earnings and the potential of the company? While I think that earnings and the potential for the growth of the company are important (maybe most important), but we should also take book value into consideration

3 Ideas to Make Investing Simpler

Investing can be complicated and to some, an abstract concept, but there are some ways to view it to make it easier to understand. We do not need to have a PhD in Statistics or Economics in order to do well in investing, we just need to have the right ideas and mindset towards it (a good attitude is a plus as well). I'm going to share some of the ideas I've had that may make the concept and the process of investing sound simpler.

Sembcorp Industries

Going to look at this company today. It closed today at $3.30, after a 10 cent drop today. For those who don't know the company, it is a company that deals primarily with the utilities and marine sector. In the utilities segment it is in the energy, water and waste management businesses while its marine segment, which contains subsidiary Sembcorp Marine, makes the bulk of its revenue from rig building and offshore conversions/platforms.

Singapore Stock Market This Week

The past week we saw the STI drop back below the 3000 level. The price of crude oil and other commodities slumped this week as well and the results from some blue chips being dismal. A Fed rate hike is still on the cards, which basically sums up a pretty miserable picture.

Netflix is coming to Singapore

Happy Deepavali to our Hindu readers.

This is not really new news, but Netflix is launching in Singapore in early next year. This may give existing cable TV operators a run for their money, which is going to be the main part of my post today.

Are We Back in a Tech Bubble?

Are we back into another tech bubble like the one from 1997-2000? Some tech companies are selling at ridiculous P/E ratios, which is a lot worse when we look at those that are not listed yet. Some of them have not even turned a profit yet are already worth billions, which I think is something that we should, at the very least, be concerned about.

Oxley 4-year 5% Retail Bonds

This may be a little overdue, but since the closing for the applications is on 3 Nov noon, I guess there's still time and purpose for this post. Oxley, a property developer, is offering $50 million in bonds in the public offer and $75 million in placement. The placement bonds are 4 times subscribed. If you want to read more on the details of the issue, you can look here and here. I'm going to analyze the company in this post.

Be Careful of your Friends

When looking at ways to improve our lives and how we can start to save more, we should start looking at our friends. Since we spend our free time with them, they will have a large impact on your behavior and your expenditure. So, shouldn't we be more careful of who our friends are?

Your Best Investment is in Yourself

Spent some time reading the article "What's the best investment asset class? It is ourselves" (25 Oct) in the Invest section of the Straits Times today. If you want, you can read the article here as well. It talks about buying insurance and diversifying your investments to suit your job as well. Anyway, my post is not on exactly the same topic, but the article did give me ideas for this post on investing in yourself.

50,000 Page Views

This blog passed 50,000 views a few days ago (really sorry about that, had no time to blog about it then), which is not bad considering that the blog is only slightly older than 4 months. I thought I should do a post to reflect on my experiences as a blogger, as well as to share some stats and info on the blog.

Is it Ever Too Late to Succeed?

Just started reading Ray Kroc's Grinding It Out: The Making of Mcdonald's, which set me thinking if it's ever too late for someone to succeed. I'm sure that as we get older, we feel that we shouldn't continue to strive hard and settle into our place in life, but there are many examples of people that have been able to find success at a later age in life

Is It Always Best to Buy At Dips?

Paying sky high prices for your investments is definitely not a good idea to grow your money. So, is the opposite, buying during the dips, a much better strategy to follow? I think so, but we also have to be careful when applying it as well

3 TED Talks You Should Watch

This is my 100th post on this blog!

Ok, back to this post. It's not on investing or finance, but I wanted to share 3 of the TED videos which I've been watching in my free time this weekend, which I've found contains some useful information that we can use in our daily lives

Is The Market Back On Track?

The market seems to be on an uptrend for the past few days, now the STI is starting to approach back to the 3000 level, but then is this growth sustainable? There seem to be many ideas floating around that a recession is possible, which may be so since a recession has come about every 7-10 years and we're already reaching the lower band of the time frame.

Staying Calm

Going through rushes of different emotions can really mess up our decisions. I think this applies to all aspects of life, letting our emotions influence our emotions is really something that we shouldn't do or we make end up making long-term decisions based on short-term interests

Ostrich With Head in The Sand

The market seems to keep on going down, ok, maybe except for today, but the rest of the days seems to be having a downward trend. I was thinking, maybe being busy at this point in time is actually a good thing, with less time to check the market and worry over past decision. It's like when a ostrich hides its head in the sand (I know this is a myth, but I'm just using the metaphor) when it faces problems, what I don't see doesn't bother me.....

Love What You Do

Came across this article online: http://www.businessinsider.sg/people-who-love-their-jobs-get-richer-2015-8/. It basically talks about how rich people generally do what they enjoy for a living and that's what this post is going to be about

Where is the Bottom?

It looks like the market may not be over with the fall and I may not have missed the boat (refer to post here) Is there still a chance for the market to fall to a new low?

Should We Avoid Our Biases?

This is just something that I've been thinking about: Should we avoid our biases? I guess this applies as much to investing as it does in real life so I'm going to share some of my thoughts on it. It's sort of an extension from Biases to Look Out For When Investing

VICOM

This seems to be quite a popular company among some other financial bloggers, so I'll be doing some analysis on it as well. Background: VICOM, a subsidiary of ComfortDelgro, provides inspection and testing services for vehicles and is one of the 3 companies that run LTA authorized inspection centres, so if you're a car owner, you may be familiar with the company

The Stock Market and its Strange Ways

This is going to be a short post. I've been thinking about the stock market dropping on Friday, not just for Singapore, but for Japan and the US as well. It doesn't make much sense, people were looking forward to the rates remaining near zero and it did happen, yet there seems to be a negative response.

The interest rate staying near zero, which is the lowest it could possibly go before people are starting to be paid for borrowing money which doesn't make any sense at all, would be positive for the stock market. Low interest rates, low risk-free rate and so higher prices for shares.

The only possible thing is that the Fed is expressing some caution over the uncertain global economic and financial issues, but these are things that have been present for a while already. It just seems so strange that the market has been hoping for something yet drops when it actually occurs

Building A Watchlist

Side note: Anyone read the front page of the Business section of Straits Times yesterday? I find some of their price targets quite interesting (I've written on some of the shares before), I may take a closer look at them if I have more time this weekend.

As you know, I haven't been investing for a long time so not much experience with many of the companies or shares in the market, but I would like to share how I built up my watchlist of around 10 companies which I follow.

Tricks to Avoid when Shopping

There are many tricks that companies use to encourage us to shop more and to spend more. Maybe it's time that we should start learning about some of these tricks and trying to spot them on our next shopping trip.

Did I Miss the Boat?

The stock market seems to have gotten back on its feet, or maybe this is just a temporary blip up before the real crash begins, this only time will tell, but I'm going to do some reflections on my actions during this current drop.

Is Investing Like Shopping? (Part 2)

Wasn’t intending to do a second part of this, but after doing the first post, I had some more ideas on how investing is like shopping, so decided to have this new post on it. While reading through the old post, I also noticed that there were some points that I brought out in the intro which I didn’t elaborate on, so I’ll be doing so here as well.

Having the Right Mindset to Invest

My blog just reached 3 months old, can't believe it's been so long since I've started blogging. 87 published posts as well, I feel like this is a good way for me to store my own thoughts for future reference as well, while being able to get comments and feedback from readers through comments and emails, thank you for supporting this blog. Anyway, back to the post.......

Yes, I agree that investing is able to help us achieve good returns on our invested capital in the long run, which many investment bloggers (including myself) point to encourage people to invest. And it's also true that investing gives us good opportunities to have a share in the growth of the companies that we have selected and when selected well can generate amazing returns that can far outweigh those that we can get from a standard bank fixed deposit. But I don't think that we should just keep on investing our money just for the sake of keeping ourselves vested (for whatever reasons we may have) and should instead ensure that we have to right mindset and idea about investing before we even start a new investment.

Raffles Medical

This is one company that seems to have fared better than the rest of the market last month, but then again its share price has been quite volatile lately so it may be something a bit too early to say. But in any case, I'm going to take a look at this company and see if it looks like a good investment.

Biases to Look Out for When Investing

I find it interesting how we can be affected by own personal biases during investing. Most of these biases have been observed in studies, yet most of us are still not aware that we suffer from them and believe that we are objective in our view and analysis of our investment, which can be a very costly mistake.

Thoughts on Diversification

I was thinking about whether it is better for us to diversify our portfolio across many different shares, maybe through indexing or is it better for us to pick individual companies that we think will outperform the markets. The conclusion that I was able to reach was that it is better for people who have more time and a bigger risk appetite to buy individual companies while others who are working or maybe even in retirement, should try and diversify our risk.

Thoughts on Gold

The value of gold can be quite a contentious issue, some people may view gold as the only true store of value, which unlike fiat currencies, has a limited supply and has fixed value. I take the other stand that gold is a speculative investment and NOT a safe haven for your money.

Some Thoughts on the Election

As we come up to Polling Day this Friday, I thought that I should just share my thoughts on the election. I've been hearing arguments from both PAP and opposition supporters, but I'm more of a fence sitter at the moment and as the different parties bring up their own individual issues, I try to evaluate them as objectively as possible, but of course, we will look at them depending on our own circumstances.

Buy and Hold

I shared this link on the blog's Facebook page a few days ago, but thought I should share it here as well as some of my thoughts on it as well: The Most Successful Investors Leave Their Money Alone (The article is on Business Insider but the info is from SigFig)

Investing vs Speculating

There's a fine line that we have to thread between investing and speculating, so I think that's important to know on roughly which side of the line we are staying on. As we have come to know, investing is something that brings about good returns in the long run while speculating focuses on short-term gains and bears a much higher risk of losing principle. Anyway, so in this post I'll be covering the differences between the two.

Mr. Market's Mood Swings

Woke up to see the Dow down more than 1.5% last night. This doesn't seem out of the normal as it's been happening a few times in the past month. The reason seems perplexing though, the jobs data released in the US is positive with unemployment at a low since April 2008, back to the most recent recession.

Thoughts on Singapore Stock Market this Week

To start off this post, I would like t wish all teachers a happy Teachers' Day. While we may always get along with all of my teachers and there are some that we really can't stand, but we should thank them for the effort that they have put in :),

The market doesn't seem too happy about it though, it's declined for another week, with only one bright spot yesterday. It's been relatively quiet compared to last week, but there are some news floating around that we should be paying some attention to.

(Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market)

Some Ideas from Henry Ford

A while back I was reading Henry Ford's autobiography, My Life and Work, as well as another one of his books, Today and Tomorrow. I find them good reads that I would recommend to you (still haven't had time to put them under the Interesting Reads page of the blog). The ideas in this book aren't just nice for reading and for aspiring entrepreneurs, but I think that they actually represent qualities of good companies that we should be looking out for and I think that there are points that are similar with Philip Fisher's "Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits", which I've did a post on at Growth Investing vs Value Investing. I'll be covering some of the key ideas which I have found useful and interesting

(Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_ford_1919.jpg)

Organizing Thoughts

I think it's good for us to take time to organize our thoughts once in a while, particularly useful before we make an decision to invest in a company, a bond, etc. Anyway, I've found writing these blog posts a good platform for me to articulate my thoughts on the companies and investment instruments and actually start to really analyze my decisions. So, for this post, I hope to be able to convince you that this is a good way to go for you before you make investments.

(Image source: https://pixabay.com/en/module-share-items-organization-68955/)

Is the Coast Clear?

(On a side note, I've just create a page for my blog on Facebook, you can go to the page here, or if you want to like it, you can go to the like button on the left column of the blog)

Last week has been an eventful one for the markets, with the week starting out bad with a Black Monday of sorts, before recovering back a fair bit. Is the market cleared to return back to normal levels with the worse behind us or is this the calm before the storm?

(Image souce:https://www.flickr.com/photos/20401442@N08/15777223905)

How I Started Investing

Going to share how I started my investing journey last year in this blog post. Before I started investing, most of my savings were kept in fixed deposits, which as all of us know, gives quite pitiful returns that is lower than the long-term inflation rate. So, I was actually losing the real value of my savings, which is definitely a very bad incentive to save for the future.

Singapore Savings Bonds

With the applications for the Singapore Savings Bonds opening in the next week, this post is going to be an update (more like an add-on) to the 2 previous posts I've done on the Singapore Savings Bonds previously, which are Singapore Savings Bonds (SSBs) Issued in October and Singapore Savings Bonds (SSBs) and will be more on the up and downsides as compared to fixed-term government bonds, SGS and fixed deposits.

(Image source: https://www.drwealth.com/2015/05/12/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-singapore-savings-bonds/)

Silverlake Axis

Since I haven't done a share analysis in a while, I'm going to cover Silverlake Axis in this post, it's one of the shares that has been hit badly in the current market. This share has dropped from around $1 per share to a price of $0.45 yesterday and then climbing to its current price of $0.55. So, is it worthwhile looking at this share as an company that is just having a bad day or is it on its path down?

(Image source: http://www.forbes.com/companies/silverlake-axis/)

Investing is not Gambling!

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed when I came across a comment that the stock market is akin to a huge legalized gambling den for the non-institutional investor. I think this is a common misconception, especially among the uninitiated that investing the the stock market is almost the same as going down to the two casinos. It may seem true in the short term, especially in periods such as now where market volatility reaches a peak, when people try to guess the next move of the market, but in the long-term I believe that the market is a weighing machine and is not all that unpredictable.

(Image source: https://pixabay.com/en/cube-gambling-card-game-570703/)

Markets in the Red Today

Everywhere I look I see red now. The STI is down more than 120 points, the Hang Seng Index is down 1158 points, the Nikkei shed 895 points. The Shanghai Composite Index is down almost 8.5%. The Dow dropped 500 points on Friday as well. My own holdings are also down. The strangest part about all this is that I still feel a good sense of optimism, weird right?

(Image source: http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/66843-crash-alert-the-stock-market-is-falling-like-a-stone/)

Analysis of Aspial 5-year 5.25% Bond

I guess most of you must have heard about this bond. Just some basic info: The company is selling $75 million in bonds, of  which $25 million is offered to the public. You can start applying for it now until noon on 26 Aug and it is expected to be issued on 28 Aug and start trading on 31 Aug. You need to have at least $2000 to subscribe to the bond.

Traits of a Good Investor

Let's face it, some of us are just better investors than others. Just like some people are better at writing, math, managing people and in so many other topics. But then what are some of the traits of these people that make them better investors? I'm going to share some of my observations and understanding on this.

Singapore Stock Market This Week

For the past three weeks, I've shared on the stock market, I'm thinking of continuing this (maybe making it a more permanent on the blog?) The previous posts can be seen here at: More Volatility in the Market, Some Thoughts on the Stock Market Today and Singapore Stock Market Decline Today. In this post, I'm going to share three of the companies that I've been watching this week.

(Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market)

Wongamania Challenge 2015

(Just to be clear, I'm not affiliated with Wongamania or the company which designed it, Capital Gains LLP, sharing this as I thought I should share a nice event by a local company)

This is a way overdue post, but since the event is still a week away I think its still timely to write this post to share this event. The event is the Wongamania Challenge 2015. The game played is Wongamania (one of the games I mentioned in my post on 3 Board Games that Help To Increase Your Financial Literacy) I'm not able to make it (due to other commitments), but I think its a good opportunity for people to learn more about finance and interact with like-minded people.

Having a Strong Stomach

As the STI reaches just below the 3050 mark today and nearing the 3000 level, I'm starting to learn the importance of having a strong stomach when investing in the stock market. Falling from its peak of above 3500 in April, the STI has fallen by more than 450 points, almost 13% since 4 months ago. I think its the deepest drop of the market since I've started investing.

(Image source: https://pixabay.com/en/business-graph-statistics-growth-163462/)

Keep Things Simple

Investing can be complicated at times, trying to understand the different aspects of a financial statement, following the many different pieces of news that could adversely affect different industries. With most of us having day jobs and unable to spend a large portion of our time, wouldn't it be best for us to simplify investing?

(Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gdsteam/14064123625)

What type of Wealth Accumulator are you?

In The Millionaire Next Door, Thomas Stanley and William Danko classfied people into 3 different types of wealth accumulators: The Under Accumulator of Wealth (UAW), the Prodigious Accumulator of Wealth (PAW) and the Average Accumulator of Wealth (AAW).

(Image source: amazon.com)

Setting My Priorities in Life

This post was very much inspired by Rolf Suey's 5 sets of Priorities in Life (Part 2) and B's Financial Independence Isn't Necessarily All About The Money. Yeah, so I was thinking about my own priorities in life....

More Volatility in the Market

The Singapore stock market has been volatile again this week, losing almost 130 points in the first two trading days and then going up 30 points today, so around 100 points or almost 3.5% loss for the week so far. I'm just going to do a quick analysis of the stock market this week.

(Image source: https://sg.finance.yahoo.com)

How to Allocate Your Portfolio

I did a guest post on the topic at moneydigest.sg, the link to the post is here: How to Allocate Your Portfolio

(Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Investing_money.jpg)

If you have enjoyed this post and would like to receive notifications on new posts, you can subscribe to my blog via email

3 Factors to Consider Before Investing in a Company

I'm going to share 3 of the factors that I consider before investing in a company in this blog post and why I use them. The factors are growth prospects, people and price. While there are some more industry specific ones such as profit margins for manufacturing firms, but I think that these three are the general factors that I consider before investing in a company.

(Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Investing_money.jpg)

Thoughts of Technology on Investing

Going to share some of my thoughts on technology and its impact on companies and how this will affect the way that we view these companies as investments.

(Image source: https://pixabay.com/en/code-technology-software-internet-459070/)

Reflections on SG50

Happy National Day, Golden Jubilee and SG50! :)

Looking at the special section of the Straits Times today, with the different companies that have a local presence and some of the home-grown local companies, such as Crocodile and OCBC, it seems hard to dispute that our nation has been able to grow tremendously over the past 50 years since its independence. I'm going to share some of my reflections on SG50 in the post (writing this while watching NDP)

(Image source: https://www.singapore50.sg)

3 (More) Bad Money Habits and How You Can Break Them

This is going to be my second post on the topic of bad money habits, the first post on this topic can be seen at 3 Bad Money Habits and How You Can Break Them, where I covered keeping a balance on your credit card, not tracking your spending and impulse spending. I'll cover 3 more bad money habits in this post

(Image source: http://www.womansday.com/life/work-money/tips/a6793/bad-money-habits/)

Is Investing like Shopping?

I was just thinking about investing in shares, which has some similarities like regular shopping. Both of them look to get the most value for one's money, involve an upfront cost for possible future benefit and also, too deep discounts make us question their quality. The last point is the one that I'm going to highlight in this post.

(Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portones_Shopping_Mall.png)

3 Board Games that Help Increase Your Financial Literacy

The national day long weekend is finally here :) In this post I'll be covering 3 board games that you can look at and maybe play with your family and friends over this national day long weekend which can help increase your financial literacy while playing them.

Hobbies Can Make or Break You

I think that one important that can make or break you, at least financially, are your hobbies. There are many types of hobbies, some of which range from the expensive, for example traveling, to free ones such as jogging, reading or blogging. There are also some hobbies that can even help us make money by using some of the information acquired with our interest in the topic, for example investing.

Some Thoughts on the Stock Market Today

After an eventful last week, this week has been quite volatile for the market, especially so for some shares. With some of the companies' releasing their second quarter results (for those who start the financial year on 1 Jan), some of the companies' share prices have obviously been quite affected in terms of the share price. I'm just going to cover briefly some of the shares that I've taken an interest in for the past week.

(Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market)

Is Retiring a Millionaire Just a Dream?

Is being a millionaire an almost impossible dream? In reality, most of us are going to need at least that magical seven digits in order to retire comfortably. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy at times, thinking at it is too large a sum basically convinces us not to even try. But then, is it really that hard to reach the seven-digits? I'll break down the numbers in this post into annual, monthly and daily savings that we will have to start in order to reach it, to prove that it's not so impossible for most of us.

Thoughts on Oil and Gas Companies (Part 2)

This is the second part of my thoughts on oil and gas companies. The first part of this can be found at: Thoughts on Oil and Gas Companies (Part 1). Here I'll be sharing some of my thoughts on oil prices, interest rates and some general factors that may affect the industry. (Not an expert on this industry but this is what I understand by reading online and asking Mr. Google)

(Image source: https://pixabay.com/en/oil-monahans-texas-sunset-106913/)

Thoughts on Oil and Gas Companies (Part 1)

With the price of oil continuing to stay quite low and with oil shares trading at some of their lowest prices of the year, oil and gas shares (and their related services) may look like good purchases with their low P/E  and P/B ratio for long-term investors taking advantage of the downside of the cycle.

With a lot to talk about this topic, I'll be splitting this into two parts, the first part being this one and focusing on the financials of the oil and gas companies (focusing on Ezion and Ezra) and in the second part, discussing on the views of the oil price and other factors that would affect these companies.

(Image source: https://pixabay.com/en/oil-monahans-texas-sunset-106913/)

Big, Small or Mid-Cap?

I've been thinking about whether investing in big, mid or small cap companies would be the most beneficial for us. I guess that while picking good investments will involve us investing in different sizes of companies (good investments don't only come in one size), but there may be characteristics of certain size of companies that would fit our investing goals better than others.

Singapore Stock Market Decline Today

The stock market today seems to have dropped quite a fair bit, with all of the ST Market Indices down today, possibly due in part to the Shanghai Composite Index falling over 8% yesterday and another 1.68% today. I think that this is a good time to do some review on my thoughts of shares (also before their quarter financial statements come up) so I'll just cover the prices of some of the shares that I've covered previously and give any updates that I may have on them

(Image source: http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/66843-crash-alert-the-stock-market-is-falling-like-a-stone/)

Saving as a Student

Happy (belated) Youth Day to my younger readers!

I'm not really sure of the number of younger readers that I have, but I'll be sharing some numbers on saving money as a student, the importance of doing so as well as some tips on saving money as a student. Saving is a habit that should start from young and hope to encourage younger readers to adopt this good habit as well.

(Image source: http://timobrienhomesblog.com/2010/07/09/summer-energy-saving-tips/)

Tips for New Investors

I would like to share some tips that I have been able to glean from my short time in investing thus far, hopefully it will be able to help new investors or people thinking of starting to invest their money avoid some of the mistakes that I have made.

(Image source: http://www.valueinvestmentindia.com/page/3/)

Growth Investing vs Value Investing

Just started reading Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by Philip A. Fisher. This book seems to be going into growth investing, which I think is good to compare to value investing (You can read on my thoughts on different investing styles at Value Investing and Thoughts on Investing for Dividend Yields). While both share similar ideas (such as fundamental analysis and buying stocks on their "intrinsic value"), they have some differences such as their focus on "intrinsic value" (slight difference between the two in my opinion)

(Image source: http://www.stockopedia.com/content/the-truth-about-growth-investing-it-works-67194/)

4 Quadrants of Money Management

I was thinking about Stephen Covey's 4 quadrants of time management, which I read in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I think that this is not only applicable to managing our time but can also be used in managing our money as well.

(Image source: http://czarto.com/2012/04/24/four-quadrants-of-time/)

3 Bad Money Habits and How You Can Break Them

Going to start this chain of blog posts where I start to include some of the money habits which I think are unnecessary and completely within our control to break. I may add more habits as I go along and encounter some of them, but here are the first 3 that I've been working on. While I hope they don't apply to you, I hope that you may find some of them useful.

(Image source: http://www.womansday.com/life/work-money/tips/a6793/bad-money-habits/)

Singapore Savings Bonds (SSBs) Issued in October

As MAS has just announced that the new Singapore Savings Bond (SSB) will be issued on Oct 1 with retail investors able to apply for them from Sep 1, I'm going to repost this post that I shared earlier last month, with some new information added and others updated.

Investment-grade bonds offer a good alternative to stocks especially for risk-adverse investors

(Image source: https://www.drwealth.com/2015/05/12/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-singapore-savings-bonds/)

5 Ways to Start Building your Emergency Fund

This is a continuation from my first post on What is an Emergency Fund and Why You Should Have One. This post is going to show you some tips and ideas on how you can start to build your emergency fund if you have yet to do so

(Image source: http://www.inc.com/magazine/201405/alexa-von-tobel/need-for-freedom-fund-savings-living-expenses.html)

Is it Worthwhile Investing in Public Transport Operators? (Part 2)

Just to digress a bit from this post, I would like to celebrate the first milestone for this blog: Reaching 10,000 pageviews, what a great way to start this week. Thanks for the support that you have been giving this blog :)

Now, on to the actual post.

The first part to this can be seen here:
Is it Worthwhile Investing in Public Transport Operators? (Part 1)

This is a continuation from the previous post and intended to give a better analysis of the shares instead of just through their P/E ratio and the factors affecting them. This will cover the other aspects such as the balance sheet and cash flow.

(Image source: https://twitter.com/sbs_transit and http://www.smrt.com.sg/Media/Press-Releases)

Thoughts on Investing in REITs

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) seem popular among investors as they generally have high dividend yields and sell at a discount to the book value. They also pay out quarterly dividends, which is especially good for dividend investors who can quickly reinvest the dividends and compound their returns at a more frequent rate. I have not really covered REITs in my blog post so to start I'll just post some of my thoughts on investing REITs, then (maybe) I'll cover some of the REITs, but I've personally not invested in them before.

(Image source: http://realtybiznews.com)

What is an Emergency Fund and Why You Should Have One

What is an emergency fund? It is cash that you have saved up just to settle some unexpected events or accidents that life hands to you. How much should you have in an emergency fund? That depends more on your current situation, such as being self-employed or employed in a high turnover industry, but one guideline that I like to follow is around 8 months of expenses, which I got from Suze Orman. More on why and what an emergency fund should be made of will be covered in this blog post.

(Image source: http://www.inc.com/magazine/201405/alexa-von-tobel/need-for-freedom-fund-savings-living-expenses.html)

Difference Between Being Frugal and Plain Cheap

Found some of these points on the difference between being frugal and cheap interesting and may also help us in our lives by knowing where to draw the line between being frugal and just cheap, which would help us in managing our own daily expenses.

(Image source:http://www.pennilessparenting.com/2010/06/frugal-vs-stingy.html)

What is your Time Value of Money?

Was thinking about this question as different people would place a different time value on their money. Some would be willing to give up high potential returns in exchange for instant gratification while other would be more willing to save and invest the money and let it grow so they have more in the future.

Is SGX Overpriced?

Was just wondering if the SGX share is overpriced. As covered in Good Companies vs Good Investments, the SGX is a good company due to its strong balance sheet as well as being the only local bourse, but do these justify its high share price?

(Image source: http://www.eq.com.sg/page/site/public/partners.jsp)

Do Uninteresting Shares Present Good Value?

Do shares in uninteresting industries that will hardly ever make it to the headlines of newspapers like oil stocks in the current downturn and technology companies getting higher and higher valuations make good investments? I think that there are usually in these industries there are some that will be overlooked and offer attractive prices that will be able to sustain a good return to the investors that take time to look at them. This blog post is intended to highlight one of them.

(Image source: http://www.colex.com.sg/disposal_services.html)

Is it Worthwhile Investing in Public Transport Operators? (Part 1)

With the dust settling on Tuesday's peak hour breakdown of both the North-South Line as well as East-West Line, I was just thinking if public transport operators (PTOs) make good investments. With the calls to make SMRT private, reducing train fares and the possible $50 million fine slapped on SMRT for the recent disruption, I'm not so sure any more, so this is just going to be a brief analysis of the 2 main public transport operators: SBS and SMRT, focusing largely on their profits instead of overall health (balance sheet, cash flow, etc.)

(Image source: https://twitter.com/sbs_transit and http://www.smrt.com.sg/Media/Press-Releases)

How Much Do You Need to Save for Retirement?

This blog post is just to show the amount of money that we should be saving for our retirement. Most of this would just be some of the numbers that I have calculated to show the amount that we should be saving to ensure that we will be able to build up a sufficient nest egg for our retirement. If you want to learn more about saving up for retirement, you can read my post on it here: Ways to Begin Saving for Retirement

(Image source: http://www.bankingsense.com/how-saving-slowly-over-time-builds-your-retirement-portfolio/)

Why Fundamental Analysis is the Way to Go

Going to share my thoughts on why I prefer fundamental analysis to its direct opposite, technical analysis in this blog post.

(Image source: http://www.investingstarter.com/technical-analysis-stock-investment/)

Yangzijiang - Is it good enough to buy?

With the recent fall in the share price of Yangzijiang (YZJ) to ~$1.30 today, maybe it's time that we start looking at it as a possible opportunity for investment.

I did an earlier post on YZJ here: Yangzijiang - A worthwhile look?, but this post will be a slightly more detailed look at the share

How the Economic Machine Works

Sharing this interesting video that I found on Youtube, not sure if any of you have seen it before, that may help you understand the economy and how it works better and answer questions such as why we have cycles, what is the role of the central bank, etc. It is by Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates.

Jardine C&C on its slide down

Just wanted to highlight to you that Jardine Cycle & Carriage is continuing its slide down, reaching below $30 per share today. Though this is still a quite expensive stock (min $3000 investment is not something all of us can just make), but as it falls it seems to keep on getting more attractive.

(Image source: http://sgforums.com/forums/4148/topics/448537)

Good Companies vs Good Investments

This is just to clear the air and differentiate between good companies and good investments. In a nutshell, not all companies are good companies, but almost all companies can be good investments.
Good companies do not necessarily make good investment nor are good investments always good companies.

UOB Kay Hian - Good Buy with Weakness in Trading Volume?

Was just looking at this lightly traded stock, which is also the only listed broker in Singapore as well. Its Singapore operations make up the largest source of revenue, followed by Hong Kong then Thailand, so it is exposed largely to South-East Asia and the more general Asian region. With the decline in trading volume in Singapore, its earnings have fallen quite a bit in 2012 and 2014, which has also dragged its share price down from $1.645 in Aug 2014 to the current ~$1.50.

(Image source: http://www.thesas.org.sg/component/content/category/8-web-pages.html)

Do The Rich Think Differently?

Going to use this blog post to share some of the knowledge I have gleaned from books such as "Rich Dad's Retire Young Retire Rich" by Robert T. Kiyosaki and "The Millionaire Next Door" by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko as well as articles online and some of my own observations of how the rich think and why are it is different from the middle-class thinking.

Thoughts on Investing For Dividend Yields

In this blogpost, I hope to share my views on investing for dividend yields (something quite popular among other finance bloggers). I do not really subscribe to the belief that by looking at a basket of the highest dividend yield shares would yield superior results to other shares.

Is a good share one that pays out its earnings in dividends?

(Image source: http://zewt.blogspot.sg/2007/09/tax-free-dividends.html)

There are two goals in investing: Dividends or Capital Appreciation, both of which will provide your return on investment. A share paying out a 5% dividend and another whose price is growing at 5% a year is almost the same in my opinion, it is just whether the company decides to reinvest the money in itself or pay it out to its shareholders.

In my opinion, the important part which decides whether a company is better off paying out its dividends or reinvesting in itself would be the return on equity. If it is able to maintain or even grow a high return on equity (double-digit?) which is higher than my expected return on investment, I would be happy to let it keep its money for reinvestment in the business instead of paying it out in dividends. Likewise, a company that pays out a satisfactory dividend is also good.

There are stocks now that offer good dividend yields, look at Jardine Cycle & Carriage, which presents a good dividend yield for a company that is at the low end of their cycle (Read: Jardine C&C: Possible Opportunity for Dividends). These companies are good for people looking for a source of income which they can reinvest or use for their own expenses.

But there are also stocks that offer good value while paying almost no dividends. One of the stocks in this category that I'm watching is Ezion. Though is pays like 0.1 cent of dividend on a one cent share, it has a P/E ratio in the mid-single digits. While it is in the oil and gas sector which has declined considerably since its heyday, the fundamentals of the business still seem sound and even if it takes a hit to its profits, its currently low P/E ratio should be able to absorb it. I like it to not pay dividends for one key reason: It earns a high Return on Equity. around 20%. I would be hard-pressed to find another company that can return the same amount, or even if it decreased to say 10%, it's still better than the market return and the money that the company earns and reinvests in the business can also hopefully earn such a high return which would make the lack of dividends worthwhile.

Needless to say, good dividend yields and consistent payouts are good, but I don't think that we shouldn't only be looking out for shares with the highest dividend yields (these usually don't last very long anyway). We have to look at the underlying profits of the business and see if the dividends that it pays are sustainable or if the company is able to generate a satisfactory return on its equity, which can justify the retention of earnings. But I do not think that there should be a preference for a dividend-yielding stock unless maybe you're retired and looking for a passive income flow, but even then, good opportunities for capital appreciation should not be avoided.

f you have enjoyed this post and would like to receive notifications on new posts, please subscribe to my blog via email

Advice on Spending Your Money in Your 20s-30s

Just an observation from Google Analytics, most of my viewers are between the ages of 25-34 (>40%) based on the over 50% of session recorded (and also predominantly, >75%, male, but that's beside the point). So, I've decided to write a post on some ideas and advice by others on how to spend your money in your 20s and 30s, hope this will be helpful to you.

Jardine C&C - Possible Opportunity for Dividends

Just saw the price of Jardine Cycle and Carriage continuing its fall today, dropping to as low as $33.03, as well as the STI,(read: Does the recent drop in the STI represent a good buying opportunity?) which . Despite the rights issue that it just had (1 right at $26 for 9 shares), it may be a good buy now as the price has fallen quite a far bit in recent weeks.

(Image source: http://sgforums.com/forums/4148/topics/448537)

Better Way to Grow your CPF Monies

Just giving some suggestions and ideas with regard to your CPF monies instead of leaving them there earning 2.5-4% interest rates. I'm not exactly sure of the CPF interest rates, they keep changing until I get confused, but anyway, from what I understand, you get 2.5% (or the major local banks from Feb to Apr of that year, whichever is higher) interest rate on money in your Ordinary Account (OA) and 4% on money in your Special Account (SA), Medisave Account and Retirement Account. There is an additional 1% on the first $60,000 of our savings, $20,000 of which can come from OA.

Key to Growing Wealth

Many people will go all their life asking "What is the key to growing an enormous fortune?" There are many answers, earning a high salary, striking the lottery, setting up a successful enterprise. But there is one method that will allow you to grow your wealth to what may now be an unimaginable level. I'm not in the business of five-minute quick fixes and what-not, but compounding is a magic touch which can allow your portfolio to grow exponentially. But of course, as things go, compounding takes time to work its magic and good things come to those who wait.

Saving - More Money Through the Door

This is the second part of the Saving, where I will cover ways to help increase the amount you can save. In the previous part, which can be found here, I covered how to start cutting down on your expenses first by recording them then analyzing and removing those unnecessary ones.

This second part will sum up the Chinese phrase "开源节流", which means to increase income and cut down expenses. So cutting down expenses has been settled now let's go into some ways in which you can start increasing your income

Value Investing

You may be wondering what's with all this talk about value investing that many investors claim to be doing these days. This blog post is going to try and help you understand what is value investing and why you should practice it, as well as some examples that are not value investing.

This sums up the difference between value and price and its importance

(Image source: http://blog.wallstreetsurvivor.com/2013/08/29/the-basics-of-value-investing/)

Saving - Start knowing where your money goes

This is one part of Saving where I will cover some of the changes you can make to start increasing the amount of money you can save which would be the first step in your investing journey, the next part on increasing your income can be found here.

Whether you decide to use a budgeting app or write them on excel or just use a good old-fashioned notebook, keeping track of where your money goes is one of the first steps to starting to save. By knowing where your money is disappearing each month, we would know which are the areas that we can cut down our spending on or avoid completely.

For this, I usually like to group my expenses into 4 groups : Subscriptions, living expenses, enhancements and others

Banking Shares - Which is the best to buy now?

With the recent drop in the price of bank stocks in Singapore, namely DBS, OCBC and UOB, due to the Fed interest to remain stagnent due to the soft data from the US. Since I think that the banks would not be largely affected by this development much, the reasons covered in more detail at Does the Recent Drop in the STI Represent a Good Buying Oppourtunity?, this presents a good buying opportunity in my opinion for investors to pick up bank stocks. But then there is the next question: Which is the best to buy now?

Intrinsic Value - Discounted Cash Flow Model

This is the next part of calculating intrinsic value, where another way to value a share, the Discounted Cash Flow Model (DCF Model) will be introduced. This model is very similar to the Dividend Discount Model (linked to the post) and I would advise that you read the section on it before coming here to get a better understanding of some of the key terms as well as methods to calculate.

Intrinsic Value - Dividend Discount Model

This is a section which I thought I should add to the Understanding Financial Statements topic as after understanding the financial statements, the next thing that an investor would or should know is how to use this information to value businesses. Of course, there are also as many intrinsic values of businesses as there are people valuing the business as there is no hard and fast rule on intrisic value and the factors which have some of the greatest impact on calculation come from the perception of the investor, which can and will, vary from investor to investor.

This section will cover two popular methods, the Dividend Discount Model (DDM) and the Discounted Cash Flow Model (DCF Model). This has been split into 2 parts when writing as each model takes quite a lot of explanation as well as diagrams.

Thoughts on Indexing

Indexing or buying index funds provides investors with a well-diversified funds, usually at a low-expense ratio. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on the SGX do include some indexes such as the S&P 500 and the STI. My recent thoughts on the STI can be found here: Does the Recent Drop in the STI Represent a Good Buying Oppourtunity?

$10 For $9 in Singapore's Stock Market

Anyone believe that you get get $10 notes for just $9? Probably not, but you can get around $10.50 worth of cash and listed stock for just under $9 by investing this company. Any guesses?

Thoughts on Dollar-Cost Averaging

Same amount, different amount of shares

(Image source: http://www.wealth.newwealthadvisors.net/Knowledge-Center/Thought-Leadership/2013/Handling-Market-Volatility)

Just sharing some of my thoughts on monthly investment plans, only example I can think of is the one offered by Maybank Kim Eng, but you can search through the web to find if there are any others. Anyway, that's not the main point of this blog post, the focus of it will be on: Should people invest money in the stock market or bonds at regular intervals (months)?