T.U.B Investing

I am lucky enough to be in time to post my last blog post in 2015 - A review of my portfolio. My overall portfolio has not done well - it was down an average of about 5%. However, looking on the bright side, it is still better than how the STI performed over the year. The following are stocks in my portfolio: 1) ISDN Holding Limited + Post 2 2) Sin Ghee Huat Corporation Limited 3) PNE Industries Limited 4) Chuan Hup Holding Limited 5) LHT Holdings Limited 6) TTJ Holdings Limited 7) Accordia Golf Trust  + Post 2 8) Singapore Telecommunications Limited 9) Sapphire Corporation Limited 10) Suntec Real Estate Inv Trust 11) Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation 12) CH Offshore Ltd 13) Maxi-Cash Financial Services Corp Ltd 14) ST Engineering Ltd 15) Bukit Sembawang Estates Ltd + Post 2 16) PSL Holding Ltd 17) M1 Limited 18) Hock Lian Seng Holding Ltd 19) United Industrial Corporation Ltd Bought United Industrial Corporation L...

On 16 Dec, Fed increases the interest rate in USA.  In this modern world, this increment in interest rate will eventually cause the Singapore Interest rate to increase as well. There is a whole lot of information on the net explaining this link This rise in interest rate will also result in a strong USD dollar in future. So how will this affect the companies in Singapore? Higher Interest Rates: 1. Those companies that uses leverage to grow will be in for a tough time. Their debt will balloon and they will need to pay higher finance cost. 2. Companies with debts on fixed interest rate will not be affected as much. 3. Companies with huge cashload will gain more interest earning. 4. Companies earning rental from properties that are mortgaged to banks, may have huge opportunity costs. If their actual rental yield is not higher than the yield that can be earned from the safer investment, such as treasury bonds, these companies will lose out. Higher ...

After reading this article from the fifth person, I was wondering if it is the right move to not include the ROE as a criteria. In my initial Scorecard, I did include an analysis of ROE as a criteria. But I remove it for the Triple S Scorecard because of the chapter 21, Market Consistently Underprices Quality, in Show Me The Money Book 2. It basically states mean reversion of ROE does have over a long time. A good ROE will drop and a bad ROE will rise over a long time. (I maybe wrong in my interpretation). Nevertheless, the question came to my mind after reading the article from the fifth person. While researching on ROE, I found that ROE can be broken (or remembered) into the Dupont Analysis. ROE can be broken into Asset Turnover, Operating Margin and Financial Leverage. If you remember the criteria in the Scorecard, I emphasize that the I do not want a company to have significant liabilities (total liabilities to equity must be less than 2/3) or have a debt to equity ...

It's been a while since I did a write up on the investment environment. So far...I only have 1 word for it - BAD. This conclusion is formed due to 1 reason - The Oil Price Is Still Falling. This is mainly due to supply and demand factors: 1. Oversupply due to USA increasing its shale oil output and other oil production. Thus, the usual suppliers like Saudi Arabia start to sell to Asian powerhouse instead.  2. Instead of cutting supplies like usual, OPEC is trying to defend the market share instead oil price. Further increasing the supply of oil. 3. Increase of the use of alternative energy sources. So lesser countries will use oil as a source of energy. 4. With the increase in supply, demand remains the same. So the price keep falling. So how has that affected the world? 1. With the oil export dependent countries having deficit, their sovereign wealth funds have withdrawn money from asset managers. ( Read news )  2. With this withdrawal ...

Sorry for the lack of articles lately as I am preparing for the course and have been busy too... This post is just informing you that I have 4 articles from the banks on hand:  - Credit Suisse Asia Pacific Strategy for 2016 - OCBC Investment Research on Singapore Strategy for 2016 - RHB Singaore Smart Nation Article - RHB Singapore Strategy for 2016 If you are interested in all the 4 articles, do email me at theuniquebunch@gmail.com or use the email contact box beside this post. Nonetheless, these articles are public information and you can find on the web. These articles are just for leisure reading purposes and I am not endorsing their views in the paper. Please still do your own due diligence. If you are interested in my "Triple S" scorecard, contact me through my blog or message me on my T.U.B Investing Facebook Page . Oh and we will have a online course up soon... contact us for more details if you are interested. Do like our facebook page too...

The reaction to my first post about Accordia Golf Trust was great. Here are some of the comments I received: "I dont think the calculation for the dividends is correct. I think you are taking trailing 9 months plus 6 months" "Going forward, the FY16 DPU may drop to 4.64c..." "Q3 is low season (winter)... and Q4 make up the balance. This is probably the 'worst' case scenario." "Oct number is quite high. 554k visitors. 2nd highest for year so far. So maybe no need to be too pessimistic also." "Sounds about just right. I was forecasting more than 10% yield when i entered at 64 cents back then. 8.9% for such a unique foreign reit doesnt seem to be compensate enough for the risk." Numbers for the Trust: 15 Months - Total Dividend given = 0.0571 + 0.0232 = 0.0803 Annualized Amount - 0.0803 / 15 x 12 = 0.06424 Dividend Yield (based on my average price of 0.719) - 8.93% Based on latest 6 months dividend - 0.0232 ...

Update: Dividend is given out on a 15 months basis. So the total dividend should be 0.0803/15x12 = 0.06424. I am currently sitting on a big paper loss on Accordia Golf Trust due to its continuous fall in price. My average price is around 0.719 and the current price is 0.590. I bought this stock mainly for the dividend yield and the price has fallen quite a bit since the IPO. Furthermore, I feel that its business is great. There will always be people playing golf and the business will not be gone in a while. So I am very confused if I should continue to hold on to them? After some thinking... this is my conclusion... 1. I bought the stock mainly for dividend yield - My dividend yield this year is 8.93% (0.06424/0.719). WOW! 2. Dividend Stocks do not become a "falling knife", esp in Singapore, if it can maintain a certain yield. Singaporeans love Dividend Stocks. 3. In the long run, if the dividend do not drop drastically, the price will stabilized eventually and the di...

I had a chat with a reader recently. He finds it very hard to invest in Singapore Stocks, because the stock prices does not move according to the expected reaction of the news. Some examples he quoted are: 1. Interest Rate Hike in the coming December - The day the fed gave strong hints that there will be interest rate hike in coming December, all stocks rise the next day. Why? (He expected the stocks to drop). 2. US$ strength will impact on commodities stocks - But the stocks will rise instead at times. Why? 3. Company report good financials but the stock price hardly move. Why? I gave him a few reasons why the stocks move differently. However, after thinking it through, the only thing I believe is true is " The Market Is Irrational ". This is because the market is make up of 3 different types of "players" - BBs, Traders and Investors . For BBs, you will never know why they buy or sell a stock unless you know the people inside. For Traders, they look at mom...

Another update on my portfolio: 1) ISDN Holding Limited + Post 2 2) Sin Ghee Huat Corporation Limited 3) PNE Industries Limited 4) Chuan Hup Holding Limited 5) LHT Holdings Limited 6) TTJ Holdings Limited 7) Accordia Golf Trust 8) Singapore Telecommunications Limited 9) Sapphire Corporation Limited 10) Suntec Real Estate Inv Trust 11) Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation 12) CH Offshore Ltd 13) Maxi-Cash Financial Services Corp Ltd 14) ST Engineering Ltd 15) Bukit Sembawang Estates Ltd + Post 2 16) PSL Holding Ltd 17) M1 Limited 18) Hock Lian Seng Holding Ltd Delist Macquarie International Infrastructure Fund - This fund was delisted completely as stated in my post previously. Bought PSL Holding Ltd - The company is going through restructuring and its net current asset value is significantly higher than the current price, This restructuring will be the catalyst for the future rise in price (hopefully). Take this as a punt. Bought M1 Limited - Yes, I bought...

Warning: This will be an extremely long post. Updated: The Scorecard has been rename from "V Scorecard" to "Triple S Scorecard" After 1 month of reading plus 2 weeks of using my "after office hours free time", I managed to create my new value scorecard - which I renamed as "V Scorecard" (sounds more atas right?). This idea came about because I felt my previous scorecard is not complete and focused more on earnings than balance sheet (which is not really in line with value investing). I wanted to do some coaching as well, so I felt a more informative scorecard is required (not that I think I am super good. My portfolio is down about 5% in general this year.). I also realized the previous scorecard is also quite tedious on retrieving information and lazy people will be turned off by it. Thus, a more informative scorecard with minimal input is sought after. Information which I gather from, for the V scorecard, was stated in m...

Hi all, I have finished part of the job - finding the criteria for all the new value stock scorecard and creating in a hardcopy excel file (with part of the formulas done). The criteria is gathered from:  - Show me the money book 1 and book 2 by Teh Hooi Ling.  - Value Investing: Tools and Techniques for Intelligent Investment by James Montier.  - Investment Moats Post  - Net Net Hunter Scorecard  - Valuewalk Post But I have yet to test it against any shares. Thus, without knowing if it will work, I will not be sending out any scorecard to you. Hopefully I will be sending you by end of the week. If you have any stocks you like to me test, comment below!

I know I am suppose to be on hiatus but I felt I had to write about this. While everyone is looking at Saizen REIT, First REIT and Jumbo IPO, I will be telling you about 2 "Unknowns" and how it has affected me. Firstly I must say the post by AK about Saizen Reit is very good. The post by Brian on  First Reit was a very good piece of analysis. As for Jumbo IPO, I really like this analysis from investment moats . Anyway back to the unknowns... The first one was a case of being too particular with the dollars and cents and missing out. Have you heard of Zagro Asia Ltd? One of my friend that I was trying to tell this story to last night ask me, "Zagro WHAT?" This company is one that manufacture and distribute healthcare products for livestock, poultry, aquatic animals and crops.  If you are scratching your head, I can understand. Yes, these companies exist. To cut the story short, my screening caught this stock and I went deeper into it. I found that it has a...

I am on a mission to make a better Value Stock Scorecard. After reading "Show Me The Money", I will be taking a break to make major changes to The Value Stock Scorecard. All those that had requested for my Value Scorecard previously will be automatically sent a new copy. I will also review if my previous stock are still value stock. Hope to have a more powerful scorecard catered for Singapore Stocks.

I remember my friend making this remark many years ago. "..I believe that the best stocks are those that nobody has written about it..." At that point, I was looking at Colex and it was trading between 0.150 to 0.155. That night, I went home and checked if anyone had talk about Colex and I found none, at least nothing recent that point. The next day, I told my friend that Colex seems to be such a stock. Thus, he got it the next day (I miss it cause I wanted to get it at a lower price..lower than my friend) . Source: Yahoo Finance Now Colex is at 0.310 and I regretted it badly. Thus, this emphasize on the point that "Unknown" stocks are not bad stocks. They are just not popular enough for people to talk about it. In value investing, it can also be deem as a ugly stock that nobody want to touch or noone cares. But eventually it will be pick up by value investors. It should also be noted that we should not invest solely based on the stock is an ...

After reading this article by Value Edge , it made me think about all the lower perceptions brands in Singapore. While walking along Orchard Road, I came up with a list: 1. Bata (vs Charles & Keith, Pedro) 2. Bossini (vs Giodarno) 3. Giodarno (vs Top Shop) 4. OG (vs Isetan, Takashimaya) 5. City Chain (vs The Hour Glass) 6. Yoshinoya (vs Mcdonalds) 7. Burger King (vs Mcdonalds) Other than looking at the brands, I believe we should also looked into the products. A mass-market product will definitely be better than a niche market product as their target market is bigger (Burger King vs City Chain) - Read Post . Next, we should check if the brand has some sort of popularity in Singapore. A lower perceived brand may not mean it has lower sales (Giodarno and Bata).  If the brand is popular, we should review if these brands have any sort of competitive edge to keep the crowd from coming back (Bata). Cash sales is also better than instalment plans sal...

Last Wednesday, I overheard a conversation  that the superior was discussing the subordinate that investing will lose money. When someone that was expected to be respected, pass some "stereotype" information to those that looks up to him, it really makes me boils being an investor and trying my best to spread what I knew. In my opinion, this was a very wrong way of passing information and it is over-generalization of the stock market. If you do not know how to invest in the stock market, please do not spread your "knowledge" like this. Although there are many instances that people were "cheated" and loss a lot of money, but there are also many famous and successful investors around the world and I am not talking about Warren Buffet or George Soros or Charlie Munger. I am talking about locals such as bloggers like Assi AK , 3Fs , Dividend Warrior and Ken'ichi . All successful in their own ways. There are also courses by Bigfatpurse or The ...

Just Short Update on My Portfolio: 1) ISDN Holding Limited  + Post 2 2) Sin Ghee Huat Corporation Limited 3) PNE Industries Limited 4) Chuan Hup Holding Limited 5) LHT Holdings Limited 6) TTJ Holdings Limited 7) Accordia Golf Trust 8) Singapore Telecommunications Limited 9) Sapphire Corporation Limited 10) Macquarie International Infrastructure Fund 11) Suntec Real Estate Inv Trust 12) Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation 13) CH Offshore Ltd 14) Maxi-Cash Financial Services Corp Ltd 15) ST Engineering Ltd - Sorry, yet to write anything. 16) Bukit Sembawang Estates Ltd + Post 2 Sold SembCorp Industries Ltd - I decided to sell because I am unsure of the progress of the oil industry (although there are news that it may be stabling soon) and from its recent release of results, the impact is greater than expected. The rise in profit of the utilities and waste management business will not be able to cover any drop in profit sustained from the marine side of business i...

Do you know of the Qualifying Certificates Rules set for Developers? When I purchased Bukit Sembawang Estates Limited ( Read my previous post ), it didn't occur to me that this was a major thing. I heard about it but my overconfidence "stop" me from finding out more. Thus, this was my mistake. Nevertheless, over my course of work, I had to research into this topic and realise THIS IS A BIG ISSUE FOR DEVELOPER COMPANIES LISTED ON SGX! So what is a Qualifying Certificate and its conditions? Any developers with "foreigner" shareholders are required to have a Qualifying Certificate for its developments. Developers solely with Singaporean Shareholders are exempted. Thus, all listed developers are considered to be developer with foreigners and their developments will require a Qualifying Certificate. Developers whom purchase the land from Government (a.k.a Government Land Sales) are also exempted. This is most probably to protect developers whom intent to de...

Someone reminded me today - That I am supposed to have a plan. A plan to work towards my goal. He asked me, "What is my 5 year plan?". I was caught dumbfounded. I realised I had none at this point. As per Benjamin Franklin, If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail! I remember I used to have plans along with a certain goal: After university and getting my first job, I had plans to pay off my university tuition fees (despite a significant low pay). - I cleared them in 1.5 years. After that I had zero saving left. Then I plan to save up for an emergency fund (a low 5 figure sum) and achieved that in the next 2 years. After that I plan to create a sideline (Read here ). Although it was over, but it was a great experience and I was able to survive at least a 2 year run. After that life started to get complicated and I lost track of my plans or even my goal. So today, I will set plans to achieve my goals. It will not be a 5 year plan - too many surprising fac...

Recently stocks have risen for almost 1 week and 1 day and STI has exceeded 3000 points. But with the economy still looking weak, any "special" event may disrupt this rising trend. Thus, I am staying on the sidelines for now. So I have been thinking recently...should I try to teach others on my method of value investing and spread my understanding? As you know, my blog started because I wanted to spread what I have learnt over the last 10 years. The establishment of BigFatPurse, The Fifth Person and Value Investing College has also inspired me to try to teach and spread about my way value investing. Obviously, I may not be as good as them. But I hope I can still contribute - such as; 1. My understanding of Value Investing. 2. My way of Value Investing 3. The Value Stock Scorecard Explanation 4. Other Qualitative Views However, I will still be looking for profit - But it will not be a lot. Thus, after hearing what I say, do you have any comment? If you are...

Note 1: This does not only applies for Value Stocks, but also for every other stock in the SGX. Note 2: Although this is written from a value investor perspective but it is still applicable even if you are a trader. As a value investor, capital appreciation is always on my mind - What is the "Holy Grail" that will cause a stock price to rise?  When will a stock unlocks its value, especially in the Singapore Stock Market? Some people may disagree with me, but I think value investing is still not popular in Singapore.  Unlike the US Stock Market, people do not recognize these value stock as quickly. In addition, US Stock are more popular/well-known as they are advertised/marketed/broadcast more often. Just imagine - Singapore only has Channel News Asia.  USA has BBC, CNN, CNBC, ABC, Fox and CBS (Noted that some of them may not be a US channel but I just want to emphasize that how much a US stock will be broadcast to the public). I cannot imagine the...

This will be just a very short write up. Today (7 Oct) is a green green day as STI recovered more than 2% (In fact it has been rising slowly on 5 Oct and 6 Oct). I deem this to be the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) effect. It is good to read more about TPP: Post 1 Post 2 Post 3 In my opinion, this maybe a short term recovery - it is like a much needed life extension injection to a very ill patient. Nevertheless, I feel this "patient" still has a chance to make full recovery. PS: I am still reading the 2 new books I bought recently - Show Me The Money Book 1 and 2 by Teh Hooi Ling. There are many new ideas as well as reminders. Will write a post on it after I finish reading.

I wanted to wait till later to write this post on Bukit Sembawang Estates Limited (BSE) - as it is only a recent addition to my portfolio. However, after reading the post by Brian's on the developer's ratio and not including BSE in the list, I decided it is my role to update others on the financial health of BSE (Brian, no offence! Just kidding.) Just a quick note before I start off, when I look at Blue chips as compared to Penny Stock/Small Caps, I do not use the Value Stock Scorecard to do any scoring. After all, to me, I review a blue chip via its profitability, branding, future projects and business models. Profile in Short Founded in 1911 and based in Singapore, BSE is a residential property developer. (Yup, that's it. So easy!). Why So Good? No Debt - As many of you know, I hate debt laden companies. When I learnt that BSE is debt-free. I am SHOCKED! From my little understanding of developers, I am quite sure many of them hold significant long term debt and ar...

This is a reflection post after reading about their value investing strategy  by MyBigFatPurse. This is also for people who want to understand more about my investing methods. I felt that it is a very very good and long write up on their way of value investing. Despite always saying that I am a value investor, it is sad to say I am not like them (Not as hardcore as them). I am much more like a hybrid.   Their Strategy have a very tough stand on Book Value - it must be at a significant discount to the Stock Price - which in my view should really be the main point of value investing. For me, I cannot stand not having dividend - if you can stand it, you will make a better value investor than I do. In my view, there is always a chance that a stock could become a value trap and the opportunity cost will be huge (spending cash and time holding this value trap instead of a value stock). Furthermore, my value scorecard requires PE, ROE and ROA, which use earnings ...

Now I shall write about another of my stock holding in the portfolio - another value gem found - TTJ Holding Ltd. Profile in Short TTJ Holdings Ltd is a company that deals with steel structure works and works on various government projects. It also operates one dormitory under the name of Terusan Lodge 1 in Singapore (but it will end in 2017 ~ A Cash Cow Gone!). However I am not worried after looking at the presentation slides below: Order Book For 2016 and 2017 Industry Outlook Potential Projects In addition, anyone who is interested in this stock should take a look at this forum thread (more good stuff)! The Value Stock Scorecard Price: $0.385 (as at 28 Sep 2015) Net Current Asset Per Share: $0.299 (-28.55%) % Cash of Price: 62.51% % Cash of Current Asset: 65.91% Cash/Debt: 506.687 times Discounted Net Asset Value: $0.316 (-21.69%) Price to Sales: 1.429 Earning Yield: 11.59% Dividend Yield: 20.78% (FY2015 Dividend has increased till 8 cents b...