T.U.B Investing

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 ...