Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Upcoming IPO - Manulife US Reit

If everything goes well, the first ever pure-play US office REIT - Manulife US Reit, will start trading in SGX from 2pm on 15th July 2015. Yesterday, the preliminary prospectus has been lodged with MAS for the $629.2 million IPO. 

Basing on the initial report, the targeted IPO price is $0.82 and following are some of the key details :

1. The initial portfolio of Manulife US Reit will comprises of 3 US office properties with an aggregate net lettable area of about 1.46 million sq ft, they are :
a. 12-story Class A office building a few blocks from the White House in Washington DC
b. 35-story Class A office building in South Park district of Downtown Los Angeles
c. 19-story office building in Irvine, Orange County, within the Greater Los Angeles market

2. It plans to grow its portfolio through acquisition from third parties and the proceeds from the IPO will be used mainly for this purpose. 

3. The portfolio consists of 83 diversified "high-quality tenants", including TCW, Hyundai Capital America, LA Fitness and Davis Wright Tremaine. 

4. Standard & Poor;s Ratings Services has assigned a "BB" preliminary long-term corporate credit rating to Manulife US Reit

5. It plans to offer an estimated 6.3% dividend yield for 2016 in the offering.

6. Weighted average lease expiry of the properties is said to be 5.1 years while occupancy stands at 97.7% with 83 tenants in total. The properties’ top 10 tenants are said to account for 58% of income while rental escalations of between 2% and 3.5% are said to have been built-in for 83% of the leases.

7. Cornerstone investors, who are to take up as much as 30 per cent of the total deal size, include:
a. Sovereign wealth fund Oman Investment Fund
b. Nikko Asset Management and 
c. Malaysia's Fortress Capital Asset Management

I am still waiting to invest in my first REITs and will definitely find out more about this upcoming IPO once its prospectus is out (assuming it is gotten the approval).

Basing on the above brief details, would you be interested too? ;-)

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Should We Include Human Capital In Calculating Our Net Worth?

Often times, when we read books or attend workshops related to Personal Finance, one of the exercise that you are requested to do (even before the actual book/workshop started) is to calculate your current Financial Net Worth. It is a simple formula : The sum of all your Assets (cash, investment, CPF balance and properties etc..) MINUS the sum of all your Liabilities (Housing loan, credit cards repayment, car loan etc..). The difference (could be positive or negative) is your Financial Net Worth at the moment. 

Recently, I am reading a book by Moshe A. Milevsky called Your Money Milestones. It kinds of throwing a spanner in the works by introducing Human Capital into the equation and claimed that the above-mentioned formula is flawed. In short, he is of the view that Human Capital is our greatest assets and it should formed of the Asset category. Of course, to strike a balance, he also introduce another equivalent element in the liabilities column called "Estimated Hidden Liabilities" (which I've yet to find out what does it constitutes).

First and foremost, let's focus on the Human Capital. In his book, he defines Human Capital as the present value of the total future after-tax compensation (including wages, salary and bonus) and even provide a link to calculate this value. I tried to access the link but don't seems to be able to find the relevant calculator and hence don't bother to share it out here ;-(

Personally, maybe due to my conservative nature, I don't think it is wise to include Human Capital in deriving our Financial Net Worth and following are my reasoning :

1. Anything related to FUTURE (including compensation) is not guaranteed. 

2. Assuming that the Human Capital will always be more than the Estimated Hidden Liabilities, It will give us a false impression that we have much more Net Worth than we actually have. 

Don't get me wrong, I do agree with him that Human Capital is our greatest assets, just don't think by including it in the calculation will show us our true Net Worth at that time. 

Of course, regardless of what formula we use to calculate our Net Worth, it is just a number, it won't make any real financial differences. What is more important is to use it as a baseline to keep track of the growth/decline of out Net Worth. In short, we need to do this exercise regularly, say annually, as it is only meaningful if we can do the necessary comparison (just like reading the company Annual Report, it is useful if we can compare the year-on-year performances).  

What is your view? 

Cheers!

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Terminator Genisys - Who Is Your Guardian In Your Investment Journey?

"I will be BACK!" 

True enough, Arnold Schwarzenegger is back to reprise his most memorable role (machine from the future) in the upcoming Terminator Genisys.  

Terminator Genisys is opening is Singapore this week, one week earlier than US. Personally, I have high hope on this 5th installment of the successful franchise and plan to watch it this weekend (if I managed to get the good seats ;-)). 

In this installment, Arnold is playing the role of a Guardian who is/was there to protect the key female character, Sarah Connor (by Emilia Clarke). With its "back to the future" theme, it is interesting to see how the young and old Arnold get intertwined and the twist of the story (I heard there is a big twist but don't quote me if it wasn't that big a twist). 

It is cool to have one or two guardian(s) around us to protect and lead us in our journey. All the more better if it's Arnold Schwarzenegger materials. Since this is an investment blog, let's focus on the investment journey. Who is/are your guardian in your investment journey? 

For me, there is no specific person that I can relate to as guardian so far (as most of my friends or colleagues are not into investing but thing might change as I got to know more peer retail investors nowadays). Mainly, I am relying on the tips/tools/guides from the investment books that I've read. So, in a loose sense, my investment guardians are the authors of many investment books out there ;-)

Cheers!

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

MoolahSense - My Open Review Of The Platform

I first heard about MoolahSense a couple of months ago via an article over the internet, I didn't pay much attention to it as I view it as just another investment gimmick then, as my initial thought is that the "promised returns" is too good to be true. 

Last week, attended a local retail investor peers gathering event (click here to see how we band together there) and got the chance to meet and chat with the co-founder of MoolahSense, Lawrence Yong. After learning more from him on his background as well as the vision of this brainchild of theirs, I decided to give it a second look and hence this post. 

MoolahSense is a crowdfunding platform with a twist i.e. the investment element. Its bond-like investment vehicle allows potential retail investors to choose and invest in the aspiring SME businesses that need funding.  The concept/business model of MoolahSense is deemed first of its kind in the local context. The appeal to the potential investors is higher rate of returns and to the businesses is getting the loan/fund that they might not be able to obtain from the banks/financial institutions. Looks like a win-win situation to me. 

I've since registered myself with an investors account and following are some of my findings :

1. The platform is quite a solid one with sufficient information/features as well as transparency for the potential investors to make a known investment decision. Some of the key features that I like are :
a. The offers history (you are able to see other potential investors' invested amount and expected rate of returns
b. Comprehensive financial information/ratios in the current and previous years, including the DP Credit Rating, which is a financial risk model that assesses the default probabilities of companies in Singapore in their MoolahCore and MoolahPeri section. 
c. MoolahPost - A private forum for the potential investors and businesses to thrash out any doubts or clarification. I find that this is an effective way of communication and all potential investors and view and comment further on the questions/answered raised. 

2. From on the website, MoolahSense has already successfully completed/funded 4 campaigns (all oversubscribed) and currently running an active campaign for Leap Networks Pte Ltd. Seems like they are having a strong start. 

3. The account registration process is kind of long and it is quite uncommon for requesting the user to provide their bank account details in the initial registration process. Also, asking for three security questions is kind of too many to handle. Having said that, the account approval turnaround time is quite fast (within 24 hour).

I guess the question that many of the potential investors have in mind is : is it safe to invest in these businesses since the promised interest rate is higher than usual? I guess no one can give you the answer for sure but just like in any investment, there is no guarantee and I always believed in higher returns = higher risk ;-)

So, feel free to explore the platform and any other alternative investment vehicle but always do your due diligent before plunging into it. 

Personally, I might consider to invest a small portion of my war chest on the campaigns/businesses that interest me.  

If you are already an investor of the MoolahSense, do feel free to comment on your experience with your investment so far. 

Cheers!

P/S : This is not a sponsored post!

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Life Is Full Of Possibilities - If You Can Imagine It, You Can Create It

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL!!

Yesterday, spent a couple of hours at ArtScience Museum, Marina Bay Sands to attend three exhibitions at one go (DreamWorks Animation, The Deep and Singapore Eye - Contemporary Arts). The reason why I am so ambitious to cover 3 exhibitions within the same day is because there is a package deal of $20 for all-access pass. Value for $$ ;-)

All in all, the few hours are well spent. 

It really opens up our eye on how little are we as an individual human being. Just take for an example, DreamWorks' animation segment is a huge business and they can never achieved them without massive works/hours spent (in terms of years) collectively. It is a team work with common vision that can never be achieved by any individual alone. And the final product is an entertaining animation blockbusters (like Kungfu Panda, Croods etc..) that making movie goers around the world entertained for a couple of hours (some repetitively).

The Deep is kind of surprise (somewhat horror) discovery for me. You might think that some of the mysterious monsters/creatures in the Hollywood blockbuster movies are purely imagination, wait till you see what the explorers unearth from the deep blue sea, some of them might look impossible to exit but they are REAL. In fact, the issue is never whether they exist or not, the issue is our limited knowledge about our earth. We don't know doesn't means it doesn't exist! More works are to be done by the scientists and explorers but kudos to them for bringing such discovery to the public. 

Singapore Eye is a Contemporary Art exhibition. I must admit that I don't have an artistic eye/mind and I might not be able to appreciate much of what I've seen but it just amazed me how difference are we (as individual) in terms of our view/perspective/angle. Art is never about good or bad, it is about whether we can see/feel through the lens of the respective artists. 

Among the three exhibitions, The Deep comes up top in my ranking, follow by DreamWorks Animation.  

Looking forward to keep opening my eyes/mind for all the good stuff around me (that include personal finance stuff). Also, must keep reminding ourselves that life is full of possibilities, if you can imagine it, you can create it!

Cheers!

Saturday, June 20, 2015

That's How We (The Local Retail Investors) Should Band Together!

A million thank to Alvin and the team behind Big Fat Purse (Jon, Alex and Louis) for organizing a wonderful get-together session on Thursday evening at their office. With a huge turn-out of more than 20 liked minded friends (including 2 ladies, ranging from retail investors to promising start-up owners who are making [or going to make] a buzz in the local financial industry scene), we wasted no time in getting to know each other better and the rest is chatting, chatting and more chatting.  

I am not secretive about my age and many of you might have already know that I am no longer a young chap but I can felt the energy level on last Thursday evening is at the fever pitch and it does boost my energy level up a few notch too (at least mentally) ;-)

Usually, I will take photos in such event and share it in my Social Media accounts but it totally slip my mind during the gathering as most of us have been busy going around meeting new friends, eating and drinking. I am a strong believer in building good relationship and trust in all relationships, be it families, friends or associates. Very happy to be part of this local retail investors community that are so selfless and cohesive, if we continue to band like this, I am pretty sure that we will be creating more buzz and friends along the way.

During the session, I think two of the new friends that I've chat most with are Kevin of Turtle Investor (advocate of Index investing) as well as Lawrence of MoolahSense. (crowd funding platform with the investment twist). Will definitely explore more on MoolahSense in the next few days and update my view on this Local-First platform. 

Slightly more than one year ago, before I "officially" began my stock investment journey, starting a financial related blog is purely for sharing my "late comer" experiences as well as my thought there and then. Of course, being a movie buff, I will try my best to throw in some movie related stuff in my posts. Fast forward to present, I believed one of the most precious take away from my journey is to get to know (and personally met) some of the liked minded cool peers.

Hope Alvin will arrange more such event as this should be the way how we (the local retail investors) should band together. 

Oh, must remember to remind myself to take photos in the next session.

Cheers!

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

2G Network Going To Retires For Good, Would Broker-Assist Trading Come Next?

Come April 2017, all the local telcos will retire the 2G networks for good. In short, those handsets with only 2G networks capacity will not be supported and the consumers need to switch to the newer 3G or 4G handsets. 

In fact, with the speed-craze global population (when comes to tech gadgets), it is a matter of time this would happen and I thought it is already long overdue. To be frank, I think there are hardly anyone still carrying the 2G handsets nowadays, so, the cost (in maintaining the support for this service) is definitely outweigh the benefits. 

Like in the stock investing/trading world, just not long ago, most of the stock trading are done through a stock broker/remisier physically at the trading floor. Fast forward to the present, most of the stock trading are done electronically either through PC, laptops or mobile devices. Again, speed and convenient are the key reasons. 

I dare to predict that it is a matter of time that trading through stock brokers/remisiers will be decomissioned for good too. Again, even if it happens next time, it would not have major impact to most of the investors as majority of us are already trading online anyway. In fact, the broking firms are also encouraging online trading by charging cheaper commission, as compared to the broker-assisted trading.      

My sense is that it might happens in the next 8 to 10 years. What do you think? 

Cheers!  

Monday, June 15, 2015

Jurassic World - One Key Financial Literacy Element That I've Learnt From The Movie

Yesterday, managed to catch the highly anticipated blockbuster of the year, Jurassic World, a sequel that I've been waited for 14 years (the last sequel, Jurassic Park 3 is miss-able). Without a doubt, it is an entertaining and exciting ride (kind of like really visiting a theme park), having said that, it still cannot surpass the original Jurassic Park (1993). At the time of the writing, it is official that Jurassic World is the second biggest opening in America, with a whopping $204 millions on its opening week. 

Even though I have enjoyed the movie quite a fair bit but there is one thing that I felt not equipping myself enough prior to the movie, this is especially obvious when I am trying to relay certain scenes with my friends, after the show.  

Do you want to make a guess what is it? 

Yes, it is about relating (naming) the specific dinosaurs from the movie at certain scenes. At the very most, this is what I can describe it : "You know, the dinosaur from the water.. what do you called it? Anyway, it looks really cool hoh?!" (by the way, the name of that lizard like marine dinosaur is called "mosasaurus"). I think it will enhance the quality of our conversation if we can use the proper name of the dinosaurs. 

Of course, I am not saying that we need to know them all (in fact, I find that some of them is quite impossible to pronounce correctly without the help of Google Translate. For example, do you want to try Pachycephalosaurus?

In any case, what is it got to do with Financial Literary? 

Often time, in Financial literary, we need to get used to the alien Financial Terms or abbreviation akin to the dinosaur names, for example, the ROA, ROE, CAPEX, NAV, ROCE, COE and many many more (by the way, last one is not really a financial term ;-)) Without knowing them in more detail, it might be a challenge to understand what your friend or the article is talking/written about. Hence, it is important to learn some basic financial terms (like the T-Rex and Raptors of the Jurassic World) in order to boost our financial literacy. 

So, my simple equation is :

Name Of Dinosaurs = Financial Terms!

Cheers!

P/S: If you want to know all the dinosaurs names featured in the Jurassic World movie, check out their official site here

Saturday, June 13, 2015

SGX - Yet Another Blunder!

While our mind are still fresh about the technical glitch that impacted two lengthy halts in trading some six months ago, here come the second glitch. This time round, it is affecting its subsidiary, CDP. Apparently, some 4,600 or so statements with errors were sent out to investors last month (have you checked yours and notice something amiss?)

According to SGX's Chief Of Operation And Technology, Mr Tim Utama, remedial action has been taken and the affected accounts holder should expect their corrected statements by next Tuesday. After the investigation, it is deemed as human error (poor staff, I am sure he/she/they must be under lots of pressure). 

Being in the IT field for quite awhile, errors (be it technical or human) are unavoidable, the key is the correction measure, future prevention measure and how well they manage the customers' reaction (kind of PR related issue). Personally, I still have confidence with our local bourse. 

Now, all eyes will be on the newly appointed CEO of SGX, Mr Loh Boon Chye on how he handle such service issue. 

Cheers!


Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Investing Note - A Promising Local Investors Social Network

Today, I chanced upon a local Investors Social Network called Investing Note in The Straits Times. It was in the news as ShareInvestor (a subsidiary of SPH) buys 15% of its stake ($150,000). For a on-year old company which is supported by National Research Foundation, I think it is quite a promising start. 

To be frank, the name doesn't strike me as something appealing/ interesting. However, when I decided to give it a try awhile ago, I am quite surprise that it is a full-blown social networking with some cool features. Besides the usual social network features like News Feeds,  Posting, Liking and Sharing the Posting and Notification alert, I like the following cool features which are quite peculiar to the retail investors :

1. Posting and sharing the Target Price Estimate of a particular stock (coupled with the online chart to track your performance). I've done my very first estimate on UMS as per following :

Investiong Note
Investing Note
2. Filtering of the newsfeed by "Ideas", "News", "Chart", "Estimate" and "Favorite". Currently, most (if not all) social network displayed the newsfeed in one linear order.  

Just like any other social network sites, the main purpose is to get connected with the liked minded friends and build up the relationship from there, with the help of more regular interaction, of course.

3. Build-In watch-list. For the seasoned investors, I am sure you know what is "Watch List", with this build-in feature, you can have more time to enjoy life.

Oh, by the way, I am in Investing Note now and if you are interested, you can give it a try and get connect with me via my profile

That's it! Have a great days ahead! Cheers.

Note : This is not a sponsored post!

Saturday, June 6, 2015

King Wan - My CNAV Analysis (Take 2)

About a year ago, I vested in King Wan (554) and did a CNAV Analysis (after attending the Value Investing Mastery Course by BigFatPurse), click here for my earlier post. 

Today, I am doing a Take 2 on King Wan's latest CNAV Analysis to review what has changed after one year. In fact, it is due to the following event lar:

1. King Wan's dropped a whopping 12.5% on Tuesday (2nd June 2015)
2. As recommended by one of the pioneer peer financial blogger (Createwalth8888

The Key Quantitative Indicators of CNAV Strategy (2015 - Basing on the latest Financial Report released on 29th May 2015):

Net Asset Value (NAV)                             = $0.2811
Conservative Net Asset Value (CNAV2)  = $0.14
Current Price                                              = $0.28
Discount For CNAV2                                = -98%

Conclusion : Since it is a negative "Discount for CNAV2", it means that the stock is traded at premium. Having said that, it is almost level with the less conservative NAV indicator. 
The P.O.F Scores of CNAV Strategy: 
Profitability Score         = 1 (With the PE ratio of 5.7, slightly over than the average of 15)

Operational Efficiency = 1 (with three consecutive years of positive operating cashflow)

Financial Efficiency     = 1 (Debt To Equity Ratio of 56%)

Conclusion : A perfect POF indicators.
In short, King Wan has improved its attractiveness from CNAV perspective. Hence, it warrants to be in the watch-list for those who are practicing CNAV2 strategy. 

For better comparison, I've copy and paste my previous CNAV Analysis here :

The Key Quantitative Indicators of CNAV Strategy (2014):

Net Asset Value (NAV)                             = $0.25
Conservative Net Asset Value (CNAV2)  = $0.07
Current Price                                              = $0.35
Discount For CNAV2                                = -398%

Conclusion : Since it is a negative "Discount for CNAV2", it means that the stock is traded at premium. In fact, it is already traded at a premium (40% higher) even compared with the less conservative indicator, NAV. So, if basing on the CNAV strategy, this stock would only be in my watch-list (i.e. not a "buy" signal).
The P.O.F Scores of CNAV Strategy: 
Profitability Score         = 0 (With the PE ratio of 18.1, slightly over than the average of 15)

Operational Efficiency = 1 (with three consecutive years of positive operating cashflow)

Financial Efficiency     = 1 (Debt To Equity Ratio of 56%)

Conclusion : Even with the score of 2 (out of 3) but since the PE Ratio is only slightly over the average, I will still consider it a good set of POF indicators.
In short, if I were to apply the CNAV strategy on this stock, I would not buy it NOW but will keep it in my watch-list until it has a positive discount for CNAV2.  

Cheers!

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Bloodshed In Singapore Market - Good News or Bad News?

Today (2nd June 2015), there is only one uniform color in Singapore's Stock Market, which is crimson! STI ended 51.36 points lower at 3,340.75 (which is a drop of 1.51 %). I believed this is one of the sharpest decline in the recent months. I did a quick check, the last similar range of decline is on 16th December 2014 whereby STI declined 58.98 points. 

Is it a sign of more dire situation in the upcoming days/weeks? 

Is it a delayed effect of "Sell in May and go away" phenomenal? 

Is it a bad news? 

Is it a good news? (as per those contrarian investors, this is a sign of upcoming great opportunity)

In any case, there are only 3 possible direction of the market movements, it is either :
1. Up or
2. Down or
3. Level 

So, either direction has 33.3333% chance, let's not read too much into its cause(s) and just keep calm and stay cool. One of my counter (King Wan) dropped 12.5% today for unapparent reasons but I guess that's how market react within the short term (irrational). 

If your war chest has been collecting dust for the past few months, it might be about time to unlock them and get ready to chiong soon... or maybe not... let's keep a close watch first ;-)

Cheers!

Like What You See? Subscribe To Us Here...

* indicates required