Saturday, April 29, 2017

Weekend Thought - Rest

Time really fly, we are at the end of April and May is commencing soon. 

Yet another long weekend for most people here, an early May Day wishes to all of you. As the Chinese saying goes 休息是为了走更长远的路 (briefly translated into : Rest is necessary in order to go/move further).

Let's have a good rest over this long weekend, either in Singapore or oversea as many are having weekend getaway to neighboring countries. 

The latest news from a couple of my friends who are heading to Malaysia this morning: both links at the customs are experiencing a huge jam. Keep calm; Keep going!

So, forget about your work (temporarily, if you can);

Forget about the performance of your stocks/counters by not reading the related business/financial news, looking at the charts etc... (don't tell me you can't do this!?);

Forget about the stress in your personal life that you are currently experiencing, be it relationship, financial challenge or even about kiddos.. (temporarily)

Just give yourself some ME-time and REST well. Some time, by just stepping out of your 4-wall (aka home) and meet up/chat with friends is enough to rejuvenate your pace of life.

Life is always full of Ups and Downs, we just need to embrace life. 

Cheers!

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Book - The Singapore Blue Chips : 3 Key Reasons Why I Snap It From Library

Today, while casually browsing at the National Library during lunch time, I chanced upon a local book, The Singapore Blue Chips - The Rewards & Risks Of Investing In Singapore's Largest Corporates [2017] (authored by Nandini Vijayaraghavan and Umesh Desai). After flipping through a few pages, I immediately decided to loan it for further reading. 

Reason? 

#1 - This is the first financial book that I've chanced upon covering the Singapore Blue Chips. Even though it covers only 16* out of the 30 companies in STI (Straits Times Index), it is still a good compilation. On top of the 16 companies, it covers 4 more non-STI companies i.e. Temask Holdings, Fraser & Neave (F&N), Marina Bay Sands (MBS) and Olam International. 

#2 - The book is written in a very layman term, good for newbies like me. 

#3 - It has plenty of graphs/charts showing the trends of industry-specific key business parameters of the companies. For example, for Singapore Telecommunication (as I am vested in this company, so this is the chapter that I zoomed into first :-)), it shows the 12 years trends (2005 to 2016) of:
- Cellular Subscribers 
- Cellular ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)
- Postpaid SAC (Subscriber Acquisition Cost)
- Broadband Lines subscribers etc...

Even though it doesn't provide many statistics/ratios related to investing like EPS, P/B etc... it does provide very easy to digest narrative of business/financial review, challenges faced and key takeaways for each of the company covered.  

If you are interested to know more about the corporate milestones and evolution of the business of the key Singapore Blue Chips, you can definitely consider this 300+ pages book.

Cheers!

*16 companies covered under the book:
1. Golden Agri Resources
2. Wilmar International
3. Singapore Exchange Limited
4. Keppel Corporation
5. Sembcorp Industries
6. Singapore Technologies Engineering Limited
7. SIA Engineering 
8. CapitaLand
9. Global Logistic Properties
10. Starhub
11. Singapore Telecommunications
12. ComfortDelGro
13. Singapore Airlines
14. DBS
15. OCBC
16. United Overseas Bank
Plus 2 REITS:
1. CapitaLand Mall Trust
2. Ascendas REIT

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Asian Pay Television Trust (APTT) - The Reasons Behind Its 7% Jump Yesterday?

APTT
If you are vested with the Asian Pay Television Trust (APTT), I am sure its performance yesterday (which is a whopping 7.14% jump to $0.525) put a smile on your face. Some of you might already took profit out of this "rare" jump. 

The question is what trigger the jump? 

Reading through numerous sites, my personal interpretation/guesstimate are :

1. Appointment of new CEO, Brian Mckinley and CFO, Somnath Adak. Prior to be appointed as the CEO, Brian Mckinley is the CFO of the trustee. This could be the reason that bring positive cheer to the market.

2. Steady performance for FY 2016 (a copy of FY2016 Annual Report can be found here).

3. Sumptuous Dividend Yield - Total distribution per unit for 2016 is 6.5 cents and the Chairman has indicated that distribution for 2017 will be consistent with 2016 at 6.5 cents (which translate into 12.3% dividend yield with the latest share price of 52.5 cents). 

Extracted from APTT's FY2016 Annual Report
Other side news about APTT:
1. Do you know who is the biggest institutional shareholder? It's non other than our very own Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd (held 7.98%) :-) 
source : Financial Times
2. Analysts are quite upbeat in their forecasts, with median target of 70.5 cents and high estimate of 90 cents. Even the low estimate is also sitting at 51 cents
source : Financial Times
I have been "secretly" monitoring this trust for a couple of weeks (I used to queue it at 45 cents but missed it twice), for now, I am looking at the entry price of 50 cents or lower.    

Cheers!

Note : DYODD (Do your own due diligent)

Friday, April 14, 2017

Singtel - Accumulating as part of my mutated DCA

Singtel
As per my previous post in Nov 2016 (click here to see), I've chosen Singtel (Z74) as he stock to go on "DCA" (the reason why I bracket it is because my original intention is not to strictly invest every month but rather retain the flexibility to enter as and when I viewed that the price is right). Well, you may argue that I should not even call it DCA (Dollar Cost Averaging), you are probably right, but who cares, it doesn't really matter lol

Since Wednesday (12/04/2017), for some "good" reason, Singtel share went through a phase of massive short selling, the share price has dropped about 3.5% (from $3.90 to $3.76 at yesterday's closing). So, I took this opportunity to accumulate the Stock in two tranche (500 @ $3.81 and another 500 @$3.76). In total, I have accumulated 1,500 shares with the average price of $3.78.

Are you doing any DCA? If yes, on which particular stock(s)?

Cheers!

Sunday, April 9, 2017

My Thought On Tony Robbins' Latest Book Unshakeable - Your Financial Freedom Playbook

I've been following the famous motivational guru, Tony Robbins' books since his Awaken The Giant Within (1991). So, I can consider myself a fan of his book. In the recent years, his books are mainly focusing on the personal finance, from the 2014's Money - Master The Game to this year's Unshakeable - Your Financial Freedom Playbook.

Effectively, Unshakeable is a follow-up to his much voluminous Money - Master The Game (2014), there are quite a number of Rules/Principles stated in Unshakeable are actually a conscious version from Money. 

Of course, the overall context of the book is more applicable to US e.g. you will see him stating quite a number of investment vehicles which are for US citizens, like their 401(K) plan etc.. Having said that, I still enjoyed reading it very much  as all the Principles/Guides are deemed universal and timeless. 

Some of you might find that most (if not all) of his principles are kind of common sense and too simplicity and he himself admitted it. Anyway, who says life need to be so complicated? Most of the time, the difference between those who are succeeded and those who are not comes down to this word : ACTION.  

I especially like Section III of the book whereby it covers the Psychology of Wealth. Many of the proven biases (like "confirmation bias", "recency bias" and "home bias" etc..) are covered here and he also provided the solution(s) to counteract these biases.

Also, his points on the "Art Of Fulfillment" and the Two States of self ("Beautiful State" vs "Suffering State") are something that I adored too. 

Besides the financial related facts and principles gems, which is aplenty in this book, the other two principles (from "The Art Of Fulfillment" chapter) that strike with me are: 
You must keep Growing 
You have to Give
Overall, I do recommend this book to everyone who want to up your ante in the personal finance acumen. 

Before I end this post, just like to re-share one of the quote from the book :

"Money doesn't change people. It just magnifies who they already are"

Cheers!

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Free Webiner - Fintech Oppotunities For VCs and Startups in Southeast Asia

Nowadays, FinTech is everywhere, in fact, as a branch out of it, InsurTech is everywhere now too (at least I am hearing it every now and then in my office). 

So, what is actually FinTech? 

How does it disrupt the Finance Industry, especially in Singapore? 

To be frank, I am not too sure myself.  

I've gotten an email invite recently for a free FinTech webiner, for those who are keen to learn more about FinTech Opportunities in Southeast Asia, you may be interested to check out this free webiner from World Wealth Creation Conference and it will be held next week (12 April 2017, Wed 7 PM). 

You can check out more details here and register free here



Cheers! 

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