Cory Diary : Britain voted to be out of EU

Could not comprehend why is it so bad about it. In fact I did not even put it as something to watch that can cause another Lehman moment. Some News commentators said is a Black Swan Event which i disagree.

I do not think is hard at all for BreExit vote as below pic but stock market sentiment cannot be under estimated. So I took profit in CDL which has large exposure in GB prior to the vote. I did not anticipate significant impact to others. Dow drops more than 600 pt. My feeling now is there will be more impact coming Monday in SG market. Now my leg is a little shaky because I should have done a little more to mitigate it. Always room for regrets LOL.

BreExit comment

CDL Trades

When Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia Federation, many people think this is the end. LKY cried. The other side was hoping we will failed and down the road we will begged for return at their terms. We didn't. We succeeded beyond the wildest dream.

We need to get back to basic. What's the purpose of a Country ? To have a population that can work together. Policy and government that serve them. Democracy in place. EU takes away all that.

To make it worst, EU immigrants policy alienates the population similar to situation for the Singapore gov when they open the doors too wide that we lose our cultural and togetherness as a nation. They did crawl back and we see the 70% support votes. Unlike Singapore, EU Leaders did not. The British citizen don't even know who they are yet they are the one that decides EU immigrant policies and so i heard.

Leaders today are politically correct to avoid being branded racists and doing the right thing but they forgot about Nation Building. Is not just about Economic. Is about happiness. Is about emotion. Is about togetherness of the Citizens in the country ! And this takes effort and time to integrate and be accepted. Only when we get all this right, then there is value in economy. I am proud of the British people recognising this despite all odds against their parties, institutions and the famous. Just like in America, Trump represents the frustration of Americans. He did not so to speak, "Influence" them. He just represented them. The sooner leaders understands their population and the ground not grass root, they will lead better.

Near term there will be volatility in the market due to sentiments but it also mean opportunity from fear. Cascading effects will only create more opportunities so I need to go slow in my entry.


Cory
20106625

Cory Diary : What Expenses to cut ?

Expenses have been talked about for some time among bloggers. We know saving is important. Ability to grow our income is even better. Taking care of our owns family cannot be forsaken. Neither can we do away with insurance.

What if I have multiple or huge loans and I got retrenched and I do not want it to be a life style changing event ? Here i will go about it. Total up my lifestyle expenses, work out the cash flow and finally filtered out the options.

EXPENSES

Monthly Expenses

Parent Allowances : 600 ( at minimum )

Hospitalization Insurance : 100 ( Saving/Life $250 )

Housing Loan : $1000 Interest ( $4000 Principal ) (arbitrary)

Utilities/Telco Bills : $200

Clothing : 200

Transport : 220 (Multiple of wife/kid will roughly be a car expense )

Food : 620

Cable TV : 50

Newspaper : 30 ( Prefer to read from paper. To me is quality of life )

Hobby : 50 ( Personal Interests )

Sports : 70 ( Exercise and Meeting with Friends )

Groceries : 180

Annual Expenses

Home Decoration and Appliances : 2000 (arbitrary)

Computer and Home Equipment : 1400 (arbitrary)

Travel : 2000 (arbitrary)
Medical : 500 ( Clinic )

Special Meals : $1200

This works out to  S$3912 monthly expenses after tax to support.


CASH FLOW

Monthly Cash Flow is important because some of our investments takes a longer term return path such as housing loan and "Saving" Insurance which requires monthly payments.

-3912 Expenses

-4250 Housing loan and Insurance
+2100 CPF Deduction to support home loan assuming i have a sizeable sum of cash inside.
+2600 Dividends ( Based on my current Passive Income )

I will need income of minimum $3462 monthly to support the above if I am retrenched. Luckily my dividends and CPF buffered the problem. Can you imagine without ?

What are my other big ticket options.

1. Find a job/ Part time that can fulfilled the gap at minimum. ie. Potential.
2. Married a hardworking wife ie. hmmm do i have to wait till retrenched ? Married up shiok right. Not an option since this negate the problem itself even though it is an option if you have options to choose a life partner. LOL
3. Increase my investment to double my dividends. ie Possible. Required large saving. I should work on it asap.
4. Get a cheaper home. ie. Down grade lah. Sian man. Move it lower. "Desperate" option. Can last some time.
5. Divest investment property. ie. Maybe can consider based on market condition. To sell at right time maybe important.
6. Borrow from Relatives and Friends ie. Not small sum ... Matter of principle not to tap them unless i have gone through desperate measures ie. Cut expenses ... and still not enough
7. Retrenchment Benefits. ie. Choose companies that values employee. This may mean going to Civil Service and MNC first in my early career. ie. if 1 year service equate to 1 month severance. 15 years is 15 months of salary. This can buffer many years of cash flow.

LIFE STYLE

Why am I not cutting down on expenses ? Back to the top. I want to maintain my lifestyle.
Need to anticipate to avoid this decision altogether in later life because is painful after a life time of work. So it comes to Saving and getting a job options. But I can't get another job if I am still with one now. That's left with me the only Option that is Saving. Obvious enough. :(

These narrowed to a few things I could focus on.

Saving => Increase Dividends
Extravagance must be avoided in my early years. Fewer travel. No car. Take bus. Fewer restaurants. No expensive celebrations. No smoking and drinking. No gambling. No expensive clothing. Don't buy unproductive things that will be kept in the store room.

Cash Flow => Increase Dividends

No wonder there is advise not to pay up our housing loan. Is the cheapest loan we can get to bump up dividends to support it. Cash is King only when we can use it.

CPF => Buffer home payments when needed. Meantime getting good interests and additional insurances.

Retrenchment Benefits => Good benefits is important. Choose your company wisely. And use the benefits to support your dividend income when possible. The last thing we want is to spend on holiday trip unless you have enough.

What others ? Tell me leh.

Cory
20160620

Cory Diary : FRASERS CENTREPOINT TRUST

Home Work

Noticed a significant drop in FCT yesterday. This caught my eyes as I have been waiting for a good time to re-enter. A check in regular sources have no obvious news. Some retailers attempt to collect. There is a rather large selloff after trading hours at $1.89 which appear to be from a single entity. Do note some time back there is news of CEO change.


Previous Trades

May have to click the picture below to see the details. Recorded rationale on the trades that time.
I like the Mall Business at suburb which rental is not impacted. AEI keeps me a little awake which i blogged earlier.

(updated for privacy)

There is some resistance around 2.00 to 2.02.  I am a poor timer, quite busy recently due to company re-org, fear of losing and no insider. So decided to sell FCT without waiting for the next dividend distribution.


Next Step

Bre-Exit is round the corner. US has another major gun incident. Market quite shaky. Our local economy still in the muddy water. With the FCT AEI still in the midst. Will wait for reports and better opportunity. I really like this Mall counter.


Cory
20160618

Cory Diary : Misconception in numbers

Prefer penny stocks because i can buy more lots ?
While it may makes speculative senses that penny stock may have higher price variations by percentage term, buying large priced stocks only means fewer lots. The returns from penny or large cap stock for same percentage amount change will still yield same absolute returns mathematically.


Do highest dividend pays ?
A stock price $1 with 5% dividends will distribute 5 cents. To achieve 10 cents return in a year few things can happen.

a. Company has higher returns increasing dividend to 10%
b. Company made a lost, stock price drop to $0.50. Dividend will increase to 10% too.


Do averaging down works ?
Stock Price $2. Company report bad result and price drop to $1.5. That's -25% losses.
Buy equal amount at $1.5 again. Total cost is $3.5 now. Magically -14.3% loss. Feel good right ?

What happen Company report another bad news and price dropped to $1. Loss will be (-1-0.5)/3.5.
That's -42.9% loss ! Double edge sword. Like to guess absolute loss ? That's how a gambler starts to chop fingers. That's why margin trading is risky too.


Dividend Strategy takes forever. Market Crash will eliminate all my returns !
Each year 8% dividends. On the 5th year is 40% returns. That's buffer you for another Global Financial Crisis like 2008 scale. We are in our 8th Year now.


Cory
20160614

Cory Diary : Hyflux Hyflux 6% PerCapSec

Notes on my investigation on Hyflux recently listed (corrected term) Hyflux 6% PerCapSec

Hyflux 6% PerCapSec
The recent Hyflux Hyflux 6% PerCapSec# is listed in SGX. Therefore is similar to buying equity through your brokerage. The returns is like a bond in the sense we get fixed returns. And is distributed to your bank account if you have setup like your dividends. The key difference is Hyflux need not have to pay those dividends if they are in bad situation for example in financial distress which unlike bond will result in default.

Why Hyflux issues Hyflux 6% PerCapSec ?

Here the reasons I believe.

1. Need to roll over their earlier issued PS else higher rate
2. Need larger amount now to continue growing
3. More expensive to obtain loan from bank
4. Fewer restrictions and need for flexibility
5. Technically no default if they fail to distribute
6. Not considered debts
7. SCA Business Model required intensive capital investment and Cash flow support

Investment Rationale - Hyflux 6% PerCapSec
Rate is 6%. The good thing about this Hyflux PS written term is that they are cumulative. This means if they fail to pay me this time, the interest will be accumulated and compounded. In-addition, the company will not be able to distribute dividends to their shareholders. There is also a call date 4 years later else there will be stepped up terms. This will encourage Hyflux to re-call and likely issue new PS as needed.


Key Items in my thoughts

Will the company go bust ? I see no reason why the government will not let it happens. If water supply is critical, they can ensure operation continues while the company restructure. If there is no left over after debts, this will only means existing shareholders and PS holders have nothing in the new company. And this is the risk we need to be prepared for. Other scenario will be the traded share may comes down significantly and not recalled after 4 years. Can there be negotiated hair-cut ?

Cash Flow is the key risk which is why I think Hyflux makes the right decision to go via the PS route to allow them have flexibility in managing their cash flow considering the size and complexity involve. They also need a lot of money to scale and support the current business model to grow quickly.



Their focus on Growing recurring income to build a sustainable business with scale is the right one in my opinion. It has been developing and growing predictable and recurring revenues from O&M services, asset returns and membrane sales. Their technology is proprietary.

From the looks of it, the Business Model long term has a strong case. In fact, the mother share will be interesting too at opportune time. An attractive asset to Temesek to invest in the future.

Overall Hyflux 6% PerCapSec seems safer than I previously thought it will be. There is still risk which I need to be prepared mentioned above and the unknowns. Also to bet on the success of a business, 6% is not a lot of money. But if I am convince the success is high, then the compensation maybe reasonable. I think it should do well but we can never be sure.


Cory
20160612

Cory Diary : Cory Portfolio 2016 0607

Portfolio Management

has been my key strategy for a long time which includes Safe Bonds and Preference Shares. I am able to stomach losses and keep me sane. Most importantly I have the mental coolness to make the right decision of Re-Balancing my stocks. This is another key strategy in my investment plan. The recent years strategic addition which I mentioned a few times in my earlier notes are the Dividend Strategy introduction and inclusion of STI index.

On the left, is my current proportion of my asset.
As you can see, my Cash and FD are still a little high. I am a conservative guy ! It takes me a long time to bring down my cash/FD to this level.

Together with my CPF, Property, Basic Insurances, Pension, Fixed Deposits and Cash, they form a net web of safeguards. With this, DIY Investment is a very viable plan to me and this model has works for more than a decade.

Invested amount has been growing steadily since 2011(roughly) if I remember correctly. XIRR is similar to annualized returns for each year.

Cumulative XIRR  continues to slip down from 15% to 6.3%  due to recent mute years. A 6.3% Cumulative XIRR means compounded returns of 6.3% and for me already achieved for almost 10 years per below chart. For every $1 invested in 2007 will be roughly $1.45 today. This data is as raw as it is. No hidden cost, no mark up, no time based tricks that you often seen over marketing materials. Real returns right into my account if I sell everything into cash. No accounting trick or mark-up valuation model.

DIY Equity investment

My believe is I can only Trust myself to take care of my own money and retirement. So I have strong interests to make sure I succeed. And the real fear is I do not want to wake up one day to find out my Fund Manager is no longer in normal operation due to fraud, redemption issue or receive poor performance excuses. Their operation are total Black Box to me and this option is logically unacceptable.

Neither is it acceptable to me that my money in them  has low returns. Needless to say, losses. Some maybe desperate enough to provide guarantee. Even if they say they will, what's make you think they can when the uneventful comes ? Neither performance based rewards make sense to me as their zero fees are irrelevant to my losses.

Whatever printed document they can update me or articulate holds no water. This is real issues which is a big concern and which I can and should control. And this start my DIY journey of learning to do on my own as Equity Investment today is relatively easy to learn and understand, in my personal opinion. I can continuously tweak and improve my model with time. I am rather conservative and I constructed it as such into my plans. Really glad and never look back.

Happy Investing !


Cory
20160607

Cory Diary: Net Worth, Equity and Market Outlook

Net Worth

Rather conservative in my money so far in 2016 mainly due to the poorer economic expectation. However I am not entirely convince there will be a major crisis in the scale of 2008 Financial Crisis that requires me to pull the plug in my investments.
















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Trending up much YTD (Year to date) with the increase due to higher cash position not allocated to investment. Chart is rather flat for past one and half year due to larger increase in property expenses,  spending to support a better Lifestyle ( yeah ! ), China Market Crash ( Shock ! ) and Taxes Paid  ( sad ... ).


Interim SGX Equity Investment

XIRR: +3.84% YTD (Today compared to 31 Dec'15)
STI Index: -3.36% YTD (Today compared to 31 Dec'15)

Quite please with the current returns compared to Index. I still makes a number of conservative "mistakes".

1. Being slow in reducing unprofitable positions
2. Not in larger amount movement in my portfolio
3. Holding too much cash. Cash/FD hits 40% of my total worth (excluding property).
    Opportunity cost is a little draining on me.

Continues .... to avoid sector in

1. Commodity
2. S-Chip
3. Shipping
4. Oil Support and Service

and please with,

1. Financial sector allocation
2. Cutting losses on some Industrial sector counters
3. Dividends Strategy


Outlook to watch

1. Oil Price
2. SG Property Measures
3. China Debts
4. SG Telco Markets


Cory
20160601