Jul 29, 2018

Cory Diary : Summary of my thought process in investment

Investment to me is fun. I will do a lot of adjustments to my portfolio to get it feel right. Obviously I am in this learning curve process and after more than 15 years there is still a lot to be learn and unlearn. I could be an historian that record my own success or failure, and have it shared. Surely the end goals will be to maintain our wealth and if possible grow them safely to support our family lifestyle.

Nevertheless, I do have regular job and my compensation is at different level from my market returns. Hence, the confidence in executing all the trades I need to do. Even then what I do is try not to lose money. Occasionally I would make the mistake and learn from it.  There is always wish to have more money that I am willing to "play" that I am comfortable with. No one in practical sense will be ok mentally to lose a sizable portion of their fortune. And this jolly well be in my mind always else is the first step towards investment pitfall.


This year the key learning experience is again making sure every bullets count no matter big or small. I realize the outcome is much better if I put more due diligence and thought process into each trade I made. Another is to do small bites. Never-mind the trading cost as long we are not doing micro-trading. It will be painful to fall into penny wise pound foolish mistake. That's doesn't mean we should not chew bigger if we are confident. It does save a little.


The other thing I would be careful is Over-Exposure. This can works deep and bad into our psychology. So far I try to stay around 10% max per counter. I could go lower if I can manage. Once a position hit this level, the hope is the stock is flying or above water to avoid the tendency to average down. And I wouldn't want to re-evaluate my position at this point in time. Is the wrong process unless there is fundamental change. And cut loss could be an alternative option.

Recently I have been trying MACD, Bollinger Bands and Moving Average to time my trades. And this is usually after I am comfortable with the fundamental. However I am not so FA in a few of my counters. There is some anchoring reasoning into the current price. For such, this is really TA. Quite an amount of calculated risks decision being made into my thought process but is another fun learning experience.

Singapore market has been listless to me. Not exactly if you have been hitting jackpots. And in my continue search for investment opportunity I see US market opens up. Ability to tap on global market is quite attractive. The growth potential is huge therefore capital appreciation as well. And this is good for segment where I want to invest for growth as this can last for much longer period compared to regional or local market. What this mean is lesser focus on local growth short stories muddled with manipulated risks. Even with recent Facebook mega correction, I am still positive in the counter. While I anticipate large price movement volatility with gains in recent months, the market bring the largest in recent history to throw at me. Who says market is not watching you ? I blinked once maybe twice and then move on with my daily life.

Lastly, I have to keep in mind of Holding Cost. One easy way to understand is to use a stable reit dpu to estimate. Since First Reit announced their result, I could use 8.7 cents or 6.5% yield assuming minimal risk from sponsor situation. At current $1.32 price, I could absorb price down to $1.23 for the first year of holding the shares without losses. One year is not really a long time. If I leave money in the bank, it could be just a blink in the eye for time to lapse. I could also saved a lot more from income and my cost of doing nothing will build up significantly. As such if I think I could stomach this level of losses, and potential to lock in amount for dividend play, this could be an attractive counter and margin of safety will not be worthy a wait. Then what level will I consider ? Maybe at least 2 years of dividends. If can achieve 3 will be awesome as this will be almost 20% correction. We aren't see nothing yet to use war chest.

Some people and specifically analysts have been expecting Reits much larger correction with constant rate increases. Clearly this is not happening. More reits record positive dpu in recent quarter results. This could be implied that we need to see events on multiple fronts and dimensions. Not just increasing rates mean lower profits. That's completely absurd. Surely Reits will crash one day. The question is how long the wait  and how much ? After we have compute the total compounded then we can clearly comment.

Last I heard this month SBB allocation is in the range of 15K to 15.5K. Hope I hit the later which means I max out my switch. This segment is one of my housing installment supports. I still hear friends saying Government is running out of money and need to issue bonds to retailers like me. If that is the case, issuing bond at high rate than needed, limiting them to S$100k while expanding the funding size run contrary to their opinion. I hope this do not make their friends poorer but if they do not have much in their "Piggy" bank it doesn't really matter much probably.


Cory
20180729



Jul 20, 2018

Cory Diary : CAPITALAND MALL TRUST 2Q18 ( CMT )

Have been blogging CMT for some period of time. It is an investment of good cash flow and long term returns. Most of their properties are of high quality. If they are to sell them today, it won't be at NAV but sizable upward jump due to their unique location as they are tied to the Vines of Singapore.

Investor who has vested in this Reit would have appreciate the peace of mind. In fact if the reit registered significant jump of dpu, this would be a cause of worry ironically as there could be negative returns that comes along as well. What i like to see is like a sail boat constantly moving ahead in cruising speed.

Q2 2018 Results - CMT



Nav : $2.01 which is not expensive at all. Considering the earning capability, current trade price of $2.16 is just a slight premium.

Cost of debts : 3.1% That's another strength of the reit to keep cost low despite increasing rates. In fact, interests coverage ratio of 5.7x.

Leverage : 31.5% room for more borrowing and growth

Distribution Income for the quarter hits S$100M registering 2.9% increase over same period last year. Annualise returns 5.27%.


What more can we ask ? Maybe shopper traffics.

What to look for ? Funan !

What we continue to need ? A manager that think ahead. Please maintain.

Cheers

Cory
20180720






Jul 14, 2018

Cory Diary : Financial Literacy

I have a group of ex-secondary school classmates which by chance get to meet again since last year. Since then we have been active in chat group. After more than 30 years, they all look more or less the same. Not sure about others, but there has been attrition, re-join and mia individuals. Surely there will be difference in opinions, a little offline gossips and past grudges.

There were quite a few who are dead against institutions aka government in the chat group. So whatever PAP do, there is motives. Mistrusts ran high. One of them use to be my close buddy.  Lost touch with him as we go on separate way after our "O" levels. In those days there aren't smartphone. Let me describe his life now from my perception that I have formed.  We were one of the pioneer batch of normal stream education. As I could remember, his family appears to be below average as they have problem paying utility bills some time. We often go for mini-hike in the afternoon after school. And would comb the forest hill on our way home. It is as close to nature as we could get in developing Singapore. There were a lot of adventures. He went on to technical institutes whereas I am fortunate enough to excel in my study and manage to get a place in a Junior College.

My impression is that he do not have good jobs for past decades and he has in-depth frustration with the government. And in recent time probably for 5 years found a stable job that he is good at. A manager and has some work across the causeway. His salary about S$4k appears to be below average considerating his level of technical soundness and knowledge. There were some considerable stress and sometimes appear to need to work till late into the night. Married and has a son who just finished his primary with average score. He owned a car and stays in HDB.

Here's his financial status I think. In his late 40s, he do not have much saving. And probably about 5k to 10k in stocks the most at any one time. Mindset for him is that this are "vice trade". He would also like to take out as much money out from CPF as soon as regulation allowed as he do not trust them at all. And the money will be use for his son education. Singapore Saving Bond is just another outlet for the government to tune up their national Ponzi scheme. Inflation grumbling is always from water hikes to hawker meals. Every time where is a bad news by Temesek or GLC investments, they will point out that the funds are losing nation money which could have reserved to help the poor and needy. There is a believe tax is too high locally.

With such mindset, there is no way I could advise him to even go for safe investment like SSB which technically safer than saving account or fixed deposits. How nice if he could sell his SSB allocation which I would gladly take up to increase my limit. At least there is some use for him. I think we finally agree to disagree. At late 40s, trying to change each other mindset is next to impossible. He is still a good friend that I cherish over political divide. I view myself nationalistic and wish to keep the game going with the right formula to succeed.  I wish him well.


Cory
20180714





Jul 7, 2018

Cory Diary : Portfolio Building Plan 2018-0707

What a surprise Property Curbs. This time gives a big blow to the stock market on the day when almost everywhere else market is up and STI recorded -1.99% on 6th July on a cloud of Trade War up day internationally.

Looking back since last year on rising interest rate, Bank and Property Counters have very good run. This has become unhealthy to the nation and young people. So timing could not been better despite trade war overhanging the market which our government celebrated with an implosion. The curbs specifically targeted investment homes while keeping the supply of lands up.

For those who are interested in rough maths (else ignore this section), a million dollar 2nd apartment that only requires 3% before any ABSD, now requires 12% to top it up instead of 7%. That's means $120K ABSD. For annual saving of $30K, this will requires 4 more years to accumulate. And with LTV @75% ... that's another 1 more year.

Being in my late 40s, and my bad timing foray into OCBC, I am not happy but I could understand why they have to do it. Things do not look that bad considering my Reits counters and surprisingly Singtel managed to counter the down trend a little. This is further damped by Bonds/Pref. And this is where strength of portfolio comes in to bring me sanity. I am 4% up from STI after the death cross performance. For now, appears my portfolio is leveling off in Comparison Chart below.

2018-0707 Comparison Report

As in my earlier articles, I have been holding back on purchase in Keppel, DBS, STE and Ascendas Reit which are in my potential list. But I did procure a few lots of STI ETF. Despite the current negative sentiments on the property curbs my re-balance trades typically result in more investment cash as mentioned as I am still concern that the Trade War could escalate significantly and timing is critical to secure enough funds for dividend investments for the future.



Cash hits 15%. Bullets ready.


Cory
20180707












Jul 1, 2018

Cory Diary : Shopping List 20180701

Successfully secured this month SSB 2.63% result with $12.5k allocated. I hope to hit max again this month. This do not count into my dividend tracker as I deem them as buffer for my property loan support plan. 

Relative unscathed so far this year with -2% returns. I am pretty aware thing could turn for a worst. Need to buff up my war chest so I will be controlling my equity purchase much tighter and to take profit on any equity much easier on those that is not core holdings.


Hot List
There is sufficient buffers. I could acquire or some more of them at any moment. I am still withholding my firepower in view of trade war. Not in order of priority.

1. DBS - Start with small planned. And see any further correction. Not top list.
2. Keppel Corp - Potential
3. STI ETF - Acquire in stages. Not expensive
4. Ascendas Reit - Average down planned
5. ST Engineering - Not in top purchase list. Hope to increase my holding

Tempting List
They have hit my buy price but I have enough exposure in them. So tempting but I must not buy until i see some crucial indicators.

1. Singtel - Regional telcos pickup in profitability needed. Look for uptrend in price.
2. Netlinktrust - Directors significant purchase needs to happen and next dpu/results review.

Waiting List
1. Aims reit - Sold all. Price flat currently.
2. FCT - Sold all. Price flat currently.
3. MLT - Premium. Not enough MOS.
4. HRnetgroup - Like to expand if enough MOS.
5. Vicom - Sold all. Price not moving.
6. JD.com - Still under consideration
7. HP Inc - Still under consideration


Cory
20180701