We missed the boat! Dow breaks all time high 13,633.08

What a pleasant surprise!I was aware that Dow had a strong showing last night, after it reversed a -52 pts drop to a +36 pts before I went to bed. I didn't know that it closed +111.74, breaking new high too! Yesterday there was a FED meeting. The interest rates remain unchanged at 5.25%. Nearly all participants viewed core inflation as "uncomfortably high" and left the rates untouched for the seventh straight session. That left quite a number of economist saying that the fed minutes suggest strongly that the FED might left the rates unchanged...

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Firefox 2 rocks!

During market downdays, I always like to post nonsense.Firstly, it keeps my mind off my bleeding portfolio and all the red ants marching around my watchlist. On the other, it keeps me from doing silly things like1. Buy more (there's a time to buy bargains, but not now as the technicals don't suppot it)2. Sell existing stocks (don't, i mean don't buy high sell low)3. Sell existing stocks short and buy back at the end of the day (i have hit rate of...

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Pac andes results out

Pac andes results are finally out.Total revenue increased 48.9%, net profit attributable to shareholders increased 49.7% (including exceptional gain due to dilution of its interest in China fishery through share placement). Net profit excluding this exceptional gain increased by 38.1% (instead of 49.7%).Pretty impressive results. Musicwhiz did quite a brief analysis on the numbers and I posted the link below.They are going to do a rights issue,...

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Another boring day

Market is boring today.Like a headless chicken without the direction given by Dow, STI just trends sideways. It's towards market close that STI went up. Volume is very low, 1.9 million only. Most of the counters that I had dropped. Oh well, not everyday is Sunday.Sort of expected it. Most of the company had already announced their earnings (still waiting for Pac Andes though) and there's no news to push STI further. We're in Dow's hands now. If Dow rallied tonight, I think we might see some action, though I doubt it. This week is also a short...

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Chapter 2

Have a few minutes to do some reflection on chapter 2 of intelligent investor. Chapter 2 talks about the effects of inflation. Interestingly, last time I wasn't too concerned about inflation. I thought it was only an academic concept, as useless as newton's 1st law, so to speak. But as I grew older, the diminishing purchasing power of dollar becomes more apparent. Money is a relative concept; it's only worth as much as what you can buy.It's hard to measure inflation, but a good and conservative 'averaged' estimate of many years would be 3%. The...

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Average monthly performance of STI since 1985

Read an interesting article on business times online just now, thought of sharing it here.Above is the average performance of the different months of the year. In summary1. Best month = December (totally agree!)2. Next best month = January (again, totally agree!)3. Followed by October, then April and finally MayStatistics also showed that 6 out of 9 Mays were negative months, it's just the three Mays that returned positive are strong enough to bring...

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Reflections on the little book that beats the market (blue)

This is the second little book series which I've read. I previously read the green one on value investing. This blue one is also about investing, as opposed to trading. Quite interesting. The author uses very simple language that explains perfectly what does 'analysing' a company's value means. I'm not going to talk about that. Instead, I'm here to share what the book describes as a magic formula to beating the market (which I view sceptically)....

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TA charts for CSC, Yongnma and Lian Beng

I did a TA on the three construction stocks that I owned, CSC, Yongnam and Lian Beng and found a lot of similarities in them. All of them have ascending triangle formations, a bullish sign. That's another sign that construction play is going to be hot the next bull run, possibly in mid June (that also means I expect the correction to last till then).Firstly, what's ascending triangle? It's a bullish formation with a ascending support trendline and...

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DBS error trade - greatest joke in my trading life!!

No joke man, first time I know of water sprouts in Singapore! My parents sighted the water sprout over at our home at Tanah Merah too.It happened around 230 pm and lasted for around 15 minutes. Incredible! Too bad I missed the show.Back to STI. STI didn't do too badly. First of all, it broke out of the rising bear wedge on the downside, as expected. Here's the chart for STI. Quite a lot of interesting things happening today!Dow finally crumpled...

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Chapter 1

In chapter 1, Graham makes the distinction clear between an investor and a speculator/trader. An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis promises safety of principal and an adequate return. Anything which does not have these 3 elements are speculation.I realised that Graham keeps talking about the margin of safety principle, with regards to investments. I believe that it's very important to distinguish whether you are speculating/trading a stock or if you're investing in one. Neither have anything to do with the time period of...

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CSC reported 127.6% increase in net profit!

I was just talking about STI with any forum friend about the high possibility of STI falling since we're stuck in a bearish rising wedge formation, as posted in the last blog posting.Today we saw that happening. STI was well supported at 3510, exactly the lower trendline supported by the formation, with ever decreasing volume. I guess we'll be seeing STI rising next week again. This rise is not a good sign either because ultimately, the formation is a bearish sign. Take heed! STI closed at 3530, down 28 points.Exciting news!!1. CSC reported an...

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Rising bear wedge in STI

Oh my, what a big mistake i've made in the past!This pattern, which I formerly called the ascending triangle, is actually a bearish sign. In fact, it's called a rising wedge, a typical bearish reversal formation.I was discussing this with a forum friend when he told me this is called a rising wedge.A few conditions need to be fulfilled before it can become bearish.1. Decreasing volume as price go up and down inside the rising wedge. We do have decreasing...

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Lian Beng won S$14 million contracts in Maldives

A few news to share:1. Tiong woon acquired a crane leasing firm for S$6.6 million. Tiong woon itself deals with equipment leasing and supplying, so this should compliment its business expansion plans. I had a bad brush with Tiong woon before. Last year I bought it and sold at a loss because construction sector wasn't that fantastic. Sort of regret now. Oh well, I might look into this company again when my holdings are a little less tight.2. Yellow...

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Marina bay IR

Was introduced to this website where they posted pictures of the future Marina bay IR. WOW!Taken from: http://themarinabaysands.com.sg/Okay right, first impression is that it really looks like 3 ancestral tablets. I like the concept of the sky garden which forms a link connecting all the 3 towers. It really look big, quite impressive!I'm sort of looking forward to it. Heard that they are going to introduce brand names in the shopping area which...

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oh, more newzzzz

Again, a chokeful of news to digest.Pacific andes posted this announcement(it's too long, so join them all up without any breaks for the links)http://info.sgx.com/webcoranncatth.nsf/VwAttachments/Att_788CD487E4FAEF42482572E3003FB841/$file/Rights_IssueAIP.pdf?openelementIt's about the rights issue. They are going to issue rights (rights to purchase 1 new share for every share you have) at $0.52 per rights. It has received in principle approval from SGX, so I should be getting the offer soon. I heard from cna forum users that in right issue like...

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Reflections for intelligent investor

Just read the introduction of the Intelligent investor by benjamin graham.It pretty much says that the book is more about investing philosophies and mindset, rather than the exact details of how to select stocks. But I supposed in the clarification of the concepts, they would have to include some sort of examples to illustrate it, perhaps that's where I would have to read in between the lines to get out the gist of the stock selection based on Graham's method of value investing.The most important points that I get out of the introduction chapter...

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CSC won $240 million contracts for marina IR

Quite a lot of news reported today.First and most importantly, CSC finally released reports of its wholly owned subsidiary, L&M foundation specialist Pte Ltd, won a 240 million contract for the marina IR. The work is scheduled to commence in June 2007 and to be completed by Feb 2008. This means that at least a part of the contract sum will be reflected in this year's FY :)I liked the fact that foundational works are completed so soon. Fast in...

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Survey time

A short survey. C'mon, try it.Decision 1: Choose between:A. A sure gain of $240B. 25% chance to gain $1000Decision 2: Choose between:C. A sure loss of $750D. 75% chance to lose %1000I'll talk about it later in the posting, but make sure you chose it now :)-----------------------------------Reading through this book now.It's called clueless in banking and finance.It's a brief overview of the entire banking and finance industry, ranging from the purpose...

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Timing the market, or time in the market?

Been thinking a lot these days. On what? On the amount of money that I paid to the market (21.7k loss now!) and on my trading strategies and how it could have been better. For today's market, I just want to make some comments on CSC. I posted a few days ago that the huge buy ups over at CSC is something to look out for. Today too, there are very huge buy up - 10,000,000 buy ups at around 0.330. There are several 2 to 5 million buy ups too, way way...

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My book is here!

STI went up by 24 pts, after dow closed 3 digits up yst night (+103)Yst I was just thinking of selling CH offshore, but now, I think can make it already. Saw some reports saying their share shld be at least 0.72, based on their asset value per shares in the market. Anyway, DBS vickers have a target price of 0.66, while UOB KH have a tp of 0.85. I bought near historic high at 0.665 (why am I the last fool?!) so I'll wait. Probably won't add in, already...

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No charts today

Not really in a mood to write anything serious.Trying to get out of several stocks:1. CH offshore - immediate downtrend. Don't know why I bought it in the first place...2. Genting Int - beaten up from $1 to 0.925 yst, today rose a little up to 0.955. I believe can hold, but do i want to hold now?3. OCBC call warrants - medium to long term this is certainly undervalued. But the problem is can I hold for long? My warrants expire in end of july. I bought more yst to average down, something I don't do often nowadays. Hell, I don't even play warrants...

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Yongnam trading halt ; swiber excellent Q1 results

Yongnam declared trading halt today.This evening announcement points out that yongnam decided to 120 million new shares at 0.33 (a discount of 9% of today's closing of 0365).It's a mixed news, if I am to interpret it. From my experience, most shares that do share placement would experience a selldown. But some forum users mentioned that yongnam had a share placement in the past and it skyrocketed despite it. The share placement is used to generate...

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Volume trades analysis

I'm free now. Let's take a look at how volume helps us to decide if BB (big boys) are playing and accumulating a particular stock.This is the trades for CSC.----------------14:53:21 0.320 10,000 Buy Up 14:53:13 0.320 100,000 Buy Up 14:52:57 0.320 10,000 Buy Up 14:52:52 0.320 50,000 Buy Up 14:52:48 0.320 50,000 Buy Up 14:52:11 0.320 50,000 Buy Up 14:52:00 0.320 300,000 Buy Up 14:51:59 0.320 500,000 Buy Up 14:51:41 0.320 50,000 Buy Up 14:51:32 0.320 10,000 Buy Up 14:51:13 0.320 20,000 Buy Up 14:51:05 0.320 20,000 Buy Up 14:50:46 0.320 10,000 Buy...

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Sianz

Longcheer did something funny.After posted lousy results, the stock actually increased in price. Well, I take it as a good chance for me to dump this stock. I have not an ounce of regret selling it at 0.68 even though it closed at 0.695 today. FA poor stocks shouldn't have a place in my portfolio.OCBC even though it posted stellar results, actually closed down. Really what is happening. Somebody trying to reap huge rewards by acting contrary? Hmm...Today midsouth increased 0.030 to 0.78. But i didn't buy. I bought CH offshore though, on breakout....

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Lobangs

Some stocks recommendation:MidsouthThis one is from a forum friend. He said tmr is the results of midsouth. Today buyup action is quite good, not much volume and huge lots buyup.Horizontal support at 0.725Trendline resistance turned support near 0.725Intermediate resistance at 0.775Gap resistance ranging from 0.745 to 0.78...needs to overcome this in order to proceed furtherIt'll be nicer to see it retrace to 0.725, see it test the support then...

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Superb rebound by STI

A mix of good news and bad news.First the bad news. Longcheer reported 3Q results today. The heading reads "Longcheer holdings 9-month revenue rises 13% as handset sales volume soar 50%; 4Q FY2007 expected to better that of 3Q2007".Just reading the headlines seems good. In the past, I'll just settle on the headlines since I don't know how to interpret the financial results. But now, looking closer I realise a few key findings:1. Sales volume increased 46% in 3QFY20072. Total revenue till end of 9 months (who the hell calculates this?!) increased...

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Confirmation of yst's distribution

Another boring market day...just keep falling.Today marks the 2nd day of fall, confirming yesterday's distribution. If we are alert, we can always see the signs of market retracement long before others and get out safely. Yesterday's average volume, opening up high and closing negative is a sign already. Today is just the confirmation.Most shares fell. Not unexpected of course.Swiber made an annoucement that they won 21.3 US million offshore installation...

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First day of distribution

Today STI went up as high as 3520 before tumbling down to -8. HSI too. Volume is average and not low.This marks the first day of distribution. Could be profit taking or just the start of the retracement. Quite a lot of my counters are sold down, but unlike I'm not cutting most of them because now I really know what I'm holding.Those speculative ones with weak charts are the first to go off. I'm talking about Genting and longcheer. Yongnam and CSC are for medium term, so I won't look at it now. Swiber and straits asia are for longer term, with...

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Straits asia trading halt?!

Wow, can't monitor today, but STI cheong so much, again confirming the rally displayed over the last 3 days.Volume is still heavy though it's lighter, possibly because of the weekends. HSI overcome the resistance at 20,800 already, must be an exciting day!The counter that shocks me somewhat was straits asia. During lunchtime when I checked, the counter was trading like 1.15 or something. I was still wondering why it suddenly dropped so much when I realised that today is the XD date. They are giving off dividends and I didn't know!! I hope this...

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