Leap year

This day is a special day. For those whose age are multiples of 4 on this very day should know the significance of today. Today is the extra day that we added to February to correct the 365.25 days in a Earth year.Thirty days have September,April, June and November.All the rest have thirty-one,Except February the only oneWhich Leap Years changeeach fourth timeFrom twenty-eight to twenty-nine.Century 100s don’t always leap,each 400 years that leap we keepThe above poem actually describes which months of the year have 31 days and which have 30 days....

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Yongnam

Had this company for a while, but this is the first time I did a closer look at their financial statements. From the press release, it seems that Yongnam had a good result. A closer look should be able to see if this is really true.----------------------------------------------2006------------------2007--------Cost of goods (% to revenue)------------85.0%-----------------82.3%-------Gross margin------------------------------15.0%-----------------17.7%--------Net margins (include one off gains)---------3.5%------------------14.2%--------Net margins...

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Reply to Ossia's post

Yong said,I spotted a few errors in your analysis and inaccurate statements. Allow me to correct them one by one.1)"From hence on, there will be higher expenses from the rental of the building in which they sold and leased back. "Ans: This is not true at all. Ossia is the master lessee of the building now. They pay a fixed sum of money for the rent of the building to MI REIT. Should they sub let out the units in the building to other parties and collect cash in excess of what they are require to pay, they would have a profit. And Ossia has confirmed...

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Old Chang Kee

I saw a few interesting reports today, but I chose old chang kee :) Oh, before that, Swiber won some projects worth US$20 million in M'sia and Indonesia. Keep it coming, swiber!Okay, let's get down to Old chang kee. It's just out of sheer curiosity that I'm interested in their full year financial results. I liked their curry puffs in the past and I always see long queues of people buying their stuff, so naturally I'm interested to see if popular products equates to good business. Old Chang Kee (OCK) recently IPO.Revenue increased 20% from FY06...

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FJ benjamin

Since I did Ossia, I might as well do a little analysis on FJbenjamin too. This have a similar business to that of Ossia of retail. FJben sells watches, apparels and have a 30% stake in St.James power house too. Flipping their annual report for FY07, this is what I see:Turnover increases at a CAGR of 25.0% from 2003 to 2007Net earnings increases at a CAGR of 94.8% for the same period.---------------------2003-------2004-------2005-------2006---------2007---Operating margins---1%----------2%---------2%----------7%-----------8%----ROE (%)-------------2%----------3%---------6%----------11%---------11%---EPS...

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Ossia International Ltd

Today there's quite a number of companies posting results. A few are interesting, but let me just look a bit more in detail for Ossia international limited. They had just released their full year results for FY07, so there's more things to look at in comparison with FY06.Gross profit went from 50.9% in FY06 to 52.1% in FY07Sales went up by 9.8%COGS went up by 7.2% As sales went up, COGS went up by a proportionately lower amount, bringing gross profit up a little.I saw a 38.3% jump in operating income, which looks interesting. I tried searching...

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The strange mayfly episode

Today, I saw a cat sitting right in the middle of the pavilion near my home. It looked so carefree and serene, full of content. I thought how come a cat, with so little possessions, can have a life so carefree and possibly happy, at least at that particular moment in time. I wonder how come, humans having so much, can actually have so little.I knew my blog post tonight will be about this topic, so I suddenly thought of the Mayfly - an insect that...

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Singpost valuation exercise

Preliminary studies on the dividend that singpost gives and the current dividend yield looks good, hovering around 5% to 6% (based on average prices) since 2003. Take a good look at the ROE and EPS, classic signs of deep (earn a lot) and wide (hard to penetrate) economic moat, most likely due to its monopolistic status of its postal license, which ends in 2007. Looking at their annual report for 2003, I'm glad to see that Singpost had already prepared...

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Book review on "The Ultimate Dividend Playbook" by Josh Peters

Here are my thoughts for the book that I finished reading, titled "The Ultimate Dividend Playbook - Income, Insight and Independence for Today's investor" by Josh Peters. This is another excellent series from Morningstar group. I really really love their clarity and ample use of examples to illustrate the point. This is one of those books that I would love to keep. Probably will buy it, together with another of Morningstar's series, "The five rules for successful stock investing" by Pat Dorsey.Perhaps it's because I don't have much background...

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Bad experience from Nokia phones

I'm doing my part to educate everyone that they have a chance against the mighty Goliath company. I'm not against Nokia phones, though I used them twice only in my whole handphone career. To me, it was pretty stable (back then, without colours and funny stuff, every other phone is stable) and had pretty long battery life (again, without funny applications, every phone had to have a long battery life). I heard from a lot of users that Nokia phones are getting from bad to worse (out of maybe 50 students, only less than 10% uses Nokia). Guess which...

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Dupont analysis of ROE

One metric that I really find it helpful to analysis in detail is actually the ROE - returns on equities. The definition of ROE:ROE = Net earnings/total equitiesProblem with metrics such as these is that the definition can be tweaked accordingly to one's needs. Net earnings can be trailing (past 12 months) or forward looking. As such, it's important to make sure that the components that make up ROE is defined clearly, otherwise we might not be comparing...

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More on Aztech

Hi Stupidbear,This is in response to your posting on Aztech. I've previously did some research on Aztec before for fun. So I added 2007's result into my spreadsheet to analyse a little more closely. These are the few points I noticed:1. Turnover increases steadily, yes, but the net margins is rather low actually.2003--2.4%2004--4.2%2005--5.7%2006--8.4%2007--6.8%2006 is an exceptional year for aztech, so discounting the fact, the margin did grow at an admirable rate. But to me, the net margin this low suggests to me that the industry is quite competitive....

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The origin of duckula06

Wanted to do some analysis on Comfortdelgro...but nah...i'll take a break. Too tired.Had a great conversation with stupidbear this morning about pac andes. He forced me to think through some of my sloppy thinking. Well, at least now I got the theory just a little bit more accurate. The point is that if Pac andes ever reach 40 cts, it's a big bargain. I suppose that's what investors like mw and hh are trying to tell me - focus on valuation so as...

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Swiber LOI; Pac andes 3Q results

Quite a few news to announce:1. Swiber was awarded LOI for US$35 million project in offshore Indonesia. This latest LOI represents an extension of a contract awarded to Swiber in Nov 07 for a major international oil conglomerate based in Indonesia. Altogether, the 2 contracts is worth abot US$66 million in all.If I didn't remember wrongly, this is the first contract awarded since the start of year 2008. More to come pls! Price rebounded up to close at 2.120.2. Pac andes and china fishery posted results. Pac andes 3Q results is quite excellent.Revenue...

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Singpost...what's happening to you?

A few things that I noticed today:1. Singpost had a hefty volume of 26 million shares transacted, way above its normal average volume. Price-wise, it went up to an intraday high of 1.14 before closing at 1.120, up 0.050 (4.7%). The catalyst for the price to move up is the fact that they could be selling the HQ at paya lebar. This report from DBS vickers should shed some light on the possible effects of such a move.2. SPC is having wild swings in...

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Aztech really got a contract worth 250 million

Haha, don't play a fool with Aztech.They just announced that they had secured a contract for the procurement and supply of construction material. The contract is to be executed in 3 steps worth a total of about S$250 million over a period of 3 years. Haha, no joke man, Aztech is serious about this new stream of revenue and they already had a plan in mind. The first stage is worth S$23 million, to be executed in 6 mths time, with the next two stages valued at 92 and 138 million respectively upon confirmation that the buyer is satisfied with the...

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My journey so far

The more I read about fundamental analysis, the more I realised that there is more I need to cover. I wonder how long it takes to truly master it. Perhaps when I reached that level, I will realise that the essence of FA is very simple. But the journey to reach that simplicity and mastery is anything but.I was reading a wide variety of subjects that I think is useful for me in this journey. I read about Jack Welch's management in General Electric. I read about history - its crazy bullishness and the eventually crashed that followed, its prominent...

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One hundred years from now

One hundred years from nowOne hundred years from now Ben, David, Charlie and Warren will finally share,a chapter in financial textbooks that care, about stocks as part ownership of a business.One hundred years from now, Mr. Market will still call plays, up and down,and many enthused speculators will still smile, yell, cry, or frown.The three most important words in investing will remain true.The "Margin of Safety" you see, is the key, that makes this magic free.Then with this safety, we can grow wealthy.Above all else, America will stand strong...

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Career and EQ survey

Did 2 surveys that show your career personality and your EQ. Here's the site of those interested: http://quiz.ivillage.co.uk/uk_work/tests/career.htmI'll say it's a pretty accurate description of me.------------------------------You would be very happy in a career that utilised your level-headedness, and allowed you to work mainly on your own. You want a career that allows you to stimulate your senses and your mind, without having to be involved with lots of people. Some careers that would be perfect for you are: * Novelist * Photographer...

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Review on "Free cash flow and shareholder yield" by William Priest and Lindsay Mcclelland

I devoured "Free cash flow and shareholder yield" by William Priest and Lindsay Mcclelland in 2 days.To be honest, I'm very surprised at how much I 'eat' books these days. It's almost an addiction to learning new things. This book is very interesting, not because of the free cash flow and shareholder yield part, but because of the prediction it had made for US. It talks about the housing bubble, liquidity bubble and hedge fund...three problems that will cripple US economy in the near future. In other words, the two authors had predicted the subprime...

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Comments on Informatics and Aztech

Quite a number of companies are giving their reports today. I'll comment on a few which I found interesting:1. AztechTurnover 2007: S$268.31 million (up 12%)Gross profit margin: down 7.5%Net profit 2007: $18.18 million (down 9.3%)Net margins: down 1.6%From this 3 figures alone, we can see that Aztech faces rising COGS even though the turnover is increasing. They mentioned it's the twin effect of rising labour costs over at China and the appreciating RMB that causes the cost to spiral upwards. This eroded their gross margin from 50.11% to 46.33%...

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CAGR

Today I learnt much about CAGR.No, it's not a new brand of cigar. CAGR stands for compound annual growth rate. It's a nifty mathematical formula to calculate the rate at which an investment grows linearly in a given period.It all springs from the basic future value/present value equation:Future value = Present value x (1 + i)^(t)where i - interest rate compounded per per yearwhere t - time in yearsAppropriate adjustment can be made if the compounding period is less than a year. Just change the appropriate figure for the time.I saw CAGR all the...

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