Death of equities?

This is the shock I got when I opened up yahoo! finance this morning, like all morning.I've not seen such a precipitous drop in DJ or SP500 before! STI's fall yesterday seems like child's play when compared to the big brothers over at US. I think STI might fall 6% too, so it will be around 2200. Too bad I've got work, otherwise watch the historic moment unfold.When I came back home, I was rather shocked to learn that STI did not break 2200. In fact,...

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Brief overview of local banks

Is it time to buy local banks now? Someone wanted to invest a substantial amount of money into OCBC, so I thought I would do a little research to see whether it makes sense. I do not really know how to valuate banks and will not attempt to do so here. Rather, I'll just dig into the past number and let the reader do the rest of the legwork, if they are interested.My source for these information comes from Shares Investment book (340 issue) and the...

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China milk - tainted milk scandal

I read an interesting company update by DMG and partners regarding China milk. While I can't reproduce the entire report by cutting and pasting, I'll summarise the pertinent points here.What happenedThe whole story begins when recently, it was detected that the milk made in China have traces of melamine. A lot of babies in China, after taking in contaminated milk, had fallen ill and some had even died because of the toxicity. While most cases are...

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The sleeping dragon (and China map)

Below is the map of China. As my portfolio had quite a bit of exposure to China, I think I should put in a map of the different provinces of China for future references.These days, there are many reports by brokerage firms on S-shares. S-shares are Singapore listed China companies. As always, they have plenty of things to say about s-shares. With s-shares having superbly low PE below 10 (3 even!), there are reports saying some are value buys and...

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Book review - A Random Walk Down Wall Street

A Random Walk Down Wall Street, a book by Burton G.Malkiel, is one of those must-read books on investment/finance. I think there are 9 different editions of it and the first edition was out in 1973. I must say this book is really a good read as the author talks about a variety of topics. The author is bent towards indexing for the majority of people who do not like the hard work of picking stocks. It comes as a surprise for me too when I realized...

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It shall soon pass

It's been a while since I blogged because I am too busy with work to do anything. There's so much happening in the world today that I had barely enough time to catch up on the major developments unfolding right now. There is no shred of doubt that we're all sitting right in the middle of this action and we all have the honour to bear witness to this historical event happening right before our eyes. When all these are over, and when necessary heads...

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AIG portfolio

AIG's portfolio are listed below. Take note of MMP and FSL. Concerned investors might want to check what percentage of these holdings are to the total outstanding shares.Stocks-----------------------------------Shares (m)FIRST SHIP LEASE TRUST----------40.422STX PAN OCEAN----------------------37.241HO BEE INVESTMENT----------------0.72HOTEL PROPERTIES-----------------0.4238FIBRECHEM TECH-------------------2.062FERROCHINA LTD-------------------1.055JIUTIAN--------------------------------5.09MMP------------------------------------104.516RAFFLES...

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Perils of PE

For avid readers of my blog, you might have realised that I am undergoing a deconstruction process of my valuation techniques. Just yesterday, I was debunking my own way of using a bastardized version of DCF to calculate the intrinsic value. Mr.Investor could very well describe me.It's important to read about investing and it's also very important to practice it by valuating listed companies. Only then will the things read be transferred from the...

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The false security of 'intrinsic' value

I thought after playing with numbers for more than 9 months, I've got a little experience, however small, to talk about the perils of the calculation of intrinsic value. There are so many ways that we can evaluate the intrinsic value. In our need to place a certain number to our uncertain analysis, there could be a risk where the investor places too much confidence on what I call GIGO - Garbage In Garbage Out. However, armed with this magic number...

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Kingsmen Creatives

I promised Cheng I'll do a valuation of Kingsmen, so that he can compare with his method of using FCF as a basis for the numerical intrinsic value. I did not undertake a check on the figures he passed on the the spreadsheet, so all the figures are taken from it.A few things to point out:1. I do not know the business of Kingsmen Creatives as intimately as him, as such, I'm approaching it with the curiosity of a quant. I'm just interested to see how...

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How to make investment enjoyable

Durio asked me to write an article on how to make investing enjoyable. I thought that was a very good topic to explore, and what better time then to do it in a bear market like this? Have fun while working and you’ll never find yourself working again.My definition of investing in this article refers to a very general kind – any activities related to the stock market, which includes trading for short term. Why not try some of the activities suggested...

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HSBC weekly chart

Weekly chart for hsbc:Price is hovering around 118, which is at the bottom supporting trendline of the symmetrical triangle. Being a symmetrical triangle, I've no idea which side it will more likely tend towards, so no comments on that. I'm looking closely at the price breaking 118 level, which might bring the level down to support at 112. That is so close to my ideal price at 100 - 110 :)I'll wait patientl...

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Book review - Benjamin Graham on Value Investing by Janet Lowe

It's been quite a while since I did a book review. Having finished a big portion of what I wanted to read as I began my journey in fundamental analysis, I found that there are less and less things worthy of writing down. Most are pretty much the same, perhaps only the tone and the examples used are different. Once a while, I'll come across a gem worth blogging about and it is this book - Benjamin Graham on Value Investing - by Janet Lowe that I...

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