Surviving through lean times - Part 2

Having talked about how to cope with possible recessionary fallout by trimming expenses and boosting income in order to boost savings, here I'm going to share about how to prepare myself psychologically for it. I believe the psychology part of preparing for the recession could be much more important than just the material aspects. This is because the mind will cause us to feel about the same thing differently at different times. You know what I...

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Surviving through lean times - Part 1

Possibly facing my first recession since I started work 5-6 yrs ago, I think it's a good time to figure out how to tide over this rough period. Fail to plan, plan to fail, they say. I think I need to think about 2 aspects of coping with the possible recession - How to save more and how to cope with it psychologically. But for this post, I'll just focus more on the savings part. Maybe more on the psychology part at a more opportune time.How I'm going...

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Pantene Chrysalis

San introduced me to this short movie:It's really a short movie (4:03), and it's a million times better than most thai flicks i've seen, despite it's length. It's the blending of music and moving stills that creates such an emotive force within me that I get goose bumps every time I saw this. And I've watched it at least five times. There is really only one sound track in this short film, it's none other than Pachelbel's Canon in D. The movie blends in the touching parts of the film with the touching parts of the song, creating an emotive resonance...

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Superfriends meeting on 31st Oct 2008

For those who are regulars in my cbox, you would probably have known that on Friday, 31st October 2008, the Superfriends of Bullythebear will be having a dinner and dance party at Wood restaurant bar, Vivocity. Erm, dance is optional of course, but maybe we can all ask dream the golden buddha to do a little jiggle for us after a few glasses of wine. It's going to be held in a private function room at Woods, timing will be advised when it's nearer the event next week.I would like to confirm the attendees for the event. For those who had been invited,...

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Keep your style, fade your fashion

It's simply not fashionable to invest in debt-ridden companies now.Investment are like clothes. There are investments themes that come and go with the vicissitudes of fashion wear. From my short history of market experience, I already can see the different main fashion themes which are hot at different periods.In the bull market, there are many many themes. Sector rotation, I think that's what they call it. I used to pay attention to companies belonging...

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Be a valueskate, not cheapskate

With recession looming like dark clouds over our heads, I think it's a good idea to start a label for my opinions on personal finance. Is it surprising that I'll start on this topic? It shouldn't be, because investing is basically a philosophy that can best be summarized like this: Forgo immediate wants for future gains. I think this philosophy can be extended to the broader aspects of life, rather than just the myopic realm of investing only.I've...

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Opinion piece by Warren Buffett

With the STI coming down to 1880 and DJ showing no signs of breaking down from its fast and rapid decline southwards, there is plenty of fear in the market. Once, I had heard of people talking about stocks and shares..but now, the library is full of books on investing that nobody is interested to borrow and everyone is not looking at the share prices now. Is it the first sign of market bottoming? My support level for STI is still 1800, which I think is a pretty safe level to do something with your excess cash. Do not be like ferrochina who over...

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Erratum in Business Times report

This is slightly interesting.Lynette Khoo, BT, made a mistake in her report regarding corporate scandals rocking the s-shares locally. For those uninitiated, s-shares refers to China companies but listed in SGX. China milk announced in SGX about the error without explaining much or reassuring. I guess it's self explanatory. Here's the report:I've highlighted the parts that need to be corrected. The erratum is here:Not that it matters. In this kind...

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News from milk industry

Some news from the milk industry in china.News 1:BEIJING -- Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co. is considering an acquisition of the dairy company at the center of China's milk scandal, company officials said Monday.A spokesman for Wahaha, China's largest domestic beverage producer and a joint-venture partner of Groupe Danone SA, confirmed that chairman Zong Qinghou has said the company is interested in acquiring Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group Co.The scandal over...

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OCBC's valuation range

I learnt a little more about the person who wanted a stake in Ocbc. She wanted to pass it on to her future generations, so the time horizon can be stretched further than the 3-5 yrs that she had told me initially. As such, preference shares might not be the best option anymore. I'm looking more into OCBC because that's what she wanted.This is based on the data I posted on my earlier post.Based on historical data, the dividends per share (excluding...

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China PANTING & DYING holdings ltd

It's actually quite sickening to see the kind of s-shares listed in sgx. It's very inferior in quality, and by quality, I mean in terms of both exposure in PRC, business and corporate governance.The latest s-share that need to be shot got to be China Printing & Dyeing Holding Ltd. Their shares got halted yesterday, together with Ferrochina, so naturally there are talks about the solvency of the firm itself. It's not insolvent (maybe not yet), but their CEO and deputy CEO had been un-contactable since 7th Oct 2008 despite repeated attempts...

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Ferro Trouble

Ferrochina announced very grimly news. Due to the current economic crisis, they are unable to repay part of its working capital loans amounting to about RMB 706 mil, which had become due and payable. As a result, further loan facilities and notes of about RMB 2,030 mil may potentially become due and payable. Another sum of working capital loans of RMB 2,493 mil may also become due and payable.Ferro china is thus currently in active negotiations with its financial lenders to explore various options (including refinancing) to address its repayment...

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The changing landscape of financial markets

I thought this is a very good article about the changes that is happening to the financial markets around the world, post sub-prime and post credit crisis. If you've been living in a cave for the past 1 year, it all began with sub prime borrowers in US unable to pay off their housing loans. Then because of the way the lenders 'diversified' and spread their risks to other companies and other countries by selling instruments linked to such debts, all of these holders started to fall like dominoes. Banks also fear lending to each other, leading to...

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Origins of the Crash

I've finished the very readable book by Roger Lowenstein, titled "Origins of the Crash". There are many books that talked about crashes, but this book focuses more on the dot.com bubble, collapse of Enron, accounting scandal at Andersen and the telecommunications bubble, with the author linking the excesses of past markets to the downfall of future bubble.There are a few key take aways that I got from this book. Bubbles are caused by a series of...

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The floor's slippery - it's covered with thick, red liquid

Chicken Little starts screaming "It's the end of the world!"With STI falling 5.61% to reach 2,168 and DJ now hovering below 9800, dropping 5.12%, it's hard not to see otherwise. I didn't expect DJ to drop below 10k, which is an important psychological level for investors. Here's my views on STI:Support level 2100, 1800 then 160...

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Preference shares Part 1

After chatting with a few guys over at the cbox, I realized that a better instrument for the person who wanted to buy OCBC (see my post on “Brief overview of Local banks") will be the preference shares that is also offered by the three banks.Preference shares goes by the funny stock name with many letters in it. Here’s the list of all the listed preference shares by the three local banks.1. UOB 5.05% NCPS 1002. DBS Bk 6% NCPS 103. OCBC Bk 4.2% NCPS 1004. OCBC Bk 4.5% NCPS 1005. OCBC Bk 5.1% NCPS 1006. OCBC Cap 5.1% NCPS 1007. OCBC Cap 3.93% Pref...

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