CPL

Capitaland CPL

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50k challenge - repeated!

Yesterday, I've finally put in the last bit of money to top up my savings to 50k for the year. Somehow I've felt that this year differs greatly from the previous year. I've blogged about my feelings after I've achieved the 50k challenge, so I thought I should do it again now. Here's the few things that I find which differs from what I felt last year:

1. Achieving the 50k challenge doesn't give me as much satisfaction as before.

Somehow I felt that the satisfaction part is missing. Perhaps I've already done it before so the sense of achievement is no longer present. But I think most likely I find that my 50k challenge is no longer a challenge because I've been there done that. I've also set myself a greater target which I've blogged about here - 100k. I don't think I can do it by next year, but hopefully if all goes well, within the next 2-3 years. Crazy right, 100k? Well, if it's not crazy, it's not a challenge isn't it?

2. Reaching there isn't as hard as last year

I remembered last year that I had to struggle greatly to reach my monthly savings target. Since it's progressive, it means that as each month goes, it gets harder and harder to reach the target. It's quite stressful and I have to complain and whine about it to my ex-gf (present wife, haha!). However, this time round, I already had a very clear and realistic idea of what I can do and what I cannot do. I don't remember pushing myself too hard to reach my targets...it's more like drifting towards a general direction instead of swimming furiously there. I think this state of mind is a more sustainable one that the one I had last year. I should also mention that I had a lot a lot more fun this year than I had last year. I definitely spend more money this year and pampered myself a lot more. It's better to reach your target happy rather than limping through it in pain.

The climb to the summit this time round is a lot more enjoyable than the previous year

I think I'm having a glimpse of what it must have been like to be financial independence. I can work when I want to now instead of working to make a living. It's a kind of joy and 'lightness' in the heart that is hard to describe. I think I'll take a break for a week or so until I'm bored, then I'll start lightly to earn some income to spend for the next two months. You know what? The best thing about the 50k challenge is that I do not have to save any amount after I achieved that target. If I earn $100, I can spend that $100 freely without worry. Sorry if this sounds weird, but I usually don't have this luxury at all.



Having gone the offensive to work and save 50k, it's time to defend the 50k from being used up by daily expenses. I will try my very best not to use it at all except for the purpose for which it is meant for (i.e. marriage which also includes a honeymoon, housing and flat). As long as I work a few hours per week, it shouldn't be too much of a problem to cover some fixed expenses and a little more for my own spending. But I think I deserve a break and I'll worry about it one or two weeks later. Or until I'm bored, whichever comes first :)

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My 2 new credit cards

As I opened my mail box together, I was pleasantly surprised to see two thick packages sent to me. As suspected, there are the 2 credit cards from Citibank that is mailed to me when some very persistent salesmen tried persuading me to sign up for credit cards. Since that guy is so sincere and very helpful, I decided to give him the commission by applying (I heard that they will get something by sending in an application form, regardless of whether it is approved or not) for 2 cards, knowing fully that the applications will be rejected.



Hence, when I received the cards, I was quite surprised. To those readers who have been following my posts, my only credit card is the POSB everyday card. Somehow, after been rejected from various banks, I got that POSB card application accepted, then followed by another strings of rejection. Until today that is.



One of the cards is the dividend card. I read through the brochures that there's some cashback given in the form of cheques when you accumulated enough. Something like that. This makes it quite similar to my POSB everyday card except that for the POSB card, you don't have to wait for the rebate to be sent to you since it's already 'stored' inside the card and you can use it to offset your bills anytime.

This is the dividend card. I can't find the Joy x10 card, so I assumed it to be newly launched

The other seems to be a new card by Citibank, called the Rewards card Joy x10 or something. It's those cards where they don't give you cash rebate but rather points. The difference is that this card gives you 10 points for every $1 spent, hence the moniker "Joy x10" I think. I think we can broadly classify credit cards goodies by two groups - one accumulates points in exchange for vouchers or gifts. The other gives you cash rebates, so that if you spend say $100, they will give you 50 cts back in cash. You can use the cash for anything you want.



Which one do I prefer? The cash rebate of course. With the cash, you don't have to be tied up by their reward program and you can use it anyhow you like, so cash is definitely better than rewards point. I'm very happy to keep using my first 'love' POSB everyday card because it serves my needs pretty adequately. I guess I'll just be using the Citi cards when it gives me discounts off my dinning bills, which is one of the good advantages of using credit cards. If you're like me who had problems getting even one tiny card no matter hard you try, you'll appreciate the discounts a little more. However, I'm actually more happy that the institutions are seeing me as more credit worthy now than before, which is always a good thing.



Will I spend more now that I've three cards under my name? Nah, don't think that's very likely. I'll probably save more by having more discounts, haha!

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My first IPO - After Action Report

Despite being in the market for like 4-5 years, I've never played any IPO before. I used the word 'play' because since all IPOs are described in the prospectus as the best company ever listed, and there are no history of any price to do any TA, the only way to make a buck is to punt and to speculate. I applied for the Global Logistic Prop Limited (known as GLP) and got myself 1 lot. Actually it's half a lot because I shared with my father, who don't have any account with CDP, hence he can't apply it.



The IPO price was top of the range at $1.96 per share, but there's a pedigree name behind it - GIC. Since Ah gong is giving us money in the market, I say we take it. I believe many others are thinking along the same line too, so just whack and see how many lots we'll get. At least for GLP, the retail tranche is much bigger than MIT, so for those who applied, most will get at least 1 lot. Nothing much but better than nothing. On the other hand, I've not heard of anyone who got MIT. I applied for around 30 lots but got back nothing.



I eventually sold it at 2.17 very early in the morning, about a few minutes after 9am. I had studied the past IPO performance and decided before debut trading that this is unlike the pennies IPO (around 20cts to 40 cts range). Those have around 20-30% gains on the first day before sliding down. GLP should be around the performance level of Tiger airways (IPO price 1.50, highest of the debut trading is 1.60), which is around 6-7%. Taking 7% of the IPO price of GLP, I get around 2.10, so that's my target price.

Price of GLP for the last 5 days

I woke up early in the morning at 830am to prepare myself to sell it off and was surprised to see that there are many married deals (marked with x next to the transactions) even before market opens. The married deals are around the range of 2.10 to 2.15 so I knew it must be a hot IPO. Since the opening price is already above my target price, I just queued at the next bid at 2.17. Within seconds, I got my order filled and I'm out of the game.



All in all, it was quite an interesting experience since I've never had an IPO before. I got 9.19% after all commission charges and application fee and taken into account, which is not a bad deal even though I got only $90 out of it (half of which is shared by my father). The price can continue to go up, but it doesn't affect me because I'm happy to exit at a price higher than my target price. This kind of punting game wouldn't make me richer nor poorer, so it's best not to think too much about it.



I think I've enough of IPO for now, since I didn't get any MIT. There are a few more IPOs coming up, and no doubt they will be hot. But I don't think I'll subscribe to them. Let others take the thrill. Interesting, there's no seller's remorse nor buyer's 'high' after this IPO. It's just slightly irritating because I've to wake up earlier than normal to watch prices tick on the market so that I can sell. I think I've changed a lot since I started this stock market thingy.

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Quit whining and start going

The wedding is seriously stressing me up. There's so many things to be done and suddenly I felt that I was the only one handling things. I wasn't the one who wanted to have it and now it feels that I'm being pushed to do the bulk of the adminstration and left to pay the bills too. It's a show that I am forced to do and nobody seems to enjoy it. Still, I must step up to the challenge and soon it'll be just another notch in my belt.



In view of the stress building up, I started doing my "things to do" list, broken up into different priorities and mentally dividing them into things that I can control and things that I cannot control. I realised that the most frustrating ones are those items in my checklist that I cannot control and have to wait for others to catch up with me. This is something that I realised about myself - I don't like to wait for people to catch up and I like to determine the direction and pace of things. As such, being a lone ranger will be easiest for me and least stressful while being a team player I will have to play the role of leader or the leader will have to move faster than I can do. I think this is an important realisation for me because I'm so used to doing things my way, so I definitely need to learn how to relax and let things flow their way.

Drink some wine and whine, then have a hangover and cry

I think the ups and downs of the stock market made me more 'zen', in the sense that I can just snap my fingers and get on to business (okay, not as easy as I make it to be, but it's much better than say, 5 years ago). Very good training ground for stress management and basically training to divorce yourself from emotions.



I also realised that complaining gives a limited release from the pressure. It's like treating the symptoms of the illness but not really the problem that causes the symptoms. The better thing to do is to treat the cause of the problem and remove that source, and that's what my "to-do" list is for. You can whine and whine and people will understanding and say good things to you to make you feel better, but at the end of the day, you still have to pick up the pieces yourself. So I say save the energy to complain and get to the business straight. About the only use of complaining is to release that pressure lid slightly so that the stress buildup will not cause an explosion within you.

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3 steps to success

As my work load lessens, I suddenly have the time to think about the crazy busy period that had just passed. 'Suddenly' because all the non-milestone exams (those not in A'lvls, not in O'lvls) finish on the same week, so I ended up having a lot of free time which I need to get used to. It was very liberating to end my workday with still so much daylight left.



I started to think about the differences between the better students and the not so good students. It's been a perennial problem for me to analyse each batch of students, hopefully to derive and distill some qualities about them that I can inculcate to myself and to others. I think the same qualities apply to success in general, rather than just academic success. Gf and I analysed it broke it down to just 3 steps:

1. Reading

Reading gives you brain nutrients, just like eating food gives you body nutrients. (Hmm, how about soul nutrients?) It's been my constant complaint that young people don't read these day. As a consequence of not reading, you find that the only source of information they get will be from things from internet (talking about the facebook and youtube variety) and perhaps TV. Without this habit of reading, it's hard to improve yourself beyond the beta version of the worldview that you had when you left formal schooling. If I have a kid, I'll definitely try to put in this habit because I think it's a very good determinant of success, especially so in formal schooling years. You'll be surprised that most students do not even read their textbooks, preferring to have someone to tell them the information (like me) or just ask someone. Silly isn't it?



I think reading will give you different sorts of mental models to apply to problems. Each 'subject' like maths, psychology, economics, philosophy, science, accountings...all gives different ways of thinking about things. Recently, I found that fiction is very very satisfying too and I had been neglecting that for years (I never read fiction again after secondary school).

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I came back and re-write this part because to make it more general, the first step is more of a learning attitude than just reading more. You can learn more by talking to people, reading about it from books or from internet as well.

2. Reflection

By reflection, I mean to think about events or information that bombards us everyday. In terms of education, it's to think about the worksheet you had just done and see why you got it wrong and if there are are places to improve on the answers. I remembered that I used to do a problem twice in different ways just to see which method is more efficient (it's a geeky sort of amusement for me as well). For example, there is a geometry rule that angle in a semi-circle will form a right angle triangle. When I read about it, I refused to believe it. So, I really drew many circles and started proving to myself, empirically though, that each of these rules are true. It was years later on when I realised that the knowledge that you had isn't yours until you had to fight for it.

I don't believe that it's really true, until I proved it to myself

I find that the reading good books makes reflection easier. If the information in the book leads to easy understanding, it leads to easy absorption and assimilation. Thereafter, it's easier to link up previous ideas that you have inside you to build up the connections between your mental models.

3. Action

Thinking and not doing will not lead to anything. There's a very interesting discussion in the cbox about the book title - Think and Grow rich. Of course thinking alone will not lead one to becoming richer, and most people would stop at the thinking phase. Getting down to do it is actually the last step.


Three simple steps to success, but it's not easy to do it at all. The steps can be re-iterated to get the desired results, like 1 and 2 can be looped until a desired solution is formed, or 2 and 3 can be looped until the desired results is produced, but you can't skip any of it.

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Lending of scrips deposited in CDP

I'm once again interested in lending my scrips deposited in CDP (central depository) to earn some interest. I checked the borrowing rates, it's 6%. The lending rate is however lower at 4%. I suppose CDP will take the cut for being the middleman. I'm interested partly because I read that there are new rulings by the new chief at SGX regarding borrowing/lending of scrips, but I didn't read too closely. Something like making it easier for retailers to borrow scrips for shorting. Currently there are like 600+ stocks you can borrow for the the purpose of shorting.



After doing some casual research, I realized why I didn't sign up the last time when I was interested. You can only lend out eligible securities in the stocks held by CDP. Eligible securities is defined as securities:

a) where price is less than S$1, fifty thousand (50,000) or more units; and

b) Where price is S$1 or more, S$50,000 divided by price rounded up to the next units.

In any one of the Securities found in Appendix A of this circular.


That's quite a lot to begin with. I looked though my holdings and I don't seem to have so many lots of the same counter, so I dropped the idea. But for anyone of you who had a lot of scrips stored in the CDP, you can make them work a little harder by lending it out to anyone who wants to borrow it at a rate of 4% per year.

Looks as easy as that. Click a few buttons and get money sent to you

The fees for the lending of scrips can be calculated by the following formula:

Lending Fee = Rate % x Loan Value x Days / 365

Where Rate % = Prevailing lending rate
Loan Value = No. of shares x share closing price at end of each day
Days = Loan duration



I'll quote an example given by CDP for the purpose of illustrating the application of the formula. I certainly have no use for it now, but in the future, who knows? I'll just put it here for my future reference.


  
If the loaned securities are 10,000 XYZ shares and the lending rate is 4%:


Start date of Loan : 1/10/2001 (Effective date)

Return date of Loan : 4/10/2001 (Expiry date)



Closing price on 1/10/2001 = S$10.00 Market Value of Loaned Securities = 10,000 x S$10.00 = S$100,000

Closing price on 2/10/2001 = S$10.20 Market Value of Loaned Securities = 10,000 x S$10.20 = S$102,000

Closing price on 3/10/2001 = S$10.40 Market Value of Loaned Securities = 10,000 x S$10.40 = S$104,000



Daily fee computation
 
Fee accrued on 1/10/2001 = 4% x S$100,000/365 = S$10.96

Fee accrued on 2/10/2001 = 4% x S$102,000/365 = S$11.18

Fee accrued on 3/10/2001 = 4% x S$104,000/365 = S$11.40


Lending fee = S$10.96 + S$11.18 + S$11.40 = S$33.54

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Warning bells are ringing?

With STI coming to 3200, I can almost hear the silent (and maybe not so silent) cheering for the market by people in the forums or in this cbox. With the number of unique users in the blog climbing up steadily, it meant only one thing - that we're back in the bullish period again. Have people started selling their mothers and mothers-in-law to get a bigger stake to play the game? I think not, but perhaps we'll see it coming soon.



One of the most obvious signs of market overheating is when newspaper start reporting, with bullish tones no doubt, that market had reached yet another high. This is precisely the warning bells that one must be aware of when staking your money in the stock market. Call me a perm bear if you will, but I would rather be cautious when others are so fearlessly chasing the oh-so-high prices. I don't know how people can whack the recently launched Yamada Green resources to make it reach above 60+% on debut, above IPO price. I've not seen such things for a very long time since I'm in the market. The last I saw such things, I was a newbie chasing after high prices and being the last one to leave the party, holding the hot potato.

What are some of the warning signs:



1. Newspaper reporting people with no knowledge or skills, perhaps students, playing the market and earning thousands in a day. Some might go as far as thinking of quitting their jobs to go full time because it's such easy money. When the majority are making money in the market, it's really time to leave the party.


2. You'll see many IPOs rushing to launch itself. Companies are not stupid - why sell equities when the times are bad and they can't get good money for them? Government related companies might try their luck too. Singtel IPO was just before the dot com bust, if you remember.


3. You go to public area and see people reading books on market. Esp trading books, because it's perceived to be easier than investing fundamentally. In truth, it's not, and it requires just as much hard work as investing. I remember watching a couple at mac discussing what stocks to buy for the coming week, the table full of charts and figures.


4. You see champions talking on TV and forums, well, like champions. The moment they remove fear out of their discussion, as if the market will continue this way forever, full of confidence because all their recent picks are all winners - ah...we had better slowly exit before the mad rush out of the party begins.


5. Analyst started using PE ratios instead of PB or NAV in their reports. I started an article on this way back  when I noticed the terminologies used in reports vary according to times. They must have something to write, so the emphasis to sell their point will vary according to the times.




I'm a net seller these few months, taking out more money than putting them into the market. If the market allows me to remove stuck positions, I'll gladly and gratefully do so with no remorse. In the meantime, I'll be very careful before adding new positions. Based on bro8888's latest article on the different types of animal, I think I'm a cross between a bo chup bull and a bearish bull wanting to be a bullish bear. Yea, I'm complicated.

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Up and coming IPOs

As market marches upwards, we'll see IPO in fashion again. What's scary is that my parents asked me about it too, as they mentioned that their money in the bank is idling, so they might as well make some use of it. If my non-investing parents are saying this, there must be others who are eager to do it too. Ignoring my tingling spidey sense for now, let's see if it's worth a shot at it. I'm not interested in the fundamentals of it, but as the IPO suggests, It's Probably Overpriced. It's definitely not for keeps too. Trading? That's not enough data to do anything from it, so let's analyse it from statistical point of view.



No companies worth its salt would want to do an IPO when times are bearish, because their shares would be sold at a lower valuation than in a more bullish environment. The fact that we're seeing the gahmen selling off their stake in the upcoming IPOs must be indicative of bullish times. Whether that party would end soon, I don't know, but since I'm already at the party, might as well take some calculated bet. I did a post on IPO before, it's found here. In it, I stated that the chances of doing a quickie (defined as selling on first day of trading) is quite high. Let's add three more data points:

As can be seen, the most recent IPO samples that we had did very well on their first trading day before crashing down. This can be seen on their charts. The 4th one on the lower right is TTJ, IPO price 0.200, trading on 1st April 2010.

Taking the first day data, I calculated the gains made by making an assumption - the selling price is made at the lowest price of the first trading day:


Leader Env - 7.1% gains
Consciencefood - 31.8% gains
Yamada green - 61.4% gains
TTJ - 5% loss


It seems like the chances of making a loss is quite slim.  However, since all the trading price of the IPOs mentioned are around the range of 20 cts, but the upcoming IPOs are not in the penny realm, perhaps the gains would more muted.



Not a lot of shares are out there for GLP, so I think it'll be a catch 22 situation. If you get it it's no good, if you don't get it, it's good. The IPO closes on 14th Oct, 2010 at 10am and begin trading on Monday 18th Oct. If you're interested, you can go to ATM to apply or better yet, do it at the comfort of your own home using internet banking. Just go to the DBS/POSB account, log in and look for investment services on the left column. Then go to electronic security application (ESA) and click yes on the questions at the bottom of the screen. Follow the rest of the instructions and you'll see GLP, priced at 1.96.


Good luck!

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Personal quick reference:

GLP : Deadline for IPO application 14th Oct 2010, listing date 18th Oct
MI :Deadline for IPO application 18th Oct 2010, listing date 21st Oct

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How to kick start your savings plan?

Quite a number of people asked me how I managed to save in such disciplined manner. The equation of saving never changes: Savings = Income - Expenses. You can either increase your income, decrease your expenses or do both at the same time. I prefer the first method of increasing your income, because seriously how much can you cut from your expenses? There will be a limit to the numbers of needs that you can convince yourself to change to a want, and the flow of life will just increase your expenses especially once you have a family. As mentioned in a previous post, I estimated that you need roughly $2,650 expenses to have a comfortable life. Let's say you don't intend to have such a comfortable life and cut it down to $1,500. If you're earning 2k per month, I'll still say it's hard to save a lot by cutting expenses. The better way is still to see how you can increase your income instead.



But the purpose of the post here is not to give ways on how you can increase your income. Everyone's talents and strengths (and chances) are different, so you got to be self-aware of what you can do. If you're good in sports, maybe can you teach swimming on weekends to earn some extra bit. If you have excellent skills in bakery, perhaps you can sell some to neighbors and take orders during festivals. The point is that there's always something you can do if you put your mind to it. The best way is to monetize things that you do habitually into an income stream. You think about it.



I believe that if you do not know where you stand now, it's hard to set a suitable goal forward. I feel very uneasy when I asked these few questions to myself:

1. How much do I spend on food per month?

2. Out of the food expenses, how much did I spend it on restaurants?

3. How much do I spend on transportation?

4. Out of the transportation expenses, how much did I use it on cabs?

And questions like that. It makes me uneasy because from the money that I earned, I have no idea where it went to. I lead a very blurry life between 2003 to 2007 because I have no idea where my income goes to. At the end of the month, it seems like the money I get 'disappears' and I looked forward to the next paycheck. When I do have a sum of money, I will feel rich and buy myself something expensive to reward myself for the work well done. This goes on for years and despite working hard, I've nothing to show for in my bank account.



I felt increasingly uneasy until I finally took action to remedy it. The very first thing I did is to sort out how much money and assets that I have right now. In other words, I need to find out my net worth - how much assets I have and how much debts I owe. Since I do not have any debts at that time, it's just a matter of adding up the amount that I have in all my bank accounts, money in the money market fund, net value of my stock investments, cash surrender values of my whole life plans and CPF. I put it in an excel spreadsheet to see the changes from month to month so that I know to a great amount of accuracy (it's not 100% for sure, there will be some 'losses' but that's okay) where my money is sitting at the end of every month.



After doing up my net worth, I proceeded on to the monumental task of constructing my cash flow statement. In my line of work, my booked earnings is divorced from the cash that I actually get per month. This means that on one spreadsheet, I've to record down how much work I did on that month and on another spreadsheet, I've to record the actual amount of cash that I received. I also started recording my expenses to have an idea of how much I spend. I'm detailed in my recordings, because I would put in the amount that I spend and the categorized item (e.g. food, transport, parents, insurance etc) with a short comment. So if I spent $50 at Tony Roma's restaurant alone, I would put it under 'Food' catergory, with the comment "Tony Roma - alone". This is to track my expenses so that I know how much I spend on what at the end of each month.

 
Now isn't that very similar to companies too, where they have their earned revenues and cash flow statements? I thought it's the very same thing and started thinking of myself as a company and I'm the CEO of myself. I started doing this networth, cashflow, income statements after reading intensively about financial accounting to jumpstart my interest on investing as opposed to trading. 



Once all my 3 personal statements are up, I really sat down and started analyzing what went wrong with this 'company'. Why is it that I can make an income every month but at the end of 4 years, I've nothing much to show in my bank accounts? Now here is where the expenses can come in very handily. I think by looking at the cold hard facts of your expenses per month, you can see where all the leakages are in all its glory details. Perhaps you've been spending too much on drinks, perhaps you've been buying too many clothes, perhaps you've been ebaying too much. This fact finding exercise will remove all traces of faulty mental accounting that we will do all the time. Oh, I got a bonus this month so it's okay if I spend it on this plasma tv. Oh, I got some trading profits, it's enough to offset some losses I had and the change can be used to buy a new gadget. Some mentioned that this detailed tracking is too much for them...well, I would say it depends on how much and how desperate you want to know. I did a very detailed account of close to 6 months before doing a less detailed one from now onwards because I already know my spending pattern. The interesting thing is that initially I wanted to do it for only 3 months to have an idea but eventually it became such a habit that I extended the 'trial' for almost 2 years now.



I think after the fact finding exercises to determine where you stand currently, a plan to remedy it should already be materializing in your mind now. If you have the discipline to write down your all your expenses for 3 months and above, carrying out the plan to change your spending pattern should be a walk in the park. I think most people would give up on the expenditure recording part.



I came to the realization that I am not spending a lot of money on myself, and most of my expenditures are actually on three things - food, transportation and parents. Hence to limit my expenditures would be foolhardy, because there is a limit to how much I can cut. The only way forward to improve the financial health of me as the company, is to increase my topline - my earnings. I also realised that I can afford the little things here and there to reward myself (as I've always suspected, I'm a very horrible slavedriver to myself). I can well afford it and I should do it so that I can stay longer in this game. Having a very concrete understanding of my financial circumstances, I also made a few plans to have a merger & acquisition exercise towards the end of this month, an acquisition on property towards middle of next year and perhaps spinoff a new company (or two) in about 2 years time. All these need huge capital expenses and being a private company, I can't sell shares to the public at all. So what do I have to do?



The plan is easy enough though the execution is not at all. Just bloody save 50k per year for 2-3 yrs. There you have it - the method (work and save), the motivation (preparation of life's milestones) and the killer (me).


To summarise this very lengthy post:

1. Have an idea on where you stand financially at this moment

- Do up your net worth and cash flow, including the expenditure statements

2. Analyze your statements

- See where the leaks are and how to remedy them

3. Set progressive goals 

- Set action plans on how to reach these goals

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The little things

In my job, I can get to see really wonderful scenes of nature unfolding as I walk along the streets. The world is my office and the flowers, the trees and the living things are my colleagues. Recently, I've been taking out my mp3 player in my bag and started listening to it while walking alone to work. Being alone and being lonely are really two different things. You can be alone but never feel lonely, or you can be surrounded by people yet lonely. I think loneliness is a state of mind.



Anyway, equipped with my multi purpose handphone, I get the urge occasionally to take some really breath taking sunsets. This particular one takes place while I was walking along to another workplace around evening time. You can always tell that you'll have a beautiful sunset by looking at the orangey glow (if it happens) around that time. If the cloud cover and the angle that that the last rays of the sun is just right, the whole sky will be flooded by an orange glow which is perfect for taking pictures. Here's a few that I took quite a while ago:

The cloud looks like the temple of ancient Greeks, with the three pillars supporting the roof. Hey, looks like MBS??

After a few minutes of walking, the great drama of the sky plays out further

Breath-taking isn't it?

The pictures are breath-taking enough even with my sucky handphone camera, so can you imagine the real scene unfolding in front of me? This is really one of the things that I liked about my job. My gf always say that I'm simple minded and is easily amused/contented by little things. I agree. If we strip away the nonsense that surrounds our life, the little things are all that matters isn't it?



Did I tell you about the activity that I will do after a rainy day, especially at night? I learned of this from my very kind hearted gf, who will pick up snails that happen to stray away from their grassy territory into the man-made pavements. There are many people walking on the pavements and occasionally you'll see a crushed snail whose life is snuffed out by a big giant foot. I wonder why nature made snails with shells that are so easily crushed...it doesn't serve them any better by sailing along so slowly either. Imagine you are walking along the streets, ambling gently perhaps window shopping, then a huge feet just came from nowhere and crushes you to death. Quick death no doubt, but such a wanton waste of life.... As such, I will do my part to pick up snails that happen to be in the pavements. Pluck them out of the pavements, and teleport them to their intended direction (I hope) towards a grassy patch. They will be all frightened and retreat into their backpacked home but at least they will be safe.



What's the purpose of this blog post? Nothing, haha :) In a rare rojak of events that happened, I am not working on a Sunday so I can afford some luxury thinking about the little things that happened in my life. If you see someone picking up snails after a rainy day at night, it could well be me.

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SIA bonds oversubscribed

Sfry, a regular at the cbox, put up a link on the enthusiastic subscription of the recently launched SIA bonds. The bond carries a coupon of 2.15% pa and matures over 5 yrs. To subscribe for it, you need to have a minimum of $10,000 though you can buy off the market (it starts trading on 1st Oct 2010) at around $1k, depending on the price.



I'm just wondering why there are so many subscribers to this. I think one of the main reason is that people are getting the super lousy returns from savings deposits of 0.125%, so this SIA bond of 2.15% seems like heaven sent. Retail investors must be very frustrated with the measly returns they get from the banks, given the low interest rate environment. Recently I was also shocked to learn that the fixed deposit rates for a particular bank gives the same returns for 5k to 1mil if you compare the same periods of lock-up. I thought that the more you put it the better the returns? Apparently not anymore.


I believe that there are so many equally stable alternatives to the rather undesirable SIA bond (to me, at least), but the difference lies in the liquidity of that particular alternative (or the lock up period, so to speak):

1. CPF

Bro8888 mentioned in one of his post that his colleagues asked him if this is a good idea to invest their monies in. He mentioned that by putting it in the risk free SA account, you can get 4% already, so what's the big deal right? The bad thing is that by putting extra money into the CPF, you can put in but you can't take it out, so careful planning have to be done. This is definitely not for people who needed to use the money in the short term because the only time you can withdraw the money is when you touched the withdrawal age, which is increasing all the time. CPF is also subjected to 'government risk', so changes in the policy regarding CPF will affect all CPF members.

2. Preference shares

If you take a look at just those preference shares alone in Singapore, there are quite a few gems that offer greater returns than the SIA bonds.

Disclaimer: Do read up more on the preference shares, their yield may not be what is displayed on the name

Again, with higher returns comes greater market volatility in terms of price. I remembered seeing the price of these preferred shares plummeting in the deepest of the crisis. Just take a look at the historical charts of these preference shares and you can see it. Personally I didn't see it as something bad, unless you happen to want to cash out during the deepest crisis. I see it as a chance to get more below the par value, so when they start redeeming your bonds at par value, you not only get the coupon payment throughout the holding period but also book a good capital gains. But do buy those from companies you can trust. The capital guarantee upon maturity is only as good as the standing status of the companies.



Take a look at the OCC 3.93% NCPS 10, trading at 94.60, it's quite a good one compared to SIA bond. First of all OCC stands for OCBC...Singapore banks, so I think it's as safe as SIA, if not safer. 3.93% yield is on the par value of 100, since the price now is 94.60, you'll actually get a yield of 4.15%. NCPS stands for non-convertible (or cumulative) preference shares, meaning that you can't exchange it for ordinary OCBC shares nor can the payments be accrued to the next payment date should they decide not to payout on this payment date. The payments are not guaranteed, unlike the bonds, but it's almost as good as a guarantee. You can read more about the details here. Do read more about it, because I know that some preference shares change their yield after a certain date, so it might not be the 3.93% coupon rate displayed on the name of the counter.



Most of the other preference shares are trading at 5-6% yield, even after taking into account their price which is trading at higher than par value. Can really take a look at these alternatives seriously.


These are the few alternatives that I can think of. Of course there are other investments that gives dividend yield much greater than the 2+% given by SIA bond, but those are different classes of assets with different risk altogether. I would gladly wait for more bonds to be traded on SGX to see if there are better investment ideas now that SIA started the ball rolling. Price matters a lot in all cases because buying even the most riskiest product at a super cheap price can turn out to be a profitable and not-so-risky experience. I would wait for SIA bond to go around 0.70+ to get a 3%+ yield before entering. Don't laugh at me, it just might happen within the next 5 years .

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How much do you need to have a family & live comfortably?

I was just wondering how much a typically Singaporean needs to earn in order to survive comfortably. The government is asking us not to be perfect and to have a family life (which includes 2 kids) as soon as possible. I am wondering how it is even possible to have all these without the necessary thought to the financial expenses involved. How much does a Singaporean need without kids?



Let's run through some of the expenses involved:


1. Housing - $750
2. Insurance - $500
3. Parents - $500
4. Food - $500
5. Transport - $200
6. Entertainment - $200


Total : $2,650

Riddle: How many kids do you see in the pic above?  Answer: two

 

That amount of money is based on a typical single with housing (4-5 rm resale), with no cars and no kids. Let's just round it up to $3,000. I've no idea how much you need to raise a kid, but my guess is that at different levels, different sums of money will be needed. Initially you'll need cans of milk powder and diapers, then you'll progress to toys, books, clothes and shoes, then it'll be tuition fees, school fees and enrichment fees and so on. I don't even know how to begin calculating.



But I think a safe guide will be at least twice the amount of money calculated i.e. $6k for household income. I think with $6k as a household income, it'll be a life where you can afford to spend a little now and then, but on big purchases, you'll still have to deliberate and think if your year end bonuses allow for it. The occasional trip overseas will be to nearby SEA countries (think thailand, M'sia, Indonesia) instead of lofty places like Europe, Australia or USA.



What about retirement? With 6k combined income, I think there's not much left for retirement in the CPF account. I think most would have to be spent on education for kids, as well as for the mortgage payment for housing loans. Is a car possible? Maybe...a small family car, nothing luxurious, nothing fanciful, but it'll be extra load to the family. Better make sure both are gainfully employed because if anyone got retrenched, then the hardship will be felt immediately. I doubt there'll be much savings that can be made based on a 6k household income.



Since both parents have to work, then a domestic helper is necessary. Supposedly there's no family support to help out on the caring part, then a maid have to come into the picture, which will add in an extra few hundreds to the expenses per month. No choice I guess, unless either the husband or wife is a high income earner who can earn more than the combined total of the household, perhaps like 8k or 10k, then one of them can stay at home to take care of the family. Then again, such arrangement will raise the risk of the family as a whole because when the economy downturns and jobs starts flying off, a retrenchment exercise is going to introduce a lot of stress to the family. At least for dual income family, one can still stand while the other retreats.



Is it a wonder then, that Singaporeans delay having kids, or don't even want to have kids? I think any responsible parent will think twice on their ability to shoulder the financial burdens of having 1-2 extra members to the family before heeding the calls of the government to drop the perfect conditions to have a kid. It's not just adding an extra pair of chopsticks to the dinning table...if only it's that easy.

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How do you know if you are addicted to the cbox?

** "BIAS" is a special feature in my blog where I get to say whatever I want with scant regards for your feelings. I'm not politically correct in this feature, so go ahead, judge me."


I noticed a significant increase in the number of people going to the cbox. It definitely shows that the market activity is picking up. At the most bullish times, my cbox volume indicator gives a good proxy to the general activity happening in the stock market.


Should be interesting to see if you need some treatment from being addicted to my infamous cbox, haha :)

1. Do you know the people who are using the cbox better than your face-to-face friends, even though you might never have met them before?

2. Do you have a compulsive desire to log on to the cbox during  free times in school or at work, just to see what the people there are talking about?

3. Do you have a separate cbox 'hidden' in the background of your workdesk of your computer so that you are kept in the know of what's happening in the cbox without letting people in your office know that you're doing that?

4. Do you have a desire to help out other people in the cbox or simply to share what knowledge you have or just some interesting things you're heard or read by providing links?

5. Be honest with yourself. Have you been spending more than 5 hours per day at the cbox, excluding sat and sun?

Looks like some of us here, haha!

If you answered YES to more than 3 of the above 5 questions, I think you're addicted to the cbox. Congrats, you are part of the growing community of bullythebear cbox users!

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I loved some of the comments so much that I decided to add in a few more checklist to see if you're addicted/ These are kindly contributed by those who commented on the cbox. Possibly addicts themselves, haha:

6. Did you change your phone or bought one just so you can access the cbox?

7. Did you try ways to bypass the company's internet control so you can access the cbox?

8. Did you come here to check your bids so as to get 1 or 2 cents lower than the folks here?

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STI component members

My broker sent me this very interesting chart with the STI 30 component stocks and their respective data. With STI reaching 3100, I thought it's a good idea to look at this. There are quite a few data associated with each component stocks, things like PE, Consensus target price, Divy yield and Recommendations by analyst.

This is what I've observed about the data:


1. Just a quick look at the recommendations offered by analyst for the 30 counters, we can see that there is a heavy bias towards a buy call. With the exception of SMRT (0 Buy, 8 Holds, 10 Sells), you can see that most of the calls made by analyst are Buy calls. Seems like many are optimistic about the next one year ahead, with upgrading of earnings and the economy recovered from the last crisis. For analyst to stake a sell call is a heavy bet on their analyst and their reputation, so SMRT might be interesting to look at. Why is there so many analyst calling for a hold/sell and nothing on buy?



2. If you look at the consensus target price for the various counters, you'll notice that some had been reached, some had been exceeded and there are some marching towards their target price. The difference between the target price and the current price is not very far. If one is so inclined, I suppose the consensus estimate for STI for the next 1 yr can be computed by finding out the respective weightings for each counter. I'll just take the banks as a guide, knowing that they will form a big part of the weightings. I think another 10-15% in STI is expected. This means we're looking at around 3400 to 3600 in a year's time.



3. Looking at the PE ratio, you can see that the 'land' counters are really high compared to historical PE. Most of the other component stocks have their PE ratio in line with historical PE. Banks seems to be underperforming, with their historical PE higher than current. I believed that if STI is to go up higher, banks will be the one to catch up to bring the whole index upwards. For property counters, the direction seems clear - sideway (best scenario) or down (likely scenario). I think STI also seems to be sustainable at this level because except for the 'land' counters, the PE is not exceeding high above its historical PE. In fact, it's pretty much in line with it.



4. I didn't know that with the exception of Genting (perhaps it's new) and NOL (years of losses), the rest of the components stocks pay dividend. It'll be great to hold the bluest of the blue chip with a good dividend, but how to do that? We must be courageous and buy them when everybody wants to dump them. That's what we're here for right? To encourage each other to buy when others are fleeing, and to have a community to provide each other with the social proof of being greedy and others are fearful.

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Support you we shall

** "BIAS" is a special feature in my blog where I get to say whatever I want with scant regards for your feelings. I'm not politically correct in this feature, so go ahead, judge me."



Yesterday I received news that momoeagle, one of the active cbox member here, decided to call it quits after adsense pulled a fast one on him. You can read about it here and the email that they sent to him. It's the very same email that I received from them when I was about to cash out my earnings from the advertisements. I blogged about that many moons ago here and I was still disgusted over it. Basically beyond appealing that's nothing much we can do here.



But I guess I never looked back since. I started to find other sources of ad-venue since adcents are not giving me much returns anyway, so who the hell needs them? Anyway, the point of me starting this is not to be famous or to even earn a living out of it. I reflected upon my blog's objective several times throughout its lifespan - it's always the same, I'm blogging because I wanted to record my journey and idiosyncrasies for my own record. If others find it enriching and amusing, and continue to support me my reading them, I'm very honoured. I think what makes me continue blogging is the immense support found online and offline amongst the superfriends. If not for this, I would never have met so many like-minded people, so diverse in their views and so willing to share. I'm even inviting a few people whom I've met many times online but never face-to-face for my wedding. That's the extent of the community built up over many nights of chats in my 'infamous' cbox.

I don't like white roses...it's like a red rose drained of passion, of spirit

What WILL make me sad is when my entire blog articles got removed, perhaps when the server for hosting the sites suddenly goes kaput. That will really ruin my day. It's not just the removal of a source advenue for me that makes me disappointed but rather the loss of my recorded memories. It's like someone came over and remove a few years of my life...ouch...I hope that never happens.



So, momo, if you're reading this, please continue to fight the good fight. I've learnt some valuable stuff over at your blog and will be hoping to read more of what you dish out.

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Timeline for AIMSAMPIReit rights exercise

Quite a number of aims shareholders are asking about the rights timeline. I thought I'll paste up the whole thing up here. This is taken from their presentation slides available in sgx website, under company announcement. I think the key dates are the rights acceptance period and the nil paid rights trading period.

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AIMSAMPIReit rights exercise

I've AIMSAMPIReit and it had gone XR today. The right issue is 7 shares issued at $0.155 for every 20 shares held upon XR. Since I had 30 lots of Aims bought at $0.220, I will be having some odd lots after the rights issue. For those who have no clues on how to subscribe for rights, my newbie's FAQ link here might help out. It's still useful to ME after having done it for so long, haha! Here's the calculations:

Right shares entitled: 30/20x7 = 10.5 lots

Amount to fork out for 10.5 lots = 10.5 x 0.155 x 1000 = $1,627.50

Total amount of aims after rights = 10.5 + 30 = 40.5 lots

Average price after rights for 40.5 lots = (0.22x20 + 0.155x7)/27 = 0.2031

I will most probably subscribe to excess lots over and above my entitled ones. Firstly, it's to top up my share holdings to avoid odd lots. The chances to apply for excess will be higher if your holdings have odd lots, so I hope to get at least 0.5 lots. Secondly, at 0.155 per right shares, it's a steal. It'll average down my overall holdings and get a very very decent yield. For more detailed information, look at AK's and Momo's links,  which I'm sure they will be happy to provide at the commentary of this post.



So the problem here is how much to subscribe? What are the chances of getting them in the first place? I think I can only control how much I want to subscribe, I'll leave the rest to fate. But it's not just suka suka subscribe, because you will have to pay them first and if it's unsuccessful (or partially successful), they will refund you back. In fact, you'll probably see the refund in your bank account before the shares are in your CDP, so that's the best way to see if your application for excess rights are successful or not.


I think I'll follow momo's suggestion to double up. How about 40.5 lots excess? In that case, I'll need:

40.5 lots excess at 0.155 each = 40.5 x 0.155 = $6,277.50

Entitled amt of 10.5 lots = $1,627.50

Total amt of capital to fork out =  $7,905

Total amt of lots if all successfully subscribed (I doubt so) = 81 lots

No point calculating how much my average price will be because I highly doubt I can get all the rights shares I want. If I really do, then I'll be afraid because what do all the rest see that I do not see? hahaaa, funny human beings...

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Preference shares Part II

I've written this article on preference shares a long time ago, suitably titled as Preference Shares Part I. I thought I should finish that article now, haha, after so long!



To have a quick recap, let's go through some of the terms. Nothing much had changed since the last definition, but today I'm not in the mood for fancy words, so let's just use plain Jane terms. There are a few terms in preference shares that need to be understood.



Non-cumulative : This means that if they did not give out a payment in the stated date, they will not accumulate that payment to pay more in the next payment date. In other words, the payment is not guaranteed, unlike a bond. However, all of the preference shares I saw state that if the ordinary shares are given a payment, they are also obliged to pay for the preference shares. Cumulative means that if the payment is somehow not given for this particular payment date, it will be accrued and paid on the next payment date. Non-cumulative is important because I just read from my older post that only non-cumulative ones are placed in Tier 1 capital for banks. Not sure if that's still in effect now, given the new basel III regulatory rules.



Non-convertible : This means that the preference shares cannot be converted into ordinary shares. Convertible of course means that it can be changed to ordinary shares.



Par value: Each preference share is issued at par value. Let's say the par value of this particular one is 100 upon issue. The preference share is traded in the open market, so it will be subjected to price volatility, meaning that it can go above or below the par value. During the crisis, most if not all the preference shares are traded way below the par value, but I think now most are trading above it. It's important to understand that if the issuer is to call back the preference shares, they will buy from you back at the par value. Hence, it's a good idea to buy yours at below par, so as secure a capital gains on top of any dividend payment. Unlike a bond where there is a maturity date (where the issuer will buy back the bond at par value), there isn't one for preference shares. There will, however, be a callable date, after which it may be liable for call back at par value.



This is not to say that buying above par value is a bad thing. If the preference shares pay you 5% pa and you buy above par value by 2%, it's still a good deal if it is called back after 1 yr because you'll still get 3% (5-2=3) returns. Of course, if you buy below par value, then there will be a margin of safety, so to speak. Price volatility is not a problem as long as you hold it till the issuer calls back the shares. In the worst case, if the issuer goes belly up, then too bad, you get almost nothing.



In the event of liquidation, where the assets of the company that issued the preference shares are to be sold, the creditors will get the first tranche of money. Creditors will be those that buy bonds. However, preference shares are ranked above ordinary shares.  Hence preference shares are junior to bonds but senior to ordinary shares in the event of liquidation. Let's hope nothing of that sort happens in the first place, so place your bets on companies that are safe. No point getting a preference shares of 15% pa on a very risky company. I believe when one is buying preference shares, you want to have the liquidity of share market to buy in or sell out yet at the same time have a sort of nonchalance to price movement. Getting preference shares is the surest thing to getting a almost guaranteed dividend income without worrying about price movement.



I had bought this non-cumulative, non-convertible 6.20% preference shares from hsbc, with par value of 25 USD. Callable date 16th Dec 2010 and anytime after that date. Dividend comes in quarterly tranches per year, on the 15th of March, June, Sept and Dec. I'll work out some calculations here for my own reference in the future.


Price bought: 24.1 USD
Yield : 6.2/24.1 x 25 : 6.43% pa
Price discount to par value : 1-24.1/25 = 3.6%


If they recall back on 16th Dec 2010, I'll get at least one quarter of the yearly dividends, or 1.61% (6.43/4). Since they will have to buy back from me at par, I'll get 5.2% (3.6+1.61) returns before commission and forex. If they recall one year later, I'll be looking at 3.6% + n (6.43)% returns, where n is the number of full years I'm holding. Sounds like a good deal to me.

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Berkshire business books bites the dust

Another one bites the dust. Berkshire business books gives me fond memories. They sell books that are much cheaper than those that are found in physical stores. But these days, with online bookstores aplenty, I think they are not getting the business they needed. I bought a few books from them, that's about it.

Goodbye!

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My top 5 list of possible career options

** "BIAS" is a special feature in my blog where I get to say whatever I want with scant regards for your feelings. I'm not politically correct in this feature, so go ahead, judge me."


I was thinking what I would do as a career if I were to just follow my passions blindly, with no regards to the monetary rewards and social repercussions. Yes, social repercussions - there are some jobs that you can't bring yourself to tell others because people would look at you as if you're an alien who just landed on Earth. My job is almost like that actually, but I guess I've grown accustomed to it.


"So what do you do for a living?", he asks.

"I'm a private tutor"

"Oh...good hor, no need to pay tax"

"..... But I do."

"Oh okay...the weather very hot today hor?"


And the conversation shifts to something else. I guess without your social ranking (aka manager, executive etc.), people do not know where you stand in society, hence explaining the awkwardness in social occasions. Quite interesting to take note of people's reaction, actually.


Anyway, here's my list for career that I would do. They are not in any order of importance, just which one came to my mind the first:



1. Artist

Not the sing song type but the one who draws and paints. I'm also interested in such things but thought better of it to pursue as a career. Singapore? Arts? Somehow the two words do not equate together. I'm a practical soul, most unfortunately. Hence, I do not think I'm the arty farty people who can really do this kind of thing for a living.

2. Novelist

I always think that my penchant for words is better than my English grades show in my report books. There must be a conspiracy between all the English teachers because I always seem to get a low B or usually a C for my English results. I say they don't appreciate my kind of style. The next best thing to being a novelist is to be a blogger. I publish whatever crap and there are still people who reads them. Financially rewarding as a blogger? Okay lah, earn some kopi money. Satisfying? Definitely.

3. High flying executive

My job does not have a corporate ladder for me to climb, so I always wonder how it feels like to climb one. Will I be a dagger and cloak kind of people or will I be the underlings who gets tramped under? I think wearing a power suit with neck ties to work seems sexy to me when I don't have to actually do it, hahaha. Perhaps the perks and the social pecking rules are the incentives? I wonder what it'll be like to have subordinates report to me, or to have reports to deliver to customers and you know, the likes of rats doing the rat race.

4. Pianist

My utmost regret is not to be able to learn piano when I'm young. I always feel that I can do a good job (in fact, a very good job at it) but am not given a chance to do so. It frustrates me when I tried laying my hands on the keys of the piano but what I produced is just noise, but under a skilled hands, beautiful music emanates out from it. I play the guitar (suckily though, been self-taught) but piano is still....well, classier. All is not lost though, because if I have a kid, I would really want to learn the piano together. It'll be interesting to be the oldest student there amongst the tiny tots, haha

5. Educator

To encompass the whole spectrum of people who teach others to learn a skill and do coaching, I would loosely use the word 'educator'. I think my character is very suited for this type of work and I enjoy the interaction very much. Probably would do what I'm doing till I can't do anymore, but of course, without the intensity that I'm doing at now, which hardly leaves me with room to recuperate.

So there, presenting to you my top 5 career options. Interesting list to write down actually, and see what you could be doing in an alternate universe where everything is different and you're not restricted by monetary concerns and the generally uncomfortable and harsh realities of life. Would you share with me your top 5 list? haha :D

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As I was finishing this post, I've a sudden urge to add in my 6th on the list. I feel that I'm not doing myself justice if I didn't add in. It's THAT important.


6. Computer programmer

I think I would have liked being a computer programmer. I've done a few modules on software programming (no biggies like C++ or java, mine is the engineering's very own ancient FORTRAN) and they interest me to no end. I like how I can construct algorithms and figure out different but progressively more efficient way to get to the end point. It's like solving a mathematical problem and you can get to do it creatively and still reach the same goals. Yes, I think maths is a very creative subject.

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The soundtrack of my life

I had this gigantic mp3 player - one of the first few generations of mp3 players, I proclaim proudly - from iriver. It is one gigantic piece of awesome, orgasm inducing music device, though it looks like a brick since it's essentially a harddisk. Not as sexy and slim as ipod...gosh, it does not even come with colours (it's only black fonts with blue background). I bought it for nearly 700 bucks for 10 Gb of storage and it's mine, so I loved it very much :)



Recently I brought it out of cold storage to listen to the songs I had inside. Usually I listen to songs by albums, put in the exact sequence as laid out in the album. If the artist and album producers decided that there is some magical rituals in putting the song listings in a particular way, who am I to say it's not? But yesterday, I put it to random shuffling, so instead of listening to albums one by one, I listened to my treasury troves, well, randomly.



I've always thought of producing an album known as my personal soundtrack. It's like the movie sound track of LP's life story. There are certain music that define my existence here on earth. When I was in primary school (the defunct Bedok View Primary school), I was quite into Chinese music. 特别的爱给特别的你 by Sky Wu, 蝴蝶飞呀 by Little Tigers and 红尘有你 by Wang Jie are very representative of what I listen to. I was humming my way into PSLE with these songs as the backdrop or playing hopscotch with these soundtrack. As it was my first foray into the vast universe of songs and pop culture, these songs are very very significant to me.



After that, I went into Maris Stella and had a musically unfruitful 2 years of my life. I was busy adjusting to the new pace of life and didn't have much joy to listen to music. It was the 90s and the beginning of funky hairdo, bold makeup and shoulder padded blouses. And Michael Jackson. I love to buy those big compilation cassette taps and CDs, titled suitably as Mega hit X (where X is a set of integers greater or equals to 1). I was trying to find my musical direction, so I sampled all sorts. There's the very lovely It must have been love by Roxette and (Everything I do) I do it for you by Bryan Adams. I love Bryan Adam's husky voice and his unique way of singing. I practically rushed home to listen to this song in certain periods of my secondary school live. I remembered 'ripping' (if you can call copying songs from cassettes to cassettes ripping) songs into my own personal compilation albums, songs like Paint my love by Michael learns to rock, the very long title by Meatloaf - I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That), Soul asylum's Runaway Train and a little bit of Chinese songs. I'd changed my taste from chinese to english songs by secondary school but it'll be a sin to forget about Kit Chan's 喜欢你, 心痛 and 伤心. About the only local Chinese artist I like is Kit Chan. Much more than Stephanie or JJ anyway.

And people wonder why I've a melancholy nature. I supposed years of listening to love songs made me as such. There are 3 classes of love songs - the longing for love (She will be loved by Maroon 5), the joys of being in love (I want to hold your hand by Beatles) and the heartbreaking of love (I will survive by Cake). Each can be sub categorized into more subtle differences, but you get my point. Somehow, I always loved the type 3 class of love songs. So am I melancholy because of love songs, or I listen to love songs hence I became melancholy? I lean towards the latter.



I kept a lot a lot of cassette tapes depicting my secondary school life but sadly those didn't survive. A cruel woman in my home threw them away when I went to army. I remembered being devastated for a quite some time when I cope with the sudden loss of that important part of my life, my memories. How can someone throw other people's memories away? I forgive her but will never forget about it.



I went on to Temasek Junior College and was during the 2 short years, I have only 2 groups of artist that interests me most. Faye Wong and Cranberries. Especially cranberries. Most especially cranberries. I was practically listening to the CDs for most of my life in JC and it is definitely my soundtrack during the 2 years of my life there in TJC. It's my first 'heavy' music - Zombie. Ode to my family is very significant to me because I was humming that during my promos and A'lvls. It has that calming effect on me. Who can forget Linger and Dreams too? I loved this kind of enigmatic voices, so on hindsight, I think Faye Wong is the equivalent chinese verson of that obsession with this particular kind of sound. I bought the very expensive Faye Wong album in JC1 that costs me 30+ bucks at that time. I particularly loved the song 其子, which is the soundtrack of one of the TV movies made by SBC/TCS/Mediacorp (whatever name they call themselves these days, I can't keep track). Actually in the past she used the name Huang Jing Wen, as opposed to the more populist name Faye Wong now. I only bought two albums by her, one is the  天空 album and the other is a canto compilation.



There are little pleasant distractions like 愛相隨 by Emil Chau. It was not until very very much later that I discovered what I really like about music in general. As long as there's a guitar strumming, I would love it. I only knew that much much later in university around 2-3 yrs later. It's interesting to look back though, as I explored the wider universe of music. My classmates are all hot about Zhang Xin Zhe (Jeff Chang), though I'm not. I don't really like high octave male voices, haha :)



I think that marks the real end of my Chinese music era. No more Chinese music from there on...just the occasional songs here and there (I call it a one night stand with that artist). Just love and bye kind of thing.



Out of a philosophical thinking that my life cannot be suitably compressed into one blog post, I decided to blog about my soundtrack from army to the present time in another blog articles. If my soundtrack only lasts one post, it'll be a boring and short movie. Neither do I want it to become a long and draggy Lords of the Rings trilogy (seriously, who ever wants to watch the Return of the King twice? It's so draggggyyyyyy...). Yes, yes, 2 posts should be enough.

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Why I don't blog about the stock market anymore?

Someone mentioned in the cbox (the 'infamous' cbox as AK puts it) that how come I don't blog about stocks and shares these days. If you look at the recent posts, it's all about my ramblings and rantings. Whine whine whine...occasionally there'll be the personal finance or insurance topics that interests me greatly, but almost nothing about stocks or shares.


I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing for I suspect that it'll happen to all bloggers one day. Those who felt it but survived gone had gone on to greater heights. Those that felt it and did not survive, well, let's just say their blog's natural lifespan had been reached. I'm sure there are plenty of names in the blogosphere that had its day in the past, but had been gone by now. It's like there's an nuclear explosive - one day it's normal blogging as usual, then the next, only the site remains but there's no more updates. I suppose some blogs even had their infrastructure 'destroyed', meaning that the site can no longer be found and had been taken out with their contents erased.


So...you hear it from me first. I'm no longer as interested in stocks as I had once been in the past. 'No longer interested' is relative, of course. I'm still more interested in stocks then my gf ever will be (haha). Comparing myself in say 2 years ago and the present me, I think the present me is more disinterested and bo chup about the whole market thingy. I mean I still read about market news and read charts and all, but that's because I had to and not because I am inherently interested in it.


It's interesting to note my level of interest waning. It's partly due to my disillusionment about reading books. After you've read shelves of finance books in the library, you'll find that if you've read one, you've read all (figuratively, don't take it literally). The concepts are nearly all the same, so occasionally you'll find a gem that blows your mind, but those are rare and chances are you'll be more likely to find another book that sounds like the one you had read. Food gives nutrients to the body and books gives nutrients to your thoughts. I guess I'm weary about reading finance books now, so my thoughts are seldom about the market.

However, not being interested is different from not having to do it. I think I'll have to do it whether I'm interested or not, as opposed to say putting money in a bank. So while I am practically doing the same stuff with regards to the market as before (I think perhaps more stuff, since I do read charts everyday), I do so without the passion I felt when I first found out what is value investing, what is MA lines, macd histogram... These days, I'm more interested in freeing up my time to do what I like to do, be it playing games, reading or just watching youtube.


Another significant reason why I don't blog so much about the market is that there are people who are doing very much better than me. You can find all their blog links in my site on the top and on the right. Their articles are so much more insightful and more detailed than I can ever do, so I do not see the reason for repeating or trying to re-invent the wheel. I acknowledge that I'm not the best chartist/trader/investor - that much I know. Hence, there's no need to pretend to be good in it just so as to generate more viewership. I'll take a step backwards and try to facilitate traders and investors to meet up in the infamous cbox of mine and to exchange views. That I can do.

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Embracing our differences

I came upon this realisation that me and my gf have very different ways of doing things. It's not that I didn't know that after being together for so long, but rather during these few months of working together on a single project (i.e. our wedding), our differences are amplified and presented to us starkly. In the past, we settle our own projects and seldom have any interference from each other, so the inherent differences in our methods of doing things are thus hidden from view.



She's more of a feeling kind of person, meaning that she'll only do things when she feels like doing so. No amount of pep talk or well laid plans can persuade her to do otherwise. Me, on the other hand, prefers to come up with a plan and stick to it no matter what happens. So often times, when I'm hurried to do something as laid out by my plans, she'll amble along half-heartedly while waiting for her feeling to come, before she'll do it. It's been quite frustrating for me, but no longer.

Disciplined and structured - my way of doing things sounds like the military

Why? After some serious reflection, I thought that it's no point trying to force another person to adopt my way. She had her own successes doing things her own way, so do I, so why should she change to suit my need so that things go 'according to plan'? Besides, after nagging at her to do things for weeks, there's still no progress, so I might as well try another tack. I think it's because of this constant pressuring on my part that causes some arguments between us, and ultimately, I'm the one who feels even more stressed up.



I think if we shine the light of reflection upon ourselves, and stop seeing others as being the problematic one, it'll be the start of a new understanding and cooperation between the parties involved. This kind of concept is easy to read but hard to apply. Therefore, my epiphany that our differences are to be celebrated is both liberating and stress-relieving.



According to her, things that need to happen would happen, so there's no point rushing it. I would bear that in mind and perhaps adopt her free-style way of doing things. Seeing how she's so happy go lucky, perhaps I really should look into the advantages and disadvantages of my disciplined way of handling matters.

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