Goodbye 2020

Entire Y2020 is an eventful year. Many things happened in my personal live. Just to focus on asset/investment topic in this blog:

• Return: -$11669.30 in CDP
  
• Return: $13576.67 in FSM
  

(for liquidated counters, taking the year end closing price as benchmark vs my selling price to calculate P&L)

The negative return in CDP are results of deep drop of stock market in March, due mainly to the fear caused by out-of-control-situation pandemic, and I wrongly liquidated some of my positions in Singapore market when market went down.

Here is the list of counters with transaction activities in Y2020.

• 

Poor performance is also due to my missing of capturing the following rebound opportunities(in chronological order):

• Sheng Siong
• S-Reits
• iFAST

By year end, I closed all my positions in CDP, and moved partially my counters to FSM platform, but my position in SGP market on FSM platform is very much trimmed.

If I were to close all my positions in FSM today at the previous closing price. XIRR of my return, from end of Y2015, would be 3.82%, probably cannot even beat inflation rate.

With a large amount of cash at hand during mid of Y2020, I placed down payment for a condo unit in D9. This is a project I had been negotiating with developer since Oct 2019, developer didn't accept my offer till Feb 2020, then COVID19, the project (or rather entire SGP property market) wasn't moving for a few months during the total lock-down period then. Finally, I got the unit, with a much reduced price tag. That's the happiest moment, finally "我终于上车了".

To have a large commitment in property, it also means my focus will be moving away from stock investment(at least in SGP market) for a period of years.

  (香港人为什么管买楼叫「上车」？不上车就永远赶不上，这都是几十年下来几代人的教训和经验。)

 

 

Quotes from Peter Lynch

• Everyone says they’re a long-term investor until the market has one of its major corrections.
• If you own stocks, there’s always something to worry about. You can’t get away from it.  
• Behind all the smoke and noise on the market’s surface, it’s important to remember that companies — small, medium, and large — make up the market’s backbone. And corporate earnings drive stock prices. 

DEBT, DEBT, DEBT!

Date: 2019-07-17
Source: IMF blog

Article 1: https://blogs.imf.org/2018/04/18/bringing-down-high-debt/
Global debt hit a new record high of $164 trillion in 2016, the equivalent of 225 percent of global GDP. 

Article 2: https://blogs.imf.org/2019/01/02/new-data-on-global-debt/
Global debt has reached an all-time high of $184 trillion in nominal terms, the equivalent of 225 percent of GDP in 2017. 

Article 3: https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/number-day-global-debt-grows-221006381.html
Global debt grew by $3 trillion in the first quarter of the year to reach $246.5 trillion total, according to a report by the Institute of International Finance cited by Axios. "brought it to nearly 320% of the world's GDP".

From these:

- assume 1.5% interest rate of the debt

- assume GDP's profit(is there such a thing of GDP profit?) is 5%

merely enough to pay back interest, when to claw back the principal amount? more QE, QE, QE!

(借新债还旧债, refunding/refinancing)

A quick update on H1 2019

Date: 2019-07-08

I had spent a lot of time in/out of hospital, elderly home since end of Q1 due to family member's poor health condition.

Not a lot of updates, given very little time and energy to monitor market, read reports etc.

I sold Guocoland(F17) at price of $2.00 recently, and immediately saw the price running away from me and it got to as high as $2.07 on that day. What a poor timing for me, considering the entire holding period of nearly 2Yrs, the return is merely 1.5% about; worse than putting that into a fixed deposit account.

Also I licked my wound on TTJ(K1Q) in Q2, another disgraced investment.

Given my substantial holding in STI ETF(ES3), and a pretty good return of STI index in H1 2019, overall it helps spare my blushes.

Good surprises came too, due mainly to Capitaland and Ascendas' various corporation action/consolidation.

Looking fwd to 2nd half the year.

REITs and NPI

Date: May-20-2019
Source:
https://www.fool.sg/2019/05/18/eagle-hospitality-business-trust-ipo-8-things-investors-should-know/
https://www.dbs.com/livemore/getting-singapores-first-reit-on-the-market-we-felt-we-needed-to-do-this-for-singapore.html


Shareinvestor's annual REITs Symposium was held on 18 May, 2019. It is the fifth of such annual symposiums by shareinvestor, and the first time held at MBS. Being a member, I happily attended the whole day event with my complimentary ticket.

According to the co-organizer REITAS, who boasts 75%(per market cap angle) of SGX listed REITs as its members, the annualized return of REITs in Singapore has at least double that rate of STI index in the past couple of years(citation sources??).

Real estate investment trusts (REITs), usually offers investors a yield of 5-8 per cent, as one of the speakers, Kenny Loh put it:
- Distribution Yields
- P/NAV
- Gearing ratio (<45% SGX regulation, Debt/Total Asset)
are the three key factors to consider when invest into REITs.

Reits were introduced in Singapore in 2002, CapitaMall Turst. REITs business model is based on distribution of rental income from the underlining real estate(property concerned). REITs have at least 90% of the coming distributed to unit holders, under such circumstances, such investors will not be taxed on the distribution income thus obtained.

Logically, given there are fees charged by trust manger who manages REITs on behalf of trust investors, distribution amount should be less than the NPI(Net Property Income) . For instance:
- Eagle Hospitality Trust, based on Motley Fool's article,
 "3. Net property income (NPI) was US$47.4 million for 2018 but is projected to rise to US$51.1 million this year. For 2020, NPI is projected to hit US$81.3 million. US$174 million had been spent on capital expenditure since 2013, and the REIT has earmarked a further US$18.6 million for more asset enhancement initiatives (AEIs)."

 while after all cost and tax deduction, the income available for distribution is 37.229mUSD, or 4.27 cents per Stapled security, thus it is only an annualized 8.2% on 0.78(USD) IPO price.
* Annualized by extrapolating the forecast figures over a full financial year

Capitaland to acquire Ascendas

Date: 2019-1-14
Data source: Capitaland website

Today I have to write something about this acquisition, because I hold few counters of both sides that are involved in today's announcement from Capitaland.

I have a mixed feeling about it:
- should I feel better if Capitaland pays generously to Ascendas since I'll benefit more from my Ascendas REITs which are indirectly related and form the basis of valuation of the acquired entity - Ascendas-Singbridge (the sponsors of those REITs)?
- or should I feel better if Capitaland pays subpar to Ascendas then I'll benefit more from my Capitaland holdings and related Capital-REITs?

Few questions remain unanswered at this moment:
- is SGD $10.9b a right price to pay by Capitaland, of which $4.8b is debt to be inherited from Ascendas-Singbridge?
- in order to raise the remaining $6b, Capitaland is going to issue 862m Capitaland share @ 3.50 per piece, is this $3.50 correct price(knowing its current NAV $4.49)? (the rest of $3b, will be thru other financing options)
- Capitaland will have a much higher leverage @70+% after this activities, is this the appropriate level of gearing under current interest environment?

Frankly, I have no answers.

To read more of this PPT and wait for more info to unfold.

Summary of 2018, Happy New Year 2019!

Date: 2018-01-03


2018 is over, the result of this year's stock investment performance is poor, paper loss in all markets I invest in.

A summary in Chinese is here: https://xueqiu.com/7511996126/119146460

Few counters here dragged my SGP results, namely:
- SingPost
- SingTel
- Capitaland

Nothing much else to say. Hope to get some recovery in 2019.