my views on marcopolo marine

my 2 cents quick analysis on MPM.

Summary on findings/observation/thoughts

1) pb0.6 0 looks undervalued, question in my mind- why is it undervalued, any valuable fixed assets in its books

2) pe10, looks decent, not high

3) dividend

Company Name	Type	Ex-Date	Record Date	Date Paid/Payable	Particulars
MARCO POLO MARINE LTD.	DIVIDEND	10 Dec 2013	12 Dec 2013	20 Dec 2013	SGD 0.014 ONE-TIER TAX
MARCO POLO MARINE LTD.	DIVIDEND	10 Dec 2012	12 Dec 2012	21 Dec 2012	SGD 0.008 ONE-TIER TAX
MARCO POLO MARINE LTD.	DIVIDEND	09 Dec 2011	13 Dec 2011	22 Dec 2011	SGD 0.01 ONE-TIER TAX

This is the key for me to avoid this stock

1) too short a history- 3 years only to make a sound judgement

2) no clear trend, 0.01 then goes down and then goes up again. I wouldn't want my heart to go yoyo like this stock.

I will avoid MPM, at least for the next 5-7years, and keep cash as cash if there is nothing else to buy.



pls, this is just my personal view and i understand lots of people might still make a lot of money buying mpm.

(i like old companies with discernible trend of past history with extrapolation of future history.)

have a workable plan and stick to it.

through a blog i came across recently, i saw that some people buy based on recommendation on other people's blog.

now, the reasons for the blog owner's buying might be different from that of the readers. or worse still, the reasons might NOT be sound at all.

so it's far more important to develop a strategy based on one's own unique situation and circumstances and buy/sell/hold based on the latter.

personally, I feel it's important to question the purpose of buying an equity. is it for long term capital gain or short term flipping (the latter type i do not practise and i do not recommend? is it for dividend income? what is the downside of the equity we are talking about? what are the safeguards?

in addition, for myself, I ask the following questions:

a) how does one know and have this conviction that price increase will happen in the next few years?
b) how does one know and have this conviction that dividend increase will happen in the next few years?
c) what then is the appropiate entry price, wrt a long term investing horizon?

the answer to b) is actually sufficient to answer a), as dividend increase will invariably be accompanied by share price increase.

Last few days to get free petrol vouchers from hougang ave 3 esso

I visited this petrol station and pumped $100 bucks of petrol and was pleasantly surprised when the cashier handed me 2 booklets of petrol vouchers.

-  $5 off with every $50 petrol, usable from dec onwards at any Esso petrol stations; this discount is offered on top of prevailing credit card and station discounts.

The discount vouchers are given for every $50 petrol purchased at Esso Hougang, and it is a booklet with 4 x $5 vouchers usable from 1 December 2014 all the way till 31 December 2015, ie 13 months, and constitutes a savings of $260.

2 booklets means a savings of more than $500. 

Feels like a dividend payout slowly over 1year...or I am thinking too much about investments...LOL

Anyway, jokes aside, anyone seriously wants this good deal should head down for there within these few days.

cheers!

One good reason why you should not bail out even if your portfolio halves during crisis

just look around during the last crisis, some of the singapore richest men's net worth fell more than half. but we don't see any fire sale of their businesses during those scary times.

agreed that a person whose net worth 500m half that will still be a very high 250m. fractionally speaking, it's the same as someone 100k becoming 50k. But losing 250m net worth is much more than the lay person losing 50k.

then why is it that almost all the richest do not bail out and yet its those smaller investors that do?

and we know that bailing out at the height of the crisis would make all the difference.

One reason is that they own the company and this could be painstakingly built up by themselves or by their forefathers. Throwing in the towel is the last thing on their mind. And time and again, a lot of them are proven right and most businesses become stronger after each crisis.

But shouldn't investing be the same way? Is it not owning part of the businesses as well?

perhaps we could do better having the same mindset of the towkays of the businesses we invest in, apart from just analysing reports.

pioneer generation scheme..good or not?

I had the opportunity to mingle with a few doctors, some of whom owns GP clinics in Singapore.

Most of them voice out similar problems associated with the pioneer generation program.

1) unhappiness is not infrequent at the counter where patients and clinic assistants argue over what should be paid and what is borned by the scheme. patients often don't complain their unhappiness to the doctors. to make matter worse, some of older folks are not very educated and not sure of what the scheme is all about exactly.

2) there is a limit to the scheme and the co payment component. ended up, most patients still head back to the good old polyclinics. at least there is MSW at polyclinics, in case patients really can't afford to pay a cent. GP clinics have overheads, and to give FOC services long term out of good will are really limited and difficult. Frankly, the pioneer generation batch aren't that many, and this number will only fall with time. I am not sure if the government could possibly consider absorbing all the fees out of goodwill?

3) increase paper work and record keeping. and need to pay staff extra to do claim procedures. Sure, doctors can do it, but as it is, they are already so busy and most would want more leisure time instead of doing claim procedure.

anyone got any views?

so is the scheme really good or not good? perhaps more time will tell.

speculating and investing...a thin line

Let me relate a personal experience.

As a long term investor, more often than not i dont time the market. Whatever dividends which comes in, i reinvest it at a more undervalued counter in my portfolio.

Recently my dividend came in, i was tempted to use it to buy sia eng when it was just above 4 dollars. A bit regret when it goes beyond that low point. But i questioned myself why, finally i was justified that it was just on feel that sia eng at 4.05 was a low level and not based on sound analysis. Finally, i bought a chunk of tcil which i had held previous n researched thoroughly at just above hk2.80 never look back since n never regretted it since.

With buy/sell with just a click difference, it makes punting/speculating just a thin line separating them with a whole lot of differences to eventual outcome.

What do u think?

save money....buy rice fresh from warehouse

10kg of songhe rice from ntuc costs near $30. But a 50kg bag fresh from the warehouse costs around $100.
Advantages
1) save money on rice
2) save more money on outside meals.
3) save even more money on outside meals and outside shopping.

Overall effect is tremendous.

15% pa in mont blanc pen investment

Yes, you got it right. 15% pa in 10years.
i got one limited edition qing dynasty mont blanc medium nib fountain pen for 4k in 2004 or 2005.
now its selling at around 15k in ebay.
thats a astounding near 15%pa return.

Buy only limited edition ones.
Keep in unused.
For fountain pen buy medium nib.

what to do if a stock slumps just after u bought it?

To worry if

1) buying is based on feel

2) buying is based on hearsay

3) emergency funds are used

4) no prior homework is done

5) amount constitutes a large part of entire wealth

6) no dividends in sight

7) sudden change in company fundamentals(though rare)

8) buying using ah long or borrowed money

Not to worry if

1) buying based on sound analysis

2) adequate diversification

3) reliable dividends

4) cash back up

5) emergency funds intact

6) plan in place even before purchase

My 2 cents worth....

Thanks for reading!

Words of wisdom from Billionaires we know

 PETER LIM said this in an interview which I think is very true

“When you are holding stocks, if it goes up, don’t be too happy; when it goes down, don’t be too sad. Otherwise, how? Your life will also be fluctuating and you’ll die of a heart attack. If you really lose sleep over it, maybe the best way is to keep the money in the bank.”

KHOO TECK PUAT

"When no one wants it, that's the time to buy a few million"

"In life, you have to have the luck, timing and aptitude"


Simple sentences from Peter and Khoo TP, yet highly loaded statements.

shall I add more ST Eng now?

Someone asked me this question a while ago.

I must admit that I am not qualified to give any advice as I don't have the relevant credentials.

However I have these points to say which you might find worthwhile to think about:

1) add more St Eng if your conviction tells you to do so
2) consider other possibilities
3) determine whether your timeframe of investing allows for that
4) re question your investment aims/goals
5) understand our own investment temperament
amongst other.

To buy/sell/hold, you will need to consider our own unique situation and circumstance and then decide accordingly. If there's nothing to do or in doubt, then it might be better to leave cash as cash.



my 2 cents worth....

investing is like playing lego

i came across this thought in answering a friend on some companies a while ago and decided to pen it down.

at first onset, people might ask me, how it is similar to lego?

well, once a few core companies are identified and bought into, the dividends which are produced need to be repositioned in these companies or even into new companies. in an interesting analogy, this is like playing lego, ie we want to make the structure stronger than before.

cheers!!!

why i don't take quarterly results too seriously nowadays

When i first started investing close to 10years ago, i tend to keep checking results when they come out.

 I look a forums and talk to people at agms. Most people tend to look at results when they come out and a significant number will react to the results in terms of buying/selling less/more. Most will quickily analyse the latest figures.

nowadays, i tend to look at investing as long term. I invest on long term fundamentals n these usually don't change rapidly.

Quarterly results doesnt matter to me as much as they do, and they have much less effect on keeping me awake.

That being said, different people have different styles. Some analyse results n make wise decisions and make money doing so. So whether to analyse quarterly results in depth or not really depends on individual. Do what works for oneself and one must be comfortable and happy doing so.

One thing however i look at and tend to make decisions based on this, exclusion of dividends on a consistent dividend history as this to me signifies something much more important than results results n more results, a point which i cannot overemphasise.

SIA engineering...my views..don't worry about this drop

I must admit that I am first and foremost a person analysing dividends and not much more than that.

Year	Total Amount	Yield %
2014	0.24	5.5944
2013	0.22	5.1282
2012	0.22	5.1282
2011	0.3	6.993
2010	0.19	4.4289
2009	0.16	3.7296
2008	0.21	4.8951
2007	0.12	2.7972
2006	0.3	6.993
2005	0.085	1.9814
2004	0.255	5.9441
2003	0.045	1.049
2002	0.05	1.1655
2001	0.04	0.9324

Looking at the 15 year dividend trend, it has its ups and downs but there is a DISCERNIBLE uptrend.

It hit 30c in 2011 then dropped to 22c the year after, so yoy events aren't that reliable in this company as they are for instance in JMH, COLGATE or MCD.

We need to look longer for this counter, imo its far too early to bail out of this company based on a year of results.

Investing is for long term of 5 if not 10years, one year two years is too short a time frame.

But i need to add that this counter does not have hard asset backing, all it has are its moat, which imo is a strong one and its earnings to prop the share up.

(not vested in this so far)

buy/sell/hold entirely at your own discretion, please.

Why most people end up losing money in stock market?

I shall try to answer this question in point form so that readers need not spend too much time on this. this is not in order of importance. (actually the first 3 points have some similarities)

1) not having a plan. it is well said before : fail to plan, plan to fail

2) having a plan, but failing to do one's homework in due diligence, in most cases, failing to know in great detail the product that one's buying.

3) having a plan, doing one's homework in due diligence and knowing in great detail the product that one's buying, BUT the trouble is buying at too high a price. sure, in a good company, eventually dividends and stock appreciation will make up for it, but its the time wasted and fustration in waiting, OR the trouble is not giving oneself an adequate margin of safety especially in value stocks.

4) trading mentality, broking houses love such people.

5) not trading mentality, but frequent buy and sell, again broking houses love such people.

6) worse still, gambling mentality, buying just based on feel, no basis otherwise.



disclaimer: i am no investor guru, the above points is just based on my personal experience, which might not be representative of the true facts.