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| Wednesday, October 21, 2009 |
| Depreciation of US dollar (USD or US$) |
As we all realized, is being depreciating since few years ago. If i am not wrong, about 4 years ago, 1USD = 1.70SGD roughly, but look at the figure now, 1USD =1.38SGD; in another words, USD has been depreciating more than 20%. Worse thing is many analysts and economists are expecting the USD to depreciate further, about 20% more in coming future. I am a Singapore investor, I do trade US stocks often, eg. OIIM, AMD, C, etc. I used to hold some US stocks more than 2 years. Well, looking at the stock price, it did rise with a beautiful figure, however, after I convert it back to my local currency - SGD. In fact, I did not gain much. Believing in the analysts and economists comments, I decided to temporarily reduce US stock trading activities or even stop trading US stock in near future. Unless I can forsee the short term gain. Holding US stock for long term is not really a good idea when USD is depreciating. |
posted by NOSNIM™ @ 10:28 AM  |
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| Wednesday, September 23, 2009 |
| AMD |
Waves of good news are bringing the AMD stock price towards level two years ago. Although AMD has incurred losses in the past few quarters, however, economy datas is showing that PC market is growing. This is definitely a stock can be hold long term for some profits.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc., up 27 cents at $6.08 |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 10:35 AM |
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| Monday, July 27, 2009 |
| OIIM, Keep it UP! |
O2Micro, (Nasdaq: OIIM) will be announcing hers 2nd quarter earning on this wednesday. Many financial firms expecting a positive results on their earning as well as her share price. Of course, I have been waiting this day as well.
Hopefully, after this annoucement, the share price can get high to US$7.00, so, keep it up! OIIM.
:) |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 8:42 AM |
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| Tuesday, June 16, 2009 |
| A "tiny" news is so "BIG" |
OIIM - O2Micro International reported a better than expected (forecast) for the second quarter result for 2009, which is expected to have a revenue about 34millions compared to 28millions forecasted before.
The stock price in Nasdaq rose 31 cents or close to 7% yesterday after this annoucement; and the stock price in HKSE, (0457.hk) rose up to 350% day after the US stock market closed. This is a huge movement, well, I hope this big movement in HKSE can push abit towards the OIIM in nasdaq market tonight, another 5%? 10%?
By the way, OIIM has been rated as strong buy by Zack Investment Research.
For more details, please refer to http://finance.yahoo.com/news/O2Micro-Rises-on-Upbeat-zacks-15528199.html?.v=1 |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 3:55 PM |
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| Monday, June 8, 2009 |
| Dying off....? Please continue to support.... |
Looks like my blogspot's visitor counter is dying off, it has been a long time I, myself did not come up to do any update, this is probably due to most of my spare time were tied onto my studies. Finally I did my CFA level 2 exam yesterday; it was tough to me.
So after that stressful moment, I am well ready to "building up" my blog again. But, how? I have no idea....
Anyway, I need you all to give a support, visit this blog more often, thanks.... hehe..... |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 4:33 PM |
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| Wednesday, May 6, 2009 |
| Singapore Stock market Rally and Rally! True? or Bubble? |
This three days, SGX has shoot up 400 points. Most of the stocks rally like a big bull is reaching.
Is this a true Bull run? I wonder~
Although I believe that current economy will not be going worse; but a bull should be yet to come.
Reason? look at most of the companies' financial results, look at the jobless, ......
Although I also gain some from these days "bull run"; but.... still, Care and care is important.
I personnaly feeling that tomorrow and day after tomorrow, market will down!
mean reverting, excess gain by speculators, will finally "throw" their stocks and market will revert back to the level it should be!! This always true.
Furthermore, US banks stress test will be another factor too...... |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 5:12 PM |
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| Rules for Investing in the Next Bull Market |
Good article to share:
How to be smarter when the market comes back – and it will.
Is this a new bull market? Nobody really knows for certain. But one will -- presumably -- come along in due course. Will investors make the same mistakes they made last time, or will they be wiser? Here are 12 rules for the next bull market -- whenever it turns up.
1. Go global.
Most investors prefer to stick to their "home" market. It's a mistake. America accounts for only a fifth of the world economy but a third of its share values. No one knows where the best or worst returns will be, so spread your bets across the board. And you already have an oversized bet on the U.S. economy:, because you likely live, work and own a home here.
2. Avoid big moves.
If you buy or sell heavily in one shot you're taking a needless risk. And waiting for the right moment to make your move is futile. You probably won't catch the bottom or the peak anyway. If a market trend has much further to run, then what's the rush? And if it doesn't … what's the rush?
3. Remember the market is just "us."
No wonder shares rose when everyone was buying, and fell when they were selling. That was the reason. And when everyone is trying to predict "the market," they are effectively chasing themselves through a hall of mirrors.
4. Don't get fooled, don't get tense… and don't get fooled by the wrong tense.
Wall Street is riddled with people who mistake the past perfect ("these shares have risen") with the present ("these shares are rising") or the future ("these shares will rise."). Don't get suckered.
5. Pay no attention to TINA.
Sooner or later someone will urge you to buy shares, even at very high prices, because There Is No Alternative. It is a popular hustle at the peak of the market. There are always alternatives -- like holding more cash until valuations are more attractive.
6. Be truly diversified.
That means investing across a spread of different asset classes and strategies. As investors discovered last year, "large cap value" and "mid cap blend" funds don't offer diversification. They're just marketing gimmicks.
7. Treat forecasts with a grain of salt.
Most economists missed the recession, most strategists missed the crash, and most analysts are bullish just before a stock falls. Even the good experts are prone to group think, office politics, career risk - and hall of mirror syndrome (see point 3, above).
8. Never invest in what you don't understand.
Be happy to underperform a bull market. During the last boom, many investors were advised to go all-in on shares to get the biggest long-term gains. But the stock market has infinite risk tolerance and an infinite time horizon. Real people can't compete with market indices, and shouldn't try.
9. Ignore what everyone else is doing.
It's natural to want to "join the crowd" and avoid being "left behind." Leave those instincts in eighth grade. When it comes to investing, do what's right for you and your family.
10. Be patient.
Investment opportunities are like buses. If you missed one, you don't have to chase it. Relax. If history is any guide, others will be along shortly.
11. Don't sit on the sidelines completely until it's too late.
You'll probably end up splurging at the last moment. If you are afraid to invest, do it early, little, and often.
12. And above all: Price matters.
After all, an investment is just a claim check on future cash flows, whether it be a company's profits, a bond's coupons or an annuity's income stream. By definition, shares in a solvent company are twice as good at half the price… and vice versa. It's amazing how many people get suckered into thinking it's the other way around.
I'd like to hear from readers: If you have any suggested rules of your own, let me know.
Write to Brett Arends at brett.arends@wsj.com
Copyrighted, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 5:09 PM |
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| Saturday, April 25, 2009 |
| The Dark Side of "Better-than-Expected" Earnings |
Good article to share:
Found from Yahoo! Finance.
The Dark Side of "Better-than-Expected" EarningsPosted Apr 24, 2009 11:11am EDT by Aaron Task in Investing, Information Technology
Related: AXP, AMZN, MSFT, IBM, ^GSPC, ^DJI, XOM
"Better-than-expected" has been a common theme this earnings season and key driver to Friday's morning advance. Of the 178 S&P 500 companies to have reported earnings thus far, 67% have reported an upside earnings surprise, according to Bloomberg.
But there's a dark-side to the story, according to Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco, which has over $350 billion of assets under management.
While the majority of companies are beating earnings estimates, many are missing on the revenue side, Garnick notes. That suggests the bottom-line "beats" are mainly the result of cost cutting rather than top-line sales growth. Wall Street's focus on short-term results may be satisfied by these "better-than-expected" results, and companies have an incentive to do more layoffs because the savings flow directly to the bottom line. But cutting costs is not the basis for a prolonged period of strong earnings, Garnick says.
It's self-evident, but when companies lay people off, those former employees reduce spending sharply, meaning less economic activity and lower sales for their former employees. Results from Microsoft and American Express, as well as Amazon.com's guidance, provide evidence of these trends -- even as shares of all three firms rally sharply. |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 1:02 AM |
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| Monday, April 13, 2009 |
| Avoiding traps in the Bear market |
Good article to share: From Yahoo!
People's emotions lead them to make bad financial moves in chaotic times. Here's what to look out for.
In a chaotic bear market like this one, it's easy for investors to fall into traps.
They might scramble to make trades based on the latest news reports. They might search for a miracle stock that will pay off big and let them recoup all their losses. Or they might go in the other direction -- and get so scared of the market that they don't make any moves at all.
"I believe that the frequency of irrational investor behavior goes up along with market volatility," says Chris Blum, head of the U.S. behavioral-finance group for JP Morgan Funds in New York, which studies how people's emotions affect their financial decisions.
Fortunately, a bit of logic and common sense will keep you clear of these pitfalls. Here's a look at some common missteps -- and how to avoid them.
The Value Trap: A chaotic market makes it easier for investors to convince themselves that because a stock -- or a sector or a market -- is cheap, it's a great value. Sometimes, though, there's a good reason that a stock or sector is cheap: It's in trouble. You need to look past the share price or valuation and examine the fundamentals of the company, the industry and the economy before you decide that something is a bargain.
"Within industries, not all companies are created equal; some will fare better than others," says Mr. Blum. It's through research, not instinct or stock price, that investors discover the real values, he adds.
The Risk Trap: One reason investors are so vulnerable to the value trap is that another force is at work -- the urge to recoup losses. Investors who are desperate to make back some of what they have lost and return to "normal" are more willing to take outsize bets on individual stocks or narrowly focused exchange-traded funds.
But that approach is even more unlikely to work in this market environment; the combination of the credit crunch and the recession have made the stock market dangerously volatile. A concentrated portfolio is especially risky, advisers argue.
Investors can't accept that individual stocks, or stocks overall, aren't likely to deliver a reliable stream of double-digit profits each year as in the past, says Bill Schultheis, a partner at Soundmark Wealth Management LLC, a financial-planning firm in Kirkland, Washington.
To combat the risk trap, Mr. Schultheis spends a lot of time preaching the virtues of investment basics like diversification and building returns steadily through compound interest and dividends.
The Scapegoat Trap: Like the children in humorist Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, people believe they are all above average -- at investing. Overconfidence makes it easy to blame your financial adviser for your outsize losses last year, and to think you'd be better off making the big decisions yourself.
But that attitude ignores a basic fact: In this market, nearly everyone is in the same boat, more or less, regardless of who's managing their money. Ditching your professional help and going it alone is a bad idea.
"There are certainly some financial advisers out there who weren't good at what they did, but the worst mistake someone can make is to fire that individual and decide to do it all themselves instead of finding someone better," says Mr. Blum.
The reality, he says, is that few investors have the time, patience or expertise needed to develop asset-allocation plans and manage diversified portfolios. "Firing a specific adviser may be rational; deciding to be your own financial adviser probably isn't," he says.
The Paralysis Trap: The market debacle has left many investors too terrified to act at all, whether to sell portfolio holdings to limit losses or take advantage of what may be appealing long-term investment opportunities. Some advisers report clients in their 30s and early 40s shunning stocks altogether, when the real risk that they face is likely to be inflation -- which may eat up their money if they keep it out of riskier investments that are likely to trounce rising inflation rates over the next decade or two.
"The chance of suffering more pain is so intense that they can't imagine a world that will be better," says Joe Sheehan, a partner at Moneta Group, a wealth-management firm in St. Louis. "Two years ago, they would have jumped at the chance to buy more of stocks they already owned at these low prices; now they are frozen in place and won't respond."
Mr. Sheehan tries to persuade clients of a simple fact: The world hasn't changed dramatically enough to justify paralysis. "About 92% of Americans are still employed; the S&P 500 is not going to zero," he says.
Mr. Sheehan finds himself pointing to psychological studies showing that people tend to rely too heavily on what has happened in the recent past when it comes to predicting the future. "That's one reason we're in this mess in the first place," he says.
Among other things, he notes, investors and homeowners believed that housing prices could only go up -- leading to the bubble that got millions of homeowners in horrible financial trouble.
The Comfort Trap: "When people are fearful, Wall Street comes out with a product that tries to make you feel good by promising you safety," says Andrew Mehalko, chief investment officer of GenSpring Family Offices LLC in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
For instance, Mr. Mehalko expects one of the hottest-selling products this year to be principal-protected notes, just as they were after the bear market of 2001-02. While these vehicles -- which promise to preserve your principal investment -- may provide reassurance, they often also come with hefty fees and can sharply limit your upside potential.
As a general rule, a low-risk strategy will produce minimal returns. So, while you may feel the urge to lock up all your capital in ultrasafe strategies, you need to be prepared to invest some of it in riskier products.
Meanwhile, Mr. Sheehan reports that some of his clients have even developed an aversion to mortgages. That may be rational for people with no nest egg or a job that's at risk, but it's not something that everyone should be worrying about.
"It's not logical at all," he says, because some have relatively little mortgage debt relative to home value, hold long-term fixed mortgages at the relatively low rate of 5% or so and gain from the tax deduction for mortgage interest.
Yet "all they want to do is pay off that mortgage," to get rid of "this toxic thing -- a mortgage," he says.
The Chasing-the-News Trap: If you're a financial-news junkie, it's tempting to try to react to each twist and turn of the market. But the best thing you can do is turn off the news, put the remote control down on the coffee table and step away from your television set.
In times like these -- an almost unbelievably volatile stock market, a distorted bond market and an economic meltdown -- newshounds can do tremendous damage to their portfolios. Trying to judge exactly the right moment to get into the market -- and then jump out again a day or two later -- is likely to leave you with big headaches and outsize trading expenses.
An "atmosphere of constant, breathless hysteria" isn't conducive to making smart investing moves, says Carol Clark, an investment principal at Lowry Hill, a wealth-management firm in Minneapolis. "That's not what long-term investing is all about.
"Many of those [300-point] interday moves simply don't make a lot of sense in the first place, so how can it be sensible to try and respond to them?" she asks.
Instead of acting on every new development, it's better to look past the noise and invest small amounts regularly, an approach known as dollar-cost averaging. A strategy based on a solid asset-allocation plan and dollar-cost averaging is more likely to lead to sustainable gains over the longer haul.
Ms. Clark offers one final observation. Usually, investors find themselves in traps "because your emotions have run away with your logical thinking," she says. "You need to find ways to start thinking logically again."
Sometimes it helps to do something as simple as making a list of your investment goals and putting it on the refrigerator. Whenever you're tempted to act impulsively in response to something you see on television or hear from a friend at a dinner party, you can go back to that list and remind yourself that yanking money out of the market may not be the best strategy.
"Then, when you feel an urge to turn on CNBC, you train yourself to look at the list instead," she says.
—Ms. McGee is a writer in New York. She can be reached at reports@wsj.com.
Copyrighted, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 3:08 PM |
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| Thursday, April 9, 2009 |
| Holiday effects on Good friday, Easter |
I was trying to "google" searching for any evidence of holiday effects on stock market, specifically for this coming Good Friday and Easter.
No evidences showing any holiday effects on these two holidays. However, I have checked the stock index trend before and after the Good Friday, ie. DJIA; for the pass three years. It shows the positive results. Of course, statistically, no conclusion can be made with only 3 years observation. Anyway, during this bad economy situation, do you guys really hope that this wonderful holiday can bring us some surprise, perhaps a good one.
By the way, some research shows that, the retail sales were up as an effect of Good Friday and Easter. What do you think? |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 10:26 AM |
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| Friday, March 6, 2009 |
| Stock market falling down, falling down..... |
I was very busy on my works recently; well, many company are trying to reduce cost with "creative ideas" such as retrenchment, pay cut, schedule or block leaves, unpaid leaves, etc. The company that I am working in is implementing some of these ideas as well, and i would suspect more to come.
Markets are going down further, economy crisis getting worse and we cannot avoid companies from all the bad effects and we, as employers are suffering alot too.
Look at US stock markets, DJIA dropped into 6XXX level; STI dropped to 15XX level; almost everyday we see the red colours numbers in stock market. More and more ex-blue chips were became "penny stocks", look at Cixxgroup?
Luckily I was able to pull some of my money from stock markets few months ago; I would like to enter, but, I think this is not a right time. But, when will be the right time???? |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 9:26 AM |
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| Friday, February 6, 2009 |
| Crude oil price stable? |
I am trying to keep track on the stock price of the SPC (SGX). With most recent two week, crude oil price were more or less stable on the US$40 level. With the good financial performance and the good "earning prospect" in petroleum insdustry, SPC stock price already rose 11% within this week, ie. 5 trading days; from the opening price of S$2.45 on monday market open to the current price of S$2.72.
I believe, if there is no major "bad news", especially from the US financial sector, I will be very happy by holding the SPC shares on hand, and keep enjoying the "Paper Win $$$$".
BTW, Tonight, Singaporepools is giving out the 10 millions for the yearly hongbao (red packet) toto lottery draw. It's a big "HOPE" in this bad economy. |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 10:22 AM |
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| Wednesday, January 21, 2009 |
| Obama bring us losses |
20 January, or yesterday, Obama finally stepped up to be the 44th US president. And perhaps because of his speech, investors seems lost confidence on his planning on financial sector, all stock indexes dropped significantly on this critical period.
And this is not only affected US stock exchanges; but as well as Asian markets. SGX drop as much as 2% upon market opening. My goodness.....
Is this the first bad thing that brought to us by Obama?
By the way, Singapore Petroleum Co. (SPC) just announced and released his FY2008 financial result yesterday. The figures shows that, although market is slowing down, but the revenue was increased so much compared to FY2007. This is most likely due to the high crude oild price during the mid year of 2008.
Beside, the board of SPC proposed the dividends of 8 cents pending approval from the coming AGM. Current stock price is $2.28 per shares. 0.08/2.28 = 3.5%, a good figure hah! I think SPC is a good stock to invest in for long term consideration. Imagine one day the crude oil price shoot up back to US$100 level, the stock price of >$5 is again possible. |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 1:31 PM |
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| Thursday, December 18, 2008 |
| SGD to RM hit high again |
Well, this is a good news for me, throughout this two weeks, singapore dollar getting stronger and stronger, or relatively, I would say, US dollars getting weaker and weaker, then hence, some asia countries currencies are following the US dollar to get weaker; even though there are not really "tag" with the US dollar, but they do have certain correlations.
My personal guard feeling, singapore dollar to RM, at least, will still continue to shooting higher. I am waiting the day when the figure hit 1:2.50.
:) |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 8:20 AM |
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| Friday, November 14, 2008 |
| Stocks huge rebound after prolonged down |
From Yahoo! Finance, Good article to share.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Investors did an abrupt turnaround on Wall Street Thursday, muscling the Dow Jones industrial average up more than 550 points after driving it down near its lows for the year on a stream of negative economic and corporate news.
After three days of selling that wiped out about $1 trillion in shareholder value, many investors, though nervous about a prolonged economic downturn, appeared convinced the market had priced in enough bad news. So when the Standard & Poor's 500 index -- the indicator most watched by traders -- managed to recover from multiyear trading lows, buyers swarmed back in.
It's "a herd mentality," said Ryan Larson, senior equity trader at Voyageur Asset Management. "We started going higher -- and you don't want to be the last one on the boat."
The market was following in dramatic fashion its pattern of huge price reversals, one that was set early in the now 15-month-old credit crisis and that has become almost the norm on Wall Street.
Some analysts said investors were positioning themselves ahead of a meeting of Group of 20 leaders in Washington. The meeting could bring decisions on mending the troubled global financial system. The G-20 includes the U.S., Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey.
There was "some anticipation that we'll hear some good news from that meeting," said Jack A. Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank. Thursday's rally was "part hopeful, part technical. But certainly welcome."
As stocks rallied, so did oil prices, sending shares of energy companies higher. The biggest gainer among the 30 Dow companies was Chevron Corp., which rose $8.43, or 12.5 percent, to $75.71. Another big gainer was Exxon Mobil Corp., which climbed $6.48, or 9.4 percent, to $75.41; these two energy stocks represented one-fifth of the Dow's point gain Thursday.
The price of a barrel of light, sweet crude rose $2.08 to $58.24 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after falling to the lowest levels since January 2007. Oil has been falling for the same reason as stocks -- the fear of a deep global recession.
Stocks sold off early after the Labor Department said the number of newly laid-off individuals seeking unemployment benefits jumped last week to the highest level since right after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. There was also more evidence of a severe pullback in consumer spending -- a worsening trend that had pummeled stocks earlier in the week. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. trimmed expectations for full-year earnings, and Intel Corp. late Wednesday cut more than $1 billion from its sales forecast.
But then the S&P lifted above its Oct. 10 trading lows, and a Treasury auction of 30-year bonds got lower than average but still decent demand from both domestic and foreign buyers, said Arthur Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co. The auction results alleviated some fears about the government having a hard time financing its costly bailout.
Many analysts had predicted the stock market would retest the multiyear lows it reached last month. They also still forecast volatility for some time to come, as Wall Street tries to rebuild from October's devastating losses and gauge the severity of the economy's downturn. During past recoveries from bear markets, a great deal of turbulence in the market became commonplace -- so it's possible that Thursday's gains will get erased if more gloomy reports pour in.
But Hogan called the market's resiliency a "great sign."
The Dow rose 552.59, or 6.67 percent, to 8,835.25, after falling as low as 7,965.42 and rising as high as 8,876.59. That's a trading range of 911 points. The Dow did not sink below its Oct. 10 trading low of 7,882.51.
The Dow's nearly 553-point gain was the third-largest single-session point gain on record, following the 889-point rise on Oct. 28 and the 936-point surge on Oct. 13.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 58.99, or 6.92 percent, to 911.29, after dropping to 818.69 -- well below its previous intraday low of 839.80 set Oct. 10.
The Nasdaq composite index rose 97.49, or 6.50 percent, to 1,596.70.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 38.43, or 8.5 percent, to 491.23.
The stock market gained back $700 billion Thursday, after losing about $1 trillion during the first three days of the week, according to the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index, which reflects the value of nearly all U.S. stocks. At its lowest trading level Thursday, the market value of the Wilshire index fell below $10 trillion for the first time since April 2003.
Advancing issues outpaced decliners by nearly 3 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to 7.67 billion shares, up from 5.67 billion shares Wednesday.
Government bond prices fell as investors fled back into stocks. The three-month Treasury bill's yield rose to 0.20 percent from 0.13 percent late Wednesday, and the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.85 percent from 3.67 percent late Wednesday. Higher yields indicate lower demand.
Wal-Mart shares rebounded $2.31, or 4.4 percent, to $54.93. The discount retailer's shares had traded lower in earlier trading after it cut its profit outlook because of the flagging global economy and renewed strength of the dollar. Wal-Mart is the only company among the Dow industrials that is up for the year.
Intel also slashed its outlook, initially driving down shares on concerns that consumers are shying away from big purchases like computers. But its shares recovered to trade up 91 cents, or 6.7 percent, at $14.43.
General Motors shares, however, remained weak as the nation's automakers wait for President-elect Obama to push Congress to approve a bailout of the struggling industry. There are also reports that Obama will move to appoint a czar or board to oversee the companies. GM dropped 13 cents, or 4.2 percent, to $2.95. Ford shares rose 6 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $1.90.
The dollar was mixed against other major currencies. Gold prices rose.
Overseas, Japan's Nikkei closed down 5.25 percent and Hong Kong Hang Seng fell 5.15 percent. In European trading, Britain's FTSE 100 was down 0.31 percent, Germany's DAX rose 0.62 percent, and France's CAC-40 added 1.10 percent. |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 8:13 AM |
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| Monday, October 13, 2008 |
| Equity Analysis |
As the stock market or equity market is keep falling, if you are still want to enter the stock market, you have to do some research or even understand some basic theory regarding the equity analysis.
I remember few months ago, there is a post in this blog, which was saying that, to analyse the equity, there are three steps which is better to follow:
1. Global Economy analysis
2. Industry
3. Equity (or stock)
Let's discuss about the first step, global economy analysis,
i.Country Analysis:
Expected real economic growth is the most important variable to analyze in a country analysis because it has the most significant influence on the risk and returns in national equity markets. Analysts are interested in forecasting expected economic growth in the short run and long run.
--In the short run, the focus is on forecasting the stage in the business cycle and therefore expected short-term economic growth.
--In the long run, the focus shifts to expectations of sustainable economic growth as measured by growth in per capita gross domestic product (GDP).
ii. Business cycle:
The short-term goal in identifying the current stage in the business cycle is to forecast the turning point when the economy moves from one stage to another and the invest in those sectors or inductries that are expected to perform best during that stage. In most cases this is difficult to do with any degree of success, which is why analysts most often focus on long-run forecasts of sustainable economic growth. Howvere, there are oppportunities to earn excess risk-adjusted returns for the anakyst who can identify and exploit the various stages of the business cycle than others can.
There are five stages of the business cycle abd potentially attractive investment opportunities at each stage are shown in the figure below:
It seems like we are in between of "Economy slow down and recession", as shown, we are not adviceable to throw in our $ into the Stock market, rather, we should focus on Interest sensitive investment. |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 8:39 AM |
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| Sunday, October 5, 2008 |
| Dividend |
Let's talk about Dividend.
Cash Dividends, as the name implies, they are payments made to shareholders in cash. They basically come in three forms:
1. Regular dividends occur when a company pays out a portion of profits on a consistent schedule (e.g. Quaterly). A long-term record of stable or increasing dividends is widely viewed by investors as a sign of a company's financial stability.
2. Special dividends are used when the company does not have a regular dividend schedule or if favourable circumstances allow the firm to make a one time cash payment to shareholders. Other names for special dividends include "extra dividends" and "irregular dividends".
3. Liquidating dividends occur when a company goes out of business and distributes the proceeds to shareholders. For tax purposes, a liquidating dividend is treated as a return of capital and amounts over the investor's tax basis are taxed as capital gains. |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 4:34 PM |
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| Tuesday, September 30, 2008 |
| US market plunge hit record |
Down! Down! Down! Dowjones index record plunge yesterday because of the 700B bailout plan failed.
I can forseen the big big economy crisis is coming, it would affect us, in Asia market of course.
But as I told my friends, economy crisis will not affect much on us if we do not pump in too much $ into the equity market (of course also provided your job or career is not being affected).
Generally speaking, when economy crisis happen, Interest rate will increase......
if we follow the economics thoery, interest rate increase, human tends to save money?? and therefore, hopefully, housing price will drop as demand low. I really hope that.
Furthermore, as a SGD earner, I hope SGD to RM exchange rate will keep hitting high, like 10 years ago, hehehe...... well, then my purchasing power in malaysia will effectively higher.
:P |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 7:36 AM |
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 |
| My new LONG-TERM investment plan. |
Have you ever blocked by any financial planners from banks, insurance companies, investment firms, which selling their products such as monthly saving plans; i.e. save a fixed amount of money every month with a certain lock-in period to enjoy a special given interest rate. With the same logic or strategy, I have planned a long term investment plan for myself. So what kind of investment? Well, it is by purchasing Singapore stocks. How? I shall give a simple explanation as below:
First, I would say, this simple plan would not make me rich, but as I say, this is only for a LONG TERM investment. By looking and searching around the Singapore stocks, I have found a few potential stocks that possibly working fine with this plan. For example, I will just name it as XXX. Well, long term investment, we are normally talking about low risk investment. So, meaning to say, stock XXX has to be a stable, not volatile and constant growth stocks or at least periodically paying a stable dividends.
Again, As i mentioned earlier, the logic and strategy is similar to the saving plan given by banks, etc; ie. every month, or every quarter, or even just every 6 months, depends on your own financial capability, taking part of the saving, and purchase the stock.
For example, every quarter, I am going to purchase one lot of stock XXX at current price at $2.00, in another words, every month, roughly I will take about $500 from my saving to purchase the stock in quarterly manner.
Looking at the historical info of the stock XXX, it's having a average increment (geometric mean)of 26% in the stock price; and most importantly, it's givng an average dividend (geometric mean) of 6% for the past 5 years. Let's take 5 years as a plan, and for "worsen" estimation; we ignore the appreciation of the stock price and assume the yearly dividend is 5%.
Through these, after 5 years, you haved dumb in 20X$2000 =$40,000. But with the returns of the dividends, you got already about $5,000, which is 12.5% increases in the absolute amount. Note that this is the return estimate from dividend, without consider the increase of the value of the stock, and of course you may not need to consider this, as long as you hold the stock even if the price is falling. Furthermore, imagine, after 5 years you have 20 lots of the stock XXX. every year it gives you 10 cents (5% of the price of $2.00), you will get $2,000 for dividends, (NOTE, This is a extra income, not much, but why not?) and if you continue with this strategy all the way till you retire, wow! I would expect it will become a pretty huge extra incomes.
Of course you may doubt on the RISKs of purchasing stock, yes, I could not say no for the risk is there; but personal opinions, there are some pretty stable and constant growing stocks there (or I would say low risk). For example, SMRT? Singtel? SBStransit? etc. Still have doubt, you may check out http://www.sgx.com/ and judge YOURSELF! |
| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 1:04 PM |
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| Monday, September 1, 2008 |
| Banking - Credit Cards |
Recently, many banks are giving vouchers or other promotion by applying their credit cards. Here I would like to show some of them.
1. HSBC (click to visit the hsbc website and apply)
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| posted by NOSNIM™ @ 9:57 AM |
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