STE's Stocks Investing Journey

“ Disclaimer : The information provided in this blog is for general information purposes only and not a recommendation to buy or sell stocks mentioned in any blog post. ( Warning!!  The writer owns shares in Eagle Hospitality Trust, information & views provided may subject to bias in view of stakes he has in the company.” I recently ordered a book from Book Depository called “ Narrative Economics : How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Event ” by a Nobel winning economist “ Robert Shiller . Who is Robert Shiller and what is Narrative Economic? <From Wikipedia.com > Robert James Shiller  (born March 29, 1946) [4]  is an  American   economist  ( Nobel Laureate  in 2013), academic, and best-selling author. Shiller has taught at Yale since 1982 and previously held faculty positions at the  Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania  and the  University of Minnesota . He has written on e...

Wow, time flies and it has been quite some time since my last blog post on 28 September. I am also quite busy with two staycations in J.B and Penang in the last two weeks after my younger daughter finished her PSLE exam.   As usual, we spent a great time on movies / food/shopping and of course sight-seeing. My last visit to Penang was a few years back where we were onboard cruise ship to Phuket, we arranged a day-trip to Penang and didn’t really have much time to walk around. Well, this time around we have more time to explore the "beauty" of Penang as we spend  4 Days/ 3 Nights at Penang…. :D

image credit to stewcap.com Would like to share some great articles on “Negative bond yield and QE” ...with more and more central bankers lowering the interest rate and implementing more QE, the world is flooded with liquidity and resulting   $17 Billion of     negative-yielding bond sitting and idling on various financial institution’s balance sheet around the world.     What does a negative bond yield mean? < source: Investopedia.com> Why do investors buy negative yield bonds? <source:ft.com> image credit to Bloomberg finance.com With this unstoppable pace of money printing, the market will become more volatile... all conventional methods of assets valuation will also become obsolete... you may notice that it will become "new normal" for some S-REITs to have yielded lower than 4% (especially from those with a stronger sponsor like Mapletree or Capital families).

Congrats !! for those invested in Keppel DC REIT as share price shoot up to $2.13 as of closing on last Friday. It's about +21% increased vs price prior to asset acquisition and equity fund rising announcement on 16th Sep 2019. I am not so sure if the new acquisition will give a DPU boost by more than 21%, else why there is a sudden change in perception or valuation for such asset class REITs after the announcement. Keppel DC Reit to raise $473.8m to partially fund data centre acquisitions   <source:straitstimes.com> F.O.M.O? T.I.N.A ? or The Sky's The Limit? By looking at the pace and % of the price increases, I think there is some kind of  " euphoria "  for the stock at this moment. Same as previous case on Capital Commercial Reit , we will still need to stick to fundamental valuation for REITs as the growth and revenue are not like those " tech stocks " that it could be " exponential " to some extent. May ...

image credit to sginvestors.io Not All Index Are Created Equal I think most of us are using Index as bench-marking against our portfolio’s performance and from time to time, we often hear about buying index as a kind of passive investment. Some financial advisors are even proposing “ DCA” or dollar-cost averaging for Index with “buy and hold” strategy. “The average annualized total return for the S&P 500 index over the past 90 years is 9.8 %.” Guess this is the most “eye-catching” a phrase that often mentioned in the news which is also the most powerful words to attract investors pouring billions of dollars into Index ETFs under the so called a “passive investment” strategy. But remember that not all Index are created equal if the index is added with many “toxic stocks”, such an index will sure underperform than other world indexes.

image credit to sohu.com.cn The  "big four"   state-owned commercial banks are the  B ank of China , the  China Construction Bank , the  Industrial and Commercial Bank of China , and the  Agricultural Bank of China , all of which are also among the  largest banks in the world  as of 2018.  The big four also, the world largest in term of total assets base on 2018  S&P Global Market Intelligence  report. FYI, DBS rank 71st with a total asset of approx. USD$388 Billion.   <Source: Wikipedia.com>

image credit to mothership.sg Millions of people have taken to the streets of Hong Kong over the past few months as protests against the controversial extradition Bill grew into violent clashes between police and protesters. What began as a targeted protest  against a controversial extradition bill in June has transformed into what feels like a battle for the future of Hong Kong. While things still unfold for the event, but it has caused billions of dollars as many businesses been disrupted, billions worth of IPOs been scraped and conference & trade fair have been postponed or cancelled.