My Favourite Technical Analysis Website

My favourite technical analysis website is Barton's Global Market Trends.

His technical analysis is simple and no nonsense approach and he does not gives wishy-washy statements about pricing going up or down. He has his conviction and will point you to one direction only. 

All the major indices, commodities, currencies of interest to the retail investors are available at a glance with his thoughts. You can see from the chart the major support and resistance, the reversion to the mean and from there make an educated guess of which one is likely to be bottoming and which one is toppish.

For my own use, I like to buy stocks in countries that are in the long-term bottoming range on the rebound up to the reversion to the mean. Those at the resistance end, I think you can consider taking profits and switching to those at the bottoming phase. While those sitting on the reversion to the mean probably indicates the market is fairly valued and waiting for the euphoria phase if it comes. For example, I've been in Australia and Singapore equities in early 2012. Added the China 2823.HK ETF to my portfolio in December last year and thinking whether to add Euro Stoxx50 and Nikkei ETFs this month. Reasons for using ETFs on the 3 markets are I have not much access and knowledge there , so an index ETF allows me to go in and out quickly should the need arises and I do not have to do much research on the individual companies there to be invested in the market. Singapore and Australia are the only two places I've lived in and I can say most companies there ring a bell to me and I've a rudimentary knowledge of the investing environment here and there.

It's not an advertorial for him but I find it useful enough to recommend to all. Of course, I give a little token of appreciation thru' his paypal account.

CM on Penthouses

I believe the open to air roof terrace now are not under your GFA, that's why you cannot have permanent enclosure for it. So, this new measure will mean more likely there will no longer be roof terrace design for EC/PCs. THe developer will most likely substitute the roof terrace with the enclosed balcony since the balcony is currently already under your GFA and developer do pay a certain DC for it. The effect is your duplex penthouses for ECs/PCs will be rarity. And even if it's not, buyers who want to buy your penthouse will have to pay FULL Price for the roof terrace as NEW ECs/PCs with Roof terrace will not be discounted anymore. 

 There are obviously legal ways and approved by URA for Roof terraces without incurring more GFA. So, I believe if you landscape and do up your roof terraces nicely for your own usage and later when you resell, the buyer can see and feel the landscape and ambience(do it at night). Then obviously price will be more expensive. For developers, if they are now going to sell higher price RT, then obviuosly there will be more thoughts into how to landscape and roof it making it very very conducive for the buyers ot pay the asking price. So therefore, if higher asking prices in future(no longer 50% discount), then it will become norm to charge higher for Roof terraces. Existing owners.. Huat ah! :)

Got this from a forum on how to roof it.

Quote:

If I recall my previous projects correctly, the formal process of constructing a roof terrace is as follows. 1. MCST Approval Approval must be sought from MCST to construct as the roof top terrace may impact the external facade or building outlook. 2. URA (http://www.ura.gov.s...yproperty.htm#4) As the strata title locks in the GFA of your unit, any roof terrace should not incur an increase in GFA. There are several ways of avoiding the increase in GFA. a. install a open to sky roof trellis with a retractable awning over it. b. Construct a roof terrace butting against a wall to a maximum of 2m overhang. c. Construct a 4mx4m covered pavillion on the basis that 2m overhang from edge of roof to wall for roof terraces are exempt from GFA. Therefore a 4mx4m covered pavillion is similar. d. cbuy an umbrella. Of course, items (a), (b) or © will require URA submission by the Architect and is subject to approval from the Planner on a case by case basis. Alternative if the Condo development has GFA to spare, (highly unlikely), you can apply to purchase it from MCST and revise your strata title. 3. BCA A roof terrace is defined by BCA as "Building works carried out for or in connection with any single storey trellis, pergola, shelter, gazebo and the like." Thus no submission is required.

Property is really the best investment class for NORMAL ORDINARY FOLKS.

Timing is also important. If you can wait it out and buy when there's a crash or major correction.
Have you all wondered why every rich tom,dick,harry who have seen big money sloshing around stocks and bonds and forex still prefers to invest in properties. They must have seen the real story, not the one you are inundated with.

JANUARY 12, 2013
A passion for real estate
Kishore Buxani, who heads the Buxani Group, has a nose for sniffing out undervalued assets, reports Kalpana Rashiwala

Kishore Buxani had a headstart in the real estate business. When he was 12, he and his elder brother Haresh started ploughing through the classified ads to help their mother find a home for the family.
One apartment in Meyer Road - a 1,250 sq ft unit with 999-year leasehold tenure - caught their eye.
"When we finally bought it in 1986, it was at $165,000. But I remember having looked at it earlier in 1983, when it was $380,000," says the 40-year-old, who heads the Buxani Group.
His early experience and the skills he later gained at Goldman Sachs helped to hone his real estate investing strategy. He concentrates on what he understands best, that is, Singapore commercial real estate, seeking undervalued properties, adding value to them, and holding them for the long term.
Market watchers say making shrewd property investments is a family trait for Mr Buxani. His mother, Indra, is a sister of Royal Brothers founders Raj and Asok Kumar Hiranandani - although Buxani Group is fully owned by Mr Buxani and not linked to his uncles.
Mr Buxani has a nose for sniffing out undervalued assets. "We look for well-located older properties below replacement cost and which are under-performing, under-rented, under-used, and under-appreciated."
Part two of this strategy involves value-addition. "We actively manage the asset post-acquisition through refurbishment, repositioning or tenant remixing."
Founded in 2003, Buxani Group owns Katong Junction, a stake in Finexis Building in Robinson Road, four floors in Samsung Hub, and strata office units in Parkway Centre. Its partner in these four investments is a group of offshore investors advised by Seychelles-based Capital Management Group (CMG).
Apart from these joint investments with CMG, Buxani Group owns more than 10 shophouses in Chinatown and Little India along with strata offices at International Plaza and Malacca Centre, and strata shops in the Orchard Road belt - in Far East Plaza, Lucky Plaza and Orchard Towers.
Outside Buxani Group, Mr Buxani owns a few properties with his brother.
"As of today, I don't own shares, bonds, foreign currencies. I'm not trying to be Warren Buffet, but I really believe you have to focus on what you understand. All my investments are in real estate, all in Singapore."
But things could change in the near future, he tells The Business Times in an interview at his office in Samsung Hub in the CBD.
He points out that good value can be found in some small and mid-sized local listed property developers controlled by families with decades of experience. Some of these counters are trading at low earnings multiples and below book value, despite the recent run-up in share prices.
"We are exploring the possibility of acquiring a strategic non-controlling stake in one of these companies, where the focus is to be complementary and possibly add value to the existing management," he says.
And while Singapore will remain the group's focus, Mr Buxani says he is open to "co-investing in compelling opportunities with trusted partners in locations where they have strong local knowledge".
Mr Buxani, now a Singapore citizen, was born in Johor Baru, where his father was a civil servant. His mother ran her own clothes retail business. After his father died of cancer in 1983, the family moved to Singapore the following year. With insurance money received after his father's death, the family bought the Meyer Road apartment.
During weekends and school holidays, the young Kishore used to help out at relatives' shops in the Orchard Road area, getting his first insights into the retail business in the prime shopping district. "When my mum bought a home in 1986, and my brother and I helped to shop for it through the Classifieds, that started the whole looking at real estate thing. We later saw how property prices went berserk in the 1990s, and in 1997 when prices tumbled during the Asian Financial Crisis, we saw how people lost their pants."
Specialty
In 1995, while pursuing his Bachelor of Business Administration degree at the National University of Singapore, Mr Buxani was picked for an internship with Goldman Sachs in Singapore.
After graduating the following year, he joined the US investment bank as a financial analyst. He later built up an asset management business within the bank's investment management division, advising and managing assets for ultra high-net worth family groups and corporates. Back then, his speciality was spotting undervalued companies.
While still in Goldman's employment, Mr Buxani began investing in Singapore property in 2000, "using every dollar of my income at Goldman Sachs".
Initially he bought freehold strata shops in the Orchard Road area at about $2,500-3,000 psf. "Net property yields were 5.5-6.5 per cent, though interest rates were, of course, much higher than today. Assuming you put down 25 per cent equity, borrowed 75 per cent and if the rental income was enough to cover the monthly loan instalment payments, property tax and maintenance fees, then by the end of your loan period of 15-20 years, you would have paid off your loan, and gained full ownership of the property (without any outstanding loan). Assuming there are no changes in rental and capital values, the initial 25 per cent equity investment will become 100 per cent - which means you would quadruple your equity. And having been at Goldman, managing money, trust me, it's not easy quadrupling your money in such a conservative manner in the global financial markets over the same holding period."
That's not all. "Now the real kicker is: if you buy the property at a good time of the property cycle and capital values do actually appreciate, then the returns could end up being an 8-10 times multiple of your initial equity investment!"
Mr Buxani went on to purchase more strata shops - some on his own and some with his brother.
Next, he ventured into shophouses during the Sars period in 2003, paying about $500 psf on built-up area. "Prices were half the 1996 peak and shophouses were giving you like 7 per cent net yield," he recalls. Later that year, he set up Buxani Group as a holding company for some of his investments.
In April 2005, he resigned from Goldman Sachs, where he had risen to executive director in the investment management division, to focus full-time on his passion for investing and managing real estate.
"When I left Goldman, I was advising on/managing assets of about US$1.1 billion and many people could not believe I was leaving a comfortable position that I had built up to just focus on real estate investments," says Mr Buxani. "I truly believe that if you really enjoy what you do and focus on it, money will follow."
Also in 2005, he began acquiring strata office units at about $600 psf.
Long-term view
In late 2006, Buxani Group and CMG picked up GMG Building (later renamed Finexis Building) in the CBD at $875 psf on strata area after it went though an expression of interest without netting a buyer.
"A lot of people don't want to get involved in old buildings. It's a lot of hard work. But it's fine, I enjoy doing that. It took one year to vacate the building and then 15 months to refurbish it at about $6 million," he recalls. In 2011, he and CMG sold a half stake in the company that owns the asset at $2,043 psf.
In early 2007, the partnership paid a relatively attractive $1,560 psf for six floors in the 999-year leasehold Samsung Hub, dubbed the "tilting building" for developing a 0.1-degree tilt during its construction. Even though the main contractor Samsung had earlier rectified the problem, the stigma persisted when the Buxani-CMG partnership bought their space from OCBC Properties. Since then, the Buxani-CMG tie-up has sold two of the floors at $2,800 psf in 2011 and $3,000 psf last last year, reaping a handsome profit. "Today Samsung Hub may possibly be the strongest building in Singapore because it was massively fortified by the contractor," he quips.
His advice to real estate newbies is: "Take a long-term view on real estate And don't get swayed by short-term hype, herd mentality or emotions."
"Secondly," he says, "do your own research about the specific type of property you intend to purchase, and look at existing secondary prices in the vicinity, rental yields, vacancy, etc."
The self-declared workaholic enjoys travelling, usually with his family. "When I'm travelling, I like to immerse myself in the local culture and way of life. Typically, I hire a car and drive around leisurely, just enjoying the local sights, sounds, food and people."

Took this off a forum and so I have no idea who I can credit this source for.

Food for Thoughts : 2013 is Stock market year.

From Prof. Chan's newsletter..

The aftermath of 2008 global financial tsunami has been far reaching; post crisis impact is
still with us today. US launched QE1, QE2 and QE3 by printing currency notes, but US economy
has yet to recover; unemployment rate remains high, and real estate market is still at its ebb. The
problem of European national debts seems to have resolved, as European Central Bank has decided
to print unlimited amount of currency notes to buy national debts of Euro zone, on condition that
countries receiving the aid must tighten up their public expenditure, an exercise that could lead to
economic recession in Europe. The 3rd large economy, Japan is even worse. They change prime
minister every year. Why? It is beacause nobody can solve the country’s economic problems. Now
that Libeeral Democratic Party is running the country again, it has decided to wantonly print
currency notes to rescue the economy. China was the most prudent country in 2012, not dared to
print currency notes to stimulate the economy due to experiencing high inflation rate in 2011, and
had to squeeze the money supply then. In the last month of 2012 Chinese market however, after
prolonged bearish trend certainly turned around rapidly. Investors are now fancying China might
print curreny notes again to stiumulate the economy.
               
               In short, it seems 2013 is the year in which whole world woud be printing curreny notes.
               In theory, abundant cash will lead to inflation we are concerned with. But the US printed
currency notes consequent to the quantitative easing monetary policy are retained in the financial
circle without benefiting the real economy to create employment. With high unemployment rate,
people will not dare to spend monies, and without spending, there will be no inflation. Inflation
equates to prices of consumable goods for which if no increase in consumption, prices will not go
up. The monies retained in the financial circle thus become hot monies moving the markets.
             
Therefore, the reason Singapore market certainly surged upward in the last momth of
2012 is because QE3 monies became hot monies flowing to Singapore. 
               After prolong negotiations, the US fiscal cliff issue was at last settled on the last day of
2012. We can optimistically look forward to this year’s markets. But rising markets do not mean
the economy is better. The US and European economies do not seem to have recovered yet. 

Making full use of Bloomberg Portfolio Tracker and DIY portfolio tracker

I've not found any portfolio app/software that match my needs perfectly. So the workaround is to use a few portfolio tracker to manage my portfolio.

1) DIY

I've my own portfolio tracker in Excel spreadsheet but it's mainly on the money management aspect.  The key aspects of this spreadsheet is to monitor the individual position sizing, the trailing stop-loss (15% from highest price achieve since purchase), % wrt 50d ma and 200dma(I'm lazy, i do not have to go see which chart individually), the MAX loss from purchase px to the 52wk low(just a theorectical test but of course it can break below 52wk low).  I've also added forex to calculate everything into SGD Value. All these are updated automatically when you go to the spreadsheet. Dividends/Coupons collected are tabulated into monthly schedule in another worksheet.

I've got a separate Cashflow and networth tracker that documents all major monthly expenses(budgeting yearly) and income yearly and the composition of the networth (different bank accounts with liabilities and bonds and shares etc).

For my fundamental analysis(the quantitative side), I have also done up an  Excel spreadsheet that will take in bloomberg/reuters financial data and then compute all the things I am looking for including :-
1) 10 "Buffettology" score sheet - Current Ratio > 2, Total Debt/Equity Ratio < 33%, Total Debt/Avg FCF < 5 etc
2) Fiscal Fitness score sheet -> Dealing with profitability, Debt & Capital, Operating Efficiency and altman Z-score
3) Projected DCF and ROI compared to Treasury bonds(or any sovereign bonds of the country the stock is based in), CARG as an equity/bond, CARG using historical annual EPS growth.

This will then be ranked with scores with the key variables of P/E, P/B, P/S, EV/FCF, EPV using FCF, Buffet's bkvalue, DCF.

Anyway, this is just to make certain you did your homework. Whether it translates into a good pick is anybody's guess. However, I have so far have good results with this method of doing stock selection. Looking back at my portfolio, those that are negatives results are around 1/6. The whole portfolio have returned (including dividends) a compounded annual growth rate of  around 10% since 2009.  Of course, it helps that it was a rising market and stocks i'm interested in are mainly blue-chips and companies that have been around for 10yrs.


2) Major Financial Market Providers

Bloomberg, Reuters, Shareinvestor all have good portfolio tracker. Reuters portfolio will automatically update the dividends received and any stock action(splits) into your account. Shareinvestor is mainly focused on STI and you get very good news on every stocks in your portfolio at a glance with insider trades, P/E, P/B etc etc. Bloomberg has a good watchlist with fundamentals, earnings in it.

Of particular interest to anyone who wants to know instanteous STI index or S&P index P/E ratio and P/B Ratio. You can do the following :-

You have to go to Personal Finance -> Watchlist(portfolio tracker). You can then add in this few stocks.. FSSTI:IND . SPX:IND
for other indexes..just do a search and see what is the code.
Once you add in to your watchlist, click on fundamentals and you will get what you want. 

BTO Galore for Singles.

Infi, it's your life. You have to decide. Opinions given are poorly taken. If you win, you congratulate yourself. If you lose, you curse the person for giving you a stupid advice. No win situation for the one who gives his opinion.

Anyway, I did a little detective work and this is what I think has linked congruently for me that this year there will be BTO Galore for singles.

1st) http://mndsingapore.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/singles-i-hear-you/

Another logical way is to launch a larger number of BTO flats next year.  Question is what should that magical number be.  This requires some study, and market research.  Hence, I need some time. - Khaw Boon Wan Sept 2012

2nd) http://app.mnd.gov.sg/Newsroom/NewsPage.aspx?ID=3853&category=Parliamentary%20Q%20&%20A

2. Between 1992 and 2011, singles bought an average of 4,600 resale flats yearly. There is no rising trend of more singles buying resale flats. In fact, the number of singles buying resale flats has fallen from an average of 5,600 flats a year between 2002 and 2006, to an average of 4,300 flats a year between 2007 and 2011. - MND October 2012

 3rd) http://www.singapolitics.sg/news/more-hdb-flats-cater-singles

He would have started to wind down flat-building but with the Governmen's plan to tweak a policy restricting singles from buying HDB flats, he has "deliberately ramped it up a little bit higher".
"And we're still mulling over it because it's very hard to put a figure on how much should we cater for singles," he added. - Khaw Boon Wan Oct 2012

4th) http://www.todayonline.com/Hotnews/EDC130103-0000028/Resale-flat-prices-continue-to-climb

And as HDB yesterday announced that it will launch at least 23,000 Build-to-Order (BTO) flats this year - or at least 3,000 more than its previous target, Blah blah blah Yesterday, it said: "HDB is finalising its building plans for 2013 and will now target to launch at least 23,000 BTO flats. These projects will have a good geographical spread in various towns or estates. - MND Jan 2013

In summary, in 2012, Khaw Boon Wan hear you singles and intends to launch a larger number of BTO in 2013. He would have wound down the flat building but with Govt's plan to tweak policy restricting singles from buying HDB flats, he deliberately ramp it up a little bit higher.  He needs time to find out what is the MAGICAL number to increase for the singles. He found out there is a falling trend of singles buying HDB Resale from 5,600 to 4,300 by 2011. By 3rd Jan 2013, MND decided the magical number would be 3,000 more BTO than the previous target. 

This is how I linked the news. 

Millionaire Investor

How to become a millionaire investor without paying thru your nose ( I mean >$1,000 course) for a investing course.

Step 1) Watch this.

Step 2) Read this.

The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham

Step 3) Attend SGX Academy courses that have the same content as other commercial courses at a fraction of the price.

http://www.sgxacademy.com/index.php?option=com_sgx&task=listing&category_id=2&Itemid=19

SGX Academy courses are quite comprehensive if you are a beginner and want to know more. I highly recommend going. I've attended some previews and I find it good.

Step 4) Follow some blogs that you think make sense. Createwealth888 and AK71 are the ones that  make sense!

Step 5) Read more books.

Step 6) Setup your investment policy and Take ACTION!

Disclaimer : The millionaire investor was just to entice you to read.. lol.. My circle of friends is small but I have seen more millionaires from property investing and I've seen none from stock investing. Of course, there is a time for everything. Property in Singapore seems limited in capital appreciation for these 5years. Probably Stocks will be taking over.