Financial Crisis

Been figuring out how to have a 3 column template for my blog for a week but couldn't achieve it... XML looks simple but hmm not that easy after all....


===Financial Position+++
Ok I am in deep shit now... Had not been managing my cash well... With my $$ struck in the market and my upcoming school fees, my savings is totally exhausted....

Have to look for loans already..... I am out of the league for stock market for the time being, a long time perhaps....

Had to look for sideline as well...

Survey About Me

Came across this interesting survey from a fellow blogmates. My ReSULTs:

You Are a Pegasus

You are a perfectionist, with an eye for beauty. You know how to live a good life - and you rarely deviate from your good taste. While you aren't outgoing, you have excellent social skills. People both admire you - and feel very comfortable around you.

What Mythological Creature Are You?

Portfolio Q3 results

===Earning Season and World's Insight===

This quarter earnings seasons do not have much impact on most of the stock prices even when decent earnings are reported in fact most if not all went down even with remarkable results. The reason is obvious as the subprime woes got back into the scene making the worlds' economy gloom. With Expert Fund Houses like Merril Lynch, Goldman Sac, Citigroup & UBS credit woes falling beyond analyst expectations, the entire world is shaken. Thought that's the worse, you are totally wrong, the rising oil prices and the weakening dollar has added more stress to the world.

====Back in Singapore===

No doubt Singapore has enjoyed a robust growth in the economy but with all the dark clouds over US, the earnings on some companies looks ugly. A significant element that lower profits of serveral companies to the extend of making losses is the FX losses. The has affected the results of several companies such as Labory Marine, SembCorp Industries, Aztech ...etc results, which affect the growth of my counters.

===Aztech Financial Highlights===

Comparing 07 Quarter 3 to 06 Quarter 3

Revenue has increased from 8.9% from 61954 to 67495. With an increase in Revenue, COGS will naturally rise. However, the Group's COGS went up higher than its revenue with an increase of 12.1% from 49106 to 55050. This will definately bring the profit margin down and indeed the group reported a decline of 3.1 percent in the Gross Profit. It is alarming for investors and the management do need to look into the situation immediately to salvage the future growth.

Looking deeper, the group reported a significant increase in operating expenses. Other Operating Income has surge tremendously, increasing a 37.7% from 446 to 614. The figure is a very small in the overall picture and I find that this segment is relativly unimportant as it is not their core business. Selling and Distribution Cost has increase slightly, 2.1% from 2050 to 2093, which I feel is a reasonable figure. Next, the main attribute that erodes the earnings is the Administrative Expense(No idea what segment should be included here) where we saw an increase of 24% from 5232 to 6488. Finance Cost has gone down a bit, 10.7% , from 634 to 566.

From its further segmentation, I believe that the Administrative Expense consist of it's Provision of Doubtful Debts which amount to 579(previous year don't have), the Exchange Losses which surges 143% from 310 to 754, and the increase in Amortisation of Deferred Expenditure of 65.3% from 648 to 1071.

Other details are:
Decrease in Interest Income(2.4%) from 170 to 166
Decrease in Interest Expense(16%) from 531 to 446
Increase in Depreciation of property, plant and equipment(20.8%) from 1062 to 1284
Decrease in Loss on disposal of plant and equipment(22.2%) from 9 to 7

Altogether, the Quater Net Profit has decline 28.6% from 5030 to 3591.

The Group has provide explanations for the decline in profit.

• A slowdown in orders from a key Contract Manufacturing customer in Asia Pacific region
• The appreciation of Renminbi as well as rising labor costs and overheads in China, contributing to higher operating costs
• An additional exchange loss of S$0.44 million due to depreciation of US dollar against the Singapore dollar
• Rising commodity costs affecting gross margin
• Provision for doubtful debts of S$0.58 million from 2 customers

From the above factor, I am very concern on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th point. This factors are systematic risk which the company are unable to control and will keep acting against the company diminishing their future growth. .

Finally pertaining to the 1st and last point,I hope that the Management will need to ways to improve their sales and access their customers carefully to save themselves from giving their customer free stuffs(Provision of Doubtful Debts)

P.S. Tough Adventure on Financial Analysis

Bersek Mode

Market is self correcting... I wonder why? It seems that the subprime story is overdoing its impact... WHERE'S THE END RALLY???

Portfolio status - 24% wipe out...

I am going crazy... Severely Burnt.... Felt deeply regret for exploring the unknowns... PPL just laugh at me and I hate it....

Lost.....

Conversation

====A chat with my friend/mentor====

My friend cum mentor ask me how's my warrant and replied as usual another loss and that I could reduce my losses if I had not rush to sell earlier. And he told me it's better to earn then to lose... (who will like to lose money? duhz)... I then replied it is difficult to earn from the market... and he answered that it is difficult to earn in this market...

I then say I aspire to be like him can earn from most market conditions and grumped about my hugh losses and state about my weak emotions in trading. He highlighted to me that it may be my analysis instead of emotions... and note me on there is there is no such things as quick profits.

He then ask for my Observation, where I answered STI hovering around support lvl of 3670 and seems like consolidating at that level and later jio me to join another course where I decline as I am utterly out of cash and tell him to teach me after he attended.. He then tell me the system is good, wanna to learn must learn from the best... and mentioned that the fees is cheaper then what I attended before.

I answered that the system may not be suitable for me as its for pro trader who have the luxury to trade on a full time basis. Futhermore attending the course now is useless to me as I do not have the lifeline to trade futher... Another thing I observed from the system is one has to be nimble in the trades and I personally find that (e.g STI warrants) it may require a hugh caps in order to beat the transaction fees.

My friend/mentor then state that i am lack of confidence... and I response in an anguish mind to him how to be confident when my portfolio is down 21 percent...

Then he went along pointing the pros of the system like short term swing play and that TA is about entry and exit where I highlight on the cons that it requires a strict cut loss discipline and in my states, I cannot bear to cut further losses.... (one mininal loss- transaction fees will be from 54-60).

I then go on to state that both of us begun differently(He - FA, Me - TA) and have different track records. He has made consistant profits while I made the latter, consistant losses and that is a hugh difference. He mention that he dun speculate like me, I think he does speculate some times though and say my downfall is due to greed.

I then reasoned with him that I do stock chase due to the fact that it acted on my anticipation and gave me an assurance to buy because when I buy a stock with same analyse, it just goes down... and then he say I have committed all the taboos in trading....

Personally, I do not think that I am greedy (as i always cut my profits) but is just anxious in recovering my capital...

Now with a mountain of losses and no lifeline avaiable, I am deeply despair and felt that all the efforts I have put in does not pay off at all... this makes me severely sick of the market...

Grave Mistakes...

=== Lock another 150 losses ====
DJI vomitted 356.29 points last friday. And recover about 20 points on sat.
From what I observe, dips like this dun just come in one wave, and news of bad results from citigroup will definately cause another tumble when it opens trading on monday.

With such anticipation, I have join the putties bandwagon in hope to have a fruitful ride. In a rush-headed mind for profits, I have overlook the ISM report and its impact on DJI.

Early warnings were send out yesterday when STI tested 50 days MA and did not decline further after HSI closes with a deep drop of more then 1500 points, instead it retrace back to 3670 support lvl. At that point, I still foolishly held on to hope and took the gamble.

===This morning===
DJI closes 51 points down. To me, it seems ok where I should be able to enjoy the ride down. To my dismay, it went the other way round!!!

Trader Instincts
"When the trades goes wrong, you have to rush for the emergancy exit!!!"

My margin of risk was compromised and thus I took my losses before HSI opens as HSI is usually a driver to STI in either direction(decided not to take the gamble).

Mistakes:
Herd-Following
Panic buying/selling(brought at day high/sold at day low)
Traded on emotions/greed

Unstable State Of Mind....

Fed has cut its interests rate by 0.25%. SO What!!! My counters still hantakaki ard their prices.

I am in a berserk mode now... as I am being defeated yet again... With the same analysis of prospective counters, those that I brought goes down! Those that I never buy, goes up. This is driving me Crazy...

Lately, I have done some analysis and felt like doing some contra on Ferderal, NOL, and ChinaAElec, but due to the facts that what i buy will goes down, I did not make those trades and in the end saw them goes up as what I have anticipated.... DULANZ....

Attempting to ease my drought seasons, I follow some of my Mentor trades... But seems that I have been cursed, of so many of his winning trades, I just kept hitting those losing one.... Faintzz

In this unstable state of mind, I begin to chase stocks in my watchlist like Berlain Laju.... but quickly withdrew my order as I know it will be a mistake to trade on emtions/impulse...

Haiz... Seeing my holdings without any positive movement is getting on my nerves...