Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Warren Buffet Wealth by Robert P.Miles

Warren Buffett Wealth
Having a disastrous record of 50% paper losses from my portfolio with another 3k of realized losses, I been pondering if I am a cut into trading/investing and kept asking what wrong with myself as some peers that I met online achieving a good track record in their investment and one friend of mine who has influence me into stock investing reaping a good profit by both trading and investing...

My friend had mentioned that I have started off using trading techniques without cutting losses, ignoring crucial valuations, suggests that I read some books about investing and recommended me Warren Buffett Wealth – Principles and Practical Methods Used by the world’s Greatest Investor.

This book gave a brief introduction about Warren Buffet, the investment talent he processes and his investment journey showcasing some of this brilliant investment he made since he was young such as reselling the coke from house to house with a decent return on investment of 20%(which later in life he acquired the shares), the joint business venture of pinball machine that boost his wealth substantially, the key investments in GEICO Auto Insurance, Coca-cola and Washington Post.

It also introduces general principles like “Learning from the Best to be the Best”, "one needs to devote his efforts in order to be successful" and shares with us that wealth is created through owning a business. It also teach an important concept of the Down Market Test where the true measure of a successful investor is not a comparison of performance against the NASDAQ, DJI, S&P but rather how well a portfolio performs during down markets.

It then relates the key processes to become wealthy:
- Begin investing and building wealth early
- Have confidence
- Understand accounting and how business work
- Set Goals
- Save, invest, and live below your income
- Read, study businesses over many decades before you invest
- Be a business analyst, not a market analyst
- Concern yourself with what is going on inside a business, and free yourself of any concern with what is going on in the outside markets
- Learn to value business and purchase pieces of them for below what you think they are worth
- Make a list of traits that you admire and before you know it you will become the person you want to be
- Create another set of character traits that you don’t admire which will also remind you of the person you don’t want to be
- Write down the habits you want to develop
- Select your mentors carefully
- Identify what passion you have that could create wealth

It also shows why wealth is created by owning business by giving an excellent example of how the ownership of a business created wealth and how the Barnes Foundation of Philadelphia strict rules against business ownership bankrupt its own funds as inflation drain the funds which only focuses on fixed income securities (bonds).

Then it prompted you to evaluate what kind of investor are you and show define what is an active investor and a passive investor, and the difference between an investor and a trader (speculator). It stated that this is important as it will determine ability to create wealth. Below are the definition of investors and the differences of an investor and a trader (speculator).

Definition of 2 types of investor
Passive investor - not wanting or enjoying the day to day activity of evaluating investments
Active investor - hands on, fascinated, energetic participant who enjoys intensive reading and learning about all things related to finance, business, the economy and the investment world

Stock Speculators VS Business Owners
Business owner is concerned with what’s going on inside the business – with its employees, customers, strategic plan, growth and sales, expense and cost reduction, as well as increasing profits and earnings.

Speculator is more concerned about what is going on outside the business or the stock’s market price: the speculator buys something today in order to sell it later at a higher price. “The sooner the better” is the motto of every trader and speculator. Speculator focus on the price, and owners focus on the business. Speculators are market analysts; owners are business analyst
Question to ask yourself if you are an owner or a trader.
1) Are you concern with the present and future earnings of a business, or are your evaluating the only its price?
2) Are you influenced by reading and research? Or do others influence you? (Following the madness of crowds)

Value investing
Warren buffet and most value investors are by nature independent thinkers and get little satisfaction by being with the crowd. They do their own research and read nonstop. They observe others but do not follow, taking great delight in choosing their own path. Important step is to do some self discovery to determine your investment expectations, your time frame, and your risk tolerance.

Next, it guided us to develop our philosophy (plan) to achieve our results and speaks about the principles and methods Buffet use.

Warren Buffet Philosophy
Rule number 1: Don’t lose capital
Rule number 2: Don’t forget rule number 1

Buffet Investment Principles
1.Know what you own
2.Research before you buy
3.Own a business, not a stock
4.Make a total of only lifetime investments
5.Make one decision to own a stock and be a long term owner

Buffet method (cigar butt method)
Old economy stocks that have one or two puffs of earnings left (businesses that have low P/E with a lifespan of twenty years or less)
Attempt to buy a dollar worth of assets for 50 cents ( buy things for less that they worth)
Work out how much a business will pay you between now until judgment day. Discount that back to today and attempt to buy them cheaper.
Buy business you understand, with favorable long term prospects, operated by competent and honest people and available at attractive prices.

Calculation Method Used
Value Investing – it is about the careful review and calculation of a company’s book value and intrinsic value and its relationship to market value.

Book value is the simple subtraction of assets from liabilities.

Intrinsic value concept—what will you pay for a machine that generates $1 a year for ten years? You wouldn’t pay $10 because you would be just getting your money back over 10 years. You wouldn’t pay $9 today to get $1 a year for 10 Years, which would be a return of 11/1%, or 1% a year. What you would pay is determined by how much you seek in return on your investments. You seek an 11% annual return, which happens to be the long term rate of return o equalities over the last several decades, you will offer $3.52 for this machine.
Other methods: Present Value Calculation or Discounted Cash flow

Ways to evaluate Business
1) First, he looks at the business. Is it simple? Is it in an industry that he understands? Is it a high profit margin business? Any Debt? What is its return on equity?
2) Then he looks at its managers. Are they candid? What are their expansion plans? Are they well financed? How much Business do they own?
3) Then he looks at the market place. What is the business value? Can it be purchased at a discount to its market value?

Finally, wealth building requires that you know the valuation, price or management influence whether you’re buying, you know the management, the competition, and you understand what would be an attractive stock price.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Mistakes from my recent trades


Lately I have made 2 purchases with some mistakes on them.

I will blog them down and try not to commit the mistakes again.

Trade No 1: Allgreen ( auspicious name for all my counter to be green green turned haywire)





Reasons I brought
Based on valuation, allgreen at that time NAV is slightly above 1.50 with a dividend yield slightly above 4 percent. Seeing such such an attractive valuations, I have enter positions using technical analysis near the horizontal support of 1.09 expecting some tech rebound off the support line. RSI indicates that it is overly sold and stochastic has signals for price to go up but MCAD doesn't has any obvious signal.



Good news popping out in sluggish sector!!!
Demand in the property sector showed signs of weakness in the 1st quarter. This sector has been sluggish since July 2007 due to government introduces development charges on project and soaring materials.

However, lately, our Government had planned to relocate some of its agencies and statuory board out of the CBD vicinity to increase office space and NDB is going to release the news of masterplan in the night where all the developers were excited over it. Seeing the severe drop of stock prices since july high, I believe it is trading at a discount now and was optimisstic over the new masterplan results which would benefit the developers and drive the sector up.



But things didn't turn out well... the masterplan deliver no surprises to the developer and does not have any positive impact. The stocks prices then plunged to 0.99 breaching $1 support before rebounding above 1 and stayed there. I have decided to hold the counter till the next property boom which I hope to be within the next four years.



Mistakes and Reflections.
Although the valuations and technical charts are attractive, I should not have ignore the overall general market sentiment and the property sector which happens to considered the second weakest sector other than finance.... Now have to bite onto my fingers and pray it would fall back to 2003 -2004 prices.



Trade No 2: KS Energy ( The counter that never fails on me)





Well not really a big mistake on this just that i had entered slightly earlier even though I anticipated RSI will hit 30%. However seeing the price is at the lower band of bollinger band and near horizontal support and the mid term support line brings on temptation to make the purchase.

Things to note here will be wheather the 50 days Moving Average will hold. best entry would be after testing the moving averge.

Macd going to cross soon, looking to add more positions tml.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Rebound expectation from Beaten Stocks.



This stocks has been beaten badly, I feel that it has 'vomit' enough and is seeking some recuperation. For traders, I believe good entry point should be @ 1.6 and exit in the range of 1.68 to 1.70. Futherupside is expected when there are hugh vol near 50 Day moving average.
Do cut losses when 1.57 is breach unless of course you wish to hold.

Similar charts to this are Kim Eng and Starhub

My current watchlist:
GK Goh current price 0.99, 20 cents below NAV.
NOL pending

My Wantedlist
Tathong @ 2.21-2.23
IFS


Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Career tips: It's okay to be confused

Perhaps it is because we understand more at a younger age these days; perhaps it is because we are allowed to experience more than we once could have; or perhaps it is because the world is getting smaller and our horizons are getting wider.

Whatever the reason may be, more and more graduates believe that they should...no, need to know exactly what they should do with their career once they leave university. Because many of you do not, you feel you have to "do" something else to help you find your way before you hit the job market. Whether it is taking a year out to travel, doing a Masters degree or volunteering to save the turtles in Venezuela, the reality is you probably will not be any wiser as to your future career.

But before you throw up your arms in exasperation, let me tell you one truth...most people never know exactly what they want to do with their lives when they leave university. Your parents probably did not, your uncles and aunts may not have had a clue, and I surely did not too! It is okay to be confused.

It is okay to be at a loss as to the kind of job you should take on when you leave university for the first time.

When I left university, I had a job in hand with Shell as a Finance graduate. I took it because it was the only job I interviewed for and heck, it was Shell! So I took a leap. My career journey since then has taken me through four career moves in six years but I have definitely enjoyed my ride in between. At 28, I can say I've found the perfect career in a great company that I might stick around with for a while - because I finally understand who I am and what makes me happy career-wise.

Your first few years out of university will be a process of discovery. You might get a job that bores you, is completely out of joint with your style or is in a field that does not engage you. Remember, you are not stuck in one job forever. When you have less obligations to deal with - being married with children, for example, IS an obligation - you have more leeway to make a few career mistakes. It only becomes a negative mistake if you do not learn from it.

Your career is one long journey that starts with your first job. At each job, you will learn new skills and enhance the ones you already have. These skills may not be specific knowledge in, say, database management or medicine. But they could take the form of project management, client liaison or business development - skills applicable in whatever field you are in. You also learn more about your own work style preferences - Do you like to work in a team or independently? Do you have a knack for managing financial numbers?

As you go down this journey, your skills base will build and you will understand your work style better. With each step in your journey, you will be able to focus your career path a little better because you are gaining real-life experience in a working environment. Taking a year out is great to experience life and challenge yourself as a person in different situations, undertaking a Masters will develop your knowledge in a specific field and keep your student lifestyle of studying and partying one or two years longer, volunteering to save turtles will contribute to the earth and your tan line. But if you're looking to figure out what you want to do with your career life, it is unlikely that you will find it doing these things. To get this kind of clarity, it takes a few years living your career journey, making choices, and learning from your successes and mistakes.

One day in a few years, you will wake up and be excited about work because you are doing exactly what you wanted to do. Trust me, when that happens, it's a great feeling!

by Koon Mei Ching


Okay, so its fine to be lost over what a person wanna do but to actually be able to find what a person really wants, the person will need to job hope into a few job to gain exposural. The good point is one get different experience but the disadvantage is they will suffer paycut when they jump to a different field... Haiz "One day in a few years", this quotation is subjective as most people don't actaully find what they like till the end of life...

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Lesson in a Declining Market

Ok back on my previous pick , Gallant, it went haywire as the support line was broken and naturally/immediately become a resistance. I was forecasting on a possiblilty of a technical rebound but it failed to close above the support line and thus went to the other direction. Nevertheless, I will keep on learning and find my system to follow.

In the course of reading, I have come across a valuable article and decided to blog it down so that next time I can refer back:

======Lesson in a Declining Market=========

1. EXPERIENCED INVESTORS USE FEAR TO THEIR ADVANTAGE. Only in markets where people are scared can you buy stocks cheap.

This is extremely true and majority of us have witnessed it. Typical example in 2007 is during march, august, november when panic are seen across the street, and rumours of traders recieving margin calls --->This will be the best time to enter the market as the market is over-reacting to the news and heavily beaten down offering the best margin of safety.

2. I own a private company. If I wanted to buy out my biggest competitor, I would want to pay as little as I could. Investing in stocks is the same thing. Why would I be upset if I could buy them cheaper? Shouldn't I be happy?

Ok, the above is quite irrevenlant.

3. You should enjoy declining markets. Declining stock prices... nervous investors... predictions of impending doom. It's during times like these that you have to keep your head.

BE A CONTRANIAN!!! In order to be one, Cash is IMPORTANT. This bring me to think about Capital Management where one need to keep reservation for such times in order to enjoy declining markets. I have been a victim of not managing my capital wisely and is suffereing now.

4. SCARED MARKETS ARE THE ONLY KIND OF MARKETS THAT CAN MAKE SAVVY INVESTORS VERY RICH.

Facts: Investor Guru Warren Buffet brought Kraft in January. An opportunity to buy severely undervalued blue chips or companies (Household Brands on food and neccessities) that will still have constant earnings through recession and depression.

5. The creeping anxiety most investors feel in a bad market is like a human’s internal "flight or fight" signal. But if you keep your emotions in check, it could make you a lot of money. Most people don't know how to interpret the signal correctly.

This is considered the deepest art for all newbies like me. Generally, noobs will tend to have the herd instinct where we follow the general crowd to buy and alas brought at high and suffer as shrewd traders are selling to us as we buy.

The Five Rules above has emphasis on the psychology aspects on investing and highlight the key aspects on how we should handle our emotions during price shocks in order to benefit it. I will definately keep this in mind and try to applied it in future when I am cash rich!

Hope this article helps you in your investing curve!!!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Gallant: Lousy chart with interesting details

The stock markets has surge greatly this week. Sad to say, I am not enjoying the ride. But I am glad that i did not do any contra trades for some time.


I was browsing through some charts and come upon something interesting in a downtrend chart. I think it is ideal for a short play on it. Explanation on Chart.




~~~~Accumulating Cash in Progress~~~~

Friday, February 15, 2008

I am One Year Old

Today marks my one year old in trading and conincidently Singapore also gave its budget talk.

Overall, my portfolio is heavily battled down as I cling on to my holdings ever since i loaded some of them during the peak of 3800... Total realised losses hit 3k (including ard 2.5k of transaction fees). the unrealised losses is daunting too with a figure of around 8k...

Majority of the losses are contra losses due to greed... and no holding power. The unrealised losses is deal to me holding throughout instead of cutting losses a big mistake from a trader style and became forced investor in the process.

As I grow with the market, I understand the importance of fundamental analysis and will try to apply in my investing/trading.

As for the budget small I am only concern about monetary entitlement the government are giving which all citizens are expecting it due to the its relatively good results in 2007. However, it manage to surprised me that with the plan for implementation of subsidaries for part-time students in NUS.NTU, SMU and UniSIM as it promotes continuing education of adults. I hope it will be implemented soon.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Enriching Session With Robert Tay

I had an enriching session today after I attending a session-$10 organise by ShareInvestor together with my Mentor.



*****1st part - Introduction to CMC Markets ***

This session gave an insight of the CFD firm as above. Basically I know how does CFD works. It is a very useful tools to go short in the market as it is not subjected to expiry like warrants and gave traders more flexibilities(allows them to hold their short positions longer) through their share borrowings service.



New things I learnt are:

1) You may receive interest from shorting.

2) If you are a contra traders, the transactions fees are about 50% lower than the tradition broker and not subjected to GST charges.

3) If you go long, you are subjected to finance charges.



*****2ND Part - Sharing from Robert Tay UOB KayHian Representative****

After a quick dinner, we go on to Part 2, a sharing session from Robert Tay where he gave a recap on his previous sharing session in June and the, a glimpse of the economic/market outlook for the next six months, some general FA and TA.


Recap on sharing session in June and how the market move last six months

- Highlighted that after STI hit 3500 will have difficulties moving further up and july we saw a big price shock.

- the upward trend thereafter is supported by weak volume indicating there is lower participation and the trend is weak.

********Economic/Market Outlook***********

- Japan are already in a recession. Subprime mortgages repercussion are still not over, banks still have alot that they nv declare.

- The decoupling of Asian markets from the US from the news is not particularly true as US is the world biggest consumer and China Main export's client. With the weakening dollar, US will not be able to consume as much as before. This will snowballed and affect the economic growth of India and China.

-Inflation the next big problem. Inflation has risen pretty fast and to contained it, country should rise interest rate. The US is however doing the opposite way... thus it will drive inflation higher.

With the above pointers, the economic upfront is not in a present shape.


*********Basic TA relearn**********

Vol must support price action/trend.


**********Basic FA*********

Companies with high Leverage Ratio, High Price to book, and High price to NAV will be badly hit in a recession.


We went through some examples of chart to see the volume/price relationship and the of the top 30 stocks that have High Leverage ratio, High Price to Book ratio, High Price to NAV ratio respectively. This seminar knock some sense into me as the Art of FA is extremely important

Quote of the day

Inactivity is the best behaviour

Thursday, January 24, 2008

2008 second trade

====Recent Activites=====
Fed Reserve held an emergancy meeting on tuesday and announce a 0.75% cut on the interests rate. Together with the simulus package, Asian Market rallied to ridiculous height where we see HSI rebounded strongly from a low of 21709.63 on tueday to a high of 24,966.17 on thursday ( wide range of 3256.54) and STI recovered to a high of 3050 from 2746( 300 points range). During this 3 days, I saw heavy volatilies on the indexes which are swinging like a roller coasters. Many professional full time traders benefits from such volatilities.

====Jeopardizing Myself====
Again not learning my mistakes - seeing fellows traders share their wonderful profitting encounters has planted in seeds of desires to be like them earning back monday losses. I traded blindly this time and got myself into troubles again... YZJ - realised another 180 of losses as i buy high and sell low once more.... as i read through a possible bad news from our US counterparts data.

YZJ - I am condamning this stock now.... everytime i trade this counter I made losses ( 3 trades up to date mounting -1630.56 on this counter alone)

So far all 95% my losses are attributed by contra trades.... (contitutes by trading on emotions, envy, greed, temptation and stock chasing). My desire to get profits has jeopardize me and my plans. I never learn my mistakes even though I know them. I have no one to blame but myself and is getting rather sick to blame myself.

I REALLY REALLY have to stop looking the the live prices and perhaps block myself from communicating with others....

Procceeding ahead -
1) Restructure my personal finance... my last two trades has inflicted $740 damages to my saving cum expenses( had intend to put them in MMF to grow...) Life's going to be really tough ahead for me as I have to live more fragully keeping track on my expenses.

2) Need to heed fellow blogger LP's advise to keep 6 mths of expenses aside... Also need to heel mentor advices on reading up more and not get myself 100% vested. (Both had thought me alot but i failed to applied...)

3) Been too slothful on learning and my mind is always pre-occupied with other stuffs... Need to get those sorted out as well.

4) Stay out of the market for the time being....

Monday, January 21, 2008

2008 First trade

====Expect the Unexpected====
Last week, B & B(ben & bush) announce plans to give stimulus package to help the US economy. Pscyhologically, market's outlook will be optimisstic since the government finally get involved to resolve the problem. In additional, the earning season is here once more with major blue chips giving their reports within the next 2 weeks. All this will boost the market.

Such combination has entices me to do open another position in hope for some quick gains on friday. (Greed) I have done my homework and queue to purchase YZJ at 1.44 to sell at 1.50(2 bids higher then the resistance of 1.48) later.. And I was right the prices are within the intra day trade.(1.43 -1.53).

However, I did not manage to get my lots at 1.44... I tried to control my emotion to give it a miss but alas emtions overruled me once more and I chased at 1.50 and plan to sell at 1.55. towards the end of day, it closed at 1.48(resistance zone) not a good sign but i held on to my belief of the key reversal in price.

This morning, I felt something is wrong when I saw heavy selling( had the chance to offload at 1.45), however, I still stubbonly cling on to it and hope it will reverse soon. After lunch, my face turn green when major support of 1.43 was broken, within an hour it raced down to 1.38 ( when trade turned wrong I should have do a market order at 1.42 but i didn't...)

Eventually, I manage to sell at 1.40 near aug low..... felt like a someone gave me a heavy punch on my face....

****Every Prediction is not 100%, you'll never know what Mr Market it up to... *****