Chart #12: Why Property Keeps Booming

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | Jun 21, 2018 | Property |

Here’s another chart that explains why property keeps rising, globally. Since the Global Financial Crisis of 2009, the central banks flooded the world with liquidity to prevent a Great Depression type catastrophe. But this created heaps of cheap money in the system, which had to find its way into assets. Hence private equity, bitcoins, art, wine and needless to say, property. $7.4trn into real estate in no joke. This is larger than Japan’s economy and almost as large as China’s economy. It is a wonder now why Singapore property doesn’t correct enough for you to buy? URA property price...

Buy Pyongyang Property!

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | Jun 15, 2018 | Market Review and Trends |

12th of June 2018 in Singapore would go down in history as an important day. It marked the first step for North Korea to modernize. Well, if that really happens say a decade from now. Let’s hope it happens, lest our $20 million would have gone to waste and this photograph of them sunbathing in our Infinity Pool would be a joke. Epic moment at our Infinity Pool Well, to be honest, it was a joke. It didn’t happen. Some internet smart aleck photoshop-ed this and circulated it around the internet and Whatsapp. It was a good one, for...

2018 Dividend List – Part 4

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | Jun 12, 2018 | Investing |

The last portion of this year’s dividend list sees a hopscotch of companies from various segments of the economy. First up we have Berkeley Group, a property name from the UK. Next, European engineering related firms such as Smiths Group Inc and the French/Italian construction company Vinci. Across the Atlantic, US industrials: Emerson Electric, Cummins and healthcare firms: Gilead Science, Amgen, Johnson and Johnson were featured. There is also a paper packaging company: Mondi, a toy company: Hasbro and even a luxury brand: Coach, which is now renamed Tapestry. Dividend List Part 4 of 4 Given that the lists...

Tangible Thoughts #5: Howard Marks

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | Jun 6, 2018 | Investing |

“The key word is calibrate.” – Howard Marks Investing is not black and white, in or out, risky or safe. The key word is calibrate. The amount that you have invested. Your allocation of capital among the various possibilities. The riskiness of the things you own. All these should be calibrated along a continuum that runs from aggressive to defensive. Howard Marks Coming from guru Howard Marks, the words and meanings just come alive much better. Investing is never binary. There are always linger questions and there is always another answer. Futures and outcomes are always a set of...

2018 Dividend List – Part 3

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | May 28, 2018 | Investing |

The third part of this year’s list consist of consumer names that we know really well. P&G, Harley Davidson, Unilever, Kellogg, Pepsico, Campbell Soup and our very own Thai Beverage. These are truly global household names and we should really have some in our portfolios. It is very rare for them to be featured here, all in the same year. Again, this is a reflection of the market’s one sided view that internet, gaming and FAANGs will conquer the world and become Masters of the Universe! Dividend List Part 3 of 4 On the flipside, non-tech stocks are now...

Chart #11: Ikigai

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | May 17, 2018 | Personal Development |

Renamed Chart Of The Month to simply Chart. This one today is an important one. We are talking about ikigai. Ikigai Another way to put it – ikigai is the cross section of your values, the things you like to do and the things that you are good at. To supplement, here’s 10 ways to better stay in ikigai: 1. Stay active and don’t retire 2. Leave urgency behind and adopt a slower pace of life 3. Only eat until you are 80 per cent full 4. Surround yourself with good friends 5. Get in shape through daily, gentle exercise 6. Smile and acknowledge people around...

Malaysia Boleh!

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | May 10, 2018 | Market Review and Trends |

“Boleh” means “can” or “able to” in Malay. What a historic day for Malaysia! Dr Mahathir trashed Najib with a snap of his fingers gloved in his infinity gauntlet neatly decorated with the coalition of infinity stones: DAP, PKR, PNA, PPBN and Warisan Sabah. His Alliance of Hope, Pakatan Harapan and its partners convincingly defeated Najib’s Barisan Nasional (BN) with 122 seats vs his nemesis’ 79 seats. Mahathir’s win ended one of the longest reign for a democratic ruling party and renewed hope that Malaysia can one! (i.e. Malaysia can achieve what it wants to achieve.) Under Najib, Malaysia...

May the Force be with Omaha!

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | May 6, 2018 | Investing |

It’s the Omaha weekend again and this year is special as it also started on May Fourth which is also knowns as the Star Wars Day. In Singapore, someone then decided to organize a Star Wars Run charging people S$80-85 to either join the light or the dark side of the race! The annual Berkshire run, for those investors who are spending this weekend in Omaha, cost roughly S$60 and all are encouraged to invest in ourselves i.e. our bodies, which would be the best investment ever. Star Wars Run Singapore! Well, unfortunately, one run would never amount to...

2018 Dividend List – Part 2

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | Apr 30, 2018 |

This is a continuation of the first 2018 dividend post. The second part of 2018’s dividend list consists of the other two tobacco companies and some other names. This screen was done before Philip Morris collapsed 15% on bad earnings so now they are even more attractive. The big investment question for tobacco is always whether we want to associate ourselves with the largest mass murderers in the history of mankind. Warren Buffett never did although some investors including yours truly here were never that noble. This reminds me of a quote from a recent good docu-movie – The...

Tangible Thoughts #4: Pitiful Pump Uncles

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | Apr 22, 2018 | Personal Finance |

The saga of the week in Singapore was about pumping petrol. For readers not from Singapore, here’s the story. A BMW driver drives his car into a Caltex petrol station and said, “Fill Ten” to the pump uncle. The pump uncle then proceeded to pump gasoline to full tank, because he heard “full tank”. The driver, realizing his car now has a full tank, became enraged, scolded the pump uncle and refused to pay up. He single-handedly cogged up the whole Caltex station for half an hour. By then, his face, his car number are all up on social...

2018 Dividend List – Part 1

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | Apr 16, 2018 | Investing |

The time of the year has come to review the annual dividend list, this year we are breaking up to list into more parts so that we can discuss more names. We have used the same criteria over the years which is free cashflow, EBIT margins, ROE and the dividend yield. The most important one would be the free cashflow. As this determines the companies’ ability to pay dividends. Dividends should be a integral part of everyone’s portfolio because this is where real money comes back to us. In my experience, 50% or more of an investor’s monetary gains...

Of Frauds and Facebook

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | Apr 10, 2018 | Market Review and Trends |

A recent bloomberg article “How Facebook Help Shady Advertisers Pollute the Internet” discussed how fraud advertising was crazy on Facebook. These are ads selling slimming pills, money making stock tips and sure-win cryptocurrencies, miracle hair growing cream and other shady products or services via affiliates that would utilize Facebook’s user data to find their victims. Most people would know that these things won’t work. If they did, then they wouldn’t be coming from unheard sources. Yet there are always enough gullible people to prey on. Facebook knows who they are, because everyone uploaded everything about their lives on Facebook....

Chart of the Month #10: The Great Flood

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | Mar 31, 2018 | Technical Analysis |

The chart above depicts very clearly the QE program by the world’s major central bank since the global financial crisis of 2009. The flood of liquidity exceeds trillions of dollars. We can also see that the bulk of the liquidity was created after 2011 by the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank. Hence while the US is tapering, the decline in liquidity is negligible when compared to the mountains of monies created over the last nine years. This great flood of cheap money is the reason for many phenomena that we are seeing including...

Tangible Thoughts #3: Sg Condo vs US Island

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | Mar 19, 2018 | Property |

In the US, one can buy an island for $8.7m while in Singapore it might not even pay for a toilet in a condominium? Something to think about yah? Excerpt from the news below of the most expensive condominium in Singapore. GUOCOLAND will release later this year (2017) the super penthouse in its 99-year leasehold Wallich Residence project in Tanjong Pagar which supposedly has an auspicious-sounding price tag of S$108 million. While the 21,108 square foot triplex is the highest residence in Singapore – the 64-storey tower in which Wallich Residence is located is 290 metres high. But this is...

F&N 6 Years On – Part 2

Posted by 8% Value Investhink | Mar 12, 2018 | Shares & Derivatives |

The is a continuation of the previous post. We discussed how F&N had become a diary powerhouse in ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) and the crown jewel is actually its 19% stake in Vinamilk which now accounts for 47% of its earnings. So what is Vinamilk? Well, Vinamilk is the largest diary company in Vietnam with 50% market share across the different diary products. It is also the largest listed company in Vietnam at S$17bn market cap! F&N, at S$3.7bn market cap, implies that its stake in Vinamilk pretty much explains for its entire existence and the...

Author: 8% Value Investhink