TheFinance.sg » Derek Lim

I have NO savings!

Derek Lim — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:51:21 +0000

Photo by Nieve44/La Lu

There have been several articles on savings recently which got me thinking.

First thought – why 20%? Who defines this standard and why is it recommended?UScitizens have always been known to be big spenders rather than savers. It is their money that kept the world going at least during the end of the 20th century. If local advisors are advocating 20% savings, what about advisors over there? 5%, 10% or spend what you earn?

Wiki defines savings as income not spent, or deferred consumption. Does saving money to buy a Hermes bag constitutes as savings? After all, it is delayed consumption isn’t it? In that case, I can say I am saving 50% of my salary monthly so that I can buy a Hermes bag. The same can be said for saving for a car, house, travel, children education, retirement, investment etc.

It makes me realize that it doesn’t matter how much you save but what you do with your spare cash. You can save it (deferred gratification) or spend it immediately (instant gratification). Either way, I see no wrong in it. What’s important is to have a sound financial plan in place to achieve your financial goals.

I am going to stop categorizing savings in my income portfolio and use terms like retirement fund, emergency fund, marriage fund etc. which are more meaningful.

Using XIRR to calculate stock performance

Derek Lim — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 05:52:48 +0000

Expected Result

Maintaining my stock portfolio has always been a challenge for me. I use a simple method of calculating my current stock value plus dividends against my original investment amount. However, I have a nudging feel that this is flawed because I did not account for the various transactions throughout the life of holding on to the stock e.g. subscribing to rights or selling part of it. I have tried using CAGR but it still does not address the above problem. It is only until recently when I read about XIRR in Bro8888 article that I may have found the answer.

I’m going to use the steps as described in this article but instead of calculating base on my entire portfolio, I will try it out on just one stock first. Luckily I still have entire statement records from SGX detailing my transactions.

My major headache is how to classify dividends. If you do not reinvest your dividends back into your stock, it is considered as an outflow (negative) but if the dividends are parked as cash as part of your entire portfolio, it can be considered as inflow. However what if the stock price doesn’t move but provide you with a constant yield of 5% p.a., won’t my XIRR be negative?

I decided to do a hypothetical test. Assuming I buy one lot of Stock A at $1 a share in Jan 2007 and received a 5% dividend each year. The price at 1 Jan 2012 remains at $1.

I am losing money??

Is this correct? If I were to reinvest all my dividends back to the stock, my XIRR will still only be 0%. It’s back to the drawing block again. Any advice is deeply appreciated.

I believe I have found out the error. The initial invesment into your stock is inflow and should be positive and the vaule of the stock when you sell outflow which is negative.

These articles will better expain what I meant:
How to use XIRR in Excel to calculate annualized returns
XIRR

After making the necessary changes, my XIRR now looks like this.

Expected Result

5% is the logical result. Time to get my hands dirty. First stop, First REIT.

CapitaMalls Asia 10 year bonds – a quick FAQ

Derek Lim — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:00:30 +0000

I normally don’t look at retail bonds due to its large initial investment, usually $5,000 and up, I would rather put the same amount in REITs to enjoy a potential higher yield. However this time round, CapitaMall is offering bonds at $2,000. I must admit it is a smart move to get smaller investors like myself to hop in on the bond wagon.

Since I am new to retail bonds, I decided to create a FAQ. The answers are based on my research and understanding. Hence, if any reader pick up any mistakes or have further information to add, kindly point them out by leaving me a comment here or via my contact page.

Where can I find the Offer Information Statement?
OPERA – MAS

What is a bond?
A bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest (the coupon) to use and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity.

Source: Wikipedia

If you want to read up more, Investopedia offers a very good article.

What are the key dates?

Lodgment of the Offer Information Statement	3 January 2012
Opening date and time for applications for the Bonds under thePlacement	3 January 2012 at 2.00 p.m.
Opening date and time for applications for the Bonds under thePublic Offer	4 January 2012 at 9.00 a.m.
Last date and time for applications for the Bonds under thePlacement	9 January 2012 at 2.00 p.m.
Last date and time for applications for the Bonds under thePlacement	9 January 2012 at 2.00 p.m.
Balloting of applications for the Bonds under the Public Offer, ifnecessary (in the event of an oversubscription of the Bonds under the Public Offer). Commence returning or refunding application moneys to unsuccessful or partially successful applicants	11 January 2012
Expected Issue Date of the Bonds	12 January 2012
Expected date of commencement of trading of the Bonds on theMain Board of the SGX-ST	13 January 2012

What is the interest rate?
Year 1 to 5: 3.8% p.a.
Year 6 to 10: 4.5% p.a. (if bonds are not redeemed)
This explains why the term Step-Up retail bonds are sometimes used.

Is the interest cumulative?
No.

Can I sell before maturity date?
Yes. The bonds are listed on the Main Board of the SGX-ST

Should I subscribe to the bond?
No right or wrong here. It will depend on your portfolio, risk appetite and cash flow. If cash flow is tight, the minimum sum of $2,000 is really appealing. The interest rate is nothing to wow about. Most of the past offerings offer a higher interest rate but a high minimum investment amount too.

For more blog posts regarding this bond, please refer to the related posts below.

I believe these questions that I ask myself would be similar to what most people will ask. If you have a question not found here, feel free to drop a comment here. I believe some season bond investors will be glad to help out.

For myself, I will probably set aside $2K to $5K for it as I foresee a very stagnant market for the year ahead. Anything more than $5K, I would rather put it in higher yield preference shares or REITs.

There’s still one question that I am still trying to figure out – what governs the price of bonds in the market? If the issue price is $1, why would anyone want to sell it below that price? Is it because the company is going bankrupt or because they need the money?

The Bear Has Hit TheFinance.sg

Derek Lim — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:15:18 +0000

Dear Readers, Don’t worry, the balance sheet of TheFinance.sg is still healthy. The site was inaccessible for a couple of days due to excessive resource usage and I will be migrating to a higher capacity web-host. Intermittent downtime is still expected. I regret for the inconvenience caused. Related posts: Visualizing Strategy Decay 665 appoint guardians: [...]
Related posts:

Most Popular Posts in June

Derek Lim — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 12:30:25 +0000

The top five articles in June are:

Standard Chartered Bank Singapore- NO MINIMUM BROKERAGE FEES!
Standand Chartered Online Trading Account
8 Singapore Stocks to watch during a bear market
Sometimes it’s better to be “stupid” and “wrong”
To Pay Or Not To Pay

SCB no minimum brokerage fees has been the top news this month and I know of several people who has already make the switch. I just receive news from POEMS that my brokerage team has been reorganized to serve me better and I even got a call from a broker in OCBC asking me to open an account with them. It seems like rival brokerage firms are feeling the heat!

I’m still in no hurry to switch because:

Once you buy shares from SCB, your shares will be kept by them and you must use SCB trading platform for all your trades. (I think you can transfer your shares out from SCB to your CDP account but may require a fee)
No options trading (thanks to reader Gary). I would believe this also means no short selling or warrants too because you will need to have cash prior to any trade.
No plans to to buy any shares unless the market plunge 20-30%.

Congratulations to Jared Seah (my guest blogger) for making it to the list. His article talk about doing something against the norm and benefiting from it.

Till July…

Will you use your emergency fund to invest?

Derek Lim — Tue, 10 May 2011 17:00:18 +0000

Update 11 April 2011

40% will not use their emergency fund to invest while 60% will have no problems using it for investment. What’s surprising is that 30% or half of those who will use their funds to invest are willing to use at least half if not all of it. I am not sure if age plays a part. Surely, if you are a retiree, you won’t use all your emergency funds to invest ya? Another possibility which I can think of is the definition of a emergency fund. To me, a emergency fund is to tide me over for a sudden critical expenditure e.g. accident, operation or a sudden loss of income etc. Maybe others few it differently? I also wonder who is the other person beside La Papillion to vote other?

I don’t think there is no right or wrong here. Maybe a expert here could enlighten us on what really is an Emergency Fund and what should it be use for?

I had a short but interesting discussion on this topic in La Papillion cbox last night.

Almost all financially planning talk about having an emergency fund of X no. of months to tide you over a rainy day e.g. accident, out of job etc. While most agree on the importance of such a fund, there are a few who have no qualms in using the emergency fund for investing when the opportunity arises. I have a hunch that in a super bearish market, the same people will not hesitate to utilize all their emergency fund!

It will be interesting to see if readers here share their same views. As for me, I hold a more conservative view. I will not use more than half my emergency fund for investing.

Feel free to cast the vote for your friends too; the end results might come as a surprise.

Thank you to all who has participated in the poll. To have over a hundred of you is encouraging and I hope that the numbers will increase further in future polls.

If you have a poll/survey relating to Finance or Investment and you would like to use this site to reach out to a greater audience, feel free to contact me and we can discuss further.

Most Popular Posts in April

Derek Lim — Tue, 10 May 2011 16:52:23 +0000

I have been tracking the most popular articles in each month since the beginning of the year but this is my first write up on it. Just a short commentary which I find rather interesting.

The top five articles based on Google Analytics are:

Hyflux preference shares Part 1 2,463 page views
Mapletree Commercial Trust (MCT) IPO 1,310 page views
Hyflux: 6% perpetual Class A preference shares. 1,131page views
Hyflux preference shares Part 2 851 page views
Hyflux Preference Shares 731 page views

Not surprising Hyflux dominated. The traffic in my site surged and so did the authors who blogged about it. Although demand for the preference shares was really strong, I also know of a few that would not touch it. There was also a IPO launched in the same month and it came in as the second most popular article in April. If you are a blogger who is thinking how to generate more traffic to your blog, it is not hard to guess what to focus on ya.

Lessons from the Japan Quake

Derek Lim — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 09:06:01 +0000

Two weeks have passed since the Japan quake and there are conflicting reports to the nuclear situation. In one day, we can have 1,000 times the normal amount of radiation before being told it was a mistake in the calculation. We hear about optimism in getting the situation under control followed by news that the situation is grave.

We are assured that even though higher than normal radiation is found in some food sources, we will have to take in X amount of times before there are serious effects. This is like telling me that this is poisonous but don’t worry, you won’t get poisoned until you take in X number of times. Yet, to be safe, these food sources were destroyed.

I’m puzzled how miniscule levels of radiation from Japan can be detected in US and yet none of the countries in Asia Pacific found any. I only read about passengers from Japan with higher the amount of radiation.

With such conflicting information, couldn’t the same be said about the stock market?

I believe that the Market is driven by human emotions and these emotions are swayed by the conflicting information that we receive. Shares in Saizen and GLP have plummeted and steps have been taken to assure us that the affected properties are safe and they represent only a small portion of their portfolio. Yet the overall impact is still anybody guess.

I still have my one lot of GLP from the IPO and a couple of friends who owned Saizen. While all of us are not selling yet, could there be better opportunities else where? Should we stick to them or should we take the opportunity to buy more? I believe many are in the same predicament as us. On the bright side, at least we have the opportunity to make these difficult decisions.

I recently received a phone call from my insurance agent advising me to do a free fund switch (CPF OA) to the money market fund and check how things pan out. Although I don’t hold any Japan funds, I took her advice because my current strategy is to consolidate cash. I wonder how many policy owners are aware that they could have funds vested in Japan. My guess is not a lot. Although they will be caught in the same predicament as to the next step to take, but at least they are aware and will not be caught by surprise when they receive their next annual statement.

For the opportunist, my advice is to do your research well. There can be pitfalls where you least expect. Take my case for example, the near double digit falls in the Nikki and Topix epresents a very attractive proposition. After some research, it led me to Lyxor Japan 10US$ listed in SGX. The last thing in my mind is for the pricing mechanism to fail. I only realize this after reading Wilfred’s blog. Personally, this feels the same when a stock is suspended. As luck would have it, procrastination led me to miss this ‘opportunity’ and the index has since recovered.

I believe that I am not the only one who has learned something from this episode and I will like to encourage you to share yours as well.

Secrets of Singapore Property Gurus by Mr Propwise – Read Chapter 1 for free and enjoy a S$5 discount

Derek Lim — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 06:53:33 +0000

Subscribe to TheFinance.sg via email and read Chapter 1 for free!

Get S$5 off!

Enter discount code “fin5” in the shopping cart and click “Update cart”.

I don’t read many books on property but I enjoyed this book. Although I don’t invest in property, I am still able to relate to it; probably because the topics and advice are practical and the strategy is also very much similar to investing in stocks. While not everyone may invest in property, almost everyone will own one someday and I believed that the knowledge gained in this book will be beneficial especially when purchasing my first flat.

Mr. Propwise from www.Propwise.sg has gone out and interviewed the TOP property gurus on every aspect of property investing, and distilled that down into a 188 page book that is packed with their expert knowledge and wisdom.

It is titled Secrets of Singapore Property Gurus, and the e-book version (instant PDF download) is available now.

The book is divided into five sections:

1) Profitable investment strategies for today’s market

Rayney Wong, Lawyer, Property Investor and Bestseller Author (Secrets of Property Millionaires) and Getty Goh, Director of Ascendant Assets (author of Buy Bye Property and Buy Right Property) share with you:

How to time your entry in the property market
Whether new or resale properties are better investments
Are leasehold or freehold properties better investments?

2) Finding your ideal investment property

Mohamed Ismail, CEO of PropNex Realty, Steve Melhuish, CEO of Allproperty Media (owner of Propertyguru.com.sg), and Kelvin Fong, Team Leader of Powerful Negotiators (leading over 1,000 agents with a 12% share of the private resale market in 2009) will share:

Impact of the fourth round of measures and forecast for 2011
The biggest mistakes property investors and novices make
The most promising areas and projects for property investors

3) Smart property financing

Dennis Ng, Director of Leverage Holdings (author of Mastering Your Personal Finance and Why is Money Always Not Enough?) and Alfred Chia, CEO of SingCapital share with you:

Are banks still willing to do property lending?
Their top property financing (and refinancing) tips
The worst and greatest property investment

4) Avoiding legal pitfalls and other mistakes

Top lawyers Amolat Singh, Partner at Amolat & Partners, and Mark Chua, Partner and Head of Property Law at Tito Isaac & Co LLP share with you:

Potential pitfalls of entering into a property sharing agreement
What a landlord should do to protect his interests before renting to a tenant
What an investor should check before committing to a property purchase

5) How to make millions from en bloc sales

Karamjit Singh, Managing Director of Credo Real Estate (31% market share of collective sales in 2010 and concluded over 60 en bloc sales including the largest, Farrer Court, for $1.3388 billion) and Dillon Loi, Master Trainer at Real Estate Academy (and author of Singapore Real Estate Sale and Investment Handbook) share with you:

How to find properties with en bloc potential
Top reasons why most en bloc deals fail
Where the next wave of en bloc is likely to happen

Remember to enter “fin5” to enjoy an additional S$5 discount

Poll: Singapore Budget 2011 (Closed)

Derek Lim — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 00:30:27 +0000

Thanks to those who has voted. Although there were only 29 votes (probably due to many similar polls), the results were a little different to that conducted by Straits Times (ST).

50% in ST felt that the budget definitely did not meet their expectations but only 34% readers here share the same sentiments. The next largest group here felt that the budget could have been better contrary to ST where their next largest group felt that it did not really meet their expectations.

I’m not surprised by the results – I expected most people to be reasonably satisfied with budget but I can’t explain why the results vary from that conducted in ST. The only explanation that I can come out now is readers here are probably more financially savvy and understand economics more.

On an interesting note, the number of votes in “definitely did not meet expectation” went up when the parliament started debating on the budget.

Poll Singapore Budget 2011

19 Feb 2011

Straits Times conducted a similar poll and almost 50% of the readers felt that the budget did not meet their expectations at all. This is a huge surprise for me considering that this budget is so much better than last year. I wonder if readers here share the same sentiments. Hence, I created a almost similar poll.

I am thinking that most votes will fall in “Could have been better” but I may be wrong. What do you think?

Poll: Market Outlook for 2011 – Full Time

Derek Lim — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 14:30:48 +0000

Many thanks to all the readers who participated in the poll. There were a total of 129 votes and not surprisingly the optimism has somewhat faded. I will think the main cause is due to the unrest in North Africa and the Middle East.

I am however surprised that there are about 20% of readers who are bearish. I expect this number to be much less – probably >10%. Although I a cautious, I am not expecting any major downside this year. It proves to show that even in a very bullish market, there are always be a pessimistic bunch around.

Poll: Market Outlook for 2011 – A half time review

Derek Lim — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 05:09:11 +0000

While most analyst agree the bullish sentiments will continue in 2011 or at least during the first half of the year. It will be interesting what readers to my site think.

The poll was started in the first week of January and true enough, most of the votes gathered then were bullish. There were a few neutral votes but hardly any one feel bearish. However, during the past week or so, there was a sudden influx of readers who feel bearish. Could this be due to the widespread flooding in Australia?

I have gathered 55 votes thus far and below is the breakup of the votes.

I intend to let the poll run till the end of Chinese New Year and hope to gather more than a hundred votes.

With the new property cooling measures in place, will more people feel less bullish or will the New Year rally fuel the bullish sentiments?

Click here to vote or share your thoughts below.

Website Revamp

Derek Lim — Mon, 03 May 2010 13:55:52 +0000

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Photo by > NeoGaboX<

Dear Readers and Authors,

When I first started this site two and a half years ago, there weren’t many local Financial blogs but I’m glad to say now that this is not the case now. It’s really heartening to see more people willing to share their thoughts and experiences online. Unfortunately my current site is no longer capable of handling the large influx of new blogs. As some of you have known, I have been talking about revamping my site for some time and I have finally found a designer at a reasonable price. Although I hope to earn some pocket money from my site, my main focus is still on you – the readers and authors. I will not clutter my site with ads. Content and readability is still my top priority.

The design of my new site will be pretty similar to http://tipd.com However, I will still like to hear your views and comments on what you will like to see in the new site so that I can discuss with the designer. Although I can’t promise that I will deliver all of them due to budget constraint, I can promise to look into every single one of them seriously and try my best to accommodate them.

I’m also looking for ideas on a new tag line. The current one “A Collection of Personal Finance and Investing Blogs” is more of a statement rather than a tagline. No prizes for coming out with a tagline but I will credit you for it in my about page.

Let’s hear your views ya.

PS: I have thought of a tagline: “New at your doorstep” but was told it is too general.

Time Watch – Dual List Hype

Derek Lim — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:00:40 +0000

24 January 2010

TimeWatch 24012010

Time Watch revenue has been increasing steadily since 2007. Kind of surprised because it’s competitors experienced negative growth in FY2009. Time Watch latest results has already seen an increased in earnings. However there are some queries from SGX on its Financial reports and I will be scrutinizing it. In addition, what contributed to the strong earnings in FY2009?

He thought that this could also be why Time Watch currently trades at a price to earnings (PE) ratio of about six times, compared to peer stocks which trade for as much as 13 times PE.

Michael Tung Chief executive Time Watch Bussiness Times Jan 19 , 2010

It seems like Mr Tung is correct in saying that its share price does not correctly reflect its growth. For FY 2009, the growth rate was almost 20% yet it’s P/E ratio even at my buy price of $0.20 is only 6.9. However, it’s peers in Singapore are also trading at that range. Cortina Holdings seems to be the most similar to Time Watch in terms of revenue. If Mr Tung claims that its peers in Shanghai and HK is trading at a P/E of 13 is true, then a dual list is the best bet for its price to be reflected correctly.

Next is to analyze Time Watch competitors in Shanghai and HK.

21 January 2010

Was contemplating on using all my excess cash to buy Time Watch but decided against it. As this is highly speculative, at the end of the day I want to be able to have a good rest.

Dow is bleeding badly and I am very certain that Time Watch will fall tomorrow. Should I hold, sell or average down? Time Watch represents 8% of my portfolio. A further drop in price may offer an opportunity to pick up more. I expect at least a 20% drop (price before news of dual list) before I evaluate my next step. Hopefully, it will not occur this week so that I have enough time to do more research this weekend.

20 January 2010

I have to admit that I was greedy. I bought this company after reading in the Business Times about the possibility of a dual list. Knowing how all the share prices surge after the news. I decided to join the crowd.

PE before news of dual list was 5 times and Time Watch claim that its peers are trading at 13 times. The share price has surged 20% after the news. At my buying price of $0.20, PE based on last FY earnings is still a reasonable 7.6. The latest quarter results seems alright too.

Risk:

I did a quick check on a local competitor – The Hour Glass and it’s trading at a PE of about 7 which is about right.
The company claim that its own brand name “Tian Wang” is one of the best selling watch in China. However a quick check in the internet comes out with little information.
Retailing a variety of products including jewellery, cosmetics, electronic products and dried food products…

This sounds like diworsification to me. Shouldn’t it be concentrating on its core business – watches?

If what Time Watch claim to be true – it should be trading at a PE of 13, there is still a 80% upside to the price. However, the main driving force will be the successful dual list in either HK or Shanghai.

Lian Beng – The Whisper Stock

Derek Lim — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:59:40 +0000

Photo by lepiaf.geo

The reason that I bought it is because someone told me that that this stock is going to rise soon. That was over a year ago and I believe ‘soon’ will never arrive, at least not this year.

As some may know, I’m a avid fan of Peter Lynch and I am going to do a quick take on Lian Beng.

Lian Beng is a cyclical stock – pretty obvious given that it moves in sync with construction demand. I bought the stock in May 2008 at $0.380 which is at the downward cycle. For cyclical stocks, it is important to identify and buy it when the cycle is just about to begin or at the very least when the cycle is still at its infant stage. The latest financial report is pretty decent – profits are better than the previous quarter. However the business times reported that construction projects are easing and there’s a high chance that the number of projects will dip even further in 2011 – 2012. I believe it is true – with the completion of IR and related projects, I can’t think of any that can spur the construction industry. At it’s last close of $0.330, is it a good time to offload this stock and invest in others?

The PE ratio is very erratic. We know that the price peak at the end of 2007 and the EPS for FY2008 was 1.36 cents. FY2009 posted even better results – a EPS of 3.21 cents and a growth rate of over 50% but the price of the stock started to tumble after Jan 2008. Why? Two possible reasons. The first is the financial crisis and the second is that the stock is priced way too high. I looked at the half year financial statement published in 2008 and although the EPS has increased to 1.72 cents, at its peak price of $0.795, it represent a whopping PE ratio of 45. Well in that case, if I were to buy at $0.380, the PE ratio will only be 22. Surely a good buy since FY2007 PE was 24.

The latest half year statement shows that EPS has increased again by another 28% but the growth rate only increased by 4.4%. This is pretty strange. On closer inspection, it is mainly due to lower finance cost and taxation. If revenue don’t pick up in the later half of the year, even with lower expenses, Lian Beng will experience a negative growth rate for FY2010.

Using the latest half year statement, I compared Lian Beng’s PE ratio against two of its competitors Chip Eng Seng and Hiap Hoe. Their current PE ratio for 9months is 6.13 and 6.42 respectively. Since Lian Beng’s statement is only for half year, I’ll assume that EPS stays constant and the PE ratio now works out to 11.89.

Is Lian Beng full priced, over-priced or under-priced? I would think it is fully priced but if a PE ratio of 11.89 is fully priced, what about Chip Eng Seng and Hip Hoe with a low PE of only 6?

FY is from 1st June – 31 May	FY2005	FY2006	FY2007	FY2008	FY2009	Current
Earnings per share (cents)	0.32	0.40	1.36	2.39	3.21	2.13
Share price ($)	0.200	0.145	0.330	0.325	0.250	0.320
P/E ratio	62.50	36.25	24.26	13.60	7.79	15.02
Revenue ($’000)	148,488	166,232	138,707	194,796	308,373	157,594
Growth rate (%)		11.95%	-16.56%	40.44%	58.31%	-48.90%

Test @4.20pm

Derek Lim — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:19:41 +0000

Test @4.20pm Related posts: SIPS test Drizzt passed the Specified Investment Product Test Consumers to take test effective 1 January 2012
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Invest Fair 2009

Derek Lim — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:05:28 +0000

The Invest Fair is here again. I’m sure for some this is an event not to be missed.

Maybe I’m a little biased but I don’t see how attending a fair can make me invest better. I’m pretty sure it is more of a motivational talk telling you that investing is better than saving, start investing now etc. I will probably go home inspired but with more questions than answers in my mind. For those wanting to know what to invest in, those ‘gurus’ will probably paint a vague outlook of the economy and recommend some classes of stock. If you wanna learn in depth about TA and FA, you will probably be ask to sign up for some paid courses. After all, you can only expect so much for something that is free ya?

Of course the Invest Fair ain’t all that bad – it is a good place to socialize and network, and if you see Uncles and Aunties flocking to a particular stock, it is time to take notice too. With so much information available on the media, internet and papers, I will give the Invest Fair a miss rather than succumb to information overload. Besides, I don’t have to be there to know what’s going on. I’m pretty sure bloggers will start blogging about it provided that they do not have the same thoughts as me.

Anyone keen to share their thoughts on Invest Fair 2009?