Author: Investment Income for Life

Should retail investors continue to invest in this uncertain macro-economic environment? Or time for exit and wait strategy? During my last post, I have briefly mentioned that there are some groups of investor who have sold off most if not all their REIT portfolio as they believed that REITs are overvalued and have rallied too much against their fundamentals. Also, such groups believe that economic recession is imminent and have switched to bonds and gold. On the other hand, I have another group of obstinate friends who believed in the buy and hold forever camp who asked me why...

No time to blog recently as I was too busy watching and chasing “Love and Destiny”. This fantasy drama series was so good that I was totally mesmerised by it. The beautiful backdrop and the tragic story line was just too awesome. This amazing series is being produced by the same production team behind the immensely popular “Eternal Love” series in 2017 starring Yang Mi. “Love and Destiny” is actually a prequel to it and in 2020, the sequel to “Eternal Love” which is in post production phase will be coming to viewers and fans. The story goes like...

I am glad that Mahathir had temporarily stopped bashing Singapore over the raw water pricing issue. But not sure how long the fragile peace will last. Malaysia has stopped the export of sand to Singapore to curb Singapore’s land reclamation expansion, in particular, the Tuas Mega Port project. It is of course not in their interest to see Singapore developing well.  Many have forgotten how vulnerable our tiny Singapore is and have taken things for granted. Singapore does not have natural resources such as oil, tin, copper or large agricultural land. The only thing we have is our stellar...

Almost a month ago, I went down to Maybank Kim Eng Customer Service Centre at Beach Road (Gateway West) to open a margin trading account. It was a struggle for me as I have given them a wrong CDP account (last digit typo) which leads to some administrative issues with getting the margin account setup. Just when I thought that the worst was over after the administrative hassle over phone calls and emails, I received news that some value-added services will no longer be free and become chargeable from August 1st, 2019 onwards. Extract from Maybank Kim Eng Website...

One Pearl Bank and its close proximity to 3 MRT lines and other amenities say a lot about its superb location. The two curved towers design of One Pearl Bank is simply grandeur and will no doubt become the new iconic landmark of Outram and Chinatown area in 2023. Capitaland has once again shown why it is one of the top developers in Singapore. One Pearl Bank has 774 units spread over two magnificent towers and the developer will raise it 21 metres above the ground level to elevate the greenery flow from Pearl’s Hill City Park in order...

The recent talk of the town is the upcoming Prime US REIT IPO. Prime US REIT is a US-based office REIT that offered an attractive yield of 7.6% at the offer price of US$0.88 per unit. The other plus points of Prime REIT are that its office properties are freehold and have long WALE of 5.5 years. The public offering will end on 15 July 2019 (Monday). Despite the many star attributes, I will not be taking part in this office REIT IPO due to 3 main reasons.1.   The US economy is weakening with the ongoing trade war James...

In order to unlock the undervalued business of SingMedical Group (“SMG”) which I mentioned briefly in my post on 9 June 2019, I have suggested the possible option of privatization using the example of Thomson Medical Centre which had previously been acquired by the local business tycoon Peter Lim before doing a “future relisting” on the SGX 6 years later. Thomson Medical is close to my heart as I used to be involved in part of its accounting and financial work many years back. Also interestingly, another medical group, Health Management International recently announced a privatisation initiative after years...

The much anticipated Google deal at Alexandra Technopark finally went through and was formally announced on 25 June 2019 by Frasers Commercial Trust (“FCT”). Since my last posting on 19 January 2019, there has been no more news after the Business Times announced that FCT and Google Asia Pacific Pte Ltd were discussing taking up space at Alexandra Technopark. For the past few months, I thought that Google Asia Pacific had walked away from the lease negotiation and was very worried over how FCT would fare should the global economic downturn happen by end of this year. When I...

Singapore’s 4th Telco TPG wasted no time in firing a fresh salvo against the telco big boys (Singtel, Starhub, and M1) by offering free unlimited data roaming in Malaysia and Indonesia as part of its many innovative services to its current subscribers. To prevent the potential loss of customers, Singtel and its brethren may very well be forced also to match the new service offering. In 2018, around 10.2Mil Singaporean visits were recorded by the Malaysia Tourism Board. Most Singaporeans would have activated the special promotional package of S$5/GB for such trips across the causeway. There is thus a...

The see-saw ride in the global markets continues since my last portfolio update in April’19 with no clear end in sight. The US levying of tariffs on China and a swift retaliation from China leads to a tumbling of many blue-chip companies listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange. However, over the past 2 weeks, the market had rallied strongly despite weakening macroeconomic fundamentals. “Defensive stocks” such as Singtel and REITs have also seen their prices shooting up like a rocket. The surprising aspect of this is that while the Federal Reserve has given some indication of halting of interest...

The new accounting standard FRS116 on leases came into effect on 1st Jan 2019. The “right of use” asset model basically attempt to plug the loophole of off-balance sheet liabilities. Basically, for operating lease assets, companies are now required to capitalize the present value of future lease payments of such arrangement as a direct fixed asset and also to recognize a theoretical liability. This gives rise to a strange phenomenon whereby an arbitrary financing cost is also created monthly for the right of use of the asset during the unwinding of the interest component in the lease liability. From...

Since my last posting on the “The Enigmatic Case of Sing MedicalGroup- More Money Earned Lead to Lower Share Price” on 8 January 2019, the price of Sing Medical Group has shot up by 20% from S$0.400 to S$0.485 within 2 months. However, its share price has since plunged by 22% to a low of S$0.380 on 7 June 2019. If one had the ability to see the future using a magical crystal ball, then one would have sold off in Feb’19 at S$0.485 and then buy again when it hit S$0.380 recently and locked into the profit. If...

On 16 May 2019, Frasers Centrepoint Trust (“FCT”) announced that it is acquiring a 33.33% stake (S$440.6Mil) in Punggol Waterway Point from its sponsor Frasers Property. The suburban mall is conveniently located next to Punggol MRT/LRT/Bus Interchange and integrated with Watertown residential component on top of the mall. It serves as the main shopping mall for residents of Punggol new town and the footfall catchment area is huge as evident from the large crowd of shoppers even during the weekday. 1. FCT is a great defensive retail REIT with excellent DPU growth track record and many assets in the...

Thai Beverage share price plummeted by almost 10% the following day after the release of their 2nd quarter financial performance (ending 31 March 2019) to as low as S$0.735 per share from S$0.825 per share. This seems to be a knee jerk reaction to the unfavourable results for 2nd quarter relative to the previous financial period. However, the fact of the matter is that if I recall correctly, Thai Beverage is coming off from an abnormally highly skewed profit base for Q2 2018 which was mainly before the additional excise tax came in for acholic drinks hence agents and...

This week, I came across an interesting article on Channel News Asia by Sara-Ann Lee on “Always tired and worried about under-performing-when extreme meritocracy drives burnout.”  Sara-Ann Lee also mentioned that “Organizations must treat employees as the soul of their company, rather than as resources to be expended at their disposal.” While this is indeed true, it is always a two way street in terms of employer and employee relationship. Employees should also stop treating their organizations as a resource to exploit and be expended while pursuing their career and wealth accumulation. I list down some of the paradoxes...