Telcos From A Consumer’s Point of View

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Mar 5, 2017 | Business |

In previous weeks, I have been blogging about telcos from an investor’s point of view. This week, the focus will be on a consumer’s point of view, which actually provides some useful insights into how telcos price their services. Telco charges (inclusive of handphone, mobile data, broadband and fixed line) have been one of the biggest bugbears for my monthly expenses. Part of the reasons is that the combination of lines have been fairly unsatisfactory. I have 2 handphones, 2 mobile data lines, 1 wired broadband and 1 digital home line. The other part of the reasons is that...

Do Telco Investors Need to Fear the Fourth Telco?

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Feb 27, 2017 | Business |

Ever since the Government announced that they would allow the entry of a fourth telco, share prices of the 3 existing telcos have been on a down trend. In Dec 2016, the name of the fourth telco was made known; it would be TPG Telecom. Do investors of the 3 telcos need to fear the fourth telco? Firstly, some background information about TPG. TPG is the second largest internet service provider and the largest mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in Australia. As a MVNO, it is able to offer the full suite of mobile telco services such as...

The Telco Landscape in Singapore

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Feb 20, 2017 | Shares & Derivatives |

The telco regulator in Singapore, Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), regularly publishes a list of facts & figures about the telco industry. It is interesting to look at the figures occasionally to understand the trends affecting telcos and review whether telcos worth investing. Mobile Services To investors of the 3 local telcos, the most important figure must be the no. of mobile subscriptions. Fig. 1 below shows the no. of subscribers according to type of network (3G/4G) and payment mode (pre-paid/ post-paid) for 2016 up to Nov. Fig. 1: Mobile Subscriptions From the figure, it should come as no...

Can Telcos Stop the Decline in Profitability?

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Feb 12, 2017 | Shares & Derivatives |

All 3 telcos have reported their financial results for the quarter ending Dec 2016. Both M1 and Starhub reported a significant drop in net profit of 27.1% and 33.2% respectively while Singtel reported a slight 1.8% rise in net profit. Starhub even dropped a bombshell by announcing that dividends for 2017 will be cut by 20% to 16 cents. Can telcos stop the decline in profits, or will profits continue to decline? As M1 is closest to a pure mobile telco company, this analysis is carried out using M1’s results. Fig. 1 below shows the overall service revenue...

Impact of Data Upsize Plans on Telcos

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Feb 5, 2017 | Business |

Competition among the 3 local telcos used to be fairly stale, until things started to heat up in Mar 2016 when all 3 telcos launched data upsize plans as a way to pre-empt competition from a potential fourth telco. The upsize plans provide subscribers with more data with the payment of an extra monthly fee. How does that impact the revenue and profitability of telcos? As M1 is closest to a pure mobile telco company, with 79% of its service revenue derived from mobile telco services, this analysis is carried out using M1’s results. Data X2 The table below...

Impact of SIM-Only Plans on Telcos

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Jan 30, 2017 | Business |

I recently switched my telco subscription plan from the regular ones to SIM-only plans. How do these SIM-only plans impact the revenue and profitability of the 3 local telcos? Before we begin, let me explain what are SIM-only plans. As the name implies, SIM-only plans only provide voice, SMS and data but do not come with subsidised handphones. The tables below show the amount of voice, SMS and data for regular and SIM-only plans for M1, the telco which I subscribe to. The last table shows the difference in the amount of voice, SMS and data between the 2...

A Prediction About Properties 13 Years Ago

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Jan 23, 2017 | Property |

Before I became a blogger in 2012, I contributed to the Straits Times (ST) Forum Page once in a blue moon. My first letter was written in Dec 2004 and discussed the issue of whether downgrading homes was a viable means of providing for retirement. I was 29 that year. Certainly, I was not thinking of retirement then, but what aroused my interest a few years earlier was whether properties could be a viable investment for me. That led me to study how the demographics of Singapore would change in the 35 years from the time I thought of...

Another Year That Ends with 7

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Jan 15, 2017 | Market Review and Trends |

You probably have heard of the folklore — whenever the year ends with 7, the stock market would crash. In 1987, Dow Jones Industrial Average went through the Black Monday in which it crashed 22.6% in a single day on 19 Oct 1987. Stock markets worldwide followed suit. In 1997, Asia went through the Asian Financial Crisis which did not end until nearly 2 years later. The STI went from 2,216.79 on 31 Dec 1996 to 805.04 on 4 Sep 1998, which is a precipitious drop of 64%! Fig. 1 below shows the extent of the crash during that...

Betting Against the STI Component Stock Changes

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Jan 8, 2017 | Investing |

Buying and holding a stock index is considered as passive investing. However, the STI is not entirely passive. Every quarter, the STI would be reviewed to determine whether certain stocks should be dropped from or added to the index. This can be likened to active stock selection. How have the stock selections of STI of the past 3 years performed? Over the past 3 years, there have been 6 changes to the STI component stocks. 1 of them is a forced change, as CapitaMalls Asia (CMA) was privatised and its place in the STI was taken over by Ascendas...

The Dogs and Puppies of STI for 2017

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Jan 2, 2017 | Shares & Derivatives |

The Dogs and Puppies of STI is an annual blog series that I try to update at the start of every year. It can be very time-consuming to crunch all the data and analyse their performance relative to the STI, especially since there is only a very short time window between the end of the previous year and the start of trading in the new year. Nevertheless, I try to do my best every year. Here is the edition for 2017 and a review of the performance of the Dogs and Puppies of STI for 2016. To recap, the...

A Look-Back at My Blog for 2016

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Dec 26, 2016 | Investing, Site Update |

2016 is drawing to a close and it is an opportune time for me to reflect on my blog for this year. Regular readers of my blog would know that my blog posts this year have tilted towards understanding the business of the industry/ company. This is most clearly manifested in the series of 14 Oil & Gas posts and a couple of sporadic posts in banks and Global Logistic Properties (GLP). This tilt towards business analysis is also reflected in my investments, with selective positioning along the O&G industry chain and a big investment in GLP. This shift...

Why Is Protectionism A Concern For Singapore?

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Dec 18, 2016 | Market Review and Trends |

After the election of Donald Trump as US President, it has been said that his protectionist stance is bad for open, trade-reliant economies like Singapore. But what is trade? My idea of trade has stagnated since the secondary school days, when we learnt that Singapore had a thriving entrepot business due to its strategic location at the southern tip of the Straits of Malacca. Thus, if it is just the port business that is affected by protectionism, then it is not a very big deal, isn’t it? However, on further thoughts, trade is not just about the port...

Making America Great Again and Its Impact to Asia

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Dec 11, 2016 | Market Review and Trends |

I delayed writing about the impact of Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, primarily because I wanted more time to observe his policies. However, since US Fed is meeting this week to discuss interest rate rise, I will pen down my current thoughts. Things will change, as Trump might adjust his policies after he becomes president. Since Trump’s surprise victory, stock markets have rallied strongly. Part of the reasons has to do with some of the positive policies proposed by him, such as infrastructure spending, tax cuts, reduced regulations on banks, etc. If enacted, these policies...

Being A Co-Owner of GLP

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Dec 4, 2016 | Shares & Derivatives |

It is often said that buying shares in a company means becoming a co-owner of the company. However, what does it really mean to be a co-owner? After my large investment in Global Logistic Properties (GLP), I finally understood what it means. Usually, for any investment, if the company is not doing well, I could simply sell and walk away. But when I initiated the 15% to 20% concentration in GLP, I told myself that there shall be no exits. If GLP sinks, I sink as well. Hence, I have to understand the business very well and monitor the...

My Roller Coaster Ride with GLP

Posted by (The) Boring Investor | Nov 27, 2016 | Shares & Derivatives |

There is a Chinese saying for relationships: “You come together because of misunderstanding, and you separate because of understanding”. When it comes to stock investments, I find that this saying applies as well, at least for me. When I am thinking of buying a stock, the stock would tend to look attractive, even though I would study its financial statements carefully before buying. As the saying goes, the grass is always greener on the other side. However, after I have bought the stock, I would follow its announcements closely and realise that I have not understood the stock well...

Author: (The) Boring Investor