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Market Uncle

Investing in gold, a worthwhile option?

September 20, 2009 by Market Uncle

As gold price rose past USD 1,000, there seems to be a renewed interest in investing in gold. I am pretty curious to find out whether this is a worthwhile adventure. USD quoted commodities As with many commodities such as crude oil, gold is quoted in USD. When USD depreciates against major world currencies, gold [...]

in Categories: Investing

Investing in gold, a worthwhile option?

September 19, 2009 by Market Uncle

As gold price rose past USD 1,000, there seems to be a renewed interest in investing in gold. I am pretty curious to find out whether this is a worthwhile adventure. USD quoted commodities As with many commodities such as crude oil, gold is quoted in USD. When USD depreciates against major world currencies, gold [...]

in Categories: Investing

Reinvested funds from SPC divestment in Thomson Medical Centre on 28th August 2009

September 7, 2009 by Market Uncle

Motivation I see potential in SPC and was prepared to hold on for the long term since I got it when the oil industry was in its doldrums. I was still hopeful that more than 10% of minority shareholders of SPC could hang on to their shares. Unfortunately, PetrolChina easily collected more than 90% of [...]

in Categories: Shares and Derivatives

Reinvested funds from SPC divestment in Thomson Medical Centre on 28th August 2009

September 1, 2009 by Market Uncle

Motivation I see potential in SPC and was prepared to hold on for the long term since I got it when the oil industry was in its doldrums. I was still hopeful that more than 10% of minority shareholders of SPC could hang on to their shares. Unfortunately, PetrolChina easily collected more than 90% of [...]

in Categories: Investing

Traded Tsit Wing for Food Junction on 28th August 2009

August 31, 2009 by Market Uncle

With this, I officially threw in the towel on Tsit Wing, making a meagre 8.5% (taking dividend into account) over 3 years. I could either continue to wait for their restructuring efforts to pay off (assuming they aren’t taken private successfully) or look somewhere. I chose the latter given the lack of visibility on how [...]

in Categories: Featured, Shares and Derivatives

Traded Tsit Wing for Food Junction on 28th August 2009

August 29, 2009 by Market Uncle

With this, I officially threw in the towel on Tsit Wing, making a meagre 8.5% (taking dividend into account) over 3 years. I could either continue to wait for their restructuring efforts to pay off (assuming they aren’t taken private successfully) or look somewhere. I chose the latter given the lack of visibility on how [...]

in Categories: Investing

I bought Super Coffeemix Manufacturing Ltd AGAIN on 13th August 2009

August 16, 2009 by Market Uncle

Rationale Super Coffeemix just announced its 2Q 2009 results which I deemed as encouraging (though not as superb without its fair value adjustments on its investment securities). Performance over the last several quarters The table below summarises its quarter performance: A few things to note: Operating profit seems to bottom out in 4Q 2008. Ignoring [...]

in Categories: Investing

Condominiums – Opportunity or Trap

August 9, 2009 by Market Uncle

Upgrade or downgrade? I came across the following article in the 联合早报: 是享受还是受罪. It described someone nearing retirement who ‘upgraded’ to a condominium of 102 sqm and a new mortgage to pay off, by selling his fully paid up EA flat of 145 sqm. When enquired about his rationale, the simple answer was ” no [...]

in Categories: Featured, Investing

Condominiums – Opportunity or Trap

August 8, 2009 by Market Uncle

Upgrade or downgrade? I came across the following article in the 联合早报: 是享受还是受罪. It described someone nearing retirement who ‘upgraded’ to a condominium of 102 sqm and a new mortgage to pay off, by selling his fully paid up EA flat of 145 sqm. When enquired about his rationale, the simple answer was ” no [...]

in Categories: Personal Finance, Property

First Ship Lease Trust – Back to Earth

July 29, 2009 by Market Uncle

2Q 2009 Results First Ship Lease Trust, FSLT announced its 2Q 2009 quarter results on 21st July, 2009. Forward DPU forecast came in at 1.5 USD cents, much lower than the 3.08 USD cents ever announced. Rather then feeling disappointed, I felt reassured of my investment instead. The forecast of 1.5 USD cents DPU was [...]

in Categories: Featured, Shares and Derivatives

HDB Prices – Still so sticky?

July 17, 2009 by Market Uncle

In my earlier post on property prices in February this year, I shared my view on why I think there are still room for the prices to drop further. However, one waiting since then will be quite disappointed to note that the prices are still very sticky, especially HDB resale prices: (src: http://www.hdb.gov.sg/fi10/fi10201p.nsf/WPDis/Buying%20A%20Resale%20FlatStatistics%20-%20Resale%20Price%20Index?OpenDocument) High prices [...]

in Categories: Featured, Market Review and Trends

Downside to Value Investing?

June 22, 2009 by Market Uncle

The story The controlling shareholder, Wong’s Brothers, decided to delist Tsit Wing at an offer price of 27 SGD cents. The rationale behind the delist is due to poor interest in its stock (low market valuation that does not reflect its worth) and to facilitate restructuring by easing capital investment into the business as a [...]

in Categories: Featured, Investing

I bought CH Offshore on 25th May 2009

June 1, 2009 by Market Uncle

Before I go into the rationale behind my purchase, I will like to share some thoughts on the oil & Gas industry (from the investment context) and value investment in general. I had quite a fruitful discussion on the above topics in one forum thread and exchange of comments with a reader on my blog [...]

in Categories: Featured, Shares and Derivatives

Matrix for Personal Finance Planning

May 28, 2009 by Market Uncle

Rationale As I was working on a long term planning project, I came up with a matrix to put various initiatives in perspective. It suddenly dawn on me that I could apply that matrix I developed to personal finance planning. I promised my friend to blog on it, so better keep my promise :). Personal [...]

in Categories: Featured, Personal Finance

First Ship Lease Trust’s Distribution Reinvestment Scheme (DRS)

May 11, 2009 by Market Uncle

DRS Summary In short, DRS is a scrip dividend scheme for FSLT to make payments through issuing new shares in place of cash. FSLT had 2 strategies to reduce cash payout in terms of dividend, one is via direct reduction in distribution (from almost 100% to 75%) and second is via DRS. While a 25% [...]

in Categories: Featured, Shares and Derivatives

I bought Singapore Petroleum Company on 27th March 2009

April 8, 2009 by Market Uncle

Rationale Ever since the crude oil prices hit around US$ 30 sometime ago (from a record high of above US$ 140 last year), I believe the business fundamentals for oil companies (e.g. SPC) have made a U-turn. There are a two main sources pressuring their income statement: Inventory write down (declining oil prices) Declining revenue [...]

in Categories: Featured, Shares and Derivatives

Yield Investing versus traditional Value Investing

March 18, 2009 by Market Uncle

Motivation No one doubts that the current economic crisis is one of the worse the world experience since the great depression in the 1930s. However, the silver lining is that it brings one of the greatest investment opportunities too. I remember $20,000 is not even sufficient to buy one lot of DBS or UOB, now [...]

in Categories: Featured, Investing

Property prices, how much lower can it get?

February 23, 2009 by Market Uncle

I read with interest an article published today on Sunday Times, 22nd February 2009, Keen to cash in on mortgage sales? Quoting from the article, … potential buyers are “coming in floods”, asking to be on her company’s list or calling about properties on offer. … but it is very difficult for us to strike [...]

in Categories: Featured, Market Review and Trends

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