Rainbow on FI

I am only at the second chapter into Napoleon Hill's 'Think and Grow Rich', the contents are so impactful that it took me into my reflective mode almost right away. "Desire" is a key word which appeared many times from the very first chapter and it resonated strongly with me as I recalled my childhood. I am born to Singaporeans and not born with a golden spoon, I think not even a silver spoon. I am born to a below-average family with my father working in a blue-collar job and my mother a homemaker. Life was simple and just enough. I roughly remembered there were times the family was trying to make ends meet through my parents' conversations. In my primary school days, my pocket money was $1 a day. Most of my clothes and books were hand-me-down from my cousins and I owned no big ticket gadget (watch was my priciest gadget). My first computer and printer were also hand-me-down from my cousin when I required them in secondary school. In primary school, I woul...

There was a recent blog post by Seth Godin that describes value from a marketer's perspective. Similarly, high value cannot be extrapolated from low price when investing. The lower the price of a stock, the harder it is to find value. I define what is 'low price' by looking at the price of a stock with respect to say other stocks within the same sector in the same time period. There is often a reason for every low price - especially if the price stays persistently low for years. It could be due to no growth or slow growth of the business, it could be due to a lack in profitability, it could be due to high liabilities or simply a lack of business moat. Just like an item on sale, it is either that it is not durable, expiring or not in high demand. We all know that a gem won't stay cheap for long right?

When a company initiates buyback of its own shares, the news is often received in a positive light - that the company deemed its current market share price as undervalued. Understanding the implications of share buyback of companies would help us make better investment decisions, as we seek to delve deeper behind the action and how it changes the face values of the various metrics. Does the company genuinely think that its share price is under-valued?  Does the company believe in its future earnings and growth such that it would rather invest in itself rather than invest elsewhere or pay down debts with the spare cash?  Or does the move spell alternate motives?

The typical image of a warrior that comes to mind is a strong, glam-armorous, sabre-wielding figure. Successful warriors need to train hard (maybe have good mentors too). They need ample resources (for good weaponry and defences). They need the brawns and the brains. Not everyone have the aptitude and grit to become a warrior, even if one claims to have the 'warrior spirit'. When we liken entrepreneurs to warriors - strong, glam-armorous, sabre-wielding... we didn't know that the path to successful entrepreneurship is actually  like this .  . . . Not glamorous at all, right? They have to work harder than the farmers. They have to be more prudent than the monks. And risk getting killed in the battlefield. After many rounds in the battlefield (where many warriors throw up their white flags), we have the successful, lucky, rare, talented ones who eventually wow the world, leave behind a legacy and retire early. Here's some Singapore war...

No matter how I look at it, the trade war still didn't dent the market enough. We are currently still riding the secular bull market from 2011/2012. Those who have accumulated by DCA would be very happy. Especially on the US index. Those who have been preparing for a bear market to kick in since a few years ago, have they given up or let their guards down already? STI - source: Yahoo Finance chart VOO - source: Yahoo Finance chart STI's volatility was largely attributed to the swings in financial sector's stock prices as they constituted a whooping 38.4% in the STI based on caps, although telcos also played a part. The telcos are now left with only Singtel after Starhub dropped out of the list, contributing 8.3% and the Jardine group of stocks contributing roughly 11%. (Data up to date) S&P 500, on the other hand, are heavily weighted on tech stocks. The tech stocks made up more than a quarter of the S&P 500 at 25.78%. Financial is the second-l...

It's been slightly over a month since I started out on my Jedi journey. Here are my previous 2 trade-related posts - Pair trading adventure I & not-so-pretty Pair trading adventure  II . It has been a fruitful month as overall I have made some gains - contrary to what I have expected of having to pay 'school fee'. Research and charting has been time-consuming and could only take place quite late after work (US market opens at 9.30pm). There were many times when I "analysed till paralyzed" and ended up just sitting on the sideline. I do mostly swing trades and closing my positions within a few days. As my positions were pretty small, my commissions & fees combined were a substantial portion (%) deducted from my gains. Broker is indeed the big winner regardless of whether we win or lose. To so-call maximize my commission (and be more cost-effective), there are 3 possible ways: 1) Enter fewer but bigger positions in strong trend (which means I have to ...

Alibaba's Jack Ma to unveil succession plan next week, remain chairman Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/jack-ma-retire-alibaba-founder-new-york-times-10696942 Alibaba Reveals Bigger Threats Than Trade War I am currently back to my 'unorthodox' pair-trading with Alibaba (BABA) and Weibo (WB). Had a short wild ride on Tilray couple of days back. It's almost like smoking the last puff of a cigar before it crumbles - not talking about a value stock here, but an over-valued stock. My homework for the coming week is to consolidate some of my learning into a workable system and try to do some math. I realised that my total trading commission is a bit out of proportion versus my gain. As mentioned, CFD trade commission is a whooping $9.90 per trade and that is without factoring in the daily financing cost yet. Long positions have a higher daily financing interest than short. Despite that, I understand that we cannot correlate commissions and ...