Gold and silver: New highs.

"Gold, up 2pc this year, is heading for its 10th consecutive annual gain, the longest winning streak since at least 1920. On Tuesday, bullion for immediate delivery added as much as $13, trading at $1,326.97 an ounce in early London trading....

"Also on Tuesday, silver advanced to a 30-year high, increasing 1.3pc to $22.2319 an ounce – the highest level since September 1980. "

Read complete article here.

Related post:
Gold can double from here over the next 5 years.
Buy more silver on weakness.

ASTI: Testing support at 11c.

ASTI's share price tried unsuccessfully in earlier sessions to stay above the 12c resistance. Today, share price closed at 11c amid weakening technicals.  The MACD just completed a bearish crossover in positive territory.  RSI is testing support at 50% which suggests weakened buying momentum.

11c is where we find the rising 50dMA.  A stronger support would be at 10.5c which is where we find the rising 100dMA which coincides with the uptrend support line. I believe that the fortunes of the semi-con industry would continue to improve and would, therefore, accumulate if ASTI's share price should retest support at 10.5c.

Related posts:
ASTI: A doubling of share price in time.
ASTI: Breakout, almost.

Hock Lian Seng:Target hit.

On 27 Sep, I mentioned that "A support seems to have formed at 30c for this construction stock.  Further upside would give a target of 32c." Today, Hock Lian Seng's share price touched a high of 32.5c before closing at 31.5c as volume exploded.

The MACD completed a bullish crossover in positive territory as the MFI spiked into overbought territory while the OBV turned up sharply. The RSI, however, is somewhat lukewarm and has yet to break out from a series of lower highs.  This coupled with a white candle formed today with a long upper wick puts into question the sustainability of today's upmove in price. Interpretation: Strong demand and accumulation but buying momentum is muted by strong selling pressure at resistance (32c).

I sold some of my shares at the 32c target today. Although I still see strong support at 30c where we find the rising 20dMA, 30.5c could very well be resistance turned support. I would buy again if it gets to those levels. Immediate resistance remains at 32c and if that breaks convincingly, the next target is at 34c.

Related post:
Hock Lian Seng: 32c target.

Raffles Education: A trading opportunity.

I have not done any trading for a long time.  Today, I took a look at Raffles Education's chart and it looks to me like a positive divergence is forming between the downtrend in price and the MACD.  As price formed lower highs, the MACD has been forming higher lows.  Last week, a higher low in price was formed.  This is a positive sign.

Look at the MFI and we see higher highs which suggest increasing demand. Look at the OBV and we see accumulation strengthening.  Look at the RSI and we see higher highs which suggest positive buying momentum.  These signs point towards a possible reversal of the downtrend.

Also, as price declined in the recent sessions, volume similarly declined which suggests that a classic low volume pullback is taking place. There is an absence of strong selling pressure.

Having said all these, immediate resistance at 29.5c has to be taken out convincingly.  If this is achieved, I see an eventual target of 34c (161.8% Fibo and also defined by the descending 200dMA) with some resistance at 32c.  Good for a trade? Perhaps.

Related post:
Raffles Education: Downtrend in force.

FSL Trust: Challenging resistance.

On 27 Sep, I mentioned that "Trading above the gap which was closed at 43.5c now brings the next resistance at 46c to play.  I see an eventual target as defined by the descending 200dMA, currently at 51c."

FSL Trust has been experiencing buoyant price action since then and 43.5c has been established as immediate support.  This is likely to be underpinned by the rising 20dMA. 46c is still the resistance to watch although it was briefly taken out today on higher volume. Eventual target remains defined by the descending 200dMA, currently at 50.5c.

Related post:
FSL Trust: Rising from the depths.

Genting SP: 38.2% Fibo.

On 1 Oct, I mentioned that "I feel that a resumption of a downward movement towards the 50dMA is likely and that further upside could be capped by the 38.2% Fibo line at $2.05."

Today, an effort to further advance the rebound in the last session sputtered as price hit a high of $2.10 only to retreat to close to $2.04, 1c lower than the resistance identified at $2.05. A white candle with a long upper wick was formed, suggesting the presence of strong selling pressure as price tried to move higher.

Immediate support is now at $2.00, underpinned by the rising 20dMA, on top of being a many times tested support and resistance level.  Immediate resistance remains at $2.05.


Related post:
Genting SP: A strong rebound.

Increasing demand for S-REITs.

Morgan Stanley says that S-REITs will benefit from low borrowing costs and a stronger S$. The high dividend yields make S-REITs attractive with limited downside.

Singapore’s high-yield REITs attractive. Yield spreads for REITs will remain high while interest rates are low, meaning cheaper funding costs for the trusts, Morgan Stanley says
Monday, 04 October 2010

© 2010 - The Edge Singapore

Although Morgan Stanley specifically mentioned Mapletree Logistics Trust and Ascott Residence Trust as being upgraded to Overweight, I believe that smaller S-REITs with even higher yields will get some attention soon as well. It is a matter of time and I will be patient.

Today, Saizen REIT saw its 15.5c sell queue bought up to the tune of 6,068 lots. There were three trades which were buy ups of 1,000 lots each. Could this REIT be attracting the interest of some deep pocketed investors?

Incidentally, I have accepted and paid for the rights of AIMS AMP Capital Industrial REIT this evening. I also applied for some excess rights.  Hope I get some. To fellow unitholders, please remember that the deadline is 7 Oct (Thu), 9.30pm for applications by ATM.

Related posts:
Office S-REITs VS Industrial S-REITs.
AIMS AMP Capital Industrial Trust: Rights issue.
Saizen REIT: Better than expected DPU.

Do you want to be richer?

The original title of this blog post was "Do you want to be rich?".  Then, I decided to change the last word as it would be more inclusive.  Almost everything is relative in this world, after all.  Few things are absolutes, such as death.  Even then, there could be debates on the different degrees of death. 

Oh well, modern society does complicate things.






This blog post was inspired by a recent late night chat in LP's infamous cbox. I was just sharing my ideas on how we could generate passive income from the stock market when a person mentioned that not everyone has $500k to begin with. 

Well, unless we are very lucky, I doubt anyone would have that kind of money from day one.  Then, a long discussion ensued in which I felt there wasn't any real engagement. 

Anyway, if someone feels that way, it could be possible that there are others who feel the same way.  Hence, the genesis of this post.

Let's go back in time. In an earlier blog post, I mentioned a personal aim for a minimum of $50k passive income from the stock market. I said that we just need $500k invested with a 10% yield.  I gave examples of REITs which I was vested in which I felt could help deliver this passive income target.  These are REITs which I blog about quite a lot and readers who are considering my strategy could be kept updated.






Question: How on Earth could an average worker amass $500k in capital through working and by being frugal? The operative word being "average". 

An example was given on how a Diploma holder making $2k a month would find it hard to achieve this. 

Well, if we were making $2k a month, we would have to make more money more quickly towards this end. 

However, if we did not do anything to change the status quo, we would continue making only $2k month. 

We cannot logically expect an improvement in our circumstances if we do not make an effort to change for the better. 

So, stop being "average".

For example, a certain full time private tutor I know managed to save $50k per annum! That's inspirational, if I do say so myself. He probably took on more students and worked harder. He should perhaps up his fees but that's just me. All of us could make incremental changes to our lives to be more productive.

What is the first step towards passive income generation? 

Find a job that pays us as much as we are worth or more than we are worth. Do not shortchange ourselves.  

If we are worth more than $2k a month, find people who are willing to pay us more.  If we are only worth $2k a month, find ways of increasing our value. Upgrade ourselves.

I would like to share another example here. I had a fellow soldier for a student when I was in the Army.  I gave him free English classes because he was not from a well to do family and the evenings in camp were pretty free anyway.  He took his 'O' Levels English paper twice before and he could not make the grade but he did not give up. 

I was then 24 years old and had just graduated from university but I was quite a bit older than he.

After a few months of lessons, I advised the student that perhaps there was another route that he could take. He should spend some time thinking of what he was really interested in and what he was good at.  Doing English was an uphill task for him.  

When I met him again a few years ago, he told me he was doing some IT stuff which involved laying cables and networking workstations. It was all Greek to me but he was doing very well with a pay of more than $6k a month! This is a success story which I still share with my students today.






Find your strengths and build on them.

Unless we are physically or mentally disadvantaged, if we would like to be richer, we could find ways of doing it.  

If we thought that making $2k a month was what we were supposed to make and that it was our fate, then, it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

If we wallow in self-pity, the only people who would show us sympathy would be people with the same mindset. It becomes a reinforcing vicious cycle! 

We build our own traps!







If we want to be richer, make it happen. How? The will must exist and it must be strong. Where there is a will, there is a way! This rings true.

When we make money, we must know how to save money. Recognise what are our needs and what are our wants. Fulfill the needs and delay gratification of the wants. Save as much as we can. 

Once we have an amount of money which could cover a year or two worth of routine expenses, we can start thinking of investing the rest.

Must all that $500k capital be from working hard and being frugal? 

Going back to an earlier blog post, I mentioned that when we invest in income generating assets, the passive income generated could be re-invested or it could be spent. If we re-invest, our targets (be it $500k or $100k) could be achieved sooner.  

This is the power of compounding.

To illustrate the power of compounding, let me use an institution in Singapore that we are all familiar with: the CPF.  When I first started working, I was thinking of how probable it was for me to meet the CPF minimum sum set by the Singapore government by the time I retire. 

Most of our contribution goes into the Ordinary Account (OA) while a much smaller sum goes into the Special Account (SA). 

At the face of it, 2.5% interest for the OA and 4.0% for the SA have only a 1.5% difference per annum but think of it a bit more and we realise that that the SA pays 60% more in interest compared to the OA!  Furthermore, if we compound 4% per annum, it becomes a very powerful force!

So, I voluntarily transferred my OA money into my SA for the first few years of my working life. Then, I let the government and time help me meet the minimum sum required through compounding 4% interest per annum.  Every 10 years, the SA money would grow 50% even if the monthly contributions should stop.





Do you want to be richer? 

Obviously, you do, otherwise, you would not have reached this part of the post. How soon do I think we could amass S$500k from the day we start working? 

To give a specific time period is difficult because it would depend on each person's circumstances but my point is that if we have the will to achieve it, and if we are physically and mentally whole, we will find ways to do it.


Related posts:
1. How much to have or how much to use?
2. 7 steps to creating passive income from stocks.
3. Building and preserving our wealth.
4. A minimum of $50k in annual passive income.
5. Money management: Needs and Wants.

Singapore Flyer: Halloween.

I took the Flyer once before with my family and really enjoyed it. I thought that the ticket was a bit pricey but it was a family outing and it is the tallest observation wheel in the world, well, until the one in Beijing is completed, that is.

I was just surfing for promotions and good deals when I stumbled upon this.  On 16,17, 23, 24, 30 and 31 October 2010, the Singapore Flyer will have special attractions which are free in nature: "Spooky Rainforest" and "Halloween Photo Stand-in".

Read about it here.

New highs in September.

I just did a blog stats update in August and was planning to do another update in December which would make my updates thrice yearly.  However, September's numbers surprised me so much on the upside that I just have to blog about it.  Numbers improved and made new highs in all three categories. In September, my blog registered 38,987 page loads, 22,712 unique visitors and 11,841 returning visitors.

On top of these numbers, Alexa reported that readers are spending a lot more time reading my blog. This is a happy development as it probably means that I have readers who are combing my blog for older posts on subjects which interest them.  A summary from Alexa says:

Singaporeanstocksinvestor.blogspot.com has a three-month global Alexa traffic rank of 702,778. Visitors to it view an average of 2.7 unique pages per day. The fraction of visits to the site referred by search engines is approximately 2%. 

Singaporeanstocksinvestor.blogspot.com has attained a traffic rank of 2,437 among users in Singapore, where almost all its audience is located. Visitors to the site spend approximately two minutes on each pageview and a total of nine minutes on the site during each visit.

To everyone who has made my blog as popular as it is today, a big "THANK YOU". :-)

Related posts:
Blog statistics: January to August 2010.
Alexa (Part 2).

Genting SP: A strong rebound.

STI increases 1.1% to 3,130.90 at closing. The measure advanced 1.2% this week, its sixth weekly gain. Three stocks rose for each that fell on the 30-member gauge.
Friday, 01 October 2010

© 2010 - The Edge Singapore

Together with the STI's stellar performance, Genting SP staged a strong rebound.  The MACD histogram turned green, a buy signal but the rise in price was not accompanied by heavy volume.  This suggests that price rebounded on short covering and that it rose because of a lack of sellers and not because of an abundance of buyers.

This rebound was probably a good chance for bulls to reduce exposure. Personally, I feel that a resumption of a downward movement towards the 50dMA is likely and that further upside could be capped by the 38.2% Fibo line at $2.05. However, with an upgrade by OCBC, I wonder which way it would go.  It is a grand tug of war between research houses.

Genting up on short-covering, OCBC upgrade
Friday, 01 October 2010

© 2010 - The Edge Singapore

Golden Agriculture: 56c support.

Golden Agriculture seems to have found support at 56c. As the falling MACD made contact with zero, the histogram turned green: a buy signal.  Today's white candle is on the back of relatively low volume and that to me is not convincing of a recovery. However, this does not mean that price could not enjoy a respite and rebound.  If a rebound takes place, it would confirm the buy signal on the MACD histogram but could meet with immediate resistance at 57.5c.

Well, 56c is only one bid shy of 55.5c which is where we find the rising 200dMA which coincides with the uptrend support line.  This is, therefore, likely to be a rather strong support.  So, buying at 56c for anyone who would like to have a stake in Golden Agriculture seems fairly safe.  Personally, I am waiting for the dust to settle.

Related post:
Golden Agriculture: Breaking support.

Courage Marine: Lengthy consolidation.

A friend asked me what I think of Courage Marine and I told him I like its numbers and I like how the BDI seems to have stabilised at $2,500 thereabouts.  I feel that Courage Marine shouldn't have bad news with regards to earnings. The main reason why I have not really talked about Courage Marine very much recently is the lack of anything newsworthy.

Courage Marine's share price seems to be going through a lengthy consolidation period.  Nothing exciting either way. OBV is flat which indicates a lack of any distribution or accumulation activities. Seems like status quo to me. The MFI still suggests the presence of demand while the RSI has bounced off the 50% mark which suggests some buying momentum is present.

The 20d, 50d and 100d MAs have all merged at 19c.  19c could either become a strong support or a strong resistance in such a case. Which way would it go? Well, we have a buy signal on the MACD histogram and with the MFI and OBV more positive than negative, I would hazard a guess: up. In such an instance, I see resistance at 20c, 21c and 23c.  Good luck to my friend and fellow shareholders.

Related post:
Courage Marine: Awakening.

Genting SP: An orderly retreat.

No one likes to see his investment plunging in value but anyone who bought some Genting SP's shares towards the end of its run up to $2.18 could be nursing a huge paper loss now, if he did not cut his losses.

On 28 Sep, I mentioned that "we could see more selling pressure in the near term.  If $1.93 gives way, I see the next support level at $1.84, give or take a cent. Strong support should be provided by the rising 50dMA which is currently at $1.60." Today, price action formed a low at $1.85, just a cent shy of $1.84, before closing at $1.86.  That >5m shares were sold down at $1.86 post closing at 5.05pm suggests more downside to come.

The momentum oscillators are firmly downward moving and the OBV shows clear distribution underway.  It would seem that the 50dMA would be called upon as support in due course. What price would that be at?  If I were to hazard a guess, it could be close to $1.70 next week.  That is where we find the lower Bollinger band and it also seems like a natural candlestick support.  Of course, a nice round number is mostly psychologically important.

Do I expect any panic selling? That's a tough one to answer but looking at the volume of trade as the stock was sold down this week, it looks like an orderly retreat to me.  No spike in trade volume.  So, this is perhaps a consolation for shareholders.

Related post:
Genting SP: CEO pares stake.

Genting Singapore off 1.1%; Down 12.8% since peak.
Besides current broad market pullback, shares also bogged down by Macquarie's downgrade to Neutral from Outperform with lower target of $1.75 vs $2.10, citing market's "overly optimistic growth assumptions".

Thursday, 30 September 2010

© 2010 - The Edge Singapore

CIT: Show me the numbers.

I was asked by some if the proposed purchase by Cambridge Industrial Trust (CIT) is a good move. I went to SGX and downloaded the document on: PROPOSED ACQUISITION OF 25 TAI SENG AVENUE.

The property is valued at S$21.5m but is being sold at $21.1m to CIT and CIT has "sufficient financial flexibility and capacity to fund the Acquisition which is expected to complete by 4th quarter of 2010" which I interpret to mean that they do not need to do a share placement or rights issue.

I would rather like to have some numbers so that I could see if this purchase is income yield accretive but unfortunately, these numbers are not available.  Instead, the managers just say:

"The Manager believes that 25 Tai Seng Avenue is a quality industrial asset that has been purchased at an attractive yield which is comparable or better than yields of recent  transactions in the market.

"Additionally, the acquisition of 25 Tai Seng Avenue will further reduce the reliance of CIT’s income stream on any single asset and tenant, increase the weighted average lease tenure of CIT’s portfolio as at 30 June 2010 and reduce CIT’s lease expiry concentration in 2013 and 2014."

Can't do much analysis without the necessary numbers.

Saizen REIT: Divestment of properties.

Saizen REIT has managed to divest another four properties in its YK Shintoku portfolio.  A friend asked me if this is a good thing and my answer was an unequivocal "yes".  Why?

1. The plan to divest some properties of YK Shintoku to reduce the borrowing amount is with approval from the CMBS lenders. This shows that the lenders have no wish to foreclose YK Shintoku and would rather have their money back. In the meantime, they enjoy a rich 7.07% interest payment on the loan amount.

2. Saizen REIT's management is currently in negotiations with financial institutions to refinance YK Shintoku's loan and by divesting some properties, its absolute loan quantum is smaller and this makes it more palatable to potential lenders.  Like I mentioned before, a successful re-financing of YK Shintoku's loan would most likely result in a much lower interest rate which would lead to a positive re-rating of the REIT.

3. The properties divested are at smallish discounts to their most recent valuations.  The discounts are at 0.2%, 3.7%, 5.3% and 6.1% for the four different properties. This demonstrates the return of buying interest in the Japanese real estate sector as investors seek out better returns for their money.  This bodes well for Saizen REIT as the apartment buildings that they own are below replacement value.  This means that investors are unlikely to build new and would rather seek to buy in the resale market.

Following the loan repayment using sale proceeds from the divestments, the remaining balance of YK Shintoku's loan is estimated to be approximately JPY 6.6 billon (S$103.6 million). The loan was JPY 7.1billion (S$111.5 million) before.

See announcement here.

Related post:
Saizen REIT: Emphasis of matter.

Gold can double from here over the next 5 years.

"Despite all the hype about its multi-year rally, gold is actually lagging many other commodities in that it hasn't yet eclipsed its 1980 high on an inflation-adjusted basis, Holmes says, noting the same is true of silver."


Posted Sep 28, 2010 12:00pm EDT by Aaron Task

Gold hits another record high of US$1,308.00, the eighth time it has hit a new high in the last two weeks!  Read article here.

Related posts:
Buy more silver on weakness. 
Real value of gold.

SPH: Closing above $4.20.

SPH experienced a nice white candle day with price closing at $4.21.  This is the first time it has closed above the $4.20 resistance level in more than two years. That this took place on the back of volume expansion (volume was three times more than the previous session) gives hope that we could possibly see higher prices in the near future.

The higher highs in the OBV shows continual accumulation.  The MFI has formed a higher low and being at a very low level now, it has much room to rise before becoming overbought. The MACD has turned up and seems poised for a bullish crossover with the signal line.

Immediate support is now at $4.16 as provided by the 20dMA.  Immediate target is $4.30.

Related post:
SPH: $4.20 is still resistance.