Buy more silver on weakness.

On 7 February 10, I mentioned that "Silver is a real asset, with real value, just like gold, as its supply is finite.  Fiat currencies, on the other hand, do not have any intrinsic value and more could be produced at will.  So, we expect silver to at least keep pace with inflation and in an inflationary environment, an investment in silver should protect our wealth from being eroded."

In that blog post, I mentioned that my research showed that silver was very undervalued and was trading at the higher end of the Gold:Silver ratio since 1980.

At that time, silver was US$15.15/oz while gold was US$ 1,052.20/oz.  It was just reported by Bloomberg today that "Gold for December delivery was 0.2 percent higher after reaching US$1,299.70 an ounce on the Comex in New York. Silver for immediate delivery in London climbed as much as 1.2 percent to US$21.3875 an ounce, the highest price since October 1980." Read article here.

Silver has gone from US$15.15 to US$21.38 an oz.  This is a gain of 41% in slightly more than 7 months.  Gold has gone from US$1,052.20 to US$1,299.70 an ounce.  This is a gain of 23.5% in the same period.  An investment in either one of these precious metals would have been very rewarding but silver has obviously outperformed gold by a large margin.

I am glad I bought some silver and I would like to buy more silver on weakness when the opportunity presents itself as I continue to believe that having some investment in precious metals is an essential part of anyone's portfolio. Silver is a laggard in the realm of precious metals and it is just catching up.

Do I have a target price for silver? Silver reached its peak in value on 15 January 1980 when 1 oz of gold could purchase only 14.9 oz of silver.  Based on today's price of gold at US$1,299.70 an ounce, it would mean US$87.22 an ounce for silver!  Mind boggling, isn't it? That would be 4 times higher than the current price!  Of course, I am not suggesting that silver would hit that price anytime soon, if it does go that high at all. I am merely putting things in perspective. Remember where the price was in February? Good luck.

A new record! Gold prices struck a record $1,300.07 an ounce in afternoon trade on the London Bullion Market as investors sought a safe haven for their money amid increased uncertainty over the global economic outlook. Silver, meanwhile, jumped to $21.44 an ounce . Published: 5:44PM BST 24 Sep 2010 - Read article here.

Related posts:
Gold or silver?
Gold nearing US$1,300 an ounce.

FCOT, CCT and K-REIT.

I got a SMS from the blog master of Time to Huat as I was on my way home. FCOT's volume surged as price action formed at nice white candle, closing at 15.5c, overcoming a many times tested resistance at 15c.

Buy signal seen on the MACD histogram, higher low formed on the MFI, OBV spiked and RSI rose into overbought territory. Momentum is positive, demand is strong, accumulation is strong and buying momentum is positive but it could be overdone.

Any reason for the optimism in FCOT? I did not see any announcement by the management which could have resulted in such an upmove in price today. Should we buy some? Could it go higher in price?  From a technical perspective, it does look promising.  Volume is, after all, the fuel that drives rallies and today's volume was impressive.

Let us look at the fundmentals:

FCOT's NAV/unit stands at 26c.  If all the CPPUs were converted, NAV/unit would be 25c. So, at a price of 15.5c, FCOT's units are trading at a 40% discount to NAV.  That's pretty steep.

Gross borrowings as a percentage of total assets (aka the gearing level) is at 40.4%. This is rather high and there is limited room to leverage up for any yield accretive purchases.  However, the 342,500,000 CPPUs have a conversion price of S$0.2369 per unit.  This would bring down its gearing level marginally and give FCOT more capital (S$81.138m) to fund yield accretive purchases in future in case all CPPUs were converted. 

The 3Q DPU was 0.25c. So, the annualised DPU should be about 1c. Based on today's closing price of 15.5c, the yield is 6.45%.  This is not very attractive if we were to compare to what we could get from AIMS AMP Capital Industrial REIT, for example.  Of course, these two REITs are in different real estate sectors.  Let us compare FCOT with CCT and K-REIT instead. 

CCT closed at $1.47 today. NAV as of 30 Jun 10 at $1.36. CCT is trading at a 8% premium to NAV. Gearing ratio is at 32.8%.  Plenty of room to leverage up for further yield accretive purchases. 1H DPU was 3.9c.  So, the annualised DPU should be about 7.8c.  This means a yield of 5.3% based on today's closing price. The yield might be lower than FCOT's but CCT has a much stronger balance sheet.

K-REIT closed at $1.31 today. NAV as of Jun 10 at $1.47. K-REIT is trading at an 11% discount to NAV. Gearing ratio is at 15.2%.  This is very attractive to me as it gives the REIT plenty of room to leverage up for potential yield accretive purchases. 1Q 2010 DPU at 1.33c.  Annualised DPU should be 5.32c which means a yield of only 4% based on the current price of $1.31.  K-REIT has, arguably, the strongest balance sheet amongst the three office property REITs discussed here.  The low yield might put off investors but its low gearing paves the way for future acquisitions which could bump up its DPU.

I have told my friends before that for me to buy more units in FCOT, it has to offer me a much higher yield. The much higher gearing and lower quality assets compared to CCT and K-REIT are justifications. There is also greater safety in CCT and K-REIT as their interest coverage ratio (ratio of year‐to‐date earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to interest expense) are at 3.8x and 3.6x respectively while FCOT's ratio is at 2.74x.  There is little doubt that FCOT's fundamentals are the weakest of the three. So, naturally, a higher yield is necessary to compensate for higher risk.

See FCOT's presentation slides here.
See CCT's presentation slides here.
See K-REIT's presentation slides here.