the purpose

This blog is merely to share my investment ideas and should be viewed only for learning purpose.

I will share my investment ideas or cases as and when I feel like it. The style of the writing will be super casual and most of the times it will be as if I am talking to my friends or buddies.

I appreciate self depreciating and hope the readers would view my frankness and at times, bluntness at ease.

If you expect excellent and flawless English (or sometimes Bahasa Indonesia), you will be greatly disappointed.

I hope my sincere sharing and investment ideas outweigh my flaw in writing.

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2023 YEAR-END NOTES

I have just concluded my investment return in 2023.
The return for the year is 32.5% while IHSG returns 6.2%.

I’d remind the readers not to read too much into 1-year result but rather look at the longer term horizon of at least 5-10 years cycle.

Since inception in Nov-2008, the CAGR of my investment return is 19.4% as compared to IHSG 12.3%.
The CAGR difference might not look significant, but if my initial investment amount was 1M, it’s now 14.6M as compared to IHSG 5.8M

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Wonderful Proxy

Owning a company via proxy can be a much cheaper option.
Case in point, owning growing high-tech companies (Tesla, Didi, Bilibili etc) via Tencent.
Better yet, owning Tencent via Prosus.

By and large, the reason why I invest via proxy is for higher Margin of Safety.
When I am not that confident of my circle of competence, I ask for higher margin for errors.

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A Tale of Two Worlds in 2021
  • The world is still being mostly locked down by Corona Virus, mainly by its upgraded version, Delta.  However, it is transitioning to the endemic of living with Covid-19 with vaccination.
    In most developed & emerging countries, the vaccination rate is over 50% (Pfizer, Moderna & Sinovac being the most common vaccines).
  • By year end, those countries have opened up to travels although the progress is stalled by another Covid version, Omicron.
    Omicron emerges in end-Nov and started spreading fast in Dec.  So far, it seems to spread more easily but doesn’t cause more severe illness.
  • For stock market, it is a tale of two worlds.
    One world is represented by US and the other by China.
    S&P rocketed by over 20% while HSE plunged by over 10%.
    Although the GDP growth, not much different at 4-7%.
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Better or Bet-ter Life

Why do we invest?
Duh, to earn big money obviously.

And, then what?
Ehmm… to live a better life !!?

I guess most of us would agree with the goal.

To me, my better life is to live freely of Financial concerns.
Not forcing myself into the rat race of 8am-6pm working life.
Or at the very least, have FU money to throw the resignation letter to shitty Boss’ face whenever I want.

Luckily, investment happens to be a hobby that works toward my financial freedom.
It is a process that I enjoy, so while doing it, I am also enjoying life.

From my observation though, during the long journey of pursuing Better Life,
most of us, unconsciously becoming Bet-ter Life.

What is Bet-ter Life?
A Life of the person who Bet money in the market.

A bet-ter life speculates heavily in the market and live in fear of market up & down.
In constant worries, affecting their sleep, relationship with family, friends and mental health.

So ironically, while trying to reach the goal of better life, the bet-ter life suffers in the process.

This bet-ter life is self-defeating.
As for most of us, the investment journey should be far longer than the financial freedom period.

In my case, it took almost 20 years of working and over 13 years of investment to reach the edge of financial freedom.
I reckon to be comfortably free, it will be another 5-10 years.
It is not a concern to me though, as I am enjoying the investment process.

So why do you not living a bet-ter life?
It is because I do not speculate and not guided by Mr Market’s moods (up & down).
Mr Market is there to serve us, not to guide us.

Putting aside some warchest to cushion the falls, is the reason why I can benefit from Mr Market’s service.

Whenever the market falls, I am excited and will look at companies that I admire and invest when market offers them cheaply.

When the market is up, I am (of course) still happy, as my money grows !
Which means tap dancing closer to my financial freedom.

In short, avoid bet-ter life to reach better life.

Cheers;

Fall.Cushion_

The Pandemic year of 2020

This is a summary of my notes over the pandemic year of 2020.

It’s mainly to serve as reference to myself in future by foreseeing history:

The world is locked down by Corona Virus (Covid-19).
Covid-19 started spreading in Wuhan, China in Jan and gone viral during Chinese New Year period.
After 1-3 months, the infected cases peaked at 80K (and 4K death) in China due to the very strict whole city lockdown.
It started spreading in US in Feb and due to Trump gov denial and mishandling, the cases gone up enormously and out of control.
Cases in US never really peak and still going crazy with over 17M infected and 307K death.
Worldwide, as @mid Dec, over 74M cases and 1.6M death.

Stock Markets worldwide plunged furiously from end Feb and bottomed at end Mar.
On 16-Mar, S&P plunged -12% in a day and with several days of up & down over 5%.
S&P bottomed at 23-Mar, plunged by over 30%, STI & JKSE also down by over 30%, HSI down by over 23%.

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Xxl Snack tiny Empire

Snack Empire is the rather well known Shihlin brand in Singapore selling Taiwanese snacks mainly Xxl Chicken & Oyster Mee Sua.

It has over 200 outlets mainly in Singapore, Malaysia & Indonesia.

Most outlets are franchised out, with the big one in Indonesia which owns over 140 outlets.

At current price of HKD 0.2, it has market cap of about HKD160M or S$29M.

Net cash is over S$17M, which is more than 60% of its market cap.

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the norm is no

In business and in life in general, I concur to the idea of open-mind to explore new ideas and opportunities.

In Investing, that is my approach as well.
Except that, I started with the open-mind to disprove the ideas.

What do you mean by that?
It’s the inversion.
I want to prove the foods are poisonous so I will not eat them.
Or rather, I want to disprove the foods are safe.

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