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.

2020 Year-End Notes

I have just concluded my investment return in 2020.
The return for the year is 15.7% while IDX returns -5.1%.

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

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%.

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.

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.

Cushioning Covid Crash

This is a trying, humbling time, for humanity.

For me personally, it doesn’t really depress me all that much.
But of course, mentally exhausting.

Being indoor most of the times, does affect clear thinking.
Although also a great time to slow down, read and reflect.

Since this is Investment sharing, I’d leave out the emotion/feeling part.
It’s not my forte.

This writing is mainly to serve as the diary for my future reference.

2019 Year-End Notes

I have just concluded my investment return in 2019.
The return for the year is -9.6% while IDX returns 1.7%.

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

in Integrity we trust

Trust, especially to my stubborn mind, is super hard to gain.

However, that definitely didn’t apply to my Indo investment.
I guess, it has to do with my more limited times and focus in Indo market.

I fell horrendously in the shallow dive of the Company analysis.
Paying insufficient focus on the Management integrity.

In what seems to be the face-saving, in critical moment of truth, I turned back to Philip Fisher’s essential point in “what to buy”:

“If there is a serious question of the lack of a strong management sense of trusteeship for shareholders, the investor should never seriously consider participating in such an enterprise.”

2018 Year-End Notes

I have just concluded my investment return in 2018.
The return for the year is -21.2% while IDX returns -2.5%.

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

Sky tough. Ground sound.

What contributes a good or even great business?
There are definitely many ways to measure.

However, to me, the key is in ROE or better yet, ROIC.

By and large, Airlines businesses generate low ROIC or even minus.
Flying in the sky is tough.
Assets are huge and competitions are tight.
It is an almost perfect competition in work.

However, handling the airlines grounding is generally milder.
Be it passengers handling, cargo handling or owning airports.

There are regulations, licenses and oversights either by Government or Standardisation bodies.
To a city, Airport is generally monopoly or duopoly.
To an Airport, it is more effective to give license to mono or duo established Ground handlers based on fulfilment of strict criteria and also the more important factor of good track records.

The barrier of entry of such ground handling businesses is much higher.

Total Nuts II

As the wise saying:
“Never underestimate Stupidity”

It is that simple but yet it has proved again and again to be the case.
Stupidity knows no boundaries, it creates insanity.

As per Total Nuts episode I, below for details:
Total Nuts I

I’d again let the numbers talk and avoid the bias of qualitative factors.