Singapore Stock Market News

The bottom will be somewhere in the next 12-24 mths. ie Dec 09 to Dec 10.

What? 24 mths? So my portfolio has to suffer another dunno how many % downside? What kind of prediction is that!??

Well, let's start with the disclaimer first, nobody ever predicted nothing. Bell said nobody needs phones, Ford said nobody needs cars, and the most famous one: Bill Gates said nobody needs computers. So that is just my contribution. It won't be right. Maybe we have already seen the bottom. Who knows? Maybe we didnt avoid the Great Depression scenario. We just don't know yet. Ok, let's get to the facts.

Few trillion dollars have been forked out. Wall Street will be rescued. Global coordinated efforts to help stabilize the whole banking and credit system have done the trick. The life-and-death crisis has been resolved for now. We are out of the ICU, for now. But the stock market keeps tanking!

Well, the patient is still very sick. Still on drip and breathing weakly. It takes time to heal. There are still bad stuff in the financial system that needs to be cleared. More disposals and write-off before we are good to go. May go back to ICU again also. But chances not high. Hopefully! We don't want Great Depression II. Check this post.

As for the "real" economy, it has started to slow and will continue to slow. Esp US. It is said that we need another few trillion dollar fiscal packages for Main Street. The common folks stuck with paying mortgages that cost more than their homes need money. And those pple using credit card loan lines to buy food and pay bills. So wait for some help to come in the next few weeks.

Then we need to wait for China to come back. The credit bubble that fuelled part of China's spectacular growth has burst, so China feels some impact, but it's economy is robust enough to withstand the negative impact. Given a few quarters, it will come roaring back. And hopefully, it will lift the rest of the world up.

In terms of magnitude, we are probably not far from the bottom. Or may already be at the bottom. But in terms of time, things need time to recover. Positive catalysts on the REAL economy must appear before the market can move up. They won't appear so soon but quite a good likelihood it will come in the next 12 to 24 months.

So time to open the purse strings, it's the great Singapore sale on SGX coming up!

If you've been around my blog for some time, you'll have realised that I am giving less reviews of the books that I've read. To date, I've finished (my definition is to read from cover to cover) 44 books and is in the process of reading 2 more books. I'm aiming for 52 books by the end of this year and I think I should be able to hit them pretty comfortably.

The reason why I didn't review books now is because after reading so many financial books, there is scarcely any one left that gives me more fresh insights. I've been wowed by morningstar series, fisher's books, accounting books...but after a whole year of immersing in them, they get pretty stale. That is good, I believe, because it's only after you had been seeing the same time again and again that you will begin to practise what you read. I've heard of marketing strategies that makes an important statement or idea repeated at least 7-8 times so that the message sinks in. I guess it's the same for ideas too.

It's not that I didn't get fresh insights - it's just that the insights are too few and in -between and it just didn't fit into a proper length for a blog article, much less a book review. Somehow, when I reviewed the books, it just didn't feel right when I read it. I sort of felt like I'm diluting the ideas of the books when I reviewed it - it's a feeling I didn't relish.




Another reason why I didn't review them is because time is getting tighter as I get older. There are only so much time left in each of us to do certain things. I think there are better things to do than to write some reviews that nobody really bothers to read anyway. Not that it really matters if people are reading them, because I started this blog without any commercial or monetary aim, and I've decided that in the foreseeable future, it won't veer too far away from this path too. The blog is really for me to pen down my thoughts so that I have an archive that I can read in the future.

Next year, I will be reading quantitatively lesser but qualitatively more. I should be re-reading some of the books that matter to me. Oh yes, and that Security Analysis book by Benjamin Graham, which still seats on my desk mocking my inability to stomach it cover to cover. I'm a very different person than one year ago when I first bought the book. I think for certain books, reading it at different times of your life phase will enlighten you in different ways - and that's exactly the books I'm going to re-read next year.

That PLUS reading more annual reports. I think it's time for me to really immerse myself in analysing companies - to really make use of what I've learnt by reading one book per week for one year.

What's the difference between stubbornness and conviction? I was linked to this thread in Wallstraits by musicwhiz, but it was during one of those walks, with the pettering and pattering of the rain hitting my umbrella that I thought a little more deeply about this.

Let's give a scenario to this. I researched in company X and after months of research, I finally bought into company X at a price that I deemed attractive. The price of company X subsequently dropped to 50% of my buy price. If you've been in the stock market for some time, you'll realise that people always have opinions about the stock you're holding. It's good, it's dangerous, there's better buys, sell now, hold first, reaching support, touching resistance...those sort of opinions. Now what if some dear friend of mine told me to sell company X and I refused?

Am I stubborn or am I fully convinced of my investing prowess?




If there's a short answer, I'll say it depends. It depends on the timeframe that one is talking about and the outcome. In the short run, I might have lost 50% of my capital when the price sank 50% from my buying price, but who dares to say that the stock will never become a double or triple bagger in the future? Conversely, who dares to say that the stock will never go belly up and I'll lose 100% of my capital?

I think if the outcome of my investment goes in my favour, I'm not stubborn, I'm a person with strong views and conviction and not easily swayed by noises. But if the outcome goes against me, I'm just a stubborn fool and I could have cut losses when I could. Just think about Warren Buffett when he missed the whole bandwagon of dot.com and internet stocks. Nay-sayers are talking about him losing his 'midas' touch and is too conservative for his own good. Did you notice they said that when internet stocks went rocketing upwards while his berkshire hathaway went downwards? When the ensuing dot.com bubble burst, people started talking about Buffett as a person who knows what he is doing, and investing within his circle of competence. Blah blah.

If I learnt anything important in my 2 yrs of being in the market, it is this:

1. Don't be too quick to judge. Be careful when you say 'never', because never is a long time.

2. Don't try to rationalise too much. It's like seeing dark clouds in the sky and saying that it will rain. When it didn't, you say that the humidity isn't high enough to precipitate the water vapour, so it didn't rain. When it did rain, you say you're right because you saw the dark clouds and it always precedes rain. There are million reasons why something happens, so why choose a few to explain?

Hongguo released its 3Q08 results last Fri. It wasn't doing exceptionally well, but given the current state of matter, I think it's quite alright. Let's just do a quick one here.


Here's my thoughts on the statements:

1. Looking at the 3Q to 3Q results, revenue increased which is followed by an increase in both gross profit and net profit in absolute terms. However, gross and net margins fell slightly.

The increase in revenues comes from the increase in more stores (150 in total) selling both the main C.Banner brand and E.Blan. However, JUC outlets decreased by 10 in the 3Q. The Naturalizer brand also starting contributing a little to the revenue. Cost increases as there are more outlets opened, bringing down the net profits. It's good to know that the management decided to limit the expansion of more outlets in the midst of this financial crisis. It's a more prudent way of doing business.

2. A little worried about their net margins, which is declining for a few quarters. I believe their 2nd and 4th quarter is their better quarters in terms of revenue and profit. Take a look at their quarter to quarter figures.


One thing for sure is that their net margins are sliding down. SDA/revenue is getting higher too, which the management always attribute to the expansion in new outlets. So far, their expansion do not require taking any long term debts, which is safe in this kind of credit crisis. At least I know they are less likely to blow up!

3. Here's their current ratio, total debt/equity, ROE and EPS figures.


Current ratio is still alright, but there is an increase in the total debt/equity ratio. The increase in debt is due solely to an increase in short term liabilities. Two figures stand out strongly from the current liabilities section of the balance sheet : Short term loan of 40.9 mil RMB and increase in trade payables from 64 mil RMB to 104 mil RMB. Seems like they are squeezing their creditors more tightly by paying them slower. There are not increase in trade receivables though.

4. As for cash flow, there is a few things to take note of. There was around 20 mil RMB that others need to repay Hongguo. This is partly offset by the 30 mil RMB that Hongguo owed others. Overall, cash generation from operations is +ve, but after taking into account tax, it went to -ve but is generally in a better state than 3Q07. There is an increase in short term loans of 40.9 mil RMB which is mentioned earlier in the balance sheet - but there are no mention of what the loan is used for. It made up 16.7% of the total debt (they have no long term debts), so it's not a major problem. Cash flow should improve more as they plan to limit the expansion of their core retail outlets (I take it that they mean C.Banner and E.blan brands) to 150 by end of FY08. The management mentioned that they would be the productivity and the profitability of their outlets - which I think is a good move. Fight, consolidate THEN advance, that's the way of the infantry.

5. Breakdown of revenue:

C.Banner --- 56.4%
E.Blan ---- 9.6%
Contract manufacturing --- 26.2%
JUC --- 6.1%
Naturalizer footwear --- 1.7%

There is more closure of JUC to the tune of 10 more outlets. I think they are slowly divesting out from that. Another point to take note is the huge increase in the contract manufacturing segment. Compare this to 2Q revenue breakdown:

C.Banner --- 62.2%
E.Blan ---- 9.2%
Contract manufacturing --- 17.0%
JUC --- 6.9%
Naturalizer footwear --- 1.7%

Contract manufacturing is of lower margins than their in-house shoe brand, so I would expect the net margins to drop further. No more plans to expand their production capacity for their contract manufacturing. Management had stated that they wanted a revenue mix of OEM : Retail of 80:20, so that's what we should be looking at.




Value to price comparison:

Annualised EPS for FY08 is SGD $0.0606. On last count, the EPS I calculated was $0.06252. Last close is SGD $0.180 per share. This represents a PE ratio of 3x. To hell with historical PE, haha! The lowest PE was around 5x, but I think it broke all record now.

Applying Graham's strict (current assets - total liabilties)/shares outstanding, we get SGD $0.223 per share. Using NAV [(total assets - total liabilites)/shares], we get SGD 0.307 per share. Based on FY07 dividend, divided yield is around 7.8%.