Pre-IPO stock options- Scam anot?

Sigh.. Recently, my friend told me that he bought a Pre-IPO stock in Singapore and he is convinced by the person talking in the seminar that he can earn a few times over. He says he trusts his friend who took him in and the institution.

Wow. seriously amazing. That's like 200%? 300%? 400%?

Meanwhile, these are the average returns of all other investments:
0.025%  savings account
1.3%  1-year FD
3.25% OCBC 360 Account
7.8%  S&P 500
15% Warren Buffet

Gua gua....

I have no idea what this Pre-IPO is about, what the seminar is about, who the person selling is so I can't say anything much.

BUT

1. Are you worth millions?
Sorry, if you are not worth millions I don't think you can get a pie of the Pre-IPO stock. Pre-IPOs are normally allocated to investment banks who are the underwriters and have lots of money. Unless you are the favorites of the investment banks (which means you are very very rich), you would perhaps be given a pie. Most people don't even have the connection to these investment banks.

2. Unpopular stock
I think it is very laughable when a company needs to set up a seminar to convince people to buy its Pre-IPO shares. Lol can you imagine Alibaba doing that last time? Do they need to? Or Facebook or twitter doing that? If they need to set up a seminar to convince people to buy, then sorry, it is probably a very lousy stock.

3. Too good to be true
High risk comes with high returns. Most investment vehicles can only have the average returns of at most 8% or a little higher if you are very good at it. It is very difficult and very unlikely to have abnormal returns consistently, like seriously can people use their brains to think????

Sigh. There have been so many investment scams being reported but why do people keeping falling and falling for them over and over again?

4. IPO may never materialize
There is no guarantee that the company will make it to the actual IPO or the actual price.

That's my input for this Pre-IPO don't know scam or not scam. I say, please, if you do not know what to invest or how to invest, I think it will be better if you just put your $ inside the ocbc 360 account.

Meanwhile, if any readers knows about this Pre-IPO thing, do enlighten me.

Thank you~

Starhub Stock Review (II)

I previously blogged that Starhub (SH) was trading at an insane price of $4.43 (here) and that was overvalued. I have sold off SH at $4.39 and it didn't surprise me that it is now trading at $4.02, near to its 52 week low.

The big drop came about after SH announced that its profit from operations has decreased by 15% when compared to 1Q2014. EBITDA was also 8.5% lower for the quarter.

With my analysis of $4.04 a share, P/E is 19.95 times. SingTel's P/E is 18.5 and M1's 18.48. This might mean that at this current share price, it is not exactly an attractive stock to buy. The D/E is 4.63 (really high) whereas the other 2 telcos are 0.37/0.56 respectively.

The PEG ratio is also high as compared to other Telcos. :(

I think the only saving grace is still its attractive dividend payout. But I wouldn't risk buying the stock and then half a year later, see a drop in price value again. End up my net return would still be the same or even worse.

Technical jargons aside, I wouldn't buy this stock yet. Not now.

QnM share Part II- Caution

In my previous post, I mentioned that QnM is a good buy, and I vested it at $0.81. That was when market open after the financial results released the night before.

Omg today I look at the price and it shot up to $1!

At $1, the dynamics is very different from $0.81. It might be overvalued given that the P/E is a whooping 80+/-  !  Nobody knows for sure that their acquisitions in China and Sg might be soaring with good revenues in the next quarter and the equity it faces might be a challenge.

I urge investors to take a cautious approach for this particular stock please.

QnM Dental - Potential growth stock?

QnM Dental posted a very positive financial results ending 1st Qtr 2015.

1. Big jump in profit before tax 
The Group’s 1Q15 profit before tax rose by 173% to $4.5 million from $1.6 million in 1Q14.

173%!! The increase was mainly due to contributions from acquisitions of their China investments.

2. Current Holdings
They have 60 dental clinics, 1 mobile clinic, 3 medical outlets, and 1 aesthetic clinic in Singapore.
In Malaysia, 3 dental hospitals.
In China, 4 dental outlets.

My take is that dental healthcare is a consistent sustainable business to be in, as many companies in Singapore provides dental benefits to their employees. In addition, when one ages, it becomes a need to see the dentist more often.. Just look at my parents, at the age of 60+, they have spent thousands on dental care!

3. Ambitious expansion plans
Now this is the exciting part. QnM has requested for a trading halt earlier this week and yesterday, they have announced their proposition to acquire 8 dental clinics located island wide.

Their profit target amounts to approx. $16.10 million.

Key dentists to be in charge to sign long term service agreements.

Apart from this, they have plans to expand into private dental healthcare in the PRC, Malaysia and through other acquisitions.

Conclusion:

Although I do have a little concern on over aggressiveness of expansion plans, at this moment I think QnM is promising.

Vested at $0.81 today when market open. :D


 

How to have $1m by age 55 & what if you do not invest..

It is no secret: Start investing and saving 30% of your savings at age 25!!

This is like a super conservative estimate:

Assumptions:
1. At age 25- Salary of $3k. Saves 30% of annual salary.
2. Saves and invests at 4.5% returns
3. Salary increases at 5% until age 30, thereafter increasing at 3% until age 40. Savings correspondingly increases too.
4. Salary reaches a max of $5k until age 45. Salary drops to 4k thereafter until age 55.

I think saving 30% of your salary annually is not that difficult right? I haven't even take into account of all the bonuses during the year end! 4.5% returns in investment is attainable, most achieve at least 7-8% for the better investors. Well if you manage to get at 5% returns, you can achieve $1m at age 53 :) calculation done.

There is no secret, the compounding effect is most powerful and benefits most during the early stages so one should really start investing and saving early.

Investing early case scenarios:

Let's further take a look at Peter and Mary case scenarios. Both of them save and invest at $700 per month, or $8400 annually. However, Peter only started saving diligently at age 35 whereas Mary started at age 25, about 10 years early.

Their portfolio at age 60:















As you can see, Mary has about $700k+ in her portfolio whereas Peter has only $400k+.  That's such a big difference of $300k+!

If you do not invest AT ALL

Lastly, if you do NOT invest at all. If you were to save 30% of your annual salary and put all into the bank... ok last just assume you put all into fixed deposits as it is very safe and secure. The return is 1%.

The graph has explained itself. Your portfolio will only be 50% of what the 4.5% return portfolio have, even if both saves at the exact amount of $700 per month.

The conclusion of this post is: Save and invest early, save and invest consistently!

My portfolio of stocks

This is how my portfolio of stocks is like, or what I try to have:

My investment strategy:
Long term -10yrs at least
Conservative risk appetite
Aim for passive income


1. Blue Chip Stocks
Blue chip stocks are stocks belonging to well-established and finally sound companies that have operated for many years. They are normally the market leaders in their respective industries. For e.g. Starhub/Singtel/SembCorp/Keppel/CapitaLand/UOB

Their earnings are consistent, sustainable and provide stable dividends. Once in awhile, I would just need to take a look at their financial statements to see their earnings and future growth. I wouldn't be too worried about their performance.

2. Trusts and Reits
Reits is a stock that invests in real estate directly and typically offer investors high dividend yields and highly liquid method of investing in real estate. For e.g., AIMS AMP CAPITAL INDUSTRAIL REIT comprises of a portfolio of industrial real estate properties in Singapore.  They have warehousing/logistics/Manufacturing/Business parks. What I like about trusts and reits are the relatively stable stock prices (one that does not fluctuate much) and a consistent dividend payout.

3. Undervalued stocks
I tend to keep some cash at my bank to spot on undervalued stocks and make an immediate 'Buy' when the stock market makes a slight correction. For e.g., there was a very brief period where Capitamall trust was selling at $1.9+ and I quickly made a purchase of it.

Of course, due to market efficiency, there are always reasons that justifies that value but having analyzed their financial reports, I believed that it was a worthy purchase and one that might be undervalued. True enough, it didn't take long before it sets back to $2.++ price, a price that holds it stable for the past year.

Such market corrections are not the norm, and it requires some analysis on each individual stock.

4. Potential high growth stock
I think spotting a good potential high growth stock is one of the most ardent task and requires one to look carefully at the fundamentals, analyze the industry, analyze the current value and then determine whether it is worthy to purchase. Not easy, but I guess the returns are one of the highest. That's where we have Warren Buffet..

So here it is, my portfolio. I think that it is relatively conservative as I just looking at a stable flow of passive income.

Do NOT day-trade:

 In addition, I am not an advocate of Day trading, nor do I encourage anyone to be. The main reason is because only a very small percentage of day traders (perhaps lesser than 10%) can consistently earn from it. Today, you might be able to earn thousands from it but tomorrow you can lose everything. It is really, a form of gambling. Technical analysis, to me, does not make much logical sense.

Fraser Centrepoint Trust Stock Analysis

This is a follow up of the review of FCT's 2Q2015 financial results originally posted here .

1. Operational performance
The remaining renewals in FY2015 are mainly at Northpoint, Causeway Point (CWP) and Yew Tee point. Yew Tee point forms the bulk of the renewals.

I do not have much concerns over CWP. Personally, as someone staying in the North and then having moved to the West recently, CWP has been a very bustling mall since years ago and is always packed with people in the weekends. It is not a surprise because at Woodlands, this is the one and only shopping mall to go. Many republic polytechnic students also go there to shop or dine after their studies. The next nearest is either SunPlaza which is really crap or Lot1. Lot1 isn't that popular compared to CWP too.

As for Yew Tee point, I can relate it as a small Plaza in a suburban area fulfilling a myriad of basic needs for the people living around there. Having been there several times, I do think the shopper traffic there is relatively good.

Fraser Centrepoint has strategically locate their retail malls at the suburban areas and most are doing well, except pehaps for BedokPoint.

2. Gearing ratio
Gearing has reduced from 29.3% to 28.6% and % of borrowings on fixed rates or hedged via interest rate swaps has increased by 12%. This means that their debt and risk management is improving.
Interest rates, however, has increased.

3.Outlook
Some of the challenges include manpower shortage, competition from online sales and slowing retail sales growth. However, rising average household income and population coupled with low unemployment rate, I think one can expect a sustainable performance for FCT.