2014 Aug YTD

YTD Performance up 15%, cash 7%

Sold off WynnMac as its PE was abit stretched... should have realised it much earlier.... and abit apprehensive of China property market/economy as a whole.

Sold off Gazprom.... again due to US market emotion ....have to control.

Sold of Vicom...high PE recycle into CES

Valuetronics took up top spot due to its low PE (7+), high dividend yield (6%) (investor friendly), cash and no debt, good business (LED segment mass production which should continue to grow albeit lower margins due to price sweet spots and government push)

MTQ slided 20% since its top due to its poor results. Continue to hold as the sub-sea segments is delayed. And as last year, the sub-sea is contract based usually for 2 quarters. Is important to have good competent management , and also management which look after minority shareholders.

Continue to hold Great Eastern. Will be a beneficiary of OCBC purchase of Wing Hang w/o taking a hit on its B/S (OCBC)...great company.

CES & LKH ...obviously undervalued

Zagro...Hold...bad 1st half performance..trading at NAV...and MS bought at around current price.

Spindex , Cheung Who and Spindex.... low PE... and manufacturing is recovering.

1	Valuetronics
2	MTQ
3	Great Eastern
4	ChipEngSeng
7	LKH
6	ZAGRO
8	Spindex
9	Cheung Who
10	Fischer
11	Boustead

Reflections on Investment last 10 years

Some reflections of  my last 11-12 years investments performance. 
IRR respectable 24% but could be much much better.

FY06 was extremely good which probably won't be repeated as the portfolio was heavily stacked on 1 stock.
FY09 / FY10 /FY11 /FY12 was when I was extremely busy for various reasons and no time to evaluate investment positions.

Of cos I started my investment journey way back in 2001 when I was starting a dot-com (which failed) and dabbled in US shares, options, shorting which was completely disastrous. It was only after several reading up of investments books, understanding business fundamentals, industry fundamentals, investment fundamentals and spending time reading/evaluating business/investments/  did I adopt a more rigid and discipline approach to investing. It was also in 2003 that my Dad gave me a lump sum of money to start investing.

Going forward with the size of my portfolio, it will be much harder to repeat such performances. Many penny stocks in Singapore do not suit me as especially this year where my investment was wrong, I could barely exit my position without taking a v big hit (Food empire).

Looking back at each year's end portfolio, if I were to maintain those positions, it would have severely underperformed my current portfolio. My portfolio is quite actively managed (good & bad) . The good is I can switch to better performing business , but the bad means sometimes (emotions take charge) and I lose very very good positions (eg. Visa , APB , CerebosP, NDAQ).

To continue double digit performances,
1) I need to spend more time reading on businesses / investments / research etc which I feel right now I still have not done enough.
2) Businesses which are excellent, I have to have enough conviction and patience to continue to hold through a bad trough.
3) Businesses which I have bought stocks on the US market, several times I have been emotional affected due to the late nights (inadequate sleep - VISA, Gazprom) etc. Therefore I have to maintain a greater disregard to the stock market movement (not the business)

I am again facing a cross roads with my career. My colleagues (who are not as capable and have not proven themselves) are moving up while my position have been stagnant. End of the year, the company is restructuring again. I am contemplating whether I should move on......

The good thing about this company is that it has more flexible hours, near my place and when it is off peak, I have sometime to do my analysis. However I cannot stand incompetent people (younger than me also) moving further up higher than me.....

I do not blog regularly currently as with 2 young kids (have to spend time to teach and educate them - the primary school education system is not easy), a full-time job and time to do my investments research.

 

FY03	1.37
FY04	0.88
FY05	1.67
FY06	2.55
FY07	1.36
FY08	0.94
FY09	1.09	Co Restruct
FY10	1.42	Dad's Condition
FY11	0.79	3 jobs - Dad's company etc
FY12	1.16	Co Restruct
FY13	1.32
FY14	1.16
	14.36208
Avg IRR	25.7%