Me on Straits Times 26/01/2007

haha this is the article on me in Straits Times 26/01/2007....hehe nan de go on straits times...the article can be downloaded from ntu website under NTU in the news..hehe go download if you wan to read e article...

Belated photos...

Some photos that were taken long time ago in my hp but forgot to upload...enjoy

2 bottles of red wine during one of my drinking sessions with Adrian and Guoxing at Dempsey Road - Wine Network

Porridge steamboat with my dear @ Tiong Bahru Market..Nice!

The seafood platter for the steamboat...hehe

We ordered oyster egg and dark carrot cake too!! The oyster egg not as good as the west coast market one...the carrot cake average only...

Yu Sheng from the porridge stall...nice...

The student computer room that seems like a store room

CRT monitors being discarded just on the tables....btw....these CRT monitors are not working..argh...I think we are the only school that still uses CRT monitors...*where did all the school fees I paid go to?*

Boxes of cables thrown on the floor.......

Haiz..I dunno why got this fan here also???

Junk filled server casing...wth....and we are a world class university?? errr..it's hard to imagine with all these pics...

Where and what to invest in 2007?

Attended a talk by iFast on where and what to invest in 2007 and 7 fund managers from Lion Capital, UOB, DBS, DWS, iFast etc gave their insights on the market and economy...The talk is pretty informative and I wish I had their power point slides...their charts are good...but luckily I took down notes and here are the impt points:

Schroders (Bonds)

US
Housing Index and inventories bearish
Healthy Job Market
US bonds trading range 4.25-5%

Europe
ECB to hike rates to 4% by year end

Bullish on Indonesia/Malaysia

UOB Asset Management (Equities)

US/world economy synchronized slowdown to soft landing
Modest returns for equities (still attractive)
Major risk is a profit recession

Portfolio
US 49.4 %
Europe 30.4 %
Japan 11.8%
Asia 8.4%

BNP (Equities)

Risks
-US hard landing
-Weak demand in Europe
-Inflation rising
-Market risk on valuation

Bullish on Germany, Latin America & Europe
Gold to rise to USD700?

Lion Capital

China( Bullish, 8-10% growth, RMB to appreciate 3-5%)
India (Bullish)
Vietnam (Bullish, GDP growth abt 8.4%)

DWS

New fund – Global AgriBusiness
Invest in global agriculture businesses
Main investment rationale is growing population and limited resources will cause commodity prices like wheat, flour, etc to rise.
High risk and min investment $2000 at fundsupermart

iFast

Best region – Asia excluding japan
Best sector – Technology
Fixed income sector – Emerging Markets

Least favoured – US, India, US bonds

Most favoured – Taiwan, Korea, Thailand

STI to hit 4000 points by 2008?

Portfolio

Asia 35%
US 25%
Europe 30%
Japan 10%

Interesting Ipod Prices....

haha who's going to Canada help me buy a few Ipods can?? Then anyone going Brazil can help me sell a few?? It's interesting now that ppl r using Ipod prices to measure the standard of living..wat's the world coming to??

Trade Updates

Thailand Unit Trust: CLOSE LONG POSITION issued on 12th Jan....

haha...nice play!!....for ppl who wan to take a short profit..can sell now and take a profit of abt 6-10% depending on your entry price...not bad on a 12 day trade...

for long term players...can still wait...if thailand crash..buy more to even out prices...but nice day to take profits....Aberdeen Thai managed to become one of the top 5 for best performing weekly UT ...here's the screenshot...

Stocks: CLOSE LONG POSITION on C&O Pharm and ChinaAoil....

STI rose more than 70 points to hit another record high...tink it's time to cash in on some profits...the stock market is abit too hot for me at the moment...time to save up for a correction or crash...profits for C&O stands at abt 40% while ChinaAoil is abt 8%....haha dun be too greedy..take and go..

OPEN LONG POSITION on Zhong Guo Ji Long...Entry price at 0.085 cents....

The company focus on food production in the China market....I think it's an undervalued stock and the outlook for China food market looks pretty promising...Anyway...just 0.085...target price is 0.15...pretty good risk return ratio...

Pick for 18th January - Lion Capital Vietnam

This pick actually late for a few days...this fund was launched on Monday 15th Jan and the plan is to buy it when it is juz launched...It's the first fund that invests in Vietnam and it comes at a good time when Vietnam just entered the ASEAN FTA...I forgot the exact news...but it's good news..haha...

On the downside there are 2 risk factors....

1. all time high on the Vietnam stock index...thanks to Anthony for the chart...Yes it's a risk because it's nv good to buy anything that is at it's peak...but if u look at Dow Jones, STI and any asian index...basically everything is at its all time high...My personal view is that a correction may be on the cards..but if ur investment window is abt 1-2 years...any correction is juz noise and serves as a good entry point for further investments....

2. Bird Flu - Well, the bird flu problem has been present in Vietnam for quite a few years already and no one will know whether it will get worse or improve...If it gets worse, Vietnam's economy will be hit...but this definitely will not be the determining factor for the Vietnamese economy...

On the upside...Vietnam is quoted as the next China...because of it's under developed nature as well as its under valued economy...it's one of the best emerging markets in the world...and with Asian growth forecasted above global growth for 2007....I think it's a good buy...

Just 4 days..and it's this fund has become the highest volume traded fund on Fundsupermart... pretty hot...haha...on a lighter note...you can think this way..."if die...I wont be the only one, lol", so juz put a little into this fund and my prediction is an average of at least 15-20% returns per annum for this fund...

Strategy: Buy and dun care for 1-2 years...May take profit in June if earnings >20%
Investment window: 1-2 years

Interviews, interviews and more interviews...

Tink I sent out too many job applications....basically every week I have one or 2 interviews...luckily these are all jobs that I am interested in...or else I wont take the effort to dress up and go down all the way from NTU also...had an offer but the timing does not really fit..will have to see how it works out...

Hope better jobs come my way...haha...luckily my timetable this sem is pretty slack for CE standards...juz 10 AU s....and out of 3 papers, 2 are open book....and no labs except for my dear FYP....talking abt it...FYP is really irritating and I hope to get it out of my mind by mid Feb...*hopefully*....will feel so relieved after March when I hand up my final report...

Anyway the condition in school is getting from bad to worse..we r suffering from serious over crowding and lack of basic resources....shuttle buses take soooo long....the library computers r all occupied and u have to wait years for an empty photocopier...Water coolers r spoilt, seats in lecture theatres are damaged...student rooms are treated as storage areas and CRT monitors are discarded everywhere...I cant take it any longer...I have taken photos of all these and decided to send feedback to SAO or whoever...School fees are increasing and yet student satisfaction decreases...

The irony is that our school has the money to build fantastic new buildings, put BIG LCD tvs in areas where no one walks past and buys chairs that costs few hundred dollars each...and yet..the most basic facilities to students like water coolers, printers, photocopiers and good Lecture theatre seats are not up to standard....it's juz like a apple with a nice appearance but is rotten inside...wait for the pics to see how bad the situation is...

12 Jan Pick - BUY on Thailand Unit Trust

Restrictions on foreign investments, bomb attacks, military government etc...So why BUY now when everyone is exiting?? Well, the best profits are made when funds or equities are bought at under-valued pricing...true enough..investing in Singapore funds or Money Markets may be stable but the profits won't be as high as taking a slight risk...

Think abt it this way...for every seller, there must be a buyer..with ppl throwing out Thai unit trusts or stocks, there must be ppl buying them right? Who buys them? My guess will be ppl who go against the flow like me or big financial institutions who are buying at good value...


Look at the graph for Lion Capital and Aberdeen Thailand....both have fallen to the level last June or July and that was the time when ALL unit trusts had a big fall....so now is a good entry point...here's the strategy...

For every $1000 invested,

BUY $500 now....Then BUY $100 more for every 5% fall...until total invested amt hits $1000
Investment time window: 1 Year Expected Returns: Overall 10%

Well...this is juz my personal view...calculate your own risks...hehe...Good Luck!!

Apple's New Iphone

Wow...this phone really has everything...phone, internet, music, video and looks...looks much better than the other smart phone brands like O2, Dopod etc...but only out in Asia in 2008...and dunno whether it will be hao kan bu hao yong...but nice design though...

go to www.apple.com to take a look.....

Up, up, up: Beware, because no one sees a bear in 2007

An article in USAtoday...

NEW YORK — Contrarians rejoice. Groupthink is back on Wall Street. Ten out of 10 stock market gurus interviewed by USA TODAY say stocks will post gains for a fifth-consecutive year in 2007. The expected gains range from 15% to 1%, and average out to 8.1%.

There wasn't a single bear. No real pessimists. No one calling for a loss. Not a single prognosticator warning of an impending slump. If bulls are right, investors who follow the herd will be rewarded. But from a contrarian standpoint, that glass-is-half-full optimism could spell trouble. As the Grateful Dead pointed out in its popular song, Uncle John's Band, "When life looks like Easy Street, there is danger at your door."

One person who sees potential danger due to the dearth of bearishness is the stock strategist with the least optimistic '07 forecast: JPMorgan Chase's Abhijit Chakrabortti.
"It does worry us," Chakrabortti says. "Everyone thinks the economy will be fine. Everyone thinks earnings will slow but still grow at a decent clip. Everyone thinks the Federal Reserve will either cut interest rates or hold rates steady. Nobody thinks the dollar will collapse or oil will spike again. That, to me, sounds dangerous."

It's not just Wall Street that's feeling confident after a surprisingly good year in which the Dow Jones industrial average blasted to 22 all-time highs since early October. Individual investors are also feeling optimistic."Investor optimism remains buoyant as 2006 comes to a close," reads the press release touting the December UBS/Gallup Index of Investor Optimism.

Nearly two of three investors say, "Now is a good time to invest," up from 57% in November, the poll found. And the CBOE volatility index, or VIX, a "fear index," is sitting near historic lows, a "sign of complacency," Ned Davis Research says.

But given that seven of the 10 forecasts call for ho-hum single-digit gains, Bernie Schaeffer, an expert on market sentiment and president of Schaeffer's Investment Research, has a different contrarian take: "This cautiousness is of even greater importance, given the flat-out bull market we've experienced in the second half of 2006. So a runaway bull market would be a major contrarian surprise."

Belated photo...

My birthday cake for 2006 from my dear...hehe..a v special cake from Famous Amos Cookies..

Top 3 Stock Picks for 2007 by brokerages