The Biggest Market Myth There Is?

By: Tom Brennan
Web Editor, Mad Money

Any new investor who hopes to successfully buy and sell stocks should know that the market is not rational, Cramer said Tuesday. And desperate attempts to make sense out of the nonsensical can cost you.

Sometimes stocks or the whole market will go up or down for reasons that have nothing to do with the underlying prospects of actual companies. Sure, you’ll search for a legitimate answer – Was it the rising dollar? Maybe it was the spate of bad earnings reports? – and the media will offer a few as well. But there will come a point where you’ll have to admit, Cramer said, that the moves are “just nuts.”

Here’s one way to put things in perspective, though: If the market’s wild fluctuations can’t be explained by business fundamentals, then they are most likely the effect of money-management fundamentals.

A lot of times money managers, namely hedge funds, will be caught on the wrong side of their trades. They start selling to raise cash because their clients want their money back. Then their selling scares other investors into dumping their own positions, and stocks are brought down across the board. Next thing you know some pundit is on TV trying to explain why gold, historically a protection against volatility, is down on a day when the markets plummeted, too.

It wasn’t always like this. Back when Cramer first started trading in the 1980s, stocks were valued according to the underlying company. The share price depended on things like earnings, cash on the balance sheet, revenues and profit margins. But during that decade, stocks began to be lumped into giant baskets that mimicked, say, the S&P 500. As a result, stocks became an asset class that at times traded together in lockstep, regardless of their positive or negative prospects.

This practice spread from country to country, Cramer said, and it turned stocks into commodities that were traded by contract with futures or exchange-traded funds. But then hedge-fund managers got involved and changed the whole game.

Hedge funds were able to pool such vast amounts of money that they dwarfed individual stocks. They had so much cash that they could buy all the shares available of many companies trading on the market. And because futures markets are much bigger than the regular markets, these funds gravitated toward the former. In the process, they formed a groupthink mentality and started to trade in synch with each other based on the same indicators.

The height of this groupthink occurred in 2008, Cramer said, when a lot of hedge funds bought and sold the same commodities, and did so with borrowed money. When those trades turned out to be wrong, the funds were forced to sell en masse in order to keep from going under. The end result was that the related stocks – Freeport McMoRan [FCX 83.35 -0.31 (-0.37%) ], Foster Wheeler [FWLT 27.04 -0.43 (-1.57%) ] and others – took a serious hit, and unnecessarily so.

The positive side of this action, though, is that these moves are opportunities. While some stocks deserve to go down, others do not. So don’t buy into the panic, Cramer said, buy the declines. And they will happen again because hedge funds are still trading stocks in the same way.

“The next time you see everything go down at once,” Cramer said, “ask yourself if we might simply be seeing the results of hedge funds gone wild.”

Q1 2010 Quarterly Performance Report

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." - Winston Churchill

“What gets measured, gets managed.” - Peter Drucker

1. Year Goal Hit Rate
 
Year Goal Hit Rate improved by +4.8% from 14.4% in  Q1 2009 to 19.2% in Q1 2010.
 
(In 2003, I set some bullish progressive year goals from 2003 to 2011.
2010 Year Goal is 74.9% of 2009 Total Salary including all CPF contributions. Quite a big goal!)

 
2. Active Investing Performance

Since 1 Nov 08

1. ROC from 3.1% to 34.3% (I don't use stop loss so no negative ROC. Never blindly use no stop loss)
2. Holding Days from 1 to 329 days (some sins committed in 2008 were cleaned up so longer days)
3. Mean ROC: 11.2%
4. Median ROC: 8.5%
5. STDev: 7.8%
6. Mean Holding Days: 60

Going forward, the days of high double digit ROC are likely to be over. I will be happy to get high single digit ROC.

3. Finding Back The Stolen Wealth By The 2008 Greater Bear

Portfolio has recovered 142.1% from its low in 2009 while STI has recovered 98.2%.
Portfolio is -11.5% away from its Peak in Oct 07 while STI is -25.3%.
Portfolio improved by +2.8% from -14.3% in Q4 2009 to -11.5% in Q1 2010

Net Profit = Realized + Unrealized profits

Total capital available for investing includes those idle cash waiting to be invested.

4. H1 2010 Forecast

H1 2010 is expected to be better due to higher declared dividends from Keppel and Semb Corp.

STI - Panic Day. Down -45.93 -1.57%

STI closing 2,887.46 -45.93 -1.57%

Panic and pants drop down?

SGX - Better get dressed up today or be stripped naked in days to come

DOW ending above the 10,900 mark

The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 11.56 points, or 0.1 percent, to 10,907.42 to a new high.

Dress up nicely!

Here's What Day Traders Don't Understand

Henry Blodget

Mar. 29, 2010, 10:02 AM

As we explained earlier, day-trading is one of the dumbest jobs there is: According to one academic study, 4 out of 5 people who do it lose money and only 1 in 100 do it well enough to be described as "predictably profitable."

Most of the folks who do it, in other words, would be far better off working at Burger King.

As is often the case when we bring up these facts, some readers screamed. One said that our brain-damage was made patently obvious by the fact that Wall Street professionals day-trade all day. If day-trading were so dumb, then why would professionals do it?

Here's what that particular reader is missing:

Most Wall Street traders get paid to day-trade other people's money.*

That's a huge difference compared to what most stay-at-home day-traders do.

The average professional trader gets paid somewhere between 1% and 3% of assets per year just to trade those assets all day. The average hedge-fund trader gets paid another 20% on top of that for any "gains" he or she makes (regardless of whether the gains are the result of the trader's trading or the bull market).

The average stay-at-home day-trader, meanwhile, trades his or her own money. And while many of these traders do fine on a gross basis (before costs), once the costs of this trading are deducted (commissions, taxes, research and information, time), their performance is usually downright awful.

The reason so many professionals day-trade, in other words, is that getting paid to day-trade other people's money is one of the best businesses in the world.

Day-trading your OWN money, meanwhile, is one of the worst.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* There's another difference, too, of course: Most Wall Street traders have skills, information, and tools that day-traders can only dream of. Trading is a zero-sum game: Market moves aside, every dollar won by one trader comes out of the pocket of another trader. Day traders competing against Wall Streeters is the equivalent of a college football team (or Pee Wee team, depending on the day-trader's skill) competing against a pro team. Is it possible to win? Yes. But it's highly unlikely (1 in 100). Wall Street's winnings do have to come from somewhere, though, so Wall Street thanks the day traders for playing.

Read more: Must Be A Bull Market: The Dumbest Job Ever, Day Trading, Is Cool Again

STI - Tomorrow last chance to dress up?

STI closing @ 2,933.39 +4.25 +0.15%

Saving, Life Insurance and Investing - 2nd Revist

Someone asked "My mother is thinking of buying a 5 years insurance plan with a single premium of $10,000. She is still in good health and the reason she's buying is to get safe returns that are higher than the bank interest."

It is quite common that people are not clear on the differences in saving, investment, and insurance.

It is good to understand Saving, Life Insurance and Investing - Revist

Noble - Bought @ $3.11

Got it back @ $3.11 for the next round of play. It is one cent more than those BBS who bought @ $3.10 from Noble Vice Chairman

Last Round of Play

$3.11 is today's Low

Portfolio Management - Your Personal Over-Sold and Over-Bought Indicator

Portfolio Management - The Importance Of Realized Profit

When will the Bear strike again? I don't know.

Will the Bull pause and continue running? I don't know.

When will the Bear or Bull Strike? - Revisit

I can only know my own personal over-sold and over-bought indicator in my own portfolio.

When the Bull is charging ahead and I have over-bought, I will begin to take profit slowly. If the Bull pauses and continues to charge and I have over-sold. I will then do nothing but just relax and let the core holding in the portfolio charges together with the bull. It will be sad if the bull continues to charge with you holding bulk of your portfolio in cash.

When the Bear begins to strike back and I have over-sold, I will buy slowly and stop if I have over-bought. Similarly, it will be sad if the Bear strikes in a big way and you have no money to buy.

Watch you personal indicators closely.

DOW - Finally the Bulls make it a new higher!

The Dow gained about 45 points, or 0.4 percent, closing within a few points of 10,900, though trading volume was light,

Low volume made it less costly for fund managers to do end of quarter window dressing

Who did you really see?

Resident wants ban on CPF cash for investments

"Trading appears deceptively easy. When a beginner wins, he feels brilliant and invincible. Then he takes wild risks and loses everything" - Dr. Alexander Elder

"The market is not your mother. It consists of tough men and women who look for ways to take money away from you instead of pouring milk into your mouth." - Dr. Alexander Elder.


If you ask me should you invest your CPF investment fund: Using CPF Investment Fund For Investing

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kor Kian Beng

Mon, Mar 29, 2010
The Straits Times

RETIRED sailor Goh Tor Zin said he lost $350,000 of his Central Provident Fund savings through bad stock market investments, and yesterday made a radical suggestion at a ministerial dialogue.

The 59-year-old Kampong Kembangan resident sought a ban on using CPF money for such investments, saying the CPF scheme should stick to its original aims of helping Singaporeans save for their retirement, medical and housing needs: 'When I retired, I collected only $35,000. I lost $350,000. The sum may be small for some, but for me, I can buy many packets of chicken rice.'

Mr Goh, who is unmarried and lives with his 91-year-old father in a five-room Lengkong Tiga flat, said he made a similar suggestion to the CPF when he collected his CPF money on turning 55: 'They told me that I don't have to buy (shares), and that no one forced me to do so. I said, 'Yes if you don't sell drugs, I won't buy drugs. So you are not wrong, I am also not wrong'.'

STI - Nice end of quarter window dressing

Closing 2,926.72 +20.44 +0.70%

Want to win, scared to lose ...

• Sell winning stocks too early and hold onto losing stocks too long because of loss aversion.
• Holding onto winning stocks too long because they scare cannot buy them back but still believe market cannot go up forever.
• Boasting at paper profits and keeping quiet at paper losses
• Calling losing stocks as long-term investment

5 Myths About ETFs - Part 3

STI ETF: Low Risk at Market Return over long term?

5 Myths About ETFs - Part 2

Does STI ETF really give average market return?

I still think that STI ETF is just another beast in the stock market and its behavior is no different from any other beasts in the stock market - some are hares, some are tortoise, and some are dying and waiting to be buried.

If you look at the price volatility of STI ETF, it can be scary depending when you last bought it

Whether you can really make money or not still very much depend on your entry and exit price like any other stocks.

When the market condition is bad and if you need to cash out to meet expenses you will have to exit with losses if you have bought it at higher price.

5 Myths About ETFs - Part 2

5 Myths About ETFs

Beware of Tracking Error Risk when investing in the STI ETF?


Changes in the NAV of the Fund are unlikely to replicate exactly changes in the STI due to factors such as fees and expenses of the Fund, liquidity of the market and changes to the Index.

FTSE Group (FTSE) will conduct half-yearly review of the constituents of the Straits Times Index (STI) so there is always a possibility that new components may be added and some old ones  may be removed. It is also known as survival bias.

For example in the recent review:

Singapore Exchange (SGX), the FTSE Group (FTSE) and Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) announced today that CapitaMalls Asia will replace Cosco Corp Singapore as a constituent of the Straits Times Index (STI) following the conclusion of the half-yearly review.


The STI reserve list, comprising the five highest ranking non-constituents of the STI by market capitalization, will be (in order of size) Keppel Land, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Holdings, Ascendas Real Estate Investment Trust, Yanlord Land Group and Parkway Holdings. Companies in the reserve list will replace any constituents that become ineligible as a result of corporate actions before the next review.

STI ETF will have no choice but to sell off Cosco and most likely to be losses and buy in CapMall and most likely at higher price.

In this case, STI ETF may be buying high and selling low at every half-yearly review. So beware of tracking error risk when investing in STI ETF.

Investing Behavioural Bias - Overconfidence

Dr Kahneman was asked what fools us most frequently. That was simple, he said: overconfidence

"It's the idea that you know better than the market, which is a very strange idea," Dr Kahneman told The Washington Post.  "Individual investors have no business at all thinking they can do better."

So beware of low liquidity stocks and there are reasons for being unloved by the market unless you think Dr Kahneman is talking rubbish.

The Sandwich Generation - Scary?

Do you realize that people around us when they advance into their 50s and 60, more and more of them may still have children in school rather at office - the result of a widespread late marriage or delayed childbirth.

To make the matters financially worse,  some of their parents may not have planned well for their own retirement and become dependent on their own children for financial support.

Parental care on top of child care. So scary, right? Better start thinking and plan early on how to resolve it? May be a long period of consolidation?

CPL - Will next week's end of quarter window dressing help to push it up?

If You Still Don't Believe ILP is a Time Bomb?

"Old men are fond of giving good advice, to console themselves for being no longer in a position to give bad examples." - François La Rochefoucauld

Insurance 'time-bomb' set to explode

If you still don't believe ILP is a time bomb, you may want to read this:

Should I hold on to my regular premium investment-link (ILP) policy with high sum assured?

DOW give up early gains for 2nd straight day

The Dow rose 9.15, or 0.1 percent, to 10,850.36. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.86, or 0.1 percent, to 1,166.59, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 2.28, or 0.1 percent, to 2,395.13.


For the week, the Dow is up 1 percent. It hasn't risen for four straight weeks since August.

Will end of quarter window dressing next week push it to 11,000?

STI closed 2,906.28 +17.91 +0.62%

Next week end of quarter window dressing to break new high?

STI still steady for the week.

Stop Loss? Do Your Own Thinking and Control Your own Emotion

Portfolio Management - Stop Losses?

If you enter the Market through the Front door then exit via the Front door. Don't ever enter the Market through the Front door and then trying or force to exit via the Back door.

When will the Bear or Bull Strike? - Revisit

When will the Bear or Bull Strike?

Either one will come!

If the Bull charges ahead and you have oversold then you may not gain.

Likewise, when the Bear comes roaring back and you have overbought. Soon you may have sleepless nights.

Are you overbought or oversold?

and also Don't forget to be the 3rd Little Pig!

Kep Corp - Looking towards another period of consolidation?

Despites several announcement of contracts winning, there are still lacking of BBs pushing it hard.

DOW up and down so fast.

The Dow rose 5.06, or 0.1 percent, to 10,841.21.


The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 1.99, or 0.2 percent, to 1,165.73, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 1.35, or 0.1 percent, to 2,397.41

It has risen in 16 of the past 20 days.

So is the Bear feeling the heat?

GE to invest US$453 mln in European offshore wind

 Keppel bags first major newbuild contract for German offshore wind farm

 Does the news below means more opportunities for Keppel Corp in 2010/2011?  More to come?

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OSLO/LONDON - General Electric Co will invest 340 million euros (US$453 million) in offshore wind technology in Europe until 2020, it said on Thursday.

Around 110 million euros will be invested in British turbine manufacturing and 105 million euros in engineering and production facilities in Germany, with a target of mass producing GE's new 4 megawatt (MW) offshore wind turbine as early as 2012.

'Most of the (offshore wind) projects will be in 2012 to 2015 so you will see mass production within that timeframe,' Victor Abate, Vice-President of Renewables at GE Energy told Reuters at a press briefing in Oslo. 

Mr Abate said he expected sales of hundreds of turbines per year until 2020 with most of the sales and manufacturing in Britain and Germany. 

GE also said Britain's budget announcements on a 60 million pound (US$89.52 million) offshore wind infrastructure port development competition on Wednesday was key to the company's investment decision.

'We believe offshore wind has a bright future here in the UK and are delighted that the UK government yesterday committed to further developing this important sector,' Magued Eldaief, managing director of GE Energy UK said.

Climate Change and Energy Secretary Ed Milliband said: 'GE's investment will create new jobs and help the supply chain flourish, reinforcing the UK as the destination for offshore wind investment.' 

The rest of the investment comprises 75 million euros in Norway for testing wind turbines and 50 million euros in Sweden on a design facility.

Billions have been spent on installing onshore wind farms across Europe over the past decade in an effort to decarbonise power generation, with Denmark and Spain already producing half their electricity from wind. -- REUTERS

part luck

Stock picking is part science, part art, part luck, part intuition, and always uncertain - "not precisely knowing."

Sometime there is one big random event happened and can seriously alter the stock movement in the opposite direction e.g.

Noble's Vice Chairman Share Placement @ $3.10

This is just one random event happening and you are damn unlucky if you have just bought and so lucky if you have sold earlier.

So you either blame your star or thank your star if this happened to you.

Wheelock - What is going on there?

Some BBs are getting impatient and decided to dump today instead of waiting.

Keppel Offshore & Marine secures $140 million worth of contracts from repeat customers

wow. another contract
-------------------------
By ANGELA TAN


Keppel Offshore & Marine Limited (Keppel O&M) through its subsidiaries, Keppel Shipyard, Keppel FELS and Keppel Verolme, has secured S$140 million worth of contracts for the conversion of a Floating Production Storage and Offloading facility (FPSO) and repair and modification of two semisubmersibles (semi).

Keppel Shipyard will undertake the upgrading and conversion of a Suezmax tanker into an FPSO for repeat customer Bumi Armada Berhad (Bumi Armada).

Keppel FELS and Keppel Verolme have each secured the repair and modification of a drilling semi from Stena Drilling.

Keppel Shipyard is expected to commence work on the FPSO in the second quarter of 2010 for completion in the second quarter of 2011,

SGX - so weak ah?

Is ILP a time bomb? - Revisit

Next time if your friendly agent talks to you about ILP and especially Single Premium ILP using your CPF investment fund, you better do this ...

Why? Is ILP a time bomb?

Wheelock

Noble plunges as expected.

http://createwealth8888.blogspot.com/2010/03/noble-share-placement-310.html

For every transaction, seller is matched to buyer or buyer is matched to seller. Market is never short of daring buyers and nervous sellers. Will it slide further?

Keppel Shipyard secures conversion contracts worth $160 million

SINGAPORE : Keppel Shipyard has secured two conversion contracts worth S$160 million.


The first contract is to convert a floating production storage and offloading vessel.

Work on the vessel is expected to start in the second quarter of this year and completed in the third quarter of next year.

The second contract is to convert a vehicle carrier into a livestock carrier for a leading livestock carrier owner and operator.

The work scope includes design engineering and procurement of major equipment.

The vessel, to be renamed Ghena, is targeted for completion in the third quarter of this year, and will ply the route between Australia and the Middle East.

The company said the two contracts are not expected to have any material impact on the earnings per share of Keppel Corporation for the current financial year.

Markets Always Rise Over Time? It's a Myth: Chartist

By: Daryl Guppy
CNBC Contributor

One of the most dangerous market myths is that the market always rises over time.

Believers in this myth would trot out historical charts that have been reconstructed from the middle of the 18th century. And sure enough, the long term trend marches inexorably upwards. Even drammatic market crashes like that of 1929, 1987 and the tech wreck of 2000 all become just little blips in this overall magical rising trend.

To many investors, this underscores the buy-and-hold strategy. Just buy-and-hold and the market will bring you a windfall eventually. Right?

Wrong. Unfortunately, this is a pure myth and simply untrue.

The truth is that it's market index always rises, and not the market. The market index rises because the index only includes winners. This is called survivor-bias. The components of the index change on a regular basis, when market conditions warrant.

The Australia's S&P ASX 200 index, for example, is rebalanced every quarter by Standard and Poors' who compiles the index. Just in the last quarter, three stocks were dropped from the index because they were the worst performers. They were replaced by three others which were better performers.

When losers are dropped and winners added, it's no wonder that the market (index) always rises. Even blue chip stocks can be cut out from the list if they fail to perform. Too bad if you happen to own them and plan to keep them for the long haul.

Perseus Mining was a stock recently added to the S&P ASX 200, which began trading on March 22. Its recent performance, as demonstrated on the chart, suggests several conclusions.

First is that some speculation or rumor may have developed in the market prior to the March 5 announcement. PRU shows a breakout from a 4-week downtrend and the development of a strong uptrend prior to the announcement. Secrets are difficult to keep in any market and there are always traders who make better guesses based on the same information that others also have.

Second is the acceleration and continuation of the uptrend when the Index rebalancing announcement is made. This is a tradable announcement because many fund managers will need to buy this stock. The surge is volume is most evident on the last trading day before the stock is added to the index. The index pop can be traded directly or by using a derivative such as a CFD or option.

The third conclusion is not shown on this chart. There is a higher probability of a sustainable uptrend after the stock starts to trade as an index component. Stocks that are also components of the index change their tending characters because they enjoy more investor support.

Do stocks that are dropped from the index automatically fall? Surprisingly the answer is “No”, although often they been in a steady decline for months prior to being dropped from the index. These faded blue chips still offer some opportunities but they are rarely part of the myth that the market always rises.

Index component stocks have become more important in recent years because many funds have a mandate that requires them to hold the index stocks. When stocks are dropped, then the fund managers also drop the stock. When stocks are added, the fund managers pile-in as buyers because their fund mandate requires them to replicate the index stocks and their weightings.

So how should investors profit from market (index) rises? They should try investing in an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) which replicates the performance of the index. Assuming the ETF instrument remains listed, then this provides an effective and realistic method of benefiting from the market index rise over time.

Daryl Guppy is a trader and author of Trend Trading, The 36 Strategies of the Chinese for Financial Traders –www.guppytraders.com . He is a regular guest on CNBCAsia Squawk Box. He is a speaker at trading conferences in China, Asia, Australia and Europe.

Americans Say They Missed 73% Rise in S&P 500 as Economy Surged

Americans Say They Missed 73% Rise in S&P 500 as Economy Surged

By Mike Dorning

March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Americans are down on the economy and the markets even as stocks and growth indicators are up.

By an almost 2-to-1 margin Americans believe the economy has worsened rather than improved during the past year, according to a Bloomberg National Poll conducted March 19-22. Among those who own stocks, bonds or mutual funds, only three of 10 people say the value of their portfolio has risen since a year ago. 


read more ...

DOW - So near to 11,000

DOW closing triple digits. So strong and another a new high!

10,888.83 +102.94 +0.95%

DOW: 10 out of 11 trading days are positive!

Many have been expecting for the correction that have not come.

STI shows to the world that We Can. Break it today.

Noble Share Placement @ $3.10

In keeping with previous announcements made regarding Noble’s Vice Chairman Harry Banga’s intention to withdraw in June from day-to-day executive responsibilities, today it was announced that Mr. Banga had, for the first time, sold shares in Noble. The placement of 115,000,000 shares was priced at 3.10 Singapore dollars per share and was fully underwritten by Citigroup Global Markets Pte. Ltd. and Goldman Sachs (Singapore) Pte. and placed at the close of trading with a broad spread of institutional investors.

Mr. Banga underscored that the sale was his first ever of Noble shares and was made for purposes of estate planning and he remained committed to the company, optimistic about the future, and confirmed his intention to remain on the board of Noble for the foreseeable future

Noble - Slowly sliding down?

When are you buying?

STI - Getting squeeze?

Closing 2,905.66 +16.48 +0.57%

Time Can Change Many Things Including Passion, Love and Hobby

Now you talk passionately about your passion in your work, you have never feel that you are working at all. You are loving it.

Now you shout to the world how deeply you are in love with your sweetheart. You just cannot live without your sweetheart. If the sweetheart is gone, you would rather die.

Now you boast to your friends about this great hobby of yours. Everyday, you can't wait to lay your hand on it. Without it, life will be never the same again.

Many years later, what will be you be saying? May be you will hate your work - it is called brown or burn out. Your love may become your source of sorrow or hate. Your hobby is forgotten in your store-room.

Time can change and will change anything and only when your  time on earth is near the end only then you can truly say:

This is my passion. This is my love. This is my hobby.

So instead of searching high and low for your passion, your love and your hobby and knowing that time may change anything. Why not just learn to accept whatever is real, practical and available in front of you. Take good care of them. Try to live to the fullest each day and hope for more good days to come.

Keppel bags first major newbuild contract for German offshore wind farm

This is a positive development for Keppel - new biz segment

-----------------------------------------------------------
23 March 2010, Singapore – Keppel Verolme BV (Keppel Verolme) and consortium partner AREVA Energietechnik GmbH, a German subsidiary of French energy company AREVA, have secured a EUR 62 million (S$117.6 million) contract from Wetfeet Offshore Windenergy GmbH (Wetfeet Offshore) to build a Mobile Offshore Application Barge (MOAB) for a new offshore wind farm in the German Exclusive Economic Zone in the North Sea.

This self-erecting floating platform will be deployed at the Global Tech I Wind Farm that is being built and operated by Wetfeet Offshore. Utilising the patent-pending solution of AREVA Offshore Platform, the MOAB will host the transformers and high voltage switchgears to collect and convert electricity generated by the wind turbines for delivery to Germany’s national power grid. It is also equipped with critical control systems to serve as a backup power supply for the wind farm in case of emergencies. This innovative and customised solution combines the well-proven and state-of-the-art technologies from the oil & gas and electro-technical businesses

Is Man Worse than Wild Animal?

Overheard an interesting conversation ...

Wild animal by nature is kinder than man. When wild animal fight each other, they don't intend to kill or continue to pursue to kill if the loser decided to back off from the fight. The winner will let the loser goes if the loser chooses to walk away.

But, not for the man. When the men fight each other, the winner may not always let the loser walks away without getting seriously hurt or get killed.

DOW - a new high!

The Dow gained 43.91, or 0.4 percent, to close at 10,785.89 — the latest in a string of 1 1/2-year highs — though volume was light once again. The S&P 500 added 0.5 percent and the Nasdaq jumped 0.9 percent.

Bear got stuck in eating honey and didn't come!

Did you regret shorting or selling too early?

That is life in the market. Expect the unexpected!

Noble - Where is the support?

Place your buy order?

Investment Goal: $10K a year

Dividend Yield only strategy

To achieve $10K Goal a year, I would need to have $100K capital to invest in a portfolio of 10% dividend yield stocks.

What if I only have $50K capital, I would need to invest in a portfolio of 20% dividend yield stocks which is nearly impossible to find.

Capital Gain strategy

With $50K capital divided into 5 sets of $10K capital per set, I would be able to achieve $10K Goal a year with just 20 successful trades at 5% ROC each.

20 trades per year or 1.7 trades per month i.e. 2 sets of capital out of 5 per month

Can an average trader make it?

Higher Tuition Fee at University of Technology and Design (SUTD)

NUS, NTU & SMU raise fees to better reflect citizenship privileges

It is charging fees of $11K per acamemic year for SG citizen in 2012. It is even higher than SMU. I will revise the Uni tuition fund for my youngest son by another 15% to take more conservative approach by over-providing.

Possible to buy back lower?

Can I possibly buy back the stock lower than the previously sold price?

Looking at past year Noble and Olam trades for clues:

 

So sometime I have to buy high and sell higher but

most of the time Market provides more opportunities to buy back at lower price.

Kep Corp - More Profit Taking?

Noble - No Double Top?

May have to wait much longer to buy back.

Last sold @ $3.37

Buy And Hold - Is this the best use of limited capital? - Part 2

Buy And Hold - Is this the best use of limited capital?

There will never be short of debates on passive income vs capital gain.  No absolutely right or wrong method.

I like both but treat them differently. My income from stock dividend just forms part of the minimum sum of Yearly Earning Goal.

Yearly Earning Goal = Stock Dividends + Capital Gains

I split my portfolio into two parts:

Passive Investing: Passive Income from stock dividends
Active Investing:  Active Income from capital gains.

Passive Income forms part of the safety net if I fail to make Active Income from capital gain in any year.

In good times, the bigger part of the yearly earning goal will come from capital gains due to compounding effects after each successful trade.

Here is the case study and let do the maths.

Let say I have $10K for each set of Capital 1 -5.

If I focus on all passive income strategy and invested all five sets of capital into 10% dividend yield REIT or high yield non trade-able stocks. I then re-invested the dividends. At most, I can expect the total return is up to 15% in one year.

Instead of all passive income strategy, I have included capital gains strategy too and re-cycle one set of capital at a time and slowly into the stock market.

"Buy slowly. Sell slowly." - CreateWealth8888

During good times, the return from each capital will be compounded at every successful trade; but not all sets of capital will be compounded at the same rate, some will out perform others.

The total returns from Active Income will be far better than Passive Income during good times. Since good times will never last long and we must learn to realize it and seize the opportunities when presented and then move on.

See the compounded returns in the below table:

DBS - Last min panic button hit by BBs.

More panic selling next week?

Maybe Mr market is asking me to accumulate a little more at $13.6x with dividend around 4%

DOW - Minor profit taking. No serious damage.

DOW closing @ 10,741.98 -37.19 -0.35%

Stocks snapped an eight-day winning streak Friday, but still managed to finish up more than 1 percent for the week.

Despite today's losses, all three major indexes — the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq — remain near their 18-month highs.

SML - Pull back in progress?

Probably, today is beginning of a pull back and

plenty of money on the table for profit taking

Anyone joining me in buying SML @ 3.7x?

Keppel in joint venture to build, operate new shipyard in Azerbaijan

SINGAPORE: Conglomerate Keppel Corp has formed a joint venture to build and operate a new shipyard in Azerbaijan.


It partners are State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) and Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC).

The partners will develop and manage a new 52-hectare shipbuilding and ship-repair facility in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. They are investing a total of US$386 million into the SOCAR-Keppel Shipyard, which will be developed over a two- to three-year period.

Keppel's Offshore & Marine (O&M) arm will have a 10 per cent share of the yard, SOCAR will have 65 per cent share, while AIC will hold 25 per cent share.

Keppel O&M will manage and operate the yard, and will have the option to acquire another 10 per cent stake in the next three years.

The new yard is designed to build a variety of vessels ranging from offshore support vessels to tankers, as well as ship repair and conversion.

Speaking at the yard's groundbreaking ceremony in Azerbaijan, Singapore's Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo, said, "A new chapter has opened in our bilateral relationship. There is great potential for the strengthening of economic and other ties.

"The oil and gas sector is an obvious area of greater cooperation. Although Singapore has no oil or gas, we have a strong chemicals and maritime support cluster, with many Singapore-based companies supporting the operation of large oil and gas companies. The development of this new SOCAR-Keppel shipyard supports the oil strategy promulgated by President Heydar Aliyev."

Keppel said the joint venture is not expected to have material impact on its net tangible assets or earnings per share for the current financial year.

---------------------------------------

Createwealth8888:

So far Keppel corp has been very successful in executing their Near Market, Near Customer strategy. Positive news. Future growth potential

STI is still holding up. Are you happy or sad?

Closing 2,915.70 +1.76 +0.06%

Me? Up is better and Down also good.

Olam - No follow up buying from BBs?

One night stand affair?

You Can Lose Money But Don't Lose Your Confidence Too

If you have lost lots of money in the stock market, you are not alone. Me too and many more.

There are two types of losers:

1. Lose money and lose confidence in the stock market and forever stay away from the stock market.They never make it!

2. Lose money but never lose confidence. They did serious soul searching on why they are losing money in the stock market while seeing "others" making money. "Others" mean real investors or traders and not those "gurus" selling commercial methods or system shouting how they make money easily.

Value Investing Or Active Investing? - Part 2

The Dow rose for an eighth straight day, ending near session highs after a late rally

The Dow gained 45.50, or 0.4 percent, to close at 10,779.17
The Dow gained 2.2 percent in the eight-day streak, its longest since August 2009.

Volume remained low, with just 7.7 billion shares changing hands on the three major exchanges today, amid quadruple witching this week, which is the expiration of four key futures and options contracts.

STI can you make it today?

Dow Average Exceeds Bull-Market Midpoint: Technical Analysis

Dow Theory - The Three Phases Of Primary Trends <--- Some background on DOW Theory

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Elizabeth Stanton

March 18 (Bloomberg) -- The Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday rose above the midpoint of its last bull market in a positive sign for U.S. stocks, according to Richard Russell, who has studied the average since 1958.

The advance by the 30-stock Dow also was a bullish signal for followers of Dow Theory, which holds that moves by the Dow Jones Transportation Average must be “confirmed” by the industrial average, and vice versa, in order to be sustained.

The Dow industrials rose 47.69 points, or 0.5 percent, to 10,733.67 yesterday amid evidence the economic recovery isn’t stoking inflation. It was the highest close for the benchmark since October 2008 and its first close decisively above the 10,725 midpoint of its 94 percent advance during the bull market that started in 2002 and ended in 2007.

A close by the Dow above the midpoint is “a big positive for equities,” Russell, the 85-year-old editor of Dow Theory Letters, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “I would probably turn somewhat bullish.”

The confirmation by the industrial average of recent gains by the transportation average “would also be very bullish,” Russell said. The 20-stock transportation average, whose biggest components include FedEx Corp. and Union Pacific Corp., rose to a new high for 2010 on March 9 and has continued to advance every day since. The transports gauge has climbed for 10 straight days, its longest streak since 1993.

Rebound From 2009

The industrial average’s rebound from a 12-year low a year ago had stalled at 10,725.43 on Jan. 19. While the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 Index in the past week moved to new highs for 2010, the Dow remained below the midpoint of its last bull run until yesterday.

“I don’t want to be in stocks unless, or until, the Dow closes decisively above 10,725,” Russell wrote to subscribers of his biweekly newsletter March 16. Had the average failed to surpass that level, it was likely to resume falling and ultimately return to the level where the last bull market began in 2002, and possibly to last year’s 12-year low of 6,547.05, Russell said.

Russell’s view on the importance of the bull-market midpoint level is based on the work of the late E. George Schaefer, who began writing on Dow Theory in 1948, he said.

Russell, who is based in LaJolla, California, uses a set of eight market indicators that he doesn’t disclose to determine whether the stock market’s “primary trend” is bullish or bearish. The index, which he says on his Web site “is a lot smarter than I am,” has been bullish for the past year.

Still, Russell said in the March 16 note to subscribers the Dow’s failure to exceed the last bull-market midpoint was so worrisome that he was ignoring the index for the first time.

Gold is still a better investment than U.S. stocks because it offers protection from currency devaluation, Russell said. Gold futures for April delivery climbed to $1,124.20 an ounce yesterday and have rallied 21 percent over the past year.

“The gold bull market is the strongest metric around now after going up for nine years,” he said. “If stocks had been making higher highs for nine years in a row there would be a frenzy for stocks. There’s very little excitement about gold.”

NUS, NTU & SMU raise fees to better reflect citizenship privileges & responsibilities

More money needed for your kids' Uni education fund liao. You either save more or do better in your investment returns.

Nest Egg For Children's University Education


SINGAPORE: All three Singapore public universities are raising tuition fees for the incoming cohort of students.

The increase will also be sharper for permanent residents and foreign students in line with the government's policy of reflecting the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship.

Singapore Management University (SMU) said fees for all undergraduate programmes will be adjusted by three per cent for the incoming cohort.

All undergraduate programmes except for Law will cost S$9,890 a year. Law will cost S$10,920 a year.

The tuition fees will remain unchanged for the four years of their university studies.

Tuition fees paid by Singaporean undergraduates at National University of Singapore will go up by four per cent for the incoming cohort, except for Architecture, Business, Law and Pharmacy.

Tuition fees for Architecture and Business will go up by seven per cent.

Fees for Law and Pharmacy will increase by 10 per cent.

Fees for the incoming intake of students for postgraduate courses at NUS will be adjusted upwards by four per cent.

And they will be increased by three per cent each year for the remaining duration of the course.

Incoming NUS undergrads who are PRs will pay between S$720 and S$2,810 more for their courses.

Fees for foreign students admitted into NUS this year will increase by between S$800 and S$3,120.

Over at Nanyang Technological University, fees for non business programmes are S$6,890 for Singapore Citizens, S$8,270 for Permanent Residents and S$11,030 for foreign students.

For the business programme, the fees are S$7,490 for Singapore Citizens, S$8,990 for PRs and S$11,990 for foreign students.

Returning National Servicemen will continue to enjoy tuition fees based on the year they were offered a place.

The fee revision does not affect current cohorts at the three universities.

Like NUS, NTU will also lift the one-year fee revision deferment that last year's cohort has enjoyed.

They'll implement the fees for them in accordance with the schedule that was announced to them last year.

The three universities have given the assurance that no Singaporean will be deprived of a varsity education for financial reasons.

They have various schemes for needy students

Olam will be added into S-Network ITG Agriculture Index(SM)

S-Network ITG Agriculture Index(SM)

Olam International Ltd (TICKER: OLAM SP) will be added into S-Network ITG Agriculture Index(SM) effective 6:00 PM (EDT) Sunday, March 21, 2010

We may see more support for Olam coming from global fund managers tracking this index. Is that the reason for today sudden surge in volume. If the supply can remain limited, Olam will be able to catch up with Noble.

Olam all time high is $4.10

Symmetrical Triangle breakout in high volume today?

Stocks Climb, Sending Dow Average to 17-Month High, on Inflation Outlook

7th straight day of Bulls and are the bulls tired?

Cheers to the Bulls, you are the brave ones!

Count on you STI to break a new high today!

When will the Bear or Bull Strike?

Don't worry. Either one of them will strike sooner than expected. We just need to prepare ourselves for Bull or Bear to strike.

When the Bull strikes you have stocks to take profit and laughing to the bank.

When the Bear strikes you happily open up your wallet to stock up.

Why worry?