SembCorp Industries

(16-12-2014, 10:14 PM)valuebuddies Wrote:

(16-12-2014, 10:02 PM)pianist Wrote: ya oil price dropped so much why our pub bill still so high?

must complaint first, then action will be taken

lolz! ask CASE to help? they did speak up about the price of petrol cartel, oppss.. over the news!

(16-12-2014, 10:31 PM)brattzz Wrote:

(16-12-2014, 10:14 PM)valuebuddies Wrote:

(16-12-2014, 10:02 PM)pianist Wrote: ya oil price dropped so much why our pub bill still so high?

must complaint first, then action will be taken

lolz! ask CASE to help? they did speak up about the price of petrol cartel, oppss.. over the news!

Generally, Singaporeans can tolerate a lot. As long as "status quo". One good example was the recent
Sim Lim SQ or Tower Vietnamese tourist case until it went viral on the net.
Similar cases or closely related cases have been going for years before our G really wants to do something.

Or maybe we are cowed (psyched) by our G all these years. How many years? Comlng to SG 50?
You bet!

Absolutely, that's why the government is maintaining "status quo" on electricity tarriffs when oil prices came down.

Just a quick note on Price to Book (P/B). I do not think book value in general is very instructive because book value measures a particular point in time (as it is Balance-Sheet based), so the current situation could be different from P/B which was measured and reported some time back.

Another criticism I have of the P/B is that book value usually consists of assets which are valued based on historical cost (i.e. PP&E), lower of cost and NRV (inventories) or fair value (short-term investments before accounting for possible impairment losses). This severely distorts the "book value" and limits its usefulness for practical analysis.

Note too that companies with high levels of intangibles would also have a higher "book value", but what we need to do is to take the NTA (Net Tangible Asset) instead of the NAV (Net Asset Value). The NTA would be lower than the NAV for companies with a lot of goodwill or trademarks through frequent M&A, and this may make the P/B look lower than it should be.

A final point to note is that book value may not represent the "floor" for share price, and many investors have an anchoring bias when they make use of the book value as the basis for thinking that a company is "cheap". Sentiment can drive the share price way below book value (as was seen during the depths of the GFC), while impairment losses and write-downs of inventory, receivables and PP&E may result in a drastically lower book value than what was once thought.

So one must be extremely careful when they look at P/B. It should be only one of many valuation metrics which one uses in assessing if a company is cheap or not.

market sentiment is a powerful thing, and they say there is no such thing called long term investment or value investing, you just need to know when to buy at the lowest point and sell at the high..

^^ it might be interesting for u to know that this is a value investing forum and most here dont really believe in buying at the lowest point if you can know how to buy at lowest CONSISTENTLY you have made it

IMHO your education has just began as most of us has gone through this stage. Market sentiment is very fickle and just one input for specuvestor

Musicwhiz i agree with your assessment but as discussed, p/b is probably the best dirty guesstimate on the downside. That does not mean no further analysis should be done nor stock will halt decline at exactly the book value to the 2nd decimal point In fact most time it will go into discount of 20-30% because the forecasted ROE plunges but p/b still serves as best anchor vs say P/E

If one employs the "buy good sotck at fair value" strategy then stock is likely to trade 20% discount to book max even when ROE is negative and P/E meaningless. If one employs "buy fair stock at good price" strategy then one will have to adjust the MOS down accordingly

(18-12-2014, 08:08 AM)jjlim84 Wrote: market sentiment is a powerful thing, and they say there is no such thing called long term investment or value investing, you just need to know when to buy at the lowest point and sell at the high..

On hindsight, it seems right. The fact is most, if not all, aren't able to do so, over long term. The end result is mostly buy high, sell low. It is partly due to skill, and mostly due to emotional factors e.g. fear and greed.

(18-12-2014, 12:21 AM)Musicwhiz Wrote: Just a quick note on Price to Book (P/B). I do not think book value in general is very instructive because book value measures a particular point in time (as it is Balance-Sheet based), so the current situation could be different from P/B which was measured and reported some time back.

Another criticism I have of the P/B is that book value usually consists of assets which are valued based on historical cost (i.e. PP&E), lower of cost and NRV (inventories) or fair value (short-term investments before accounting for possible impairment losses). This severely distorts the "book value" and limits its usefulness for practical analysis.

Note too that companies with high levels of intangibles would also have a higher "book value", but what we need to do is to take the NTA (Net Tangible Asset) instead of the NAV (Net Asset Value). The NTA would be lower than the NAV for companies with a lot of goodwill or trademarks through frequent M&A, and this may make the P/B look lower than it should be.

A final point to note is that book value may not represent the "floor" for share price, and many investors have an anchoring bias when they make use of the book value as the basis for thinking that a company is "cheap". Sentiment can drive the share price way below book value (as was seen during the depths of the GFC), while impairment losses and write-downs of inventory, receivables and PP&E may result in a drastically lower book value than what was once thought.

So one must be extremely careful when they look at P/B. It should be only one of many valuation metrics which one uses in assessing if a company is cheap or not.

Thank you for reminding me about looking at Book value. Just like looking at retained earning or for that matter "anything", we must be careful not to look at it alone, separated from all other related items.
Then we can see the true whole picture. And not just an isolated small part of the picture. Which may be very rosy.

Who says investing is easy and not "confusing".
To me it is very confusing because not only i have to figure out the "jigsaw puzzle" of a company before i can see the whole picture of the company. And damn it the jigsaw pieces in the set of puzzle can add or minus too.
So it's almost a miracle i can survive until today in the market.
i am still learning from anyone willing to share - The GOOD , BAD & UGLY.
Shalom.
Amen.

Sembcorp Industries just announced full year financial results and declared final dividends of 11cts. Including interim dividends, total dividend this year becomes 16cts which is slightly lower than last year's at 17cts. More details here:

http://infopub.sgx.com/FileOpen/FY2014SG...eID=335385
http://infopub.sgx.com/FileOpen/SCI_FY20...eID=335386

Any idea what and why they are including Economic value added information in the AR ?