Happy New Year 2019...?

[TerryT]

Hi everyone, happy 2019!

I am new here, I had been trade/vest/punt for over 5 years, from being a speculator to technical, to now fundamentalist.... All these years, I made plenty of stupid trades, lost a fair bit of money along the way, yet I’m thankful to wake up from my stupid idea, made a changed in 2017, to go back to basic fundamental, rather than just relying on chart/ price moving. Hopeful to improve my knowledge and cultivate the right equanimity

[chialc88]

Enterprise Singapore Board 19 Mar 2018
link

感恩
Happy new year to all valuebuddies.
I'm glad that 2018 had passed and most of us is still in the game.

A lot of us had the foresight to start accumulating cash in anticipating of the looming bear market.

I was prompted by Specuvestor to be careful in acquiring stocks and I'm glad that I took his advise.

Thank you.

---

2019 is going to be full of good stocks ripped for picking.

Thank you all valuebuddies in advanced and really hope to be able to contribute more too.

Minister Chan@Asia House 5th Dec 2018
Good read from 39": 
1. beyond air, land and sea, non-physical dimensions: data, finance, talent and technology
2. Technology - manufacturing sector
   - price, size and scale of operations
   + quality of products, innovation of our system, assurance we can give
3. Advanced manufacturing
    + high mixed, low volume
    + high trust, high assurance

[Millionfaith]

I didn't check, but this might be the first year that VB did not have a 2019 happy new year/investment outlook thread.

While 2018 was a 'bad' year, I hope that none of the regulars here were too affected by whatever that has happened. 

For the sake of entertainment, I shall list my most memorable stocks in chronological order. Memorable because of the money lost, of course.

1. STX Pan Ocean. Isn't a 'down-cycle' the best time to invest in a cyclical business? 
2. Noble. Its an STI constituent stock, surely it won't go bust, right? 
3. China Fishery. Sure, it has lots of debts. But it just raised cash through a rights issue. And it is trading at such a loooow p/b Must be a bargain, right? 
4. MTQ. Again, clearly did not learn my lesson in how long a down cycle can last. 

There are many lessons to be learnt from each mistake, but even then, I didn't recognise some of them until much later. Losing money provides a strong motivation for reflection. I lost about $10k on each of these, which adds up to about a year's salary for a fresh graduate. Certainly, the pain from loss will last for a long time. But hopefully, the lessons learnt will be worth the $40k spent.

For one, I have become much more acute of the danger of debts, and reliance on poor/baseless investment hypotheses. I have also retreated from businesses that are more cyclical in nature. Looking back, I laugh at how I made my decisions. If only making money was that simple. 

But nothing ever is. 

https://beta.scmp.com/culture/music/arti...-hong-kong


Amidst the gloomy sentiments, I am actually quite excited/optimistic about the Singapore market in the new year. I no longer think valuations are high -- which I have for most of 2016 and 2017 -- and in fact, there are many good propositions trading at/near bargain prices. Maybe not 2008/09 kind of valuations, but still cheap from various angles. I was buying a lot more stocks in 2018. If markets continue to fall, that will be an opportunity for buying. If markets rise, then that will be an opportunity for selling. For once, I'm not sure which to hope for.

Happy New Year to one and all in valuebuddies. 

And may the odds, be ever in your favour! 

Thanks for sharing, not just for entertainment but a good reminder for me. I am sure other VBs benefit as well.

[josephyeo]

Happy blessed 2019 everyone!

[specuvestor]

Happy new year to all valuebuddies.
I'm glad that 2018 had passed and most of us is still in the game.

A lot of us had the foresight to start accumulating cash in anticipating of the looming bear market.

I was prompted by Specuvestor to be careful in acquiring stocks and I'm glad that I took his advise.

Thank you.

---

Thanks for the kind words Chia... but I have to admit that I myself didn't expect such a sharp correction in 2018

And yes... staying in the game Return of Money is more important than Return on Money

[Mushy]

Happy new year.

Seems like a good thread to share the key highlights of my investing career.
From the time I bought my very first shares (Osim) to now, its been 14 years. A relatively newbie compared to most of the old birds here.
These were my mistakes over the years. I investd big on some of them, so you can imagine I basically lost all my money somewhere along the way. I hope I had learnt many lessons and I think I am doing ok now.

- Jurong hi tech (too reliant on a big customer Motorola, fraud)
- Celestial Nutrifoods (too good to be true)
- Daka designs (No investment merit, fraud)
- Fuyu (from 50c to 6c)
- China powerplus
- Biotreat
- Chartered semi
And many more in small ways.

[karlmarx]

Have a profitable 2019 to all buddies! Good riddance to 2018 and for buddies nursing losses in some counters (me too haha), here some morale booster if you are confident in your companies and CEOs.

An interesting BBC interview with CM during the crisis of 2009 (although we are nowhere near that and nobody knows whether we will reach that state again anytime soon).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbOzfJK-XYk

Q: How worried are you by the declines of the share price of Berkshire Hathway?

CM: Zero. This is the third time Warren and I have seen our holdings in Berkshire Hathway go down, top tick to bottom tick, by 50%. I think it’s in the nature of long term shareholding of the normal vicissitudes, of worldly outcomes, of markets that the long-term holder has his quoted value of his stocks go down by say 50%. In fact you can argue that if you’re not willing to react with equanimity to a market price decline of 50% two or three times a century you’re not fit to be a common shareholder and you deserve the mediocre result you’re going to get compared to the people who do have the temperament, who can be more philosophical about these market fluctuations.

If one continues to have strong cash flow -- perhaps from your businesses, investments, or employment -- then the psychological impacts downward market movements are probably less; affording one to wax lyrical about life and investing, while scooping up great deals at the same time.

But usually, those with strong cash flow from business or employment are less likely to be bothered with learning the language of finance, doing a whole lot work to find quality investments at cheap prices, buying them, monitoring their business performance, and then agonise over when/whether to sell them. Unless, they are like CM or WB who are more into accumulating a mountain of wealth, than 'enjoying life.' Otherwise, it is likely that they will dump their money into a low-risk low-return diversified portfolio of bonds and equity indices, managed by their private banker. Capital preservation is the key. Long-term returns of 5% is sufficient.

If such is indeed the case -- that the people who excel in their field and are top percentile earners do not pick their own securities -- it means that the majority of players in the market are those with poorer cash flow; the average/median Joes. For an average income earner who is just starting and aiming to accumulate wealth, it is painful for them to see their value of their portfolio decreasing. It is therefore not a coincidence that the average Joes have less patience for enduring long draw downs, and are more likely to sell at a loss before, or soon after, the upturn arrives. 

So those with wealth/top income, while possessing a psychological advantage, do not actively participate in the market. While those with no wealth/average income, who are psychologically disadvantaged, are inclined to pick stocks actively to build their wealth.

For the average Joe to succeed in this game, it is therefore necessary to develop strategies to cope with his/her psychological disadvantage. This may include participating in activities that take the attention of the average Joe away from looking at his losses. 

But of course, if said average Joe puts in more effort in his research, it is less likely that he will suffer from the trauma of losses in the first place.

Looking at it from this perspective, we have 4 types of Joe in the market:

1. Joe who does little research and has no patience
2. Joe who does research but has no patience
3. Joe who does little research but has no patience
4. Joe who does research and has patience

There are professional players in the market as well, whose abilities are more likely to be closer to type 4 than type 1, and whose cash flow (i.e. fund subscription) is favourable/stable during normal market conditions. To succeed, the goal for the average Joe is to continuously push the boundaries of his research and "equanimity" abilities.

To paraphrase an old VB, the stock market facilitates the redistribution of wealth from the type 1 Joe to the type 4 Joe.

[BlueKelah]

I didn't check, but this might be the first year that VB did not have a 2019 happy new year/investment outlook thread.

There is actually one started by cyclone but it was nested right at the bottom under the "Others" portion. I will probably merge that thread into this one for more visibility.

That said, there is indeed less "commentary" on 2018 results or 2019 predictions kind of thread (corydorus's thread on his dividend result is an exception) at the end of the year in 2018. Maybe it is the usual indices all falling and/or the volatility that renders most to be scared of making predictions?

coz i am one of the few who are bearish and no one believe market will crash soon anyway and sian of saying "I TOLD YOU SO" whenever market shoot down...

Also usually market down everyone lose money so just shut up and not interested to talk about stocks. Wait till STI go back below 2800, stock forums will be deserted.

I am still predicting a bigger pullback and become a crash in the coming year so long as the trade war is not resolved. China manufacturing PMI has already start going negative.

The credit tightening cycle has already begun worldwide and we can see one of the biggest global asset class of residential property going down in Canada/Australia/England/HK. It is now Fed QT (quantitative tightening) and rising rates which can only be a prequel to massive deleveraging about to happen.

And as usual when it hits no one will be expecting it and will be really hard to recover from, as most central banks are running almost near 0% IR and their govs are running bigger and bigger budget deficits.

[Behappyalways]

Gary Shilling Sees 66% Chance of Recession in 2019
https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2019/01/02/...recession/

[Behappyalways]

Recession fears are stalking Germany
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/08/econo...index.html