Crash Got Sound - What Doesn't Kill You Will Make You Stronger!

Once upon a time, Chinese stocks can do no wrong. Hence everyone loved China IPOs! From Nasdaq, to HKEX, to our local SGX. 

Then the investment world discovered fundamental analysis and fair value quite meaningless when you can't even trust whether the cash on the books really existed...



Then there was the commodity boom (similar China growth story). 

Soon we learned we don't really understand the industry at all... 

Hands up you know the supply chain of coal, sugar, coffee?

The short sellers were right.



Remember flavour of the year thematic plays for Water, Myanmar, Oil and Gas plays?

Some "buy-and-forget" investors learned you don't do that with cyclicals... (On a side note, they remind you of Bitcoin, no?) 



What are High Yield Bonds? 

Some accredited investors belatedly realised they were known as Junk Bonds in the past. Oh!



How safe are preference and perpetual shares?

Well, now we know.



Why buy REITs when we can get higher yields from Shipping Trusts?

Finally some get the poke about yield hogs and how both bulls and bears can make money, pigs just get slaughtered... 



Peer-to-peer lending at 18% yield good, better, best?

Well, usury or "ah long" can be very profitable! 

Go find out how much authorised money lenders charge their clients. 

How much illegal "ah longs" charge their victims. 

And how much credit card companies charge for lending unsecured loans to consumers.

Compare what are the various illegal and legal methods the above can recover their money when their clients/victims default.

Now ask how are you going to recover your peer-to-peer lending in a default?

You think you smart; others not stupid.


But then, this you only know when crash got sound!

SleepWiz - ErgoLush Gel-infused Memory Foam Mattress Topper

Some of you may have just returned from your CNY vacations.

I myself went for a 4 days 3 nights staycation at Jens Orchardgateway, the week prior to CNY.


Ever noticed the beds at the 4 stars and above hotels are very comfortable?

Next time, lift up the bedsheets and take a look at the mattress. 

Good (and atas) mattresses usually have 2 sections - the main bulky and thick part for the support, and a thinner part on top to provide the plushness and "sinking-in" feeling.

This part can be attached and sewn to the main mattress, or come as a separate topper that's laid on top.

I prefer the removable version.


I don't know what you do in bed, but we can spill, soil, and squirt quite a bit of mess in bed when we're having fun!

Of course when mom or mom-in-law came visiting, we act all innocent and sing song its because we like to have breakfast in bed. 

Its just coffee stains. 

Yeah, right.... 


With a removable mattress topper, its a lot cheaper to throw away the evidence than changing the whole mattress. Wink.


Memory foam used to be expensive. Now the price has come down by quite a bit. 

Some of you may have memory foam insoles from the new walking shoes you've bought. Comfy right?


Take a look at this website from my kind sponsor:


SleepWiz - ErgoLush Gel-infused Memory Foam Mattress Topper



At the low price of $87.90, how's that to enhance your sleep quality at night?


Don't say got lobang bo jio! 

Are you retail or industry insider?

I suspect you can guess I'm quite bored with the markets...

Nothing to do so go find friends to poke lor!


Sometimes it backfired big time! 

Like my recent feeble attempt to poke CW's grammar... Ouch! 

That is classic what my kindergaten teacher complained to my Ah Ma many years ago, "Your grandson himself don't know still like to teach others!?"

You can say I've not grown up or improved one bit... I'm still stuck at kindergaten level!

LOL! 



Oh! Must give CW a compliment. He let me off without giving me a slap. Hee, hee. He big hearted or what?

Either that or he has developed calluses against my "bau" nonsense! 



Then there was my poke to B when he swallowed what the newspaper wrote instead of trusting his own eyes. Newspaper can't make mistake one?

Ready?

Where is the biggest public library in Singapore?

It was so funny.

Eh, no one cares or is counting the admin departments lah! Just include the floor area with books.

So, is the one at Bras Basah bigger or the new one at Vivocity bigger?


Remember a time when the most "valuable" section of a library was the reference section?

What happened to the reference section in our neighbourhood libraries for "retail" today?

Got Google people forget how old fogeys used to do "research". Wink.

Regular readers know all I've written above is just "foreplay". 

Where is the real poke?

Coming lah!

Some words used in common everyday language meant one thing, but inside the industry we use more specific industry terms as the common everyday words are just too vague... 

If not, how to tell who is "retail" who is "pro"?

Just take annualised returns for our portfolios.

Most just assume its IRR (Internal Rate of Return) and use the excel tool XIRR to calculate it.

IRR is actually quite black and white specific; annualised return is grey.

Eh? Are they not the same?

What if I tell you under "annualised return", there are 2 major computation methods?

One is Time-weighted (favoured by public fund managers)

The other is Money-weighted (which is IRR by another name)

I won't bore you with the specifics. You google yourself if you interested to know the differences.

But I'll give you a simple summary for you to ponder over:

Time-weighted returns measure how well the investor did at growing their assets over time.

Money-weighted returns measure how well the investor did with the timing and amount of inflow and outflow.

So the poke is not whether which method is better or more "superior".

The poke is what kind of investor are you?

Are you a long term or buy-and-hold investor?

Or do you practice market-timing with your entries and exits?

Wink.