Expanding your radar through FSM stock screener

Note: No affilation to FSM, just find it useful. Recently, have been trying to rebalance my portfolio, and will continue to do so as and when the price and time is right. In the past, my "pond" is just singapore, with FSM STOCK screener, I find the screening process a breeze, before I lock down on a counter to read their annoucements and annual reports, and dig out information beyond 5 years. It is thus far, the best screener.

It is a breeze to look at various exchanges and if you have a particular sector you preferred, to shortlist it. The default criteria are good enough for me, but you can modify it if you wish. Once you have a list, and click on a particular counter, the amount information available is impressive.

Balance sheet, cash flow, data available for 5 years, with various commonly used ratios already calculated for you. If you like researching and prospecting, just like me, do try it out. The 2 counters that I added after using this screener and further readings are: HKEX: 3339 A construction machinery manufacturer. NYSE T: AT & T I find earnings visibility for at least 2 years with possible upside that might be underappreciated by the market. Both have reasonable to significant market share, and likely you get dividend yield north of 7%. Happy prospecting

随心笔：教师的眼泪

教师节又到了。

这九个月的辛劳，

不停的唠叨。

同学拉出了一封长长的信。

写上了感谢，画上了满满的心。

是送给隔壁班老师的，

原来他没有你的心。

或许是故意让你清醒。

有人在敲门，

原来是很少慰问，

较少关心的人。

他们送上了祝福。

想起了对他们温暖的辜负。

夜静了，想着想着，觉得有点累。

写着写着，留下来的竟然是泪。

洗去了心中的折磨，

也净化了心底的心魔。

不求回报，有都少，给多少。

别笑我傻，也许陷得太早。

竟然情愿，就要无怨。

孽缘、善缘皆是缘。

教师节快乐。

随心笔：机器人的心

机器人的心，

跟人类一样，会跳动。

他和你聊天，善解人意。

你不开心时，他陪你。

你需要帮助时，他不用吃不用睡，

替你完成任务。

机器人和人成了好朋友。

一起玩，一起笑。

人，教会了他唱歌。

机器人会变调，真有趣。

机器人觉得自己也像个人。

原来，还有更新的版本的机器人。

机器人觉得奇怪，

加强版，没强多少。

机器人第一次感觉到妒忌。

原来，机器人故障了。

机器人，不来就不应该有感情。

看着人类为机器人设定了“机器人“日，

机器人觉得很讽刺 。

明明最早最早的版本，就已经有个“人”

为什么，其实只是要“能”并不要“人”

关机吧。

机器人离开了。

他知道，在不久，

他会没能量的。

但无妨，他无法面对他的主人。

更无法面对主人的家人。

他进行尽力照顾的人。

Random thoughts: Highlights of the week teaching

This week teaching is rather simple and boring, but quite satisfying to me I tried to use songs that my pupils like to teach vocabulary. It is coming to the end, just 12 more working days before they take their PSLE. I no longer have the luxury of time for them to internalize the words, through speaking, reading, and writing. I decided to just tap on their memories to learn the vocabulary. I drew the "story of the Yan" connecting words with hanyupinyin Yan to a story and drawing a picture to help them remember the words 

I also change the lyrics of songs they knew,using the vocabulary of the primary curriculum.

Both teaching methods are nothing to talk about, the fun point is the fact that some of them eagerly waiting to hear the adapted song. 

When I go through the new lyrics of <虫儿飞> and <我们不一样>， they laughed. They keep asking me to sing, and 2 years ago, when I tried doing the same activity, I remember I was apprehensive and very shy. Facing this batch of pupils, somehow the shyness just went away, and I didn't just sing but "perform" the songs, they burst out into hysterical laughters and ask me to sing again. First time in my life I felt like a super star. Hahahaha

I told them to recall what is learn, and reminded them the purpose of the activity. I think the message is not lost. They told me to change the lyrics of 雪花飘飘，aka 一剪梅。

I felt motivated when pupils are excited about their lessons. Although their prelim results are  below expectations, at least they dun hate coming to my class. 

I also start to learn of some of the songs the pupils are listening and some are really quite nice. 

3 years ago, one pupil told me she wanted to be a teacher, because I inspired her, this year, another pupil told me she wanted to be a teacher too. 

Teacher's Day coming. Happy early teacher day to all those in the faternality. Keep your passion and joy alive. 

Personally, I don't like Teacher's Day. I always need to cope with my inner demons when some of my pupils dun show appreciation (I don't need gifts or cards, just a verbal "happy teacher day" should suffice), so I would rather have 364 days of fun teaching. Feelings need not be mutual. 

Company prospecting: Lonking 3999 (HK)

Has been a while since I done this, but Lonking is a company manucturing for the construction machinery industry. Again, I used price screener to screen stocks in HKex. I recommend FSM price screener.

Lonking is a company with almost an 10% yield. Following pictures are sourced from FSM.

Stable and generally growing top line and bottom line

 Balance sheet strength reasonable. FCF is good. PE is low, at 6. Enough for me to want to dig up on the Annual reports, to read the "story", and also read up more about the industry

Here is what i find:

1) It is a cyclical company, beyond the 5 years info from FSM, you can see earnings going up and down and there is a year in 2013 where they skip dividends. 

2) This is a company that has enough market share that allowed it to positively correlated to the construction machinery demand. When i read about the industry having a rebound from excess supply of machinery, in 2017, the revenue and profits also improved tremendously 

3) When I compare it with Caterpillar, I am quite surprised that they only focused on 4 products, as compared to the wide spectrum of construction machinery offered by Cat. When I search backwards, they use to focus on only 3 products for their growth, so this is a company that is very conservative. The market is still mainly in China. 

4) They have successfully read the downturn in 2013, and survive well to gain in the upturn in 2017. Quite impressive track records. 

5) After the 1st Quarter(due to Covid19), China demand for construction machinery has rebounded strongly, if the correlation is to hold, Lonking should be at minimal able to maintain earnings as last year. 

6) 2020-21 will be unlikely be peak of construction machinery demand, this is my own speculation. I believe China will fast track some infrastructure projects, and rebuild some cities to take into account 5G technology.

7) Shares price has also rebounded strongly from its low, and is in fact at 52 weeks high. 

Conclusion: An interesting company to add to radar and monitor. However, given the cyclicality of its business, this is a company that need to be agile, also since they only give final dividends in June-July, there is plenty of waiting. 

Random thoughts: 2 words Decoding

This year, I teach the bridging graduating class. Their vocabulary base is really limited in the begining of the year. 

As the year progresses, I feel that they should know enough words to start tackling comprehension passages in July.

Yet, I am surprised that they can't cope with simple MCQ. When I get them to read one to one to me, they can read 60 to 70 percent of the words, and yet they are not decoding the text. What a pity, I felt.

After more observations, I noticed that pupils tend to give up when their read long sentences, they might know most of the words in the sentence but not decoding. 

Thus, without explaining a single word, I simply ask them to identify the verb and noun of a sentence (I dun use the term "verb" and "noun") I simply say, the word not useful for me to draw a accurate picture, what is happening ...

No teaching of words, just selecting of words, and if a sentence is too tough, they skip to the next.

As I draw, they get excited.

The words start flowing. Although most of the time they are complaining how ugly the drawings are, it doesn't bother me. 

After the exercise, I ask them to retell the story.

Then, I ask them to try the questions again. Most pupils get most questions correct, this time round.

This exercise of visualization of a image with at least 2 words become a importing thinking process when the pupils decode a text. They start to try to make sense of a sentence despite having difficult words that they don't understand.

It also become more palatable to ask pupils to.keep reading and guessing. I ask, are u able to form an image? Nope, poor quality words, chose another to say if it helps. 

Maybe there is still some novelty in this approach, and my pupils are willing to try.

This is a good way, also to explain the term "key words" now, so what is the question asking, what are the key words.

They know 2 words is all it takes to make some sense of a passage, of course the more words the more accurate the picture.

Don't give up. My pupils

Random thoughts: Adapting and Applying MTV Word-Phrase-Sentence

 I have diffficulty teaching pupils to answer open ended questions in reading comprehension.

At such, I decided to try a different way. 

First of all, I type a shorter text, consisting of new vocabulary learnt. 

Before I ask pupils to read the text, I ask an Oral Question, and get pupils to write down what they think are logical and possible answer to that question. 

Then, I ask them to read the text, and write down whatever words and phrases (I combined the 2), that they think they can use in the oral question. 

The oral frame is prior knowledge which was taught much earlier for them to elaborate on what they want to say. 

They differentiate the 2 answers by writing them in different colors. What is surprising is everyone can identify key words and some pupils can identify "all" key words related to the question. (I always have a problem of having comprehension answers that made sweeping statements that are too short or generic)

The sentence phase of MTV is adapted. Instead of looking at which sentence is meaningful or captured the essence of the text, I ask pupils to write out their key words in sentences in coherence way using connectors such as "because, if, for example, but" and making sure they are aswering the question directly. 

I just completed marking the answers to the question, this is the first time I saw many different rehrasing of answers to 1 question, and at the same time, making sense to the question. 

Why I think the process works:

1) There is a step of activating self-knowledge or prior knowledge in their daily life, and then connecting that to the text. When the pupils junp into the text without any thinking frame, the idenitification process of key words, is more difficult. 

2) The text is shorter, about 30% shorter, and I gave them time to ask questions to decode. 

3) They are familiar to the oral text, and frame to use, the transfer to knowledge hence become easier. Instead of a 1 answer frame, the pupils are allowed the paraphrase the key words into sentences in whatever ways that make sense to them 

What didn't work:

1) Some pupils have the key words identified, yet they did not write it dowm. The process broken down is the sentence making process. 

2) Some make sentences without making any reference to the question at all. 

What can be further done:

1) Simply asking pupils to be mindful of using all key words identfied. Ask them to tell me what words have they not use? 

How the process can be differentiated?

1) The environment, helping the weaker pupils. Products is standardized, an written answer. Content is already scaldfolded. Maybe, better pupils should have the scaldfold removed, to start the transistion.

2) It can be done for comprehension questions for my P5, when they do corrections. Stronger pupils do their corrections, weaker pupils have the scaldfolding diagram