Thakral, a gem under the rubble?

Note: vested interest

Never heard of it? Is a singapore listed company with distrubution and real estate business.

Maybe u should take a look too and tell me what u think?

Some interesting facts:

1) 7.5 +- yield, that is backed by it's dividend policy of 2 half yearly payout of 2 cents. It is broken only in 2020

2) The distribution business has turnaround and with China also opening up, the longer term trend makes tailwinds more than headwings.

3) Hit the jackpot with its 50-50 JV with Gemlife, which has been developing retiree homes for the above 50 in Australia for almost a decade. It is going from strength to strength, and there is failed attempt to merge living stone and Gemlife and to attract a new investor for a 1.billion stake. Although Thakral clarfied the australia news article price tag of 1billion is "indicative", and the deal has been called off, a comparison with its existing market capitalisation suggest a wide discrepancy.

4) Company did a partial offering in 2019 to raise its stake to 50.2 percent at low ball target, of 50. Cents, then just 11 percent prenium to then WAP.  It restarted shares buyback above 50 cents recently. It has not done any shares buyback in years

It is purely my speculation that the company might be privatised. But if is not, a 7.5 yield seem like a good deal to me, especially if the dividends never exceeded the company Net profits and is stated as a formal dividend policy. In short, the dividende seem sustainable.

Merry Christmas and Thakral you, i mean Thank you for reading.

Have a festive year end

随心笔：放松

想要放松一点，

就把一切不愉快的遭遇当渡劫，

让一切的失败和辜负被原谅。

Random thoughts: Thankful for a satisfying day

Yesterday was a great day! I am thankful for it.

For those who read Rolf H2F3 post, it was one of the days where I feel everything is falling in place

We celebrated my wife's birthday. We didn't really celebrate birthdays beyond a meal at home due to Covind. I spent quite some time planning for this. While my wife changed the plan quite a bit to fit her busy tuition schedule, I can see she is visible happy about the meal out, and the surprise gifts we got for her, which are not expensive. 

I also meet up with some secondary school friends for a game of volleyball, and I brought my son along. I could not recognise most of my seniors, but I nonetheless had a good 1 hour game. I could not play longer as I need to fetch my wife from work. 

What really makes me happy is I used to be very anxious when I played a game with the seniors. This time round, I simply said I would like to play the role of a "setter", even to strangers. There are mistakes made, but it doesn't bother me anymore and I could really enjoy the game as it is. What I have been telling my pupils in my CCA to do, I finally is able to do it myself. 

Even my son said he has the best game play ever and would really want to play more. 

Although there is not much catching up with friends, I am just contented to have re-connect with my secondary school friends, even if it is just short whatsapp messages.

The time spent thinking and planning for my wife birthday celebration is really worth it. I realise I have spent so much time planning for my pupils' study and I have not put in as much thoughts for my family. Will try to do so more often. 

My portfolio turns RED

My defense have been breached. I want to write a blog to reflect on a few questions.

1) Could I have sold more earlier? 

2) When to buy more? 

Let's look at the recent actions. My rules governing selling is not price sensitive, as oppose to what many investors and traders use. I ask myself if there is a risk of earning deterioration, and if the odds is high, sell. 

Hence I sold CSE, whose management mentioned about cost overrun eating into margin, and with inflation, I hardly think things can get better easier even with a bigger order book. The price didn't reflect my pessimism, it fells generally with the magnitude of market retreat.

I also reduce Hotung, as I thought the high interest rate environment with make tech VC business more trying, and they have already had 2 years of good growth, and hence is staring at a high base historically 

I reduce Geely 175 HK, since I wanted to keep my HK portfolio smaller than Singapore, and after accumulating on weakness, i got a chance after China declare it wants to support EV industry to offload with profits. I still have half of the shares, but the fall in this counter has been drastic, things could have been worse if I have not cash out 

These sell actions only generated about 5 percent more cash. 

And some of it, I recycled and bought into YZJ Financial and Wilmar, so the net cash increase is slightly less tha 3 percent. 

Compared to TONG portfolio from the edge newspaper, who decidedly trimmed half of it portfolio, my actions seem to be going nowhere. 

Now, why couldnt I sell more. Are there possible deterioration of earnings that I failed to see? 

Inflation, restricted to my limited knowledge, affect margins for almost every company, except perhaps commodity companies (but apparently this is true only for energy but not agriculture, if u look at the price performance of companies.) 

So, so I sell most of my counters? Or should I continue to look at company specific impact, and hold on to those companies since I have no idea what will be a good rentry price. 

The fear of missing out of a good rentry price for good blue chip companies seems to be the reason why I hesitate to sell companies like ST engineering, HK land, Keppel etc, as I scope them up during pandemic panic. I am not sure if such price will come by again. If u ask me if I can sell first and buy back later, I am.not sure what is the "spread" to take advantage of. I did tell myself to buy back DBS after I sold it at 37 yo get back at 20 percent discount, but when it went to sub 30 for a while, I did nothing, and the chance is pased.

Let's assume I should have done it, and I should sell most of my counters now, I am not sure if they will fall another 20 percent, it seems like "gambling" that a Inflation triggered recession will wipe another 20 percent off when prices have already corrected. I think HK counters is really too late to sell, as they have already dropped close to 40 percent from their peak. 

I also shuddered to think that developers/reits who survived 2 years of pandemic crowd control measures who do worse in a recession. 

It seems that at this point of time, the answer is I could not have sold more unless I changed my rules for selling. 

The HK market is a surprise, as I did miss selling the construction companies when the developers are delevaraging and their property market went into doldrum. Beyond that, is school fees paid to understand the business better, what raw material course to look out for, and what regulation to stay clear.

For the second qn, my rule is accumulation when prices fell by 20 percent in a "normal" market and 25 - 30 percent in volatile market. 

It definitely is the latter now, I did went and scope up plenty of HK counters recently. Ping An, ICBC, Alibaba, China Resources 

Even in Singapore, I intiate position on CICT and adds on to SATS. 

I will keep to the rule, and buy anytime when I think the odds of future earning growth is high. (need not be the next quarter) 

Conclusion

There is no denying that I have limited knowledge of how the companies are run and the industries that they are in. 

But the silver lining is that I have not broken any self-written rules for investing. 

I am not sure how I should measure my performance, but I am definitely not losing sleep yet. 

Maybe one of the selling rule could be 2 years of record growth? Any lack of catalyst or first sight of red flag should be enough to activate a sell some call, so I could have perhaps lock in more profits. 

If I followed this rule, I would not be able to sell earlier, but I could have sold Lung Kee, CSCP, lonking etc 

I think the most important rule to review should be I should have a different set of rules for HK portfolio. Since the movement in this market is perhaps 2 to 3 times not volatile. I should take a more active trading mindset with overseas counters

随心笔：中秋节的祝福

中秋快乐， 但愿读者身体健康。

不求闲逸无事，只求累得心甘情愿。

不奢望包容受宠，只要知音的了解 。

不盼亲友四周，只需心存挂念。

最后，俗的可以。

送着一幅图。

Random Thoughts: Fairness

Recently the above words resonate with me a lot. I do not see it as a whin about the world being the "lion" and hence it is survival of the fittest, rather it is about a choice, a choice that we make and hence, we live with it.

We have been taught that our parents take care of us, hence we take care of them. Work hard and study hard, and we will get the food of our labour.

The truth, I guess, is there are plenty of exceptions.

The reverse is true too, Mother Nature has given us almost everything, i.e. resources, fresh air etc, but what have we give back to Mother Nature?

It is about the choice of a process.

Recently, I read up a bit about Karl Marx's ideas about emancipation, and that there is a difference between political emancipation and human emancipation. I guess the romantic vision of human emancipation where the ideas of communion and fellowship is so ingrained in us that people need not institutional rights to protect us, is akin to thinking that lions will not harm us, if we do not harm them.

It is human nature to expect a certain result from a certain efforts. However, as a teacher, I knew firsthand that the threshold of "efforts" is arbitrary, and how much efforts one put in, is often seen in one's own perspective. I seldom hear comments like "I have already done my utmost best" from pupils in the past, but I hear it quite often now. (i.e. Pupils are really more articulate nowadays). From the vintage point of a teacher over years, I have seen how some pupils work really hard without complaints and how some think a little efforts exerted is killing them. Sometimes I just have to reply very blankly that "your best is simply just not enough"

Even if efforts measured by hours are the same, how effective the hours are spent differs, but I would like to point out that it is already very difficult to get some to put in the hours. 

The faster we recognize our choices, and accept the possibilities of our choices, the earlier we discard "complaints" and reduce some of the instinctive negative understanding of our world (Some say is survival instinct)

I might be dealt with some lousy cards in life, and I am taking the opportunity to think and plan for my next steps if the worst happens. I guess I would feel really unhappy if the worst happens, but at the same time, I believed I will pick myself and challenge myself to explore new horizons. 

 

Random thoughts: Academic and sporting performance

I have faced disappointment in both areas, as a participant and also as a teacher/coach.

We tend to give too much hope to good performance and forget that consistency is the most important.

It is useless to be able to spike, serve well during training and let fear takes over in a match. When we can do very well in some questions, doesn't mean we can answer all similar questions.

In the end, the process of refining how I coach/ teach, becomes more meaningful and motivating than the final results.

My players trained hard but didn't get the results, my pupils were lazy and kept telling me they are stressed and have too much work. 

Effort does not gives u results, it however will likely give u progress.

Let hope those who passes me fear no hardship and progess in life.