Friday 29 October 2021

(October Results) How i would invest in the singapore stock market if i had 100k of spare money




October 2021 Returns: 3.39%
Year to Date Returns: 58.77%
Since Inception (9 Sept 2020) Returns: 75.25%

October Returns are decent, Uni-Asia pulling in the returns while main detractor is Ifast.

Thoughts on Ifast Results

-Q3 is not as good as 1H 2021 results, however still beat Q3 2020 results.

-Guidance given for 2024/2025 from Hong Kong MPF is very very outstanding and has beat street expectations. However the share actually went up in trading hours on the morning results was released before closing at a negative gain and this momentum continued on for the next few trading days.

-Personally i feel that this injection of eps is still very far and as the chinese saying goes 远水救不了近火, in english it means that distant water does not put out an impending fire. The concern will be to grow its AUA and ensure that it gets revenue improvements. With the introduction of buying funds on apps such as Moomoo, competition has started to get much tougher. 

-I believe the key straw will be whether Q1 2022 is able to improve a huge amount compared to Q1 2021. 

With that there has not been any other results to review, though in November, there will be a few updates/ results releases upcoming.

-KSH Half Year Results

-Powermatic Data Half Year Results

-Uni-Asia 3Q Business Update

-UMS 3Q Results

Something to mull over as well is if there is need to conduct a shakeup of the imaginary portfolio. 





Thursday 14 October 2021

[Crap Post] 2 Investing Thoughts i have recently

 

To start off, the post will be offensive to certain people who are reading it. Hence if you cannot afford to be offended then please refrain from reading further.

However, if you feel that you might have been offended after reading then i truly apologize.

1st Investing Thought (Least Provoking)

Pacific Basin 3rd Quarter Trading Update (Hkex 2343)

Pacific Basin released its 3rd Quarter Update on 13 October 2021. Details can be found here

Just in case you have forgotten, Pacific Basin is a company that operates dry bulk, mainly in the Handysize and Supramax segment. It is the largest listed company for Handysize.

The rates for 3rd quarter results came in to be widely in-line with my own expectations. The rates have always been lagging the spot market this year due to lag time. This is not an issue as in the event a down market happens, the rates would have reversed.

(Handysize coming in at 29k for October but Spot is around 30k)
(All in all still the best quarter seen in last 13 years)


How about earnings? In one of the slides Pacific Basin has shown how to model their earnings and used an example of September 2021. The underlying earnings came out to around 90 million USD for September 2021. Based on my estimations, the earnings should be around 235 million USD for Q3. To put into retrospective, earnings in June 2021 came in at 53 million USD. Hence it is an improvement of 69%.

This means that assuming such numbers hold and do not improve, full year earnings should come in at 1.04 HKD. With 0.78 HKD of earnings coming in 2H. Do note that this is a very conservative estimate.

As as result the current price will indicate a PE of around 3.4. If the 2nd half earnings PE are used then it would be less than 2.3. Of course this would be a rather bullish estimate because usually the 1st half of the year is a traditionally weaker part of year for dry bulk.

Random Person might ask: So u talk so much cock liao. Can buy or not?

Broken Answer: Yea can buy, but can make money? i think chance of making money is there but risk is high lor where got so simple make money.

A more proper Answer: 2023 will be a new ball game for dry bulk with rules of lower emissions which means that speed of vessels will be slower. This will benefit newer vessels that emit lesser. There will also be a need to customize older ships or to replace them all together. 

The supply of new-built dry bulk remains low when compared to the previous such peak of 2008. The covid problem and supply chain disruption remains strong. Winter is coming there will be increased usage of energy. 

I believe rates of 2022 will be lower than 2021 but not much lower. Then in 2023, rates would likely sustain compared to 2022 due to the rules. If such theory applies then the PE is probably too cheap especially when considering that the average age of its fleets are 12 and 10. Which means that they can run for more years as average fleet duration is 20-25 years. Even if they are not being run, they have a resale value which has been increasing this year.

(Black Line refers to 10 years Handysize.)
(Price increased from around 7.63 at January 2021 to 15.43 in October 2021)

2nd Investing Thought (More Provoking)

Sir, are you a troller, investor or an opportunist?

Recently someone sent me a link to attend a Uni-Asia Presentation held by Maybank on 4 October 2021. 

(Ok sounds interesting, lets register and see what they say)


Unsurprisingly that Maybank had such connection as they were the ones who did the private placement back then in 2019 for Uni-Asia.

(Fun Fact: Investment is spelt as Investmet)


I chanced upon a question asked by one of the participants. I did not manage to capture all questions asked by this person but he probably asked closed to 10 or even more questions.





From the way of the writings, he/her is probably from a group or a company or some clandestine alliance. As anyone know from zoom, you can register any name u would like from Donkey Kong to Mario Kart to Andy Lau hence the name does not really matter.

I took offense to the suggestion of share buy back up to 3% every 6 months. Well it is not a bad suggestion when first looked as it increases the share price due to the increased demand. However, i am unsure if you are a troller/investor or an opportunist.

As a troller you would probably want to troll the management whenever u have the opportunity to interact with them. Hence you would throw such a curve ball suggestion. However, such suggestions should be tabled during board meetings or during agms. I believe an info session is not the best way to show such question. What would other attendees think? Idk. It would be better if you have emailed the investor relations or the company this suggestion even if it is correct.

As an investor, i would want to see the company grow. Of course, share buyback is good, but for a company that has made only profit in 3 of its past 5 full FY, are we jumping the gun too quick with a buyback on the back of a decent 1st half result?

I would be more happy if the returns are in the form of dividends and the profits can be used to generate future growth as an investor. After all, if the company is really worth what it is worth, the value will be reflected in long term whether via capital gains or dividend distributions

(Company actually lost more money than made money in last 5 Full FY)


As an opportunist, you would usually want to seek for a catalyst. Unfortunately there has been no catalyst so far apart from a rosy business outlook for the company which is not a catalyst. 

Therefore we need to create a catalyst so share price rise and a lot of people wanna rush in to buy then we can happily dump to the kumgongs as we have loaded plenty previously at lower prices. 

All in all, i just feel that the suggestion has been tabled at the wrong place.


Lastly to end of on a more serious note, the average age of Uni-Asia Dry Bulks are 8.6 years. 

Albeit a lesser operating scale compared to Pacific Basin, Pacific Basin with 13% Handysize ships in 20+ years and an average age of 12 managed an average of 24,350 charter rate in 3Q 2021. Hence as mentioned in 1 of my previous post, i would be disappointed if Uni-Asia did not hit at least 20k in 3Q 21.




Friday 8 October 2021

Relating Squid Game to Lessons in Investing

 Without a doubt, squid game has become the most talked about show in recent weeks. With everyone getting into such genre again. The previous time where there was a hype was when Alice in Borderlands was released but it did not generate this level of hype. 

While watching the show, i saw some relation to investing that i would like to share about



1) Joining the game because simply there is no choice



Pretty self explanatory as the contestants joined due to various financial debts they have and needed the money to solve their problems. 

This is somewhat similar to investing as people who do investing are those that need the money to help them in their mid term to long term aims. If one is simply rich enough such that investing does not matter then they would probably not do any investing and instead focus on living their lives.

1 thing i have always like to tell my peers is cause i got no choice thats why i have to invest...its not like i was blessed with high pay or anything near that.

2) Game 1 relating to Markets and Fluctuations

Those who have watched will know the rules hence i will not bother explaining further. As i watched the show i am reminded of how it is associated with shares.

(Crashed but it recovered eventually)

In the initial stages there is rush of excitement. Shares go up. Then something scary happens and a lot of people panic and get shot. Similarly in the stock market, the share price goes down as everyone panics. However like in the game itself, those who calm themselves and complete the game will benefit as those who can hold out, buy more and stay in the markets will be rewarded.


The old man being the first person to continue the progress after the wave of deaths did not hit me as any stock reference when  i watched the show. However in recent days , i have found a reference to this.


Perhaps now that someone has took the courage to run up, it could be a time for people to follow.

(Could this be the start of the comeback? Or could we be walking into a trap?)



3) Glass Bridge Game


In this game, everyone wants to be in the behind numbers and not the front numbers. This is quite similar in investing when you see people asking xxx can buy? xxx can sell? xxx got what catalyst? 

Then when you give an answer people be like you buy liao? your entry price is what? sure can buy bo? buy liao will up or not scared drop.

Well everyone just waits for someone to lead and see if they survive before following

But truth be told, in investing, everyone is crossing a different bridge and how well each person crosses the bridge is based on the expertise that each person have.

Of course, if you fully copy the steps in time, you will be able to cross that bridge. But you would never know if that person will be with you when you need to cross another bridge. In an investment journey, there will be a lot of stock decisions needed to be made and it is like crossing many different bridges






Monday 4 October 2021

A Profitable SG Tech Firm : Anacle Systems Limited (HKEX:8353)


(Its Office)


Perhaps not known to many people, a tech firm has been listed on the Gem Board of Hong Kong Stock Exchange since December 2016

Anacle Systems Limited is a company that has business in 4 segments

1) Providing Real Estate Solutions

-This is in the form of its Simplicity software that has well established clients such as Capitaland and SPH Reit

-It is a real estate / facilities management platform that is available in traditional software sales and Software as a Service (SaaS)

-It allows for monitoring of various factors such as workflow automation, gross turn-over, rental billing etc. 


(Monitoring Revenue and Rental)




2) Providing Smart Utilities Management Soluitions

-This is in the form of Starlight, its water and energy management solution.

-It is available in traditional hardware and software sales, and via SaaS as well.

-Its customers include Jewel and Electricity Retailers in Singapore's Open Electricity Market

(Monitoring Consumption)


3) myBill Utilities Revenue Assurance

-This is its 'utilities revenue assurance SaaS Platform, which is the 2nd largest in Singapore. The market leader being Singapore Power, a brand Singaporeans will not be unfamiliar with.

-Its client in this field is I-Switch and the revenue model currently serves more than 100,000 consumers

(Example of myBill)


4) Online Venue Booking Portal

-This is in the form of its largest venue sharing portal(http://www.bigspacemonster.com)

-It has both a mix of venues provided by private sector as well as public sector.

-Whether u would want to find a place to stay, a place to have a birthday party, a place to have a team bonding session, a place to exercise or a place to have a meeting, a place to conduct your classes or simply a place to practice presentation skills. You could look up the site and find a place to rent.

(The website itself)


What I like about the Company

1) Growth Opportunities

-The amount of growth opportunities presented to the company are plenty. It has a good orderbook(over 40 million with over 20 million near term) for its Simplicity Platform and its presence of usage by major operators are a show of its quality.

-Its Smart meter the Tesseract has been shortlisted for the smart meter project which enables it to tender for the roll out in 2023 and beyond. With 200 000 in 2023 and an estimated 1.4m between 2024 to 2026, there is a market for its product should it be successful in its tender.

-Singapore Power contract ending with PUB and City Gas which gives gives a chance to Anacle to compete for the billing segment using mybill

From my point of view, i could at least see where the growth could come from.

(Its growth drivers from its webinar slides)


2) Increasing Revenue over the years

-Across a longer term horizon, the company has shown growth even though the growth is not consistent across years.

(Its profitability trend)


What I dislike about the Company

1) Valuations

It is currently trading at about 11 to 12 PE, a company that is trading at this valuation is very cheap considering that SaaS companies are trading at negative PE.

When looking at the Price to Sales, Anacle has a sales of 22.1 million SGD and a market cap of 141.39 million HKD. This gives a price to sales of 1.11 which is fair cheaper than companies like Weimob(around 9) and China Youzan (around 9)

However considering that it made only 2.1m in the latest FY 2020 and around 0.9m is from government grant, it all adds up to a company that has very low bottom-line and has a record of very volatile earnings.

2) Competition

The competitors in the market are huge competitors such as Singapore Power which are well established and well backed. While the opening up of the market will provide opportunities, it remains to be seen if these opportunities are 'opened' for show or if they are really awarded to smaller players.


Conclusion

This company is an interesting company that i will keep an eye on. However, it is a company that at the current moment i will not consider to invest into. 

While i do not deny that it is a company that could be a multi bag should it be able to scale up and increase its revenue tremendously due to the ease of SaaS model as well as the potential customer gains and market share it can achieve, it is a company that has yet to pay any dividends (due to its stage where it is trying to grow).

Lastly, from its ipo price of $0.81, it has fallen to $0.35 today and it is probably justified as its unprofitability in FY 2019 due to its china expansion has erased the small profits made in the previous FYs and recent FYs.

When its profitability is stable is probably when it will fit my appetite. Till then, it will only be a company to keep tabs on.