I have not been looking at the stock market for about 4 months. This is because I believe that we had way passed the peak of the business cycle. A good friend of mine who just migrated to Australia wrote to me lately and asked for my opinion on stock investment now. Another ex-colleague also called me recently on the same issue. And my answer is always consistent – we had passed the peak of the business cycle, which was in 2007. And now we are trending downward, although there will be fluctuation in stock indexes. But we got to look at the bigger picture instead of those numbers (indexes) jumping up and down everyday. If you don't even understand this, you are not suitable for stock investment. Of course if you speculate, it is different ball game. If you speculate, you can make lots of money regardless of the market direction if you are accurate. And equally, you can loss everything, including your family..... and sometime even your life. And one of my principles of stock investment is never to gamble.
I continue to believe that unstoppable surge in oil price will soon bring down global economy badly. Keeping my fingers crossed, I hope that I'll never experience a depression in my lifetime. If you are reading my blog now, I have a question for you that not many people thought about it – what if there is really going to be a depression? Are you prepared? In fact, how are we going to prepare for it? And for that matter, do you know the consequence of a depression?
Yesterday evening, finally I decided to log on to my trading account and SGX website. My account indicates that the last time I logged on was on 25 Mar 08. Wow! It seems that there was a slight rebounds and my losses had been narrowed by a little bit. However, my paper loss is still significant. Out of more than 10 counters, only two make money. Immediately I keyed in my sell orders. Fortunately, I managed to dispose it today at a decent profit but not to forget that I am still sitting on significant losses. So I will not call for a celebration.
And then I spend two days re-orientate myself to all the corporate announcements. Here are some of the updates.
1) ASA Group. I bought this counter a few years ago due to its strong balance sheet. Unfortunately, since then the company's profit was on the downhill (don't blame me please) causing the stock price to plunge. Luckily, I was able to dispose it with minimum losses a year ago. Thanks for the bull. Whoever bought it from me obviously doesn't understand the fundamental of stock investment. He/she just enjoyed the bull ride. Lately, the auditor cast a doubt over the company's going concern. You can now invest in this company at 5 cents per share.
2) Industry performance and directors’ forward looking. I pick up a few company's results that were announced recently together with the director comment. Here are some of the pointers:
a) Marine, oil and gas companies are doing fine. Generally, we can expect these industries to continue paying fat bonuses.
b) Property had slowed down but local construction sector remains vibrant.
c) Consequently, steel companies are doing fine too.
d) Tech-stock looks very bad. I had already warned many since early this year not to touch tech stock no matter how attractive it is.
e) Weakening of US$, slow down in US economy and rising oil price is a main concern to many companies and may adversely affect their performance.
I continue to believe that unstoppable surge in oil price will soon bring down global economy badly. Keeping my fingers crossed, I hope that I'll never experience a depression in my lifetime. If you are reading my blog now, I have a question for you that not many people thought about it – what if there is really going to be a depression? Are you prepared? In fact, how are we going to prepare for it? And for that matter, do you know the consequence of a depression?
Yesterday evening, finally I decided to log on to my trading account and SGX website. My account indicates that the last time I logged on was on 25 Mar 08. Wow! It seems that there was a slight rebounds and my losses had been narrowed by a little bit. However, my paper loss is still significant. Out of more than 10 counters, only two make money. Immediately I keyed in my sell orders. Fortunately, I managed to dispose it today at a decent profit but not to forget that I am still sitting on significant losses. So I will not call for a celebration.
And then I spend two days re-orientate myself to all the corporate announcements. Here are some of the updates.
1) ASA Group. I bought this counter a few years ago due to its strong balance sheet. Unfortunately, since then the company's profit was on the downhill (don't blame me please) causing the stock price to plunge. Luckily, I was able to dispose it with minimum losses a year ago. Thanks for the bull. Whoever bought it from me obviously doesn't understand the fundamental of stock investment. He/she just enjoyed the bull ride. Lately, the auditor cast a doubt over the company's going concern. You can now invest in this company at 5 cents per share.
2) Industry performance and directors’ forward looking. I pick up a few company's results that were announced recently together with the director comment. Here are some of the pointers:
a) Marine, oil and gas companies are doing fine. Generally, we can expect these industries to continue paying fat bonuses.
b) Property had slowed down but local construction sector remains vibrant.
c) Consequently, steel companies are doing fine too.
d) Tech-stock looks very bad. I had already warned many since early this year not to touch tech stock no matter how attractive it is.
e) Weakening of US$, slow down in US economy and rising oil price is a main concern to many companies and may adversely affect their performance.
