Browsed by
Category: Featured

Upcoming Webinar: Thematic Investing in 2 Megatrends – Cloud Computing and Solar Energy

Upcoming Webinar: Thematic Investing in 2 Megatrends – Cloud Computing and Solar Energy

Have you ever wondered how Netflix and Disney+ can offer their subscribers a wide collection of movies and yet charge such low fees?

The answer is Cloud Computing.

Register now, come later: https://bit.ly/scvbfk

The COVID-19 Pandemic has catalyzed the accelerated adoption of cloud computing.

Globally, enterprises used Cloud Computing to evolve operationally, increase productivity, scale their businesses safely and affordably. According to Gartner, in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis, the worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services is forecast to grow 18.4% in 2021 to total $304.9 billion.

In the last 12 months, environmental sustainability has become a business imperative to win the confidence of customers, partners, and governments. Organizations are adopting the public cloud to harness the benefits of carbon footprint reduction.

It is estimated that the world needs up to 27.6 TW of electricity by 2050, and then to more than triple by 2100. Imagine the harmful CO2 emission mankind will be putting out into the world? The energy produce by the Sun in an hour equals our annual energy needs derived from fossil fuels.

What if we can utilize this clean and free source of energy? More importantly, what are the stocks that investors should look at?

Join us as we have 2 special guests, Mark and Adrian in this exclusive webinar exploring the Thematic Investing in 2 Megatrends – Cloud Computing and Solar Energy!

csop-webinar

Mark Po is the Research Director at CGI, with over 20 years of experience in the equity research industry. Prior to joining CGI in 2014, he has worked as senior analyst in UOB Kay Hian, covering infrastructure, building materials, industrial, and TMT sectors. He has also worked as analyst in Kim Eng Securities for 7 years, covering infrastructure, industrial and TMT sectors.

Adrian Chew is the Vice President, Sales and Product Strategy (S.E.A) at CSOP. At CSOP Asset Management, Adrian oversees ETF investment solutions for Brokers, Wealth Managers, and Family Offices in Singapore.

button_register-here

InvestingNote is the first and largest social network for investors in Singapore. Find out more about us here.

Download our free app here:

apple android

Also, join our telegram channel here: t.me/investingnoteofficial

We’re here to keep you in touch with the latest investing & stock-related news, happenings, and updates!

Possible Near-Term Unit Price Movements of Singapore REITs with Retail Malls in its Portfolio (guest post)

Possible Near-Term Unit Price Movements of Singapore REITs with Retail Malls in its Portfolio (guest post)

Footfall to retail malls (especially those located in the CBD area) have taken a beating since Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) came into effect from 16 May 2021. Apart from the “no dining in” restriction, some of the more notable measures include group size being reduced to just groups of 2, and that working from home is once again the default.

Today (09 June 2021), there was an article in The New Paper which talked about the current situation, and difficulties faced by retailers – you can read the article in full here – “Retail stores take a beating as footfall slows to a trickle“.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. As I am writing this post, I note that the number of community cases have come down once again (there are just 3 new cases in the community, with one of them in the workers’ dormitory being reported yesterday, 08 June 2021.) With the number of community cases heading down once again to single digits, my opinion is that it is highly likely that some of the movement restrictions will be relaxed when the Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) ends this Sunday, 13 June 2021.

This post was originally posted here. The writer, Lim Jun Yuan is a veteran community member and blogger on InvestingNote, with a username known as @ljunyuan and has close to 2,000 followers.

I am of the opinion that any relaxation in movement restrictions could benefit the retail industries, and hence REITs with retail properties in the portfolio could see their unit prices going up in the near-term. There are 6 REITs in Singapore with their portfolio consisting of retail REITs. They are: CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust (SGX:C38U), Frasers Centrepoint Trust (SGX:J69U), Mapletree Commercial Trust (SGX:N2IU), Starhill Global REIT (SGX:P40U), SPH REIT (SGX:SK6U), as well as Suntec REIT (SGX:T82U).

Funan mall reopens with swankier vibe after major S$560m, 3-year renovation, Real Estate - THE BUSINESS TIMES

In this post, you will find my technical analysis on the 6 REITs – particularly how their unit prices may move in the near-term (bullish as well as bearish scenarios), along with some of the major support and resistance points I’ve identified you may like to take note of.

The technical indicators I’ve used are as follows:

  • Moving average on a weekly timeframe – 20-day (in dark green), 50-day (in light green), 100-day (in orange), 150-day (in yellow), and 200-day (in red)
  • Bollinger band on a weekly timeframe – both the upper and lower bands in light blue
  • MACD on a daily timeframe
  • Stochastic on a daily timeframe

…

Read More Read More

TECFAST – An Almost Guaranteed 80% Upside?(Guestpost)

TECFAST – An Almost Guaranteed 80% Upside?(Guestpost)

TECFAST (0084) : An Almost Guaranteed 80% Upside?

This post was originally posted here. The writer, Teoh Tian Heng is a veteran community member and blogger on InvestingNote, with a username known as @thteoh58.

 

Dear investors, if you are reading the article, that means that you surely are not settling with a mere 10% to 15% rate of return per annum for your investments. I mean, who does?

Anyway, the article today will show you a qualitative and quantitative study on the business of TECFAST as well as the finances, as to how this company could be almost guaranteed to deliver a MINIMAL of 60% upside.

Qualitative Studies

TECFAST (or the “Company”) had an elaborate plan as to what, and when to venture into the oil and gas business. Dated 6th November 2020, we noticed that there is an LOI between Fast Energy Sdn Bhd (“FESB”), a wholly owned subsidiary of TECFAST and Zillion Oil Timor LDA. This marks the very beginning of journey for TECFAST to enjoy the recovery of busy offshore activities as well as the recovering oil price.

However, the LOI does not show any materialized information. It was until 15th March 2021 that the Company starts to deliver on what they promised.

Dated 15th March 2021, the Company had entered into a supply agreement between FESB and Wise Marine Pte Ltd (“Wise Marine”) – one of the largest ship management services players in Singapore, with a total contract value of RM2,222,856,000.00. With this size of a contract, it is normal for investor to treat it as some “not realistic”. Hence, the reflect in share price upon the announcement.

A deeper study into a contract would note that FESB would supply up to 30,000 metric tonnes of low sulphur fuel oil, low sulphur marine gasoil and high sulphur fuel oil per month to Wise Marine. The marine gasoil or fuel oil are collectively known as Marine Gas Oil (“MGO”). MGO are mainly used to power offshore transportation vehicles, such as oil tank, vessels, bunker ship and so forth. It is also interesting to point out that whatever FESB was selling to Wise Marine are based on a certain premium on top of the costs, are more commonly known as the “Cost-Plus” basis. This does not mean that FESB will never suffer losses, but as long as MGO prices are stable or on an uptrend, TECFAST as the holding company, would be the beneficiary of it.

A reference on Singapore Mogas 95 Unleaded Futures could see that since July 2020, the prices of MGOs are increasing on a steadfast trend.

…

Read More Read More

Koda – Clear surge in furnishing spending trend(guestpost)

Koda – Clear surge in furnishing spending trend(guestpost)

Koda – Clear beneficiary of the surge in home furnishing spending trend (1 Jun 21)

This post was originally posted here. The writer, Ernest Lim is a veteran community member and blogger on InvestingNote, with a username known as @el15 and has 500+ followers.

Since 20 Aug 2020, Avarga has more than doubled from $0.146 to close $0.305 on 1 Jun 2021. Avarga’s strength is likely attributed to its 69.7% stake in Taiga (Taiga is Canada’s largest wholesale distributor of building materials, such as lumber, panels, doors, engineered wood, roofing and others). Taiga’s business has been flourishing due to the strength in home furnishings and the housing market in Canada and US.

By extension, Koda may be another proxy to benefit from the surge in home furnishing spending trend. It is noteworthy that Koda is an Original Design Manufacturer / Original Equipment Manufacturer to its customers in North America. In fact, customers in the North America region constitute approximately 55% of its FY20 revenue. Its forte is in home furniture, and it is possibly the largest dining room furniture exporter in Southeast Asia. Home furnishing seems to be in demand as consumers stay at home and have more disposable income to spend (rather than travel) to improve their homes.

In fact, Koda’s 1HFY21 revenue and net profit jump 16% to US$39.6m and US$4.8m respectively on good demand for furniture.

Given this promising backdrop, it may be timely to take a closer look into Koda. I have the privilege of meeting Mr Joshua Koh, CEO of Commune Lifestyle Pte Ltd and Mr Kenny Zhang, CFO of Koda (“Management”) for a 1-1 discussion over Koda / Commune’s operations and prospects via Zoom. The below is my personal interpretation of my discussion with Koda’s management and my own inferences from Koda’s announcements on SGX.

 Koda’s & Commune’s background

Koda was established in 1972 by Mr Koh Teng Kwee. It started by producing wooden TV and speaker cabinets. Since its inception, Koda has progressed from being an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to an Original Design Manufacturer (ODM). Its forte is in home furniture, and it is possibly the largest dining room furniture exporter in Southeast Asia.

Besides its ODM business, Koda established Commune Lifestyle Pte Ltd in 2011. This is their in-house brand and managed by the 3rd generation of the founding Koh family. Commune has presence in Singapore, Malaysia, China, Philippines, and Hong Kong. Readers can refer to the respective websites for more information on Koda (click HERE) and Commune (click HERE).

Koda has been listed on SGX since 18 Jan 2002.

 What is so interesting about Koda?

Outlook continues to be bright

Based on 1HFY21 results (financial year ends in June), management continues to see encouraging growth in their export orders and they expect the capacity utilisation rates for our key factories to remain consistently optimal. This is attributed to generally higher demand for furniture arising from work-from-home arrangements.

Their recent proposed acquisition of Land Use Right and a factory building in Long An Province, Vietnam (see announcement dated 25 Mar 2021) to expand their production capacity corroborates the positive momentum that they are seeing in their business.

Margins are likely to be steady amid strong demand

Notwithstanding the rise in costs from timber, fabric, metal frame, foam, and shipping etc, Koda believes that they should be able to maintain their current gross profit margins (“GPM”) of around 30 – 32%. This is because firstly it can pass on such costs to the customers amid strong demand. Secondly, their Commune business has GPM of around 50%. As this segment grows and becomes more significant, it may even be able to raise its overall GPM to above 30 – 32%.

…

Read More Read More

Future Insurance Policy Illustrated Investment Rate Reduced(guestpost)

Future Insurance Policy Illustrated Investment Rate Reduced(guestpost)

Future Insurance Policy Illustrated Investment Rate to be reduced to 4.25% and 3.00% from 4.75% and 3.25%.

This post was originally posted here. The writer, Kyith Ng is a veteran community member and blogger on InvestingNote, with a username known as @kyith and has 1,000+ followers.

Last week, we received an announcement that with effect from 1st July 2021, the policy illustrated investment rate (PIRR) will be lowered from 4.7% to 4.25% and 3.25% to 3.00% respectively.

What is Your Policy’s Illustrated Investment Rate (PIRR)?

Some of your insurance policies accumulate cash values. You contribute additional capital, on top of insurance charges to it.

The insurance companies will take your capital and invest in a participating fund. You can see this partipating fund as a pool of stocks, bonds, cash, property investments managed by a group of managers, much like your unit trust, hedge fund with a certain mandate.

 The performance of this participating fund’s return determines how much cash value is accumulated.

Typically, endowment plans, limited whole life plans are the kind of policies whose cash value is tied to the performance of the participating fund.

Term plans do not accumulate values so they are not impacted by this illustrated investment rate in any way. Investment-linked policies (ILP) performance is tied to the underlying unitt trust chosen and therefore are not affected by this. Universal life policy returns are typically determined by crediting rate or a hybrid benchmark for those indexed link, so they are less affected by this as well.

The following extracts are taken from a policy’s benefits illustration:

You can see that there are two investment rate of return provided to illustrate to you how much value your policy will accumulate in due time.

One is a optimistic rate (4.75% a year) the other is conservative (3.25% a year)

This is for illustrative purpose. It does not mean that the eventual investment return will fall between 3.25% and 4.75%.

 Here are the actual historical investment return of different insurance companies:

You will notice that year to year, the investment return varies.

…

Read More Read More

Learning to Die with Zero. The Last Check Must Bounce (guestpost)

Learning to Die with Zero. The Last Check Must Bounce (guestpost)

My friend Christopher Ng recommended to his reader to read this book by Bill Perkins called Die with Zero.

I do not know whether it is a good book or not but I think it might be thought provoking enough for me to read it.

Die with Zero sought to answer a core question we all seek:

What’s the best way to allocate our life energy before we die?

This post was originally posted here. The writer, Kyith Ng is a veteran community member and blogger on InvestingNote, with a username known as @kyith and has 1,000+ followers.

When Bill released this book, I also heard many interviews that he did to promote his book. This book… might be the book to help re-calibrate my thinking. After doing so much research on how much a person need to accumulate so that they won’t run out of money in retirement, we need a book to teach us not to spend all our time accumulating.

Is this a good book? Personally, I find it hard to connect with.

In this article, I list out some of the notable takeaways from Bill Perkins.

Consumption Smoothing

The first concept that Bill explained was consumption smoothing. Bill took a page out of a time when he started working not too long ago. Back then, he was very thrifty and extremely proud about it.

However his boss, who is a partner at the company he worked for was astonished he was saving so much.

 “Are you a f***ing idiot? To save that money?”

It was a slap across Bill’s face.

 His boss Joe Farrel said: “You came here to make millions, ” he said. “Your earning power is going to happen! Do you think you’ll only make 18 thousand a year for the rest of your life?”

In his boss’s mind, Bill would eventually made much more than that.

He could certainly spend today and not save this sum of money.

It was a life-changing moment for Bill as it cracked his head open to new ideas about how to balance his earnings and spending.

If we look at our income chart over the years, it should be upward sloping. Due to our experience over time, we should earn more.

If we know that, we should be able to spend a greater percentage of our income today because eventually, we will make more and our savings rate will go down, but the savings in the future will make up for the higher consumption today.

We will basically transfer money from years of abundance into the leaner years.

What is difficult to connect for a lot of people is how much higher would your salary be in the future?

To use myself as an example, some of my peers are currently director of security while others are still a team lead in a small company.

If we smoothed out our income, the director of security and the team lead would be totally different.

I get the idea but I think whether it is sensible for us to do that or not is subjective.

Investing in Experiences

Your life is the sum of your experiences. …

Read More Read More

Are Old Economy Stocks Back In Favour?

Are Old Economy Stocks Back In Favour?

Tech stocks have been on the selldown for weeks across different markets. From Tesla, Alibaba to Tencent and Meituan, none of these stocks were spared as most were down by at least 20% from the highs in the beginning of this year. This has caused the global economy to be stirred up.

However, there has been a resurgence in the old economy. For example, banks stocks like JP Morgan, Hang Seng Bank, DBS and HSBC have seeing a strong uptrend of more than 10% over the same time period. For example, the MSCI China banks index has outperformed the MSCI China index by 25%-pts over the last two months, slowly but surely boosting older economy and markets.

banks-edm

What are these trends telling us? What conclusions can we draw? What are the key things investors should be looking for?

As global vaccines are being rolled out, the possibility of a speedy recovery of the global economy and life returning to ‘normal’ increased. This has stirred up interest in the long-ignored value stocks. Hence, investments have started to rotate from the new economy to the old economy.
investor-thinking
Get deep insights on what exactly is happening to the markets right now from two of our distinguished guest speakers. Chi-man Wong is the Head of Research at China Galaxy International (CGI). He focuses on strategy research and covers the building materials and brokerage sectors. Industry Experience: He has 18 years of experience in the equity research industry. Prior to joining CGI in 2012, he worked as an analyst in both Chinese and foreign investment banks, including Phillip Securities, Everbright Securities, and Piper Jaffray Asia.

Adrian Chew is the Vice President, Sales and Product Strategy (S.E.A) at CSOP. At CSOP Asset Management, Adrian oversees ETF investment solutions for Brokers, Wealth Managers, and Family Offices in Singapore. Adrian is also part of a team responsible for developing sales strategy and strategic partnerships with institutions in South East Asia. Prior to joining CSOP Asset Management, he worked for RHB Asset Management where he was a Business Development Manager for mass and affluent Investors, Wealth Managers, and Intermediaries.

Register for this exclusive LIVE webinar now: 

button_register-here

 

 

InvestingNote is the first and largest social network for investors in Singapore. Find out more about us here.

Download our free app here:

apple android

Also, join our telegram channel here: t.me/investingnoteofficial

We’re here to keep you in touch with the latest investing & stock-related news, happenings, and updates!

Patience Is Required For Alibaba And JD.com (guestpost)

Patience Is Required For Alibaba And JD.com (guestpost)

This post was originally posted here. The writer, Brian Halim is a veteran community member and blogger on InvestingNote, with a username known as @3Fs and has 2,000+ followers.

I thought I’ll pen down my thoughts after receiving a number of emails this week from various sources asking for guidance on two big China cap names – Alibaba and JD.com – both of which have seen shares plummeting each day for the past few consecutive weeks.

Many readers would also know that I own Alibaba shares from my last monthly update and have also recently written a piece on JD analysis so it’s something which I’ll walk the talk.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE: Baba)

alibaba-image-blog

Let’s start with Baba first.

This is probably the most hated large cap company right now in the entire planet.

The entire saga started when the intention to list Ant IPO was shelved and the State Administration for Market Regulators went to investigate the entire company’s holding structure.

Since then, the State of Administration has concluded by fining the company US$2.8billion – which the company chose to take in the Q4 FY2021 report announced last night.

The entire saga has shed the company 37% (more than 1/3) of its market cap from the peak – which in my opinion is a bit overdone. The RSI indicator confirmed the same by showing that the counter is currently in oversold territory.

If we look at the results announced yesterday, total revenue for the quarter was RMB 717 billion, an increase of 41% year on year.

The growth was driven by robust revenue growth of the China commerce retail business (Taobao, Tmall) and the continued growth of its cloud computing business.

Total adjusted EBITDA was RMB 170 billion, which is an increase of 24% year on year. There was the one-off adjustment from the anti-monopoly fine which was taken in the quarter, so it pushed the net comprehensive income for the quarter to negative loss territory.

Cash position remains solid at RMB 479 million with free cash flow coming in strongly at 32% to RMB 173 million.

During the conference call held yesterday, management has reiterated its intention to continue investing in R&D and also new seed of businesses such as Taobao Deals (which aims for the lowest of the market segment tiers), Taobao Grocery, Freshippo supermarket (which is the community marketplace business) and new features on the core platform such as Taobao Live and short-form video. The company is also enhancing its logistics arms, CaiNiao to give its competitors such as JD a good run for their money.

…

Read More Read More

Upcoming LIVE Webinar: Are Old Economy Stocks Back In Favour?

Upcoming LIVE Webinar: Are Old Economy Stocks Back In Favour?

As global vaccines are being rolled out, the possibility of a speedy recovery of the global economy and life returning to ‘normal’ increased. This has stirred up interest in the long-ignored value stocks. Hence, investments have started to rotate from the new economy to the old economy. For example, the MSCI China banks index has outperformed the MSCI China index by 25%-pts over the last two months.

However around Asia, there is a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, are we really out of the woods?
What are the bright spots and potential dark ones investors should look at and avoid on the back of the vaccine hope?

Join us for this exclusive LIVE webinar happening on 25th May, 8 – 9 PM.

csop-webinar-old-econ
This time, we have 2 distinguished guests:

Chi-man Wong is the Head of Research at China Galaxy International (CGI). He focuses on strategy research and covers the building materials and brokerage sectors.Industry Experience: He has 18 years of experience in the equity research industry. Prior to joining CGI in 2012, he worked as an analyst in both Chinese and foreign investment banks, including Phillip Securities,Everbright Securities, and Piper Jaffray Asia.

Adrian Chew is the Vice President, Sales and Product Strategy (S.E.A) at CSOP. At CSOP Asset Management, Adrian oversees ETF investment solutions for Brokers, Wealth Managers, and Family Offices in Singapore. Adrian is also part of a team responsible for developing sales strategy and strategic partnerships with institutions in South East Asia. Prior to joining CSOP Asset Management, he worked for RHB Asset Management where he was a Business Development Manager for mass and affluent Investors, Wealth Managers, and Intermediaries. Before that, Adrian was working for Phillip Securities and CGS-CIMB Securities in various roles, including equity advisory sales and trading, Business and Product Development.

Register now!

button_register-here

 

 

InvestingNote is the first and largest social network for investors in Singapore. Find out more about us here.

Download our free app here:

apple android

Also, join our telegram channel here: t.me/investingnoteofficial

We’re here to keep you in touch with the latest investing & stock-related news, happenings, and updates!

EC World REIT’s Q1 FY2021 Results (guestpost)

EC World REIT’s Q1 FY2021 Results (guestpost)

This post was originally posted here. The writer, Lim Jun Yuan is a veteran community member and blogger on InvestingNote, with a username known as @ljunyuan and has close to 2,000 followers.

China-based logistics REIT, EC World REIT (SGX:BWCU) released its financial results for the first quarter of the financial year 2021 ended 31 March 2021 after market hours yesterday (11 May 2021.)

The REIT is one of the few that has continued to report its full financial results, along with payout a distribution to its unitholders on a quarterly basis – both of which are something I appreciate as a unitholder.

In this post, you will find key highlights about the logistics REIT’s latest financial results, debt and portfolio occupancy profile, and distribution payouts, along with my personal thoughts to share.

Let’s begin…

Financial Results (Q1 FY2020 vs. Q1 FY2021)

Q1 FY2020 Q1 FY2021 % Variance
Gross Revenue
(S$’mil)		 $23.5m $30.8m +30.9%
Property Operating
Expenses (S$’mil)		 $2.4m $3.1m +30.3%
Net Property
Income (S$’mil)		 $21.1m $27.7m +30.9%
Distributable
Income to
Unitholders (S$’mil)		 $9.3m $12.4m +32.9%

From the table above, you can tell that the REIT’s latest quarter results was an improved one across the board.

The improvements in its gross revenue and net property income can be attributed to the absence of rental rebates given out to tenants to help them mitigate the negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in the same time period last year, along with the Chinese Renminbi strengthening by 3.5%.

In-line with the improvements in its gross revenue and net property income, the REIT’s distributable income to unitholders also increased by a similar percentage.

Debt Profile (Q4 FY2020 vs. Q1 FY2021)

Next, let us take a look at the REIT’s latest debt profile (recorded for the first quarter of FY2021 ended 31 March 2021), compared against that recorded in the previous quarter three months ago (i.e. Q4 FY2020 ended 31 December 2020) to find out whether it has improved, remained consistent, or deteriorated:

Q4 FY2020 Q1 FY2021
Aggregate Leverage
(%)		 38.1% 38.3%
Interest Coverage
Ratio (times)		 2.62x 2.79x
Average Term to
Debt Maturity (years)		 1.6 years 1.4 years
Average Cost of
Debt (%)		 4.2% 4.1%

My Observations: Personally, I felt that the REIT’s debt profile for the current quarter under review, compared to the previous quarter 3 months ago, was a mixed bag – first, the positives (in my opinion): a slight decrease in its average cost of debt, along with its interest coverage increasing slightly; the negatives: its aggregate leverage edging up slightly, along with its average term to debt maturity (which is now at 1.4 years, from 1.6 years in the previous quarter.) …

Read More Read More