Three Years of Absence and Fifteen Minutes of Rantings

This afternoon I suddenly felt like coming to visit my blog set up more than 10 years ago, I used to post articles quite regularly but have stopped since sometime in 2015. I returned to look at it in 2016 and since then have not returned till today May 03 2019. In fact I have forgotten my password and had tried different combination before I finally managed to crack it.

Many things have happened over the three year-period. In fact many things have changed in the world since then. America has a new strange self-absorbed president, the longest reigning monarch in the world had died, Prince Harry of UK had married and most importantly Malaysia had managed to change the more than 60-year-old government that has become terribly corrupt in the last five to eight years. Currently the ex-Prime Minister is in court facing corruption charges. Under his watch from 2010 to 2018, he was dubbed as the biggest kleptocrat in the world. In fact the ex US attorney,Jeff Sessions in 2016 had accused Malaysia as practicing kleptocracy at its worst. Malaysians were ashamed when they travelled overseas but now they can hold their head high when they were able to topple the sick government at the General Election on 9 May 2018.

I remember feeling a sense of relief when the new government headed by a 92-year-old ex-Prime Minister assumed power and is set to put the country on the right footing by first fighting corruption which has become widespread in the country. If there is one thing that I am allergic about is corruption. Virtually every government ministries and departments is involved in corruption. Since the change of government, almost everyday the news of corruption are reported in the various media.. Today we know why the scourge has been rampant. For a start the leader of the past government is highly corrupt, using public money to fund his lifestyle and that of his family, friends and cronies. His behaviour is despicable to say the least. May he be severely punished for his greed and abuse of power. May we never see the likes of him ever again.

Unwanted ads in my blog.

I have not blogged for a long time and when I returned to my blog this morning I noticed there were many unwanted and dare I say "rather salacious" ads in my blog placed robotically by adsense. Believe me, I joined adsense for the fun of it and have not even checked how much my blog has made over the years, heck I even don't know my adsense account number! In the past I made efforts of setting conditions that the ads should not have unsavoury contents. It worked for some time but since I have not been monitoring, they have come back again. I apologise to my visitors who are not happy with this kind of ads. Please just ignore them.

What About Hedge Fund?

I have heard and read generally about hedge fund which is managed by companies whose managers are well versed in rather complicated investing strategies and instruments. This kind of investing was rather "hush-hush" in that only a few people in your circle of friends would know about it and would persuade you to go into it by telling how much money they have made over the period they have been investing. And one has to have a rather large sum to go into this investment which is in US dollars.

A close relative had made money in hedge fund investing since the early 90s and had encouraged me to go into it. Apparently certain hedge fund had made 64000% returns for their investors from 1995 to 2011. Many rich people have become richer. Despite the high risks like political turmoils and financial volatility, the funds were performing brilliantly.

In 2008 I foolishly invested in a structured fund (capital-protected) for a three-year maturity period and by the end of it in 2011, I received zero returns on my investment. I was very upset as had I put the money in an ASNB fund I would have been able to enjoy reasonably good returns during the period. I calculated my losses regretfully. Then I took a risk of investing in a hedge fund based then in Hong Kong. By 2014 I recouped my losses on the blinking structured fund  along with a decent gain and decided to exit as the fund started to charge 20% on redemption. But the ride was breathless and being paid in US dollars was exhilarating because you then get at least three times the returns calculated in Ringgit.

The hedge fund manager who has more than 20 years' experience has since stopped the fund and presently embarked on Money Markets with different investing strategies but I have had enough of the high returns and would rather put my fund locally. The hotshot manager talked about the different scenarios resulting from more stringent regulations following the GFC in 2008 and it seemed these new ballgames have gradually affected the previous high returns. His hedge fund is not the only one to call it a day, please refer to the source below and read all about the current problems of investing in hedge fund when economic and financial data are no longer reliable hence affecting market predictions.

Credit: Stockman @contra corner

This is the highly successful hedge fund I was talking about earlier, Martin Taylor's Nevsky Capital emerging-markets fund. The days of high returns are over.

Needless to say the choice of investment products have a lot to do with one's method of investing. If you have a wealth advisor, you could well go into greater diversification but some of us would feel uncomfortable with such an arrangement and would prefer to do our own thing. On that note, I am currently more into Unit Trust Funds while waiting for the headwind to blow over...

Current investing: My balancing act

As the stock market has been suffering due to the slowdown in global economic outlook triggered by various factors among which is China's economic issues and low commodity prices, it has not been an easy time for investors.

I have pared down my stocks to four from 13 in the heyday before the global financial crisis in 2008. I am more into defensive stocks like telcos but the foreign capital flight to the tune of about RM19b in 2015 had also affected the performance of these. At the moment I am still holding on to MAXIS and TM which have been with me for more than five years. After some calculations, I have decided that the time has come for me to let go of them as soon as the prices are right for me.

I have a plantation stock acquired through an IPO (BPlant) which unfortunately has not done that well ( nevertheless it gives a regular dividend of  5 sen per unit ). And of course my disaster of the "century", the acquisition of Icon Offshore an oil and gas stock which has come tumbling down and down and downhill from 1.90. Gees, the cheek of me.... I bought an equal number of units at 45 sen in June last year hoping to dollar average as the price was low giler (crazy) but the critter even went down further to 25 sen! Would you believe it! At present it's 41 sen. Though my hefty loss is compensated by about 50% from my telcos stocks' gain, the regret of going for an oil and gas stock at the end of the industry's cycle is enormous. The massive reduction of the price of oil from US150 to below US50 per barrel in the space of less than two years had more or less sealed my fate.

Current investing is like a sailing ship weathering a storm
(Net image)

My AMB unit trusts similarly are not performing as they are closely linked to the local equity market. From a high of 60  and 56 sen per unit in 2014 for Ethical and Value trust fund respectively to below 40 sen in December last year. You can just imagine the losses that are incurred by investors like me . I have targeted both funds for 4-5 years so I have another 2 years to see through their performance. In the meantime I bought another Unit Trust sold by HSBC, Eastspring Investment Equity Income Fund simply because I wanted to ensure my deposits in the bank complies with the amount required to enjoy my current  banking privileges as the bank interest rate is low at about 3% I tend to withdraw my money and put it somewhere else. I chose the Unit Trust after studying its prospectus and you should do the same if you want to invest in any of these trust funds.

So let's hope 2016 would be better than 2015 though I doubt Malaysian political scenario will change much and this situation has definitely affected my fun in investing.

Happy New Year 2016

I also like to share this greeting from a dear friend of mine in Australia that I like very much. Indeed we all need this flight.

The Boarding of Flight 2016 has been announced.....

Your luggage should only contain the best souvenirs from 2015

The bad & sad moments should be left behind.

The duration of the flight will be 12 months.

The next stop-overs will be :

Health, Love, Joy, Harmony, Well-being & Peace.

The Captain offers you the following menu 

which will be served during the flight :

A Cocktail of Friendship

A Supreme Dose of Good Health

Au Gratin of Prosperity

A Bowl of Excellent News

A Salad of Success

A Cake of Happiness

All accompanied

by bursts of laughter

 Wishing You & Yours 

An enjoyable trip

On board Flight 2016

May this be

a Joyous & Super Healthy New Year!!!

I must admit that since I got hold of an iPad, I have  not been  been using my computer as much but I always remember my blog visitors and am now making an effort to be here today to wish you all a belated Happy New Year 2016. I have also missed wishing some of you a Merry Christmas 2015. However believe you me I did think of you all on the day and quietly wishing you all joy of family reunion and the best in your endeavours.

Happy Diwali

HAPPY DIWALI

To All My Blog Visitors Celebrating 

This Festival of Lights

TM and MAXIS as defensive stocks in my Portfolios.

I am back from the cold. I must say being away for almost six months has given me a sense of control over my activities including blogging. As the market environment deteriorated over those months so too my portfolio which I am managing myself.

The current market turmoil due to both external and internal factors has a great impact on wealth creation. Despite earlier knowledge that the oil and gas industry is cyclical, I fail to clear my position on a related stock on time and my loss on that is particularly staggering. I also have a plantation stock which is still giving a tiny dividend regularly but the share value has depreciated as well. And there is the stock that I bought based on its rapid rise in price only to be followed by its rapid decline. Well, these are my losing stocks which I will hold till better times come.

I am glad though I did not buy those stocks loved by foreigners like AirAsia which lost rather heavily when the capital flight out of the country started and remains so to date. I have so far, on paper, lost about 16% of my capital investment but it could have been higher if not for my two defensive stocks, MAXIS and TM. These two are quite resilient in times like this. It's so fortunate that I decided to participate in TM's dividend reinvestment scheme as I could acquire the shares at a discount and without extra charges. These two stocks have mitigated my severe paper loss on my three other stocks. TM's dividend is at 9.3 sen per unit and that of Maxis's at 5 sen per unit down by 3 sen and all due in two weeks' time. In the past the annual dividend rate for TM was 22 sen per unit and that of Maxis was 40 sen per unit.

My regret is for disposing my Axiata and IHH stocks so soon after making some capital gains. I would not have lost so muchon paper had I kept these two as they are in the defensive category in times of market depression. But as they say market will always rise after a decline and it's not a matter of if. All you need to do is to sit it out and monitor the economic and financial data of relevant countries such as the US and China, the oil and commodities' prices and of course the domestic factors which would have some impact on the Ringgit and our stock market due to bad investors' sentiment. In addition, I am hoping the Fed doesn't raise US interest rates too fast as our currency would further drop precipitously.

My unit trusts, the fixed price ones are fine albeit their dividends have lower purchasing power of imported items. The variably priced unit trusts are the ones suffering due to market's tumbling.

I am looking forward to receiving dividend for my AS1M on 01 October and thinking of investing it in AMB value trust whose price is currently low at 34 sen per unit. Life continues but investing strategies need to be changed to adjust to present market downfall.
.