Review of InvestingNote

Was having my shower just now and my thoughts suddenly veered towards the investment journey I have taken so far.

It all started in 1996, 97. I was like a headless fly buying stocks based on volume and monitoring prices on the teletext. Made some money and after that I took a rather long hiatus before restarting my investment journey some years back.

Since restarted I frequent the Stocks, Shares and Indices (SSI) forum in HWZ.

I remember there was once I created a thread about what is causing the price of a stock to move and I suggested could one of the factors be algorithm trading.

Then I kena 'suanned' by this kid (I call him kid because he is in university and relative to my age) who asked me whether the price of pork in markets is controlled by algorithm also.

That was some unconstructive exchange of views in my opinion.

Anyway I still browse the forum for information and the diverse views.

But the title of this post is about my review of InvestingNote. How does that link up?

I was thinking I have written reviews of companies and my portfolio. So I thought why not write a quick personal review on InvestingNote, which is one of the platforms I frequent daily.

InvestingNote is now one of my daily must-go apps for keeping up with the news and on-goings in the financial world.

I enjoy the diverse views and news report shared among the members unselfishly.

Members are what make a forum.

People like Arsenal, Leslie_Shaffer, Hayashi8, SGNews, etc share news reports everyday.

People like Spinning_Top, uncle178, Grandpa Lemon, Sporeshare, opy, Hachiko, Master_GongJiaowei, CoryLogics, lynlynnakamori, jebus, luxcan, layers are some whose posts I enjoyed.

There are many more. I can't state all.

Functionality-wise, I find the app pretty intuitive. It is easy to toggle around. User experience is great.

Reading the posts, writing one, and making an estimate is very easy. If one can use Facebook and online forums, one would have no problem using InvestingNote.

Number and type of functions at this point of writing is fine in my opinion.

All in all it's a good job done by the InvestingNote team. I hope they can ride on the good work so far, continue to innovate and most important keep it free for members to interact.

Lastly I remember in the early days we were able to use our points to redeem rewards. Is that function still available?

Did not really follow this rewards thingy so any enlightenment would be appreciated. Haha.

P.s. This is neither a sponsored post nor a plp post hor..

Wow can't believe I took an hour to write this post..

Cheers and good night everyone.

Taking Stock of 2018

Leaving 2018 and entering 2019, time for a quick roundup of my 2018 and my little wishes for the new year ahead.

Work

This year is my company's 2nd year of operation. 

Results so far are a tremendous improvement over last year in terms of revenue, profits and scale of projects secured.

Although revenue is still about $75,000 shy of the target I set for myself, I have two more months to 'chiong' before end of my financial year. Hopefully I can close the FY even more beautifully.

In terms of business offerings, I have added the Design, Installation and Maintenance of Solar Photovoltaic (PV) system to my products and services recently.

This is actually synergistic to the other portion of my business which is environmental engineering, particularly in pollution control systems.

As I mentioned before, one of my investment guidelines is to ride along with the macro trend.

I believe Solar PV system is the way to move forward especially in a country like Singapore. Hence I made a deliberate effort to take up a course in this field and graduated from it recently.

This also means I have achieved my aim of adding a new capability to the company by this year.

Moving forward, my focus continues to be growing the business and if possible purchase an office space as part of my recurring income plan.

Other Incomes

Previously I have set a target of achieving S$7,832.88 for my side and passive incomes in 2018.

Actual passive income achieved for 2018: S$6,069.08

Actual side income achieved for 2018: S$3,042.86

Result achieved for 2018: S$9,111.94 (Target met)

For 2019 I am going to target another 20% growth in my dividend income as I will probably be drawing down a portion of my portfolio for some expenses.

For the side income in 2019, there is actually a much higher room for growth. I am in the midst of discussing a venture which if materialised, will contribute a significant amount to this category.

However I do not want to count my chickens before they hatch. Hence targets for 2019...

Targeted passive income for 2019: S$7,200

Targeted side income for 2019: S$3,000

Equities and REITs

My holdings as of 31/12/2018:

With the exception of M1, all the counters in my portfolio closed at a lower price this year end compared to last's.

In 2018, I've added another 5,000 shares of CapitaLand, added another 4,000 shares of Netlink Trust and bought 4,000 shares of Mapletree NAC Trust. Total capital injection is $25,820.

Excluding the capital injection, my portfolio value returned -13.7% compared to last year. A loss of more than $15k.

I really ought to read more, learn more and relook into my investment style especially in the technical analysis to time my entries better.

What a humbling experience. It shows how much of a fool I am in the stock market.

In summary,

1) Yield of Portfolio 2018: 4.30%

2) Cumulative Yield of Portfolio: 8.10%

Similarly, wifey's portfolio also dropped in value ($41,431.98) compared to last year ($41,919.78) if capital injection is excluded.

 

Personal

Baby M who arrived on Father's day 2018, never fails to bring a smile to our face. She is making lots of funny sounds and lots of movement nowadays.

Really a different kind of joy.

Our biggest wish is for her to grow up happily and healthily.

I always believe we should not forget to help others if we can.

Though my investment portfolio performed less than admirably, I donated $550 to a selection of charities in 2018. This is on top of my monthly Giro donations to Community Chest and NKF.

Thanks to giving.sg, it is so convenient nowadays to make donations and volunteering.

Last but not least, I wish everyone a happy new year ahead. Good health and good wealth!

How to Save 50% On Your Meal and Get a $5 Voucher at the Same Time

So yesterday wifey and I went to Suntec City with baby M to attend an event. And on the way there we were thinking what to have for our late lunch.

Suddenly I had an epiphany. I have downloaded an app called eatigo for more than a year but have not used it so far.

So I decided to give it a try and search for some ideas for our lunch place.

eatigo is basically an app to make reservation for dining. The app itself is pretty intuitive and there are various criterias for you to base your search on.

Our search for Suntec City turned up a number of choices. Since we do not have any particular craving, we made a reservation with the eatery that provides the most discount. In this case, a whooping 50% discount excluding drinks.

The whole process of reservation took less than a minute.

Now the amount of discount depends on the timing. In our case since it was already 2.30 pm I guess it's the off peak hour hence the 50% off.

Here's the dessert picture of our lunch. The main course is already in my tummy before I realised at least a photo should be taken.

Ok long story short. This is how you get the $5 voucher.

You got to be a first time user of eatigo.

Download the app and register using my referral code: eatiewft

Alternatively, you can register via my link at http://refer.eatigo.com/eatiewft-1v9

After that you can proceed to make your first reservation with an eatery of your choice.

Once you have fulfilled your reservation, 100 points will be credited to your eatigo account.

This 100 points is equivalent to a $10 eatigo voucher, a $5 NTUC voucher or a $5 Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf card.

There are other stuffs that can be exchanged with higher no. of points too. You can check it out in the app.

In all honesty, using the above referral code or link will enable me to earn 100 points too.

Enjoy.

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post and I am not related to eatigo. This is purely a post to share some good stuff. 

Recent Transactions & Dividends Update

Dividends Update

Dividends received to date: $5,602.80

Coming dividends: $466.28

From: MNACT, Suntec REIT and Netlink Trust

Total for the year: $6,069.08.

Target hit.

Recent Transactions

Purchased my maiden lots of Mapletree NAC Trust @ $1.11 during the recent bearish trends in the market.

Ever since they made the foray into Japan, I began to take a deeper look into MNACT because I like the geographical diversification taken by the management.

Have been monitoring MNACT for awhile since and when it hit my TP I pressed the trigger.

This is my second purchase of the Mapletree family. The first being Mapletree Logistics Trust.

Why MNACT?

Financials:

Gross revenue, NPI, distributable income and DPU all increased for the first half of this FY.

Gearing is a tad too high for my liking at 39% though it's still below the 45% regulatory limit.

Other Metrics:

Like the fact that 78% of the debt is tied to fixed interest cost. Assuring in the rising interest rates environment.

Also like the reduced forex risk with 80% of FY18/19 distributable income hedged into SGD. Prudent management.

Valuation:

My purchased price is well below the NAV of $1.325.

One of MNACT directors recently bought 200,000 of its shares at $1.12. Since I'm buying at a cheaper price I would like to think this is a price with enough safety margin.

Outlook:

With the exception of Gateway Plaza (98.7%), all other properties in the portfolio enjoy 100% occupancy. Average portfolio WALE of 3 years ensures continuity for the near future.

And with Festival Walk, Gateway Plaza and Sandhill Plaza all contributed higher average rental rates for the first half of the year, it seems that there is no lack of suitors for MNACT's mix of retail and office spaces.

I especially like the fact that GP and SP are located in the tier 1 cities of Beijing and Shanghai.

Finally, contribution from the newly acquired Japanese properties should provide the impetus for the trend of increasing incomes and DPU to continue.

A well-managed REIT with prudent management and >6% yield. Great.

Added Netlink Trust @ $0.77 to my existing IPO holdings. Waited for its XD before buying as I reckoned it should fall further below NAV levels.

My holding price averaged to $0.79 with this tranche. Close to its NAV of $0.792 as of 30 Sept 2018.

Reasons for buying Netlink Trust have been covered in previous post and those reasons have not changed.

I like this counter for its stable and recurring income.

Financials:

Revenue, EBITDA and profit after tax are higher than projection for H1 FY19.

Can't find the gearing in the financial statements so I did a quick calculation using their loans and net assets. The gearing stands at 20.5%.

Annualised DPU of $0.0488 is higher than the $0.0464 projection and yields 6.18% against my cost.

Valuation:

Purchased price is a slight discount to book.

Outlook:

Netlink Trust maintains a strong economic moat as the dominant player in the field of fibre cable laying and associated installation.

In the short to mid term, Starhub's cessation of its cable network and transition of its broadband customers to fibre network by July 2019 provides likely upside.

In the mid to long term, the increasing residential units will continue to spearhead Netlink Trust as the residential connection segment contributes ~60% of its topline.

The low gearing puts the company in good stead if they wish to expand their business beyond the core offerings, though that will require shareholders approval.

If there is one worry it will be a reduction in the regulated returns during the next review period after Dec 2022.

Lower installation revenues highlighted in the financial report ought to be noted for next half (2H FY19) monitoring as well.

Meanwhile let's collect the >6% yield per annum first.

Review of CapitaLand 3Q18 Results

CapitaLand has just released its 3Q18 results this morning.

All in all it is a good set of numbers as expected.

PATMI increased by 13.6% to $362.2 M.

Due to higher operating PATMI and assets recycling.

Operating PATMI increased by 13.3% to $233.7 M.

Due to contributions from newly acquired and opened investment properties.

EBIT increased 0.2% to $796.3 M.

Due to recurring income from investment properties and contributions from development projects, fair value uplift and portfolio gains from divestments.

Topline for the quarter fell 16.9% to $1.26 B.

Due to lower contributions from development projects in China and Singapore, partially mitigated by higher rental revenue from newly acquired and opened properties as well as consolidation of revenue from three entities.

$4.0 B of assets are divested YTD and recycled into $6.1 B of new investments including higher yielding assets that are immediately incoming producing.

Gearing stands at 0.51x (2018 YTD)

Notable Points

1) RMB6.36 B and more than S$71.2 M of sales will be recognised in 4Q18 from China and Vietnam markets.

2) CapitaLand / GIC JV's acquisition of Shanghai's tallest twin towers along the north bund. This iconic landmark will be CapitaLand's 3rd Raffles City in Shanghai and 10th globally.

Property construction is expected to be completed by next June.

3) There is 44% drop in portfolio gains comparing YoY. I need to spend some time to further understand this. Nonetheless is still a gain not a loss.

Thoughts

No matter how I look this is a decent set of results from CapitaLand. However it does not seems to provide the catalyst for the uplift of its share price. Same as with previous cases.

In fact CapitaLand was among the top institutional selling last week.

Perhaps the big boys deemed this to be not good enough. Or perhaps there is a deliberate attempt to push down the share price.

My feel is that CapitaLand is always on the radar of the institutional players and therefore will always be subject to the effects of the big boys trade.

With a slew of developments in the pipeline (e.g. new acquisitions, malls management, coliving, coworking, dormitories, etc) the outlook for CapitaLand is exciting to look forward to.

At this point of writing, CapitaLand is trading at an attractive level. Will continue to add.

Why I Feel M1 is a Hidden Dragon

Recently there are a number of happenings surrounding M1.

Firstly is the offer from Konnectivity which everybody would have heard of by now.

And earlier this week it was announced that CEO Karen Kooi will be stepping down on 6th Dec.

It is my belief that the first point stated above is related to what I am going to write as follows.

TL:DR version.

M1's involvement in smart metering will be the next driver for its business.

Previously I have written about how I feel about the potential of M1's new acquisitions and initiatives including the move towards IoT.

Amongst IoT, I personally believe that smart metering will play a major role in the transformation of our country.

With M1's involvement in the smart metering environment, probably Keppel and SPH know how 'big' is the potential (and value) and how much it will benefit M1 in the coming future.

Hence the offer for buyout.

As it stands currently the biggest issues that Singapore face is water and power.

With the trend towards NEWater and desalination both of which requires tremendous amount of power, the water issue is essentially a power issue as well.

Furthermore with the recent power outage which affected more than 140,000 consumers in many parts of Singapore on the night of 18 Sept 18, it is apparent that certain elements of our power generation is not equipped to cope with sudden peak demands.

This is one of the areas where smart metering can comes into play.

What does a smart meter do?

1) A smart meter measures and records energy usage in short intervals.

2) It provides two way communication at the meter. Energy usage is communicated in real time allowing the utilities to be remotely monitored.

3) It can facilitate better electricity supply, better in-home data and better load programs.

4) Remote load control. A smart meter can be programmed so that high usage equipment can be turned on and off based on time or price or other parameters through the communications.

5) Exported power generation can be measured. This is useful with the trend towards solar energy generation in Singapore.

6) Outage detection. Utilities service providers can remotely check the status of any meter.

7) Meter tamper detection. A smart meter can also be monitored to see if it has been accessed without authority.

8) Remote time synchronisation. A smart meter's internal clock can be kept accurate without site visits.

9) Any events e.g. voltage spikes, voltage drops, outages, etc can be recorded by the meter.

Referring to points 1 - 4 above. Imagine if Singapore is already a smart grid nation, the outage on 18 Sept would likely have been prevented or at least rectified more quickly.

Furthermore imagine the man-hours saved! The SP services guys will not need to check the meters outside your house every other month.

How does it helps to improve our national electricity market?

As Singapore moves from centralised power generation towards integration with distributed generation, smart grids with smart metering may be the solution to many problems currently faced.

Firstly the reliability of the grid is always a great concern. Smart grids make troubleshooting grids much easier as information flows digitally from all areas of the grid making it easy to determine the problem source.

Secondly our electricity demand has been increasing and generators may struggle to supply the power required during periods of peak demand. Smart grids with demand side management (DSM) can ease the pressure on the supply by giving consumers incentives to lower their energy consumption and use electricity more efficiently during peak periods.

Thirdly the increased use of distributed generation (particularly from renewable energy sources) poses new problems for utilities companies who must integrate this new source into the grid. Smart grids have the capacity to integrate multiple power flows hence allowing for better integration of these technologies through improved communication.

M1's move into the smart metering segment means that it is directly involved in the transformation of our national electricity market which may well proved to be the game changer or at least a new major driver for M1 business.

My Solo Attempt at Baby Sitting

Since wifey and I are both working, usually we will bring our baby (baby M) to my MIL's place on Sunday night and bring her back on Friday night.

However as the Tuesday that just went by was a public holiday, I decided to leave the baby at home on Sunday which means I will be taking care of her alone on Monday as wifey will be working.

Now this is not a post to brag but I felt compelled to pen this experience down as I really enjoyed it.

I woke up baby M around 8.30 am to bathe her, change her diapers and feed her.

Surprisingly the feeding went well and she finished her milk in one go.

Did the customary burping and off to sleep again for baby M.

After washing the bottle I took the opportunity to work on my laptop and do some studying for an upcoming assessment.

In between also sneaked in to check on her and see her cute and beautiful face at times.

Usually baby M drinks her milk every 3 hours or so. However this time she took a longer than usual nap before waking up for her next feed.

This time it went smoothly too. Did a change of diapers for her too and off to nap again.

Washed the bottle and continued with my studying. Thanks to baby M's cooperation, I had more time than expected to study. Perhaps she knows her daddy has an upcoming assessment?

Seeing her cute face gives me motivation to continue. Haha.

Around 5 pm she woke up again for her third feed. But this time the pushing of bottle and her body contouring started. This is her usual way of telling me 'anything but the milk!'. It wasn't easy feeding her whenever she starts behaving this way. Only managed to feed her half bottle.

By then she has grown increasingly cranky and no amount of cajoling seems to help in calming her down.

So there I was, running between the bed room and living room while pacifying her and preparing the 'necessities' bag as the plan is to bring her to the mrt station to welcome mummy back.

Eventually at 6.20 pm we went out to meet mummy for dinner.

All in all I must say it's not too hard a day for me but it wasn't plain sailing all the way. Baby M was very cooperative and I had more than expected time to do some reading. If she had been in her cranky mood since morning I doubt I would be able to do my work as well as finish my revision for the day.

Baby M, papa loves you.