Progress Payments - The Nautical Condominium

I received a letter from my banker last week that they have effected a drawdown of 10% and my monthly instalment of SGD2xx will commence on 1 May 2013.

Finally, the foundation work for my block is completed (see attached standard payment scheme).

Standard Payment Scheme 2013

The notice for the next 10% drawdown will be upon the completion of the reinforced concrete framework of my unit. The Nautical development is made up of 5 storeys blocks and my unit is on the 4th floor. Let's say each floor will take a month or so, I guess the next notice will be in four months' time, which is around July or August.

I hope the recent manpower crunch will not affect the developer much so that it can have the labour resources to complete the development by 1st Q 2014. From the Nautical's progress and her neighbour, Canberra's progress, I can see that the completion date (TOP) will be in 4th Q 2014. Note that we were told that the completion time will be in 2016. If we can get the TOP status by 4th Q 2014, it is a bonus already since we can stay or rent out earlier.

I read that the interest rate has already been raised this year. Luckily we took the mortgage loan last year and the legal fees were waived off. This year, I was told from my wife's colleague that the bank will not absorb the legal fees. But I think most banks will absorb the legal fees to a certain extent, say 0.5% of loan amount or cap at $2500.

Heard from a forumer in the condo forum that the Nautical left 12 units (out of 435) unsold. Hopefully, it can be fully sold.

Investment as at 31 Mar 2013

I sold the Mapletree Greater China Commercial Trust (Mapletree GCC) that my wife and I got from the IPO (93 cents). We applied 11 lots for the IPO and gotten only 3 lots based on the allocation. We are lucky to get the 3 lots but we feel that 3 lots are not enough to see good returns. After consulting with my wife, we decided to sell the 3 lots last Thursday. I have been monitoring the Mapletree Logistics trust and the yield looks attractive enough at over 6%. The price ranges from 1.15 to 1.24 dollars and will enter when it is about 1.17 level.

However, probably for this time, either my wife invests or we will share again. Recently, I have acquired a few counters and thought that maybe I should hold back some investments just in case of market corrections. But industrial reits should be ok at his market conditions.

Two other stocks have caught my attention:

(1) City Dev
(2) Swiber

For City Dev, I was tempted to buy the stock at 10.78 when it dropped suddenly. If I have the extra cash, I would have bought it then and sold last week at 11.33 (5% yield). This is good return for just within one month. One reason that I would have bought is the dividend that it is giving. Even if it dropped below 10.78, at least I can still collect some dividends... well, I missed this. I will keep a look out when it drops to below 11 dollars.

For Swiber, this stock ranges from 60 to 70 cents. I was tempted to buy at 65 cents. Based on last week's high, I would have gained 3 cents (4.6%) in less than 2 weeks. However, same thing, not enough capital to buy.

I don't follow technical charts and the buy and sell are based on my experience on the counters. I think this has helped in most of my trades. Also, buy good counters with good yield and in time of crisis, you can get regular payout.

My target is to have 500K invested in good counters with at least 5% yield. Just imagine that based on 5% yield (minimum), you will get 25K per year. If your retirement plan is to spend 2K or less, then 25K is more than sufficient for your retirement plan. If you manage to have 1million in good counters, you will have about 50K or more in dividend payouts. If there are capital gains in some counters, you may liquidate to enjoy the gains and then put them into other counters. You can save up some cash to put into counters when the market corrects. Then, you will have more returns.

I told my colleagues about this and some are interested and others say that they don't have time. Actually, you don't need much time. Just look out for good counters and monitor the dividends and prices. Also, start early for investing. If you have invested 10K 5 years ago, you would have reaped good returns today. Never too late to start but start investing within your means... invest with money that you don't need for the next 5 years...

This is not an indication to buy or sell. Invest with care.

Investment as at 31 Mar 2013

HPH Trust - sold my shares 27 Mar 2013

HPH trust will replace F&N in the SGX STI components next week. I have been trying to sell the stock at USD0.84 over the last few days. Today, I manage to sell it away at USD0.84. It touches USD0.85 today.

Well, I bought in Jan for USD0.805, got the USD350 dividend in my bank and now another USD350 (minus commission) going to my bank. I would say that the yield is over 8%, this is within my target.

I will be monitoring this stock and when it reaches USD0.80 again, I will buy and keep for the next dividend. If I had sold a few weeks back, I would have picked up the stock recently at USD0.78 and made a handsome profit today at USD0.84. So, lesson learned and I have to take profit and wait for the next best opportunity to enter. Although it is going to be an index stock next week, I don't think it will fly very high after looking at those in the index stocks. In fact, I think most stocks fare better if they are not in the index stocks. Anyway, this is not an indication to buy or sell.

Yangzijiang has moved today and hit SGD0.985 and I have the intention to sell at SGD0.98. I know that the AGM will be around 26 Apr and they will declare a dividend of 5 cents. I will probably keep the stock to get the 5 cents dividend. Unless the stock goes above 1 dollar, I will not sell too soon.

I told myself that my target is to earn at least SGD300 a month from stocks. This will gradually increase when I build a bigger base (capital) to invest.

Previously, I have seven positions and today, I close the HPH trust counter. I intent to put SGD10K worth of stocks over several counters and will exit when there are sufficient profits. Let's see whether my strategy will work.

Investment as at 27 Mar 2013

Investment as at 24 Mar 2013

I didn't manage to sell HPH trust at USD0.84. If it hit this price or above this coming week, I will sell.

Yangzijiang is moving now, from 95 cents to 97 cents. Let's see whether it can break 97 cents and move towards above 1 dollar. I will be waiting at 1 dollar to sell. Then, I will buy back at 95 cents again.

Investment as at 24 Mar 2013

Investment - Taking profits

I'm thinking of taking profits from the investment.

HPH trust:
Bought: USD0.805
Today it touches USD0.84. I regretted not selling when it hit USD0.85 recently. I'm queuing now at USD0.84. If the trade is done, my profit will be about USD300 after deducting the commission.

The next dividend announcement will be in July for August ex-div. I will enter to buy again when the price is around USD0.80. I think anything around 80 cents or below should be relatively safe. This stock has been trading between 76 cents to 86 cents. So if you see anything from below 80 cents, you can buy and hold. Anyway, the dividend yield per year is about 6~7%. As long as you don't buy at high 86 cents, it should be fine.

This is not an indication to buy or sell. Just my personal opinion.

The Nautical as at 19 Mar 2013

I drove by The Nautical just now and couldn't resist to take some photos of the development. Block 99 has reached the fifth floor which is the highest and the top will be a tennis court. However, I think Block 99 is a bit short and there should be another building at the back.

Block 99 development

Block 97 is slower and I guess it is about 1 storey high. I will be able to see the development by standing at the landed property area at Jalan Malu Malu. As this road serves the private properties, I try not to go there often.

Block 97

Block 95 is probably 4 storeys high. I can see the design of the condo with ship deck-liked features. The two swimming pools will be surrounding this Block 95 which will make this block unique.

Block 95

The slowest of the blocks is Block 93. It is still building the foundation and I hope it can catch up with the rest.

Investment as at 17 Mar 2013

HPH trust suddenly shoots up to end at USD0.835 per share at closing. Missed the chance to buy at USD0.78 as I was holding 10 lots at USD0.805 per share. I will only add more when it is below 20% of my purchase price. I will probably sell HPH trust when it hit USD0.89 (10% capital gain).

Added in another stock, Golden Agri at SGD0.59. My target is to sell around 0.63 (about 6.7% gain). If it goes lower, I will keep it to collect the dividend at end of April. Target to hold for 6 months.

Commodity and agri stocks suddenly turned south. Olam dropped to SGD1.625. Tomorrow, I will queue at the unit share section to buy 435 shares of the bonds. I have 1565 shares which cannot sell under the normal trading of 1000 shares (1 lot). I will need to buy another 435 shares to make it to 2000 shares (2 lots). Since it dropped, there will probably be some selling pressures and hopefully I can get them cheap at USD0.711 per share.

Investment as at 17 Mar 2013

Buy 10 lots of Golden Agri today

I have been monitoring this stock recently and also over the years. I noticed that this stock ranged from 50+ cents to 80+ cents. Recently, it is hovering between 60 cents to 68 cents. Many times, I told myself that I will buy when it hit 62 cents and I didn't buy. After hitting 62 cents, it will go up to 65 cents. When it hit 60 cents, it will go up to 64 cents.

So, today, I queue again at 60 cents for 10lots at about 4.30pm. There are about 25 millions shares waiting to be bought at 60 cents. At 5pm, it was at 60.5 cents and I thought I did not get the shares.

I log-in at 5.25pm to check and saw that I got the shares at 59 cents despite I queued at 60 cents. Well, not sure whether it is lucky or not, anyway, 59 cents is much better than buying at 60 cents. Golden Agri is giving a very small dividend ($0.0059) and the ex-dividend date is 29 Apr 2013. This is very low compared to the other dividend stocks that I have. However, I think the risk is low because in the long run, it will go above 60 cents and it is still giving dividend which is better than keeping my money in the bank.

For 10lots, I will get $59 dollars after 29 Apr and if within this period, it can go above 63 cents, I will sell to lock in the profit at 7%. This is because my target is to get 7% yield from my investment (not necessary from dividend but may come from capital gain).

Golden Agri:
52 week high: 80.5 cents
52 week low: 59 cents
Gross yield: 2%
Net P/E: 15
M Cap $mil: 7766.7

My target is to hold this stock for 6 months. Target price to sell is 63 cents. This is not an indication to buy or sell.

But I'm actually risking my portfolio because I already have Olam in my investment. Olam, Noble, Golden Agri and Wilmar are somewhat quite similar. I have always been telling myself to choose between these four. Sometimes, it is difficult and I have made a wrong choice of buying Olam instead of Wilmar. But as I have mentioned that when I invest, I want to make money and not losing. I will only sell when it hit my breakeven price (plus dividend), so that I did not lose any money.

What are your views?

Investment as at 10 Mar 2013

On 8 Mar, I sold my Olam warrant. I had only 810 warrants which can be converted to the mother shares only after 3 years. I read that the warrants are only worth 7 US cents or so, and the price on 8 Mar was about USD0.295. Since the amount that I have is very little and even if it goes very high say, USD0.60, the increase is not very much. These 810 warrants are given free to me when I subscribed to the Bond rights. I'm selling these to convert the loss from the shares which I bought with an average price of SGD1.86 per share. Currently, Olam mother share price is about SGD1.665. Another 20 cents to go to breakeven. So, after selling the warrant, I made about SGD0.05 per share. So, I would just need 15 cents more when Olam at SGD1.815. Anyway, I have already gained SGD160 from the shares as dividend.

Investment as at 10 Mar 2013

Mapletree Greater China Commercial Trust IPO - Update

My wife and I applied for 11 lots and managed to get 3 lots from the balloting. 

The allocation result:

1 to 9 lots --> may get 1 lot

10 to 19 lots --> may get 3 lots

20 to 49 lots --> may get 6 lots

50 to 99 lots --> may get 12 lots

100 to 199 lots --> may get 20 lots

200 to 499 lots --> may get 35 lots

500 to 999 lots --> may get 72 lots

1000 and above --> may get 131 lots

So, we are one of the 8166 applicants to get 3 lots. The stock started trading today at 2pm and it opened at S$1.02. It closed at S$1.03 which was 10% higher than the IPO price of S$0.93. We will keep this 3 lots for dividend and unless it can go higher than 30%, we will not sell. For long term investment.

Saw in one forum that someone mentioned she got 5 lots. I'm sure she is lying because the allocation is 1, 3, 6, 12 lots etc. So, it is not possible to have 5 lots. Sometimes, when you want to bluff people, you must be smart to know that the details and not blindly say it. 

This is not an indication to buy or sell. 

PAY price jumped after earning report

PAY's stock price ranged 20 to 21.99 yesterday. However, closing at about US$21. I hope the management will look into why they have not gotten many contract in year 2012 and shake up the executive team. I'm positive on this stock as I don't see why it is not making any money. Every shop or store will need a point of sale device to make the merchant transaction. There are many stores or shops opening in the world and I'm sure the devices are needed. They are working on new methods and devices for the new generation POS and I'm sure they will still be the leader in the industry. Let's hope it can go higher.

This is not an indication for sell or buy. Just my opinion. Feel free to comment....

22 Mar 2013 Update: Standpoint Research has initiated coverage on PAY. It has a buy rating for PAY on 20 Mar 2013. At yesterday closing of USD21.07, let's see whether this stock will move higher. My profit currnetly stands at 6% and is the target of my gain. However, I see potential in this stock and hope to see the price goes beyond USD25.

I will monitor and see whether there is any hope for this. May sell when it is around 23 or so, based on my feeling.... This is not an indication to sell or buy. Thanks.

HPH Trust Request for Trading Halt

What happen? HPH Trust requested for trading halt pending announcement. Not sure whether it is good news or bad news. I hope it is good news because I have invested in this stock. I'm not a speculator so this stock is for long term investment. The dividend yield is quite attractive at 7% so I'm not concerned whether it is good news or bad news as long as it does not go bankrupt (which I think it is impossible).

But it may be a good news which will propel the stock higher. I hope it is not asking for money through rights as it will probably dilute the stock. One reason may be it is upgraded to STI index component stock...


I will update once I got more information. Stay tuned....

The trading halt is due to the announcement of the acquisition of 100% of the shares of Asia Container Terminals Holdings Limited. It is not bad news.

Verifone Systems (PAY) Earning Report

PAY reports its earning today. For the first fiscal quarter, PAY reported revenue of $430 million, non-GAAP EPS of $0.51, GAAP EPS of $0.11 and cash flow from operations was $53 million.

It was slightly better than the preliminary results that it had anticipated on 22 Feb when its stock fell from US$32 to US18.24.

I bought 100 shares of PAY when I saw the plunge but would have gotten lower at US$18 if I had waited a couple of days. I went to read up the company profile and financials when I saw the plunge and thought that it is not a bad company except that it is facing some difficulties with Europe and a failed contract. Just load up a bit to see whether my views are ok. Just 100 shares, thus, even if my decision is wrong, the damage is minimum.

My target is around US$25 for me to execute a share. What are your views? Feel free to comment.

Mapletree Greater China Commercial Trust IPO

My colleagues were talking about it and asked me whether I want to subscribe to the IPO. The IPO has been priced at the top range that is $0.93 per share. If it is priced at $0.90 a piece, I would probably press the button to subscribe. Tomorrow noon is the deadline for the IPO subscription. Should I subscribe to the IPO? Even if I subscribe, I don't think I will be able to get it since it is quite popular. What are your views?

Investment as at 03 Mar 2013

Taking a bet that the sequester will not affect much of the markets, I made the decision to buy another stock, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Holdings Ltd. Yangzijiang is a shipbuilding company that has since diversified into other areas. I have been monitoring this stock for a couple of months and noticed that it has a range of $0.86 to $1.10. Last month, I saw it dropped to $0.95 and wanted to buy. Then, it started to move and hit $1.00. It is giving out a dividend of $0.05, slightly lower than last year. However, at $0.955, the yield is about 5.24%. This is still higher than the interest I put in the bank. My target is to sell at $1.00 within the next 3 months. If the price drops below $0.955, I will keep it to collect $0.05 per share dividend in May. When it hit the buy price again, I will sell. This is not an indication to buy or sell.

Update: I check the SGX website and see the past notices regarding the notice of book closure. It is around the same time when it holds the AGM. So, for 2013, the next AGM is on 26 Apr, so I guess YZJ will announce the dividend on that day or so. It is SGD0.05 per share and based on today's price of 0.955 (still my buy-price), the yield is 5.2%. The payment date should be around end May or early Jun, depending on the outcome from the AGM.

My strategy is to see the price movement when the dividend has been announced (which was already announced in the YZJ's report) on 26 Apr. If there is an increase of $0.05 (from $0.955), I will sell it to get the 5% profit. If there is no change or lower than $0.955, I will keep and hold on till ex-div. Then I will decide whether to keep or sell after seeing the price after ex-div.

Target is to get 5% yield from this stock.

Investment as at 3 Mar 2013