Dec 2023 Portfolio Update: A look back at 2023

Obviously, this will be the final update for the year.

Portfolio Return: +1.99%

Straits Times Index Fund: +1.03%
S&P 500: 24.25%
Hong Kong Index Fund: -15.23%

Current XIRR: 12.6%

Overall, portfolio experienced capital inflows (more buying than selling), significantly more than any other years. This exclude bonds (of which about 1/5 of the portfolio that was used to buy T-Bills for mum).

I am as disappointed as any HongKong stock investor would be. This year marks the third year running which HSI returns negative double digits.

Incase you didn't notice, I lost all my gains against the S&P. It was a very terrible year.

The year started quite nicely for HK actually, +8% in Jan alone. The flickering flame was blown off as the Chinese economy struggled, along with interest rate/inflation worries in the America. 

***

Centurion, which never did have a problem with its business during COVID, increased its dividends at last, and the stock recovered just a little. Unfortunately this is also a year where focus is on interest rates, and its bulging debt is a concern. There was also government regulation coming up soon and given my distaste in its major shareholders, I sold. I remain unconvinced that the owners have OPMI in their hearts.

***

That disdain and scalding from holding companies with debt carried over with Lendlease REIT, and I sold. I disagree with management that they should be acquiring more assets when focus should be getting its Interest Coverage Ratio in check. Long after I sold, Sky Milan revealed plans to downsize their lease. I think this is the only stock that I "escaped." Unfortunately, it wasn't a profitable investment, since I have invested in the rights issue during their ambitious acquisition of JEM.

***

The OPMI issue unfortunately, carried over to my biggest shareholding OKP as well. Its legal windfall was not distributed to shareholders but privately disbursed to management in the form of bonuses. This was by far my biggest anticipation (the legal windfall) and disappointment (when they refuse to give a decent distribution).

Now, OKP's liquidity leaves much to be desired, and letting go of such a large position will take time. I am still convinced that there is value in the company, just that it was suppressed by management. When will management do the right thing? I hope soon.

***

After holding on to the Chinese real estate stock for more than 2 years, I finally craved in and sold all my Central China Real Estate holdings, while selling a respectable portion of my Central China Management (a real estate project management subsidiary) stocks. There is still a large amount left, with painfully deep unrealized losses.

This would might never heal and could be a nice reminder that sometimes the problem is too big for an (honest?) owner/manager to solve.

Alibaba had wanted to spin-off its business and then, given the market conditions, decided not to. The stock promptly cratered. What is new? I have not seen a company that big having to go through so many hurdles. No wonder Adam Khoo sold his holdings in China.

But things have a way of changing when you least expected it. Let's see.

***

Onto the positive points: I have finally decided to put what I learnt from options into practice. 

Some years ago, I had a nasty experience selling puts on Futu (which I thought was easily worth 40+ USD a share). The stock cratered to the sub-20s, and I was looking at a huge loss.

I bit my lips and took the loss. I covered my sell puts, and did nothing more.

Just days ago, I was selling puts on Tencent. I think selling puts on companies which are compounders, is a less worrying proposition. At late morning, the Chinese regulators decided to solicitate opinions  regarding gaming. This brought back all the fear back in 2021. Intraday, Tencent lost 14%and Netease lost 25%. At the end of the day, I think they are not a bargain / steal at this price, but they are compounders.... market hardly offer these companies cheap unless there are huge problems (with the market or the company itself!)

The screenshot above illustrate a few things
- incredible IV%, and very high IV percentile (it means, this volatility is higher than 97.97% of the past)

- Put-Call ratio of 82.87% (everyone is scrambling to buy puts!)

- IV is severely higher than Historical Volatility.

- Again, only 2 days left when market reopens, before contract expires)

So I learnt, instead of just covering my put, I wrote another In The Money contract. Let me explain with figures:

Initial Sell Put of Tencent at strike price 300, premium = 2.8 HKD, implied volatility = ~25%
After the regulator's announcement, the same contract escalate dramatically, premium = 24-32 HKD. Volatility = 60+%

Cover the put by buying a put = 27 HKD. Net loss is 27- 2.8 = 24.2 HKD

Sell another put at 27 HKD, net gain is 27-24.2 = 2.8 HKD

So this "loss" is somewhat neutralized.

Two things can happen: the market calmed during the holidays and the price recover a little. Otherwise, there is only 2 days left in the contract after the market.

So there is a possibility of a implied volatility "crush", massive theta decay, and possibly price recovery. So there are 3 good things that can happen to me. What is the worst that could happen? I have to purchase Tencent at 300 HKD.

It was during this time that I learnt something about portfolio management. Along with some puts sold on Tencent, I have puts sold on HKEX, Alibaba.HK, and bought some Tracker Fund stocks.

I choose to sell calls on these Tracker Fund. This is a bearish trade, and hence it balanced out the sell puts. To illustrate:

Sell Puts = Believe that price will go up = Bullish.
Sell Calls = Believe that price will go down = Bearish. 

If every position in my portfolio is bullish (i.e. just selling puts), this volatility would completely upend my portfolio. 

***

In a couple of days more, my mum would have to go through another medical appointment. As usual, I am worried and could not feel the festive spirit. In fact, I be packing my stuff and going for another shift at food delivery in a few minutes time. Merry Xmas everyone.

Nov 2023 Portfolio Update

Straits Times Index Fund, YTD returns: -0.32% (was -1.26% last month)
S&P 500, +20.3% (was +14%). Wow. I didn't know the US market was so bullish this month.
Tracker Fund, -7.62% (was -8%) 

My portfolio, 0.9% (was 1.4%)

Things didn't go too great for me in November as well. Alibaba had a big intraday drop after announcing a stock sale from Jack Ma's Trust (which in the end did not get executed) and the shelving of hema/AliCloud IPO.

Since Alibaba is my second biggest position and I have already made purchases in the past at this level, the only thing I did during those sell-off days... was to sell puts. I did not sell a single share. More on the options later.

Major Transactions:

Complete Liquidation in YZJ Finance and Centurion.

In addition to the resignation of both CEO and CIO, the legal counsel has decided to throw in the towel as well. Most of my shares are gone at 0.32x. 

As for Centurion, I think the story has pretty much play out and the market is only willing to pay around this level. I can't say that its debt level, as well as my impression that the management is not OPMI-friendly, didn't play a part in my decision.

Most of my attention now is in selling options as the market appear to be quite bearish.

Transaction in options this month includes:

1) Selling two PUT contracts of Alibaba at 67.5 and 72.5 strike price. Both are now somewhat OTM and time decay is working nicely for me. I collected about 150 SGD from providing this "insurance."

2) Sold puts of Link REIT at 35, closing it for a quick gain as it enjoy a bull day, and then sold another 2 contracts at 38 and 40. The put contract at 40 is a in the money put. I was a little confident that the results as well as the approaching dividend (ex-day) will aid in stablizing prices. Total premium collected was 470 SGD without owning a single share. I had more than enough capital to pay in case the other party exercises, of course.

3) Purchase Tracker Funds and sold calls, as well as sold calls for all my Tracker Fund positions previously held. That is a total of 10 contracts sold. Total premiums collected is 330 SGD. 

I expect a portion of these to be called away, 4 of them are having a strike price of 17.00 HKD. The current market price is 17.69, and the premium collected for each of these was 0.6. So if the market does turn bullish next week, it is likely. 

I bought these 2000 units of Tracker Fund this month to sell calls with. (each contract of Tracker Fund is 500 units). This is what is known as a "buy-write", i.e. buy the stock and write (also known as sell) calls.

Inefficient as it is, in terms of ROI when compared to a sell-put strategy, doing a covered call require next to no attention on my part after the trade. Meanwhile, I can sell too much puts and underestimate on margin.

4) Sold Tencent PUTS and covered them after the market has recovered for Tencent. Little to no premium was left... The Tencent call contracts are having a modest profit 250 SGD. They expire next year's June. The plan is to sell them 3 months before expiry before time decay sets in.

Overall, this low risk strategy brought much needed income this month. This portfolio has seen nothing but bad news for more than 2 years... and I am kinda tired to be honest.

Oct 2023 Portfolio Review

Straits Times Index Fund, YTD returns: -1.26% (was 2.35% last month) 
S&P 500, +14% (was 15.45%)
Tracker Fund, -8% (was -7.59%) 

My portfolio, 1.4% (was 4.42%)

Portfolio dropped 3% largely due to OKP sell down from $0.22 to $0.198. Weakness in the HK market does not help, and Alibaba is still #2 in sizing of market value of the portfolio. 

Major Transactions

There were no transaction made on equities, but a handful on options. Let me say upfront that I have capital to buy all these underlying if they all get exercise. DO NOT enter into these trades because you could afford only the margin! It takes money to make money.

a) Sold/Write 6 put contracts on Tracker Funds. Each option (option sizing differs for each stock in HKEX) is 500 shares. All of them expires at the end of this month. As the market began to sell down, my put contracts at strike price of 18 is now ITM, and I expect them to get exercised if this downtrend continues.

While the amt of premiums received is a paltry 200 SGD or so, this is the same amount of money I would get if I work laboriously for food delivery.

As the OCT winds down, it is time to sell more options, as the option market in HKEX is very illiquid. You typically have to act way before the front month (which refers to the next immediate month) approaches.

b) Sold a contract of TENCENT, strike price 290, and bought a long call (expiring end June 2024) at strike price 300.

The average premium received from the put is 4.53, and the cost of buying the long call is 35.8.
There are a few ways where this Tencent trade can go:

1) the price of Tencent continues to oscillate around the 290-300 mark. 

I would continue to sell puts to help pay for the long call. I would stress that this long call would not be held all the way to expiry. I would likely sell this contract close to March to avoid the accelerating time value (theta) decay.

2) Tencent prices plunge below 290
The put options will get exercised, and I will immediately sell a call, and close the long call option.

3) Tencent prices surge beyond 300
Obviously this is the best outcome for me, since I will keep the premium from my short put and enjoy capital gains from my long call.

Along the way, I am trying out spreads and volatility plays on my paper trading account in Tiger. Some were outright disastrous, while one had a fantastic pay-off.

The fantastic pay-off came from a "long straddle", where I bought a call, and a put on Tesla at strike price of 250 before earnings come in the picture.

This is a bet on volatility, as in, I expect the price movement of the stock to go far and beyond what it would cost on my premiums. And it did happen. Tesla gapped down, and the long put became extremely valueable. The long call expired worthless.

BOUGHT Tesla Call 250- it cost me 6.75
BOUGHT Tesla Put 250- it cost me 8.42
Total cost: 15.17 x 100 = 1517

The result was
Tesla Call 250 - expired worthless
Tesla Put 250 - 38.12
End value: 3812.

So the return was more than 100%-- no wonder people love options

Funnily enough, due to work, I forgotten about this option trade and the ITM Put got exercise. Since a put option is simply a right to sell a stock at a certain price, so I had to deliver 100 shares of Tesla to the counter party, and receive 250 * 100 = 25000. 

And since I do not have any Tesla stock in my paper account, the end result is that I am now short Tesla, 100 shares.

Yangzijiang Finance

Unfortunately, I received further bad news that the CEO and China CIO of YZJ Finance has left the company together. This is to me, a huge red flag, and hence I will be liquidating this position.

YZJ Finance started off as a spin-off play, where the stock was heavily discarded after it was given FOC to existing YZJ Shipbuilding share owners. For years, it exists in YZJ Ship's books as an opaque, black-box figure and was always suspiciously look upon.

My faith was rested not on the majority shareholder (Ren Yuanlin), but on the CEO (Vincent Toe), which had sold his company (GEM Asset Management) to YZJ. So why would the CEO quit, with no immediate replacement, along with another high ranking official, just like that? 

Before this news came to light, both YZJ Ship and Finance dropped about 6% on Thursday. Perhaps this is the reason. Another major movement prior to any disclosure... hmm...

Afternote: YZJ Finance fell as much as 16% to 0.285 before recovering to 0.32.. sigh.

I lost count how many double digit intraday percentage losses I have endure over these two years. Bad run continues.

Sep 2023 Portfolio Review

I would like to thank some of the readers here, be it from InvestingNote or otherwise, for praying for my mother. Her scans are all cleared for pancreas (although a spot in the kidney is found, and we will be seeing an urologist one day), and her eye issue was not due to nerve damage from diabetes.

Diabetes is really a tough disease, affecting you day to day. We just had a change of insulin and mum is constantly getting hypoglycemia at certain hours. However, the readings seem to show a bit of improvement.

Thank you everyone. 

***

Straits Times Index Fund, YTD returns: 2.35%
S&P 500, 15.45%
Tracker Fund, -7.59%
My portfolio, 4.42%

Notable Transactions

Disposed and realize >50% losses on Didi Global, which had already delisted. Tiger charges a quarterly fee for holding ADRs, so holding wasn't a sound move. Didi  have very illiquid options-- hence selling call options is not a feasible alternative.

Lets begin with selling puts....

As of 2 weeks ago, I decided to spare some effort in trading of options. I have always been selling puts on Alibaba on a regular basis. To be clear, we are talking about the ones being traded in Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and selling puts over there isn't going to give you any index-beating returns.

Yield = Premium / Margin

An example, below is the screenshot of 9988's option chain at 29-Sep, during the lunch break:

Alibaba.HK was trading at 85.95 HKD as of writing.

A good place to start selling options is a 0.2 Delta.

Delta is a ratio to estimate how the option pricing would move against or along  a 1 dollar of underlying move. Hence a low delta means a lower probability that your options will get assigned. It also used as a proxy to describe risk. A delta of 0.2 means you are "exposed" to 0.2 of a share.

 There is a good chance that the stock will not be assigned to you. Note that, however, the implied volatility is only at 33.3%. The premium, which you can collect is 1.01 HKD. Given the standard way of calculating margin, which is:

(Strike price * 30%) - out of the money component, 

(85.95 * 0.3) - 5.95= 19.84.

This means your "yield" is a measly 1.01 (premium) / 19.84 (margin) = 5%.

Compare this to Intel, which has a higher Implied Volatility, 

at 0.20 delta, we could sell 32.0 puts at a premium of 0.5 (last traded)

= (32 * 0.3 ) - 3.18 = 6.42, which translate into a yield of (0.5/6.42) = 7.8%

The key to higher premium prices is Implied Volatility. IV is the expected volatility (a forward indicator) of future volatility, and is affected by market sentiment/demand and supply. 

There is a reason why selling of Tesla puts could enable one to beat an index returns quite easily...

At 0.2 delta, we could sell put options at 225 strike for premiums of 6.25.

That translate to a margin requirement of:

(225 * 0.3) - (246.38 - 225) = 46.12.

Yield = 6.25 /46.12 = 13.6%

***

Of course everyone has different ways of calculating yield. Would it not make sense to instead, use the assignment cost? For instance, if Tesla is put to you (i.e., you have to buy Tesla at 225$), you need to come up with $22500, and the premium paid to you earlier is $625. That translate to a yield of....2.7%

To save you time, if you compute yield using this method for Intel and 9988.hk, that will be 1.5% and 1.2%

Of course, let's not forget that these are returns from merely a month! But the put cost for Tesla is... prohibitive to most people. Let's just say that nothing in this world is perfect...

-boonsong

Aug 2023 Portfolio Update

It has been two months since I last updated anything on my blog.

My mother's appointment is happening in a handful of days, and the dreaded post-MRI review will be in mid Sep.

Much had happened to the portfolio in those two months, and the lessons it brought.

1) My portfolio gained a fair bit of money, only to lost it and more.

The last update saw my portfolio at 5.x% up ytd.

As the results for OKP inched near, the portfolio gained another 7%, to 12% or so.

OKP results weren't great, but the markets were greatly disappointed by the lack of special dividend (and yet the management rewarded themselves with 2m or so in increase remuneration), and also cost control bites.

OKP was sold down heavily and my entire portfolio gains were wiped off and more. 

The entire portfolio went from +12% to 1.6% presently.

All in a matter of two weeks or so.

From this, I understood volatility, and suffering.

2) I sold off my entire position in CCRE and a good amount of CCMGT.

The two big giants declare bankruptcy (Evergrande) and defaults (Country Garden), and the property sector went down large. It didnt help that the interest rate did not see any adjustments. It does signify unwillingness and perhaps inability by the CCP to change things.

The losses from these two companies combined to the greatest realized loss ever.

I finally understood and tasted what "Bet on the horse, not the jockey" meant.

From this, I understood humility. Never go into debt without cashflows.

3) I also sold off my entire holdings in Lendlease Global REIT.

Pre-rights, I was making a decent profit as I bought them from COVID lows.

I got enamored of the expansion plans (they buying up JEM) and applied for excess rights. The stock went up 15% or so post-rights, and I thought it was a good move.

We all know what happened next. Interest rates went up, and the problems with my Central China positions, specifically its debt, made me very weary and wary of leverage. 

Its interest-coverage ratio were too low for my liking, and with occupancy and reversion rates being good, it is likely to suffer when any of this perfect conditions take a turn.

Perhaps the worries of Central China position spilled over.

Onto the little things:

I have sold off my Activision arbitrage positions as the results from the UK side looks a little uncertain. Whatever 5% worth of gains is going to be stretched over a possibly lengthy period of time, exacerbated by possibly renewed legal battles.

Much earlier on, my T-bills in SRS matured and I dumped all of them into Lion S-REIT funds. 

Centurion released results, and they have finally given out decent dividends (after more than 1 year of prompting). It isn't big enough to persuade some to abandon ship, so the stock went down 8% or so after results. It was expected. Nothing much in my portfolio is doing well. I even sold off a bit of it pre-results, because I kind of knew this year wasn't going to be my year. Perhaps I should be grateful? Centurion is the only one position which I have 20% gain.

I hoped for better days.

June 2023 Portfolio Update

 STI Index Fund returns +0.98% (was +0.55% in April)

Hong Kong Tracker Fund returns -2.38% (was -4.7%) 
S&P 500 Index Fund returns  17.8% (was +11%)

My portfolio returns year-to-date is currently was 5.08% (4.8% in April).

Obviously S&P 500 had a tremendous run up in just one month. There are many happy American Exchange investors out there (Nvidia and Tesla, all over the news really). 

The indices are performing exactly opposite to my expectations. I thought that the American indices were too overpriced and the sell down in Hong Kong was torrid last year. If anything, the lesson here is not to bet on market movements.

There is little positive happening in June. 

Notable transactions this month:

1) Sold off minor holdings in RXO, which was a spin off play, for a 25% gain, which annualized to a nice 58%. I had only 110 shares in it, and my plan was to buy more when the prices fall. I can't say that the sell down in my central china positions hasn't affected my impetuous to act, when prices fall a bit back then. I stalled, and this is the result..

The profit was used to... purchase the Applied Series lectures by Mark Meldrum. I am a few days into the Applied Options section of the course and I really like it. 

2) Purchase a small amt of Alibaba (9988) stock to average down my prices. 

This one bears a bit of explanation, but it will not be a foreign one.

With the spin off story gathering pace, looking at Alibaba from the sum-of-the-parts perspective makes sense each day.

There were only a few things I looked at, looking at the last 5 years of earnings to decide on a ball park valuation of its business arms. All figures are RMB, we will convert them to HKD later.

a) Net cash of all borrowings is 305B 
b) It has an equities portfolio of 223B. We discount this by 50% (!) to 110B
c) Equity holdings in Ant Group. Based on its profit announced in the last interim report, Ant G made 6.1B, if we simply annualized this to 12B, and give it a simple 10x multiple, Ant is worth about 120B.

Now this appears too low but I always been pessimistic about the way bankers estimate prices.

d) The golden goose is China Commerce and it will make 160B thereabouts. Given the slowing, though very respectable revenue growth, an 8x multiple is applied and I think it is worth 1280B

e) The cloud business shows signs of slow down and margin squeeze, and henceforth the annualized revenue of 70B is given a 3x multiple only. Hence 210B. I understood that Goldman given it a 41B USD valuation recently (which converts to 290B). But I never trusted bankers.

The entire business operation sums up to 2025B RMB or close to 2200B in HKD.

Alibaba is worth 1700B as of writing.  Hence a bit of purchase is sensible.

Ironically, this trade brought my average price down to... my fair value. 

I have also sold a contract of puts at 70HKD price mark.

***

There wouldn't be any updates for the next two months or so.

I would be candid about my situation and how I feeling. It does feel like pieces of my life are falling apart and the next ones are really really important ones at stake, . I am constantly worried and with something that happened recently, the self-daunting prophecies that I have been fearing for months does appear to come true. 

I am afraid I can't hold it together and keep a straight face sometimes. I yearn to withdraw into a shell where I am not asked to do anything, not to expect anything, and mercifully, not to hope for anything.

I am not in a happy place, and who knows I might need medication soon.

When bad things happen to people, they react in a cold, selfish manner. They stop whatever virtuous thing they might have been doing, and changed their ways perhaps as a way to get even.
This stop not just the virtuous cycle of things, but perpetuate the evil cycle that made this a poor place to live in.

I don't know what to do anymore.

May 2023 Portfolio Update

STI Index Fund returns +0.55% (was +1.63% in April)

Hong Kong Tracker Fund returns -4.7% (was 0.01%) 
S&P 500 Index Fund returns  +11% (was 8.76%)

My portfolio returns year-to-date is currently was 4.8% (6.98% in April).

Staring into a huge tsunami wave and nowhere to hide-- there is how it feels like.

Just a couple of months ago, I wrote about the colossal sell off by my Central China positions. Unfortunately, the worries and sell down continue, deepening my losses to the region of 70%. Just today, CCRE lost 13% in one day, and Central China Management lost almost 6%.

In a space of one month, CCRE lost 27.37%; CCMGT lost 32.65%

So in the last 3 months, CCRE another lost 63%, CCMGT 52.17%. 

I don't know what to think. I am absolutely shell-shocked into doing anything. 

***

Over dinner with my 70-year-old mother earlier, she was visibly in pain from her aches. She worked in a factory folding clothes, and she worked a maniac 8am-6pm, breaking for 1 hour for lunch. Throughout the day, she stand and work. With nobody to talk to.

She asked if my hand were cleaned. And then asked me to help massage her painful back.

I am crying inside as I did so.

***

In case you are a young chap, just started your working life, and envious (of any remaining returns) some fool-hardy contrarian might have, this is a side of their life that you don't want to experience, and you don't need to. Start indexing today. Investing is really not easy. I am not here to sell courses. I am not writing to feed my ego. This blog is a record of my experiences and a reminder, in the world of seducing returns and mania, that a sobering side of investing exist.

***

There is no transaction in the month of May. OKP (in value, worth 39% of my entire equity portfolio) is still the only thing that is propping my portfolio up. I know some might say that one should look at the performance of the entire portfolio instead of paying attention to a subsection, but a lot of things don't work in theory.

Looking forward, the next three months will be very tough for me in many fronts. The Chinese real estate looks extremely gloomy. My mother have an important medical in August (to review that hopefully benign spot in the pancreas).

Hope the world be less cruel to us.

April 2023 Portfolio Update

How it feels like to compete against the American indices...

This would be a very brief report.

STI Index Fund returns 1.63% (was +0.25% in March)

Hong Kong Tracker Fund returns 0.01% (was +1.8%) 
S&P 500 Index Fund returns 8.76% (was +4.95%)

My portfolio returns year-to-date is currently was 6.98% (6.11% in March).

The S&P 500, has yet again, show me up in performance. The QQQ (Nasdaq) is at an astonishing 22% year to date. 

This is beyond my expectations-- I thought the Hong Kong index, being depressed as it was last year, would stage a rally. Instead, it return a flat 0 to investors so far.

Key reason would be poor economic data. Even Alibaba, with all its restructuring possibilities, lost all its gains. It lost 16.7% in just one month (Tencent lost 11%, Sunny Optical 12%, Xiaomi 9%)

There were no remarkable transaction bought in April, just a handful of stock in Central China Real Estate.

The OKP Annual General Meeting

I attended the meeting with two main concerns in mind. First, is the 43m in? And second, why is the rental for its local properties so poor?

The second question is far easily explained by the management: Its intention in investing in the property is for capital gains and not yield. It had already put the 2 adjourning shophouses in Kampong Bahru for sale. If the sale does go through, there will be a modest improvement to the company's value.

The first question was not brought up until towards the latter stage of the meeting. The management explained that they could not release any information (other than the sum awarded, because it was material to the stock price; and its legal team cleared them for announcing it).

As for the collection of the sum, I get the impression that it isn't collected yet. Upon asking the Financial Controller (whom I am ashamed to admit, been disturbed by myself every 2 weeks via phone calls), she said that we should see an update in Aug. I surmise that it should refer to the earnings report for 2023-half year.

It was at this point that the CEO smilingly suggest that everyone is likely worried about the collectability of the money, and this brought out smiles all around the shareholders. Judging by the responses from the CEO and Daniel Or, I see no reason to doubt them.

The amount would be subjected to tax; however, the management could not guide for an amount.

A quick buffet lunch (which shareholders were joined in by management, and latter some employees) later, I was on my way home. 

OKP, given its capital gains over the month, is now 36% of my total equity holdings.

***

I was unable to attend Centurion Corp's AGM due to work commitments. Judging by the results, particularly the election of directors to the board, I think most people, as usual, vote like sheep.

***

I wrote last month that Clifford's cash in the books has increased markedly. Upon inspecting the annual report, it appears to be due to collection in trade receivables and a sale of its silver bullion. Overall, nothing to worry about as yet.

March 2023 Portfolio Review

"stressed, tired-looking middle-aged man painted in Van Gogh's style"- by Dall-E

Year to date,

STI Index Fund returns +0.25% (was -0.52% in Feb)
Hong Kong Tracker Fund returns +1.8% (was 4.16%) 
S&P 500 Index Fund returns +4.95% (was 6.05%)

My portfolio returns year-to-date is currently 6.11%. This excludes a substantial amount of Singapore Saving Bonds and T-Bills which I purchased on behalf of my mum. Bulk of these bonds will be redeemed or will mature in 2H 2023.

The returns look positive due to OKP. The market granted kindly a 23% revision upwards-- largely because OKP had been awarded a princely sum of 43m from its arbitration proceedings with CPG Consultants (market cap for OKP is still only 59m). CPG consultants were ordered to pay up 28 days from 3-March. The last I checked, OKP is still checking with its legal team if they have to make an announcement in SGX, when they are awarded the sum. 

The returns were offset by colossal sell-downs by Central China Real Estate (CCRE) and Central China Management (CCMGT). The reason why I am extremely concerned by the wellbeing of these two holdings, due to the substantial amount of capital, valued at cost, invested. The amount represent #2 of my holdings (Alibaba is a distant #3). If the Chinese property sector does not recover, it would also impact Yangzijiang Finance (also a top 5 holding), which hold bonds mostly in China.

In just the past month alone, CCMGT lost 24%, and CCRE lost a blood-curdling 42.1%.

This is the second time in less than 2 years, which I have to endure drawdowns of this magnitude. 

During the earnings release for CCMGT on 22-March-2023, the controlling shareholder, Mr Wong Po Sum ("Mr Wong") was extremely upbeat. He declared that the worst is over for CCMGT. 

But the market vehemently disagreed.

Within a matter of days the stock fell from 56 cents to 48 cents. That is more than 15% in less than 5 days. While there was a rally of 9% today. I could find nothing to attribute such a market movement, and certainly there is nothing within CCRE's earning (that I just read) release to suggest that all is well.

Last but not least, Alibaba announced that they are splitting the business into 6 separate units, paving the way for spin-offs. The theoretical gap between market price and its sum-of-the-parts value could finally be bridged. I am not overly excited because I think there wasn't a huge value proposition-- too much assumptions regarding the cloud and fintech value (regarding the latter, I placed zero weight to private valuations by investment banks, regardless how prestigious they are).

Alibaba regained 16.41% in the last 5 trading days alone. In terms of cost, Alibaba is #3 in my portfolio, so it helps.

Earnings Release Review

There were many companies in my portfolio which release earnings this month.

I had just digested the release from CCRE and language does not appear to be upbeat, and neither were there any positives to take away. Dividend was withheld, which is sensible. There is a sum of 900m in bonds to be paid this year, and a default in any of them will trigger a cross-default to bonds maturing much latter. How strongly would the local banks of Henan support CCRE? My guess is as good as anyone.

The results from CCMGT isn't positive as well-- they appear to have lost their #2 position in management leadership in central China. The wisdom of the crowd surprises me, the price corrected to a 5% yield. So the market did not over-correct... Market efficiency should usually be respected. 

A quick back of the envelope calculation suggest that the current price of CCMGT is at net current assets, with some blunt discounting of its receivables.

I just digested the results from Clifford Modern Living and the IT services segment was the only negative surprise. Dividend is maintained on a yearly basis. Cash in the books has increased, but the cashflow statement is not published in the unaudited release. I would examine it when the annual report is published.

Nanyang Holdings' result was out earlier this month. It has been a year and there is still no land use rights agreed upon for its Shanghai operations. It disappoints me greatly that the management persist in managing its investment in a overly-active manner, and to makes matter worse, the controlling shareholder has decided to rope in his daughter as an advisor (she had brilliant academic credentials but unfortunately is working in a unit trust/fund as well). 

The Nanyang Plaza main tenant (of which about 15% of its revenue was attributed) has moved out. While the share prices for SCSB has risen since the rights issue, I think we may mistake symptoms for the cause. Only time could tell.

Despite the downcast report, Nanyang Holdings' price did not move at all due to illiquidity. 

Transactions in March

I made a huge increase in OKP after earnings release. I think two things are probable here: 1st, CPG Consultants should be able to pay up; 2ndly,  OKP's earnings should improve with its biggest order book in the last 5-6 years, since the incident.

There are areas which I am dissatisfied with this company (nothing is perfect in this world). I hope to be able to discuss this with management or like-minded shareholders next month during the AGM.

As of now, OKP is 33% of my entire holdings.

Comments

While I am grateful towards the increased share prices for some of my counters, the intellectual satisfaction was not there. I have held OKP for good 5-6 years since the incident, and Alibaba is a popular holding. I can't help feeling bitter by the manner which TTJ and Centurion owners treat its shareholders..

I find it deeply ironic that since young, I have a special place in my heart for the downtrodden, and this was a minor reason for buying such shares (the big reason is that they are undervalued, have problems, and have plenty of avenues to recover). It is regrettable that the attitude of these two companies management is no different from the market's as well.

If authors of investment books were to look for examples where management could be attributed for the poor share price performance of their companies, Centurion and TTJ would currently top the list.

Hope my fortune turnaround in the coming months.

Feb 2023 Portfolio Update (Centurion, Yangzijiang Finance)

Despite sleeping very early these days, I was feeling perpetually tired throughout the day. That explains why this post is late.

I did a presentation some weeks back on value investing with Boon Tee:

STI Index Fund returns -0.52% (was 2.93% in Jan)
Hong Kong Tracker Fund returns 4.16% (was 7.84%) 
S&P 500 Index Fund returns 6.05% (was 4.19%)

My portfolio returned a measly 4.25% (was 7.15%), largely due to another round of correction by Alibaba and Central China positions. This was very much inlin with expectation; the overhang (of property worries) should continue for years. Alibaba isn't doing so great, in terms of market price movements, but it does look like they have managed to control cost. However, Alicloud and International Operations continue to be loss making. There is still no clarity in how one should value Alicloud and the (potential?) Ant Group IPO.

Transactions:

Purchase 2000 shares of Nanyang Holdings for my portfolio.

Nanyang Holdings is just a very cheap stock which main operations are good old rental and investment. The main investment is of course their Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank, which is mainly based in Taiwan. I would readily say that banks and financial institutions are far beyond my circle of competence. However, the value is still apparent in other aspects of its balance sheet. I am just uncomfortable with their investment process-- it is too active for its own good.

Discussion on OKP, Centurion and YZJ Finance, as they had released full year (FY) earnings during Feb 2023.

OKP: 

While revenue is definitely higher, so are costs. The balance sheet looks far more fragile than a year ago, so now the investment thesis has become one of projection instead of protection. It was also revealed that 3m was spent in the arbitration with CPG Consultants. I believe, if OKP is successful, would bring significant one-off 'earnings' to the 53m market cap company.

********

Centurion: 

As usual, the dividend is a joke, and the stock price corrected a fair amount (8% intraday at one point). The only bright spot is that the debt is getting reduced. Amusing enough, I think it is far better to be a debt holder in Centurion than a stock holder. It had been 2+ painful years. 

Perhaps Centurion should do a major rights issue to bring down debt? Since the cost of equity (in dividends) is less than a Singapore Savings Bond? It wasn't that business was poor; things are actually picking up. So do the major rights issue, let's clear the debt in the books. In the mean time, management should show that they deserve to be management by:

a) Not increasing their remuneration, or best: be paid with stock options instead. Strike price should be significantly higher, lets say 25%, than prevailing market prices.

b) Voluntarily purchase securities in the open market.

On 22 Feb 2022, I wrote:

Results were much better, and the debt level was pare down by a modest 20 million. However, the dividend proposed was a paltry 0.005$ a share, much lesser than the expected 2 cents a share. The company put up a resolution to restore director and management pay for voting as well. This news depressed share prices, and whatever paper profits from profit alert, prior to announcement, were all but vanquished.

It is disappointing that 1 year from today, the narrative remains unchanged.

Let me put the numbers into context. Centurion is earnings between 70-100m in free cash flow over the years. The figures for 2016-2023 as follows:

	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
Free Cash Flow (m)	65.037	54.263	54.986	66.554	59.146	70.256	101.679
Dividend Declared (m)	7.399	7.957	8.408	8.408	0	8.771	8.412
Interest payment	21.383	21.545	23.929	28.759	23.319	22.734	28.341
Total Remuneration of Directors (Retrieved from Annual Reports, Sect. 9)	0.38	0.422	2.113	2.422	2.68m	3.277m	2.971m (from earnings release)

 

I think the numbers above does not justify why dividends are suppressed over the years!

********

YZJ Finance: 

has finally released its full year earnings. Examining the balance sheet reveals:

-620.6m of cash

-2264.6m of debt investment, which are current

 407m of debt investment which is non-current.

This is the most important of the lot.

It is noted that 536m of those investments were transferred to YZJ Ship-Arm (parent) before the spin off. I thought initially that it was a protective move by the parent to relieve the child (YZJ Finance) of potentially bad assets. I also viewed the reduction of debt investments in 2022, of 1.7b from 4.57b, to be favourable. Management also stated that the interest income was 312m (see below). I think a yield of 10% for its debt investment is sufficient given the risk.

-413m of financial assets, which are mostly unlisted China equities (see below)

-322m in investment on associated companies. This associated companies are not disclosed, but likely related to YZJ Ship-arm.

On the liabilities side, there is a total of 332m, of which 228 are deferred tax liabilities. These are tax which are not paid and will be paid in the future.

Let's relist the assets and do some brunt discounting.

-620.6m of cash

-2264.6m of debt investment, which are current

 407m of debt investment which is non-current.

413m of financial assets, which are mostly unlisted China equities

322m in investment on associated companies

With cash, there is no discounting needed. The amount of interest income (20.5m) represents 3.3% which is likely reasonable.

With the debt investment, the management presentation slides indicate that about half was performing, with the majority of the other half being non-performing:

One would look at 2021's performing loans of 3.16b and wonder how did it turn up to be only 1.35b this year? Well, 1.6b was redeemed (refer to the first screenshot of this post).

However, I going to be brutal and write off the existing under-performing and non-performing portion from its assets. That would mean the debt investment would be worth only 1348b instead of the stated 2264m.

Obviously this is going to be too conservative since

a) There might be reversal of NPL, and given that management guided earlier that there is collaterals.

b) There is some residual income from the performing loans. Stated amount in the book is merely principal, and does not include interest.

I going to reduce the unlisted Chinese equities by 75% (overly conservative) because there is no way to look at those numbers (since they are not listed!)

I will also reduce the value of the investment in associated companies by 50%.

That sums up to be ...

Asset	Stated Value	Discounted Value
Cash and EQ	620.6m	620.6m
Debt Investments	2671m	1348m
Financial Assets (Investment in Chinese Equities)	470.072	138m (unlisted equities are discounted by 75%)
Investment in associated companies	322m	161m
Total	4083.6m	2267.6m

... a total of 2267m, and if we take away 332m of liabilities, the remaining value of YZJ Finance would be about 1.9b.

YZJ Finance, is listed at 1.46b. That represent a margin of safety of about 25%. Since my average price for YZJ Finance is about the market price, I would refrain from buying more stock. The dividend yield, based on a distribution of $0.018 per share, would be 4.7% for my holdings.

Let's wait and see.

Commentary: Is it possible for Buffett to get the 50% annualised returns as said by himself?

 

Charlie Munger: "I would agree. I would also say what we did 40 years ago was in some respect more simple than what you have to do. We have it very easy, compared to you. It can still be done, but it is harder now. You have to know more. Just sifting the manual until you have something that is two times earnings. That won't work for you anymore"

Buffett: "It will work if you can find any"

***

There was a question on telegram some time ago with regards to this matter, and I spent about an hour thinking and writing a response.

Question: Buffett says if his portfolio is small, he is sure to able generate 50% return. What is this 50% return method he talk about? How to go about it?

 

Having being somewhat familiar with how Buffett invest during his before and during his partnership years, I guess:

 

-information advantage. He was willing to comb through Moodys and S&P manuals from first page to last, looking for cheap companies (either by book value, such as valuable investment portfolios/bond holding; or cheap by earnings, Western Insurance was one example). Sanborn Maps cost $45 and had $65 in its investment portfolio.

 

-intelligence. Able to see unobvious aspects of an obvious deal. The Rockwood deal was an example of this. Instead of arbitraging for 5.6% gains, he held on to the stock for a gain of 560%.

In the foot notes: it adds:

-(My opinion) He was willing to coat-tail (follow) the successful investors of his time. His ultimate objective was making and compounding wealth. He doesn’t care about the intellectual challenge of investing as much as his mentor, Graham did.

 

-doing the legwork (or getting someone to do it) for very obscure, thinly traded stocks. Example: Dan Monen helped to travel around to help buy National American Fire Insurance (a company that was a fraud until a turnaround by William Ahmanson). It was earning $29 a share and selling for $30. Unfortunately it was thinly held by non-insiders, who are scattered around the countryside. Some of them paid for $100 a share for the now much forgotten stock they have. Dan Monen went around, and by word-of-mouth, accumulating shares and eventually offering up to $100. They eventually hold 10%, versus the Ahmanson’s 70%.

 

-Willingness to concentrate heavily into ideas. He had, after speaking to GEICO future CEO, put ¾ of his net worth into its stock. In the Sanborn Maps idea, he put 1/3 of the partnership money into the idea, and during the American Express crisis, he plough in capital of similar proportions.

 

Quote from “The Snowball” (AXP wasn’t the only idea capital was concentrated on)

-He had a very good spouse in Susie, who attended to his every needs outside his investment work. E.g., besides the kids, Susie took care of Buffett’s dad during his last years.

***

The spouse part was not written in jest-- I believe that women have a huge hand in how men acts, and perhaps vice versa (I can't comment on behalf of women for obvious reasons).