Portfolio Updates, 2018 First Quarter

The market continues to be kind to my little portfolio. As of 22nd March 2018, the scoreboard is as such, year-to-date:

STI ES3: +2.67% (from Stocks.Cafe)

(STI ES3, from my own calculation, returns 0.053 in dividends, and stands at 3.49, which means it is 3.543. It started at 3.48 this year. Is the actual returns 1.81%?)

Hang Seng Index:  +1.82% 

(this might be wrong, I just did my own maths; no idea about the dividends either.)

My own little fund: about 11.12%, inclusive of dividends. 

The reason for including the Hang Seng index is because a third of my portfolios are now parked in HKEX securities. I found a couple of good opportunities there as well as took the advice for one of them. 

I will write about some of them soon.

None of my holdings are bought based on promising macro news brought about by the media or the brokerages. You will find no Hi-P, AEM, Best World, Delong, etc. Most are picked for their cheapness rather than their shine. I have some confidence that I should be able to do well in the future, since picking stock this way is a) not an activity enjoyed by the majority and b) produce relatively pleasing returns as expounded by value investing principles.

Unlike a typical classroom environment, where students compete to be #1, I am fine with finishing between #10-15 in a class of 40. Returns from investments will not differ too much from general market conditions (unless I really turn out to be smarter than I thought...).

A simple look at HRNetGroup

HRNetGroup is a human resource provider that has announced results recently.
What surprised me is that amount of cash on hand at the moment, a good 289m.
That translate to net cash position of 289m - (all liabilities) 54.698m= $0.2317 net cash per share.

The market is offering us about $0.78 per share. If we take away that figure by net cash per share, that translate to about $0.548252 per share.

Net income goes to 46.342 or $0.04582 per share.

That translate to about a PE of 11.9.

Provided this company continues to do well, I think there is a good chance of undervaluation.

Commentary (2-Jan to 8-Feb)

Markets worldwide had investors cringing in just a space of a week. At the start of this year, STI went from 3430 to as high as 3609 points on Jan 24. Bulls were cheering, optimistic that markets will go higher due to the strong economic indicators. Personally, I do not believe the economy and the stock market is correlated. Neither does it has to be for my approach to investing to work.

Towards the end of January, I decided to move a huge portion of my cash holdings to Singapore Savings Bonds. It wasn't because the returns were attractive. Bonds can't protect you from inflation. There wasn't any great ideas in the stock market. Screened results off 52-weeks low and low price-to-cashflow stocks were relatively unchanged week to week. I decided to sell off certain stocks that I wasn't strongly confident of, such as Duty Free International, Figtree and Comfortdelgro. For Comfortdelgro, the run up in price was an excellent opportunity to correct my valuation mistake. I also took profit on Chuan Hup which returned me well above 40%. Chuan Hup is largely cheap based on a sum-of-the-parts approach. However, some of the parts were not cheap themselves. I would say it was on the high end of fair value.

My timing to sell these stocks were fortuitous as the markets turned.

On the 2nd of Feb, all hell broke loose over at the states, and investors in Asia had a weekend of worry before collectively selling off on Monday. STI open at 3414, went down as low as 3353 and closed at 3406. I would say the bears gained complete control the next day, wrestling the index down to 3383 despite it going above the previous close at 3460 at one point. Ironically, speculators in the inverse ETFs were burnt big time when the American market recovered a fair bit. Lesson learnt: shorting stocks is not only a game of valuation but also of timing. It is too difficult and best avoided.

Through it all, my little portfolio of small stocks was not spared. Index returns were as high as 6.09% this year, but now it is at -0.27. My portfolio was tamed from 10.16% to 3.91%. The decline is largely inline with the market.

Portfolio went down as much as 5% during the first day of the correction. It was quite frightening. I would be lying if I write that I did not think of selling certain stocks. But I refused to give in to the ridiculous spread. Some of my holdings were neither too expensive to consider selling, and neither is the price too cheap to average down. I decided to hold. I also took the opportunity to buy stocks in the Hong Kong market. The prices weren't attractive so I did not put in too much capital. But I have faith in them, and will buy more if the prices decline.

This blog is not meant to be a self-serving one... so I have some opinions to share on the days ahead.

At times like this, one has to be honest with yourself. The market is no mere Goliath so it takes courage to go against it. If you do have any positions bought on merely hope, it is time to take the conservative side and liquidate. You have to be quite certain of your valuation.

Hold on to stocks that are still on the cheap side. Do not be too depressed if your profitable positions were sold down-- my mates and I were not duly worried as we are quite certain that this isn't a failure of judgement. Likewise, I am not in a hurry to average down on stocks that are down a handful of percentages. I am not in this game to reap quick returns off hopes that the market will rebound quickly. A 10-15% decline is a good chance to average down, but not 5%.

All in all, God bless those souls who defer their judgement to the market. Stick to the way you invest. Do not switch your strategy just because your returns are inferior to others. Markets are seasonal-- certain styles of investing are more effective in some years. Just concentrate on not making too many mistakes and you will do decently.

Short Analysis: Playmates Holdings (00635, HKEX)

Playmates Holdings, the parent company of a listed company called Playmates Toys, is one of the companies that registered within the 52 weeks low of my stock screener in Stocks.cafe.

Although it is in my 52week low list, it isn't technically at 52 weeks low-- the price is brought down due to a 1-to-10 share split. Current price is at a high for this stock.

I didn't spend too much time on this company, probably an hour's work. Playmates Toys key products lies in selling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Voltron and Ben 10. The first got plenty of boost from movies last year, but this year sales is terrible-- a drop of 36%. There is no illusion that this is a declining business. Playmate Holdings, besides its toy business, consist of investments and F&B. F&B contributions are insignificant. The toys business is Playmate Holding's bread and butter business.

My investment philosophy is simple: let the market bring the deals to you, make an evaluation and if the market is underpricing the company significantly, buy it.

From looking at its cashflow statement last year, it is clear that the company bought back a lot of shares. Adjusted for splits, it had 2.2billion shares on 1st Jan 2016, but now it has 2.08B. That is 120 million shares bought back by this company, representing a staggering 5.4% reduction in shares.

This is facilitated by the company's strong free cash flow despite a declining business.
It is still able to pay out dividends in recent years, a yield of about 2.8-3%.

The cash makes a difference in a couple of ways.
1)
The cash position is significant; based on its interim annual report, 1.48B worth of cash. It has a total liabilities of about 930m, so we talking about 547m in net cash (minus all liabilities!).

Take that 547m of cash, deduct by 2.08b of total shares, you get 0.263 HKD per share.
The current share price is 1.04 HKD. This means you are paying about 0.77 HKD per share.
The earnings for this interim 2017 report (means first half) is 0.328 HKD per share. Year-on-year, the income statements has been showing a decline, from 0.5 in 2013 to -0.05 last year. However, the loss was due to a 300+m downward revaluation of its properties. Without it, they should be earning 0.15 HKD per share. So this is a PE of about 7-8 on today's price.

I am assuming that business is so bad this year that we are getting maybe 0.6 HKD for the whole of this year (remember, it is 0.328 for first half). So based on the revised price of 0.77 HKD (due to its cash position), we are looking at a PE of about 13. This is fair.

It generated about 400m of free cash flow last year. This cashflow should reduce drastically since the breadwinner is from the toys (and it is bad business). Let say it will reduce to 300m this year (we are at 150m FCF this first half), and since market is giving a price tag of (2080m x 1.04HKD) = 2163m HKD, you getting a cash yield of 13.8%. This is very, very high cash yield. But take note that this is a declining business. Even at 200m, it is about 10%.

2)
It has about 500m of bank loans to pay this year. It can do it with its cash position, or refinance. I have no idea what they going to do, but it isn't going to be a problem. The interest is about 2.8%, but it is variable (float).

Price-to-Book is low, but it is just 1 aspect of valuation
I won't go through how I discount various portions of the assets, but a remarkable amount is reduced from receivables and inventories (mark down 50%). This gives me net asset of 5.373B, or about 2.58 HKD per share. The market is offering us this company at 2.163B or 1.04 HKD a share.

Off-balance sheet, it has licensing commitments to pay for about 150m in the next 5 years. I think it is manageable.

Summary
This is another example of a cheap company with a declining business, with a small amount of dividend. Again, business needs to turnover, but I think buying a small amount of shares for this company is quite safe.

Update as of 21-March-2018
Playmate Holdings reported earnings per share of 13.54 cents. As of now, the market price is HKD $1.07, which means our PE is 7.9. If we were to discount net cash (of all liabilities) worth HKD 0.25, we talking about (1.07-0.25)/0.1354 = PE of 6.06.

Free cashflow comes to 290.423-34= 256m. Market Cap is 2.14B. Cash net of all liabilities is 1423.625m - 766.739 - 134.273 = 522.613m.

This means we are actually paying 1617.387m for the business. Since we are getting 256m cash from this business, this means the price to cash flow is 6.32 times. EV/EBITDA is 1388.58/372.857 is about 3.57. This company is ridiculously cheap and I will be looking to accumulate more on price weakness.

Essential Books

After 2 years of investing, these are my favourite books that I feel are essential to every investor-wannabe out there.

Do follow the order as listed, as it will prevent you from making serious mistakes in your investments.

1. The 5 Rules to Successful Stock Investing
I have not seen a book that explains financial statements as well as this. Even if you lack basic accounting knowledge, this book will turn you into a competent interpreter of financial statements. How the balance sheet, income and cashflow statement relate to each other, using its example of a hot dog stall, is a beauty.

Bonus: If you enjoy the work of this author, he as another book call "The Little Book the Builds Wealth." While not essential in my eyes, it is informative and discusses what constitutes as a moat/durable business advantage.

2. The Intelligent Investor
The writing style and examples used in the text might not suit contemporary readers, but even reading the summaries written by Jason Zweig (latest edition in 2006 covered the melt down in tech meltdown in 2000) will help prevent losses.

As a value investor, we should check the downside and risks instead of the upside-- losing money is often easier than winning.

3. One Up on Wall Street
While this book can serve as a wonderful introduction to investing, it appeals to investors with slight investing experience (such as myself) with little gems like market timing (or why it shouldn't bother you), portfolio management, story checking, etc. Peter Lynch's classification of companies into six different categories is popularly used in the investment circle.

4. Financial Shenanigans
Let's say you are interested in investing in a growth stock, and the numbers look solid. But you are wary of getting suckered into frauds like Enron, Worldcom or Sunbeam... this is your book. Frequently updated to cover the latest trends (and lies) of the financial industry, this book is now in its third edition.

The market is a tough place. You need this book to protect yourself.

5. You Can be a Stock Market Genius
While it lacks a serious title, this book changes the way I look at unconventional investment opportunities. If you are a fan of the Buffett Partnership, its investments were classified into three categories: Generals, Controls and Workouts. General refers to companies which are undervalued by the market, and after buying enough shares available to control the company, they become part of the Controls group.

The last section, called Workouts, refer to investments which does not move with market sentiments. These are special situations (as termed in book #2) which no doubt lower investment portfolio during a bull market, but greatly provide relief during a bear one. This book deals with Workouts, but even if your portfolio consist mostly of it, it will provide highly satisfying returns.

The same author wrote this book call "The Little Book that still Beats the Market." Another highly entertaining book as well.

6. The Dhando Investor
If you are determined to be a value investor, this book could be priceless. What is low risk, high returns? What is the difference between risk and uncertainty?

That is all. You will spend an approximate six months to a year reading all of the above, but re-reading them is not only necessary, but entertaining.

2017 Summary

The last two months were extremely volatile as my portfolio suffered 1.0-1.5% drops very frequently. In the end, I managed to pip STI by 2.93%. The smaller sum that I invested for my mother lead STI by well over 5%. The purpose of this blog is educational so I am organising it into 3 parts

a) portfolio strategy

b) short-comings

c) possible changes in the future

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a) Portfolio Strategy

• For the entire year, only stocks in SGX were traded.
• Priority given to the balance sheet over earnings
• Wide diversification; certain stocks have higher weightage due to higher confidence, or the market was kind enough to lower its price, henceforth reducing its risk.
• Companies of all sizes were considered; smaller companies were preferred for their simpler business and higher price inefficiency due to neglect or unpopularity
• Sustainable dividends
• Management with skin in the game
• Low price to tangible book ratio (60 cents to a dollar or less)
• An increasing Net Asset Value (NAV).
• Low to no debt. Numerically, anything close to 40% debt-to-equity is high.
• This is optional, but the company could have problems, but are likely to be temporary. A wider diversification is adopted for these stocks.

The last point, about companies with problems, is worth discussing. The market is efficient most of the time. This efficiency is stronger with the large-cap companies which has plenty of attention from institutions and the general public. Statistics says that majority of my countrymen do not invest, hence retail investors are overwhelmingly smaller compared to professionals/institutions. It is the institutions that move the price.

The key point is that it is difficult to recommend a buy or even hold such companies' stock . The power of the markets lies in the hands of institutions and professionals and whether they will think in the interest of their clients is debatable, and being average is less risky than trying to be contrarian-ly. 

I find that when a company (investment firms included) is large, the probability of it prioritising process or "proper procedures," over logic is strong.

The greatest advantage of a retail investor is that we can afford 

• to think independently
• the patience. 

The pay-off for purchasing stocks of companies under problems is that the payback can be significant. For some popular companies, this could a rare buying opportunity (except during corrections and crashes).

This portfolio did not include or take into consideration...

• Growth stocks. Companies like AEM, mm2, China Sunsine and Best World were not bought even though they were very popular and profitable among the crowd. 
• Macro trends. The electronic or developer boom did not influence myself to buy certain stocks. The portfolio's approach is entirely bottom-up.
• Specific preference for any industry

Growth stocks are excluded because they are too difficult. It is far easier to tell if a stock is cheap, rather than if the growth is a) worth the price b) sustainable. Generally, I hate crowds. I am motivated more by the game than the rewards.

Macro trends and industry preference were disregarded because I do not have any circle of competence.

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b) short-comings

• There are very few companies in SGX that are cheap by book value. As such, the capital employed for this portfolio is very small (since diversification has to be wide). Cash constitute a large part of my portfolio.
• Since large diversification is needed, trading cost made up a significant 0.6% of my total portfolio size.
• It can be exhausting to read numerous articles and only act only very few of them. Due to lack of discipline, certain companies were bought even though only rudimentary statistical research was done. This results in small losses, but they were avoidable. 

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c) Possible Changes in the Future

Search the world for deals, and practice diligence in my buying. With a more thorough approach to investing, I am likely to consolidate most of my positions into a concentrated portfolio.

The Portfolio Gone a Little Crazy

My portfolio continues to astonish me since two weeks ago, giving me gains that surpass the STI for the first time (3%) in as long as 1 year 10 months. Much of it had to do with advances in Wee Hur, BBR, Chuan Hup, Samudera and some recovery with Innotek, Mermaid Maritime and Comfortdelgro (which I continue to be modestly hopeful for).

TBH, I have expected results to remain poor this year, given that I hold some ugly (and more importantly, safe) stocks.

It is every active investor's wish to beat a passively-managed instrument like the index. 2 years down the road, I never expected this task to be so difficult. I hope to remain steadfast in investing by value. Hopefully I will continue to view stock picking as an intellectual exercise (and one of emotional control) because I have seen many people around me being blinded by profits. I remain doubtful that I am right unless a stock gives me at least a 20% return; and a portfolio, compared to the index over a long period of time (3-5 years at least).

There are more than a couple of stocks which ascent I missed. They belonged to the "not sure" pile which I convenient forgot after some time. Hock Lian Seng, whose sky-rocket after special dividends were announced. Chew's Group, which I thought was cheap based on solely PE, but have a huge capex in the near future due to relocation. I would have got almost 100% return, but I still think the Market doesn't know what it is doing. GP Batteries, which is quite a safe arbitrage, sneaked past quietly. I know many here had been richly rewarded by AEM, Best World and MM2 etc, but they are not my kind of stocks...

Guess I am only intrigued by "trash."

2 Years of investing

It has been exactly 2 years since I start investing. Like most rookies, I did short term trades and inherited some losses. Fortunately, none of them destroyed my savings, and I learnt something from every single loss.

I would like to thank Sembcorp Marine (bought 1.9x, sold 1.8x and 1.7x on the rebound) and Imprimis Pharmaceuticals (bought at 8.6x, sold at 6.x, now only $3.4 after accounting for splits) for leading me to value investing. Turquiose Hill Resources taught me that a cheap stock can get ridiculously cheaper (bought at 2.5x, went down to as low as 1.55, sold at 2.6 after it rebound, went back up to 3.4 after selling it) and book value plays should be largely diversified because you never know if one stock will implode. Transit Concrete taught me that it is nefariously difficult to value stock based on earnings. Noble, that I should always read the short seller’s reports (because they are usually well researched and these short sellers had skin in the game); and lastly Starhub: hopefully I will stop being such a lazy bastard!

In this bull market, many of my friends who traded blindly made a lot more money than I did. Plenty of investors in InvestingNote has also shown me crazy single-year returns (40%-60%). While I do envy their good fortune, I will stubbornly stick to my guns as a value investor because it is in my nature to be one. I don’t mind standing alone in a corner and generally avoid crowds. I know some “value investors” who have lost their way because they are only in the game for the money (in short, they are just plain greedy). It is pretty easy to steal ideas from eminent blogs or forums and earn a decent return. For me, stock picking is an intellectual exercise. 

I am only interested in cheap stocks. Financial gurus quipped that if a mall runs a major discount, products get sweep off the shelves. But they lament that the crowd does not behave similarly during a stock market correction. I am going to play devil’s advocate; companies are a lot more complex to inspect than apples. Most of my companies are genuinely in some kind of trouble. My job as a stock picker is to invest in companies that are cheap and can turn things around. When will that happen? Well, it is not my job and neither am I capable of such a feat.

The market has been extremely kind to me for the last two weeks. The ultimate test for any active (or enterprising, a term coined by Benjamin Graham) investor is whether she/he beats the market in the long run. Given that all my stocks in my portfolio are less than a year old, my portfolio under-performed versus the market until only recently, pipping it by 2%. The late Christopher Browne of Tweedy Browne wrote,

“Value investors are more like farmers. They plant seeds and wait for the crops to grow. If the corn is a little late in starting because of cold weather, they don’t tear up the fields and plant something else. No, they just sit back and wait patiently for the corn to pop out of the ground, confident that it will eventually sprout.”

Most of the time, my stocks are sleeping or falling. Good news doesn’t always arrive immediately. Wee Hur, a company that I purchased about 140 days ago, barely moved. However in the last 2 days, it advanced by 20%. I recalled purchasing some shares of Innotek because they fell 20% the day before, and right after my purchase they fell another 8%. It is very normal for my stocks to have paper losses of 10-20%. Value investing is an arrogant act because you are literally standing in front of a mob and telling them that they are wrong, doubling down your stake as the price get lower (and more attractive). 

Let me conclude this post by summarizing my investment strategy. My portfolio is largely diversified into cheap and safe businesses with little to no debt, and are run by management which are shareholder friendly. 

Some corns that has sprouted (thank you very much):

·       Chuan Hup 42.51%

·       Wee Hur 21.47%

·       Samudera Shipping 14.50%

·       Teckwah (sold) 26.1%

·       Ascendas Hospitality Trust (sold) 32.9%

Special Dividends from Chuan Hup

Many shareholders, like myself, are pleased with the dividends from CH.
Unlike others, I would not claim to possessing any special foresight-- CH is just a company that was slightly out of favor, pays a decent dividend in the past. It is also the only reason why I have included it in my mother's portfolio. So I am just a recipient of incredible luck. I held this stock for well over 200 days.

Another company that was in the modest little portfolio is Teckwah which I have already sold. The problems are no longer there. This little portfolio only contains a few thousand dollars worth of Chuan Hup and Comfortdelgro. The latter has problems but that does not include paying dividends.

Based on time weighted returns, this portfolio beats the index handily, returning 31.38% over ES3's 21.3%.

You can have very decent results from buying based on book value and shareholder-friendly management

"Good News" Companies on SGX.

As of today, 7-August-2017, a couple of "good news" companies stood out. They are AEM Holdings (SGX:AWX) and Best World (SGX:CGN). Their earning power narrative continues despite worrying signs in their balance sheet, namely the receivables.

AEM registers a negative cash flow while Best World's cashflow is positive. Would be interesting to note this down and watch how they both end up, 1 year down the road.

I remain convinced that the stock market consistently overprice companies with brilliant prospects, and sometimes undervalued companies with dim ones. The latter, given an appropriate price, will often surprise you positively because of a number of outcomes in the future.

It is nice to buy profitable companies. The problem is that everyone knows who they are-- and it is tough to affirm if its profits are legit.

On M&A Deals

Recently we have a bit of a shocker news from China-- major conglomerates like the Wanda Group, HNA, etc are being queried by the China Banking Regulatory Committee (CBRC) regarding their loans. I know very little about China, and most investor in Singapore are heavily dissuaded (with good intentions of course) from investing in s-chips. For the uninitiated, s-chip is the term given to companies listed in Singapore but actually based and managed by the Chinese.

To summarise, the CBRC is probably concern with the amount of M&A deals going around recently from these conglomerates. More specifically, they want to know the source of these loans.

The first time I have heard of HNA group was due to its plans to acquire CWT Limited, a local logistic company. After reading the fine book by Joe Ponzio (F Wall Street), I began investigating the balance sheet of both HNA and CWT.

Both have so-so balance sheets. More worryingly, I wonder how HNA group could possibly fund this acquisition from its own pocket. Some research and helpful forum posters pointed out that they depended on banks and JVs to do so. A bit of googling revealed that these companies have been on a spree of acquiring companies. There are also politicking going on behind the scenes, though most of these info are from the grapevine.

Unlike the last M&A ARA deal, the CWT deal didn't feel all that safe to me. I always looked at M&A deals as low-risk-definite-returns, and will bet a sizeable amount of my portfolio into it. To stress the point, I can assure you that it is not no risk-- anything can happened at the last minute. It isn't over until it is over (or voted).

Along with the recent inverse bond yield alert, I think it isn't prudent to bet on these deals. I glad I have stayed away.
***

As of now, there are 3 "deals" going on in SGX.
- CWT
- M1 (rumoured deal. Gosh God help these investors who only just bought recently)
- GLP (another rumoured deal that can go south very very quickly).

Neither of them look safe enough for investors.

Update on 18-Jan-2018
GLP's deal concluded successfully.
MI went down from 2.1 to 1.7 after its "strategic review" between substantial shareholders concluded that a sale is not in the interest of the shareholders.
The CWT deal was seal successfully after a few dramatic sell-downs (big enough to frighten some arbitrageurs)