Season 2 of Gossip Girl is BACK. Ok. i know you think i'm probably crazy. But i seriously think that the anology of Gossip Girl to the Semi-Strong Form of Efficient Market Hyphothesis (EMH) is pretty solid.
Wonder who will read this post?!?, cuz pple i know who cares for Gossip Girls cares not for EMH, and vice versa, heehee :)
Semi-Strong Form of EMH is simply the idea that all public information is immediately known by all market participants and prices will INSTANTANEOUSLY adjust to the new info (ie that you can't make profit from publicly available information).
Isn't that just like in Gossip Girl, where information is instantly available online and everyone in their little private school would know everyone's business. Those who 'know' doesn't have an edge, but those who 'don't know', lose out. Think poor Dan Humphrey who's always the last to know as he's rarely on Gossip Girl website. Btw, Hump-phrey is a pretty good name for the character, people are always free riding off him. And i'm pretty sure Serena will be getting some other phrey hump somewhere soon.
However, Blair is different, knowing that the market is pretty efficient, she does one of two things, (i) she uses information in a superior manner, (ii) she digs deeper than the rest to get access to private (sometimes too private) information.
Hey! that's exactly what great investors do! People like Martin Whitman said that the information that he used are public information, he simply used them in a superior way. Berkshire Hathaway Assurance Corporation, which offerred to reinsure the portfolio of several existing financial guarantors is another creature which has been collecting information on the industry for over 20 years. And now when others and facing downgrade or losing access to capital market, they are one of the few which have the ability and capacity to underwrite huge volume of insurance for municipal bonds. Read this speech by Ajit Jain to understand Berkshire's rationale to enter into this market.
Be prepared, or be bitten in the ass.
"Ain't karma a bitch?..................We know Blair Waldorf is."
I had fun over the weekend being part of the E.y.E Investment Bootcamp as a faci. I'm really glad that this year's turnup was very good and that the participants enjoyed the games designed and excecuted flawlessly by the awesome team that runs the camp!
It is great to see a bunch of committed people having fun while working effectively with each other. And at the end of the day, celebrating each other's success.
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We had a great speaker on the second day of the camp who talked about asset allocation strategy. She's awesome! I share her anger at financial products that is introduced irresponsibly to the lay person. She talked about different forms of Structured Products that is being introduced in banks which is being touted as a Fixed Deposit alternative. However, it is NOT!
I'll try to understand what the speaker has said and will try to blog about the potential risks and return soon.
Meanwhile, read this great introduction to investing written by Xin Hong for the first time investor( and yah, not forgetting to shamelessly plug E.y.E club here. It written for our members.) Its an awesome guide and reads like a storybook.
"By periodically investing in an index fund, for example, the know-nothing investor can actually out-perform most investment professionals. Paradoxically, when "dumb" money acknowledges its limitations, it ceases to be dumb."
Today i had an eye opening experience during my Accounting Theory (AT) class. To me AT feels like a combi of history, literature and philosophy of accounting. I'm still rather confused over the course, so whatever i say may be totally off.
Prof JJ tried to get us to SEE how the economic/financial exchanges (transactions- the inputs) gets 'transformed' into behind financial statements (the output) via accounting standards (e.g. GAAP). Without understanding this transformation, all attempts at understanding the output (the FS) is rather pointless.
He also tried to free us from our "accounting diapers" days when we learnt that Assets = Liab + Equities. Whereby the reality is simply an entity gives up something, in exchange for something. Thus a Debit entry is equivalant to Credit entry. Note, its not EQUAL, but equivalant. Haha. Only a fool would exchage for something that is EXACTLY the same.
Futhermore, i also get to see that our financial statements are prepared primarily for the owners of capital, be it debt or equity. And a primary emphasis has been placed on equity owners. Thus we always have Net Profit as the last line on our Income Statement. What more, Net profit is seen as a EXPENSE to the entity. Has the prof committed heresy in accounting? However upon further thinking, it does seem like net profit is simply like a form of undistributed future payment to the equity owners in exchage for the services of his capital. In this sense, isn't net profit somewhat like interest expense. And if interest expense is an EXPENSE, then isn't net profit an EXPENSE to the entity too?
The prof even managed to link up Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle with accounting. The uncertainty priciple states that we can either measure the momentum or position of particle, but never both with 100% precision. Prof suggested that we can see the Income statement as momentum and b/s as position. We can't measure both with 100% precision.
Moreover, the reason we can 'close off'' the income statement to balance sheet at the end of the accounting period is that we added artificial feature to the concept. Net income is actually Net income per year, we multiply Net income/year with 1 year to "make" net income part of retained earnings....very interesting concept, but i never thought of it that way.
I was saddened when i hear a girl commented that Prof GAN (my accouting 101 prof) powerpoint slides was incomprehensible, thus she COULDN'T do well in financial accounting. What nonsense! The professor's slides is meant to facilitate his in class teachings, not meant as a mugging guide. University students should know better than to rely only on 'prof's slides. But to supplement it with textbook and other resources readings, in class discussion and discussion with friends. It is OUR responsibility to be educated. Our profs are there to facilitate our learnings, not to spoonfeed us.
Viewed the following video again during my MPW (Management of People at Work) course again. The address by Steve Jobs is really inspiring and impactful. Essentially, he reminds us not to settle for less than ideal, and have the faith to hold true to what we believe in.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Question: If you have a $6,000 investment portfolio and it compounds at 12% annually for the next 40 years. What is the value of your portfolio in 40 years???(juz give a wild guess, ans at the end of the post)
Following my previous post on different difficulties investors face in investing in unit trusts, what can a individual investor do?
If you look at unit trust available in Singapore, the bulk of them churn their portfolio like crazy, normally holding the stocks in the portfolio for less than 2 years and in the meantime racking in fees for the investors and income for their brokerage house, which the parent company owns (not-so) coincidentally.
I believe that for the majority of us, holding a diverse portfolio of stocks and bonds is the best way to go. So looking at local unit trusts available, a good combi could be a combination of a low cost index fund, and a bond fund that invests only in Singapore bonds (thus reducing foreign exchange risk).
Example 1
Infinity Global Stock Index (80%) LIONGLOBAL SPORE FIXED INC-A (20%)
or if you are really lazy, a balanced fund would do for you. A balanced fund holds a combi of stocks a bonds. It does allocation for you. So if there's only one fund you own, just own a low cost balanced fund.
Example 2 Lion Capital target return Fund/First State Bridge (70%) + Infinity Global Stock Index (30%)
The reason for including the global stock index in is that both the target return fund and first state bridge invests only in Asia (exld Japan) stocks. To achieve geographical diversification, it is prudent to also invest in the global stock market.
However, if you are REALLY really REALLY lazy, just set up a regular savings plan and invests monthly into 1 balanced fund and pray hard that the global economy for the next 30 years will be dominated by Asian states.
Alternatively, you can invest in individual companies that exhibits competitive strengths, superior managerial ability and purchased at a sound price...and the final result should be very satisfactory. Easier said than done!
ANS: $558,306, over time and decent rate of return, many of us in our twenties has the future potential to be worth half a million TODAY!
GET STARTED!!!
This post is prepared solely for information purposes and is not an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sales of the securities/investments herein.
I have just read a great book - The Investor's Dilemma by Lou Lowenstein. Anyone involved with the mutual funds should read this book. The book writes about the ugly truth behind the mutual fund industry and what should investors do about it.
It clearly and critically discussed the conflict of interest behind mutual funds (aka Unit Trusts in Singapore). Where the investor's aim is to maximise returns, the fund manager's main aim is to maximize asset under management and management fee. It is clearly a "heads i win, tails you lose" type of situation.
However, the book picks on a few true stalwart of capital in this self-serving mutual funds industry, and also gives the lay investor some techniques to pick winning funds ex-ante.
A list of funds provided by Bob Galdfard, the CEO of Sequoia Fund (the fund Warren Buffett recomended to his investors when he liquidated his partnership in 1969), shows investors some clues in choosing winning mutual funds managed for the INVESTOR not the managers/management company.
If you are as crazy as i am, read through the funds and their very illuminating commentary. Some of the common characteristics of these great funds are;
1. They eat their own cooking. Oakmark Select and Longleaf Parnters' largest investors are the staff and managers of the funds. This reduces the inherent conflict of interest by re-alinging managers to shareholders. Longleaf Partners prohibits its employees from investing outside the funds. With shareholders as your employees, analysts and fund managers have their own assets on the line when proposing portfolio ideas or in analysing stock picks.
2. High Concentration Typically, these funds top 10 holdings goes up to nearly 50% of assets. Compare this to some US Funds such as Fidelity American Funds where top 10 assets is less than 20 % of total assets.
3. Low Portfolio Turnover This is expressed in TURNOVER RATIO, this is a term i hope ALL local investors will understand. It is expressed in %, and the inverse of it gives rough estimation of numbers of years an average security in the portfolio is held. For example, for Legg Mason Value Trust, the turnover ratio for the past 3 years are 11.1% (07), 12.7% (06), 8.8% (05). Which shows that the average stocks is held for up to 10 years.
Contrast this with most of the funds which has portfolio turnover of about 50% to above 100%!!! Shenton Global Advantage Fund managed by DBS for instance have a turnover ratio of 63%, or a average holding period of about 18 months. IF you think that long term investing is about NOT churning your portfolio, then please look out for this ratio before purchasing a fund next time.
4. Willingness to Hold Cash Many portfolio managers are not willing to hold cash in his portfolio as it penalises his return if equities rush ahead. And relative underperformance is a big NO NO for managers as huge redemptions normally follows. But sound and responsible managers are willing to take on financial and reputational risk to reduce the risk of permanant capital loss when they see no opportunity to invest in stocks.
FPA Capital is a splendid example of a manager willing to hold cash. As of June 30th, FPA Capital, holds almost 42% of the assets in cash and only 29 securities in its portfolio.
These behaviour is a rarity, as Keynes told us many decades ago, "Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally."
~The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
Will talk more about these unconventional managers over the next few days. And what can we as Singaporean investor, at least for those with limited means, do to capitalise on such findings since MAS prohibits us from directly investing in US mutual funds to protect us from unscrupulous funds salesman and advertisements.
Disclaimer: I am the proud owner of some LeggMason Value Trust (SGD Class) units despite having its NAV fell by over 38% over the last 1 year.
