Sunday, January 31, 2010

My stocks portfolio - Jan 2010

Based on total invested capital, my stocks portfolio was down by 10.25% at the end of January 2010. Total portfolio loss adjusted to 4.51% after taking dividends into account.

There were 3 transactions for the month of January 2010.
Bought Starhub (PSBP), new average price at $2.106
Bought Tai Sin, new average price at $0.317
Bought Design Studio, average price at $0.679

Like I always do, I continue to purchase some shares from the market on a monthly basis. I have made my third purchase for Tai Sin shares recently in averaging down my cost per share from $0.47 to $0.317. This is a stock that I have held for the past 1.5 years. Over this period, I received a decent amount of dividends from the company. Historically Tai Sin has paid out dividends every year since 1998 so I have little doubt that they will fail to pay out dividends in the future. Furthermore if you look at its financial statements, the company generated positive free cash flows over the years. And capital expenditures were maintained at low levels too. Tai Sin is in the progress of penetrating the Middle East region through its subsidiary LKH Electric Middle East. With their participation in the upcoming Middle East Electricity 2010 fair, that will probably give Tai Sin a good opportunity to improve its presence in the region.

The other stock that I purchased was Design Studio. For the past few years, this company has grown tremendously and established itself as a major interior fit out company in the region. The company has grown its NAV and EPS at a compounded rate of 58.9% and 37.1% per annum respectively since 2006. Here I attach the profitability and margin trends as per DBS Vickers research report.

Design Studio profitability and margin trends

One of the competitive advantages of this company is the CR06 (Interior Decoration) grade of L6 given by Singapore Building and Construction Authority. The other listed company with that grading is Kingsmen Creative of course. Companies with L6 grade can tender construction projects of unlimited size from the Singapore government. The other competitive advantage of Design Studio is the financial backing of its biggest shareholder that is Depa United. Do check out the company background of Depa United and you will be impressed by their achievements. The synergistic venture with Depa United has enabled Design Studio to clinch multimillion dollar projects. To just name a few, they are the Resorts World Sentosa and Burj Tower projects. Design Studio will be kept busy for the next year or so with its healthy order book of $171M as of 3Q09.

I did not receive any dividends for the month of January 2010.
StockModeUnrealised P/L (SGD)StockModeUnrealised P/L (SGD)
ARA CASH0.82%KS ENERGYCASH-16.88%
ARMSTRONGCASH96.00%MACQ INT INFRA CASH-48.33%
CAPITACOMMCASH20.05%NEPTUNE ORIENT LINESCASH31.36%
CAPITALANDCASH55.08%MERMAIDCASH4.11%
CAPITAMALLS ASIACASH8.96%NOBLE GROUPCASH15.76%
CHINA MILKCASH-58.33%PLIFE REITCASH66.45%
CITYSPRINGCASH24.49%RAFFLES EDUCATIONCASH-51.16%
COURAGE MAR CASH-24.60%ROTARY ENGRG LTD CASH-2.09%
CSE GLOBAL CASH124.94%SATSCASH46.92%
DESIGN STUDIOCASH-10.16%SGXCASH25.47%
FIBRECHEM CASH-88.71%STARHUBCASH3.04%
FORTUNE REITCASH28.03%ST ENGGCASH35.65%
FRASERSCOMM CASH-47.74%TAI SIN CASH-29.02%
FRASERSCTCASH24.54%TAT HONG CASH25.64%
FSL TRUSTCASH-51.21%UOB-KAY HIAN CASH-17.82%
GENTING SP CASH49.51%VICOM CASH34.15%
HEALTHWAYCASH24.06%VANGUARD EMER MRKTSCASH-13.94%
HG METALCASH-29.94%iSHARES MSCI EAFECASH10.11%
JAYA HLDG CASH-55.22%BH GLOBALCPF-26.29%
KEPLANDCASH158.68%COSCOCORPCPF-57.11%
KEPPELCORPCASH116.33%SIAENGGCPF-29.65%

8 comments:

jasmine said...

hi Mike,
i'd like to ask one question..i read ur post portfolio-jan 2010 just now...u sold out cosco and swiber @ cut loss..but u still holding raffles edu @ -51.16%....why dont u do cut loss for raffles?..do u see it will up in future...i'd like to know ur view for raffles edu...bcos i also loss 40% ready...
thks

Mike Dirnt said...

Hi Jasmine,
It all depends on the size of your position with Raffles.

For my case, the size of my positions with Swiber and Cosco were quite huge. The fundamentals of these companies are bad. I decided to cut loss because i dont want to lose further. Furthermore i dont think i will be able to recoup my losses with them in the near term.

As for Raffles Education, the size of my position is quite small. So i dont mind holding on to it. Furthermore it is the only education stock in my portfolio so it does provide some diversification to my investments.

I hope Raffles Education is not the only stock in your portfolio. Just see my losses with RE, its already -50%. But my overall portfolio is still alright because it is not the only company i have.

You gain some, you lose some. As long you gain more than you lose in the longer term, your investments should be alright.

Musicwhiz said...

Hi Mike,

From what I observe and read about, REC's business is not doing well and the company is trading at a very high forward PER. You may wish to consider another education provider or to exit if the business is not promising. I acknowledge you have a small stake but if you could free up the cash for other better investments it may still be better than leaving it in a company which is on the decline. Watch REC's Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement. There are hints of trouble there.

Cheers,
Musicwhiz

Mike Dirnt said...

Hi MW,

Thanks for the heads up. I do smell some trouble. And from the chart, i feel its reaching the bottom. But I dont wish to end up selling near the bottom so i think i will just hold a while longer.

Anonymous said...

Dear Mike,

I just chanced upon your website and am happy to find someone who shares their investment portfolio and their thoughts online.

I understand that you have bought shares from Tai Sin and Design Studio. I researched and found out that these 2 companies are penny stocks and have very little trading volume too.

I wanted to find out if these 2 stocks are merely to reap dividends payout or expecting this to rise in the near future.

Being such a novice investor and not much of cash to start a decent portfolio, would it be best to start off with the above penny stocks or mid-large sized cap companies.

Regards,
Stella

Mike Dirnt said...

Hi Stella,

My advice is to go for bluechips first if you intend to start a stocks portfolio. But right now, bluechips are fairly and over valued. so you may consider adding during the corrections just like recently.

For penny stocks, there are still undervalued counters that you can consider. But its not advisable to start your portfolio with a penny stock unless you dont mind losing like 50% or more.

I am looking for dividends and growth for Tai Sin. Design Studio is more of a growth stock.

Anonymous said...

For my case, the size of my positions with Swiber and Cosco were quite huge. The fundamentals of these companies are bad.

Substantiate that statement in bold, please. Very irresponsible of you to say the fundamentals of certain companies are bad without any supporting facts.

Are you trying to smear these companies???

ucypmas said...

Dear anonymous, any two persons can read a financial statement and come up with conclusions which may be totally different form each other. So Mike has read up on the two companies and he says that they are lemons. There is no need for him to substantiate anything and you are free to disregard him. Unless Swiber and Cosco comes and poke his backside with lawyer's letter and take him to court (which they will probably lose anyway).

So are you working for either these two companies? I happen to think that they are overleveraged and overpriced too. So sue me. There are no rules on the internet saying that you have to substantiate only the bad things that you say. I suppose if Mike is praising these two companies to high heavens there will be no comments from you calling him as a stock pumper and that he should "substantiate" all his arguments.