Cheap Stocks by Chief

lets help japan

2011-03-23T01:08:00.000-07:00

last march 11, 2011 will go down in history as one of the most powerful earthquakes that have hit the world. i have been glued to the news watching the development of this catastrophe that has hit japan. it started with an earthquake, then a tsunami, and then a nuclear blast, deaths of thousands and so much more missing. it pains to look at families look for their loved ones and after they have found them they cant even give them a proper burial. now i hear a lot of the sick cant get proper medical attention. and now i also hear that the food crops and water now have radiation but low levels only but still is a cause for concern. also what if the radioactive material get into the ocean and it might also contaminate the marine life and the japanese is one nation that loves seafood. but with this tragedy i have realized that there is so much to be praised about japan... a lot of buildings survived the earthquake and that is because of the strict building regulations in the country. people are calm despite what happened. people now have to give way and sacrifice... the perfect example would be the workers in the fukushima nuclear power plant... my hats off to the japanese. i look at them and i can say for sure they will rise again from this tragedy... heroes will emerge from all these and they are the japanese people. but in the meantime they need help and on march 27, 2011 i will join the 15k run of the Globe run for home in the bonifacio global city. i hope there will be generous souls who will donate for every kilometer that i run. i will also personally give a donation and after gathering all the donations i will give it to run for japan. please check the website www.runforjapan.com and if you want to donate please email me at compounder888@gmail.com thank you so much. God bless :)

running, investing and life

2010-11-10T01:14:00.000-08:00

Its been awhile since i wrote because i have been busy the last few months. :) busy with work, friends, my girlfriend, family and my new found love, running. :) running has taught me lot of things in this short love affair of ours. It reminded me that in work and anything in life one should always enjoy the process more and not the outcome... as the saying goes “enjoy the journey.” It has brought me back to my athlete days when discipline was at a premium. I have cut my smoking to about 80% from 4-5 packs per week, i have given myself a limit of only 1 cigarette pack per week so as not to shock my body from the absence of nicotine(im just trying to avoid withdrawals). But eventually i am going to completely stop smoking that will most likely be some time early 2011. :) it has also forced me to eat more healthy meals. :) i have now learned to love eating vegetables and drink milk everyday for healthy bones. :) i am training myself slowly but surely adding more to my mileage a little everytime i can feel that my body gets stronger. It has definitely awakened my competitive spirit in sports and i really want to be good in this sport. I wanna run better times in different distances and maybe sometime end of 2011 run a full marathon. And im also lucky the my girlfriend is really supportive. My run time is also time for myself, its time for me to think and clear my mind. Time to look back at my life the last few years, i now have lessened time using facebook(only to communicate with friends) and i noticed im even happier because of that. :) i do remember a study before that stated that people who spent a lot of time in social networks be it friendster, facebook, multiply or the like was a sign of depression. :) looking back at myself maybe during that time i spent so much time in facebook was really a low point in my life and looking at the people who are so hyperactive in facebook.... i guess maybe some of them have nothing better to do or have nothing going in there life that they need to be in this “fake reality” because it makes them feel cool or they have a lot of friends. :) i read from a book before a saying by a famous author “80% of your friends are not real, 15% look real and the 5% left are your real friends.” :) that saying really hit me hard coz i have been betrayed, used and abused by some of my so-called friends before and in the end we had a “falling-out.” but i dont condemn them because i gained wisdom, strength and now i know who my true friends are. :) i have learned that one should look for people who will have a good influence on you. The only way to be the best is to learn from people better than you. :) and to be able to succeed in life one should have a good partner to walk/run with you along the way. That was what my father repeatedly told me before and it is only now that i have truly understood the wisdom in his advise because after all no man is an island. :) i guess this will be all for now. :) things i have learned the last few years 1. slowly but surely does it 2. dont overdo it. 3. what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger 4. aches and pains will go away 5. learn from the best 6. give it your all in anything you do. As my grandfather always used to say “hurry up slowly” God bless you :)

Cost of Money

2010-08-09T02:02:00.000-07:00

Opportunity cost is the cost related to the next-best choice available to someone who has picked between several mutually exclusive choices.[1] It is a key concept in economics. It has been described as expressing "the basic relationship between scarcity and choice."[2] The notion of opportunity cost plays a crucial part in ensuring that scarce resources are used efficiently.[3] Thus, opportunity costs are not restricted to monetary or financial costs: the real cost of output forgone, lost time, pleasure or any other benefit that provides utility should also be considered opportunity costs.

The concept of an opportunity cost was first developed by John Stuart Mill.[4]. This definition is taken from wikipedia. This topic really has intrigued me the past month because my girlfriend and me have been talking about settling down and starting a family. Its basically a talk BUT she doesnt know the SECRET plans that i have in store because i want it to come as a surprise. Anyways, talk of marriage made me think and reevaluate my current position in life emotionally and financially. With increasing costs all around us, it made me think, how much should i save with what i earn? Will it be enough? How much do you need to be able to raise a family? How much should one save for a rainy day? What is extravagant spending? Then it made me realize that using the credit card can be good because you get a “float” of one month but this is assuming you have the discipline to control your buying. Im really working hard so that my monthly expenses can be paid by my bank deposit's monthly interest and i realized that it can be achieved if you live a simple life. :-) i've met people and friends who spend a lot and some who are freebies but i guess its different strokes for different folks. There is no correct solution and do whatever works best for you. Some people can spend a lot on their holidays, cars, houses, clothes, bags and whatever you can think of. People have different resons on how they spend their money maybe because ownership of the said item makes you feel “cool” and maybe also the influence of the media and advertising. But when you spend your money on something you lose so much more not just the amount you spent which is basically opprtunity cost. I have always wanted to have a motorcycle and the cost of a good one is around the P500,000 range and assuming i bought it how much did i lose?

Assuming i can get 3.2% interest net from the bank my 500,00 in these number of years would have been worth:
5years 516,000
10 years 685,120.52
15 years 801,983.56
20years 938,780.26
25 years 1,098,910.79
30 years 1.286,355.25
assuming i put the 500,000 in an investment that can give me 8%net per annum then i would have
5years 734,664
10 years 1,079, 462
15years 1,586,085
20 years2,330,479
25 years 3,424,238
30 years 5.031,328
this is the power of compounding working at its best. But i should say you will lose even more because we havent taken into account the yearly depreciation, gasoline expenses, if you took out a loan to buy it and repairs. So in the end you will lose even more.
What if i bought a car worth 3million with a resale value of 1m after 5 years how much will you lose?
Theoretically you lost 2million. Cost of the car less the resale value. So ill put a chat here amounts if you put your money in an investment that can give you a compounded rate of return of 8% and 15%

2million at 8% compounded return
5 years 2.938,656
10 years 4,317,850
15years 6,344,338
20 years 9,321,914
25 years 13,696,950

2million at 15% compounded return
5years 4,022,714
10years 8.091,115
15years 16,274,123
20 years 32,733,074
25years 65,837,905

what if you put the whole 3million in an investment that could give you an compounded returns of 8% and 15%
3million at 8% compounded return
5 years 4,407,984
10 years 6,476,775
15 years 9.516,507
20years 13,982,871
25 years 20,585,426

3million at 15% compounded return
5years 6,034,072
10years 12,136,673
15years 24,411,185
20years 49,099,612
25years 98,756,858

after doing the calculations it made me so happy that i knew better in where to spend my money cause all these talks of settling down has definitely made me more conscious of my finances. As the saying goes 'your future starts today'. For success two elements are important planning and execution. Now that i have made the plan now its up to me to execute it. God bless :)

Amazing Boracay

2010-06-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

Boracay is truly an amazing destination, it has a beautiful beach, lovely sunsets and the resorts there are world-class and my girlfriend and i had a truly unforgettable experience there for our anniversary. When i was in Boracay i realized a lot of things especially on the business side of the island. One can see in Boracay how progress can be made possible with the cooperation of the government. The island is truly an attraction of the country and even in my travels abroad and when i say im from the Philippines and 7 out of 10 times the response would be “I've been to Boracay!” or “I wanna go to Boracay.” So i always tell them that it is now easy to get to Caticlan airport from Manila and then just take a pumpboat to the island. Last I've heard this summer there were around 40flights more or less in Caticlan everyday during the peak season. :) It really shows the business that tourism can generate if supported by the government which they have thru the expansion of the Caticlan airport, building of the jetty port in Boracay island and smooth roads to Caticlan. :) my girlfriend and I drove from Iloilo to Caticlan and it took us around 4hours with just one bathroom stop. But if you drive faster I think one can make it a three and a half hour trip. :) the move of the government to move the holidays near the weekends also helps boost the local tourism industry for it encourages our countrymen to explore and travel around the country be it Coron, Subic, Tagaytay, Baguio or Boracay. The country's most visited place by foreigners is Boracay and what brings them to the place is basically the sun and the beach. There is this threat now of global warming and that maybe it might affect the island but the national and local government should make all the necessary efforts to develop the island further and maintain its world-class status. Boracay caters to everybody from class A to C. :) Everything that you need is there be it premium accomodations to the budget hotels. Food is also not a problem because almost all the popular food brands are there and you can also have the local food or buy seafood from the talipapa and have it cooked, you can also try the popular chori-burger of the island or call off the local Jonah's shakes. With activities there is so much to do for the old just to relax, or for the young to party and drink in numerous bars at night. Groups or couples can always try the banana boat, reef walking, Zorb, para-sailing and zipline to name a few. As of last count there have been more than 700,000 visitors last 2009 and there are now more than 5,000rooms available in the island. Boracay was always popular but the boom really started when the big name hotels started arriving a couple of years ago like Shangrila and also the emergence of local players like Discovery Shores, Boracay Regency and Waling-Waling. We stayed in Waling-Waling hotel and the experience was quite memorable because of the good service of the staff and preparing for us a great anniversary dinner(well actually it was more of a surprise anniversary dinner for my girlfriend). :) The food was great and location of hotel is good also :) i couldnt help myself but ask the staff but their clientele and they told me that 70% of their occupants are returning guests and that made me think. Why would those people keep coming back? I can only think of one answer: A SATISFIED CUSTOMER. :) and I have to say I am one also and we'll stay there are next trip back. And as for the tourists of the island of Boracay im sure they will always keep coming back because there always be new memories to be made everytime you're there. :) Let us preserve Boracay and help promote Philippine tourism. :) God bless :)

to buy or not to buy... that is the question

2010-03-05T23:49:00.001-08:00

What would you do?

Its good to be back writing after a long lay off. I have been busy with work, busy with stocks, learning what life is all about and i found “the girl.” anyways im not here to talk about my personal life but i do have to admit that what im going to write about has been keeping me busy day and night the past five months. A few months ago we came across this business and the owners were open to selling it to us. So my father and i were interested because it was a business that we were familiar with. The story goes like this... the offer started with a price of around P530m to be paid in three tranches. But after further negotiations the price was brought down to P500m and still to be paid in three tranches. The business has around 100 branches and the takeover of these will also be in three tranches. The estimated returns will be around 16% per annum assuming that everything goes according to plan. The plan is to do cost cutting measures especially on some expenses that we consider “somehwat excessive” and also at the same time making sure that the operations of the business wont be affected when these cost cutting measures are enforced. The only problem with the operations of the business is something i would call extreme. When i say extreme it means that there are a few of very profitable branches and a lot of branches that are either making marginal profits, breaking even or losing money. After further study of the day to day operations of the business and after studying how much we can cut from expenses we discovered that only 40 branches would be making a good profit and the rest would either be losing money or making a marginal profit which if you really think about it... its not worth it to operate and waste your time on. So i would say this would be the most important factor to go or back off the deal. Do you maintain and support all the existing branches or do you close the 60 mediocre or losing branches and then incur a loss of around P30m but in exchange you are able to streamline operations. It was also mentioned that returns would be 16% per annum but we havent yet put into consideration the effect of competition with it driving prices down and with it profits also and that would also mean a longer payback period and lower rate or return. Is 16% return per annum enough for an investment like this? Should we have tried to lower the purchase price? Can you say this is a good investment? Or this is a bad investment? Should one pay a premium for something that one has expertise in? Cause we calculated that the goodwill of this takeover would be around P17m-P20m. Is the goodwill valued fairly? Or is it too much? How can one really value the exact amount of goodwill? Some of the drawbacks of a takeover also would be that you will inherit all the problems of the existing business or as they say “caveat emptor” or buyer beware. Cause no amount of due diligence can really expose ALL the problems of the business it will only be when you takeover and run the business that you will see all its problems. But the main reason why one would consider taking over is that you get into an existing business(one thats running already when you consider it is so hard to start up), one that has clients already, the manpower necessary, the needed infrastructure to conduct business and immediate income(assuming the business is making money). But i do have to point out that despite this not all takeovers are successful also so there would be still some risk. So i would like to hear what you think. Any comment, suggestion or question would be welcome. Or you could also tell me what steps you would take if you were in this situation. Thank you. Take care always and God bless.

im back!!!!

2008-11-24T23:38:00.000-08:00

Hello again everyone!!! after almost three months without any posts in this humble blog of mine i am now back. :) the past weeks my life has mirrored the market. I mean that is not figuratively speaking, i mean it also went into a free fall. But i have already hit rock bottom and there is no way to go but up. :) maybe some things in our life just have to happen.... not to put us down but to teach us a lesson. With pain there are lessons to be learned. I have learned so much the past few months. I have matured a lot and i have grown up a lot the past few weeks.what i found out is that there will always be lessons to be learned in life. I realized today that i should get back to my writing because deep down in my heart i truly love investing. :) it is a passion of mine and the only thing that is stopping me are my very shallow pockets!!! hahahaha now lets get down to business! Yes i wrote about the us downfall about sometime a year ago and yes i do believe that everybody will be affected because the world now is so interconnected with each other but!!!!!! take note i still believe that asia will also be affected but maybe just half as bad as the americans and hopefully the former will lead the way when everything calms down. :) there are a lot of bargains in the market but in my opinion our market will still continue togo down. :) just my opinion. :) having a democrat president will be a great help in improving the us economy because if it was a republican again he'll just be interested in waging wars against other countires. :) change has finally come to the united states and i believe Mr Obama will be a good president. :) our market will still be a roller until next year in my opinion. :) you will hear more from me guys!!! thank you chief spyfrat for giving me a telling me and giving me a slight nudge that i should write again. :) God bless all of you. God loves us. :) take care

ps. to the girl who broke my heart
i have no hard feelings for you
i dont have any ill feelings towards you
i learned so many lessons with what happened
between us and with pain there are
lessons to be learned.
Some things just have to happen
in your life to shape you.
I now see the wisdom why it had to happen....

the brand

2008-08-27T01:44:00.000-07:00

A brand name according to mr webster is the name which a given brand of goods is known. A brand is an identifying mark;trademark. Or something that distinguishes it from other goods. :) from an accounting point of view this is an intangible asset because it is something that cannot be quatified but i do believe that it is a very powerful weapon that can be used by any company. :) a perfect example of this is my friend's dad, we were discussing about stocks one time and he mentioned that he only buys ayala stocks. The main reason is that you believe in the product or in the company. :) he believes that the company is ethical and always puts shareholder interests first. :) it is the ayala brand for my friend's dad that set it apart from other companies knowing that the company stands for excellence. :) another example here is jollibee and mcdonald's. Why do people prefer the bee over ronald macdonald? :) maybe because people here see that jollibee is more suited for the filipino tongue or is it something that they can identify with? There are so many questions to be asked but one thing i do know is that a strong brand will definitely have an advantage over its competitors. :) a firm believer of this is nobody else but mr warren buffett himself. :) but we do have to admit he was more a student of benjamin graham when it comes to value investing but his path what somewhat influenced by his partner mr charlie munger. :) if it wasnt for charlie munger buffett wouldnt have bought see's candies which was five times its book value, coca cola, american express, just to name a few. :) but munger showed him that even though the company was five times its book value there was still value to be found because the see's candies brand cannot be quantified. :) it doesnt show in the financial statements of the company. :) just doing a little survey among my friends i asked what softdrink would they rather have?? pepsi or coca cola. :) the answers that i got were interesting. :) around 2/3 of the respondents wanted to have a coca cola. :) i got a lot of answers saying that they were already used to drinking coke and that it tastes better. :) i also believe that the advertisements have an influence on the preference of the respondents also(this is just a theory of mine) because the ads condition the viewer subliminally that coke is better. :) and we do have to admit that coke is the stronger brand because just the bottle itself is recognized by millions of people around the world. Another theory of mine is that there is really brand loyalty by consumers. :) the coke distribution network here in the philippines, i believe, is superior compared to its counterparts which makes us come to the conclusion that by the time its competitors are able to penetrate the different parts here in the country most of the time coke was already there first. And when consumers are comfortable or get used to a certain product most of the time they will stick it out with the product. :) that example also applies for smart here in the philippines. :) being the first to really have the widest cellular coverage in the country so it also follows that a lot of people had smart as their first cellular network and a lot of those people have continued to patronize the said network which makes it really hard for other networks to equal their subscriber base. :) and another question i was sharing with my best friend the other day... what if a diffrerent container was used and you put coke inside it and the name on the bottle will be “coco-cola”. Will it sell as good when it was in the distinct coke bottle with the red coca cola logo on it?? :) now you tell me will you yourself buy the product? :) thank you so much for your time. :) for any comments, questions and suggestions please email me at compounder888@gmail.com. God bless to all of you. :) good luck.
ps. today its been two years that i have been sharing my thoughts with all of you. Thank you for joining me in my journey. :) happy birthday mr warren buffett. :)

a thought

2008-08-20T02:11:00.000-07:00

Americans are getting stronger. twenty years ago, it took two people to carry $10 worth of groceries. today, a five year old can do it. - henry youngman

china and the world

2008-08-10T23:59:00.000-07:00

China has finally had its break-out party and announcing to the world of its arrival with the 2008 beijing olympics. :) how will china affect the world? :) when youre on top everybody follows you. :) just like now, the american culture has a lot of influence all over the world from fastfood, clothes, music, movies and language to name a few. :) looking back at history the united states of america starting from the time of george washington took 100-150 years to be a truly world superpower and now the question is how long will it take china to get to the level that the us is in right now? Or will it ever get that powerful in the future? China is now a big threat to a lot of nations especially when it comes to industries because of china's cheap labor. China's rise to power started in the late 70's or early 80's and since then it has become a hungry machine continually expanding even up tp the point of increasing steel prices all over the world because of its unsatiable demand. The country has been expanding at a meteoric rate and has done so for a lot of years and some say that the bubble will burst soon. Well that remains to be seen. But with progress also comes a downside, pollution in china has been bad even up to the point that the international olympic committee has asked them to do something about it. Any country will welcome progress but it should always be sustainable development. :) pollution was never on their mind when coal fired power plants were being built at an average of one being opened and operated every week in the last few years and when factories were being constructed. In a way you cant blame the officials because these bring income to the city and work for the people but it also comes at a price. Just like the united states i just saw in the discovery channel last night that the us was one of the worst polluted places on the planet. This is because when they were growing they kept on opening coal power plants to supply their energy needs but now they are doing away with it .and are trying to develop clean and sustainable energy. Coal fired power plants are a short term solution with disastrous long term consequences. Tsktsk as they say yin and yang. I've seen on the discovery channel that china have spent billions of us dollars to improve the pollution problem and i laud their officials for taking action. It is never too late. :) china in terms of business and economy is now very stable but i could also say that it is still growing which is the really scary part. :) i believe that business in china has been so good that i know of a lot of people who decided to learn mandarin which shows the spread of chinese influence. :) business has been so good that world class casinos have been sprouting all over macau which of course since 1999 have been given back to china. :) these are just one of the few indicators of china's success and influence. The us right now is still in turmoil with the subprime crisis and it is also an election year and using logic, the new president on his first year still cant get things done and will still try to get the policies that he wants in place so i assume this subprime crisis will still go on for the next 2-3 years. Thats just my opinion and who knows maybe the new president can get america back on its feet right away but that still remains to be seen(lets just hope its not mccain because he will just be another george bush). :) the question, is will this even catapult china faster up in its influence in the world? :) now that is has opened its country to the world will it even increase its tourism industry? There is a lot of money in the tourism industry and it could really help the economy of any country a really concrete example is greece because i believe that maybe half of the country's income is tourism related. If only we could develop our tourism industry more here in the philippines it would really benefit us and it is nice to see that our taipans here see the potential and have invested in the said industry. I just hope our country could also develop the industry more to bring in more revenues for the country. If the balance of power does shift to asia then china and india will be the ones most likely to benefit from it but i do hope it will also benefit our country, the philippines, in a good way. :) im hoping for the best for our country. For a more stable political climate so that we could have a better investing environment. Please feel free to answer the 2-3 poll questions everytime you visit my blog. Let me hear your thoughts, questions and suggestions and send me an email at compounder888@gmail.com. Good luck and God bless to you all. :)

anino

2008-08-01T01:27:00.000-07:00

mayroon akong kasama

saan man ay dala-dala

nang dumilim ay nawala

wala na akong kasama

this was a poem a wrote when i was in high school and i decided to write it here right now to reflect my mood. i just want to vent out my loneliness, frustrations, disappointments and anger. i just want to get it out of my system so that i could function properly again.

exhausted

2008-07-31T00:34:00.000-07:00

hello again everyone. its been quite some time since ive written something here in my blog. july has been a very busy month with me and to be honest with you im even feeling a bit under the weather writing this article. my friends and i did some fund raising for the flood victims here in iloilo, then i had some relationship problems and a ton of work at the office. as my friend's dad told me at a party at their home "we're getting clobbered" referring to the philippines stock market. :) i too physically am getting clobbered just like the market. but its okay i know i will recover. i just need to rest a little.i was able to get some information on some stocks and i will be writing about it soon. :) please bear with me just for awhile. i see a lot of great stocks selling on bargain prices right now. :) if you have excess cash and willing to invest for the long term now is a great time to do so in my opinion. there is not much to say right now then you dont have to buy you could just wait for the market to stabilize and then dive in. :) i will definitely have a better article for you next week. :) for any comments, suggestions and questions please email me at compounder888@gmail.com.

ps my former best friend is such as asshole. hehehe good luck to you all

we all need lubricants!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-07-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

oil's is in its last parabolic leg. time analysis suggest it should end july til sep (max early oct) as base 3 (or the period covered by X) is only 10 months. in the sample chart of broadvision, the perfect parabolic curve of its X is also 10months and its last leg was due on the 8th time bar. on it's 9th time bar, broadvision broked the key reversal red trendline. im just fascinated by the resemblance of oil's parabolic with broadvision. unfortunately, prices cant be determine but if we use mathematical proportion we can guess.

broadvision x = 90, high = 138 (did not doubled in percentage but the leg is shortest in percentage increase); gain = 53%

last leg parabolic started 138 to 192 within 8 time bars.
% change = 192/138 = 39%

ratio of % gain: last leg parabolic of boradvision is 73.5% of it's X percentage gain. to show = 39/53 = 0.735
----
oil's x = 50, high = 98 ; gain 96%
oil's last leg started at 88 (base of red trendline)

solving for "guessed" max/high price of oil's last leg:

formula: projected max/high price of last leg = (start of oil's last leg parabolic) times (1+(percentage gain of oil's X) times (ratio of % gain of X and parabolic of broadvision))

given:
ratio of % gain of broadvision's X and last leg = 73.5% or 0.735
start of oil's last leg parabolic = 88
% gain of oil's x = 96% or 0.96

compute:
projected max/high price of last leg = 88 x (1+(0.96 x 0.735))= $150/bbl

caveat. there's no relation between broadvision and oil except similarity of their charts. there are other parabolic chart sample other than broadvision which could lead to different ratios and proportion. so happen both charts have similar wave counts (base 2 to base 3) and time correction pattern (base 4) as well as valid trendlines (4 of them with the red trendline as the key).

Support the street children movement.

this is spyfrat's post. :) spyfrat is a fllod victim and yet he still had the time to write something for us here!!! a true testament for his love of investing and trading. :) i decided to add little flavor to the blog by having a guest writer from a different school of thought. :) but of course i still believe the your investing style really depends on what your goals are and your tolerance for risk and patience. after all short term investors and long term investors are after the same thing PROFIT! we just have a different process of doing it. as they say in school in math class "the process doesnt matter as long as you get the right answer."

ps for any comments, questions or suggestion please email me at compounder888@gmail.com

i will also try to have a fundamental analysis of oil next time if i have the time. :)

typhoon frank

2008-07-04T00:11:00.001-07:00

i will let the photos speak for itself. typhoon frank has hit iloilo hard. help is badly needed here. my high school batch is raising funds for the flood victims. please email me at compounder888@gmail.com if you want to make a donation. thank you very much and God bless.

basketball, investing and life

2008-06-20T01:20:00.000-07:00

Getting emails from readers and maybe some avid readers really puts a smile on my face. :) thank you so much for giving me a piece of your mind. :) and a reader sent me a mail today and maybe i could say “challenging” me to use the 2008 nba finals for tips on how to invest. :) well dear sir i am up to the challenge of doing so and it really got my juices flowing to write this article. :) im sure you might have noticed that i am a basketball freak from a few articles of mine about basketball. :) im going to write about the 2008 nba finals, the boston celtics and the los angeles lakers. We will use basketball to learn more how to deal with life and how to invest better. :)
during the regular season of the nba the boston celtics were able to have the league's best record with 66 wins and 16 losses and a very big improvement from last year's record of 24-58. the team before the season started was bolstered with trades for kevin garnett(one of the most versatile big men the game has ever seen but has never had any playoff success) and ray allen(one of the deadliest shooters the game has seen but also has never been to the nba finals). The celtics was one of the favorites to win the championship at the start of the season with the new player additions but there were also doubts if the three big stars could play together. :) they showed everybody that they were serious of winning a championship and played beautifully together leading to the nba's best record. :) los angeles on the other hand had a shaky start to the season with kobe asking the team that he be traded. But all ended well when trade talks ended up empty and the lakers got lucky and were able to trade for the spaniard pau gasol from the memphis grizzlies. The trade definitely strengthened the team and instantly made them championship contenders. :) with this we see management coming into play and how important it is in both team's succes. With danny ainge and boston coach doc rivers they were able to get three great players(i should also say future hall of famers) to play together and blend their talents with the rest of the team and eventually win the nba finals trophy. :) the los angeles management and phil jackson on the other hand were able to let kobe stay with the team and surround him with players that would complement him. So here is my point when it comes to investing, good management will always go a long way. :) and my next point is that good management also needs a good product in order to succeed and in basketball it is the players that is their asset. :) good products and good management are important ingredients for success just like both teams we mentioned. :)
at the start of the playoffs everybody started doubting boston already because they barely got eliminated in rounds one and two with supposedly “weaker” teams but they started playing better in the eastern conference finals dispatching the powerhouse detroit pistons and played even better in the nba finals. The los angeles lakers on the other hand continued their beautiful play from the regular season easily defeating their opponents denver and utah in rounds one and two. They even eliminated the defending champions san antonio spurs in just five games. :) there are a few factors on why the boston celtics were able to beat the lakers. :) ive read expert articles and predictions before the start of the finals and according to the so called experts in almost all the positions the lakers had the edge and 80% of them predicted that los angeles was going to win in six games. :) but what happened????? boston won it in six games with some of the factors that i am going to mention. Home court advantage as they say there is no place like home. :) boston has always been known to have one of the best fans in the nba and with your city behind you it even makes you wanna play harder. :) boston wanted it more, they just wanted to win more and it is very evident with the way they play. The perfect example was paul pierce in game one when he sprained his knee but opted to continue playing cause for him it was now or never in winning a championship which really inspired his team. They played more intense, more passionate and with more desire. Players like rondo and perkins also got injured during the series but continued playing and helping their team and i could say that they were in inspired by their leader. The team with more desire to win the game will surely win it. :) it seemed to me the intense play of the celtics “rattled” the lakers and lead them to fall apart. It is not enough to have a plan because what is really essential is having a great plan and being able to put it into action and the lakers failed in this for they got away from their game plan. :) boston's bench outplayed la's bench. During the regular season the lakers played really well because they had great support from their bench but in the finals the la bench was really outplayed what could be the reason???? i really couldnt explain but i think it boils down to who wants to win more. Boston was able to control superstar kobe bryant and he never dominated the series. How did boston do this??? by scouting and studying their opponents carefully. :) just like in investing everything starts with research and i believe is a very big factor in success. :) they controlled kobe forcing him to be more passive in offense and pass off to his teammates and make them beat boston and they never stepped up and maybe i could say they were demoralized too seeing their leader having a hard time with the celtic defense. :) if you really look at the celtic team there is nobody who could defend kobe one on one. What boston did was to have a first defender and behind him was a second defender and the rest of the team waiting for him. This is teamwork at its best. :) boston had a good plan and executed it to perfection. :) boston really played like a team passing the ball, everybody contributing and playing their roles well and playing good team defense. :) in the nba it is not enough to have talent but also to have the heart and will power to win. It is what separates the good players from the great players of the game. :) these are the players that inspire the rest of the team to follow their lead to victory. :) the 2008 boston celtics i believe was one of the best teams that this league has seen in a very long time, one with talent and heart. This was really displayed during game4 of the finals when boston overcame a 24point deficit to win the game(mind you on their opponent's home court) and only great teams have the character and capacity to accomplish feats like this. They just might have destroyed the morale of the lakers organization just like the dallas mavericks when they had their game3 blunder against the miami heat in the 2005 nba finals(the organization was never really able to recover from that loss). Hopefully this does'nt happen to the los angeles lakers for i have been a big fan since the 80's when kareem and magic were still playing but i decided this time to root for boston because i know that my “best friend” (who is a traitor) bet a lot of money for the lakers to win the series(if my sources are correct around P120K). :) and another reason for cheering for boston was that the big 3 kevin garnett, ray allen and paul pierce are all gentlemen of the game and truly deserve to win championship. :) in the more than 50 years of the nba boston and la met each other in the nba finals for the eleventh time and after this series boston has dominated la 9 wins to 2(of the 17 championships of boston 9 were at the expense of the lakers). why is that so???? i believe it is in the philosophy of the organization. Boston has always been team oriented, efficient and has always been known for their defense while la on the other hand has always been known for their big name superstars and their offense. Just a brilliant example that most of the time defense will always win over offense because with defense the margin of error is lower. :) i hope you enjoyed reading and this helps you with your investments and in life. :) good luck
ps. i didn't bet any money on the series. Hehe im just happy that boston won. :) for any comments, suggestions or questions please email me at compounder888@gmail.com. :) to a few who asked about oil, gold, biodiesel(luckily ive been researching on the subject for a few months now), commodities, food prices, food crisis and about some stuff ill try to find time to write about it. in chiefstocks we just dont talk about stocks and business but also about life and how to make it better for everyone!!! good luck and God bless you!!! till next time. :)

The Law of One Price

2008-06-11T19:17:00.000-07:00

prices and economic incentives:
comparing apples and assets
We expect the same thingto sell for the same price. This is the Law of One Price. Why should this be true? Common sense dictates that if you could buy an apple for $0.25 and sell it for $0.50 across the street, then everyone would want to buy apples where they are cheap and sell them where they are priced higher. Yet this price disparity will not last: as people take advantage, prices will adjust until apples of the same quality sell for the same price on both sides of the street. Furthermore, a basket of apples must be priced in light of the total cost of buying the fruit individually. Otherwise, people will make up their own baskets and sell them to take advantage of any mispricing. the arbitrage relationship between individual asset prices and overall portfolio values is explored later in this chapter.
The structure imposed on prices by economic incentives is the same in financial markets as in the apple market. Yet a different approach must be taken to determine what what constitutes the “same thing” in financial markets. For example, securities are the “same” if they produce the sane outcomes, which considers both their expected returns and risk. They should consequently sell for the same prices. Similarly, equivalent combinations of assets providing the same outcomes should sell for the same price. Thus, the criteria for equivalence among financial securities involve the comparability of expected returns and risk. If the same thing sells for different prices, the Law of One Price is violated, and the price disparity will be exploited through arbitrage. Thus, the Law of One Price imposes structure on asset prices through the discipline of the profit motive. Similarly, if stocks with the same risk have different expected returns, the Law of One Expected Return is violated.

Economic Foundations of the Law of One Price
The Law of One Price holds under reasonable assumptions concerning what investors like and dislike and how they behave in light of their preferences and constraints. Specifically, our analysis assumes the following:
More wealth is preferred to less. Wealth enhancement is a more comprehensive criterion than return or profit maximization. Wealth considers not only potential returns and profits but also constraints, such as risk.
Investor choices should reflect the dominance of one investment over another. Given two alternative investments, investors prefer the one that performs at least as well as the other in all envisioned future outcomes and better in at least one potential future outcome.
An investment that generates the same return(outcome) in all envisioned potential future situations is riskless and therefore should earn the risk-free rate. Lack of variability in outcomes implies no risk. Thus, strategies that produce risk-less returns but exceed the risk-free return on a common benchmark, such as the U.S. Treasury bills, must involvemispriced invesments.
Economic incentives ensure that two investments offering equivalent future outcomes should, and ultimately will, have equivalent prices(returns).
The process of a short sale are available to the investor. This assumption is easiest to accept for large, institutional investors or traders who may be considered price-setters on the margin. Even is this assumption seems a bit fragile, market prices generally behave as if it holds wel enough. The nature and significance of short sales are discussed more later in this chapter.

Systematic, persistent deviations from the Law of One Price should not occur in efficient financial markets. Deviations should be relatively rare or so small as not to be worth the transaction costs involved in exploiting them. Indeed, when arbitrage opportunities do appear, those traders with the lowest transaction costs are the ones likely to be the only one who can profitably exploit them. The Law of One Price is largely-but not completely-synonymous with equilibrium, which balances the forces of supply and demand.

This article was in response to an email sent to me asking if there was a law(like supply and demand) that could support value investing. Then here it is for everyone to read. This was taken from the book “understanding arbitrage: an intuitive approach to financial analysis” pages 5 to 7 by randall billingsley. Wishing you all good luck on your life and in your trades and investments. :) for any comments, questions or suggestions please email me at compounder888@gmail.com

the new philippine heroes

2008-05-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

Hello again everybody im back after a three week hiatus for a little vacation. :) it was a good break after a year of hardwork. :) and of all my vacations i have to say that this one gave me a lot of realizations. :) first realization of was of being how rich the greek culture is and how much it has influenced the world and especially the roman culture. As they say “the glory that was greece, the grandeur that was rome.” and how true it is. :) and the next i will explain further in this article. :) the first part of the vacation was a land tour around athens, kalambaka, meteora, delphi and olympia. :) and the second part was a cruise around the greek islands mykonos, patmos, heraklion, rhodes and santorini. :) the cruise ship had around 2,000 more or less passengers and it had 432 staff members of which more than a hundred were filipinos. :) and the filipino crew members recognizing us being their “kabayans” they were friendly and were asking about how things are back home and told us about their lives in the ship which really touched me. Compared to working in the philippines there is no doubt that they are paid better working abroad but the sad part was that they were in europe and all their expenses were in euro but they were paid in us dollar(greeks are smart eh?). :) they usually have contracts of 8 months and mind you there is no day off and they work 12-13 hours a day. Tsktsk i remember a waiter telling us that sometimes he or most of his fellowmen in the ship get home sick and are too tired to keep on working but just receiving one text message from loved ones back home and it is enough to keep them going. I was really touched when i heard that. Then the first filipino staff member that i met in the ship was mike the head bartender and his story was that he sends back 80%-90% of his salary back home because he has three kids who are going to school. Can you imagine such sacrifice. He was also a champion in a singapore bartending event and he is even given a 30minute bartending and juggling exhibition in the ship for its passengers and i curiously asked him if he is given extra because of that skill. Then he told me that he didnt ask any extra pay from the company for that but in exchange he just asked that his brothers also be taken in the company for work and he has three brothers also working in different departments for the same company. Such a touching story. :) he even gave me a hundred dollars to bring back home and left me the choice of jewelry that will fit his budget for his wife because it was her birthday. :) then another was a waitress from iloilo also and she told us of her plans that she was going to save enough money to buy a van for her mother back home to start a rent a car business and help the whole family. :) and she also sent a $100 through us for her mother. It was really touching to hear stories of our heroes abroad. They are truly our heores for if it wasnt for the ofws our country wouldve been in much worse shape. They have basically helped sustain our economy. Helping kids go to school, helping build homes and helping millions of other filipinos live better lives. :) the government should do something so that our fellowmen wont be forced to go abroad to find work. More jobs should be generated here in the country! :) the ofws are our modern day heores! Long live the ofws! Long live the filipino and the filipino spirit! :) God bless and take care. :)

"I've been rich and i've been poor: believe me rich is better."

2008-05-10T00:22:00.000-07:00

gloria grahame

iba ang langhap sarap

2008-05-01T01:30:00.000-07:00

Hello there again everyone and i do hope all is well with you. I recently just had a check up with the doctor because i have been having heartburns recently and i was afraid there was something wrong with my heart and i had a sigh of relief when the doctor said that my heart is normal and the cause of the heartburns were acid. Tsktsktsk so my advice to all of you dont skip meals and eat at the right time. :) anyway its also ironic that the topic that ill be discussing with you today is something very close to my heart, it is FOOD!!! hehehe especially fastfood. :) one thing is for sure, we all have to eat, sleep and drink. :) there were two gentlemen who e-mailed me about jollibee and whats my opinion about it. Im sorry it took me quite some time to reply and to a few other emails ill reply soon. :) Hopefully, i can explain this to you clearly. :) when i first bought jollibee three years ago it was only P24.00 per share. :) thats was after i did my research. :) jollibee back then was the number one fastfood chain in the country and still is until now. :) and i am glad to say that the philippines is one of the few countries and possibly the only country where mcdonald's is present and the latter is not the number one fastfood chain in that country. That my ladies and gentlemen is a very big testament of what a great company jollibee is(by the way im just talking of jollibee fastfood and that doesnt include the other companies that it acquired chowking, greenwich etc). Ronald mcdonald is no match for the bee here and a big part of that is the tan caktiong family which is headed by mr. Tony tan caktiong. :) a truly dynamic leader and visionary in the food industry here in the philippines. Transforming a small ice cream parlor into a fastfood chain with branches philippines even up to tawi-tawi or is it jolo im not sure exactly where but around that area which is just open on weekends. :) doesnt matter if youre just open two days a week because if i have it right its sales there every weekend is around the six digits range. :) i hope mr ronnie mcdonald can say he has a branch there. :) so if some people say that jollibee has no room to grow then its true! Where else would it open??? when it is almost everywhere now. :) when youre number one there is very little room for growth and it is so hard to stay at the top but when youre catching up then i do believe there is still a lot of room for you to grow. :) with this dillema jollibee made a great move acquiring companies and not just any company but ones within their core competence. :) great fastfood companies and restaurants. :) not like san miguel when they had no room for growth they acquired different kinds of companies even investing in the power sector????? thats not the right way to invest, it should always be something that is within your core competence. :) jollibee acquired chowking, greenwich, red ribbon, delifrance and yonghe king and i hope i didnt leave out any company. :) now with that there will be ensured growth in the company for years to come. :) so now back to jollibee to make sure things are still the same i did a survey among family, friends and employess be it young, old, rich or poor it really doesnt matter i just wanted to get the people's beat. :) the results that i got are interesting. :) among social classes a,b and c here are the results: among the a market it is almost a tie between jollibee and mcdonalds. :) the former here has a very slim lead over the latter. :) i would estimate not over 5%. :) in the b and c market it is really dominated by jollibee which i would say more or less has 60%-70% of the market share here. Im sure you guys are familiar with the social structure here in the country which is 10% - a, 20% - b and 70% - c. then you can do math with that. :) it shows you the dominance that jollibee has over mcdonalds. :) here are some of the impressions that i got doing the survey...with jollibee it appeals more to the “masa” and to the kids. People also have an impression that the food prices in jollibee is cheaper. And people prefer jollibee because of the chicken, pies, palabok and spaghetti :) a little trivia it is only here that mcdo serves spaghetti :) a true testament of jollibee's dynamism which mcdo was forced to copy. :) and jollibee's number one food is not their burgers but their chickenjoy. :) now with mcdonalds i got the impression that more sophisticated people eat here and people go there for the burgers and the fries which i also would agree but in fairness jollibee has improved with their fries the last few years but still mcdo has that edge in that department. :) but i think the one big edge that the bee has over mcdo that can never be changed is that jollibee is filipino. :) they are closer to the filipino's heart because it is truly ours and they are able to cater something that is to the filipinos liking and taste. :) i remember this jollibee advertisement 10 years ago when our country was celebrating our centenial celebration there was this advertisement of a kid and marlou aquino with the philippine flag in the background and the line at the end was “iba ang pinoy”. I believe that mcdonalds wasnt able to counter that. :) i do know that mcdonalds is also a great company and their food is great too but in the battlefield it is just like the americans and the vietnamese during the vietnam war. :) the locals just knew more about their country. :) jollibee is truly one great story of a david fighting the goliath and succeeded. :) God bless everyone and good luck in your investments. :)
ps: for any comments, suggestions or questions please email me at compounder888@gmail.com. please also feel free to answer the poll questions :) i will always make sure that there are 2 or 3 poll questions open everytime you log in. :) please forgive the typographical errors that i commit sometimes :) i just have to keep on writing when i have a good idea. :) good luck on your endeavours. :)

benjamin franklin

2008-04-28T00:51:00.000-07:00

an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. :)

rice rice baby

2008-04-16T20:11:00.000-07:00

I have always stated that the us is going to suffer a recession and i am that happy that somehow it really happened and i didnt make myself look like a fool. ;) but after that i also stated that prosperity will transfer here in asia and after a few months this year it hasnt looked promising..... tsktsktsk :-( and my dad has consistently repeated that we are in a crisis right now and after doing a little research and careful study on the subject my father was right on a lot of points and maybe without being conscious about it.... the drop in the american economy drove investors and speculators alike to buy gold, oil and other commodities as a hedge against the weakening us dollar. As a result, it drove the prices of commodities up which resulted a meteoric rise of gold and oil, even reaching new highs, with almost every machine in this world being driven by oil it resulted in rising costs in everything from transportation, food and almost everything. I still believe that there will still be a shift in capital from the us to asia because in simple plain logic any businessman or investor will always put his money where he can get better returns and asia in my opinion is the next best thing after the us right now because asset prices here are not that high compared to europe and other parts of the world. :) so it might be true that capital will probably go here after the us recession but it also came at a price. Tsktsk and then there is another, the weakening us dollar and the strengthening peso, though looking at the bigger picture it is better for our government that our currency strengthened because it will lower our foreign debt which would lower our deficit and same is true with companies with dollar loans. But in return we are also lowering the purchasing power of our dollar dependent families or families receiving remittances from abroad. From P55 to P41 is a 25% decrease so if your receiving $1,000 a month a few years ago it would translated into P55,000 in expenses be it groceries, shopping or investing but now it is only worth P41,000. Ofw family budgets are definitely affected. Then you have to factor in the fact that basic commodity prices have been rising lately. Tsktsktsk gasoline has been steadily increasing the last few years. When i first started driving diesel was at P9.80 per liter imagine that???? below P10 a liter and maybe that was 10 years ago then when i had my own car in college it was at P15.00 already and now its at the P40 range already. Tsktsktsk i will put it in numbers so that you will understand the impact it has on our daily lives.:)
diesel is increasing at a rate of 15% per annum. tsktsk and i think it will keep on going up and with that expect fares to also go up. And i think the most serious crisis of them all right now is the rice shortage which is a staple to the filipino diet. :) they say that there is a rice shortage and i really dont know the truth behind it. Some say that this is a ploy of the government so that the people will forget about the zte deal scandal. I really dont know but what i do know right now is that a solution should be made for the rice prices to stop rising and to stabilize. Tsktsk im calling all the rice hoarders to please release whatever rice they may have for the betterment of our country. If you keep hoarding rice at this time i believe it is tantamount to economic sabotage and the government should do something about it. :) i have even heard stories that the warehouses of these rice hoaders when they were being checked up by the officials were empty but the truth of the matter is that their stock were in barges in the middle of nowhere. Calling officials please do something about this. I really dont know the truth about this. But that is the story thats been going around. Maybe its just a rumor or maybe its the truth i really dont know but every avenue to fix the rice shortage should be checked by the top men of the nfa. :) please do something about this!! :) according to my friend from the media holp-ups, burglaries and related crimes have been increasing lately which is probably because of desperate attempts for money. These are desperate attempts for money and to be able to provide for their family. Tsktsktsk another sign that a lot of the population are having money problems or hardships. Tsktsktsk im sure the government realizes this and businessmen should expect an increase in wages soon. Tsktsktsk can you see the pattern???? its a vicious cycle!!! everybody is affected in this. :) talked to a college classmate who is now an executive in the sm department store and she told me that the sales have dropped in almost all of their branches and they attribute this because of the rice shortage and it being a staple of every family. Families have to adjust their budgets for the increase of price in rice. Tsktsktsk im sure there will be bad debts here and there because of the crisis but it wont reach that level of the us subprime crisis so we dont have to worry about that. :) let us hold on tight, it will be a bumpy ride in the next few months but i know there is light at the end of the tunnel. :) every economy will undergo its ups and downs and this is something that we have to surpass. :) to put it in simple words i dont know what the market is suffering from right now. Is it just a slight fever of flu i really cant diagnose it. Hehehe :) just continue to do research and continue to find for diamonds in the rough. :) bargains are to be found at this time. :) patience is a virtue. :) i still expect oil and gold to keep on going up so better buy your loved ones some jewelry while its still cheap. :) God bless. :)
p.s. For any comments, questions or suggestions please email me at compounder888@gmail.com. And for questions sent to me by email last week i'll answer them soon. :)

a thought

2008-04-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

"returns are normally beyond our control but risk is within our control." - francisco colayco

death, taxes and rising prices

2008-04-05T02:53:00.000-07:00

Im inclined to write another article about this one because i just cant stop myself from doing so and that i cant stop people around me from talking about it. :) how many times have we heard our elders talk.... “when i was still a kid coca-cola was only worth P0.10” or “when i was in high school batchoy was just just P0.30” or “when i was still in school my allowance was just P5.00 a week” or “your grandfather bought this lot for only P10.00 per square meter”. :) hopefully someday i can also say that.... “i first bought urc at P6.40 per share.” or “mbt was just selling for P25.00 per share when i started investing in stocks.” :) but these stories are all so true. :) they say that the two absolute things in life are death and taxes and i could say one of the ALMOST absolute things in life should be rising prices in almost all things. :) and that also applies with stocks but.......... only with quality stocks. As warren buffett said “when holding a great stock time is your best friend but when holding a bad stock time is your worst enemy.” When i say quality stocks they are the ones with a solid business with room for growth and at the same time they have solid and honest management :) but just because those two things are present in a company it doesnt that you'll buy them right away but you wait for them to drop to a certain price wherein you could get superior long term returns. :) but that is easier said than done because one of the hardest parts in investing is the waiting...... waiting for the right price that is. :) i have done some calculations of some basic stuff that we consume like coke has increased at an average of 8.25% per annum in the last 50 years and batchoy has increased at an average of almost 12% per year. :) which brings compounding back in my head. :) im a social smoker i must admit and i have to admit that the figures and future compounded returns or losses that is could drive me to stop smoking once and for all. Lets calculate here: if i smoke a ream of cigarettes every month with the cost of a ream for the sake of simplicity at around P300 which is P3,600 in a year. And now making assumptions here are the results. This will be the money that i lost if i had foregone smoking and instead invested it in stocks:
15% per annum in 15 years P29,293.42
in 20 years P58,919.53
in 25 years P118,508.23
in 30 years P238,362.38
20% per annum in 15 years P55,465.28
in 20 years P138,015.36
in 25years P343,426.38
in 30 years P854,554.73
this is the power of compounding to you at its finest. :) and i still havent mentioned the mounting medical bills because of heart, lung, bad gums, bad teeth, insomia, yellowish fingertips and a weaker immune system caused by smoking and not to mention that men are more prone to impotence when they smoke. Phew!!!! so in the end you will lose more than the figures that i mentioned above. :) again remember that health is wealth so dont kill yourself working for money. Enjoy it also every once in awhile. :) i have made up my mind to buy a nikon dslr the d80 model. But please i dont want to count the future income that i will lose if i buy this camera..... its my new hobby and you need to have a diversion every now and then. :) enjoy life but also be prudent. God bless you always and good luck with your investments. :)

green is the color of money

2008-03-26T20:41:00.000-07:00

For so many years the man at the helm of the federal reserve was alan greenspan and the question that im going to ask everybody reading this blog is.... “is alan greenspan a genius or a fool?” genius because for so many years he was able to keep the american economy afloat or is he a fool because of too gimmickery that when after he left his post the economy had nowhere to go but down. :) as they say the higher you are the harder the fall. :) economies by nature are cyclical meaning there will be periods of prosperity and there will be periods of depression which is normal. :) just like life itself. :) but during his long term in office which if i remember correctly is over 20years there was hardly a very serious depression. And if i remember correctly the life cycle of an economy with a great upswing and a great downswing is about 30-50 years according to marc faber in his book but i have to check on that again. :) so the last great depression was in 1929, 1973 and possibly 1987 could be considered as well but the question is when is the next great depression? Could it be happening now? Time will tell. :) the federal reserve has been drastically cutting interest rates and it hasn't had any effect yet. (another point that my friend has been raising about greenspan is that if he raised interest rates a bit during his term the crisis wouldnt be this bad) I have a little opinion or theory if you'd like to call it. Interest rates have been lowered so where are people putting there money? For sure its not in stocks and most likely it is also not in real estate because of the subprime mortgage mess. So where are the americans, investors and fundies putting their money? Possibly in assets outside the us and most likely in commodities which would explain the rise in prices. And could it be possible??? according to the charts, gold has a mimun upside of $1,250 and with this credit crunch fundamentally the us economy will stay down for a while and the most likely place that people will place their bets in would be commodities so hold on tight guys. :)

maybe you guys are wondering why i made a poll about jamby madrigal and pia cayetano. It was just an idea that came up when they had a cat fight in the senate. :) i voted for pia cayetano i have to admit(she's also cute by the way) but i didn't vote for jamby madrigal. What have they both done while they were in office. Jamby making the news for protecting a tree and pia cayetano for entering all those athletic races and stuff. I have to admit they both haven't done enough and i could say that more deserving people deserve to be there. Let your vote be counted. :) good luck on all you invesments. :) God bless. :)
p.s. For any comments, questions and suggestions please email me at compounder888@gmail.com
and a joke for all of you! What disease is the market suffering right now??? answer: beary-beary. :)

$1,000 it is!!!

2008-03-15T00:26:00.001-07:00

warren edward buffett - the world's richest man
gold jewelry
silver jewelry
gold has finally reached the promised land!!! it has finally breached the 4digit level. :) according to the charts the minimum upside of gold is $1,020 and who knows what will happen after that??? but looking at the long-term charts of gold like way back 70's and 80's the minimum upside that i could see from the charts is $1,250 and i know what's going through your mind that i might be crazy or something but hey im just telling you what i can see from the charts. :) hehehe i remember when i told my dad this the first time it was like almost 2years ago i was driving and he was in the front seat and he violently opposed! hehehe but now he's a believer. ;) because if you now look at it fundamentally it is now very much possible with the recession in the us and also being an election year you can't expect the next president to immediately make an impact in the economy because those things take time. :) so expect the same from the us in the next 2 to 3 years which would mean a stronger peso against the dollar and higher commodity prices. so the question right now is.... do you buy or do you sell??? the answer i believe that whichever way you go you just have to remember that there should always be a margin of safety in whatever course of action that you will take. :)
i am now inclined to tell you a story about a friend. i decided to tell you their story as a lesson for all of us. let us remember the important principles of value investing margin of safety and preservation of capital. this friend and all of her siblings did'nt practice these important principles which in the end made them broke. it is really a sad story to tell but it is something we can all learn from. after the death of their mother the my friend and her siblings got a sizable inheritance and instead of investing the money into something that could give them good returns they threw it down all in the drain. the most important rule in investing is that you should never lose whatever money that it is that you or in short preservation of capital. :) and then margin of safety they also did'nt practice this because of putting up a business or working to earn a decent income to support themselves they instead decided to live the good life and spend their money and spend it until they got broke. when they got the inheritance their relatives advised them not to spend and take good care of their money but all of these fell into deaf ears. if theu listened to the wisdom of their elders this tragedy could've been avoided. the sad part of it all is that the elders that they didnt listen too are now the people they are running to for help. i really dont know how i could help my friend but if i do help her she should at least have the will to help herself. let us remember that life is not easy and it is those challenges that we have in life that make life more colorful and give us character. lets go and fight the fight. :) good luck to everyone looking for bargains in the market because there are a lot. God bless.
p.s. for any comments, suggestions or questions you can email me at compounder888@gmail.com
a friend texted me and asked if metrobank is having a bank run. i told him of course not because if the biggest bank and one of the most stable banks in the country does have a bank run it would surely mean the end of our country and everybody in it.
i would like to end this article on the lighter side. what is the difference between a penis and life??? answer: life is always hard!!! hahahaha
good luck manny pacquiao! go out there and make us proud. :)

"the three most important words in value investing are: margin of safety"

2008-03-07T23:49:00.000-08:00

warren edward buffett - has finally reached the number one spot in the forbes richest list. this is a little tribute to the world's greatest value investor. :) he has basically changed my views on investing and business which my dad should really be thankful for. :) i could say that he has changed my life. :) he might have a lot of detractors and non-believers but i could only say this "you cannot argue with success!" congratulations for making it to the top of the forbes list mr. buffett! long live value investing. :)

vantage point and questions

2008-03-02T22:43:00.000-08:00

Hello there again to all of you. :) i watched the movie vantage point with my girlfriend and friends and it made me think. :) the truth and your actions really do depend from your vantage point. :) this is true in our everyday lives, politics, work, love and almost everything. I'll touch on that more as we go along. :) i have been busy the last few weeks with business, work and a lot of things but i always try to make it a point to find time to write in my blog for it has become a new passion of mine. :) my dad and i have been to makati a few times in the last month to look for other business interests or alternatives if you want to call it. :) this is a result of very low interest rates in the bank. :) i believe most businessmen right now are doing the same thing, looking for an asset to give you a better rate of return than the bank. :) my dad is really not a big fan of the stock market not really because it is a bad investment but because he cant take the volatility or the uncertainty of the market. He would rather put his money somewhere else more stable even though it has a lower return. :) that is his comfort zone. :) he would rather have a tangible investment or something he could see and he couldnt understand the point of owning “paper” as an asset. But that is beside the point because the point is that you should do whatever you are comfortable with and understand and sooner or later you will succeed. :) we were in batangas last week to look around and i would like to ask what do you think of batangas for an investment because they say that it is the next big thing and after manila and makati the trend is now going there??? that is what they say so what can you say about it? The ayalas are there already and so is wton properties by lucio tan. :) how about laguna??? is it good to invest there??? we also went to the santa lucia mall in cainta, rizal and we were impressed and we might put up a restaurant there. :) is real estate really going to boom? Or will real estate falter because most of the projects being built right now are catered to the ofws but the big problem that that market is facing is a stronger peso meaning that their buying power is somewhat affected. But is it also possible that there will be a real estate oom because of low interest rates??? it is really a tough call but i still believe that in the end the latter is the most likely result but lets wait and see because time will tell. :) gold is now trending up strongly and needs less than 3% to hit the 1,000 level. :) and i will not be surprised if it that happends in the next few weeks. :) there are still a lot of bargains in the market and if i only had a lot of cash id surely buy some more. Tsktsktsk ALI is going to issue P1billion worth of securites to finance their plans of buying more properties and the question that im going to ask is that what will be the effect on the stock price and is this a wise move by the company? :) another question that i'll ask is that what has happened to the stock buyback of AC??? i havent checked lately but i do hope that they are still buying. :) so okay what has happened lately??? my “best friend” who betrayed me got an injury in his knee during a basketball game. My girlfriend has a stalker!!! hehehe i dont know how to react should i be pissed or be happy about it? But anyway the good thing is that her stalker hasnt been any problem lately but if that do happens i'll really report him to the police. And a word on the current political situation, please let us work together and just let the president finish her term. Let us look at the bigger picture lets stop fighting and get some work done. Let us work together. Good luck to everyone and God bless. :)
p.s. for any comments, questions or suggestions please email me at compounder888@gmail.com

nba trades and panics

2008-02-24T20:10:00.000-08:00

Panic is contagious and it can happen anywhere. :) being a basketball lover myself, the events that happened the last few weeks just before the nba trading deadline expired made me realize that panic can strike anywhere. :) in the nba's west division this panic started when the los angeles lakers were able to get pau gasol for memphis which all of a sudden made them a championship contender. This trade gave their team a legimate center and a filled a very important piece in a phil jackson team, a big man who could pass the ball. But pau gasol is not just a good passing big man but is also a low post threat and a great defender and when andrew bynum gets back from injury they will surely be a great frontcourt(thank goodness they were able to get kwame brown out of the team). Then with this development the phoenix suns were also forced to make a move which resulted to getting shaquille o'neal in exchange for shawn marion. :) i do agree with this move because you need a big man to survive in the nba playoffs which the suns have sorely needed the last few years. But the problem with this trade was that they had to give up a very importat piece in their team. I mean dont get me wrong the phoenix suns are still a great team and will still be one of the best teams in the nba but they wont be a great without shawn marion their team. I consider him a very important piece that made their team click. He is one of the few players in the nba who could defend all positions from point guard to center. He gives you everything points, rebounds, some shooting and defense and also not to mention he is also a great finisher of the fastbreak. :) but still all is not lost for the suns got shaq who we can say is at the twlight of his career but still his presence will surely help any team. They would now be a slower team than before but now more battle ready for the playoffs assuming that shaq stays healthy. :) then the next team that i believe made good moves also would be the san antonio spurs signing kurt thomas a great low post defender and a very solid player and also damon stoudamire a very reliable point guard to relieve tony parker. :) the spurs have just made their once very solid team into a very very solid team with their core still intact i could say that they are still the team to beat. :) with the top teams beefing up in the west guess who made the worst moves you guessed it right MARK CUBAN. Hehehe the dallas mavericks made a very disastrous move. :) sure getting jason kidd is great but overall i think they took a step backward. :) they gave up devin harris who is a very promising player and they got a player to play a position that i believed was adequate enough in the first place. Jason kidd is great but we must admit he is now on a downtrend. :) at 35 years old that is just too old for a point guard. There's maybe just a year or two left in him while devin harris is an all-star in the making. And if you really come to think of it teams in the west made moves to strengthen their interior then so why make a move to strengthen the teams backcourt when it was okay in the first place??? as they say if its not broken then why fix it. :) they should have gotten an interior player ala kurt thomas coulve done more good to their team than getting jason kidd. This move didnt have any margin of safety there is so little room for error. This would mean that its all or nothing for the dallas mavericks this season. Tsktsk what the mavericks did also happens in our market. I believe that it is called institutinal panic when a competitor does something whether it is right or wrong most of the time the other competitors would usually copy that move. :) what happened the last few weeks in the nba is a clear example of that. :) this institutional panic that happens in our market could sometimes open the door for us value investors to get some bargains. So let us always be ready. :) remember what buffett said “i would rather pay for a great company for a fair price than to pay for a good company at a great price.” good luck and God bless. :)

happy valentine's day

2008-02-14T00:56:00.000-08:00

Happy valentine's day to everyone!!! :) as of this very moment there is a very intense debate in financemanila and the topic being which is better technical investing or value investing. :) well its been a lively discussion the last few days and all i can say is that(just like in this popular ad a few years ago “kung saan ka masaya te supportahan ta ka!”(wherever you are happy i will support you). :) you dont have to follow a successful investor's style but just get bits and pieces of it. I say this because when you practice a particular style you have to be really comfortable with it because there is no perfect style or system. All systems have its advantages and disadvantages also so you should be able to take its downside to be able to appreciate its upside. :) doesnt this sound so familiar??? its as if im talking about a girlfriend or a wife but i believe that it is really true. :) being a value investor can you withstand a 20% or 30% drop in your portfolio??? sometimes you have to stomach it for you to be able to enjoy long term gains. :) so whats new?? nothing much but i have been extra busy the last two weeks... i was in manila with my father for work and we also consulted our financial advisor and thank goodness we agree on most points. :) the philippines is doing well and will continue to do so in the next few years even with the us downturn. :) but we agreed that the selling of government assets is not sustainable so the next president will really have a problem with this. Tsktsktsk we also talked about asset allocation of one portfolio but this is one whole topic altogether. :) we also talked about real estate prospects here in the philippines in the next decade. :) we expect the real estate sector to do well because of the low interest rates businessman will be forced to get their money out of banks because they would rather put it somewhere else that could give them a better return on their capital and real estate and financial markets would be a good choice and maybe you could also include currencies. :) we also talked about a university being a great business because it incorporates a good business and then real estate. :) even the taipans agree with him. :) henry sy being the second biggest stockholder in far eastern university and he is also offering to buy this school which i cannot mention as of the moment and also lucio tan also now owning university if the east. :) last february 1 the headlines of the philippine star was the philippines record growth. :) i believe a big factor of this was played by our present environment of low inerest rates. :) we will survive and do well in the next few years i believe because asia now is more mature and will be able to take all the bumps and bruises. :) but dont take my word for it. Continue to do your research and then buy great companies at great prices. :) good luck :) God bless :)

words of sir john templeton

2008-02-09T00:48:00.000-08:00

to buy when others are despondently selling and to sell when others are avidly buying requires the greatest fortitude and pays the greatest potential reward.

crazy mister market

2008-01-30T00:19:00.000-08:00

Its been two weeks since i wrote an article here and a lot has happened. :) i attended my friend's wedding and i was beside my businessman friend and we talked about our idols in philippine business, his being john gokongwei and mine being henry sy. Both have a different approach to business but they both get results and as they say “you cant argue with success.” :) i will talk about them more in the future. The us markets have gone crazy and maybe i can say that they are in now a semi-panic. And i would agree that it is contagious and our local market here has also gone wild and maybe we could make a documentary or movie about this and the title would be “markets gone wild.” :) hehehe just when the markets showed technical signs that it was going to make a rally then it goes down hard and then it had sucessive days of increase then it goes down again. Its like a crazy rollercoaster ride. :) i think it is starting to become clear now that the us is going into a recession and the question is... is greenspan a genius or the source of all the problems the us are experiencing now? :) a genius because he was able to keep the us economy afloat for how many years or should he blamed for delaying the envitable recession which is now hitting the us hard because it came a couple of years late? :) you be the judge! :) and the next us election will really be critical and who knows what just might happen. :) personally id like to see barrack obama get into the white house. :) it would be nice to see an african-american in the oval office but the question is that if the us is ready for a black president. :) ill just write here whatever pops into my head and of course it chould also be relevant to finance and investments. :) commodities have been hot lately with the recent us downturn. :) this might just be the golden years of gold!!! hehehe but dont expect it to be a smooth ride just last week gold was as high as $920 then went to as low as $850 and then increased around 7.5% in just 60 hours and reached $920. :) phew! Im just thankful my stomach has been able to take the market turbulence lately. :) we have been infected with this market panic. And what is the result of that???? bargains, bargains and bargains in the market. :) to name even a few theres meg, chi, mbt, chib, sm, jfc, ac, ali and kpm has been strongly trending up even with the market volatility as of late. :) last january 23 the philippine daily inquirer had for its headlines “global stock plunge” and then on the same day most markets around the world took back those losses and also the day after, this just shows how fickle minded the market is. :) thats how mr market is. :) i have seen the fs of urc and what can i say? Im happy its condition has been the same since the first time i took notice of it 4years ago. It still has s solid balance sheet and even though its income statement has a nig investment gain in it i could still say that it is a bargain in its current price. :) its international line still hasnt taken off i might add. :) well i would agree that it is in a boring industry but does that follow that profits are also boring??? :) its profits are in the billions and i would expect it to continue in the next couple of years. :) id like to invest in the market with the current prices but im still strapped for cash because i paid for my restaurant investment with friends that we put up in laguna. :) so ill gather up ammo first then wait for bargains but as for the moment ill just stay put and just watch from the sidelines. Tsktsktsk last january 20, i attended my friend's(high school classmate) wedding and intimate reception at his wife's home. It was a fun event being able to be with close friends it always a refreshing and enjoyable experience. :) the next day i shared the photos that i took during the wedding with another classmate of ours who is in new york and i realized how easy it is now in this age of computers and digital technology. :) if its that easy to now send information to any part of the world i could assume that it is also that easy to send money to anywhere in the world. :) so what am i driving at??? that dont be surprised if foreign money will go in to asia soon. :) there is nothing special with my reasoning it is all about common sense and simple logic. :) remember that if only 2 people have the same idea out of 10 it means that what you have is something special. :) in other words contrarian is the way to go. :) dinagyang was a lot of fun this weekend here in iloilo. :) you should be here next year to join all the fun!!! :) good luck and God bless to everybody and hold it in. :)

the year that was and the year ahead

2008-01-13T19:05:00.000-08:00

Happy new year again to everybody and good luck to a year of trading and investing. :) its been a busy year so far! Phew! I helped organize and attended my friends wedding, after that i got sick because of the stress and also maybe because of fatigue and then i was in binan, laguna last friday to attend the opening of our restaurant business with friends. :) i hope this business venture of ours will turn out great and give us great returns. :) i also got life insurance from my best friend and the truth of the matter is that i didnt want to get any insurance policies because the money that im going to pay for them is my investing money. Tsktsktsk i would rather invest them myself and im sure i would be able to get better returns. It would give me a 5.5% compounded return in 20 years. Tsktsk its not that good but i would like to look at it like a time deposit in the bank. :) so all is well after all. :) then just before new year i bought a ream of cigarettes and i did some computing, in 15 years a ream of cigarettes would be worth P1,000 already. So smoke all you can while its still cheap!!! hehehe im just joking. :) i will do a study on that next time on why you shouldnt be smoking. :) i will give you the reasons both health-wise and money-wise. :)
now its time to talk about investing!!! what do i predict this year??? i dont have any but i do know that i will continue to buy great companies at fair prices. :) from a technical point of view had a chat with spyfrat and according to him it will be the year of commodities, the psei will be really volatile in the short term and might stabilize maybe around march, gold can reach $1,000 before the first half of the year ends(as of last trading day gold closed at $895) and the US will really be falling prey to a recession. :) what is the difference with our situation now and the asian crisis 10 years ago. :) one of the reasons why the bubble burst 10 years ago was that because everything was overvalued, we started to run even before we learned to walk. Now that the us is in a financial crisis you can expect that there will be a shift of capital from the us to asia. :) 10 years ago there was still no china and india factor and in the next few years they will both lead the charge in asia's rise. :) asia is now more mature now economically and can now face the world. :) asia i believe is still undervalued and will soon catch with europe and the us. :) its all part of the economic cycle:what comes up must come down and once your down you have nowhere to go but up. :) hehehe the us is a credit economy and the average american has $20 in their wallet. :) i think that the filipinos are better off and have more than P1,000 in their wallet. :) i remember this story of some friends in hong kong, its a story when they were handed back to china. :) chinese from the mainland started coming to hong kong signature shops and shopped like crazy. :) and believe it or not they paid with cash. :) they still didnt have credit cards. :) and they say that china is overheating??? i think that its still growing because it still has a lot of catching up with the western world. :) china is still in a growing stage! :) the philippines will ride the wave that china has created. :) lets wait and see what happens. :) as for the philippine stock market??? i think it will continue to improve but dont take my word for it because you never know what mood mr market is in. :)im hoping for a 15-20% return by the market this year. :) im really now sure what the market will do this year but i do hope mr market will be generous enough to give me some bargains this year. :)
for any comments, suggestions, questions or whatever please email me at compounder888@gmail.com

as sure as the sun will rise

2007-12-27T18:34:00.000-08:00

Its been a very busy christmas :) the season has now a different meaning when you age, i now understand what the older people have been saying all the while hehehe :) but anyway its been a joyous christmas for me and even though my wallet has been massacred with all the gifts and “tips” to people im still happy to see the smile in their faces. :) this article will be my little christmas gift to all of you readers of my blog. :) the last two weeks we have seen the steady rise in the share price of digitel communications. :) and why is that??? because of speculation of a takeover by a singaporean company and a few other offers from others. :) the talk thats going around is that they are offering $900m but mr gokongwei wants to sell at $1b and that is why the negotiations are still in limbo. Time will tell what will happen to this company. I will tell you a little story what lead me to research about this company. :) i like this company and even liked it better when i saw the numbers. :) i saw hidden value in the company or maybe you could say that i saw promise or potential in its product. :) it was undervalued because the company was still losing money. :) this is still value investing but with a twist. :) i only so two things happening to this company: it making money or an investor buys it at its fair value or even at a premium. :) my family got more than 50 lines at sun cellular for our employees because we wanted to save on out telephone calls. :) they are the only network offering unlimited text and calls to the same network. :) after a few months of using my sun i realized the cost savings our company got. :) then i realized how lucky we are to have discovered the wonders and advantages of using sun cellular and it would just be a matter of time also before millions of people discover it also. :) good thing i still found the draft i made last september for sun cellular but i decided to hold it and wait for the write time to put it here. I believe there is no better time to write about it. :) my draft is dated september 12, 2007 and i have already been studying the company for two months prior to writing the draft and then i accumulated shares after a month. :) i gathered information and data and i had to be resourceful to get it from reliable sources. :) good thing i had friends who were associated with the company. :) what ill be writing down is the important points that i made in my draft. :) the big advantage that sun cellular has over other networks is their unlimited calls and texts to the same network. :) the other networks will have a hard time offering this service because it will really hurt their income but sun cellular was built to cater this unlimited service to their subscribers. :) i remember my brother-in-law saying that in cebu it is “in” if you have a sun phone. :) here is also another point in my draft, in the short term i dont expect sun to grab market share because the other networks still have superior service but i can see that sun will become a “secondary” number but they are now improving their signal, adding more cell sites and now has better coverage. If they keep up the good work they might grab a big slice of the pie. :) i can see sun cellular making money in two to three years but if you really want to be conservative maybe five years. :) sun is full blast in metro manila and in metro cebu which are the two major cities and they also have good coverage here in iloilo and to my surprise even in the towns outside the city. :) they are adding more cell sites in the visayas and mindanao area. Sun is doing well in davao and cebu because there are a lot of companies there and companies here in iloilo are also catching up the the sun cellular craze because sun gives you cost savings. I dont expect smart and globe will see a decrease in their subscriber base but i do believe that they will see a decrease in usage by their subscribers. A company should have a good manager and the gokongweis fit the bill. I admire them and believe of their capabilities of taking the company to the next level. The father started it all but the son knows how to unlock shareholder value. :) here are some of the numbers that i ran into during my research :) as per research the subscriber base as of september now reached 3million(this is an estimate) and at the end of 2006 the number was 2.2million. :) the company is expected to profit at 4 million subscribers and the long term target is 6 million subscribers. :) they have 30,000 dsl customers and the target is 50,000. :) the company's capex for 2007 is $200 and $150m will be on the cellphone business and $50m will be spent on the dsl business. :) the $150million budget for the cellular business means that their target of 40-50 cell sites per month is very much attainable. :) with these numbers i can only see good things happening to this company. Merry christmas and a happy new year to all!!! God bless!
ps. for questions, comments or suggestions please email me at compounder888@gmail.com
before i go as of last wednesday santa claus rally has been confirmed by the market! Hope this is a strong rally! Fly high psei!!!

economies and christmas

2007-12-18T19:12:00.000-08:00

Its been a very busy past few days... phew! Im really tired because i had to attend a christmas party last friday night and went home late then had to wake up at five in the morning the next day for a trip to manila witm my father and then get back home late in the afternoon and then attended a friend's party at his bar. Wow! Then the next morning went to mass and had lunch with relatives for my maternal grandmother's 90th birthday. :) thank you lord for my very wonderful grandma. :) then in the afternoon i had coffee with a friend and then attended a christmas party with our employees and i really had a good time watching their presentations and enjoyed watching them participate in the games. :) then im here now in my room in bed trying to write something for this blog. :)
last saturday with my dad in the airport we got to talk to a businessman friend and about china and a lot of other stuff about business. :) he mentioned that the bad debt rate in china is 32% which is even worse than the us subprime crisis. And his question was that why isnt it affecting china the way it does in the us??? i really cant answer that question also. :) and besides i have to verify the numbers that he was saying. :) but i agree with what he said that as of the moment china will just keep on moving up because there is a lot of money going in because of the coming beijing olympics in 2008. i remember my cousin telling us when we were there for vacation last november 2006 that china is really preparing for this event because it will be their coming out party and tell the world that “we have arrived!” my dad's friend cautioned that the stock market in 2008 will go down especially after the china olympics because we dont know if investors will continue to pour the money in or will they take it all out. :) well he has a very good contention and all opinions are correct until they are proven wrong. :) hehehe but i think otherwise, and some say that i am nuts or too optimistic but i believe that it is just common sense. Assets or i should say most assets by nature in the long term really increase in price or it is inflationary. Can you think of assets that decreased in price after 20. 30, 40 or 50 years. :) i bet you can only think of a few things that decreased in price. :) and i also believe that economies of nations or regions move in cycles or periods. :) as the saying goes “when youre down you have nowhere to go but up” and “when youre up you have nowhere to go but down.” :) and that really applies with economies also. :) the last decade the united states had one of the greatest bull markets in history and of course as they say “all good things come to an end.” :) i believe that the signal for the downtrend was the sub-prime crisis which was triggered by granting of too much credit which almost always happens in a very bullish environment. :) and of course the cost of living in progressive countries is almost always high and the opposite usually happens in not-so-progressive countries. :) which asia as a whole is catering to the world. :) its cheap labor and products. :) slowly asia is now catching up with the rest of the world led by china and india. With more jobs to people would also mean higher consumption and sooner or later would also drive commodities, basic goods and asset prices up. This is a perfect example of the law of supply and demand at work. :) when everything gets too expensive in progressive countries it forces the market to look for cheaper alternatives(just like a housewife looking to buy groceries at the cheapest store.). Does this explain the emergence of call centers all over asia??? :) i just cant wait for the day that we can be at par with the us hehehe it might a dream right now but who nows in time. :) i wish everyone a merry christmas and that the spirit if christmas is in giving. I was just talking or maybe complaining is the better word of all my expenses to a friend this december for gifts and treats but i realized that there is so much to be thankful for. :) it is also nice to give back to family and friends all the blessings that you have received. :) thank you lord for everything. :) let this be a christ-filled christmas for all of us. :) God bless and a merry christmas to all. :)

irrational mr market

2007-12-10T08:17:00.000-08:00

mr. market is now showing signs of life and then just today it drops almost 2%? hehehe well thats the market for you. IRRATIONAL. :) and this is something that we all have to deal with. sometimes the market can be overly generous and sometimes it could also be very stingy. And it is in our better judgment at what price we buy the stock that we like. :) its been almost five years that ive been trading seriously and i even started out as a technical trader but i fell in love with value investing because of its simplicity and the two most important things that you need are:common sense and patience. :) which i dont know how but i realized that i have both of these traits. Hehehe :) i still believe that the market will still make a rally for the yearend but let us just wait and see. :) there is really nothing much i can comment about the market right now except that if you see a bargain just buy it if you can see that it could give you excellent long term returns.
A lot has happened since my last post. :) my best friend asked for a lunch meeting with me and admitted his mistake and asked for an apology which i accepted but i have to admit that i still have a little hatred towards him for that betrayal but in time i know i will forget what happened. Meanwhile my cousin has avoided or maybe you could call it refused to talk with me for fear that i might scold her. Well who i am to do that she is old enough and i assume that she knows what shes doing. :) my dad and i went to manila also last week because his friend wanted to consult him about investing in real estate. His friend has a lot of cash but due to the low interest rates he is forced to put his money elsewhere or a better return on his capital. :) talking to some of the high officials of a few banks they can see that interest rates will be around this level for the next five years which i can say is LOW. :) my dad also shares the same sentiment and i believe the different classes of assets will continue to appreciate in the near future and that includes stocks. :) but what scares people from getting into the market is if the “bubble” bursts just like what happened 10 years ago. In that aspect as far as im concerned the philippine stock market is still fairly valued and even undervalued a bit. And bubbles only happens when everything is overpriced and with this assumption i think our market is still healthy with the occasional ups and downs. :) which is typical of mr market. :)
i just celebrated my birthday a few days ago and i kinda got the “birthday blues” as they call it but thanks to friends, someone special and family i had a great day. :) i thank the lord for all the blessings and for all the people close to me. God bless to everyone and good luck.
p.s. For any comments, suggestions and questions please email me at compounder888@gmail.com

trillanes rally

2007-12-02T06:33:00.000-08:00

Mr trillanes made headlines again last thursday by holding that “coup” if you would like to call it. :) i admire our government on how they handled the situation. :) they had to use some kind of “force” to stop that stunt and to show others who would also like to destabilize the government that they mean business. I admit that president gma also has her faults but we have to look at it in a bigger picture by weighing things. There is no question that there is corruption in our government but my point on president gma remaining as president is for the fact that she knows what shes doing and she knows how to run the country and all the destabilizing plots will just be in vain. All these plots to unseat the president doesnt do us any good :) why not do something positive and help our country progress and improve!!!???!!! :) president gma is not a perfect president but she is the best person for the job right now and it is time for us to work together and help bring glory back to our country. :) and now lets talk about our favorite topic the stock market. :) my sister is interested in buying stocks for the long term and as she puts for her baby's college education. :) i can see two stocks right now that really fit the mold. :) and i told her to get some of it tomorrow! :) i do hope she has the stomach to withstand the ups and downs of the market. :) i have a friend who commented that i should have sold my shares in this certain company awhile back when it was trading at its high. Well he has the point but why cant he get my point that i buy the company and not the stock. :) i study a company and if i like it, i just wait for it to get to a price where it could give me a superior long term returns. :) its that simple really but why cant he get it??? I buy the company and it really doesnt matter to me if the market doesnt like or if the price is depressed(if its depressed doesnt it follow that its a bargain???) because all im after is buying a great company at a fair price just like what warren buffett said. :) that is one of the mysteries of the stock market because in real everyday situations people dont act like that. As they say the market is irrational. :) as ive told you before if you like a pair of shoes you usually dont wait for the price to go up and buy it, what people usually do is wait for a sale and then buy it. :) but in the market people do that opposite and i really cant explain why that is so. :) as the famous technical trader william o'neal said “the two most dominant emotions that dominate the market is fear and hope.” said but for me the best approach is to buy low and sell high because its the one that makes the most sense. :) if you are a technical investor i believe that this is the best time to buy shares because as of last friday the market has indicated that there was follow-through buying and it has triggered a rally and it is just in time for the santa claus rally that usually happens every december and january. How far the market will go up we'll never know and only time will tell. :) good luck on all your trades this december. :) God bless and take care. :)
p.s. If the market does rally we might as well call it the trillanes rally than the santa claus rally! :)

bargains and hurting

2007-11-25T04:38:00.000-08:00

Its a lazy sunday afternoon after playing a ballgame where our opponent won the game against us by 20points tsktsktsk and here i am relaxing my aching muscles and beaten up ego because i had a bad game and we will have our knock game against the same team this coming tuesday but the catch here is that we also have a semifinal game in another basketball club this coming tuesday also at the same time. Phew..... how am i to go about this??? im reading this book right now “the winning investment habits of warren buffett and george soros” by mark tier and its really good. :) i am enjoying reading it. :) im a bit disappointed with the performance of the stock market lately and it would seem to me that mr. Market is upset about something lately. Which i believe is the subprime crisis in the us. But its okay i still believe that the market is undervalued by my count and ive been trying to accumulate some shares of a few companies. I will tell you more about it next time and this is a good time to accumulate shares of companies because mr. Market is being generous right now better take advantage of it. :) there are good finds in the market and do your research well and you will surely find them. :) ive been very busy lately... phew! Been busy with work and especially that a group of friends and i decided to franchise a fastfood restaurant somewhere in luzon and another group of friends and i just opened a printing business. :) phew! Ive been very busy lately indeed. :) and also i have discovered lately that besides work and the stock market or investing as my passion you can also add to it photography and its one hobby that i want to develop and learn more. :) and i have been bothered about something that happened to me a few weeks ago and i hope you guys wont mind me talking about it here. The first weekend of the month i was out with my friends and the group included my best friend and a close relative. And the story goes like this we had fun drinks, laughs and all but i went ahead because i really dont like to stay out that late when i go out and according to sources they disappeared at around 4 in the morning when a friend had too much to drink and was throwing up and all of a sudden my guy best friend(who has a wife with two kids and a mistress and a number of girls that i couldnt even keep count and by the way he was also making out with some girl he just met before he was with my cousin) and that relative of mine was nowhere to be found and when friends were calling her she wasnt answering the phone which made me very worried and at the same time suspicious. The only viable place where they could go was a hotel nearby and the sad part was that they forgot that some of the personnel there used to work for our hotel also before and some of those personnel were able to identify my cousin and i couldve let go of the situation but what really pissed my off was that they both denied it and continued to lie to me(which is a clear sign of guilt and it also shows that what they did was wrong) and with that i decided to call some of my contacts and get professional help and they were able to get hold of some very important information like the credit card receipt and the hotel registration card which sad to say the guy has just no respect for me even used my name(his best friend) in the form and also i got a copy of the video where it shows my relative returning the key to the said room in the registration form which to me if you bring it to court is really hard evidence and you could even say that you could convict them “guilty beyond reasonable doubt.” and the very upsetting thing was that he doesnt know i was able to get a transcript of his calls and text messages and he is even “coaching” my relative to lie but the sad part is that i know the whole story and all the lies that he will throw to me wont just do any good and makes me hate him even more. That really hurts me because i have been a good friend for such a long time and i know i might not be perfect and we may have had our arguments from time to time but i always helped him out during his time of need be it with his wife, mistress and even up to the point of covering up for him(sad to say the wife is my “kumare”) but he is still my best friend and made that choice to help him out and he knows that im really close to my relative and even treat her like a sister. When it comes to playing around my relative was suppose to be out of the question already(which i believe he knows and could be proven with him lying to me a sure sign that he knows that he did something wrong). I dont know if i really have reason to be upset or is this something that i should just let go. But i was really hurt with what they did but i believe that the blame falls more on my best friend. Ive made ways for him to know that im upset and that i know what happened and im not just fishing around for information. If you really come to think about it i have the hard evidence to show his wife(who i believe is also unhappy) which surely would end their marriage and to his mistress who i know suspects that he has other women also other than her and his wife. I can also show it to his family that sad to say he was able to manipulate for how many years already. I have been a good friend but why the betrayal?? what have i done wrong to him that he did that to me? For the meantime i will just wait and see and do nothing just like in investing. Wishing you guys a good trading week and i hope to hear from you. Im really trying my best to forgive them and maybe i have already i just dont know. Time will tell i guess. Im just praying to the dear lord that i will forgive them but i was really hurt with the betrayal. Phew! What a month so far? God bless everyone. :) carpe diem!

common stock prices and values

2007-11-20T05:57:00.000-08:00

This is taken from Benjamin Graham's book the interpretation of financial statements chapter 33
Broadly speaking, the price of common stocks is governed by the prospective earnings. These prospective earnings are, of course, a matter of estimate or foresight; and the action of the stock market on this point is usually controlled by the indicated trend. The trend is gauged in turn from the past record and current data, although at times the expectation of some quite new development will pay a determining part.
The price of common stocks will depend, therefore, not so much on past or current earnings in themselves upon what the security buying public thinks the future earnings will be. (there are also important influences of a general or technical nature affecting stock prices-such as credit, political, and psychological conditions-which may not be closely related to any estimate of future earnings; but such influences will either eventually reflect themselves in the earnings or else prove to be quite temporary.)
In the ordinary case the price of a common stock is the resultant of many estimates of what the earnings are going to be in the next six months, in the next year, or even further in the future. Some of these estimates may be entirely incorrect and some may be exceedingly accurate; but the buying and selling by the many people who make these various estimates is what mainly determines the present price of a stock.
The accepted idea that a common stock should sell at a certain ratio to its current earnings must be considered more the result of practical necessity than of logic. The market takes the trend or future prospects into account by varying this ratio for different types of companies. Common stocks of enterprises with only slight possibilities of increasing profits ordinarily sell at a rather low price-earning ratio(less than 15 times their current earnings); and the common stocks of companies with good prospects of increasing the earnings usually sell at high price-earnings ratio (over 15 times the current earnings). Thus, two common stocks may show the same current earnings per share, may be paying the same dividend rate, and be in equally good financial condition. Yet stock ABC may be selling at twice the price of stock XYZ simply because security buyers believe that stock ABC is going to earn a good deal more than XYZ next year and the years after.
When neither boom nor deep depression is affecting the market, the judgment of the public on individual issues, as indicated by market prices, is usually quite good. If the market price of some issue appears out of line with the facts and figures available, it will often be found later that the price is discounting future developments not then apparent on the surface. There is, however, a frequent tendency on the part market to exaggerate the significance of changes in earnings both in a favorable and unfavorable direction. This is manifest in the market as a whole in periods of both boom and depression, and it is also evidenced in the case of individual companies at other times.
At bottom the ability to buy securities-particularly common stocks-successfully is the ability to look ahead accurately. Looking backward, however carefully, will not suffice, and may do more harm than good. Common stock selection is a difficult art-naturally, since it offers large rewards for success. It requires a skillful mental balance between the facts of the past and the possibilities of the future.

thoughts

2007-11-12T23:03:00.000-08:00

the market will only do three things, that is:go up, go down or move sideways. during a bull market it will go up for the lamest reason, during a bear market it will go down for the lamest reason and when it cant make up its mind it will move sideways. :)
- compounder

scattered thoughts

2007-11-01T04:18:00.000-07:00

Over lunch my mom was complaining that the pawnshop business that it wasnt as good as before and then we tried to analyze why that is so. Some of the few things that we concluded was that number one there were too many pawnshops in the country now before it was just in the cities and people from towns would still go to the city to pawn but now almost all towns have a pawnshop. There was a time during enrollment where people were lining up and crowding pawnshops to pawn jewelry to send their children to school or students who still didnt get their money from their parents during enrollment. :) but now business has really gone down and i believe that everybody in the pawnshop business is experiencing this. Another factor is the faster transfer of money like atms and remittance service within the philippines and from people abroad who are sending money here. This the reason why we should thank the millions of ofws who are working hard to make life better for their loved ones here in the country. They have made life better for a lot of filipinos. Ofws are truly our modern day heroes. :) with the peso strengthening some of the buying power of dollar earning filipinos might be lost but it is better for the country as a whole. Let us strive to help and improve our country. Another thought that went through my head the last few days was when my dad mentioned that when my grandfather built their house in 1962 it cost around P120,000 and then with my very curious head i started making calculations a conservative estimate of building the same house today would cost around P20,000,000 and that would mean a compounded return of 12.05% for 45years. Not so bad for real estate. :) :) :) here are also some of the things that happened during the last week.... gold has reached more than $790 and i expect the strong upsurge to continue over the next few years and i see gold hitting $880 by april 09 and with the way its going it going happen much earlier. :) with the rise in the gold price you can expect that oil will also go up now hitting $93 per barrel. And our oil companies here have announced that they are going to have a price hike. How can this be possible??? and why is that so because oil companies pay in dollars and our peso has strengthened so this means that more or less our oil companies here will still be paying more or less the same amount and why are they saying that they will have a price hike??? can they please explain why they have to do that??? was in robinson mall this weekend and i noticed the people around and there was one thing glaring thing that i noticed. I estimated only around 1 of 20 people carried shopping bags. I believe that that is not a good number. Why do sm malls go better??? what is the secret to their success?? is it their department store?? location?? what??? can anybody here help me and give me the answer??? :) good luck and god bless. Let us pray for all our loved ones who are in a better place. :) happy haloween to all!!! :)

i thought....

2007-10-20T00:47:00.000-07:00

Hello again there to everybody who follow this blog of mine. :) its been a week since i wrote an article here and what can i say a lot has happened! Like mark mobius has announced publicly that investing in emerging markets is a good hedge against volatility and can give better returns. :) is this the shift of funds to asia we were talking about? :) then gold and oil has started to make a strong move going up. And looking at the oil chart i could say that technically gold could reach $880 by april 09. but of course that is not a guarantee i am just saying what the charts are telling me and if you think about it fundamentally it is also possible because of the weakening us dollar. :) time will tell what will really happen. In the 1970's gold reached as high as $850 or if my calculations are correct around P400/gram during that time and if you adjust that for 25 years of inflation the price today would be around P2,900. Can you imagine that?? if you look at gold from that point of view gold is really way undervalued. But lets be conservative and say that gold during the 70's reached as high as P250 and adjusted for 25 years of inflation the price today should be a little over P1,800 and as of the moment gold is doing P1,050-1,100/gram. :) i also heard over the news that jp morgan is overweight on asia across the board. And that the us dollar-peso exchange rate could be in the low 40's by the year end. Our accountant also discussed with me yesterday the new bir rules which i believe they patterned after the irs in the us. They said that they'll computerize everything which will make evading taxes difficult. :) but of course let us see if that will ever become a reality but if it really does it will be really good for the country taking into consideration that our politicians wont put our money to waste. But lets just wait and see maybe this is all good in theory for all we know. :) i would like to congratulate the newest billionaire in the philippines mr. Andrew tan. :) i admire all your work sir and i like all the projects that your doing right now. :) there is just so much potential in your company. :) i envy you for you won that beautiful wristwatch during the tatler ball last sept. 29. :) market had a strong close yesterday and i dont know if the market will bring that kind of sentiment next week considering the tragic bombing that happened yesterday at glorietta. :( it was such a barbaric act and i hope they get whoever committed this crime. But i was surprised today because when i checked the other parts of the mall in glorietta was still open i really thought that they were going to close the mall for a few days. If you think about it thats also a good sign but i know the stock price of the company will surely take a hit in the next few weeks. But even after this setback i still like the company and to show you the culture of the company they said that they will shoulder all the medical expenses of those who were injured. And another thought why destablilize the government??? what for when everything is going well for the country. Tsktsk im sure whoever is behind this wants to take over the presidency. Tsktsktsk that is not good. Why dont we just shut up and work to make our country better. Thank you Lord for giving my sister a healthy baby boy. :) another bundle of joy for the family. :) good luck and God bless to everyone. :)

into uncharted territory

2007-10-11T00:46:00.000-07:00

Its nice to see the market get to these levels after the market panic caused by the us subprime problems. :) the market hit its highest point this year last july 6 at 3,822.41 and at the height of the panic was as low as 2,874.99 on august 17. i cant wait for the time the market will hit 3,830 for it will signal another strong rally upward and we just be not far from it because as of the close of the market last thursday it showed signs of a strong rally and maybe break the 3,830 mark in the process and who knows where the market will take us. :) im happy that investor interest is back with metrobank because i added shares in the company also in the recent market downturn. :) i would say it is one of the very stable and solid stocks in our market. Ayala corporation was a bargain when it sold below P450/share. It was just unbelievable. Good thing i was also able to grab some shares. It was like a ferarri with a flat tire, sure you couldnt drive it for the moment but with a little fixing it is still a ferarri after you have the tires replaced. :) from its low of P405 it has gained around 50% after a month and a half. :) who wouldve have thought the market would be back to these levels after such a short time. I knew the market was still healthy but i didnt expect it to be back near the 3,800 this soon. :) hopefully we could go beyond the 4,000 level before the year ends. :) i wrote the first part of my next article of this blog after the pacquiao vs barrera match and i just wrote the introduction because i didnt think the market was going to go up this fast. Sure the bullish trading last october 2 and 3 showed signs that the market is going to have a strong rally but this is really BULLISH. Imagine 2% gains every trading day last october 2, 3 and 8. and the stocks that are really leading the charge are pldt, ayala corporation, ayala land, sm investments, metrobank and bank of the philippine islands. :) i thought the market needed a week of two to break the 3,830 mark but boy was i wrong. :) with the 3.830 mark broken, technically the minimum upside of the market is at 4,770. :) how long will it take the market to get there well time will tell. :) im just glad i stuck it out with the market during the downturn last august. ;) with this rally there are still some stocks that havent caught up with the increasing market prices like universal robina, ivantage, jollibee, gma7, national reinsurance corporation, solid group inc, sm development corporation, banco de oro, anscor, asia and keppel marine philippines. :) what can i say the market is like a yo-yo right now (just shows irrational the market is) but its okay as they say look at the long term and dont mind the short term volatility. In short dont be near sighted!!!! :) hehehe the market is about to have a strong rally after breaking 3,830 and with the peso strengthening thats a good indicator that the market is going to continue to go up. :) there are even some talks of the peso reaching the low 40's by the end of this year but lets not talk about that for now for that is still a subject that i still have to study. :) there is also this company that im studying right now. I really like it for it shows a lot of potential. It might just be the next turnaround company. :) i will share it with everybody reading this blog after i study it but so far i have been impressed. :) good luck to everybody and God bless. :)

asian boom

2007-10-06T02:29:00.000-07:00

Its been almost three weeks since ive put anything here... just been busy lately. Phew! Anyway lets get back to business and our business is stocks or finance or anything with value in it!!! :) theres a lot going thru my mind right for its three weeks worth of ideas and observations around me that i sometimes use also in my valuations. Simple as it may seem to the naked eye but if you really look and understand things deeply you will realize a lot of things. I was in hong kong for a week for business and luckily last thursday afternoon i had a bit of free time and i was able to go to hong kong disneyland with two friends. I know this might sound funny at my age but i still think that disney still has its magic!!! i really dont know what is it but theres just some kind of magic when youre there. I guess that is a good indicator of a good product and if only disney was a publicly traded company in the philippines i would surely love to own its stock. :)
when i was in hong kong there were a few simple things that i noticed that when i point this out to you you woud be surprised how you couldve taken it for granted. My trip to the said country was really for business but going around the country you cant help but notice some of the things there. Hong kong has very strong consumer spending like i was surprised when there was a line to go inside louis vuitton??? was really surprised to see that and i dont blame them for doing that because a lot of people go in the store not just to look but also to buy!!! there are a lot of buyers from hong kong residents but i believe that a big part of their costumers are people from the mainland. Which again im stressing that point that i have been making with you guys here. There will be an asian boom coming in the next few years and it is now believe almost inevitable now with the rise of metals, weakening of the us dollar and the looming recession of the us caused by the subprime crisis. Sooner or later fund managers and businessman will put their money somewhere where they can see promise or potential and that would be in asia. There will be shift in funds to asia!!! money is never lost it is only transformed or if you want transported in another place. :)
another thing that i also noticed in hong kong was the emergence of macau! Imagine this the venetian and wynn put up casinos there and soon mgm will have theirs operational also! What does this mean??? whenever there is a casino it means that there are people who are gamblers??? nahhhh just kidding it means that there are people with cash or excess money or in short people with money to burn. :) american companies put casinos there in macau to be able to get a piece of the pie and they see the potential in asia. :) just imagine folks three casinos in macau! Thats how confident they are in the asian market. :) if other people are so bullish with us here in asia shouldnt we also be bullish on ourselves???? :) another thing that i think also will help push up asia will the beijing olympics in august next year. :) it will be like a showcase of china and asia to the rest of the world. :) i wonder what is the effect of the olympics on the host country before and after the said event??? i think that would be an interesting study. :) i think an asian boom in the next few years is eminent but of course dont expect it to go up like a rocket i know there will still be some volatility but the general trend would be up. :)
there are only three things that could happen to an economy it could: go up, go down or move sideways. On the part of the us it is really going to go down even with the fed rate cuts because it is only a short term solution to the problem. It will solve the problem and calm the us markets in the short term but it is inflationary in the long term. It will drive the prices of different classes of assets up. And one asset that im really keeping an eye on is gold. :) when gold broke $695 my opinion was that the minimum upside of gold was $740 and it has already reached that mark and what it will do after that we have to see and gold will be supported by traders in the $690-$700 level. But i really do like the potential of gold with the weakening of the us dollar. :) i like gold so much that i even “speculated” on philex mining. :) i bought the stock of the company because i was confident with the rise in the price of gold and not because of the company itself. :) the market is now up almost 20% year to date and it is nice to see it back where it was before the panic but im still thankful for that for i was able to get shares in ayala corporation and national reinsurance at a good price. :) i attended the tatler 6th anniversary ball last saturday and it was a thrill for me to see all the bigwigs and taipans that shape our economy. :) look, observe and notice all the things that are happening around you to help you make your investment decisions. :) its nice to be back home. :) good luck and take care to everybody. :)
p.s. After a week of trying i have finally gotten through blogger!!! phew!!!

week in review

2007-09-12T21:21:00.000-07:00

Before i start talking in this article of mine let us remember all the victims who lost their lives in the horrific 9/11 attack six years ago....
okay now lets get down to business, last week was a really bad week for me it was so bad that i decided to go to the barber and had almost all of my hair shaved!!! hehehe problems with business, work and i must admit in the arena of love. But anyway ive recovered and got back on my feet and this week is better for me. :) if its not better then i should make up reasons on why this week will be better for me. :) im just happy because ayala corporation just announced that they are doing a 2.5B stock buyback program!!! this just shows how confident the management is on the value of their company. :) im so happy i was able to get shares of a great company at a fair price. :) patience really does pay off sometimes. :) the week started out with me reading the articles of jack galt and ron nathan aka mr bearbull :) and im glad that somehow we share the same sentiments in some aspects. Mr bearbull and i agree that the us is really due for a recession and he also stated that maybe it might be safer to invest in emerging markets than the us. Ive said many times that i believe that there will be a shift of funds to asia from the us due to the recession. :) i think there will be more panic to follow because of the subprime problem that still lingers the only solution to that is to wait for bargains and just buy with what your comfortable with. :) im also glad that another analyst also likes jollibee which is a stock that i follow and i agree with him the jollibee is one company that will really reflect the boom that we are experiencing. :) just give jollibee some time and im sure the stock price will follow its increase in earnings. :) another topic that is of importance is the fed announcement on sept. 18. most likely the fed will lower interest rates so that they could calm investors and stabilize the economy. :) interest rates usually have a great effect on any economy lower it and assets will usually go up and increase interest rates and you might possibly see a slump in asset prices but the market is irrational and you never know what will happen. :) just expect the unexpected. :) remember....... money is never lost it is only transformed. :) hehehe happy trading to everyone and good luck. Sad to see erap go down but justice must be served. Tsktsk a group of friends and i are planning to put up a restaurant in binan, laguna can anybody here tell me the prospects there???? thanks :) god bless to everybody :)

happy birthday warren buffett

2007-08-29T23:44:00.000-07:00

thank you for being an inspiration to us all!!! God bless you always!!! :) long live value investing!!! :)

explosive 1st year

2007-08-27T00:10:00.000-07:00

I can still remember it so clearly, its like it was just yesterday i had the guts to start my own blog about finance, investing, business and everything else because i was inspired by some of the blogs that i read on the internet. Its been a year since i started chiefstocks with the mission to popularize value investing and help others do better at the stock market. :) i hope i have achieved this even in just a small way. :) value investing is here to make investing easier and makes sure that when you build your portfolio there is very little margin for error. Ive mentioned this lots of times in this blog investing is about making as little mistakes as possible. :) according to warren buffett the most important thing investing is not even about making money but not losing money. In other words, capital preservation because what is the point of earning money if you also lose it. :) i have learned a lot from the market, from other investors, from spyfrat, from ericgo, from raffy boy and from my idol warren buffett and though i might not be good in writing but i really do try my best to impart to all of you the things that i learn. :) a lot has happened over the past year, it started with the computer in our home, then after awhile i was able to buy a laptop of my own, then i became single, then the market “crashed” with the shanghai bubble, then i went on a vacation, then the market had a strong rally and reached 3,800 and a few weeks lost almost 25% the cause of the drop was the us subprime market concerns, then the fed lowers the interests rates and the us market stabilizes which also calms our market here so from the bottom of the drop the market has recovered almost 10% from its low with all that has happened im still here and fighting. Phew! What a year it has been and im looking forward to another with all of you. I still believe that the bull market is not yet over for the problem is in the us and not here. :) i expect the market to rally back to its previous levels and even go higher from there. Our market just needs some time. :) id just like to make a rundown of some of the things that i have mentioned for the last year. :) always remember that the market is irrational and it also has a short memory. One day it gains 5% and the next day it losses 8% it really doesnt matter for we can take advantage of the market volatility to our advantage. :) buy low and sell high. :) there are two things that will happen in the market: it will go up and it will go down. :) the up and down of the market is caused by market sentiments but always remember that behind all those stocks that are trading in the market are company valuations. :) this is where money is to be made if you are just patient enough to wait long enough for the inconsistencies that do occur every once in awhile. Like a few weeks ago i was forced to sell my shares in unionbank to make way for ayala corp because it was selling at bargain levels. :) i had to do this for i only limit my portfolio to up to 20 stocks. Now a comment on our market, after two weeks of heavy selling or maybe you could even call it panic and it was definitely a panic for why sell when our market is healthy. The market drop was a chance to get stocks of great companies at lower prices. After the fed in the us lowered the interest rates it calmed the us market and that sentiment was also embraced here and caused the market to rise a bit. After this week's trading im lead to believe that technically the market is going to make a rally but it is going to be a weak one. I know that some agree and some dont agree to some of the things that i say but as ive said that it is only my opinion and time is the best judge if im right or wrong. :) i hope that your portfolio is doing well in this very volatile market of ours. :) good luck on all your trades and God bless. :)

STOCKS ON SALE

2007-08-15T21:23:00.000-07:00

This article that im going to publish will either make me look like a fool or a genius. :) time will be the best judge and give me a verdict after all is said and done. :) here is how i look at the market. . . it has broken its technical support at 3,400 and its minimum downside will be at 3,000 but of course it can even go lower than that. The simple explanation for the market downturn would be the us real estate concerns and i believe that this is a sympathy play or to put it plainly the panic in the us has spread here. It is really contagious because if you really look at it fundamentally the philippines is really looking good. :) then if my logic serves me right then there would be no reason for the “crash” that we are experiencing right now. :) so this is what i think. . . be patient and dont track the market for this is only temporary. :) i believe that the bull market is still alive and the market is just taking a breather. :) here is just some simple advice. Dont mind the market for you have no control over it instead just make sure that you buy the stocks that you like at a good price for that is something that is within your control. :) as warren buffett said “it is better to buy a stock of great company at a fair price than to buy a stock of a good company at a great price.” ive seen on the news lately that calpers will allow investments in emerging markets which shows their confidence on the potential of asia as a whole. :) banks are now giving loans of 7.5% for 5years meaning interest rates for deposits will stay at around for 3-4% for the next five years. What does that mean? It means that businessmen would rather put their money elsewhere where it could give them better returns and with low interest rates it will “force” our businessmen to invest in other assets be it real estate, art, stocks or other assets that will give better returns. And for sure the low interest rates will help our bull market move forward. :) the market is weeding out the weak hands in the market and the strong hands are now going in the market for bargains are now to be found. :) we will have a strong rally when this “crash” will be over. :) possibly go over the 3,800 level and go into the 4,000 territory. :) who knows??? :) just do your research and buy some bargains out there. :) i believe the bull market is still alive and the market is just taking a breather. :) just remember what separates a great value investor from any other investor is their stomach. :) do your research and good luck to everyone. :) God bless :)

roller coaster

2007-07-31T02:54:00.000-07:00

The market is now in a consolidation mode after it touched the 3,800 level and then what does the market do??? it goes crazy and mr market goes on a selling frenzy which lead to a big market correction for us. its now a wait and see game for us traders and investors. :) it would seem to me that the psei is undergoing a correction right now and how big the drop is i really dont know. The correction i believe is primarily caused by the unstoppable juggernaut called “recession” which most people now believe is about to hit the us. I remember when i wrote it i think september or october last year a lot of people disagreed that the us is due for a recession and now we are starting to see it unfold before our very eyes. :) but in the mean time other stocks are back to bargain levels so accumulate some. :) patience is the key here. A few days ago my friend raffy boy told me that the 2007 financial statements of feu are already out. So we discussed about it. after some computations and seeing the financial statements for myself the eps was about P86.37/share which is almost a 5% increase from last year. Well i told him to already get hold of some shares if he likes it. A school is just like an electric company dont pay your bill and your out!!! no electricity for you!!! hehehe as i told raffy boy the only people i know who graduated from a school without paying any tuition are scholars. :) and the rest are captive market of the school!!! do you remember when during exams you have to settle your tuition first before being allowed to take the test. A school is a cash cow. :) you know whats even better with a school compared to an electric company??? feu has very little debt which compared to an electric company it is debt heavy because every few years you need new equipment, machinery etc etc. a school doesnt need that :) it doesnt just have little debt it is also very liquid! :) what else can you ask for? My henry sy holds more than 20% of stock in this company. The board of directors are very competent and was impressed when i read more about their curriculum vitae. :) the number of enrollees dropped this school year because they lessened the number of students being accepted especially in their nursing course to improve the standards which i very much agree with the move. A school shouldnt just be happy with accepting students and get their tuition but it is also their responsibility to produce great and competent people when they go out into the real world. :) this is the bright side and shows a lot of promise for the company, the number of enrollees dropped by around 1,800 students but the school is still within its 24,000 target and still the company was able to increase its income. i wrote about feu a few weeks ago and i mentioned that it is slightly undervalued and i still stick to what i said awhile back it is undervalued and this could be a great long term investment. :) well its really up to you how you look at the company. But dont take my advice and always do your own research. I even told raffy boy a few weeks ago when he read the article about feu and i advised him that if he likes what he sees he should gets shares before august 15 or the end of august the latest. :) lets wait and see if this company will give great returns in the next few years. :) watch out for this! :)

thought for the day:optimism means expecting the best, but confidence means knowing how to handle the worst

2007-07-27T00:35:00.000-07:00

- max gunther

go eric go!

2007-07-16T22:33:00.000-07:00

here is a peek on what is inside eric go's portfolio who also has an inclination to value investing and at the same time also trades stocks for the short term. :)

i have a set of stocks which are considered permanent and another set of stocks which are for trading and capital gains. (basically value for holding and speculatives for quick trading margin)rules for investing are as follows:speculatives are always up for sale. Whether to take profits or in some times to cut loss. Value stocks are permanent and will not be sold unless fundamentals start to erode. Cash dividends are reinvested and majority of capital gains(if any) are reinvested as well into the value portfolio. There will only be 7 stocks in the value portfolio which i have set as the maximum. In the event another stock would be a candidate for the value portfolio, one of the current positions must be sold before another will be added. % is based on the closing prices as of july 6, 2007. for the value stocks there are 7 and for the speculatives there are 4.

%for the whole are the following: chib – 6.45%; bdo – 2.53%; mvc – 4.15%; smdc – 5.75%; ans – 16.83%; reg – 10.76%; ephi – 4.22%; apc – 5.35%; geo – 27.23%; mac – 12.44%; pcp – 4.22%

for value:chib – 12.72%; bdo – 4.99%; mvc – 8.19%; smdc – 11.35%; ans – 33.18%; reg – 21.22%; ephi – 8.32%

specualtives are:apc – 10.86%; geo – 55.29%; mac – 25.26%; pcp - 8.57%

a good business

2007-07-07T21:05:00.000-07:00

A good business is a business with a “franchise” when i say that i mean a strong following and a solid product. One business with a very strong franchise is a school. :) just take this example from real life when you meet other people what are the few things that you would ask about him. “where did you graduate?” then he'll say ateneo and then you'll say me too! Whats your course? Who are your friends there? It just goes on.and on. :) we all have a certain attachment to our school because we spent a lot of time in our school, we meet our friends there, boyfriends, girlfriends,best friends and it is there that we discover new interests and fields or in other words whether we like it or not we will always be connected to our school for the rest of our lives. can you think of another business that has that kind of following? A school, i believe in its normal operations is a money making machine. :) you really dont need a lot of teachers to run a school. But you do need good teachers to be a reputable school. A school makes a profit from tuition and maybe from other services like research grants which is most of the time sponsored by individuals or companies due to its tax benefits. :) another advantage for a school. :) and when a school plans to put up a building or a new facility what does it do? Fund raising! And where do they usually get the bulk of the funds? From its alumni! :) i hope you get my point that im trying to drive at here. :) well its as if paying tuition is not enough you will still contribute and help your school even after you graduate because as ive said you will always have this attachment to your school. Or sometimes schools get funding from big companies or individuals. They do this to get tax incentives. :) a school is a very good business and with that buy shares thru the psei. :) i think there are three which is feu, ceu and ipo. :) i like ceu and feu. I would be willing to buy ceu at around the 5 range i think its expensive at its present price. Feu is beautiful from my recollection this is one of the few stocks that i bought that spyfrat didnt object. :) i got shares in the first few weeks of 2006 and as of the moment it has more than doubled in price. It was really undervalued when i got shares.:)it is now trading around the 780-850 range and it gives out dividends. :) study the schools in the psei :) you wont regret it. Feu i believe right now is undervalued now but i will not be surprised if its share price will just keep on going up. :) “when holding a great stock time is your best friend, but when holding a bad stock time is your worst enemy.”

as ive said the minimum upside of the market is 3,800 and it was reached last thursday and what do i get out of it? :) at least the market didnt make me look like a fool. Hehehehe :) but i believe that the market will continue its uptrend in the next few weeks. Up to what level it will go up? i couldnt answer that, lets just wait and see. :) as my friend said “dont mind the weather, know the climate.” :)

p.s. My friend rafael stayed home the other day because he had a flu and he did some research on the stock market while he was at home and by some stroke of luck he stumbled upon chiefstocks and he read my critique of him. :) he was a good sport and he took it well. :) but it really doesnt matter because out of 10 things about the stock market that we talk about i think we would only agree on two things! Hehehe so it wouldnt really make a difference anyway. :) im sure rafael would also see the valid points that i raised about him and as smart as he is im sure he would also recognize some of his mistakes and try to correct it. :) hes a smart guy and i know he took it well and then he is also very generous for he gave a considerable amount to my friend paul(he is recovering from a kidney transplant as of the moment and im doing a fund raising for him) and to think that they are both strangers to each other. :) thank you lord that there are still people like that. :) the main goal here is to learn from our mistakes and improve ourselves. I also continuously try to learn everyday from other people and hopefully my blog helps others also. :) value investing makes sure you take advantage of the market whenever it is irrational and not participate in it. :) fly high psei! Good luck and god bless to everyone. :)

3rd year anniv

2007-07-02T22:42:00.000-07:00

Its been almost four year since my friend rafael told me about the stock market and introduced me to spyfrat and i can still remember it all clearly. :) and last june 24 was the third year that i made a commitment to value investing. :) when i started buying stocks i just bought the stocks that i fancied and whatever i was familiar with. Just buying with no research whatsoever!?! hehehe i did well with my first buy sm prime holdings (smph) and made a 12% profit and my next buy was metrobank (mbt) and i registered a 9% loss. The latter was the one that made me think. Maybe there is an approach to investing where you can time your purchases and make short term profits which got me interested with technical investing and charts which i also made a profit but the problem with it for me is that i dont have the time to monitor the market because i work on trading days. Then i discovered value investing and it was a perfect match! :) long term investing was a perfect fit for me but one thing that i had to learn was to be more patient. But with some luck and determination i was able to discipline myself with my trades and to withstand all the temptations of selling my positions every time there was bad news. :) as they say it takes a lot of stomach to be a long term investor. :) how would you feel if you see that the share price of your stock goes down 20% or 30%? i would say that 90% of people would panic. :) but this could be avoided by good research, patience and discipline. If you make the commitment to buy stocks only at lows then half the battle is already won. :) my target with my value portfolio is a minimum 15% compounded return in a 10year span and im really surprised that i was able to do better after three years. :) my portfolio doubled in value after 2years and 11months and im really happy with it but of course i do know that there is still a lot of room for improvement and there is still so much to learn about the market. :) as they say you stop living when you stop learning! :) im happy i found value investing because it is the perfect system for me and you should also strive to look what style suits you. :) research also will play a big role in your success in investing also. Discipline and patience is important because it really takes time to see your portfolio grow. Time does a lot of wonderful things to a value portfolio. I do hope i could see more value investors in our market. :) heres a saying that i like but i cant seem to recall where i heard it. :) “the harder you work the luckier you get” :) market closed at a new high again today and i believe that the market will still do well in the next few weeks and hopefully hit 3,800 very soon! good luck on all your trades and God bless :)

"most battles are won before they are ever fought."

2007-07-01T22:17:00.000-07:00

-General George S. Patton

investment mistake

2007-06-24T07:50:00.000-07:00

Its been an interesting and stressful week. An investment scheme of my friend finally went bust. Ive always warned my friends of the danger of these kinds of investment. The investment will almost double your money in one month. I really dont know if it was a ponzi scheme, hyip or a scam because for a long time it was really paying well. The good thing for me was that i really believed that “it was too good to be true” so every time that interest was being paid on the principal i kept on reducing the principal before the investment went bust. At least i can live with my decision for i have almost recovered my investment. :) this investment is a lesson for me and taught me a lot about the psychology in investing the excitement and the ensuing panic when everything falls apart. Every time interest is due i kept on getting it while some of my friends kept on adding to their investment and i have the impression that some of them have put more than half of their savings in it for they believe that it is a “once in a lifetime opportunity.” so what will they do now because i believe that there is just a very slim chance that they can recover the whole of their investment. It also showed me that the generation nowadays dont value hard work. They would rather have it easy. But lets not deny it who wouldnt want to earn easy money but not to the point of putting almost all of your money in it. This is something that i would also like to do more research on the saying “easy come easy go”. Or what are the percentages that one can save from hard earned money and easy money. I noticed that the generation of my parents and grandparents give much more value to hard work maybe this is because they experienced hardships during the war? I really dont have the correct explanation for that phenomenon. Im lucky for my family has instilled in me the value of hard work and i am not afraid to get my hands dirty. :) and everybody shouldnt be afraid to do hard work for i remember there was one taipan that said “there is no shortcut to success and hard work is the key to success.” and i remember i think it was lucio tan who said this during an interview “i became successful because when i knew that my competitors were working 8hours a day i put in 10hours a day and when i found out that they were working 10hours a day i put in 12hours a day.” now you know why he is one of the richest people in the country. :) i remember my dad also in a meeting before when he got upset with a manager and up to now i can still clearly remember his words “i dont care how smart you are, but i come from the old school and the only thing that i know is hard work.” :) here is another story of another taipan told to me by a friend when henry sy saw the movie “ghost” starring patrick swayze and demi moore he made it a point to let everybody in his family watch the movie to watch a particular scene. It was the scene where another ghost was teaching patrick swayze how to move objects, the latter was being told by the other ghost to concetrate and focus until he finally moved the object. The moral of the story is focus. For hardwork without focus is nothing. Good luck on all your trades and God bless. :)

shanghai market

2007-06-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

Wow! What a way to end the week! With this i believe that we can expect an exciting and bullish next few weeks. :) and who knows maybe the 3,800 mark can be reached before the end of the 1^st of half of the year. :) but anything can happen in the market so lets just wait and see. :) ive read some of my past posts and i think i should apologize for some of the typographical errors and maybe some of the topics that i wrote might have bored you. But i should also thank some of the faithful followers of my blog and to some who have posted comments, sent private messages and e-mails. :) thank you very much it is very encouraging and believe me i will always strive to learn more about the market and share it here with everybody. :) before i start discussing my topic for this week i would also like to mention the solid group inc.(SGI) has finally broken out and im really happy about it. I remember when i wrote about it some time late october last year a lot of people really reacted to it. But the reactions were really more on the negative than on the positive but anyway everybody is entitled to their opinion. I have stated my opinion and it might be right or wrong but the best judge would be time. :) “when holding a good stock time is your best friend, when holding a bad stock time is your worst enemy.” You could read about sgi in my blog, i wrote about it october 25, 2006.

www.chiefstocks.blogspot.com/2006/10/solid-group-is-solid.html

i would like to explain the shanghai mini selldown and try to explain to you guys on why it happened and the reasons behind it. I talked to a private banker and she told me that the shanghai stock market is mostly held by retail investors or weak hands as they say. Why do they say that retail investors are weak hands? Because the majority of the people here are the ones who dont understand the stock market fully well. Most of the people here trade on tips and trade based on recommendations by other people without even researching or understanding the company that their buying into. So if the market drops a bit you can expect a panic because they dont fully understand the stocks that they own. :) another factor in the cause of the drop in the shanghai stock market is that the rise is meteoric and too fast and sooner or later the market will find its equilibrium. Another thing that could explain the fall of the market is that there are not that many funds invested in their market. That being the case, it is a house built of sticks and the big bad wolf could blow it away anytime it wants too but a house that is built of bricks would take so much more to bring it down. :) the fundies are the backbone to any stock market and when present in a market is a sure sign of good things to come for it. :) the mutuals funds are the ones that are considered the strong hand. their market will also be affected if their government will approve that the locals can invest money overseas. With all of these things mentioned, i believe that the shanghai stock market is due for a big correction but i really couldnt tell when exactly this will happen but i know for a fact that it is due for one. What does this mean for us? Well it could really mean a lot of things but there are really a lot of factors that you have to consider but for me the real issue at hand is the philippine stock market itself. How is it doing? It is doing great now up 23% year to date and with its close last week it will mostly likely go higher and who knows maybe 3,800 very soon. :) the philippine market is fairly valued as of the moment and if ever there is a correction i believe that it wouldnt go down as much. But for the meantime let us all enjoy this bull market of ours. :) words of warren buffett about buy and hold. “i made a lot of money doing nothing.” good luck on all your trades and God bless. :)

mindset for investing

2007-06-03T04:18:00.000-07:00

The topic that im going to talk about this week was inspired by two friends elizabeth and raffy boy when i had a talk with them on two separate occasions and “the art of war” by sun tzu. i could say that it was very timely with how our market has been like lately. :) anyway i will try to discuss this in the simplest way possible. Here is the line that really struck me in the book: “know your enemy, know yourself, and your victory will not be threatened. Know the terrain, know the weather and your victory will be complete.”

Know your enemy and what does this mean to the market? Your enemy in investing would be the more than 200 companies in the philippine stock market. And why do i consider them as enemies? Like in war you try to conquer your enemy to gain more power but in investing you need to “conquer” companies being traded in our market. Just like in war you study your opponent and look at its weak points and strong points and from there you make your approach on how to defeat your opponent. In investing you study the different companies and see what is the best price to buy the stock. Study the different companies and find out what are its good points and bad points. When you know your stocks well you would know that it will do even better in the long run. As ive said before you should buy the stock when everything is in your favor. Quoting warren buffett, “when holding a bad stock time is your enemy and when holding a great stock time is your friend.” For a great company will almost always increase shareholder value in the long run. :)

knowing yourself will help you a lot in investing. What are you good at and what are your weaknesses? When you know your strengths you can use it to your advantage and then find ways to cover up the weaknesses. :) this is what i figured with my friend raffy boy who has been asking me since last week if ive sold my holdings in the market and i told him that im still in the market and i havent sold anything yet. He just told me the other day that he has sold all his holdings in the market except for two because he got scared because the market dropped more than 1% and the market might have reached its peaked already. And then the next day the market goes up 2% and the next day another 2% and just this afternoon he texted me that he made a bad call in selling his stock holdings. What i see that is wrong here is his refusal to recognize that he needs help on how to read charts, on how to study companies and on judging the trend of the market. He would rather make decisions to buy or sell stocks based on his “feel” on the market. If he recognized his weakness he couldve avoided the mistake of selling. :) and listening to him he gives me the impression that he wants to be a long term investor but buys and sells stocks like a trader. In other words he also doesnt know what he wants from the market. knowing yourself it would make investing easier, for you would know which style of investing would suit you be it short, medium or long term and when you know this it would make investing more “comfortable” for you. :) do you think a sprinter would do well if he joined a marathon? :)

know the terrain means understanding where you are doing battle and that is philippine stock market itself. Understand the stocks being traded and the nature of securities. By nature, equities fluctuate in the short term but in the long run it usually follows a certain trend. :) if you recognize this it would make you a better investor and not make hasty decisions. Again i'll mention what i said awhile ago with what happened to my friend raffy boy if only he recognized the nature of stocks he wouldnt have panicked when the market went down 2%. :) are you risk averse or risk tolerant? To be a good long term investor, one has to have the stomach to see the market drop 10% in a day and be okay with it. If youre not comfortable with that then you should use a different style in trading. as the great investor warren bufett said “the ticker is just there to see if there is something foolish being offered in the market.” :)

know the weather means being able to analyze how the market will respond to everything thats happening around us. Be it increase in interest rates, a higher or lower inflation, a higher gdp and so on. But there are so many things that are happening so how do you know which one to watch? Personally i believe that it is better to analyze the company than the economy. Why? Because i cant think of anybody who can control the economy and there are so many factors to consider that one way or another you would make a mistake but one could correctly analyze a company. And from there you could make a conclusion at what price to buy the stock. :) when you know the company that you own, you wouldnt panic if it drops in price because you know its real value. :) you might even want to get yourself more shares. :) you dont have to buy the stock when it is trading at 30 times its price-earnings ratio but you could buy it when it is trading at 10 times its pe ratio. Its all about being patient. :) and i remembered when i had a talk with my friend elizabeth about being passionate in everything that you do. Well i believe that in everything that you do, your heart and soul should be in it. If that is not the case then why do it? :) a long term investor or any trader for that matter should be passionate but detached. You might want the stock of a certain company but when the time comes that it is trading at such a high premium you have to be able to unload it. Such is the nature of investing. :) invest to get something in return. :) but dont be too passionate because you might also run out of steam and for long term investors i discourage tracking the market for it is the nature of stocks to fluctuate and as such it might make you uneasy or panic then cause you to commit mistakes. Again the attitude one should take is passionate but detached. :)

the market ended this week gaining over 2% on thursday and friday. :) and again the market has made a new high. I think that the market will make a strong move again the next few weeks but of course anything can happen because the market is irrational. :) as ive mentioned last week the market has now set 3,800 as its minimum upside :) lets wait and see what happens. :) in a bull market it is in the sitting that you make money. :) but for now enjoy the ride! :) good luck on your trades and god bless. :)

our little vacation

2007-05-26T06:09:00.000-07:00

My father and i attended a meeting with some bankers and a director of a securities firm because my dad is finally interested in putting money in the market(after years of convincing him). Hehehe when they found out that i was investing in the market, i was asked what was inside my portfolio and i told them, they were impressed. My dad was just listening all this time and didnt say a word but i could see that he was impressed and surprised on what ive accomplished in investing(but i do know that i still have a long way to go). I was just happy to see that my dad was surprised that im doing okay because he was really against my going into investing in stocks when i started but now im slowly starting to change his mind. :)
the next day, My siblings and i for a change took klm for our flight to europe. :) and i can say that i was impressed! :) the service was very good and there was a lot of food served. :) hehehe and believe you me the food was good too! That is coming from someone who doesnt like airplane food. :) our flight was from manila to amsterdam for a quick stopover and then from there to vienna.
Vienna is beautiful old city and very scenic. :) you can just see how rich their culture is and i hope that the philippines have something like this to offer to tourists. You can see how rich their culture is in their palaces, castles and museums. They have preserved their culture very well. Old buildings are not demolished but they maintain the facade and then just remodel the interior of the building. The philippines should also do something like this. We should do something to preserve our culture. An example that o would like to point out were the jewels of mrs imelda marcos. I believe we shouldnt have sold them. We shouldve kept all of them and then we couldve displayed all of those in a museum and literally and figuratively it could have been a jewel of our nation.
We took a 4hour bus ride to go to budapest(pronounced budapesht) in hungary. And my oh my were we surprised the place is just beautiful. The city is very laid back , picturesque and the architecture is just marvelous. More than 70% of the structures after world war II were destroyed but after the war they decided to rebuild the city the same way it was before the war. I really didnt expect that budapest was this wonderful considering that before it was a communist country. Im somewhat reminded of the philippines when our guide explained to us the history of hungary with many foreign invaders and then staying in the country and stuff like that but one big difference that i see here that we filipinos should also have is the love of country and culture. A nation with a rich culture just shows that the country is really rich and educated and i do hope some day the philippines will also have that love for the arts, music and culture. :) their parliament here is just beautiful and i cant find the right words to describe it. But when it comes to churches the philippines can be at par with them here. :) we should do something to uplift our culture and everybody has to do their part. :) just some trivia to you investors: anonymus was really a writer/poet during the 12th century who never signed his pieces ir works. :) and of course that explains where the word anonymous comes from. I had my picture taken in his statue holding his pen because they say its for good luck. :) another bit of information for everyone: one of the greatest people to come from hungary is the man who bet $10billion against the british pound and then got $1billion in profit! Phew! The guy is george soros. :)
to stockmaster thank you so much for the comment it is things like those that inspire me and make me strive to do even better in investing. Investing is all about the numbers and people. :) if the company is run by very good people and you buy the company at a fair price only good things can happen. :)
bratislava in slovakia is also a nice small and beautiful city. :) how can such a small place be so rich in history. :) they have a lovely old town square and can you imagine in a 200 square meter radius a lot of the great composers have in one time or the other have played or taught there. The question is that what did that little city have that brought a lot of the great composers there??? what did they have?? why dont we have that in the philippines? That is the question in my mind right now. Were on the bus driving to prague, czech republic now and ill more to this when we leave prague.
Prague is beautful and that is an understatement! Its really a small town with a lot of history and a lot of beautiful architecture! :) the city reminds of a universal studios back lot but with well preserved historic buildings in it. We also visited the church of our lady of victories where the miraculous sto. Nino can be found and i got some souvenirs for my friends. :) i also met a good friend from college, glenn, who is currently there studying. He accompanied us around the city then crossing the charles bridge, explaining the culture and customs and the people. Its been a long while since we got to talk. We went out for a beer, which czech beer is really good, and then talked. And we came to the topic of life and i told him and quoting my father “what is the difference with interest and dedication? Interest is something you do when you have the time but dedication is something that you even if you dont feel like doing it.” or i'll put in other words what are you willing to give up to get what you want? In economics that is what you call opportunity cost. :) Just shows that were really starting to age we talked about our love life and i tried to convince him to get into the stock market. :) they say that prague is the 4th most visited city in europe after london, rome and paris. :)
were now back in vienna and tomorrow will be the last day of our trip and its back to work. :) its always nice to get a break from work sometimes it makes you think and appreciate all the hardwork and sacrifices that youve made. :) im just here in the hotel room having a glass of jack daniels-coke relaxing and thinking of all the things that has to be done when i get back home and of course to catch up on work. I really didnt regret getting a digicam before leaving for our vacation i really enjoyed using it. :) im really happy with it. :)
the market is really doing well now. I hope its going to reach the 3,800 before the end of the year. :) but if it doesnt its really okay i will still hold on to my stocks. :) im still looking for bargains as for the moment. :) after ive found some maybe ill write about it here. :) til here ill see you again next week. :) good luck and take care. :)

market high

2007-05-15T23:23:00.000-07:00

The elections are just over and guess what happens??? the market hits a new ten year high. I can see all the tsupiteros shouting and dancing for joy. Technically i can see the market hitting 3,800 in the near future but of course dont take my word for it for the market is irrational and anything can happen. :) so what has happened in the last two weeks? My dad is finally interested in stocks(but he is too proud to admit it for he was really against my going into stocks hehehe) because i think he has finally realized that you could invest conservatively in the market and that risk can be managed. Its all about the price that you buy the stock. :) thats what ive been telling him all along and now i think he's beginning to understand it. Look at the upside and the downside. Buy it high and as they say “the higher you are the harder the fall.” but buy it cheap then the chances of a loss is very minimal but of course as i mentioned to you investors before that wouldnt be possible if your not patient enough. And i believe that is the hardest part in investing because no book or person can teach you to be patient, it has to come from yourself. It is all about bargains or as warren buffett said the three most important words in investing is MARGIN OF SAFETY. :) one has to be able to find the real value of the company or its intrinsic value or implied value. And there is no holy grail in finding value and it is really an art that is why im still learning because value can be found in a lot of things the companys brand, undervalued assets, growth, manpower and a lot more. That is why research is so important in investing.

I was invited to join another forum and it was okay but i believe that a lot could still be done and that there should be originality in it but thank you to the founders for inviting me. :) wish you all the best guys. :) i really thought that the psei will go down because of the elections but look at what it did!!! a new ten year high. There has been an upsurge in price lately in some of my favorite stocks smdc, kpm and ephi with its coming merger with kpp and of course im also thankful for the dividends from smdc and urc. Keep up the good work guys and keep it coming. :) with the new developments in san miguel corporation it has brought the psei to a new level and for the index to keep on moving up smc should keep on going up too. I like san miguel but i still have to understand the company better. Does it really have room to still grow? Did it invest in the right industries??? :) we will see in a few weeks time. :)

and another company i like is V with an eps of P1.05 but its basic eps is 0.12. but i dont think that it really matters if its earnings were flat this year because it has now a bigger cash hoard and we all know what cold cash an do!!! hehehehe :) i watched spiderman3 on opening day and i really like it and i hope you guys did too. :) thank you for those who sent private messages and emails about my recommendation on kpm. As ive said there were people who helped me out in my research and they deserve the credit also. :) i will be leaving for eastern europe on friday and will be back after a few weeks. :) i will still keep track of the market every once in awhile and hope our market will continue to do good. :) god bless :) “sometimes a winner is just a dreamer who never gives up” :)

anonymous long term portfolio

2007-05-03T22:54:00.000-07:00

here is what's inside of the portfolio of one of the great long term investors who is a frequent visitor of financemanila. i would like to post his name but he has asked that he remain anonymous. :)

Total Portfolio (as of 25 April 07) 100 %

Peso Savings 5.30 %

UITF/Money Market 17.94 %

Dollars 1.47 %

Equities 75.3 %

CHIB 12.71 % (of total portfolio)

PERC 5.01 %

IPVG 4.49 %

JFC 3.02 %

ALI 3.78 %

FPH 3.62 %

EDC 3.43 %

JGS 3.19%

ASIA 3.08 %

MHI 2.90%

Others 22.12 %

Cash for Stock Purchase 7.03 %

Notes:

1. latest sale entire PX position (about 10% of total portfolio)

a percentage of ANS ( about 7% of total portfolio)

2. as much as possible, no equity position should be more than 5 percent of total portfolio; historically, the largest single positions were FPH, PERC and ANS (more than 20% of total portfolio)

3. everything is for sale

4. conditions for purchase:

a. fundamentals

b. growth potential

c. possible plays

5. oldest positions presently held (more than 5 years)

AEV

ALI

ANS

EPHI

FPH

JFC

a memorable weekend

2007-04-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

I had a really wonderful weekend and one of the most memorable at that. :) prepared a surprise treat for my friend alan last friday night and the the boys had one hell of a party and then the next day my dad and i had dinner with mr colayco (author of “wealth within your reach”) and discussed things related mostly to business. :) we got mr colayco as our financial consultant for our business so the whole sunday my family and me were with him. To straighten out some things and to find solutions to some problems and on how to strengthen and protect the business and talk about things that are related to business. :) i really admire mr colayco because i always believe that the best solutions to solve problems are always the simple ones. :) he advised us on what course to take to solve some problems and the beauty is that he gave us simple answers to our problems. :) a very smart guy but he doesnt flaunt his intelligence or make you feel dumb when you talk to him. He is a very humble and helpful person. :) And what i like best about our talk was that somehow he made my dad believe that the stock market is not gambling after all! :) hehehe ive been trying to convince my dad and the rest of my family to invest in the stock market for almost four years already and i cant get through him but just one afternoon with mr colayco and now he is kinda open to the idea of investing in the stock market. :) and our talk with mr colayco further strengthened my resolve about value investing. And i will quote his words “dont mind the weather, know the climate” in other words think long-term. Dont mind the daily fluctuations in price and look at the prospects of the company of what it can achieve in five years or more. :) its just what i posted here around december i think. And im so happy that we both share the same sentiments. If you dont have any knowledge in stocks the next best thing to do is to invest in mutual funds. I believe he mentioned philequity (you guys should love me this is a free advertisement!). And we discussed the most lively part of our talk. How to invest your excess cash. :) and he suggested to put it in equities or in equity mutual funds and let the power of compounding work for you and leave it for as long as 30 or even up to 50 years. :) and i also did the math and our figures are not really far from each other. :) if you invest P240,000 in a mutual fund or stocks and add P12,000 every year for five consecutive years and just leave it and let the money compound here is what you will get.

At 12% compounded per annum. Your total cash outlay is P300,000

in 10 years you will have P850,042.65

in 20 years you will have P2,640,103.44

in 30 years you will have P8,199,760.54

in 40 years you will have P25,467,211.59

in 50 years you will have P79,097,293.59

at 20% compounded per annum. Your total cash outlay is P300,000

in 10 years you will have P1,708,221.73

in 20 years you will have P10,576,858.68

in 30 years you will have P65,489,121.14

in 40 years you will have P405,491,376.64

in 45 years you will have P1.008,992,302.32 welcome to the billionaires club

in 50 years you will have P2,510,695,725.72

at 21% compounded per annum. Your total cash outlay is P300,000

just to show you the difference what 1% could mean to your portfolio.

In 10 years you will have P1,850,814.71

in 20 years you will have P12,451,355.84

in 30 years you will have P83,766,495.80

in 40 years you will have P563,539,096.23

in 50 years you will have P3,791,209,241.23

can you see what a difference of 1% can do to your portfolio over time??? who would think that a difference of 1% in your portfolio would mean having over P1billion more in your portfolio after 50years. :) value investing works and compounding is a very good ally.

i wouldnt be surprised if mr colayco himself has a value investing portfolio with very good returns but he said that hes only into investing thru mutual funds. :) the key is patience and being able to detach yourself from the everyday happening of the market. I believe i wrote about an article about compounding around december of 2006 you could also read that if you like. :) and as mr colayco also said to profit from the stock market you should be able to take advantage of other people's mistakes. Buy when someone is selling cheap and sell if someone is buying expensive. :) in other words being a value investor also means being a contrarian. :)

a warrant of arrest was just issued to the two main suspects of the tan massacre in january last year here in iloilo. The two main suspects were the children of the father from his first marriage. This is really tragic and i hope that everything will be resolved soon and that truth will prevail. Let us be thankful for all the blessings we received. God bless everyone. good luck. :)

roller coaster week

2007-04-22T06:50:00.000-07:00

What a roller coaster week! :) looking at technical data i still believe that the rally is still in place. Up to what level it will reach i really couldnt tell but from what i see i think its still ongoing. :) well what can i say about my week. It has been kind of a roller coaster too! Work and all then with a little bit of pleasure playing basketball. And then gave a surprise to a friend who really enjoyed it. :) hehehe so whats the latest in the investing world??? universal robina corporation (urc) will be included in the new psei index on may 16, 2007! yahoo! This might Just bE the news that this “laggaRd” has been waiTing for?!!?! it needs to break around the P20-P20.50 range to break its downtrend. :) it looks like that our economy is really in full swing right now. With the very big and significant investments in real estate we could somehow see that maybe this is for real. All the big players are in like the ayalas, lucio tan, megaworld, henry sy to name a few. :) and theres this property here in iloilo thats up for bidding which was our old airport. I wonder who really wants it but i believe that mr sy is the one who wants it the most for it is very near an sm mall and the is the new thrust of smdc building residential spaces near sm malls. :) gold and other precious metals are now really going up in price and i suggest to you to start buying jewelry for your wife or loved ones before the price of gold reaches $1,000 per ounce! :) and with the increase of the prices of metals this might also spark our mining sector here. Phew! And of course the stock that i recommended keppel philippines marine (kpm) which was suppose to be a valentines gift for readers of chiefstocks has made a meteoric rise the last few days. :) and if you bought it at 0.94 you have already more than a 50% return but as ive said there is still value in this company. Time will be the one that will unlock its true value we just have to be patient. :) things are really looking good for our economy but dont be overconfident for the market fears no one and if you are careless you will surely get burned! With diligence there is still value to be found in the market. Remember the three p's in investing: patience, patience and patience. Good luck to everyone. :) happy birthday charlene! :) god bless

crazy mr market

2007-04-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

Is the market irrational? Is the market bipolar? :) what do you think? We can see it all happening in front of our very eyes! :) the first two trading days of the week the market went up more than 1% each day and then what happens? It drops more than 1% tsktsktsk is that suppose to be rational??? i bumped into my broker the other day and he told me that the market has forgotten the china sell-off and that includes him too hehehe i remember him telling me a few weeks ago to liquidate my shares but i refused to do so. Now do you think im crazy??? hehehe but my broker is a short term trader or a chartist and from his point of view that was the right thing to do and if i look at it from that point of view he gave me the right advice but i look at my shares of stock in a long term perspective thats why i didnt sell them. :) i really admire my broker spyfrat because he is one of the best at what he does. people really have a short memory span after a month they are all at it again!?!?! can anyone please explain to me if thats rational!!!!! anyway it really doesnt matter just always remember to buy low and sell high! :) volatility is your friend! :) i really believe that. As mr. Buffett said investing is like a baseball game but there are no strikes being called. :) meaning you dont have to buy anything that you dont like. :) just buy something when you really like it. :) nobody is forcing you to buy a stock at a certain price so if thats the case then just wait for it to drop to the price that you want. :) when you do that you lessen the chances of making a mistake. As the master investor said investing is about making as little mistakes as possible! :) anyway there are still cheap stocks in the market and one that im going to discuss right now is fil-estate(LND). Trading at the range of 0.80 to 1.00 :) this is a really cheap stock selling at a very big discount right now!!! around 70%-80% imagine that?but still im having doubts of buying the stock. Because i believe that one very important requirement of a good stock and giving you back superior returns is good management. And no offense meant i really dont have a very high regard for its management. So as of the moment even though holy week is over i think im going to abstain from LND. hehehehehe I will quote again my idol warren buffett “i would rather buy a great company for a fair price than buy a good company for a great price.” good luck guys. :) the nba playoffs are now fast approaching!!! :)

carlo ponzi

2007-04-08T23:08:00.000-07:00

As i promised im going to write an article about what a ponzi scheme is. This is taken from marc faber's book tomorrow's gold pages 176-178.

in fact, every mania involves some sort of Ponzi scheme. Carlo ponzi was a swindler who, in 1920, devised something akin to a chain letter, whereby early investors were paid out of money invested by late buyers. Ponzi promised to pay 50% interest for the use of 45 days' deposits, based on a strategy to arbitrage international postal union coupons bought with depreciated exchange rates abroad and to exchange them at higher fixed exchange rates for US stamps (for which coupons could be redeemed) in the us. The scheme was purely fictitious. Ponzi took in close to us$8million, but had only us$61 worth of stamps in his office when arrested. His “pyramid” scheme, the success of which depended on attracting new depositors at an ever-accelerating rate, collapsed when a number of depositors began to suspect that they wouldn't get their money back and attempted to withdraw their funds.

Ponzi schemes resurface from time to time in emerging economies where a sufficiently large number of naive people can be found who believe that 50% returns on short-term deposits can be achieved. However, it is a fact that for most investments, sooner or later, early buyers will be paid out by late buyers. This would seem to be particularly true in the case of investment booms and manias, which require a large number of participants to fuel and maintain the upward price momentum. The boom ends when the amount of money flowing into the popular investment theme starts to decelerate, as buyers become suspicious about the sustainability of positive returns, or when the supply eventually exceeds the demand. Thus, the early buyers of us stocks in the 1920's, 1960's and 1990's did well, while the latecomers were badly burnt by the subsequent market declines. The same was true of the gold and silver booms, and of the japanese stock market bubble in the 1980's.

In fact, i would argue that one of the principal features of an investment bubble is the existence of a giant ponzi scheme. Entrepreneurs no longer start businesses with the objective of achieving recurring profits from their investments, but rather seek to set up ventures in order to flog them off to speculators through IPOs and secondary offerings. At the same time, investors almost totally abandon the concept of investing according to strict value criteria and real economic merit. Instead they purchase stocks solely because they figure that, as more and more people join the investment party, someone - “the greater fool” - will be willing to pay an even higher price than they did for their stocks.

Ponzi schemes raise some fascinating questions.why are so many people repeatedly fooled by them? And why did carlo ponzi's scheme fail in less than a year, while other similar schemes have lasted so much longer? Investors get caught again and again in ponzi-type chains because of the very high returns they promise. Had carlo ponzi promised to pay a return of only 2% in 45 days' deposit (102% annually), no one would have bothered to invest with him. But with the promise to pay 50% for such a deposit (162,450% annually), he was able to attract quite a sum, considering that he was operating only from boston. His main problem was the regional scope of his scheme. Had he been able to operate globally with the support of cnbc, cnn, internet chatrooms and a variety of questionable stock advisory services, his operation could have flourished for much longer. The money flows that financed his operation would have continued for as long as the incoming funds were sufficient to pay out the redeeming investors. And the longer this had continued, the more confident the investing crowd would have become in the merits of his financing skills, possibly to the extent of attracting even central banks to invest their reserves with him. Morever, ponzi's promised returns were such that even if interest rates had risen 10% per annum, they wouldn't have jeopardised his scheme. It was his inability to raise money fast enough and the loss of investors' confidence that brought him down.

Now suppose that ponzi had reinvested himself. Instead of a questionable character operating regionally in boston and promising to pay 50% for 45 days' deposits, we have the credible and proven capitalistic system and alan greenspan as well as the us treasury guaranteeing that every time there is a crisis there will be a bail-out – as was the case in mexico, asia, ltcm and most recently brazil. Thus, the system and alan greenspan, and not carlo ponzi, were vested by the global investing public with the power to underwrite a 20% per annum return for the us stock market, as was the case from 1982 to 2000. even better, the system and greenspan, supported and cheered on by the media, were believed to guarantee an almost 100% annual gain from investing in a basket of technology stocks, which was the return of the nasdaq 100 a few years leading up to the march 2000 (up nine times in five years and almost four times from 1998 to 2000).

a ponzi scheme may not fly with a 20% guaranteed annual return, but a sure 100% return is a tempting proposition for any investor. So, for as long as the nasdaq could sustain these returns, ebullient investors reallocated more and more money from conservative investments such as short-dated bonds, money market funds, cds, abd even value stocks, into the high-tech sector. Even rising interest rates cannot derail this process, because the returns promised by a ponzi scheme are so much higher than interest rates.

The breaking point, however, is reached when insufficient new money flows into the market, or the supply of equities begins to exceed the demand, and investors start to experience significant capital losses. Only when this happens do investors lose confidence and scramble for the exit, bringing about a meltdown. This was apparent in the us when, in 1999, a total of 555 companies went public (an all-time record) and raised us$73.6 billion. But that us$73.6 billion represented only 27% of tge issuing companies' market caps. In 2000, however, the lock-up period for most of these issues expired and, in addition to the then prevailing heavy new-issue calendar (in early 2000, there were weeks when new issues raised over us$8 billion), insiders were able to sell more than us$200 billion of previously locked-up shares.

holy week reflection

2007-04-05T05:58:00.000-07:00

It was a very busy, stressful and at the same time rewarding week for me. Last sunday afternoon i had coffee with my very good and close friend charlene. :) and we spent the whole afternoon discussing about religion. :) she is a born again christian and im a catholic but we didnt argue, we just discussed how she came to be a born again because she was a catholic before also. I respect her decision to convert for each one has to find his or her path to grow spiritually. i really enjoyed that talk of ours and maybe i do hope that some day she'll go back to the catholic faith but if that doesnt happen it really doesnt matter because what really matters in the end is our faith and if we believe in our one true God. :) its always nice to talk to a smart lady. :) monday was a very busy day for me with my parents going to baguio i had to attend to some of their work so it was a very busy day indeed and then a friend of mine called and asked if he was interested in an investment. Here are the terms of the investment and ready yourself. 30% interest on your money in 10days! Is that even possible? I cant find any legal business that could give you those kind of returns in that short span of time. Is it possibly a ponzi scheme? for those of you who are still not familiar with what a ponzi scheme is i'll write about it in the near future. That was the first kind of investment of that nature that i encountered this year and just a little word of advice when there are a lot of ponzi schemes going around already that means that the end of the bull market is near already. It means that the market is now overheating and usually during bear markets there are little or even no get rich quick schemes. :) so that means that we have nothing to worry about right now and that the market is still healthy. :) and on monday evening i had dinner with charlene again in sbarro then met my cousin for coffee and the same time she entrusted some of her money to me to invest. :) well i just told her that its a long term investment and shes okay with it. :) i will really try to do my best to give my fund the best returns possible. :) my minimum target for returns is 15% which mean double your money in five years and four times your money in 10 years. But of course thats just the minimum i target more than 20% :) my fund will be 3 years old on june 24 this year and more or less the fund has been earning 6.41% per month that is as of march 31, 2007 since i started this fund and i could say that its still growing and im still learning everyday. :) i just hope my fund is going to grow someday and be one of the big boys in our market. Well as of the moment that is just a dream. :) i just hope that some day my dream will come true. :) i think i can say that ive done a good job so far because i have beaten the returns of the psei for that is the only benchmark that i try to beat. And im thankful that ive beaten it so far. :) i thank the lord for all the blessings and the guidance, my family for always being there, friends for cheering me up when times were tough for me, spyfrat for helping me out in investing even though were on the opposite sides if the spectrum when it comes to investing but has opened my eyes and my mind to a different approach in investing and it has helped me a lot, charlene for being patient and understanding when im dificult. Let us not forget to thank the lord for all the blessings we've received and let us not forget the ultimate sacrifice the Lord has made for all of us. :) god bless to everyone this holy week.

first quarter review

2007-04-02T02:25:00.000-07:00

The first quarter is finally over and we saw some drama with the global sell-off which started in china but nothing to worry about were still here. The psei went as high as 3,400 but fell sharply due to the sell off and i think in a way i could also say that it was a correction. :) the market's rise this year was kinda meteoric and i would say the correction put the market back in its place. What happened to my little fund this quarter??? well i didnt sell anything even though with all that panic and everything. I bought shares in kpm for its low price and strong fundamentals of the company. That was my only buy this quarter. :) im thinking of adding to my shares in urc. :) i like what ali has in plan for its expansion and also meg which just shows how bullish they are in our economy. :) im still awaiting news for the subsidiary of v, yehey, when they will have their ipo. Jfc has now started to show its true potential and it is now reflected in the share price. :) im also still bullish in ubp, mbt, epci, bpi and of course asia. :) i believe that sgi is still undervalued and could increase its share price by at least 50% still! :) and of course ans is still steadily rising up and with the company continuing to buyback its own shares Just mEan good things foR The company. The market went up by 7.41% since the start of the year and i could say that it is very commendable and i could say rational increase. :) my fund is up by almost 20% since the start of the year and im happy with that because i beat the psei for that is the only gauge to my performance. :) i know tsupiteros or short term traders are having a field time right now with the market conditions being very bullish. :) and i wouldnt be surprised if they are having returns of 50% or more. :) but thats okay i will still stick with my game plan. :) my friend eric just told me to look more into a certain stock and i thank him for doing so for i have found out the company is even more undervalued than i thought. Im going to write about it next time when i can see the true potential and value. And im also thankful to spyfrat for he has pointed me again in the right direction in finding value stocks there are two more that i have to research on. So that means im going to write about three different companies next time. Ill write about the three musketeers next time. :) patience, patience and patience that is the name of the game.
I have a story to tell about life and this could also be connected with value investing. A child asked his father, “why do i need to be humble?” then the father said “when you choose the lowly path, there is no place to fall and the only way is up.” good luck to all of you. Good bless. :)

thailand and the stock market

2007-03-24T01:05:00.000-07:00

Was in thailand with friends just the other weekend and what can i say? I really enjoyed the vacation with friends, a chance to get to know them better in a different environment and a chance to get away from all the work and stress. Just seeing the development and the progress in the place just makes you think what should we do to improve the image and the economy in the philippines?!?!?! the groundwork for success in our economy has been laid out by the present administration but the question is... will it go on after president gma steps down from office? These are questions that we cant answer for now but what we have to appreciate right now is that the fundamentals of the stock market is very solid and now is a good time to invest for the long term. But what if the market goes down together with the global sell-off? Well i myself will buy more value stocks and hold them for the long term. :) you must be thinking if im crazy to buy in this kind of environment which is erratic. Well this started last february 28, 2007 when there was a sell-off in shanghai which triggered a global sell-off and of course our beautiful country was also affected after the psei almost reached the 3,400 level. Short term traders say that the trend is your friend and i wont argue with that for it is true but sometimes when you look at the bigger picture investing for the long term is also advantageous in a lot of ways. Less work in a way that you dont have to monitor the market everyday. :) and less commissions to pay because you have lesser transactions. :) for the last year of trading why not check how many transactions did you make and how much did you profit and how much did you pay for commission. :) you'll be surprised at how much you pay your broker. :) but anyway ive already posted my reasons a few weeks ago why the stock market will continue to trend up for the long term. Volatility is not bad if you just have to use it to your advantage. As i've said the market is irrational and whenever the market is in a good mood and sells stocks at a bargain take the as a chance to buy and when the market is feeling generous and would be willing to buy your stock at a premium than its value then take that as a chance to sell! :) the best way to protect yourself from volatility and big drops in prices is to buy stocks at a cheap price. I guess thats your best protection from price drops because the buying stocks cheap most of the time is usually buying them near the bottom. :) being a value investor means a few things an arbitrageur, a bargain hunter, a contrarian and a patient man. I believe we are one-third or one-half in the markets bullish cycle. It wont be easy thats why you have to learn to detach yourself from the daily happenings in the market. We'll get there we just need time and patience. :)

mr sy #1

2007-03-17T23:10:00.000-07:00

Henry sy is the richest person in the philippines in the last ranking by forbes magazine. Let us now dissect on why that is so. :) mr sy or tatang as he is fondly called started started in the shoe business and then sm department store. :) he built his first sm mall in 1983 in north edsa and was instantly a hit. He built the mall during a time of uncertainty and unrest with the killing of benigno “ninoy” aquino and the unstable political situation at that time. But as the man said “times of distress bring about opportunity”. Any good value investor will agree with that saying for it is during those times that you will be able to able to buy stuff or companies at a discount. :) for my henry sy sm prime holdings is his anchor or core business. :) it might be true that he is diversified but his main business is still smph. That is where it all started and from there he started putting capital into other businesses. No matter what happens he will never leave smph. In other words his other businesses are his sideline. :) the key is putting good managers in your other businesses so that they could run it for you. Delegation in other words. Smph will always be his favorite and he will always look after it. :) so that is one trait that is usually common among successful value investors which warren buffett would call “focus investing”. Not to be diversified is also wrong because is you put all your money all in one investment that would now be called gambling. For me a portfolio to be diversified should have at least 5 investments and not more than twenty (20). :) i will give you some data that i got from reliable sources on how good mr sy's core business is and how it catapulted him into the top spot. Smph is forced to open new malls because it generates around P20billion yes thats right billion just from rent every month. :) you just keep that much cash just lying in the bank you have to use it to get better returns. :) smph charges a premium for rent and why not? Being the leading mall in the country it has the right to do so. It doesnt even charge rent but also percentage from gross sales in some businesses. But who complains? Nobody because that is the price you have to pay to get a piece of the sm crowd. :) and even before the mall opens it already will get millions just from the advance deposit of its tenants already so basically they already have money to use to run the mall! :) such a great business. Mr sy has! Even if it opens in a place and its department stores wont do that well smph will still collect rent and what is the worry because every time sm opens a new malls it has followers from its consignors, jollibee, kfc, chowking, national bookstore, and many more. :) so basically it has already tenants when it opens a new mall. :) compared to other malls in the country this one appeals to all classes from the a to d market. :) sm has this kind of command in its rent and everything else because there is no close competition and in the absence of that smph will Just continuE to gRow and increase iTs market share! :)

inspirational words in these trying times

2007-03-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

“a pessimist sees the difficulty in every problem, an optimist sees the opportunity in every problem” - winston churchill

“the ticker is there as a reference to see if someone is offering something foolish” - warren buffett

please stay calm

2007-03-05T00:28:00.000-08:00

Its another bloody day and in general its been really a bloody week in the philippine stock market but the way i look at it since december 2006 the rise of the market has been meteoric and i believe what we got is a long overdue correction. Just like a car it needs maintanance every once in awhile. Every 5,000km a change oil and when it reaches 20,000km a tune up and it is no different in the market. We have an economy that is growing and were in the part of the world, asia, where emerging superpowers are in the making and with the us already showing signs of a slowdown and surprisingly an even an admission on their part that they are about to go into a recession! :) actually i even think that the admission of the us about their economy and the china sell off set all of this off. :) if you read my past articles i have stated that asia will boom and the us will go into a recession by 2010 and i still stand by with what i said. This is just one of the things that you got to endure when youre investing. This is what i was telling my friend, nico, last week “dont track the market and dont watch is too closely you have to be detached with whats happening in the market on a day to day basis” here are some of the quotes that i got from my friends about what happened in the market last week and the general condition of the market.
Spyfrat a chartist and short term trader - “down! Its the start of the bear market. The market has disciplined us for it has spoiled us for some time already im out and ill wait in the sidelines.”
bruce a technical trader and short term trader, the boss of financemanila - “cash is king. Ive been getting a lot of “what to do questions apparently from the 95% of those who did not heed my advice to lighten up on the market before the market spiralled downwards. If you joined the market late last year, this rout should only be taking a small cut from your overall equity. But if you joined the market this year my prayers are with you. It may be too late to cut right now for there is a for there is a slight support base (trendline created from june 2006)awaiting near 2,950-2,960. however if we do get a technical bounce from that level, any really from that point should be your cue to sell. How big a rally, how long?i dont know because we are going to paint the chart with this new short term downtrend. it is yet to be created and measured. I gauge this to be a “lower high rally” a rally with a lower peak much lower than the one created at 3,417. after a series of lower highs and lower lows the index may see itself at ultimate uptrendline support(created 2003)near 2,600 or there abouts. we'll talk about it when the time nears, if at all. However in between the trendline supports of 2,950-2,600 there are recent low supports at the following levels 2,830 2,746, 2,520 (opps yes thats below 2,600 already)
nico a speculator who is interested in long term investing - “whether we like it or not the philippine market is hinged in the us as we are heavily dependent o foreign investors. Big picture in global economy and stock confidence can affect us directly.”
joey a friend also investing in stocks - “i believe this is only temporary”
eric a trader and long term investor - “the drop still seems healthy. Prices seem to be at fair value with select issues being a bit undervalued. Long term upside indicate good upside at current levels”
jerty a friend interested in the stock market - “oh my... well it dropped 200points, a lot of people were worried but president arroyo said theres nothing to worry about, its a normal trend in the market and what happened was just cause and effect”
volatility is part of investing in the market. Just like getting punched in a boxing match. It is part of the game. To protect yourself from big drops in the market the solution is to get the stock at rock bottom prices or when it is for sale! :) just like when you go shopping how would you react if you hear this from you wife/girlfriend “oh sweetey im dying to but this bag cause the store is selling it 50% its usual selling price”then i wont blame you if you tell her this “YOUR CRAZY!” but if she tells you that “baby i want to buy that bag and i want to buy it now cause it selling at 30% off its usual tag price.” now thats logical and that makes your partner just “half-crazy” hehehe just this morning my friend joey texted me to ask if i got out of the market already and i replied “nope :)” and he was surprised that i could even smile. Hehehehe and my friend nico also asked if im out of the market already and i Just rEplied “i havent even seen the tickeR yeT for today.” the point im driving at is that invest in the company and not the market. :) if you get a stock of a good company at a fair price then there is no reason to panic. :) even my portfolio took a beating too it drop around 14pts but as i said its all part of the game. But i have stocks of good companies and luckily i got it at a good price so thats the reason why i not yet selling. if you look at price movements in a a shorter span of time the more volatile it is but looking at it in a longer span of time it is less volatile. Everybody has a opinion on the market what it will do and why it will react that way but in the end it is Just all about invEsting in good companies when it is selling at a laRge discounT. My advice just be on the look out for good companies that are selling at a discount and be prepared to hold them for years. :) no reason to panic friends :) god bless.

investing in love. . .

2007-03-03T22:52:00.001-08:00

Being in love and the stock market? Are there any similarities? Can you use the same principles of in trading or investing to the game of love? To get a good stock you have to be patient and of course you need time and capital for that. Im not being materialistic here but i am just trying to point out the similarities between the two! for value investing way of thinking Well one you should devote a lot of time to the girl, court her, bring her flowers, give her chocolates, call her(youre gonna burn a lot of prepaid cards for this) and text her. You have to be there when she needs you and even if she doesnt need you! The price you have to pay to be a guy! Tsktsktsk so thats capital and time or if you want to call it commitment. Just like in stocks and especially value investing you have to be committed to owning the stock of the company for years in order to see its true potential! Again id like to quote mr warren buffett “when owning a good stock time is your best friend, but when owning a bad stock time is your worst enemy!” phew! How i wish this was true in real life. But sad to say that its different because as they say it takes a lifetime to get to know a person! After 5years of getting married you just found out that your partner is a cleptomaniac, or an ax murderer, or a nymphomaniac(this could actually be beneficial for you in some ways hehe), or maybe after how many years of being together you just found out that the kid you claimed as your own is not really yours after all! Isnt that tragic if you find that out? In stocks these risks are also present but.... you can minimize it by careful study and research. Or if you want you can be a tsupitero or a short term trader! Hehehe what does that mean? Meaning you jump from one relationship to the next after you take profit. :) in real life what does that make you? Hehehe a swinger? Hehehe in short term trading you look for volume in the stock to be able to push up the price of the stock. In real life you need good looks and smooth talking to be able to get the girl you desire in a short span of time and after achieving your objective you could now get out of the relationship and find your next target! :) but one thing is common for the value investor and tsupitero lover you need to find the right time to find the right girl and approach her. :) in life everything happens for a reason but the problem is that we dont know the reason why! Tsktsktsktsk life its just so complicated! :) but that is what makes life so beautiful! :)

the next problem is how to find the right partner. You can have certain criterias for stocks like it has a low price/earnings ratio, high volume, big caps, blue chip, dirt cheap and whatever qualities you like. You could also have certain qualities that you look for in your partner but the question is that it doesnt mean that you have found the qualities that you look for in your partner it doesnt mean that your relationship with him/her will work out. Thats the sad part in the game of love..... you might have found the perfect partner but it doesnt mean that you have found the perfect pair..... it takes more than Just lovE to make a RelaTionship work, but well we must admit that love makes everything easier for how can one be patient if he/she doesnt love their pair? :) the conclusion is this in the end being in a relationship is about commitment and not about love. For the human brain and feelings are so complex that you cant quantify it. Its not like earnings of companies, the assets of companies or the obligations of companies for these things can be quantified or be given value. We never know whats going on in a person's mind or the feelings that one would like to express for if we do then all relationships wouldnt have any problems then. :) some of the things needed to make a better partnership are trust, love, patience and respect. When all the things mentioned are present a relationship will have a better chance of surviving and will have a positive impact in the lives of the persons involved! :)

spyfrat's corner

2007-03-03T22:36:00.000-08:00

Im here in the office again and peter is taking pictures of jewelry again. His yummy friend sofie will pick him up in a little while. The other day my friend oskie told me of an investment scheme in the internet. 1% a day investment kind. So i asked myself is it worth the risk? If a business earns more than 5% a month that may be enough reason to question if that business is legal in the first place! :) it might be a ponzi scheme type of investment. Ill write about that in the next articles. Ill try to do more research or get a story from a book and ill print it here for you guys. :) by the way oskie almost made it to pinoy big brother but its okay for everything happens for a reason! :) it would have been fun if he made to the show we already plans on what to do to help him win! :) hehehe

so now lets talk about business its a bloody week in the stock market which was triggered by the china sell-off. It is a sign of things to come for china. China will be a force to be reckoned with someday! I am still confident that our market will still do good this is Just onE of the obstacles an investoR must go Through. :) “you are looking at the tree unmindful of the forest” that is what we must avoid as a value investor. Always think long term! :) i believe that our market is still ok and of course china will still continue to be a dominant force in asia and the world. I will put an added extra to all of you every once in awhile. Ill let you see whats inside the portfolio of my friend spyfrat who i believe is one the best chartists in the country. As he would always say “ignore the news” that is so because he puts his faith in charts. :) to quote spyfrat “im into pcp, ict, ipvg and avoid blues” good luck to all in these trying times in our market. :)

up up and away!

2007-02-21T08:18:00.000-08:00

Its almost lunch time and im really hungry already im here at home assisting and watching peter and sofie taking pictures of jewelry because this will be needed for a new line which is being requested by sm. I think one day will not be enough! Phew! :) thats how powerful sm is... they say one thing and all of its tenants and consignors follow. Thats how powerful the sm brand is. :) but anyway there's a topic that popped into my mind and i should really write about with the meteoric rise in the philippine stock market! :) im going to cite some reaons why the market will continue trending up! But of course i cannot speculate at what point the market will peak. :) but i do know that it will continue going up believe you me! :) hehehe so here are some of the reasons:

t-bills are at a record low! Only at 2.88% which means that fundies would be forced to get their money out of t-bills and put it in other instruments that would yield a higher return! And now that stocks are really hot right now and it could give fund managers a higher return!!! :) so meaning funds will now shift from interest bearing instruments to equities!
Since last year there has now been strong foreign interest in our market and foreign buying will really be a big boost to the volume in our market. I also see that the american economy and stock market will experience a downturn before 2010 which mean that funds will shift from the us to asia and i know that the philippines will be one of the beneficiaries in the shift of funds in the world market.
We have a stronger peso as of the moment and that would mean that we would have better financial positions for our philippine companies because most of them have US dollar loans which would mean less liabilities for companies. :)
the emergence of asia and of china. A stronger asia would mean more money going in the area and of course the philippines will surely get a slice out of the pie. :)
when election comes maybe the stock market will surely take a blow but as they say you cannot keep a good man down! :) let us put in mind the gma will still be our president after the elections and other world leaders respect and would want gma to be the one to lead our country. :) if erap would be our president maybe i myself would sell all my holdings in the stock market and migrate to some other country! Hehehehe

with a few of the reasons that i have mentioned i hope you wont be scared or fear that the stock market will collapse any time soon. :) we are still in good hands. Remember that patience is the key to success in the stock market! :) just be patient there are still bargains to be found in the market. Good luck and god bless! :)

love after valentines day

2007-02-19T07:44:00.000-08:00

after valentines day i did a lot of thinking. . . i really miss the feeling of being in love. i dont know why but this past few months i buried myself in work maybe so as to forget the heartaches that i've had in my life. i have come to the conclusion or accepted that i already may have lost the love of my life. "you can never teach a guy to love you the way you want to be loved... you have to wait for him to do it in his own way, in his own time... that's the saddest part of being a girl... but you can never teach a girl to love the guy back the way she did before if she already grew tired and fed up understanding and waiting to be appreciated and loved the way she deserves to be loved... thats the saddest part of being an insensitive man." how i wish i could Just turn back timE and i know the tuRn back Time and i know that things would be really different. i had this really huge crush on a friend of mine when i was in college and i remember we really talked a lot and stuff and with some stroke of luck we bumped into each other again after how many years. we talked and talked and talked. finally she asked me how my life is and i asked her about hers also and in the end she confided that her marriage was falling apart and she wants out. i made me wonder if i was brave enough before and pursued her would i have been able to make her happier? should i even entertain those kind of thoughts? i believe that the girl that i really loved before has started to hate me already and who would want to be in a relationship where your partner hates you? :( is it time that i realized that i deserved to be loved more? that i should be in a relationship where my partner truly loves me? i realy dont know as of the moment i guess we Just havE to let time take its couRse and leTs see what happens. but what if the girl that i should be with is with someone else? what should should i do? should i try to win her? should i just rather go back and work my ass off??? should i be a knight in shining armor ready to rescue the damsel in distress? i believe it takes a lot to make a relationship work and love alone is not enough. everybody deserves to be happy. is it even possible for a married woman to be in love with another guy? and what is the best gauge to know if that woman truly loves that guy and is not just a rebound guy? i know that right woman is out there waiting for me i Just havE to be bold enough and appRoach her and The rest will just happen. . .

being in love and the stock market

2007-02-19T07:22:00.000-08:00

as of the moment i think im in love with the stock market because it is making great waves and if you are a long term investor it does wonders to your portfoio! :) as warren buffett said "i got rich doing nothing" :) one of the greatest buy and hold investors of our time said this because it is in the sitting that you will earn a lot. :) i remember when i started really disecting and understanding the market the market went as low as 1,100 imagine that and as of the moment it even went over 3,350 just lately! what does this mean???? if you invested in the phisix when it was at the 1,1oo level and just held to all those stocks your portfolio would would have been three times bigger by now! wow thats a lot :) and thats a very good return! phew! asia has been making great waves and not just that but a tsunami at that! i can see the faces of those investors who got stocks before and just held to it! :) i remember i wrote about this company a few months ago and how its stock was so undervalued. i just hope to the people who were able to read the article and got the stock they wouldve gotten a 100% return in just a few months! thats good returns man! :) the market might take a beating once in a awhile but with how it performed lately and all the foreign money coming in i believe that this trend will continue and the market will keep on going up. :) the key in this game is patience. the key to success in investing is not making bold moves but making bold moves when the odds are in your favor and the downside is very very very small! :) i always remind myself of what mr buffett said "the stock market is just like playing baseball but the only difference is that you are not called for strikes and you have all the freedom to wait for the pitch that you like and then take a swing at it" :) patience is the name of the game! :) asia is making great moves and technically it would seem to me it can make a good oush to P20 and beyond lets just wait and see. :) then theres my diamond in the rough! KPM a very solid stock which just made a new new high and maybe just maybe foreingers will start buying the stock already :) theres EPHI also another undervalued stock. theres also v which is undervalued and also reached a new high just a few days ago. even in this rising market there are still value stocks waiting for us out there. :) good luck!

analysis of chief's portfolio :)

2007-02-15T05:15:00.000-08:00

im really happy right now :) not because it was valentines day yesterday but because the market has been really upbeat right now and it is helping in giving better returns in my portfolio or in other words i am just riding the big wave ala tsunami! hehehe it will be really interesting next few trading days in our stock exchange :) just remember when youre a short term investor cut your losses okay? so anyway looking back at my portfolio there are the stocks that are in it right now. ill be enumerating them chronologically. universal robina(urc), ayala land(ali), ivantage corporation(v), jollibee foods corporation(jfc), unionbank(ubp), alaska milk corporation(amc) but this is the only stock that i sold in my portfolio for i realized that its potential for growth is not that good and i bought it in a not so cheap price. Metropolitan bank and trust(mbt), sm development corporation(smdc), sm prime holdings(smph), far eastern university(feu), cebu holdings incorporated(chi), megaworld corporation(meg), bank of the philippine islands(bpi), solid group incorporated(sgi), equitable pci bank(epci), anscor(ans), asiatrust incorporated(asia), edsa philippines incorporated(ephi) and the only stock that i have bought this year keppel philippines marine incorporated(kpm). what i do is that i usually buy a stock and add to my position if the price will reach a level where there is very little downside and which in short it is very attractive and it is at this time that buying and holding will give you excellent returns :) i started building my value portfolio when i bought urc shares on june 24, 2004 and since then i have just addded other stocks and i am hoping that most of them will give me excellent returns. as warren buffett said "when holding a great stock time is your friend but when holding a bad stock time is your worst enemy"i hope you guys will take a lot at kpm for it is a very good company. and of course there is my beloved urc sure it took some blows but it it still standing. as they say you can never put a good man down. :) enjoy everybody! god bless

my diamond in the rough

2007-02-06T21:21:00.000-08:00

My beloved my find in the philippine stock exhange is keppel philippines marine incorporated. :) i have been watching this stock closely for the last 9 months and trying to gather more information about it. All i can say is that this is a really stable company. :) to show how good the company is the philippines' richest man 'henry sy” owns almost 5% in this company. :) that convinced me. But a friend of mine ,jerome, audited the company a few years back and he had nothing but good words for the company. Thats what really convinced me to get shares in this company. Kpm has good and able managers who are mostly singaporeans which is understandable since the parent company keppel is based in singapore. :) then 40% of the work they do are from foreigners and from what i know they still have a lot of orders that are waiting to be started. Most of the year aboitiz and sulpicio ships are in their dry docks for repairs :) very solid company but its shares have been overlooked by the market for this is a very boring industry. May i remind everyone the kpm has the largest shipbuilding facility in the philippines. :) would'nt you want to invest in the leader of its industry. :) with the emergence of asia in the world market orders for more boats and ships will just keep on going in. :) i have started to accumulate shares in the company because i really like it.:) and on the technical side the stock will hit a new high when it touches P1.05 which is really not far where the stock price is right now and just maybe tsupiteros and foreign investors might go in and drive the price to P3! Hehehe but thats too much maybe P2 is more realistic but you never know because the market is irrational. :) i was planning to write about this after valentine's day but there have been some persistent requests from some of my friends that i reveal the mystery stock so finally i gave in to you guys! :) please remember to always to do your own research before buying any stock. :) good luck in all your trades! Remember the stock market is simple. BUY LOW AND SELL HIGH! :) hehehe thank you kirby! :) as warren buffett said “when holding a good stock time is your best friend but when holding a bad stock time is your worst enemy”

chief's stocks wish list

2007-02-02T04:36:00.000-08:00

Hello again to everyone i would like to my stock wish list. . . i have talked to another trader friend of mine nico and he was the one who suggested that i make a stock list. He said that he enjoyed reading my blog and the one thing that he wants to see in here is a stock list. Maybe i could call it chief's stock list! :) there is really no problem with me sharing my thoughts to everyone but as nico said and i totally agree with him you subject yourself to criticism but its really okay i can take it all for the love of investing! As of the moment i like urc, asia, ephi, v, feu, sgi(net net value is 1.26), ephi and theres this one stock that i will tell everyone after valentines day for i am still trying to gather more information about the company. :) its really hard to find bargains in the market nowadays for theres this state of euphoria with all the money coming in the market with the lowering of treasury bill rates. God bless and good luck with your trades!!! :)

raging bull

2007-01-31T22:06:00.000-08:00

The market is really bullish right now with consecutive 1% gains in a few days and despite a 3% drop last friday januarv26 but it still doesnt matter. It still shows that our market is really in a bullish mode with many foreigners joining the fun in our market. There are hardly any bargains in our market. But there are still a few and im really interested with this one find of mine. I will tell you about it in time for i am still gathering more info and data but it really looks promising. It can be the next urc, ict and smdc! :) for speculators you might like v! Its breakout point is at 1.70! :) very solid stock which is still undervalued as of now with the sale of its shares in ibank. :) just remember that being a value investor means being patient and waiting for the right opportunities. :)it is really a different discipline altogether being a value investor. It means being a marathon runner not being a sprinter and its harder than being a speculator. As they say “have faith that is all that matters” this applies when everything looks hopeless but you should still hold on to your research that your holding an excellent stock that could give you excellent returns in a few years time. A friend of mine gerthrode was able to read my blog and she requested that i write about how the stock market works. Basically its just a big marketplace where people buy and sell stocks. :) maybe ill write about it next time. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog. Take care everyone and good luck in all your trades. Market really looks bullish and i still cant believe it that after a few months that i wrote that the minimm upside of the market is 3,150 and now our market has breached it and it would seem to me that it is forming a new base. But i believe that our market will continue trending up. God bless :)

the bargain of the quarter!

2007-01-25T03:44:00.000-08:00

Good day everyone! Hope all is well with you there. Another trader friend of mine just read this humble blog of mine today and im happy to say that he liked it. Unless he is lying to me. Hehehe but anyway my friend nico suggested that i should have my picks for the quarter for both fundamental and speculative investors. Well i do have to admit that i am really more of a fundamentalist but still i will try my best. For my fundamental pick of the month i really like urc! URC! At 18-19 per share it is a bargain. It was just announced today that its income for 2006 increased by 19%! that means more or less its eps is around 1.45-1.50 so it should really be trading around the 22-24 range based on its historical eps. :) this company is solid and i watched the interview of mr lance gokongwei this morning in bloomberg and what can i say?!?! the guy will take urc to new heights! With all due respect to mr john gokongwei who started it all but lance understands the needs of investors! He knows how to unlock shareholder value. Give him 5-10 years more he will really be a force to reckon with in the philippine industry!i like urc it has good management and it has great growth potential with its beverage division being its growth driver! :) i have to say that i love c2! :) as spyfrat and my friend rafael had lunch today the former confided to me. . . i really dont know f he is just trying to flatter me but when urc was already trading at around 5 i wanted to buy shares already but spyfrat discouraged me so i gave in but after a few weeks i really liked what i saw in urc and i really insisted that i should get shares so i was able to get some at 6.40 and i bought a few more after. He told me that i made him realize that gokongwei stocks are not that bad because he never liked gokongwei stocks. Hehehe so now he is also a believer! MR LANCE GOKONGWEI i hope youre reading this! Hehehe technically the minimum upside of urc is around P31 so i do hope that we get there. At its present price this is a bargain. I wouldnt be surprised if this shoots up to 30 or more. So this is my parting word to you all! See you at P30! HEHEHEHE btw there is this another stock that im studying it is also owned by a tycoon. It has very very good fundamentals i will tell you about it in a few weeks time because im still studying it!!!! :) god bless :)

dinagyang

2007-01-25T03:42:00.000-08:00

The dinagyang festival here in iloilo city will be on january 26-28. come to iloilo city and experience the excitement of dinagyang and the fun of merrymaking in the streets. :) we will also have lunch in our house for invited guests. :) come and enjoy the fun in iloilo city! Come and experience dinagyang! :) hoping to see you here! :)

go psei!

2007-01-22T05:23:00.000-08:00

The dinagyang spirit is alive here in iloilo. Come and visit dinagyang here in iloilo. I just checked the monthly charts of the psei and i just found out soomething. Around 1996-97 the psei topped at around 2632 and we broke that barrier around two months ago but what happened is that when the psei made a new high it also means that it has set a new minimum upside for itself! Its new minimum upside is 4264. when we are gonna reach this i dont know but with the way our market has been going the last few weeks i should say that its possible that we might going in that direction. :) lets just hope and pray that were going to get there. :)

new high

2007-01-22T05:16:00.000-08:00

Now that's what i'm talking about! The psei showing signs of waking up! And waking up big time! This is the effect of the santa claus rally from the last week of 2006. i hope that it will reach its minimum upside of 3,150 in a few weeks time :) with the market having gains of more than 1% in a trading last january 12, 15 and 18 which shows that the market is truly bullish! I think that as of the moment i can say that the market can surpass the 3,400 mark. But i really dont know if the market could reach it this year or some time next year. But its almost sure that were going to go over it. There are still some good finds in the market. URC is trading sideways as of the moment. That is a good stock to buy at P18 or at a lower price. But be ready to hold it for 5 years or more. :) i've held stocks of this company for almost three years now and i still don't have any plans of selling. This is the first stock that i bought when i decided to be a value investor. I bought 4000 shares of urc at P6.40 on june 24, 2004 and the rest is history. :) it reached a high of 24.50 and technically its minimum upside is 31. :) but well even if it reaches 31 i still don't have plans of selling it. Hehehe there's a stock that i kinda like right now. Its gsmi because its trading at such a big discount. Its trading at a 30% discount right now but the problem that im trying to figure out is that.... the last few years the sales of ginebra has suffered because of stiff competition from tanduay and im not a big fan of ginebra's management. That's why im thinking this over. Well there are still sleepers in the market. SGI and ASIA are good bets. :) v can also be good with the upcoming ipo of its subsidiary yehey. I believe that JFC will have a good year and i just made a new high which is good news for tsupiteros. :) EPHI is also a sleeper. I will tell you next time of this stock that i have been looking at that selling at a bargain right now. :) god bless to everyone. :)

tagaytay highlands

2007-01-12T06:32:00.000-08:00

Its such a wonderful weekend its the first weekend of 2007 and im here in tagaytay. Its a really beautiful place :) very cool, calm and relaxing. I couldnt really compare it with baguio but its good enough. :) the good thing about tagaytay is that its nearer an hours drive away from manila and baguio is around five hours drive. That is why i know of a lot of people who would rather go to tagaytay than baguio because of the long travel. Im not putting down baguio because personally i like baguio. Cool and the smell of pine :) but tagaytay is good enough and its nearer. The point that im driving at is that in a way this is good for tagaytay highlands. :) another sy-owned company :) i just couldnt stop praising the guy for his business and financial genius. Both my dad and e admire him very much. Im going to do further research on bel and hp for i see another diamond in the rough. :) they are currently developing the tagaytay midlands which is connected to the highlands by cable car. :) the facilities of the place is nice and then the highlands steakhouse serve really good steak! :) yumyum :) this is the best way to do research go there and see for yourself :) im going to do further research on these companies. :) i think im going to add them on my stock wish list :)

donations please

2007-01-12T06:19:00.000-08:00

Talked to my friend paul yesterday and asked him how he was and whats the development for any kidney donors. So far he said his mom is a possible donor but that is still not sure and they havent checked it out yet if they are compatible. He has dialysis twice a week. I really dont know how much it costs to have a dialysis but i heard its kinda costly and a rough estimate of a kidney transplant is around P500k. I really want to help my friend paul and ill try to raise funds for him.we talked and he even told “if it was just me i really wouldnt mind if i dont get any treatment but my two kids are still very young.” if there are any good souls who want to help my friend paul please contact me for im trying to raise funds for him. Thank you very much

despite the debacle in thailand i still really hope that the psei will close strong for the year. Anywhere between 2,900 and 3,000 would be ok. :)

thank you very much!

2007-01-10T21:24:00.000-08:00

It has been a great year for the philippine stock exchange! Yeeehhhaaa!!!! :) congratulations to all tsupiteros and investors. Let us not forget to thank the BIG MAN up there. :) i would like to thank some of my friends in the investing world. First of all my family for giving me a good foundation in business, then my friend rafael who introduced me to investing in stocks, then my broker spyfrat for guiding me in my trades when i was starting out and up to now, i would also like to thank all the successful value investors for being an inspiration to me especially the great Warren Buffet! :) to all the readers of my blog thank you so much for taking the time to read what i have to say. I know im only human and im bound to make mistakes but i employ a style in which i try to eliminate the margin of error or margin of safety as they call it. To those who followed my advice/recommendations thank you. :) and to one generous individual who followed what i said and gained a large sum of money thank you for sharing with me, and even up to a point of insisting, a part of your gains(you didnt have to but still thank you very much). I would like to state again that my blog is a diary for me that after a few years i could go back and reflect why i bought, held or sold my shares in the market. I do not in any way solicit or expect payment. I do this because i love investing and i do this for the betterment of our stock market. I know that there are still a lot of people that i have to mention. You guys know who you are! Thank you and godbless! Fly high psei!!!!!

what a year!!!

2007-01-10T21:14:00.000-08:00

Wow! What a way to end the year :) to be honest with you i had my doubts last week if there would be a rally at the end of the year with the foreign exchange controls that was imposed in thailand. Thats the hard part of being a long term investor. You might know how to evaluate a company with good fundamentals and but it at a good price but the question is can you hold on to it when things don't go your way? :) as they say do you have the balls of steel? Hehehe i believe that is the hardest part of being a value investor. . . holding on to stocks. I remember what the great warren buffett said “i made a lot of money doing nothing”. He said this because of his buy and hold strategy. Even when things don't look good or even if the dow jones will drop 100points in a day he really doesnt mind because what really matters for him is the fundamentals of the company. :) this is what i also mentioned in my earlier article. When youre investing you don't buy stocks but you buy parts of companies. :) like i recall just the other day i was with my trader friend rafael and he was kidding me that i shouldnt have bought sgi because it is not a good company cause it has too much cash. Of course i recommended it to him around 2 months ago and he didnt buy it and i did because i see so much value in the company. I didnt even care to explain to him my reasons for having shares in the company :) the net net value of the company or its current assets less all its liabilities is P1.26 and it has been in the 0.60-0.85 range! If you cant see value in that then something must be wrong with you. That means that if the company closes down tomorrow and it has to liquidate all its assets you will still get 1.26 per share after paying all liabilities and that is just from its current assets! We havnt even talked about its long term assets like land, building equipment etc. i would rather buy a company with excess cash than buy a company with excess long term assets because as they say in business cash is king :)you give P1M and i bring it to aparri, sulu or batanes it will still be worth p1M. If there's a piece of land and you have 10 people look at it i'm sure everyone will come up with a different price.besides it is hard to sell real estate and when you quickly want to dispose of long term assets you will most of the time sell it at a discount. My portfolio this year performed 44.76% before dividends while the psei did 42.29% :) im happy i was able to outperform the psei this year by a few points :) i really hope that i will be able to do that again next year :) i hope theres a good soul/s out there who would be willing to give some financial help to my friend. Please let me know if you want to help. The spirit of christmas is in giving and in sharing. :) merry christmas and a happy new year to all. :) god bless :)

help please help

2006-12-21T07:55:00.000-08:00

despite the debacle in thailand i still really hope that the psei will close strong for the year. Anywhere between 2,900 and 3,000 would be ok. :)

help needed

2006-12-14T08:11:00.000-08:00

We are now less than two weeks away from christmas and i've been thinking of doing a good deed. :) last week i found out that he has kidney failure and both of his kidneys need to be replaced. He is currently looking for a donor. He told me that it might possibly be his mom but he is still not sure. From what i know about kidney transplants from the stuff i've heard and seen in the movies its still not sure if your body will accept the kidney if you have found a donor. If you happen to know anybody who could help him out with his kidney transplant kindly contact me or mail me. He needs our help and im trying to raise funds for him for his operation and he is undergoing dialysis twice a week. I really don't have any idea how to raise funds for charity but if you are willing to give some financial assistance please let me know. Chirstmas is not about receiving but giving and making others happy. :) good day :)

to peter and sofie

2006-12-13T07:40:00.000-08:00

im so happy my laptop now is fully functional!!!!!!!!!!! :)) thank you so much to peter and her yummy girlfriend sofie :) thank you so much for helping me set up the wireless connection in my room :) love you guys :)

2006-12-13T07:24:00.000-08:00

Alaska is good and sgi is.....

i like alaska milk corporation :) from a fundamentalist's or value investor's point if view it is a very good company :) not much debt and its financial status is very healthy and recently an american company bought a lot of shares in the company. I'm really not familiar with the company that got shares in the company. But if you ask me would i buy shares in the company right now? It depends in how you look at it. If it was benjamin graham you were talking too he would probably buy shares in the company around the 2.80-3.20 range :) but if it what warren buffett you were talking too he wouldnt buy shares in the company because its earnings prospects dont look that good tsktsktsk but if your talking value wise it is a good company :) so in value investing there are different branches :) like when i was talking to my friend eric, a fellow value investor also, there are some things that we agree on and a few things that we dont :) an example would be sgi. I like sgi because of its value that has yet to be unlocked. The only thing that's lacking in this company is support from the family or management. A little press release here and there, presenting to the media what the present projects the company are undertaking would really help in unlocking shareholder value. Despite that shortcoming of the company i still like it. :) the company has 15% downside and so much upside. :) thats one important thing to be a value investor. You really have to have a lot of patience. To have faith when everything looks hopeless.... :) to be a good value investor takes a lot of patience and guts. :) i really hope i could promote value investing in the country :) godbless

strong close

2006-12-07T21:48:00.000-08:00

second week in a row that the psei has closed strong. do you know what that means? theres a big possibility of a santa claus rally. :) why does that happen every december? i think i have a few ideas why :) one is that our ofws usually send money back home for the holidays with the influx of more dollars in the country that means as the law of supply and demand will dictate there will be more supply and thus will cause the us dollar to depreciate and our peso will appreciate :) and another reason is that companies are window dressing and they would like that their share prices would end up higher so that it will look good in their balance sheet :) i have to think of other reasons but for us small time investors hehehehe we just have to take advantage of this phenomenon :) good luck we still have three weeks before the year ends :)

new laptop

2006-12-07T05:54:00.000-08:00

im so happy today i finally bought a new laptop :) phew! i've always wanted to have a laptop ever since before i still didnt need it thats why i didnt buy but ive realized that i have been using a lot lately so i decided to get one for myself. :) for stocks, research and for work. :) i can see the market continuing its rise but i see that it will delayed a bit because of all this drama in our government right now :) im now happy i got a laptop but i still need to get help from my friends peter and sofie coz im not that well versed when it comes to computers hehehe :)

long term investing and compounding

2006-12-03T21:16:00.000-08:00

short term or long term that is the question :) surely it depends with the personality of the person but ofr me i like to invest in the long term. i dont just buy stocks but i buy companies! everytime you buy shares of stocks in a company it represents part ownership in that company and thats why i buy :) the longer your holding period the less vlolatility comes into play. well now the problem is how to get the right price to buy in order to get a good return :) i will talk about that next time :) most of the people that trade or invest in the stock market are short term players. :) you can seldon see long term investors nowadays. :) but when your investing for the long term one of the tricks is compounding :) i learned of compounding when i was in college and it changed my life :) it is really simple just like putting your money in the bank. the longer the holding period the more compounding comes into play and becomes more powerful :) it is like a giant snowball!!! :) i will show to you some numbers. lets say you have P1,000 and you decide to invest it in a bank at 6% interest per annum. after 5years your money will be worthP1,338.23 10years since your deposit date it will be worth P1,790.85 in 15 years P2,396.56 in 20 years 3,207.14. your money grew over 3times in 20 years.we could now apply this into stocks. lets say you bought urc at the start of the bull run which was around 2004 and its shares were trading P5 and after almost 3years its now trading at 19.50! almost 4times and im not even mentioning that it declared cash dividends 3times and a 15% stock dividend. what is its compounded rate? 57.5% imagine that????? in year 3years time it beat the retunrs of a 20 year time deposit in a bank. and another story ict wow! if you bought it at the end of 2000 it was trading at P1 it was during the time when there was so much political crisis in our country and now its trading at P20! imagine that?!?!?! thats 64.75% compounded return :) i have shown you here some of the benefits of investing for the long term in a great company :) we could also apply this in our daily lives. you wanna buy a car.... lets say a nissan x-trail. theres 2.5 liter and a 2.0liter kind the difference between the two is a 100k. if you buy the 2.5liter type did you just lose 100k? no you lost more than that! ill show you. the 100k more that you spent to get the higher model is worth the money you lost on other opportunities....in economics opportunity cost :) if you put it the stock market and got a 15% return.....
in 5 years you lost P201,135.72
in 10 years you lost P 404,555.77
in 15years you lost P813,706.16
in 20years you lost P1,636653.74
in 25years you lost P3,291,895.26
if you put it in the stock market and got a 20% return you would have lost...
in 5years you lost P248,832
in 10years you lost P619,173.64
in 15 years you lost P1,540,702.16
in 20 years you lost P3,833,759.99
in 25 years you lost P9,539,621.66
as kid my grandparents on both sides who experienced the war were very thrifty but of course they are not misers and they always said to always save for a rainy day. they might not have been aware of it but they were comounding their savings :) but now we have the stock and we should take advantage of good investments that come our way :) by comopunding it doesnt mean the you shouldnt eat or buy new clothes coz youd rather compound your money. you should also enjoy the things that money could buy and not be a slave of it :) i hope i have inspired you to invest some of your money in the philippine stock market :) i love investing and i will do anything to promote, educate other people and help in the advancement of investing in the philippine stock market :) good luck! godbless :)

i have a dream

2006-11-27T21:17:00.000-08:00

it has been a dream of mine lately to be able to put up a mutual fund ala berkshire hathaway :) but i guess its kinda difficult here coz people here are not that well versed when it comes to the stock market. when people hear stock market the thing that goes into their mind is crashes, panics and insider trading. maybe the pse should do something to improve the image of our stock market. ive been trying to convince my friends that we pool together money and then i'll invest it in the stock market. but thats the usual responses that i get. investing oir trading in the stock market has also a lot of advantages. if you find a good company with good management you could buy the shares of the said company and then "ride" on its growth. assuming you could buy shares at the right price you get better returns than just leaving your money in the bank. and owning shares allows you to be a part owner of a very good business. thats the approach that i use when analyzing stocks.... you dont own stocks. you dont buy stocks. your not just holding a piece of paper but you are a part owner of a business. in other words you dont buy stocks buy but buy parts of businesses. :) my target is actually very modest 15% compounded return but of course if i could do 20% or more why not. :) 15% compounded return is double your money in 5years and four(4) times your money in ten years. :) not bad right? :) im still researching on how to put a mutual and hopefully someday my dream will come true. :)
we are undergoing a correction right now but i still believe that our market is still trending upward. to tell you the truth im even happy that we are having a correction right now coz lets say that the psei closes the year over 3,000 i think that the upward movement of our market is too abrupt and might cause panic selling. there are still good stocks out there. just remember to do your research before buying something. dont just buy something from what you heard from others. its kinda fun in the banking sector right now coz of all the speculation of what bank will be bought and at what price etc etc. but i still should say that asia is a very undervalued stock. its pr reatio is below 11, its book value is 16 and is conservative book value is just below 13. if there is consolidation now in the banking industry this company will most likely by bought and at the same time your holding an undervalued company :) theres been a lot of movement the last few trading days. is something up? i heard that they had a stockholders meeting last satuday. lets just wait for the news to come out. good luck on your trades :)

this week in review

2006-11-24T03:06:00.000-08:00

gold is steadily climbing up..... are you thinking what im thinking??? i really believe that the american economy is going to overheat soon :) spyfrat agrees with me and this is also the observation of dr marc faber :) im reading his book right now :) just give it a few years it will overheat or go into a recession. its just my opinion i might be wrong knows or i might be right also. anything can happen in this business. :) i have told some of my friends about my blog i hope that i would be able to encourage them to get into the stock market. ive wanted to gather funds from my friends and then manage it and let it grow. just like the way the great warren buffett started.but its really hard to convince people to get into the stock market cause everytime you tell them they ask about market crashes and all the risks being in the stock market and losing money etc etc. i guess mr faber was right, its all a cycle the economy will go up and what goes up must come down and then the money that the people put in the market will go somewhere else and then create another boom. just like in science energy is never lost it is only transformed into to something else. :) between emerging markets vs the us right now i think the former will win.
it would seem to me that the philippine stock market is going thru a correction right now but you always have to remember to look at the bigger picture :) i really believe that the market is still undervalued and still has a lot of upside. december is usually a month where the market goes up so lets wait and see. as warren buffett said "the ticker is just there as reference if someone is selling something at a foolish price."
Congrats manny pacquiao! everybody should aspire to be like you and how you climbed the ladder of success with hardwork and determination. :) mabuhay ka manny!!!! :)

common sense investing

2006-11-20T06:25:00.000-08:00

everytime i meet someone who's into the stock market one question that i never fail to ask is "what's your investing style?" im sure you ask that question too. so how did you develop your style? just last weekend i attended a seminar in our office and there was a questionnaire that we answered to find out your personality. i was an owl meaning your into numbers and methodical. in a way i was happy coz i was equipped for an important part in investing in the stock market which is research and financial analysis :) i also helps that im an accountancy graduate. :) i like numbers i guess thats why i was called into the field. :)my family is also into business and that really influenced my way of thinking :) my idols in business and investing are my dad, mr henry sy and warren buffett. there are a lot but they are the ones that i really admire. i remember that my parents were really against investing in the stock market coz it was 'gambling' but a few years after they were ok with it already coz they can see that my style is sound, feasible and makes sense. buy low and sell higher its as simple as that :) mr sy i admire for his focus, patience and being an astute businessman :) warren buffett for his patience and very sensible approach to investing :) what do all my idols have in common? they are patient. llke a tiger waiting for the right time to strike his prey :) they are all focus investors:) as the saying goes put all your eggs in one basket and watch it closely :) and they all have a simple strategy in investing or in business. buying low and selling high to get a high rate of return :) keep it simple thats what makes their style so effective :) i patterned my style after my idols :) as my friend hernan calls it "defensive investing" but i call "common sense investing" :) for one year i tried technical investing but it just didnt work for me coz i have a day job. in the end your environment, lifestyle, way of thinking will shape your investing style. if you have the passion anybody can succeed in the stock market. good luck!!!!!!! :)

driver

2006-11-13T22:02:00.000-08:00

the psei has a minimum upside of 3,150 and what will bring it there? of course higher share prices and for that to happen.... better earnings for companies and stable political environment. well for now the opposition has kept quiet and companies have been reporting higher earnings. so far everything looks good :) but for the psei to go higher it needs the big caps like smph, mbt, bpi, glo and especially tel to push it up. for the psei to go beyond 3,000 by my rough estimate tel should hit 2,700-2,900. that is attainable bacause the pe ratio of tel is around 9-10 right now. lets just be patient and in due time we will get there :) good luck

rally!

2006-11-10T03:57:00.000-08:00

nice run by the psei! :) i hope that this could be sustained next week. im happy coz so far i have done ok and i have stuck with my target of beating that index. :) for the year the index has risen 35.46% closing at 2,839.38 today. my portfolio so far is doing 38.02% and i really hope that i could keep this up until the end of the year :) the stocks in my portfolio are: urc, ali, v, jfc, ubp, mbt, smdc, smph, feu, chi, meg, bpi, sgi, epci, ans, asia, ephi. iv been holding urc, ali, v, jfc for more than 2 years already :) for more than a year ubp, mbt, smdc, smph and the rest i bought this year :) i bought this companies because i know that they are good companies and at that time the shares of their company was selling cheap or below their real value :) i really dont have any plans to sell any shares as of now but when the price is really good i just might sell :) the market has still a long way to go to its minimum upside of 3,150 :) as peter lynch said "when holding a good stock time is your friend but when holding a bad stock time is your worst enemy" :) i really hope that my ortfolio will break the index and i hope you will too :) Love you angel2!

in the long run.....

2006-11-08T02:49:00.000-08:00

i was in shanghai for almost a week and what can i say? its beautiful and their culture is interesting and so rich! i was really impressed it was like i didnt know that china is now world class :) i was made a believer of the saying that ""in the long run china will will win" :) china's big advantage over the rest of the world is that everything is cheap in china and it helps that they devalue the yuwan :) that is their main edge over the us. i believe that it is just a matter of time before the us economy will falter and china will survive. as they say the higher you are the harder the fall :)china is taking jobs away from us citizens and corporations will be forced to open factories in china because it is cheap there and that is the only way for them to stay competitive. how can a country progress when its people have no work and means to support themselves??? consumer spending will go down and crimes will go up! if you compare to china to its counterparts in asia like singapore and hong kong it still has a long way to go and yet it is already very progressive. and toi think that its counterparts are aleady adults whoi;e china is just a baby learning how to walk! can you imagine what it will be in another 10years? china is announcing its arrival as one of the big players in the world with 08 beijing olympics and 10 shanghai expo. the next question i would like to ask you is will the philippines go ur with china or will we go down with the us? that is something for us to think about.

prime space

2006-10-28T04:38:00.000-07:00

i like undervalued securities and any good businessman would like what im doing :) getting your money's worth when you buy something :) of course im not saying that value investing is a sure shot thing but the approach allows you to assess at what price you can buy a security with very little downside. but of course in this business anything can happen :) the company that i see that has very little downside is SMPH :) this year the market has been up almost 30% and this company's stock has just gained around 8-12% so i could say that it has been a laggard this year theres a big possibility this stock just might catch up :) while its fellow big time players in real estate like MEG, ALI, CHI etc are trading at multiples of 30 or more. you want to know the reason why? this is so because analysts say that theres not much growth in smph. while other players in the industry are running after bpos for office space smph has been kida open to it but not really going after bpos. so when the time comes that the us will suffer a recession and one of the effects would be the closure of the companies' call centers here. with smph not dependent on bpo space income it wouldnt be that affected by the slowdown of the american economy. i also remember a trader friend tell me before that "ali will do better than smph coz the latter is still a "family" corporation while ali is run by professionals" but i disagree coz it doesnt matter for me but what matters is the competence and how well that person understands the business that really matters and with the dedication and work ethic of the sy family they definitely can bring the company in the right direction. :) just like microsoft who is leading the company a college dropout himself mr bill gaes :) sm prime is a company that has a franchise. it means that the company is dominant in its market :) just look at their business for every tenant in the mall in required to give 6 months advance and security deposit and they will only return it if the tenan twill move out. can you imgine that money that they have in their possession that they got from the security deposits? they dont even have to shell out money for the operations of the mall! they could just get it from the advance and security deposits. and everytime sm opens a mall it brings with them all the big name retailers like national bookstore, mcdonals, jollibee, chowking etc and they just couldnt say no. so even if the department store iis really not doing well smph will always be assured of their rental income :) this is one company thats really strong and it wont be long before this one goes up in price and in my analysis in bad times this stock wont be affected that much :) good luck :)

solid group is solid

2006-10-25T03:53:00.000-07:00

theres been talk of this secret stock in investing circles what is it and why is it a good investment? i happened to stumble on this stock a few months ago i saw that it was good and it was cheap and very cheap in fact :) but it was like an ill get back to you later stock and then a few weeks ago spyfrat asked me to check the financial health of a company that he saud might be a sleeper. and when he mentioned that it was sgi then i knew it was time for me to buy and tell my other friends about it :) seldon can you see a stock that has so much upside and so very little downside :) well why should you buy its shares? well its a bull market and you can almost make money in anything :) hehehe this is an example that will prove what others have been saying that you couldnt invest in the stock market anymore using the principles of value investing as preached by benjamin graham :) here are the numbers and to prove that you can still make money in the market using value investing :)
current assets - total liabilities then divide it by the total number of shares :)
3.63b - 1.06b = 2.57b / 2,030.98shares =1.26/share :) is that dirt cheap or what? :)
its just like someone selling you a 1thoiusand pero bill (assuming that the pero bill is real of course) for 667 only. :) if thats not a good offer then i dont know what is :) and ill make another assumption this is the approach of michael price one of the superstar value investors today :) lets just assume that management was irresponsible this is just an assumption all of their long term assets were just worth 40% lets see what happens long term assets =
4.03b x 40% = 1.612b then add current assets and subtract liabilities
3.63b + 1.612b = 5.242b - 1.06b = 4.182b and divide by the total number of shares :)
4.182b / 2,030.98 shares = 2.06 / share this even makes the closing price of 0.84 look so so cheap :) lets assume that the value of its long term assets are worth 50% what number will we come up with :) 4.03b x 50% = 2.015b then 2.015b + 3.63b =5.645b - 1.06b = 4.585b
4.585b / 2,030.98 shares = 2.26/share :) these are some of the reasons why i still believe that you could still make money in the market using the principles of value investing :) its reported book value in their fs is 3,12 :) technically this stock broke out last mondayoct 17 :) what are you waiting for? get yourself some shares :) in this market anything can happen but when the odds are in your favor you should go for it :) you have a royal flush what are the two magic words that you have to say? "ALL IN" :)