DBS 3Q results: https://links.sgx.com/1.0.0/corporate-annou...ba55d205234ee0b

OCBC reporting this Friday.

Maintained at 48c 😚

I am thinking special dividend coming at FY2023. 

SATS results: https://links.sgx.com/1.0.0/corporate-annou...69a486ecf23ed3f

SBS Transit 3Q 23 business updates: https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/3rd%20Quarte...t&FileID=777798

UMS 3Q 23 results: https://links.sgx.com/1.0.0/corporate-annou...edcdf9450d184d7

Can I sell REITS in odd lots in SGX?
Thanks.

Yes, you need to contact your broker to arrange for the sell trade. Odd lots are not traded that frequently and will definitely incur a higher cost, something you need to be prepared for.

BT Weekend 13-140124: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lPVPy0HK8-...iew?usp=sharing

Finally! I can lead a girl in a dance properly. Learnt basic steps of Waltz at NTU Ballroom Dance Club event yesterday night, with a formal suit and tie!

Some nice pics (the one with a tie and suit next to me is a venture capitalist from India doing his MBA at NTU, he's my dormmate staying just opposite my room, can let me know if you wish to start a company ):



---------------------------

Also met some other PhD students. Top secret salary info from them:

Assistant professor earns 12-14k SGD a month in SG.

Quantitative researcher (fresh PhD grad) earns 15k SGD a month, 2 years later salary doubles to 30k SGD a month when you become "senior" quant researcher.

A PhD pays off handsomely if you choose your career wisely.

BT 150124: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X1xCISz07r...iew?usp=sharing

Went to the Bachata session last night, got more new connections and met with the IT cloud engineers who support banks around the world in SG (He's now handling Deutsche I think).

For you guys info, most of South East Asia and HK bank account details and data are stored in Singapore. So when you login to say CIMB MY or Maybank MY, your data is actually pulled from the data center located in Singapore, despite them being Malaysia banks. I was surprised to learn that the bank account details are not stored locally in each country.

The Indian friend explained to me that there are multiple reasons why bank details are not stored locally, firstly is due to the prohibitive cost of storing data separately in each country, secondly is reliability (SG is free from natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, and is politically stable). Banks love to keep your data in a secure place. There are exceptions like China where the law explicitly mandates sensitive data to be kept in the country.

Deutsche used to keep its customer's data in SG as well but due to latency issues, they moved the data back to Germany.

Shanghai girl is back again! lol I am gonna attend private dance classes to improve my dance skills, the open level lessons are too challenging for me to pick up anything useful if I wish to lead a girl in a dance properly. During yesterday's post-dance supper, other dance participants told me the cost is about 50 SGD per hour, 1 hour per lesson, 10 lessons for beginners and 10 lessons for intermediate/advanced lessons.

4 lessons a week means about 200 SGD gonna fly away every month...

Wah got plenty oh bro. One of them learnt salsa some more Even lead me to dance...

Definitely your taste. These are old photos but you can see what sort of girls are coming:  https://www.meetup.com/make-friends-learning-dance/photos/

Most men are Indians from India, and majority are from IT background, working for banks etc. Can't find wife here apparently, so have to go and dance and "meet".

Dear readers,

I lost my student card yesterday, may not be able to access the library for the next 2 weeks or so. No newspaper... Sorry about that. You may read the online BT if necessary though the contents behind the paywall cannot be accessed.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/

I will figure out a solution as soon as possible.

Thanks bro. I like her no nonsense behaviour too. Her maturity, intellect and independence really amaze me. Gonna chase her... train running at full steam... 

She's not someone easy to tackle though... need to coax her into dating...

These SG banks are money printing machines!     

Singtel results: https://links.sgx.com/1.0.0/corporate-annou...bcab0b31314701b

Dear fellow readers,

I am sorry to inform you that NTU Graduate Hall 1 has decided not to extend my lease and thus I am forced to leave Singapore back to my hometown in Penang this Thursday... Had to book a last minute ticket...

I have not yet decided on my return date to SG. Highly likely it will be mid July when the NTU Residential Hall Mentor application results are out. Will keep you posted in this thread.

Wish me best of luck on the Residental mentor application...

How time flies! It's been a pleasure serving you since February 2022. Since our humble beginning 2 years ago from Hong Kong, the Financial Times and Business Times newspapers have helped me a lot in my understanding of finance and business, especially the dark and dirty side of things. And I hope you benefit from them as much as I do. 2 years on, now in Singapore, we are still going on strong... just feels like yesterday...



See you in Penang this Thursday!

With best regards,

TOS

If the strategic review is successful, you would expect investors to price in growth in earnings...

I see the stock price flat since May 2021, when the "strategic reset" was announced. If you factor in rising interest rates throughout 2022 and 2023, that's a big opportunity cost for shareholders. Back on May 14 2021, it's 2.32 SGD, now it's 6% higher at 2.46 SGD, factor in dividends of 36.4 cents since May 2021's announcement, that's about 15.7% returns since May 2021, giving a total holding-period return of 21.7% = 6.77% p.a. since May 2021.

Benchmark STI closed at 3055.02 on May 14 2021, now it's around 3313.84 = 8.47% price return + dividends of 11.68% since May 2021 (using ES3 ETF dividend data as reference), we get 20.1% = 6.3% p.a. since May 2021. If you factor in the ETF expense, both Singtel and the STI are probably on par...

In short, I don't see any meaningful alpha generated by Singtel management here... I am not expecting NVDA-like stratospheric growth, but at least I should see something inching up on the total return side...


Let's do some more fundamental analysis, uhmm let's look at FCF from Singtel from May 2021:

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/quote/Z74.SI/cash-flow

I see a declining trend from 3.2 billion SGD to 2.4 billion SGD since financial year ending on 31st March 2021. OCF declines faster than Capex over the years since 2021.

Let's look at leverage, all the more important in a "higher for longer" world:

Current debt + long-term debt = 11.9 billion SGD as of FY 31/3/2024, up from 10.65 billion SGD as of FY 31/3/2021. The good news is cash is up a lot from 754.7 million SGD to 4.6 billion SGD...

The problem is with declining FCF, how are they going to service their 12 billion SGD debt going forward? Sell assets means less and less future OCF... And if they just focus on paying out sales proceeds to shareholders, that will barely prop up the stock price as a lot of shitty assets in the past are now realized at a lost, i.e., the bunch of impairments you see...

I see the management is stuck between the pan and the fire...

Someone mentioned about this: Astrea 8 CFOs are now being offered.

https://www.azalea.com.sg/a8/overview

I find 4.35% a ridiculously-low credit spread over the risk-free SG T-bonds, especially compared to Astrea 7's 4.25% p.a. They just add a mere 10 basis points when macro interest rates have risen substantially from the time when A7 was issued in May 2022.

SSB May 2022 yielded 2.37% p.a., 4.25% was a spread of 1.88% p.a. but now SSB August 2024 yielded 3.2-3.3% and the spread of A8 is a mere 4.35-3.25 = 1.1% p.a.

Consider the underlying constituent PE funds are holdings junk bonds and leveraged small/micro-caps which don't and shouldn't do well in the current macro environment, the reduced spread is ridiculous at best...

-----------------------------------

Some useful links (MUST Read):

1. https://www.ft.com/content/e4c4fd61-341e-4f...46-796fc3bdcb03

(No paywall version: https://archive.ph/ZLiyx )

2. https://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...ost&p=106502708

3. https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/...#post-153021060

-------------------------------------

Caveat emptor!

CONGRATS TO ALL DBS BANK SHAREHOLDERS!
IT'S ABOVE $35 AGAIN!

     

Who knows how she will perform?
Interest rate will surely impact the NIM. By how much? Not sure.
But the other non interest income streams are strong too.

just collect the 3 banks if want dividend.

now no need look TBILLS

its the REITS that i dunno what to do.

New highs....new highs .....$40 soon?

CONGRATS TO ALL DBS BANK SHAREHOLDERS!