Very nice!

Credit Suisse results not in good shape.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-unwelcome...share_permalink

Markets are always unpredictable, not just now.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/softbank-may-t...share_permalink

Indeed, DCA in big sums definitely saves more compared to smaller sums if the pricing structure has a minimum commision levied.

And no thanks man, she is a lady.

I use one (IB), but if you have "lots of wealth" you can consider diversifying your broker. These days most brokers are insured up to a certain limit, so one way is to diversify across brokers up to that limit. That said costs like commissions have to be taken into consideration (especially when you are starting to build up your portfolio or reducing exposure during retirement).

See what the pros are thinking:

13-F for Temasek: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/102...mationtable.xml

13-F for Berkshire Hathaway: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/106...002973-9815.xml

Not all Swiss companies are clean. Beware of corporate frauds.

https://www.ft.com/content/af2bb42d-4aa8-4d...7e-f854dac97446

Air Liquide results: https://www.airliquide.com/investors/documents-presentations

Air Liquide is the world's second largest industrial gas supplier by market share. Their shares can be purchased from Euronext Paris (officially listed there) but IB offers other cheaper options like BATECH (BATS Europe) too.

This post has been edited by TOS: Feb 16 2022, 11:48 PM

They have comparable market share actually. Just off by a few percent. Air Liquide around 31-32%, similar to Linde, Air Products and Chemicals (NYSE: APD) which I own is around 11-12%. https://www.statista.com/statistics/933494/...ses-by-company/

You are right, Linde is better. Its operating profit to interest payments is around 64 last I calculated, Air Liquide is around 8, APD is around 11. Balance-sheet wise, Linde is better.

But Linde's PE is very high at close to 40. I suspect that is the primary reason PNB chose to purchase APD instead of Linde. APD and Air Liquide are a lot cheaper than Linde at around 20-30ish. Margin-wise the bottom line is pretty much the same as it's an oligopolistic market. Stable margins of 20%ish.

2nd best lol You should take a cue from successful fund managers like PNB, 2nd best somstimes offer better value than the best, if you time it right.

And as the saying goes. past performance is no indicator of future success. What is 2nd best may be the best one day. Tides turn all the time. (PNB has large stakes in Unilever, it's PE of 15 times is almost half of Proctor and Gamble, despite UL's poor performance recently. ) Some stakes are built opportunistically.

Air Liquide also offers currency diversification (Euro exposure, but well you can buy Linde on Deutsche Borse Xetra).

But in the end, it's the readers who make the final call. I just suggest options available for diversification. Make good use of IBKR's ability to trade worldwide to build a well-diversified portfolio is the real key message here. APD, AL or Linde either one is fine from sector point of view (all 3 of them had credit ratings of A, all in net debt positions).

This post has been edited by TOS: Feb 17 2022, 09:48 AM

Nestle results today at 2:15 pm

https://www.nestle.com/media/mediaeventscal...ll-year-results

No class in the afternoon, might join the press conference and investor call

Results are out.

But not on the official webpage first lol https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/...s-for-2021.html

Outlook:

2022 outlook: we expect organic sales growth around 5% and underlying trading operating profit margin between 17.0% and 17.5%. Underlying earnings per share in constant currency and capital efficiency are expected to increase.

Mid-term outlook: sustained mid single-digitA organic sales growth. Continued moderate underlying trading operating profit margin improvements. Continued prudent capital allocation and capital efficiency improvements.

The official results now available, together with the slides: https://www.nestle.com/media/mediaeventscal...ll-year-results

Some readouts from Reuter's Eikon:

Expected dividend payout was 2.86 CHF in Reuters poll, actual number is 2.8 CHF.
Apple CFO Luca Maestri and Schneider Electric chief marketing officer Chris Leong to join Nestle's board.
Guidance for 2022 a bit cautious with inflation headwinds, no estimation on 2022 inflation numbers for flexibility
Sees significant cost energy cost increase, higher labour cost across board, and truck driver shortage
Infant formula business under pressure in 2021, especially in China, but committed to this business, took impairment on this business segment
Expect y-o-y impact on coffee and petcare after strong 2021, but fundamentals are good
As for acquisition, they are open across the board, but important to stay disciplined

Press Conference Q&A (may not be accurate, refer to officially published transcript for detailed info):

Bloomberg: When does pricing action cause volume to decline? A: Industry is watching closely, premium products will help support.
AWP: Comments on competitor? A: hard to comment, focus on efficiency, expect continued pricing actions due to cost inflation
Bloomberg: Partnering with private equity for M&A/disposal? A: need to creative in deal-making, judge new situations as it comes along, comfortable working with PE when needed, strategic/cultural fit important
AWP: Pricing too slow for cost inflation? A: Efficiency improvement first. Doesn't matter too fast or slow, certain juridictions have laws on periods to raise prices. (Can't raise as you want). Either regular inflation pattern (can adjust accordingly) or one-off inflation, negative results to reverse.
AGEFI: Expect slowdown in red meal and frozen food with return to office? A: coffee revolution longer term trend here to stay, convenience of preparing meals should support results. Already has large market share, can have short-term slowdown y-o-y (as seen in guidance). Mid-long term outlook more important.
FAZ: Profit margin in water business fall further, action? A: Focus on premium plans. Create consumer value focus on taste and nutrition. Face significant cost increase. Don't think last year is good yardstick, long term premiumization could help.
Food Navigator: Results on APAC region and outlook? High-growth product category for APAC? Pricing for APAC segment? A: Pleased with AOA performance. Growth driver in AOA performance. Chinese market recovered since last year. Open towards investing there. Growth driver not different from rest of group. Price increase "to be socially responsible"
AGEFI: plant-based protein business A: 800 million CHF business, pleased with results focus on customer taste under strong brands.
AP: birth rate lower impacting which business the most? A: affected by covid, infant nutrition affected the most, some business segments will probably correct itself. Chinese market recovering.

End of press conference

Investor call (may not be accurate, refer to officially published transcript for detailed info):

Western Europe F&B item price is usually fixed for one-year, so the pricing and the inflation cost can take some time to reflect on the P&L statement, hence the compression in margins seen in EMENA region business. Something new I learn today about Nestle's EMENA business
Can expect more inflation cost to come in 1H FY22, to be migitigated via pricing, operating leverage and efficiencies.
Decline in margins in 1H FY22 before improving again in 2H
FCF decline because higher capex due to purina petcare and coffee volume demand

Q&A (may miss some part, refer to officially published transcript for accurate/detailed info)

Barclays: Inflation impact on gross margin/UTOP? No big M&A deal? M&A criteria A: Expect significantly higher input cost inflation, pricing/efficiency and hedging in place to help cover cost. Transportation/freight cost cannot be hedged however. H1 2022 still have timing lag for pricing due to inflation, better pricing from Q2. M&A expected to be small-mid size. Froth valuations out there, small-mid transactions easier to integrate into existing business. Deal size < 10 billion

Goldman Sachs: OG 5% how conservative? Pet adoption higher in 20/21 impact in 20, 21 and in 22? A: Many unknowns hard to give exact numbers, no volume elasticity seen so far. Thus 5% is reasonable middle-of-road estimate. May be higher, but precise breakdown is not meaningful as too many parts can change. Hard to relate pet adoption to growth in petcare business. No large rise in pet returned to pet shelter post-pandemic.

(Voice not clear...): RIG could be -ve in 2022 in emerging markets? Nutrition health science margins down 400 bp how long to recover? A: good momentum of RIG in emerging market so far, tracking elasticity (EM market more price sensitive). Mix is one way to grow revenue. Developed markets portfolio more premiuminized, thus cost inflation less of an issue in developed market (can adept to price increase). Margin NHS to improve due to growth leverage and new products gaining momentum. Expect synergies from bounty business etc.

JP Morgan: China business impairment details and long-term outlook? Consumer health segment attracting new competitor, plan to look elsewhere to grow? A: Not satisfied with Chinese infant formula business performance in past 2 years, but committed to this business (no plans to retreat from China). Expect improvement seen this year (good chance back in +ve territory). Main target to improving presence in low tier cities. Committed in NHS, consistent to grow around medical nutrition (not all parts of consumer health segment).

Brenstein: Marketing expense down? Gross margin down a lot, reason? A: Marketing expense grow in absolute amount. Happy with the amount of investment last year. H2 2020 yoy effects. Cost inflation thus don't try to advertise too much.

Pascal (from another financial institution): Consumer trend: packaged/delivery food increase? coffee capsule rollout, potential for product? A: Watch out for potential downtrading and volume elasticity, no significant sign of that except in a few EM markets. Nescafe capsule very successful, opportunity to capture larger share (currently 20% market share).

UBS: largest market US OG acceleration in 4Q, reason? Inventory anomaly in US? At home consumption normalization not expected? A: US OG acc. due to pricing. Significant logistics and transportation supply chain issues in US. At-home revolution may see slower growth as people return to office, but no big impact (hence guidance in FY22 OG grow 5%).

Berenberg: Margins in water business? Market share updates? A: Difficult to improve water business, can't give definite range due to inflation and cost volatility, but definitely want to improve business. Market share improving. 60% business increase in market share for 3rd year in a year. Infant nutrition market share decline in China, confectionaries constant share. When do price increases, will monitor volume, elasticities and mix.

Societe Generale: US nutrition sales due to pricing? Clarify global strategic review on nutrition business updates? A: US growth locomative for some time. Premiumization gets rewarded, people talks quality and strong brands. Buillish in long-term, short-term watching pricing etc. Seen consistent improvement since 2018. Always committed in infant nutrition/formula, not best time due to lower birth rate, but some will come back over time (China has some work to do). Will stand up and compete.

Deutsche Bank: Profitibility in coffee, scale of price increases to hedge? Omicron benefit in Q4 to overall growth rate? A: Omicron only add impact in last few weeks of Dec., but immaterial to overall Q4 performance. Coffee profitability attractive and good in 2021, no impact of coffee bean price in 2021. Good hedging. Need to increase coffee prices in 2022, no info shared (trade secret).

End of investor call

This post has been edited by TOS: Feb 18 2022, 01:04 PM

Past results are no indicator of future performance, remember?

Good observation, but the market knows this too. An efficient market would have taken this into the pricing consideration, fund managers and retail investors would make sure that it's after-tax returns that matter. This has already been factored into today's share price.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflation-will...share_permalink

Thanks for the suggestion. Let me check tomorrow and see if got charges or not.

If free of charge, then I can send a "nicer copy" haha

Finally! The scanned newspaper copies are ready.

From Financial Times on US, Europe news.

Refer to HKEX thread for HK, Chinese finance news and SGX counters thread for BT news (including S-REITs)

Note: scanned file is in PDF format, size about 40 MB for the largest file, thus I upload it on PDF Host, Lowyat can't handle large files of 40 MB...

https://pdfhost.io/v/F98KBTw9u_FT_US_Europe_News_23Feb22

This post has been edited by TOS: Feb 23 2022, 01:57 PM

Haha yea, free of charge too. But the newspaper size is much larger than typical scanners like the one in my uni library... So I am forced to restrict it to A3 and print multiple copies of the same page (with different parts of the page scanned) in order to cover one whole page of the paper.

Haha it's ok. Now pandemic here, library is almost deserted.

Today's FT paper: https://pdfhost.io/v/2xOtrP.Qw_FT_News_240222_Part_1

https://pdfhost.io/v/nvw.P6m4Q_FT_News_240222_Part_2

Refer to SGX Counters thread for BT's news.

This post has been edited by TOS: Feb 24 2022, 01:18 PM