Continue reading »]]> Saw this announcement by Second Chance Properties which was posted in conjunction with the release of their unaudited results.

Reward of $50,000 cash to Whistleblowers

To further strengthen its Whistle Blower Policy, the Company has implemented a strong deterrent by offering a cash reward to any person whether employees, suppliers, business associates or the general public who provides specific, reliable and credible information or evidence of fraudulent activities by any of the Company’s Executive Director and Management Team as listed in the Company’s Annual Report ($50,000/- cash reward) and all other employees (up to $2,000/- cash reward) which leads to admission of guilt by the accused or leads to successful prosecution.

Please visit our website www.secondchance.com.sg for full details.

This is the first time that I have seen a company highlight their Whistle Blower Policy so prominently together with its results announcement. So if you are in need of some spare cash and know something (provided there is) that fits the criteria listed in the Second Chance Properties Whistle Blower Reward Scheme, you know what to do.

Continue reading »]]> The different brokerage firms will produce their own in-house research reports on selected SGX-listed companies.

You can access the various research reports if you have a trading account with the respective brokerage firms.

Another way is to visit The Society of Remisiers website, which holds the research reports of all the brokerage firms.

However, it seems that they only store the reports for the last thirty days. Well, at least it is still quite useful to be able to find all the reports at one central location.

The website lists the research reports by the dates on which they are released, so it will be easier to find what you want using the search function.

In terms of usefulness, I will usually look at the data but ignore the target price and recommendation set by the analyst.

Continue reading »]]> There was an article in The Sunday Times over the weekend which talked about the important of getting medical insurance early while you are still young and healthy.

This is because if you wait until you have a medical condition before getting insurance, that condition will not be covered.

Or even worse, your entire application can be declined.

Better to Get Medical Insurance While Young and Healthy (Sunday Times)

Please also read the portion in the green column “Think before you switch”.

Do not make the mistake of switching shield plans as this person found out.

Continue reading »]]> Pertama is no more.

Ok, I’m exaggerating it a little.

Back in June 2011, Pertama had proposed a delisting of the shares (at $0.65 a share) as it saw no need to maintain a listing status. The cash flow of the business was good, and it had no plans for any capital raising.

The free float of the shares was also very small with Harvey Norman Singapore Pte. Ltd. (“HNS”) and HNS’s subsidiary, Harvey Norman Ossia (Asia) Pte Ltd (“HNO”) collectively holding approximately 83% of the total number of issued shares. FMR LLC and Edward C. Johnson 3rd hold approximately 9%  of the total number of issued shares.

The proposal was shot down by minority shareholders at the EGM, and the shares continued to trade at a price lower than $0.65 with low transaction volumes.

The free float of the shares was in fact less than 10%, which meant that the shares had to be suspended from trading unless the company could increase the percentage of free float in the market.

As the majority shareholder had no intention to sell his shares and the company had no mandate to do a share placement to issue more shares, the shares of Pertama would have to be suspended from trading (starting from today).

A lot of retail investors would worry about such a suspension as they would not be able to get out of their positions.

Not me.

After my previous sucking thumb exercise and failure to add to my original purchase back in 2001, I did not hesitate this time. I managed to accumulate more Pertama shares since the general offer failed (By the way, this is one advantage of being a retail investor because an institutional investor will not be able to find enough shares to buy to make the exercise worthwhile).

As the majority shareholder Harvey Norman had made a previous exit offer, they are not allowed to make another one within a 12-month time frame. They had tried asking for a waiver from Securities Industry Council (SIC) to waive this requirement for them to make a voluntary general offer for all shares that they do not own but was rejected by SIC.

What is likely to happen is that Harvey Norman will make another general offer after the 12-month moratorium was up. And then Pertama will finally be delisted.

Such a buy and hold strategy (without being able to sell) might bore a lot of investors to tears, but having seated on this position for ten years, I’m happy to wait for another year.

Continue reading »]]> I attended a short session on trading conducted by Ray Barros last week.

There was supposed to be some live trading demonstration involved but I only knew we were the ones who were supposed to do it when I arrived. But the bonus for us was that the person who managed to make the most money using a dummy account at the end of the session would walk away with a new iPad.

Given that there were less than twenty people in the room, I thought that the chances of winning the prize were pretty decent.

We were given half an hour to make all our trades and we can select the kind of instruments that we wanted to trade. The person with the most money at the end of it would be the winner. Each person was given US$10,000 in a dummy account.

I spent the first ten minutes setting up my dummy account and getting used to the trading platform. By the time I was ready to start trading, there was only fifteen minutes left to do whatever trades I wanted to make.

Ideally, I should be looking at a few charts, waiting for a signal to enter a trade, and then pull the trigger.

However, this strategy was not possible in such a short time frame. So, I settled on looking at the EURUSD chart. Tried looking at the 1-minute, 3-minute and 5-minute time chart to figure out the trend, but there was just too much noise.

To trade a 1-min chart, a scalping strategy was possibly the best option but I was not ready to do that using a platform that I was not familiar with.

To win the competition, you need to be correct as well as win the most money. There isn’t time to make too many trades, and it was all really about making the most of a 50-50 situation as you can only long or short, and hope for the best.

And you have to trade a big position size in order to stand a chance of winning. Doing so in normal circumstances will guarantee a wipeout of the account sooner or later.

So I built my position from $10,000 all the way to $100,000.

As it turned out, only 4 traders in the room turned in a position performance. This is surprising if you consider that the results of one particular trade would probably be about 50-50.

I was one of the four but didn’t do enough to win the iPad. In hindsight, I  should have taken on a position of $300,000, as that was the amount that the margin can reasonably support without being closed out. There are no prizes for being right but finishing second.

The biggest loser of the day also got a prize, a free ticket to the seminar that Ray was conducting. He was duly rewarded for taking on the correct position size in a trading competition.

The easiest way to win such a short competition would be to team up with another person and open opposing positions with the highest margin that you take on. One of you will be the winner, and you can then split the prize. But that would take away the fun from the competition wouldn’t it?

Continue reading »]]> The Community Health Assist Scheme (CHAS), which was previously known as the Primary Care Partnership Scheme (PCPS), has been enhanced to benefit more people from January 2012 this year.

Patients who qualify to be on the CHAS will be able to receive subsidised outpatient medical treatments for acute and chronic conditions as well as basic dental services at General Practitioners (GPs) and dental clinics near their homes.

The subsidies can be up to $18.50 for acute conditions and $80 for chronic conditions.

To qualify for CHAS, you must be either:

• A Singapore citizen who is 40 years old or above, and with a per capita monthly household income of $1,500 and below; or
• A Singapore citizen and you are unable to do any one of these six activities for yourself – washing / bathing; toileting; transferring; feeding; dressing; and/or mobility, and; with a per capita monthly household income of $1,500 and below; or
• On the Public Assistance Scheme.

Previously, only citizens aged 65 or more with a per capita monthly household income of $800 or less would qualify for the scheme.

Hopefully, with the enhanced scheme,  some of the heavy demand at Polyclinics can be channeled over to private sector GPs.

For more information about the CHAS and the application form, you can visit the Community Health Assist Scheme website.

Continue reading »]]> SGX has recently launched an online portal called My Gateway providing investment education for investors.

My Gateway provides market updates, recorded webcasts, calculation tools and information about the various products on SGX.

You can view historical charts of traded securities on SGX and there is also information about upcoming events and courses.

For now, stand up to win one of 5 iPads if you sign up to be on SGX’s investment updates mailing list.

My Gateway can be accessed here.

Continue reading »]]> Financial planning firm ipac has announced the closure of their Singapore and Hong Kong business.

It puts an end to an unique advice-centric business model where advisers are paid a salary rather than commissions. Apparently, this model has not worked well for ipac, who made a loss of $4.5 million in 2010 and a cumulative loss of around $34 million since it started operations here in 2003.

Clients of ipac who invested in their Dublin-domiciled multi-manager fund will also have to unwind their positions as the funds will be shut down. This process will take a few months.

If you think financial planning is a lucrative business, think again. The attrition rate of advisers in the industry is very high and most firms have to contend with rising overheads and (ever increasing) regulatory requirements. Of course, for those who survive, their share of the pie will be higher.

Closure of Wealth Manager ipac hits Singapore, HK clients (Business Times)

Continue reading »]]> As at the close of the Public Offer at 2.00 p.m. on 9 January 2012, valid applications in respect of approximately S$465 million in aggregate principal amount of CMA bonds, at the issue price of 100 per cent. under the Public Offer, were received.

As the total valid applications in respect of the Placement and the Public Offer have exceeded S$200 million in aggregate principal amount of Bonds, the Issuer has decided to exercise the right, in consultation with the Lead Manager, to upsize the Offer and issue an additional S$200 million in aggregate principal amount of Bonds, of which S$120 million will be allocated to the Public Offer.

All applicants who submitted valid applications for the CapitaMall Asia bonds under the Public Offer will be allocated a proportion of the bonds for which such applicants have applied for. The allocations are as follows:

Range of principal amount of Bonds applied for under the Public Offer (S$’000) | Principal amount of Bonds under the Public Offer allocated per applicant (S$’000)

2 | 2
3 | 3
4 | 4
5 to 9 | 5
10 to 19 | 6
20 to 29 | 10
30 to 49 | 15
50 to 99 | 24
100 to 149 | 44
150 to 199 | 66
200 to 299 | 85
300 to 499 | 125
500 to 999 | 191
1,000 to 1,999 | 365
2,000 and above | 616

It is expected that the CMA bonds will be listed for quotation on the Main Board of the SGX-ST on 13 January 2012 and that trading of the bonds will commence with effect from 9.00 a.m. on the same date, subject to the SGX-ST being satisfied that all conditions necessary for the commencement of trading in the Bonds have been fulfilled.

The CapitaMall Asia bonds will be traded on the Main Board of the SGX-ST under the trading name “CapMallA3.8%b220112″.

Continue reading »]]> The Growth Plan from NTUC is one of the more popular single premium endowment plans in the market for a duration of five years or more.

While the returns are nowhere near what you can get from an equity investment, it does give a conservative and steady returns of 2-4%+ p.a.

The interest rates in Singapore have reduced quite significantly over the past few years. 12-month fixed deposit rates are now hovering around 0.4% p.a. compared to 0.9% p.a. 5 years ago. Similarly, 5-year Singapore government bond yields have declined from 3.2% p.a. 5 years ago to 0.9% p.a. today.

As such, NTUC have decided that it is no longer possible to offer the Growth Plan in its current form and have withdrawn it from the market.

A new version of the Growth Plan will be launched in its place but you can expect returns to be poorer compared to the old one.