AK71's simple strategy.

What is my simple strategy?


按兵不动

 

- Hold our troops; bide our time.

Collect regular dividends and wait for opportunities.

We want to be in a position which would allow us to benefit from market weakness as well as strength. The way to do this is to stay invested in the market and also have a war chest ready.




Opportunities to accumulate will always show themselves but without a war

Have a plan, your own plan.

As always, invest based on your risk comfort level. Remember that media headlines should not be what is driving your overall strategy and, instead, thoughtful analysis of your goals (and willingness to absorb pain in market down periods) is what is necessary for a successful investment strategy.




 
Decide which type of investor you are before you invest and make sure the overall strategy

To be richer, be comfortable with being invested.

I met someone recently who told me he is swearing off the stock market for good. I asked him why. He told me that he lost a lot of money in the global financial crisis but he managed to recover all his losses in the ensuing recovery. That is good news, isn't it? Well, apparently, Mr. Market took back some of the gains in the last one year. So, he is still in a nett loss position.

I asked if his

What should a Singaporean have by age 35?

I came across an article in Yahoo!Finance: "The 5 things every Singaporean should have by 35."




The 5 things the author listed are:

1.  A time deposit that would be maturing soon. He thinks that people should start by having a reliable investment scheme in their 20s and went on to say that fixed deposits are a good place to look... er...

2.  A relevant degree. He thinks that a degree is the

Have conviction and make money?

It is impossible to see into the future. People who say that they can are like fortune tellers. How much are their advice worth? How much would we pay fortune tellers to read our palms?



Saruman's seeing stone in Lord of the Rings.


Whatever decisions we make are based on a whole gamut of factors. Then, we have certain expectations of how things would turn out after making such decisions.

The

Fraud: Advice from a fraudster.

Often, we hear the saying that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. However, could we be missing out on something good if we simply tell ourselves this each time there is a deal which looks too good to be true?

So, how do we tell if something is a genuinely good deal or if it is a well disguised pit. For sure, it is not easy. Even very savvy people have been victims of con jobs

Market gyrations, my portfolio and a sabbatical.

My investments in S-REITs are holding up nicely which gives credence to my strategy to overweight S-REITs in my portfolio. Their relative price stability and high distribution yields provide some solace in a volatile market.

A brief look at some of my larger investments in S-REITs:

1. AIMS AMP Capital Industrial REIT closed at $1.20 per unit. My cost per unit ranges from $0.775 to $1.10.

2.

Should have sold in May and gone away?

In The Straits Times and The Business Times today, there are at least three articles which mentioned "sell in May and go away" and whether it holds any water. Has anyone sold a large part or all of their investments in the last few trading sessions?



Well, today, global stock markets retreated as the Greeks and the French elected new leaders into government. They are sick of austerity measures

Fraud: Taking money from some adults is like taking candy from a baby.

If people promise us easy money, we should have to be very cautious. What is it about? How is it possible? Why is it so? Don't be a victim of fraud.


Just a few weeks ago, a client told me how he was given some physical gold for investing some money in a company. Apparently, the gold given to him was worth some 60% of the money he invested. In case the company went belly up, a new investor would

Low interest rates' a double whammy for some.

Central banks in many large economies around the world are keeping interest rates really low, near zero in countries like the USA and Japan, in fact. Low interest rates are seen as the way to encourage economic growth by making borrowings cheaper.



To revive their sickly economies, the relevant countries' low interest rates could be instrumental. However, as money would go to where it is

Perpetual bonds: Good or bad?

With interest rates so low these days, one would not be wrong to wonder why are companies and even a REIT issuing perpetual bonds to raise funds with coupons of up to 7%. To a layman like me with very rudimentary understanding of economics, it could be one of two reasons:

1. The business or REIT concerned is not able to get loans because its business is too risky.

2. The amount of liquidity

Trading to put food on the table.

I read an article in today's Sunday Times by Goh Eng Yeow on how to sniff out good stocks to invest in. However, I am not going to blog about sniffing out potential winners in the stock market. I am going to blog about something that's probably less exciting: the day trader who wrote to him saying how he lost a big fortune in the stock market last year.


"With mounting bills, and zero financial

Economics 2012: Off the top of my head.

I have been doing more thinking. OK, so what's new?

In recent weeks, the stock markets rallied and with the strong closing on Wall Street last night, they look like they could move even higher next week.



The bulls say that the tide has turned and things are moving higher from here and that we should buy stocks on pull backs. The bears say that what we have seen recently is just a bear

2011 full year passive income from S-REITs.

On 7 Dec, income distribution from AIMS AMP Capital Industrial REIT was received. It was also the final income distribution to be received from my portfolio of S-REITs this year.

Total income distribution received in 4Q 2011:
S$ 29,040.65.

Add this to S$ 75,785.49 received in the first three quarters of 2011, the grand total for the year 2011 is S$ 104,826.14.



I received more income this

Making your first million dollars in real estate investment: Dreams and nightmares.

Often, we hear that investing in real estate is the fastest way to making the first million dollars.

We saw people in queues and offering blank cheques in buying frenzies for projects such as One Devonshire some two years ago. The buyers then would have bagged nice gains and many would have sold their properties by now.
Sometimes, the building specifications of the property do not even matter

$120k annual passive income from S-REITs next?

With the end of 2011 more or less in sight, I decided to take a look at how my aim to generate at least $50K in annual passive income from the stock market has fared this year. Of course, compared to the end of 2010, many things have changed. Don't they say that the only constant in life is change?

Saizen REIT was my largest investment up till early this year. The massive earthquake that struck

Sleep well at night with a plan.

Today's selling in the stock market here has not affected all counters in equal measure. In fact, for the vast majority of my portfolio, the selling has not been a big thing.

When there is strong selling down in the market, I am more interested in buying but not indiscriminately, mind you. I have a plan and I am sticking to it like glue.

Regular readers might remember me saying that I would

Another bloodbath?

At this very moment, stock markets in Europe and the U.S.A. are down between 3+% to 6+%! Will Asian markets be drenched in another bloodbath tomorrow? Buckle up because it seems like it would be a rough ride.





What am I going to do? Stick to my plan. What else?

If some of the counters I am eyeing should fall to my target prices, I will collect more. I am pacing myself as there is no way of

Should we be staying invested or in cash?

All of us know how pathetic interest rates on savings are for quite some time now and with the U.S. Fed pledging to keep interest rates low for another two years or so, it does seem as if low interest rates are here to stay, even in Singapore.

We also know that the ultra low interest rate environment is pushing up prices of almost everything. Inflation? You bet. Is this going to persist? It