Tuesday, March 29, 2011

China Minzhong - a clear buy



China Minzhong, on the issue of a buy report this morning surged 5% to end at 1.65.
According to my experience, and its current attractive technicals, this is a clear "buy" opportunity. I will be scaling in my positions.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The 4 stages of a bull market

This article talks about the 4phases of a bull market.

Phase 1 (very beginning of bull rally) – market participants are still licking their past wounds and are content to keep doing so.

Phase 2 (early recognition of bull market) – market participants begin reading more about the markets and following developments more closely

Phase 3 (recognition of a bull market and belief in it) – market participants begin nibbling on stocks again.

Phase 4 (utter, complete and total confidence in the bull market) – market participants begin pushing all-in.

Where are we now? Phase 4, this article states.

But I am not so sure. I think the most is phase 3, as I have not witnessed the type of euphoria that occurred in 2007, and unlike 2007, the stock market is trading at reasonable PE.

Black swans

'Black Swans'

Markets have consistently rallied amid those shocks, called black
swan events by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the New York University professor and principal at Universa Investments LP.

Taleb's 2007 bestselling book, "The Black Swan," showed history is full
of events that can't be predicted by trends. The term refers to the belief that only white swans existed -- until black ones were discovered in Australia in 1697.

This year markets have contended with the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, battles between forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and rebels, protests in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Yemen, oil above $100 a barrel, record-high food costs and a magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan that killed more than 8,000 people and crippled a nuclear power plant.

At this juncture, global markets are signaling that sustained economic growth will more than make up for Japan's worst disaster since World War II, rising commodity prices and uprisings throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Big global investors are heading back to Japan

Very reassuringly for me, big global investors are using the latest Earthquake to buy big in Japan.

One was BlackRock, the world's largest money manager. Says Bob Doll, chief equity strategist: "Tactically, Japan's rally is likely to continue. If the nuclear question marks weren't what they were, the Japanese market would be
rallying far more significantly. Clearly no one has 100% confidence, but
the risk-reward says you want to own more today than a week ago."

Another buyer was Pimco, which snapped up Japanese ETFs for its Pimco Global
Multi-Asset Fund (PGMAX).

Look at history. In the weeks after Japan's 1995 Kobe earthquake, stocks
fell by a quarter, but then bounced back in a matter of months. After the
2001 bombing of the World Trade Center, U.S. stocks fell 11.6%, before
rebounding 19.4% over the next six months.

The average stock in Japan is selling now for 13.9 times its annual profit.
Japanese stocks haven't been this cheap since the financial crisis. More remarkable, current stock prices value Japanese companies at just under book value,or assets less intangibles and liabilities. By contrast, stocks in the U.S. and China sell for twice book.

Even before the tsunami, Japan was looking cheap. The recent slide means
that some of the best companies in the world are available at
unheard-of-prices. These stocks are likely to rebound 10% over the next few
months. Among the most attractive are a raft of powerhouse brands: Sony (ticker:
SNE) and Canon (CAJ); Toyota Motor (TM) and Nissan (NSANY); cosmetics
company Shiseido (SSDOY); telecom powers KDDI (9433.Japan) and Nippon
Telegraph & Telephone (NTT); trading titans Mitsubishi (MSBHY), Sumitomo
(8053.Japan) and Itochu (8001.Japan); and steel giants JFE Holdings
(5411.Japan) and Nippon Steel (5401.Japan).

Yes, the human loss is unfathomable. And yes, Japan's economy is almost
certain to slow this year. But the slowdown is likely to be only temporary,
with healthy growth forecast for next year as the country rebuilds.


(Source: Barrons)

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Time to buy stocks and ETFs: Analysts

Much as I am often sceptical about analysts, I am inclined to agree with them on this occassion - this is the time to be buying stocks. Even the usually pessimistic Michael Lombardi is using the opportunity to load up on stocks, and announcing that "the bear market rally is not yet over".

In an article headlined "Time to buy stocks and ETFs: Analysts" in today's Straits Times, analysts argued for buying stocks at these gloomy times. This is because stocks have been badly battered due to the Japan earthquake. However, the fundamentals of companies are still fine, and many companies may just got hit a bit too hard. Analysts recommend buying especially stocks that are set to recover from Japanese reconstruction efforts such as oil and gas, construction as well as equipment and materials suppliers.

I do not know when the stock markets will recover (actually the local stock market is already entering a bear phase even before the earthquake), but I am a buyer in these times. What have I bought? None other than the Nikkei itself and loads of local bluechips (Noble, F&N, SGX, NOL and GLP). I am secretly hoping and believing that the Japan Earthquake will be the catalyst to jumpstart things in Japan and the rest of Asia, therefore, fuelling an end to the baby bear market we are experiencing currently. But I am a mid to long term investor.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Stocks to buy post-Japan Earthquake

Post-Japan eathquake, many stocks have been unfairly sold down. Barring a nuclear disaster, things should go back to normal after a few months. This is the golden opportunity to go shopping in the stock market.

Besides the Nikkei 225, I am eyeing Global Logistics Property.

GLP's share price looks to be awakening when its momentum broke because of the Earthquake. However, GLP has clarified that here is minimal damage to GLP's Japanese
portfolio. In addition, it was announced last Thursday that GLP
would be part of the component stocks for the Straits Times Index,
replacing SMRT - therefore, funds that manage their portfolios against the STI would
have to buy shares of GLP in order to match the performance of the index.