Alright, what is there to comment? I sold off most of my shares to finance my wife’s business and vacation with my dad. That’s all there is to it. I am left with my 2 extreme stocks, the best performing and the worst performing.
First some comments on the shares sold:
1. MEGB - Sold price: RM1.18, current price: RM0.64
It’s funny how a stock pick can go so bad. It is an education stock, it is also a healthcare stock, both of which has demand on the rise, how can it go bad, right? Wrong! It seems that one government policy to disallow loans to the courses supplied by this institution have the effect of sinking its entire business plan. Ouch.
2. Al Aqar REITS - Sold price: RM1.35, current price: RM1.34
Good dividend yield, sorry to have let it go.
3. Axis REITS - Sold price: RM2.80, current price: RM3.11
Bought this for a little while before selling it for the purposes mentioned above. I’m sure there is good dividend yield and capital gains just looking at my sold price and the current price.
4. Ajinomoto - Sold price: RM4.30, current price: RM4.16
Not much changes, there is still possibility of growth from overseas market but not showing at this moment.
5. Notion Vtec - Sold price: RM1.14, current price: RM0.75
First the Thai flood, next fire in its Klang factory. Fate seems to be unable to cut Notion Vtec some slack… or is it? Again a close watch is needed as something seems to be going on in Notion…
So how did I do this year compared to previous years?
End 2010: 66.82% Total Returns, ~33.41% Annualised
End 2011: 52.73% Total Returns, ~17.58% Annualised
End 2012: 142.47% Total Returns, ~35.62% Annualised
From results it seems like I’m doing better just by sticking to one stock: Public Bank
Another 5-6% return from dividends and 30% from capital gains.
However it really is just a case of good timing when I first bought it in 2009.
XDL seems to become the dog that it is, from giving dividends in the first 2 years to issuing bonus shares and warrants last year. Again this is the sign of a company doing cash call but is it for expansion or because of bad business? Time will tell and I might have to make a decision soon on this underperformer.
Ideas for 2013:
REITS seem to have taken off in a big way. With low returns everywhere, it feels like REITS prices are going up and yields are going down. However as I have sold off my REITS this is solely a feeling and I can’t find a good REITS indices on Star-online or Bursa to prove this.
GOLD prices seem to be on the uptrend. This is a volatile investment and although inflation is projected to be on the rise due to the so called ‘money-printing’ and ‘currency wars’ going on, GOLD prices is universally viewed as ‘underperforming its potential’. Conspiracy theories abound, from phantom GOLD bars to central bank manipulation, GOLD was projected to shoot up drastically, not slowly as happening currently. In the absence of insider info, investors are advised to touch this investment with a ten-foot pole - high risk, potential high return, potential high losses.
PROPERTIES - so with GOLD out of the picture, what cover is left for the exposed investor? Properties seems to be the best bet, it is a hard asset and the rental can basically sustain the monthly repayment. However personal preference for liquidity and the disgust at driving house prices out of the budget of the needy is preventing me from entering this market. You should too.
EQUITIES - and we are left with equities. This is a tricky asset class as the key is whether the company can transfer inflation prices to the consumers fast enough. In this regard Top Glove have fired the first shot by declaring their price increase. More companies are expected to follow and those that can’t will be reporting lower profits. This is bad for the investor as they can assume one year of lackluster returns. I can’t figure out whether bank stocks will suffer in a rising inflation environment as they seem to be able to adjust their interest rate quickly. For better or worse Public Bank stock will be my window into such a situation.
With election around the corner, this month seems to be the best time to buy, picking up battered down stocks on the cheap. Being greedy when everyone is fearful and all that stuff. Yields will continually be compressed with foreign funds grabbing whatever is better than their own country’s yield, so stock prices can be counted to remain high as long as our country is growing and profits are being reported. So my pick for the year? Go for glove, bank stocks and REITS. However, personally I won’t be investing due to reasons again mentioned at the top of this post. Good luck to all!
121116 OTK Spiel 2012 Play Week 4.2 by boardgamecafes, on Flickr
Pics by Boardgamecafe
We have an expression for Vivajava: SUPER LIKE!!!
This is a negotiation game which plays up to 8. Flipping through the rulebook, there are rules for less players but it seems like fillers to make the game more competitive.
The basic premise of the game is that players are coffee planters/roasters/blenders trying to blend the best brew of coffee, More points for blends that are harder to make.
121116 OTK Spiel 2012 Play Week 4.2 by boardgamecafes, on Flickr
Pic: The simple, clear, yet stylish victory point track with the blend scale displayed - Extra bold being the best blend.
The game is simple, first players get their coffee beans from 3 different regions of the world:
121116 OTK Spiel 2012 Play Week 4.2 by boardgamecafes, on Flickr
Pic: There are 3 regions in the world according to Vivajava - Americas, Africa and Asia
Next, players within the same region votes to either research or blend. This is where the negotiation starts.
121116 OTK Spiel 2012 Play Week 4.2 by boardgamecafes, on Flickr
121116 OTK Spiel 2012 Play Week 4.2 by boardgamecafes, on Flickr
Pic: Negotiation - sitting down is optional.
If the players blend, they have to draw blindly to make the coffee! Everyone must contribute at least one bean and if they happened to be accumulating different coloured beans during the harvesting phase, the resultant coffee might be a stale one 
121116 OTK Spiel 2012 Play Week 4.2 by boardgamecafes, on Flickr
Pic: Coffee Blend slates for players who wish to blend.
Of course, there are various powers that can be acquired through research that can help mitigate the blind draw for a perfect blend. Only if all players in your region votes to research, mind!
121116 OTK Spiel 2012 Play Week 4.2 by boardgamecafes, on Flickr
Pic: R&D track, whatever floats your boat, are you a grower? selector? investor? brewer? Choose your powers.
There are some strategies to this game in what R&D path you choose but really, negotiations are the meat and potatoes of this game. You can have situations where someone negotitiates to be the lead blender and try to achieve an americano or everyone just can’t agree to anything and have to shoot go for the Rainbow coffee moon. When that magic combination occurs and an extra bold happen, everyone will just go “woah!”
Conclusion: Excellent excellent game with a good negotiation bent. SUPER LIKE!!!
This game have a mix of new and experienced players.
Gods and specialists:
Thomas (black) have played before and took Engai without hesitation. He also took the Rain Ceremony, which is an important part of his strategy which we will come back to later.
That’s Thomas on the left and you can see Engai just peeking out from below…
Hiew (green) also have played last week and he went for Qamata. The God of networks is not as powerful in this game due to the presence of a large body of water and again the constant raining that was conjured by Thomas. Hiew also took Nomads, and this happened as a counter to stop Thomas’ rain from connecting even more bodies of water.
This is the first game for Sinbad (white) and he took Tsui-Goab, the shape shifter. I’m not sure if he read the previous session reports but this was the winning God for last week’s sessions. However in this game, the God merely helped him keep pace and Shaman was under utilized by Sinbad.
First game for Allen (red) and he took Shadipinyi, God of drunks, a first for our group. The God helped him to take first place for a few turns by allowing him to bid 2 cattles and taking them back. With Herds, he practically guaranteed himself a high VR to always start bidding.
Finally, I (yellow) took Obatala, without any specialist. I wanted to try the ‘rabbit’ monuments strategy.
From left: Allen, myself, Hiew and Sinbad.
Play:
I started off strong by spamming two monuments and upgrading them the next turn. However, this rash tactic doomed the long term strategy as I had not any craftsman for the longest time. I tried to save money for the Diamond cutter but was beaten to it by Thomas.
Thomas start strong by getting a potter. Supported by Engai, he went on to make a Diamond cutter one turn ahead of me and with the Rain Ceremony, ensured that almost all diamonds were in range of his Diamond cutter. Basically negating the possibility of a competing cutter.
Hiew planted a cheap Wood carver that was popular at first, but got cornered quickly by Sinbad’s Sculptor. He later went on to build the Thronemaker and Vessel maker but by then Thomas’ Diamond cutter had came online.
Allen got an Ivory carver while Sinbad got a Sculptor. Allen did quite well with his economy by returning his money thru his own carver while Sinbad managed to leverage Tsui-Goab to upgrade his monuments cheaply.
Mid game position:
Yellow - myself, spamming monuments all over but without a money engine, sputter off too quickly
Green - Hiew, has many craftsman but ultimately lost to…
Black - Thomas, his board looks simple but he has Engai and the Diamond Cutter on the bottom of the board
Red - Allen, have a regular beginner’s board, which looks almost like…
White - Sinbad, also have a regular beginner’s board position - one craftsman, 3 monuments of various levels.
Notice the large expanse of water with added rain to link it bigger.
In the end, however, Thomas’ Engai + Diamond cutter strategy overpowered everyone to win by an average of extra 10 points! His innovative combination of cheap 2 cattle Diamond cutter that is in range of 5 diamonds really pull in the money. In the last turn he just pushed ahead with his cattle horde and upgraded his monuments for the win.
End game score
Thoughts:
The economics of this game is very interactive and the decision on whether to price the goods competitively to get the opponents’ cattles or to price the goods high to limit the usage to oneself is not an easy decision. Price it too cheap and opponents can upgrade their monuments too cheaply, however price it high and no cattles may not come in to supplement your income! Mix together with the constantly changing board position by the power of the specialists and this game becomes very deep indeed
Fire In The Sky long campaign game setup trial run#1. After reading and rereading the rules at least 5 times, I have decided to run a trial game to wrap my head around it.
The most difficult part is to understand the movement mechanics and the strategy behind the carrier and bombardment task forces.
Since the setups for the long and short campaign game were provided, I decide to try and recreate the moves to obtain the short game setup from the long game setup.
Fire in the Sky is an asymmetric game where the Japs start with almost all units on board while the US forces enter the war gradually and finally build up to an unstoppable force.
South East Asia. The Japs have to take Manila and Singapore.
Pearl Harbor. To attack or not to attack, that is the question. The game provides an overwhelming bonus to the Japs’ first strike that it makes sense to strike… or does it?
Australia, the lynchpin of the Jap offensive in their attempt to force the Allies to sue for peace.
Aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack. Plenty of Battleship damage and sunkage, which probably meant it’s a good 1st turn move… or does it? Can’t make up my mind on this.
Manila invasion goes according to plan. Epic failz on the Singapore blitz. According to rule book, this is probably an unrecoverable setback.
Plenty of US units sunk in Pearl Harbor, however Japs’ singapore invasion force is also nursing some heavy bruising’ at home. Contrary to history, Repulse and Prince of Wales prevailed!
Notes: after running through a simulated 1st turn game, it is still a VERY difficult game to wrap my head around. It is difficult to ascertain the naval and air assets to commit to a particular battle based on the combat modifier tables. It is also still difficult to determine the strategic value of different naval and air assets positioning… Perhaps a few more simulated turns in the future…
2011 was a bad year for investments. Stock market is trading sideways for most of the year, let’s see how we did.
Total returns for KLCI is at 82%, similiar to last year while my returns have dropped from last year’s 67% to this year’s 53%. Depressing.
Stock allocation did not change much at 69% Blue Chip, 10% REITS and 21% Small Cap/Speculative.
Public Bank is maintaining it’s stock price while returning an additional 6% dividends for the year. YTL was sold because of it’s poor dividends and AJI was added for it’s growth potential into India. AJI also returns a respectable 4% dividends for the year.
AL AQAR returned 7% Dividend for the year on top of a few percent of capital gains. It may not be an AXIS but still better than everything else in this environment.
HAIO, ANALABS and CENBOND was sold to realise their gains.
MEGB suffered a severe hammering due to lower student intake from a government policy change regarding student loans. However dividends remain strong at 6.8%. I still believe there’s a good future for MEGB as demand for nurses should go up as the world ages. I will keep a close eye on this stock as there are too many factors driving the stock downwards, including the CEO’s health.
XDL suffered through the year as continuous string of bad news came out of China. First there was the reverse take over scandal of Chinese companies on US stock exchange, and then rumours of economic hard landing eminent in China. Dividends are quite disappointing at 3%. Yes I know, better than FD but poor compared to REITS. Only piece of good news came only in 2012 when it was announced that another company is contemplating buying XDL. This stock is speculative all the way.
NOTION was added again for the rumours of interest from KKR private equity firm. The deal however fell through, perhaps due to management’s belief that it is worth more than the money offered. After the earthquake in Japan, it announced that Nikon wants to outsource their processes to NOTION, which is a positive development. However, late in the year it was hit by floods in Thailand and the stock again fell. Given the circumstances, it is still worth keeping the stock and see 2012’s results before deciding whether to keep it or not.
One of the themes of 2011 is the amount of mergers and acquisitions happening, like MAMEE, PLUS. Some of the mutual funds are doing really well because of it, and it rather makes my portfolio look embarassing, despite the overall KLCI barely moving. This M&A theme is moving well into 2012 with PROTON and KFC. However, I might not play on this theme as market insiders will outplay any retail investors.
REITS however look promising and the limited capital gains is keeping investors on the sidelines despite the good dividends. If the situation in Europe persists, it might be worth investing in more REITS as I wait it out. If the situation changes only I will change to cash and start buying more beaten down stocks.
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