Those Were The Days

Those Were The Days

Listening to the radio

I remembered vividly the early days when it comes to investing before the internet era. I still recall during the 1990s that there was a regular radio announcement of share price for selected stocks closing on that day. The announcement would be around 7pm or 7.30pm.

And it normally begun with the announcement saying : Here it the closing share price of some selected stocks. Then I would gleefully glued myself to the radio and listened to it.

At that time, if you do not listen to the radio at that time, chances are you can only know the closing share price in the newspapers the next day.

The viewing gallery

Full house many times throughout the days except during lunch time!

Many investors, busy or not, would somehow found time to be at the viewing gallery to monitor or catch up with the share price on the electronic boards on the wall. For some stock broking firms, they would be displaying the share prices on television sets. And there were many television sets on display from one corner to the far end with one television set on top of severals.

During the market's rallies which went on for long period, finding even a parking space (for motorcycles or cars) could be a time wasting event as there were virtually no parking space left.

Not only that, even the viewing galleries were so full of people that there would be no space for you to squeeze in. One had to cringe his neck hard  among the crowded gallery just to have a peek only.

Hot drinks on the house

Several stock broking firms also served hot water, coffee and tea for the "viewers" free. Some veteran investors even brought their own cups kept them at their "secret place" so that they could enjoy their hot drinks from their own cup every time they were there.

The only time one can have see the viewing galleries with plenty of empty seats were during the bear market periods. During these "susah times", parking space was plenty. Seats were plenty. The so-called veterans expert investors also disappeared. They were given such names because they spent most of the days there and they could easily identified any company with their  business as well. They could be seen giving advice to newbies at the galleries from time to time.

Collect your share certificates

I also remembered in those early years before shares went script less. Veterans (including yours truly) would know that those early years, when you buy shares, you have to go to collect the certificate (but not yet registered in your names).

Although the certificates are yours (since you bought it), you still need to sent it for registering into your name. This might take between three weeks to a month. During this time, should that particular share experiences a sharp spike in its share price, there is nothing you can do because you are still waiting for the certificate (to be registered in your name) to be delivered to you.

Because of this, many investors (especially those not for the long term) would not register the certificates. So what happens is when that company pays out a dividend, the dividend goes to the registered name and not the new owner.

Most of the times, I would send in the certificates for registration before selling it later. Believe me or not, even I sold them later, I still continue to receive surprising dividends (many times) because the new buyer did not register the certificates into their names.

Alas, Bursa Malaysia braced into the internet era and shares certificate became script less.

Selling 5,000 shares of

Imaspro Corporation Berhad

 at an average price of

RM1.921 on Feb 5, 2016.

I have decided to dispose of all my 5,000 shares of Imaspro on Feb 5, 2016. Imaspro's financial results especially the last two - three quarters have been just average despite the USD appreciation against the Ringgit. Despite oil being low for most of the months, Imaspro did not seem to benefit greatly from these.

Other companies doing export business seem to have benefitted greatly judging by the good results announced.

The return of selling Imaspro has resulted in a profit of about RM2,300 (including dividends of RM175 and minus the two way brokers' charges.

The return is about 30% for an investment of seven months.

Buying Cycle & Carriage Bintang Shares

Buying Cycle & Carriage Bintang Shares

After a rather respectable closing of 2015, the beginning of the new year saw the return of fear as global stocks market tumbled for many days during the month of January.

The sudden steepdown fall of Dow Jones coupled with the famous word "slowdown in China" and the ongoing plummeting oil price sent investors jumping out from Bursa Malaysia faster than DC's comic hero Flash (ha ha, just a joke, brothers and sisters, don't take it as an offence, we need some jokes more often nowadays to de-stress us from our daily stressful lives) and create a selling spree that is tenaciously all the way.

At the time of writing, the Dow Jones has managed to hover at the 16,000 plus minus points, thus helping to improve on the sentiment and also remove some fear feeling among nervous investors.

Otherwise a continuous downtreand of Dow Jones would have a serious effect on the stock markets world wide.

Back at Bursa Malaysia, many good stocks with strong fundamentals backing were suddenly priced cheaper by easily more than 15-20%  compared to the closing price of Dec 31, 2015. Your truly's portfolios of good shares were not spared either, perhaps the only one to withstood the storm was Apollo Food Holdings Berhad.

I think you would know which stocks I am referring to if you reverse back to my previous blog : I WILL FOLLOW YOU.

Anyway, market's up and down is always part and parcel of investing. I have learned to live with this for many years. Even though my paper profits have been reduced by thousands of RM, it will not affect me and I will still continue to live happily and cheerfully as I can.

Life is too short to be seriously affected. If is up, I shall feel extra happy, if it is down, I shall just shrug it off and continue with life as usual.

Will the market recover or have legs to go down again? I don't have the answer for myself or for you. But I know one thing. There will be some good stocks that have retraced from its 52-week's high and poised to report super earnings this month. One of them is ....... as below!

Buying 3,000 shares of

Cycle and Carriage Bintang Berhad (CCB)

at RM3.39 & RM3.40 on Jan 27, 2016

One of them is Cycle and Carriage Bintang or CCB. I came about it through a blogger called SuperMan 99 who shared good details about the company selling the famous Mercedes Benz cars.

You can refer to Superman99's three blogs at klse.I3investor.com.

What I like about CCB is their special dividends payout on several occasion during the past years. And the special dividends are easily more than RM1 each time. This is really called special dividend. Sometimes I find it odd that certain companies also declared special dividends, but the amount is just one of few sen only, yet it is called so.

Anyway as CCB is poised to report stellar earning of easily 50 sen (this is just a conservative figure) this month for Financial Year 2015 ended Dec, and assuming it continues into 2016, that would easily amount to an estimated RM1 earnings (2015 and 2016).

I think by then, a special dividend of RM1 from CCB is quiet imminent to there. Investors who have the strong stomach  to hold on to the stock today until next February stands a good chance to reap this special dividend.

Again this is my personal opinion only. But then again, in investing, one must also dare to have that something called "spot-on" skills to capitalise on it.

Let me refresh you back again as early as in January 2014 when I was commenting about the potential take-over of Integrax Berhad as Tenaga Nasional Berhad was the major user. Refer to : Monday, January 27, 2014, titled : Integrax's Future Potential Kingmaker.

At that time, I did mention the possibility of Tenaga making a privatisation bid for Integrax one future day. Tenaga was the major user of the port and also the major shareholders as well although the second major shareholders, Encik Amin was not far behind. I bought 18,000 shares of Integrax ranging from RM1.75 - RM1.92 (at that time, it was trading near its high) and even when I shared my views, Integrax was trading around the RM2.20-RM2.30 levels.

There was still time for any investors to pick up Integrax at that price and then hold on to the stock for this possibility one day.

So what happened next? Exactly a year later in Jan 2015, the take-over offer from Tenaga came. Initially it was RM2.75 and later revised to RM3.25.

Well, yours truly laughed all the way to the bank when I received the full amount of money when the privatisation went through somewhere in the third quarter of 2015.

See, spot-on could be very rewarding. Here, I did see something like this in the case of CCB. Are you listening? Are you following ..... me?

I Will Follow You  

Someone by the surname Tan has emailed me on Jan 26, 2016 and said he would follow me! Well, thanks Tan. If you follow me seriously, you would find that in this case the "leader" myself is the one who will take the risks first by buying the targeted shares in the first place.

If the investment doesn't work out, the leader will be the first to suffer paper loss or even cash loss if the leader decides to cut loss.

Anyway there is always the no risk no gain mantra when it comes to investing. The difference is perhaps a better understanding of what you invest rather than hear from the uncles and aunties' tips.

Much as we are mostly shocked by this fiery Monkey, we must be thankful that life is still a peaceful and wonderful one for most of us besides involving in the shares investment world.

On this occasion, I would like to wish all my Chinese friends a very Happy & Prosperous Chinese New Year.

Ong! Huat! Fat Chai!

Kor Peow Tua Ki!!!!!

(In Hokkien, let the stocks go up a lot!)