To The Moon

Wing Tai is a property stock listed on SGX with a listed subsidiary on HKEX.Investment ThesisWing Tai is a property Group with about an equal amount of assets in the Property Development and Property Investment segments. About 50 % of the assets are in Singapore and 35 % are in Hong Kong. The diversity has provided the Group with some protection against any slowdown in the property market.While its performance had declined from the 2013/14 peak, the Group seemed to have arrested this decline. I do not expect losses going forward. Wing Tai is currently trading at a significant discount to its Book Value and EPV. There is a sufficient margin of safety to invest in Wing Tai. RationaleWing Tai is a Property Group. An equal a

One of the challenges when valuing companies is projecting the future performance. My trick to do this is to assumed that the future = the past. Based on my understanding of the company and sector, I then judge whether the future is the same, better or worse. I then use the past 10 years performance to value the business. If I get a margin of safety based on this, I would consider it very safe if I had judged that the future is either the same or better than the past. Of course if there is no margin of safety, I look for another company. If you found the above useful, I have other such hacks in my 500 pages value investing e-book, “Do You really want to master value investing”. I am looking for feedback/review on the book. I am prepared to provide a pdf version free in return for the fee

Aptar (NYSE: ATR) creates dosing, dispensing and packaging products for the global beauty and phara sectors. Over the past 10 years, its revenue grew at revenue grew at 3.7% CAGR while PAT grew at 5.2% CAGR. You would think that with top line and bottom line growth, this would be a good performance. However, it ROE its 2023 was about the same as that in 2012. This standstill return was because there was declining operating and capital efficiency. As an investor, your focus is on profitability. The market is not going to re-rate the company is the growth is because it is using disproportionately more assets and capital to grow revenue and earnings. Moral of the story? Do let companies distract you with the wrong metrics. Is Aptar then a terrible investment? Find out more on page 20 of IN

Ternium is a South American steel company. Although it has some mining operations, these serve mainly in-house and are a small component relative to the steel output. It achieved revenue and profit growth through organic growth and acquisitions over the past 11 years. It has a strong financial position and a good capital allocation plan, creating value for shareholders. A Valuation based on the steel price cycle shows a sufficient margin of safety, making it an investment opportunity. If you are already invested in steel companies, this might be a good geographical diversification

Silgan (SLGN) is a leading manufacturer of sustainable rigid packaging solutions for the world. Its revenue and earnings have grown through acquisitions and price growth, rather than organic growth or volume growth. It has a high debt-equity ratio and no signs of strong fundamentals as there were no uptrends in ROE and operating parameters. There is no margin of safety at the current high product selling prices. With an unsustainable Reinvestment rate, it is not an investment opportunity. I screen for US stocks frequently but not all are investment opportunities like SLGN.

Boise Cascade or BCC is one of the largest producers of engineered wood products and plywood in North America. Its growth in PAT over the past decade was driven mostly by the past 2 years' outlier product prices, which have since declined. The company is fundamentally sound with strong financials. BCC is a cyclical company heavily influenced by the housing sector, and valuations based on probability-weighting the outlier prices show no margin of safety.

Ever since coming across an article suggesting that the packaging sector would benefit from the growth of online retailing, I have been hunting for packing companies. My search went beyond Bursa and included US. Why the US? In 2023, the total return (dividend + capital gain) for the Bursa KLCI was about 3%. The S&P 500 achieved 26%. Even accounting for forex losses, you can see why the US is better. But this does not mean buying blindly. You still need to do fundamental analysis. Take the example of Avery. This is NYSE a global materials science and digital identification solutions company. Despite its acquisitions, its revenue only grew at 4.4% CAGR over the past 10 years. While ROE and net margins have been trending up, there were no improvements in other operating parameters, I t

I have a simple framework to classify each stocks. After I have done a fundamental analysis and valuation, I see which cell it falls into based on the matrix shown below. The cells are formed by the combination of margin of safety on the horizontal axis and business fundamentals on the vertical axis. Conceptually Cell A – best investment opportunity Cell B – this could be Warren Buffet “wonderful company at fair price” Cell C – Ben Graham “cigar-butt” investment Cell D – avoid

The top 3 countries in the world in terms of population are China, India and USA. But when it comes to the stock market performance, the number of people doesn’t count. From the end of 2010 to 2023, the CAGR for their stock market indices were S&P 500 (US) – 10.8 % Nifty 50 (India) – 10.2 % SSE (China) – 0.4 % KLCI (Malaysia) – negative 0.3 % You can see that the US stock market had one of the better growth rates. The common cited reasons for this are because it has better Global market integration Liquidity Political Stability and Regulatory Environment Market Maturity and Investor Sophistication. Financial Infrastructure If you want the market to re-rate your stocks faster, shouldn’t you focus on stock in those countries with better track record of returns? You may argue that th

Aptar is a US packaging company that is global leader in drug delivery, consumer product dispensing, and active material science solutions. It achieved revenue and profit growth over the past 11 years, but its ROE in 2022 was what it was in 2012. This was because its operating efficiencies have been declining This is not an investment opportunity

In his book, “The Success Equation”, Mauboussin opined that a lot of activities fall along a spectrum with pure luck one end and pure skill on the other end. Chess is an example of an activity that depends on pure skill to win. The lottery is an example of an activity on the other end of the spectrum that requires pure luck to win. Most activities fall in between these two ends. He puts investing nearer the pure luck side What does this mean for the investor? If you invest blindly, you are depending on pure luck. Those with the investing skills will do better than those who invest blindly. Conceptually you want to be the casino owner with the better odds on your side rather than the casino guests. You can achieve this by developing your investing skills. The best way to develop your inve