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hi CY09,

personally i tend also not to keep a war chest,

1) we don't know when crisis would come

2) even if it does come, do we have the guts to use this war chest to buy up distressed stuff when there's blood everywhere. the old saying pple keep repeating ie buy when there's fear, but how may actually can put action to these words?

3) holding money will lose 3% pa on average to inflation

when i started, i used to look at the market and try to buy the best bargains at the best prices, but i began to realise how stressful this can be, and at the end of the day, no one can really know when is the best time to buy or sell.

bearing the above points in mind, nowadays, i prefer to enjoy life and try to dissociate my emotions from the market. whatever market throws at me, i do not know, i just keep reinvesting my dividends to get more. so far this strategy works for me and it interferes the least with my life, to the extent some of my friends call me the most "bo chap investor".

today, i gain 20k in paper, ok. last week, i lost 50k in paper..ok also..and the list goes on....

I feel that many of us have different views on cash. Cash is often called idle cash which I think it is quite unfair to called it IDLE.....Warren Buffet has his 'idle' cash hoard of US20b or so and Jeremy Granthams talked about cash as an opportunity fund.

Cash is like the reserve in the army, like a Joker in a pack of cards.....

In the midst of a battle, throwing in the reserve in the right direction might change the tide of the battle and win the war. In a game of cards, the Joker is kept till the right time to use it. One does not use most of their reserves at the start of the war or their Joker card at the start of the game. When you throw most of your reserve at the start of the war, you might win the initial battles but ultimately lose the war......

One important thing here is how you read the current situation. Is it a good time to throw your reserve or a time to build up your reserve?

Is china and Europe going to be ok?

Well it is everyone guess ^^

http://investideas.net/forum/viewtopic.p...re#p170523

I am always fully vested. I do keep 1-2 years emergency fund which is not for investment.

IMO, both strategies are valid. Mr. Buffett keeps cash research, while Peter Lynch didn't. The right choice depends on your investment temperament. Keeping cash research is a mean, not the end. The end result depends on your reactions to crisis.

I have chosen the strategy of be fully vested

(09-09-2014, 10:44 PM)CY09 Wrote: [ -> ]Hi all,

I have a question on how to calculate the returns of a portfoilo over a year. Lets say in the attached excel these are the hypothetical results in each quarter. How does one calculate the annual returns? Do provide me the workings as I need it for future reference, if possible. Thanks in advance

I think time weight return is the best measurement.
It considers additional capital added

I use weighted investment as well. Meaning to say, if I hold shares worth $10k over a period over only 3 mths, the actual amt I use to calculate returns would be $2.5k.

(28-09-2014, 09:55 AM)LocalOptimal Wrote: [ -> ]I use weighted investment as well. Meaning to say, if I hold shares worth $10k over a period over only 3 mths, the actual amt I use to calculate returns would be $2.5k.

time weight?
HPR1*HPR2*HPR3

everytime you add capital or withdraw capital within the year, there will be a new HPR (Holding period return)

(27-09-2014, 08:32 PM)CityFarmer Wrote: [ -> ]I am always fully vested. I do keep 1-2 years emergency fund which is not for investment.

IMO, both strategies are valid. Mr. Buffett keeps cash research, while Peter Lynch didn't. The right choice depends on your investment temperament. Keeping cash research is a mean, not the end. The end result depends on your reactions to crisis.

I have chosen the strategy of be fully vested

I think another determinant is whether or not one is still working and the size of one's regular savings relative to one's portfolio. If the former is large relative to the latter, than one can make a strong case for always being fully invested as there will always be cash available to invest into any market pull back. Essentially, you and your earnings / savings become the bond component of your diversified portfolio.

Ideally I would like to invest my excess funds in equities, but when we are entering a mature stage of a bull market, hunting value stocks becomes very tough. My investment objective is not purely focus on value stocks, but undervalued value stocks. So now it is probably not a good time to pump large cash into the market, and thus I choose a conservative way like bonds and high yield savings.

Just an update. As of today, my holdings are:

Sing Holdings (18.8%)
Penguin (33.4%)
KSH (27%)
Fischer (15.1%)
TTJ (5.3%)

Just a bit of history on how my portfolio has evolved:

In 2012, I began to adopt value investing and relied purely on financial numbers as an investment parameter. During this time, my top 3 holdings were China Minzhong, Foreland and Sky China Petreoleum (now known as Universal Resources). Some of my other holdings included: Qingmei, China Taisan, China Eratat and Anchun Holdings! ( I can sense some alarm bell ringing among members).

It was during my Korea exchange where I understood more what value investing is and its application in the Sg environment. Realizing my folly, I re-hauled my portfolio in Jan 2013. The irony was that my 2012 return amounted to 21% (on Hindsight it could have been better had I invested in quality stocks as Bernanke then was announcing QE unlimited. During that period all stocks (good or bad) were just moving up). Laughably, one of the wisest thing I did that year was to sell Qingmei and reinvested the proceeds in "Foreland" in 2H2012! If I had held on to my foreland investments today, it would now be a 50% loss

As many members will know, I am now a skeptic of cash reported in S-chips. However, as my history has shown, I was once a blind believer in their cash. Fortunately, I have dodged many bullets to be where I am today. Hope people will understand this and do their diligence when investing in S-chips. Not all is lost in this universe though, in my view there are a few companies who are likely to be "real"-- Cmpacific, CMZ, CAO, YZJ, Cosco are some examples.

This thread is not an advice to invest in S-chips but just for me to jolt down my history.

An update after the "bloodbath" opportunity:

Sing Holdings (14.9%)
Penguin (47.6%)
KSH (26.2%)
Fischer (6.2%)
TTJ (5.1%)

As you can see some capital reallocation and fresh cash were deposited into Penguin. I am particularly optimistic of Penguin and my expected EPS is approx 5.2 cents and the business should generate Free cash flow of 4.6 cents. Penguin is relatively covered in this forum so I shall not delve further.

All in all, I believe the market is wrong in its valuation of penguin and thus I have gone contrarian against Mr. Market. Hope I am right once again