Value Investor: when to buy

[Janjansen]

If everyone is waiting for crashes like 2009, 2009 alike crashes will not arrive.
2009 crash arrived simply because no one in 2007 thought there would be a 2009 crash.

STI index is still nowhere in the region achieved in 2007.

Will the crash come? definitely. How long? I am not sure. Maybe next year. Maybe ten years later.

Actually I think the general mood is pretty upbeat right now, most analysts are predicting the major benchmark indices to closer higher by year end. I do not think people are anticipating or waiting for a crash. There is a lot of liquidity in the market and people are deploying it in properties, bonds and equities at fairly low yields e.g. for property, rental yields are pretty low at 3-4%, most bonds and preference shares are trading at a premium and have compressed effective yields. When you have HDBs being sold for $1m dollars, it suggests the mood is buoyant. For bonds, I happen to work in the financial sector and it is sometimes shocking that investors are willing to accept a 5% yield for non-investment grade junk / bonds, and it still gets oversubscribed! If times are bad, investors would not invest money that freely.

I am not implying or even trying to predict when a crash might come, but based on my observations, the market is frothy. Personally, I am also itching to buy and some days it is a battle to resist that temptation.