Do you have any No-Brainer Investment?
“The price you pay determines your rate of return” Benjamin Graham
The problem with a No-Brainer Investment (NBI) is that most people won’t agree with you. That is also the reason why it is a No-Brainer in the first place. You must be comfortable and confident about it.
When Insas Preference Share PA, face value RM1.00 with coupon, or interest rate of 4%, was first listed a couple of months ago, its price went down to below 80 sen. At 80 sen, the cash yield (interest/price) was 5%. That fixed cash yield is more than 25% of what you can get from fixed deposit from banks. Insas PA can also be used as a RM1 cash for conversion of Insas warrant to Insas mother share, at your option within the next 5 years. Moreover, Insas share itself is already way undervalued. Please read all the analysis on Insas, its warrant and preference share in the link below:
http://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/kcchongnz/74746.jsp
For me, buying Insas PA at 80 sen at a cash yield of 5%, or a potential cash return of 30% with little risk if it is viable for you to use PA as RM1 cash to convert the warrant to Insas share, say within a year, is a NBI. There is plenty of margin of safety. A NBI just jumps out at you. You don’t need to do much math. This is just an example and that is already history. We must look forward; how we can make good return with little risk in the future when investing.
Move over Earnings, make way for Cash
Most investors use, if they ever use at all, the price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) to measure the value of a company. Even almost all investment bankers and analysts do the same. By dividing the market price by earnings, you can get an easy-to-understand measure of a firm's value and a simple way to compare different companies to each other. Flip the ratio over, you get E/P, or what is termed earnings yield. This you can use to compare with the return of alternative investments such as bank interest rate.
But there are hell lots of problems with the “E”, the accounting earnings. As you all know, accountants are some of the most creative people on earth. This “E” can mean anything. The link below explains some of the problems with this “E”, and the associated P/E ratio.
http://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/kcchongnz/63417.jsp
In the example above on Insas PA, what you will receive is hard cash, not the obscure earnings. Similarly for investing in a company, we want to see cash as businessmen do, specifically free cash flow as explained in the link below:
http://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/kcchongnz/76588.jsp
A NBI is one which provides you with a cash yield of double, triple, or more the cash you can get from a bank fixed deposit interest, in a consistent manner.
What is Free Cash Flow Yield or Cash Yield?
Like interest rate, cash yield (CY) for investing in a stock is simply
CY = Free cash flow (FCF) / Price,
Price is the market capitalization (MC) of a company, P = share price * no. of shares outstanding
What is free cash flow then?
Cash flow from operations and free cash flow
In my last article, almost all comments given talked about “Cash” as cash in the balance sheet, despite my lengthy article explaining about cash flow; cash flow from operations and free cash flow. Well can’t blame them as their remisiers, investment bankers and professional analysts don’t tell them what those stuff are. In actual fact, this stuff is not difficult at all if you pay some serious attentions to it.
Cash flow from operations (CFFO) is the money, hard cash, a company brings in from ongoing, regular business activities, such as manufacturing, construction and selling goods or providing a service in a particular period. It is calculated from the difference of cash received from customers and cash paid to suppliers, and then deducting tax to the government. It doesn’t include the cash received from interest income, dividend or any cash received from other investments. Net CFFO is obtained after paying interest to lenders, and this is the net CFFO attributed to the shareholders of the company.
Free cash flow (FCF) is what is left from CFFO after spending capital expenses (Capex) for maintaining the ongoing business, or expenses for growth of the ordinary business such as building new or upgrading the production lines, open up more similar shops for business etc.
FCF = CFFO – Net Capex
It is this FCF that company uses to distribute dividends to shareholders, to invest in other profitable ventures and produces more cash for the company, pay down debts and hence save money from paying loan interest, or buy back shares when they are selling cheap and increase the cash attributed to shareholders with less shares outstanding, without resorting to borrow more money from banks and as a result making the company risky in times of economic downturns, or issuing more shares and hence diluting the value per share of the company. Profit, profit growth do none of these things without receiving the hard cash.
The FCF year-to-year is normally lumpy for most companies except for those stable and matured businesses because things like working capital requirement and capital expenses are not consistent and they vary a lot year to year. So use the average of a few years’ FCF as the numerator to be more representative. We generally prefer to see the trend of FCF to be growing in the long-term.
“Don’t worry about precision math; focus on precision strategy”
So now CY (FCF/MC) is comparable to the earnings yield (Profit/MC) above, except that it is a much better ratio as it focus on hard cash, not the obscure accounting earnings. Companies that have a wide moat and trade at a CY higher than fixed income return are generally good potential as investments.
Investing in stocks with high cash yield in Bursa
Invest in companies when they are selling cheap is actually intuitive, especially when you measure it in hard cash term, i.e. the cash yield. I actually have not specifically used this strategy in Bursa although I discussed about it often. However, we can just do an academic exercise and see if this could be a viable investment strategy using my longest portfolio of stocks set up more than 2 years ago.
“Posted by truthseeker1 > May 14, 2015 08:45 PM | Report Abuse
As usual bias is prevalent in his blogs. Why only his counters got cash?”
This type of comment above will surface again. But this is my portfolio I know of well, and there are public record in i3investor. I can extract data easier from my spreadsheets. Otherwise which portfolio of stocks to use? Who is going to obtain the data for it? Let us just be patient and use my portfolio of stocks as a learning exercise. Ok?
Portfolio set up on 21st January 2013
Table 1 in the appendix shows the portfolio of 10 stocks set up on 21st January 2013 and their returns as on 30th April 2015. It was published by another forum member, Tan KW in i3investor. The prices are adjusted for all corporate exercises and dividend payments as obtained from Yahoo Finance website.
http://klse.i3investor.com/servlets/pfs/13147.jsp
All 10 stocks in the portfolio except Kimlun (-1.2%), have positive total returns which vary from the lowest of 9.7% for Pantech to 421% for Prestariang for the last two years and three months. The average return is 113% with a median return of 74%, compared to 16.4% of the broad market during the same period. The excess return is a whopping 97%. RM100k invested in this portfolio on 21st January 2013 becomes RMRM213k now, compared to RM116k if invested in the top 30 stocks in Bursa.
7 out of the 10 stocks which outperformed the market were with cash yield varying from 4.5% for NTPM to 17.8% for ECS ICT. These CY were computed using average FCF over a 2 to 5 years period, depending on the data available. They are much higher than the bank interest rate of about 3% then. There are only 2 underperformer, Pantech at 9.7%, and Kimlun at -1.2%, and the underperformance of these 2 stocks were just marginal. Coincidently both the stocks were with negative FCF, and CY were negative then as shown in Table 1 in the Appendix. Pantech and Kimlun were traded at low PE ratio of 10 and 8 respectively. The only stock, Kfima with a very high CY of 14% didn’t outperform as expected.
Based on CY, we could generally conclude that high CY companies, i.e. buying companies cheap in term of cash return, is a No-Brain Investment (NBI).
No, a NBI is definitely not what they do here:
http://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/jason_zweig/76691.jsp
Conclusions
"Investment is most intelligent when it is most business-like". Said Warren Buffet
Business owners don’t make money with “profits”. Business can’t grow with obscure “profit” without FCF. Success in a business, growth, stability in business all come down to one simple thing: Cash.
This portfolio of stocks described in this article clearly shows that cash, or FCF, and not earnings, is king. Note this opportunity has past. We should focus in the future.
You know in the past those who shared and discussed their investing ideas with in i3investor in productive ways had produced some fantastic results as shown in the appended links here:
http://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/kcchongnz/75962.jsp
http://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/kcchongnz/75946.jsp
I got many excellent investment ideas from the above. So this time do you have any No-Brainer Investment to share here? Or you can email me for opinion, preferably with calculations on CY at
ckc14invest@gmail.com
K C Chong (17/5/15)
Appendix
Table 1: My Portfolio set up on 21st January 2013
Created by kcchongnz | Jan 22, 2024
Which to buy, Insas or Insas WC?
Created by kcchongnz | Jan 15, 2024
Created by kcchongnz | Jan 01, 2024
Created by kcchongnz | Dec 25, 2023
Created by kcchongnz | Oct 02, 2022
Hi Mr. KC, thanks for your good article. May i know how to calculate the net capex? Please share with us your formula.
Thank you very much in advance. :)
2015-05-17 12:41
Posted by bluefun > May 17, 2015 12:41 PM | Report Abuse
Hi Mr. KC, thanks for your good article. May i know how to calculate the net capex? Please share with us your formula.
Net capex = purchase of PPE - disposal of PPE
2015-05-17 13:01
Posted by anticonman > May 17, 2015 10:06 AM | Report Abuse
kcchong please read below article. Do you have the qualification for people to follow you? This forum does not belong to you only.
http://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/kianweiaritcles/76689.jsp
Are you from Bank Negara or SC wanting to check my FAR or CMSRL licenses? Or from the education department who wants to check my CFP, postgraduate degree in business administration, and Master in Finance Certificate?
Well I can tell you the above are not much use in real life investing.
Or do you want to find out the above so that you can consult me? Well I don't think you can afford it.
Do I ask people to follow me? Or I ask people to give me tips instead as in the post so that I can follow them?
This forum doesn't belong to me? Of course not! When did I say it belongs to me? Or does it belong to you?
Well do you have anything wrong to point out from my posts? I would love that as I learn a lot in that way along the years.
2015-05-17 14:03
anticonman,
you got nothing to contribute but why are you feeling so uneasy to see other people sharing their idea of valuation of stock.
what's wrong with mr kccchong sharing his view using CY to invest, I myself feel it is very viable and good metric , a wonderful idea.
honestly speaking , I do not join Mr KCChong online course, I DO NOT pay Mr KCChong a sen, not a single sen, but these 2 years , I made a few lorries of cash using his recommended valuation techniques.
please know his techniques well before you open your dirty mouth
please do not use any qualification to judge a people work, there are so many so called professional expert, they talk so much that we doubt whether they themselves know what they are talking about or not.
share market works in different way, NOT with the qualification you sure win big
2015-05-17 14:47
Posted by apini > May 17, 2015 02:51 PM | Report Abuse
Mr KCChong,
I will add CY> 4% into my selection criteria.
thank a lot
Apini, Good judgment
2015-05-17 15:59
KC, would fcf/ev be a better metric ? Since free cashflow is derived from cashflow from operations, we should deduct the excess cash as it doesnt earn anything.
2015-05-17 16:07
lol share good thing also kena attack ka?
thx a lot kcchong. excellent info
2015-05-17 16:09
Posted by NOBY > May 17, 2015 04:07 PM | Report Abuse
KC, would fcf/ev be a better metric ? Since free cashflow is derived from cashflow from operations, we should deduct the excess cash as it doesnt earn anything.
If you look at most cash flow statements to obtain net CFFO, interest earned has been taken off from it (a few may not), and hence the net CFFO and hence FCF belongs to common shareholder only. So the denominator in the cash yield formula must be consistent, i.e. it should be market cap, rather than EV.
You can of course convert that net CFFO belonged to common shareholders to the CFFO for the firm, then you use EV as the denominator to be consistent. But conversion of net CFFO to CFFO for the firm involves some tricks as you know, it would be a little complex for normal investor. Do not forget that EV calculation can also confuse them.
So keep it simple, CY as computed in the article, in my opinion, is good enough, and it is easy to compute. That is more important.
For us, of course we can do it both ways.
2015-05-17 16:18
Thanks KC. Yes you are right. I just write it down here to remind myself
FCFF = CFFO + [Int expense x (1-tax rate)] - Capex
2015-05-17 17:02
why not?
you got idea, they got technology
but they will ask kcchong to evaluate your idea before they decide to do
but most likely kcchong is not interested so no hope
conclusion: you do it yourself and share it here
2015-05-18 11:31
Nobody wishes to share any NBI here?
Let me start with one, Homeritz.
Below shows the FCf for the last 5 years
Year ended 31/3/11 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010
CFFO 29637 18647 20071 4395 16785
Capex -1766 -982 -1146 -8090 -1953
FCF 27871 17665 18925 -3695 14832
FCF/Revenue 21.9% 15.6% 18.3% -4% 13%
CFFO/NI 122% 104% 120% 40% 84%
The average FCF for the last three years is 21.5m, with the last year FCF at 27.9m. We take the average of last three years' FCF.
At RM1.21 closed last week, and no. of shares 200m, CY = 21.5/200=8.9%. This CY is twice you can get from bank FD. Moreover, it has clean balance sheet with a lot of cash in the balance sheet and with zero debt. It also has high cash return on invested capital CROIC of 50% lat year. Looks like a NBI to me.
Price 1.21
No. of shares 200000
Market cap 242000
Av FCF 21487
CY 8.9%
2015-05-18 18:59
How about Magni-Tech?
Below shows the FCF for the last 3 years
Year ended 31/3/11 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010
CFFO 43169 29235 36197
Capex -6408 -4322 -4273
FCF 36761 24913 31924
FCF/Revenue 5.6% 4.4% 6.0%
CFFO/NI 103% 82% 118%
The average FCF for the last three years is 31.2m with the last year FCF at 36.76m. We take the average of last three years' FCF.
At RM3.40 closed today, and no. of shares 108.5m, CY = 31.2/108.5*3.40=8.46%. This CY is twice you can get from bank FD. Moreover, it has clean balance sheet with a lot of cash in the balance sheet and with zero debt. Looks like a NBI to me.
Price 3.40
No. of shares 108488
Market cap 368859
Av FCF 31199
CY 8.46%
2015-05-18 23:50
Let me try with MFCB
Below shows the FCF for the last 3 years
Year ended 2014 2013 2012
CFFO 157,447.00 122,604.00 114,556
Capex -78955 -68281 -23217
FCF 78492 54323 91339
FCF/Revenue 11.7% 8.6% 14.4%
CFFO/NI 225% 166% 198%
The average FCF for the last three years is 74.7m, with the last year FCF at 78.49m. We take the average of last three years' FCF.
At RM2.40 closed today, and no. of shares 242.5m, CY = 74.7/242.5*2.40=12.84%. This CY is thrice you can get from bank FD. Moreover, it has clean balance sheet with a lot of cash in the balance sheet and with little debt. Looks like a NBI to me.
Price 2.40
No. of shares 242455
Market cap 581892
Av FCF 74718
CY 12.84%
2015-05-19 11:16
Posted by coolio > May 18, 2015 11:50 PM | Report Abuse
How about Magni-Tech?
Below shows the FCF for the last 3 years
Year ended 31/3/11 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010
CFFO 43169 29235 36197
Capex -6408 -4322 -4273
FCF 36761 24913 31924
FCF/Revenue 5.6% 4.4% 6.0%
CFFO/NI 103% 82% 118%
The average FCF for the last three years is 31.2m with the last year FCF at 36.76m. We take the average of last three years' FCF.
At RM3.40 closed today, and no. of shares 108.5m, CY = 31.2/108.5*3.40=8.46%. This CY is twice you can get from bank FD. Moreover, it has clean balance sheet with a lot of cash in the balance sheet and with zero debt. Looks like a NBI to me.
Price 3.40
No. of shares 108488
Market cap 368859
Av FCF 31199
CY 8.46%
coolio,
Remember we talked about Magni-tech here a year ago:
http://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/kcchongnz/51356.jsp
Magni's share price was just RM2.69. Its FCF in 2013 was 23m. With the no. of shares at 108m, its CY was 12.3%! At that time, it was a NBI. One year later now, it is RM3.41, or a gain of 27% against almost a flat KLCI.
Now although its share price has risen its FCF also has improved a lot to RM36.8m. At the present price and the average 3-years FCF, your computation of CY of 8.5% is still very high.
Yes, I think it is still a NBI.
2015-05-19 11:54
coolio,
Remember we talked about Magni-tech here a year ago:
http://klse.i3investor.com/blogs/kcchongnz/51356.jsp
Magni's share price was just RM2.69. Its FCF in 2013 was 23m. With the no. of shares at 108m, its CY was 12.3%! At that time, it was a NBI. One year later now, it is RM3.41, or a gain of 27% against almost a flat KLCI.
Now although its share price has risen its FCF also has improved a lot to RM36.8m. At the present price and the average 3-years FCF, your computation of CY of 8.5% is still very high.
Yes, I think it is still a NBI.
KC,
Yes, still fresh in my mind. Glad that Im still holding Magni. I believe good to have Magni in my long term portfolio
2015-05-19 16:47
coolio,
MFCB was one of the stocks in my portfolio set up on 1st August 2013, less than 2 years ago.
http://klse.i3investor.com/servlets/pfs/19386.jsp
At RM1.71, or market cap of RM414.5m then, and FCF of 2012 at 103m, the CY was 25%. With that CY, how could it go wrong? How can it not be a NBI?
MFCB's share price has risen to RM2.42, or a gain of 42% in less than 2 years, against the rise of KLCI of about 10% during the same period.
Now although its share price has risen, its FCF has dropped to RM55m. At the present price CY is 12.8% as computed by you is still very high.
Yes, I think it is still a NBI.
2015-05-19 21:39
Mr Kcchong,
Can you please kindly do one on GADANG.it might be a super nbi.
Thank you
2015-05-20 03:10
Posted by bintang21 > May 20, 2015 03:10 AM | Report Abuse
Mr Kcchong,
Can you please kindly do one on GADANG.it might be a super nbi.
Thank you
If you read the article, a NBI should be a company with consistent FCF and CY of double, triple or more than bank fixed deposit rate.
Gadang has negative FCF the most recent year, so it may appear that it is not a NBI.
But cash flow is volatile every year for most companies, you may like to see the average FCF for a few years.
Just looking at the last two years, Gadang may be good in terms of cash flow with CY of 10%, and you shouldn't rule it out as a good investment if other metrics are good.
xxxx 2015 2014 Average
CFFO -39140 116361 xxxxx
Capex -8380 -5472 xxxxx
FCF -47520 110889 31685
Price 1.63
shares 196691
MC 320606
CY 10%
2015-05-20 06:15
Kc, I found it hard to determine fcf year by year. Simply capexhard to calculate. Can share how to calculate free cash flow, how capes calculated
2015-05-20 06:49
Posted by paperplane2 > May 20, 2015 06:49 AM | Report Abuse
Kc, I found it hard to determine fcf year by year. Simply capexhard to calculate. Can share how to calculate free cash flow, how capes calculated
FCF = Net CFFO - net capital expenses
Net CFFO is obtained as the last line in the "Cash flow from operating activities"
For capex, look at "purchase of property plant and equipment", and less off the disposal of PPE, that is the net capex. This can be obtained from the "Cash flow from investing activities"
For some companies, other stuff like biological assets for plantation companies are also capex, development costs for property companies are also their capex.
2015-05-20 07:59
but capex vary year by year, don't you think hard to determine a stable amount?
2015-05-20 09:13
Mr Kcchong,
I appreciate you effort in making thing clear and simple for us to learn. thank you very much
regard the calculation free cash flow isn't it sufficient to reflect the company cash position by just subtracting the net cash from investment from the net cash from operation?
I also have the feeling Quick ratio is also a good metric to measure a company cash flow
thank a lot your willingness to share your knowledge
2015-05-20 09:40
Posted by bintang21 > May 20, 2015 09:40 AM | Report Abuse
Mr Kcchong,
I appreciate you effort in making thing clear and simple for us to learn. thank you very much
regard the calculation free cash flow isn't it sufficient to reflect the company cash position by just subtracting the net cash from investment from the net cash from operation?
I also have the feeling Quick ratio is also a good metric to measure a company cash flow
Some people do that by subtracting CFFO from CFFI. It is not wrong. However, cash flow is about the ordinary or core business of the company, whereas CFFI often contains investment not in the core business. So may not be appropriate.
quick ratio measures the ability of the company to pay short-term debt, after ignoring inventories. It has nothing to do with the cash flow of the company.
2015-05-20 10:24
Posted by paperplane2 > May 20, 2015 09:13 AM | Report Abuse
but capex vary year by year, don't you think hard to determine a stable amount?
So look at the FCF for a number of years, for example 5 years. Take for example, if the average FCF for the last 5 years is 100m, and there is a clear trend of increasing FCF, and if the market cap is RM1b now. Then av FCF/MC = 10%
This sound like a NBI for me.
2015-05-20 11:06
Hi KC,
could you pls share what is means by NBI? what are the favorable % for high, mid, low?
2016-03-17 22:54
Look at the FCF over a few years, and if they are consistent, better still increasing, use the average and divide by present market cap.
If it is 5% or above, good, because higher than fixed deposit rate. if >10%, fantastic.
If >15%, buy by lorry loads.
2016-03-17 22:58
Hi kc, thanks for your guidance on NBI....
can u help and guide me about Karex and FLBhd?> thanks a million
2016-03-17 23:03
Posted by jeremiah1983 > Mar 17, 2016 11:03 PM | Report Abuse
Hi kc, thanks for your guidance on NBI....
can u help and guide me about Karex and FLBhd?> thanks a million
I used to do this last time in i3investor a lot. However, it is very time consuming. If you want, you can learn this thing from my online investment course for a small fee and then you can actually do this on any stock all by your own.
It is good to learn how to fish rather than grabbing any fish thrown at you. I am sure many people like you would have bad experience recently with all the peddling of stocks, especially those export stocks which had gone up in price hugely before retreating by 30% recently.
2016-03-17 23:27
I had tried though but certain numbers seems difficult to obtain/ dunno how to get it.
2016-03-17 23:29
kcchongnz : Nobody wishes to share any NBI here?
Let me start with one, Homeritz.
Below shows the FCf for the last 5 years
Year ended 31/3/11 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010
CFFO 29637 18647 20071 4395 16785
Capex -1766 -982 -1146 -8090 -1953
FCF 27871 17665 18925 -3695 14832
FCF/Revenue 21.9% 15.6% 18.3% -4% 13%
CFFO/NI 122% 104% 120% 40% 84%
The average FCF for the last three years is 21.5m, with the last year FCF at 27.9m. We take the average of last three years' FCF.
At RM1.21 closed last week, and no. of shares 200m, CY = 21.5/200=8.9%. This CY is twice you can get from bank FD. Moreover, it has clean balance sheet with a lot of cash in the balance sheet and with zero debt. It also has high cash return on invested capital CROIC of 50% lat year. Looks like a NBI to me.
KC : What does NI mean here? is it Net income? pls help. thanks
2016-03-18 07:41
Yes, NI is net income
Posted by jeremiah1983 > Mar 18, 2016 07:41 AM | Report Abuse
kcchongnz : Nobody wishes to share any NBI here?
Let me start with one, Homeritz.
Below shows the FCf for the last 5 years
Year ended 31/3/11 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010
CFFO 29637 18647 20071 4395 16785
Capex -1766 -982 -1146 -8090 -1953
FCF 27871 17665 18925 -3695 14832
FCF/Revenue 21.9% 15.6% 18.3% -4% 13%
CFFO/NI 122% 104% 120% 40% 84%
The average FCF for the last three years is 21.5m, with the last year FCF at 27.9m. We take the average of last three years' FCF.
At RM1.21 closed last week, and no. of shares 200m, CY = 21.5/200=8.9%. This CY is twice you can get from bank FD. Moreover, it has clean balance sheet with a lot of cash in the balance sheet and with zero debt. It also has high cash return on invested capital CROIC of 50% lat year. Looks like a NBI to me.
KC : What does NI mean here? is it Net income? pls help. thanks
2016-03-18 07:50
From where do u extract the data of CFFO from? is it from the quarterly results or from annual reports?
2016-03-18 07:52
Also, i observed that the examples of Homeritz and Magni given above, the CFFO is very different from the ones i obtained from the annula report.... May i know how do u derive the CFFO? can i take the real CFFO from the annual report to calculate CY? pls advice. thanks
2016-03-18 08:06
Posted by jeremiah1983 > Mar 18, 2016 08:06 AM | Report Abuse
Also, i observed that the examples of Homeritz and Magni given above, the CFFO is very different from the ones i obtained from the annula report.... May i know how do u derive the CFFO? can i take the real CFFO from the annual report to calculate CY? pls advice. thanks
FCF = CFFO – Net Capex
CY = Free cash flow (FCF) / Price,
2016-03-18 08:41
anticonman
Post removed.Why?
2015-05-17 10:06