EPS fall is slowing down, but still falling.
- Peak EPS in 2015 at 312 sen.
- 2 years later (2017), halved at 169 sen.
- 3 years later (2020), halved again at 83 sen.
My guess is 5 years later (2025), halved again at 40-45 sen. That would value the company at a P/E of 15 at around RM6-7.

As a single Vuse is roughly equal to a dozen cig packs, BAT revenue will still contract for many years to come, and with it, its EPS. Until its Revenues and EPS stabilizes (which can take many years) and turn around, this stock is not ripe for investing yet. This may only happen after 2030 or so ... wait for its next few annual reports.

52 week range 1.21 to 1.35. Doesn't move much. Literally like a super FD. When price is at the lower third (between 1.21 to 1.25), just add to rebalance one's portfolio as one's portfolio grows. I first entered at 1.30 (a little bit high), but have been adding at lower prices and my average cost is now 1.24.

Today it just went ex-div. That brought it down to 1.28. Typically, after that, it may drift slightly lower. Around 1.25, I will add some again to rebalance my portfolio to make sure I have stocks like these at an appropriate size. They are like stabilizers.

Steady dividend payor.

This nice and solid stock edges up, enough to make my portfolio to hit new all time high again! Changed my mind - originally intending to take some profits near RM3 resistance, but along the way when it was 2.8 to 2.87, I added a little bit to raise my average cost from 2.5x to 2.62. This nice counter is in my Top 20% buy size.

My current outlook is to expect 23 sen dividend (say 21-25 sen), assuming 60% dividend payout ratio. At 3.02, this is 7.6% dividend yield which is nice and solid. No plans to take profits yet.

Vape profit margin is much lower than cigarettes.

@60, revenue declined since 2017.
- 2017: 5.61 bn
- 2018: 5.53 bn
- 2019: 5.48 bn
- 2020: 4.9 bn
- 2021: 4.4 bn
- 2022: 4.2 bn
- 2023: 3.8 bn (FYE ending Jan 2023)
- 3Q YTD is lower than 2023.

It's clear its not just current management, the declining revenue and deteriorating business model happened even in previous management.
Basically, its business is sun-setting. For 7 consecutive years, they have no clue how to turn around this business. It's not a hard business to understand - basically lots of new competition past 7 years, and won't get better.

It's trying to bottom and rally, but latest rally attempt on 18 Jan just got sold down hard.

Revenue is one thing, earnings though is a disaster. Past 7 years, earnings declined from a lovely financial position, and this year 9 months looks like it may end the year with the first full year negative earnings for the first time in the company's history since 2017 peak. That's a disaster.

Fundamentally, rallies should be sold. Technically, depends on charts as the price pattern is not natural.

A great role model is Warren Buffet. Hard to go wrong to model after him.

This detail / good news was announced today, so, don't be surprised if price falls tomorrow on good news announcement.

CLMT announced Income Distribution with DRIP.

"Final income distribution of 2.24 sen per CLMT Unit (of which 2.10 sen per CLMT Unit is taxable and 0.14 sen per CLMT Unit is non-taxable in the hands of the CLMT unitholders) for the period from 1 July 2023 to 31 December 2023 ("Final Income Distribution")"

Issue Price per Unit Malaysian Ringgit (MYR) 0.5261. Very nice.

For the record, I entered 2024 with 46 stocks open. I have 16 losses. When I read about how others had won, it only strengthen my resolve to reflect what I did wrong. If you can't look at your losses honestly, then, stay away from markets.

@mini, @88, we all have battle scars, market is a harsh place. I am not exempted from losses too and when I have a loss, I love to read from others generous enough to share how they win and how I lost, because it means I still have lessons to learn. I never looked at those winners as rubbing salts. If one prioritizes comfort and cannot tolerate losses, then, stay away from DIY equity investments, instead, put your funds in EPF which pays well.

The fact Ah Beng keep selling doesn't help.
ZHULIAN still have 155m Net Cash but it desperately need new ideas and new executions.
Clearly, by returning the cash to shareholders constantly indicates it doesn't know how to arrest the earnings decline. It has run out of ideas and execution capabilities.

This stock will be a classic high dividend trap. 13 sen / 1.57 looks very attractive 8% DY, but the coming year, 13 sen drops and eventually go down to 4 sen, and price will crash and that 8% DY disappears. This stock is just waiting to trap all these high yield chasers.

Avoid ZHULIAN. It's earnings cannot support current dividends. More dividend cuts and more price falls are coming.

EPS decline not over yet. FYE23 6.4 sen is lowest ever past 9 years. If next year drop to 6 sen, and if it exercise discipline in dividend payout, we could see more normal payout ratio of 67% i.e. future yearly dividend could only be 4%. 4% / 1.57 current price is only 2.5% Dividend Yield, i.e. worse than FD. So, ZHULIAN will try to soften the blow, but odds are very high, next year dividend will cut some more. It won't be 13 sen, but smaller.

Clearly, FD is the much better investment here than ZHULIAN.
Net Assets keep dropping fast too. Today its barely above RM1, but if it keeps paying out more dividends than it can earn, we may see Net Assets drop by 10-15 sen per year.

It's business model and business results desperately need to turn around, but how to beat a 9 year (or even longer) earnings decline?

Not a good sign when the substantial shareholder - Berjaya Group - just sold 10.7 million shares too. When they want to sell, there's just no market big enough to accomodate. The trend is down still, rallies are likely to continue to be sold for a while.

RHB checks that traffic falling 30% is being generous. More likely it'll be much worse than 30%. Odds are this may just be the first stage of the fall after the first quarterly report. We will have plenty of time to accumulate later.

@speakup, well done on PAVREIT.

Yes it did. All time high. Looking good.

CLMT closed 61 sen. Nice. I'm relatively late in entering this REIT (a blessing), and this is one of the better performing REITS from a Total Return perspective in the past year. Beats MAYBANK (and MAYBANK beats my very conservative target returns of 9% p.a.). I first got a small entry position at 63 sen, but as price goes down, 80% of my purchases happen between 49.5 sen and 52 sen around March to August 2023, so, my average cost is 52 sen. Along the way, I received dividends to further lower the average cost down. Total returns ~ 20% or so in less than a year and from a REIT perspective, that's a real bonus.

Less typical than my other REIT experience, the majority of the gains from CLMT are price gains that happened quite quickly. When price dropped to 49-52 sen due to the rights placement in March 2023, I accumulated quietly and significantly when others were cursing the unfair rights placement at 49 sen that caused price to fall to around there.

Took some profits at 60 sen, as the gain is too fast for a REIT. Still holding 80% for longer term yields.

Pays to buy good quality REITS quietly at depressed prices when they are unpopular, when either nobody talks about them or when others are cursing them. Longer term price charts help pinpoint high probability long term decent entry levels.

This is the reason why I say “Don’t chase”.
Lucky manage to sell significant amount at 1.4x to 1.5x. However still have slightly more than half unsold. Will be looking to buy back what’s sold at 1.1x and 1.0x (if it gets there).

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Having said that, one should not gamble too often. Once a year is not unreasonable. I've hit my gambling quota for 2024, so, no more gambling for me. Haha.

As for the averaging down plan, not a good idea. Not because the sums are small, but the mindset that it creates. Two problems with averaging down in a losing stock:

1. You monitor and risk getting emotionally invested. That can steer your mind to strange places.
2. My objective in gambling early in the year, is to remind me to stay away from gambling with the proof that it has provided me. Returning back to market a small amount to remind you of sound investing principles is worth the reminder.

Anyway, portfolio still made new all time highs since RAPID, so, it has no impact to my portfolio results, as it is one time and is tiny. A great reminder that gambling doesn't help ...

Anyway, i have a strategy which is to assume the market is closed for next 1-5 years. Let's see 1-5 years later. Until then, every day price quote is just noise, and something we are not really interested in doing anything else.

@charlesT, if one has RM10,000,000 portfolio, 0.08% = RM8k which is reasonable gambling money.

HEIM closed RM25.9. +RM2.10! +8.82%!
Thank-you HEIM. Together with another 24 stocks closing in green, to offset my 12 reds, my portfolio has, yet again, made new all-time high today!
KLCI closed 1515.39. Hope many will enjoy new all time portfolio highs today too!

Fwiw, I must admit I couldn't avoid scratching my itch, so, earlier this morning, I have placed my chip. It's only a low single digit % of my 2023 trading and investing profits and even tinier % of my capital. This is 100% gambling, I accept I could lose this all. I probably got greater enjoyment if I use that money, drive to genting, stay there a few days and enjoy great drink and food, but the Internet made it so easy to gamble online.

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Book closure 3.86 sen, bringing total taxable dividend FYE2023 to 7.82 sen (or 7.04 sen after tax).
It has been a tough year for Office sector. The last 6 years, DPS keeps declining:
2018: 8.225 sen
2019: 8.199 sen
2020: 7.596 sen
2021: 7.966 sen (recovering)
2022: 7.758 sen
2023: 7.038 sen (new low).

It may be a decent REIT, but comparing FYE2022 vs FYE2023:
- Gross Rental Income is lower, Property Operating Expenses high giving lower Net Rental Income for FYE2023 (challenging headwinds).
- Manager's fees flat / inches up a tiny bit
- Borrowing costs up
This basically explains the new low.

This REIT is 3.6% of my portfolio, my last add was 1.08. Keeping it small.
Reminds me of Buffet's quote:

When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.”

The office REIT space is not exactly poor, but has been facing headwinds since COVID pandemic. UOAREIT DPS has been declining at least a couple of year prior to the onset of COVID pandemic. No matter how good the management is, it is hard to outperform in this sector.

Still, Dividend Yield after tax is 6.2% per annum, should still be matching EPF this year i.e. still a decent result. Perhaps not as good as MAYBANK benchmark, but still, not too bad for some diversification.

MI closed 1.94. Nice. Keep testing that 1.94 resistance. If it breaks that, Alternate Price Projection target is RM2.17 eventually, after passing some more resistance.

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Fuiyoh ... TAANN 3.75 close. +10 sen. Together with other stocks, helped made my portfolio reach new all time highs again. This is the 7th time this happened this month. Thank-you TAANN.

Finally received BIMB dividend. A nice 12.59 sen. Dividend yield on Cost is 6.7%. Price gain is 19%. Holding less than a year. BIMB beats my benchmark of 9% per annum very, very handsomely.

Thank-you BIMB, for helping made my portfolio to new all time high again today. 7th time this month in January!

HEIM 24.5 close. +40 sen. Nice. Thank-you HEIM and 25 other stocks that closed in green today, that helped offset 11 reds, to bring my portfolio to new all time high against today. Today is the 7th time in January, that my portfolio has made a new all time high. Thank-you Mr Market.

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To me, the real breakout price level is around 5.5x .. this is because that's multi-year consolidation sideways range ... got more oomph when it breaks out. Until then, it's range trading play ... the odds favors range trading plays for the past couple years.

When GENTING broke out and IB were calling for breakout trades, I did the opposite silently and when it approaches 4.9x, I took the opportunity to sell a small portion of my holdings, to lower my average cost price down to RM3.63.

Chart wise, there is an opening gap that usually, prices will fall down to close, before the next direction. This is around 4.39 to 4.43. I could be interested to pick up some of what I sold around there. Let's see its price action. If it doesn't fall down this much, I may do nothing.

Fuiyoh ... so nice. 1.53 close, higher than swing high 1.45 a week ago. Thank-you LCTITAN plus 21 other green stocks to offset 10 reds, to allow my portfolio to hit a new all time high again today, after yesterday and 4 prior days. What a superb start to 2024 after a strong 2023!

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Buy decent quality stocks when it is unpopular. I bought GENM and GENTING silently when it was unpopular. So, I manage to accumulate decent sizes. Today, my portfolio made new all time highs because of GENM, GENTING and 18 other unpopular stocks that I bought when nobody was excited.

Excitement and Expenses are the Chief Enemies of Investors. If you buy stocks feeling excited of prospects of gains and chase them and pay high prices with large % of your portfolio, you may feel excited for a while, until the reversion and you may then feel sad later. Don't get caught in these kind of emotional roller coaster.

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Over the past 10 years, CARLSBG EPS grows by around 6% per annum. DPS by around 4% per annum growth. It think FYE2023 DPS can be around 85 sen or higher. This is 4.5% dividend yield growing say 4% p.a. long term which is not a bad thing. For some reason, market is feeling fearful right now.

The benchmark is MAYBANK which gives higher dividend yield around 6.5% but slower dividend growth rate say around 1% per annum, but this kind of numbers varies a lot depending on the day that you measure.

In short, stocks like these are good to buy when it is on sale, as these businesses are decent (not the best but decent) quality business. They should give returns slightly higher than EPF long term average returns of 6% per annum or so.

These kind of stocks are not get rich quick, but get rich slow stocks. I love them.

More than 50% chance to get lower prices, if RM18.9 support is broken. No rush. If support breaks, then, the long term buyer is happy to be able to accumulate more at lower prices.

I'm not a fan to sell near CNY. This is too short a period. My time horizon is measured in multi years. After adding at 18.94, my CARLSBG on market value basis is only 2.4% of my entire portfolio. As it is small, it didn't stop my portfolio to make new all time highs 4 times already this month.

@ryoyagod, yes, added 18.94 recently.

KLCI green, GENTING + 18 sen, together with GENM and 18 other stocks, help made my portfolio hit a new all time high again today. Thank-you GENTING! This is the 4th time this month, where my portfolio hit a new all time high.

KLCI green, GENM + 7 sen, together with 19 other stocks, help made my portfolio hit a new all time high again today. Thank-you GENM! This is the 4th time this month, where my portfolio hit a new all time high.

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CSCSTEL EPS is cyclical, and we just came off a cycle low last year. Maybe I think 70%-90% chance that over the next 5 years, we'll see double digit EPS again, with prices in the range between 1.5 to 2. My cost price is around RM1.15.
Assuming it takes 5 years to hit these prices, the annualized Price returns ignoring Dividends are:
RM1.5 = 5.5% per annum
RM2 = 11.7% per annum

It's lowest dividend yield is 2.4%.

Thus, its good odds that if you can buy CSCSTEL cheap, the odds of getting a total returns of 8% to 14% per annum over 5 years or higher is very decent.

If own, no need to stress when prices will go above RM1.5 - it could take many years or next year. Nobody knows. The key is diversify, own small, and just relax. One day over next 5 years, it should get there and these kind of returns should be EPF over the period. Don't do active trading, commissions will just eat a huge chunk and if you play the buy high, sell higher price, inevitably, some of your trades will have losses that will eat into your cumulative profits, where after commissions, you may end up losing to FD rates if you do nothing.

For comparison, I also own Unit Trusts in Malaysia and life insurance investment linked policies in Malaysia. They are diversified. But because of fees, my own index fund outperform. Plus, I don't have a fully invested mandate that these professionals have - I can sit in huge amounts of cash waiting for the right opportunity for as long as I want and nobody kacau me. So my internal rate of return on my own index fund far outperforms my own unit trust and my own life insurance investment linked policies. Typically by over 5% per annum since inception, and to date is closer to 10% per annum outperformance. Because it's my own funds, I have no qualms to stay in cash waiting for as long as it's needed. Malaysia stock market is not like the US where US can run. Malaysia stock market is more like up down, up down, flat, up a bit, down a bit, down down down, up up then down. It hasn't gone anywhere the past 5 years so, maybe it's about time it goes somewhere but I am not betting on this to happen for my base-case scenario.

As for the other 5 Fund of funds - the smartest people incentivised by high incentives like 2+20 - over the 9 year period, their investors only earned a paltry 2.2% per annum. Which means the investors would do better to park their monies into FD with no worries.

There are many star hedge funds who earns exceptional returns in the short term. But they are too few and far between. The odds of you identifying them is extremely small over the next 10, 20 years and it's not wise to bet on your selection being right - it's like picking winning horses and it's really gambling.

Much safer to invest in low cost index funds. Over 10 year periods, you are almost sure / virtually sure to beat FD and EPF.

The challenge in Malaysia is that KLCI index is not the same quality as S&P500. And there's no real index funds. Hence, I have to create one myself. The beauty is it doesn't take much effort if you have the right background, training and experience. I hold a very committed full time job and I only have a few minutes each workday to look at the market usually after it closes, and I enjoy spending time on weekends reading when markets are closed.

Talking about Buffett, I urge everyone to read his Berkshire Hathaway Annual Chairman's Letter.
A particularly interesting one is his 2017 letter, documenting the outcome of his 10 year bet with Protoge Partners, that low cost index fund will beat the most brilliant group of hedge funds over the next 10 years - his bet started in 2008.

And true enough, in the first year, the hedge funds beat S&P as markets crashed, and hedge funds doesn't need to stay invested 100% in equities and could even short.

But next 9 years, the low cost index funds beat the smartest portfolio managers as a group.

Over the 10 years from 2008-2017, Vanguard low cost earned 7.7% per annum returns - Buffett described this period as "typical" and "neutral". So, if MAYBANK can do 9% per annum returns long term, that is already superior to the average S&P500 company.

Read the 2017 Annual Report - page 11-13 and page 24-26. Buffett describes it far, far better than I can.

My mathematics on Price gains % is a simple one, overlay with conservatism.
It goes something like this.
Consider next 5 years. If it's shorter than 5 years, it's a bonus.
Assume you buy at RM9.
To get 2.5% per annum returns, what price do you need to see MAYBANK trading at?
Answer is RM9 x 1.025 ^ 5 = 10.2.

So, you ask yourself this simple question.

Over next 5 years, what are the odds that MAYBANK will rise to RM10.2?

If you think the odds are near certainty, then, it's a reasonably safe investment.

It's never certainty of course.

Along the way, MAYBANK might crash next 5 years.

So, you really have to pull out long term charts like 20 years to see how badly it can crash and how euphoric it can rise.

But don't get caught up with Valuations and Charts. The 3 most important factors in investing are:
1. Is this a Quality stock? Does it possess superior long term economic characteristics where in 10-20 years time, its business will keep growing and get bigger than what it is today? Has it proven itself via EPS and DPS growth? You'll find in Malaysia, it's extremely hard to find such kind of stocks/businesses, but when you find them, you know you own a Quality business.
2. Is it run by honest and trustworthy managers? This is very hard to judge, but if you see rising EPS and DPS, the odds are it probably is run by above average honest and trustworthy managers.
3. Is the price attractive? The worst mistakes is to buy at the peak and it takes an incredibly long time for DPS growth and EPS growth to catch up and price crashes and stay lower than your entry price. This is what Buffett means by his Rule No 1 - Never Lose Money and his Rule No 2 - Remember Rule No 1.

@edwing, as long term investors, I measure total portfolio growth as the yardstick for investing. This means if I deposited say RM100k, what returns can I realize 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 20 years later after all expenses.

This means TOTAL RETURNS, coming from both (1) dividend yields and (2) price gains, and measured against something (price, DPS, EPS) that keeps changing every day.

But long term observers note that:
1. If you pull out MAYBANK long term charts over say past 20 years.
2. Compare it's NTA over past 20 years (or as long as possible)
3. You will see that past 3 years prices are at the "bottom half" of its price chart and its NTA keeps rising albeit very gradually and lumpy fashion.

So, it's just a very high level benchmark. In reality your actual price returns will fluctuate greatly. But when we look at the future, the next 5 years, we need to have some expectation that is consistent with other stocks and it's really just a guess. There is no precise answers when looking forward into the future.

One thing I love about MAYBANK is that it's not the best stock out there for long term investors.
But it gives a GREAT BENCHMARK to compare against all other stocks.
Especially when your outlook is longer like next 5-10-20 years.
It is not easy, to find good businesses with long term economics that is better than MAYBANK. The basis is returns to shareholders i.e. dividend payouts and price gains.
SELF HONEST is critical - if the investment returns (both DPS and Price gains) are not as PREDICTABLE as MAYBANK, then, consider what if your other investment is really as good as MAYBANK, or you are just a price speculator hoping to sell at a higher price than what you buy. Vast, vast majority of commentators in i3 are short term speculators.