“Over the past six years we have always maintained a strong financial position. Our experience in 1990/91, when our financial position was less strong, has only underlined the importance of this objective.
We will always sacrifice return if it endangers our financial health.
It is interesting to observe the dramatic collapses of Campeau and First City Financial – both companies with track records extending over 20 years.
Campeau’s common shareholders’ equity, built over 19 years to $141 million in 1986, turned negative in only 12 months due to losses of $254 million in 1987.
First City’s demise was much less predictable although equally dramatic. Shareholders’ equity, again built over 21 years to $465 million in 1989, turned negative in only 18 months due to cumulative losses of $549 million.
While we are very conscious of these failures and others like them that stem from financial excess, please remember that as Warren Buffett commented about Noah, building arks counts, not predicting rain”
Fairfax Financial Holdings 1991 Annual Report – Annual Letter by Chairman and CEO V. Prem Watsa
KUALA LUMPUR (April 27): Parkson Holdings Bhd's Cambodian unit has been ordered to pay US$144.5 million (about RM629.75 million) in damages to its lessor, Hassan (Cambodia) Development Co Ltd (HCDC), as well as forfeit its security deposit and advance payments, following a lawsuit that HCDC initiated against the unit.
“One of the greatest stock market writers and thinkers, Benjamin Graham, put it this way. Imagine that you are partners in the ownership of a business with a crazy guy named Mr. Market. Mr. Market is subject to wild mood swings.
Each day he offers to buy your share of the business or sell you his share of the business at a particular price. Mr. Market always leaves the decision completely to you, and every day you have three choices.
You can sell yours shares to Mr. Market at his stated price,
You buy Mr. Market’s shares at that same price,
Or you can do nothing.
Sometimes Mr. Market is in such a good mood that he names a price that is much higher than the true worth of the business. On those days, it would probably make sense for you to sell Mr. Market your share of the business.
On other days, he is in such a poor mood that he names a very low price for the business. On those days, you might want to take advantage of Mr. Market’s crazy offer to sell you shares at such a low price and to buy Mr. Market’s share of the business.
If the price named by Mr. Market is neither very high nor extraordinarily low relative to the value of the business, you might very logically choose to do nothing.
In the world of the stock market, that’s exactly how it works.”
The Little Book That Beats The Market by Joel Greenblatt
City of London selling probably bcos it can find better return elsewhere .... moreover, NAV of iCap is deteriorating significantly ......
On behalf of the Board of Directors of icapital.biz Berhad, we wish to announcethat the Net Asset Value per share of icapital.biz Berhad as at 23 October 2019was 3.21.
On behalf of the Board of Directors of icapital.biz Berhad, we wish to announcethat the Net Asset Value per share of icapital.biz Berhad as at 25 March 2020was 2.64.
“People bring the attitude to them too often that because stocks are liquid and quoted minute by minute that it’s important that you develop an opinion on them minute by minute. Now, that’s really foolish when you think about it. And that’s something Graham taught me in 1949, I mean, that single thought, that stocks were parts of businesses and not just little things that moved around on charts.
If you really had a farm, and you had this neighbor, and one day he offered you $2,000 an acre, and the next day he offers you $1,200 an acre, and maybe the day after that he offers you $800 an acre, are you really going to feel that at $2,000 an acre when you had evaluated what the farm would produce, are you going to let this guy drive you into thinking, “I better sell because this number keeps coming in lower all the time”?
It’s a very, very, very important matter to bring the right psychological approach to owning common stocks.
If you bought into a business, it’s going to deliver what the business produces. And the idea that you’re going to outsmart the person next to you, or the person advising you can outsmart the person sitting next to you is, well, it’s really the wrong approach”
@Quincy,why don''t you say i even put a date 23 October 2019? I just give a comparison, how a cash rich fund can deteriorate so much like a share, and why London citi sell ... hope you can think deeper, the difference of holding cash and stocks, and why this could happen!
ahteck85, another no brainer ... see my comment above! U never doubt why a cash rich fund could deteriorate like a stock, right? u buy a pray for goes up and never think why it down all the way, right?
Very poor performance。 So huge cash pile can buy a bit lah, e.g Public Bank quite low already . TTB wants to buy at dirt cheap price at the end not buying anything...poor mgt
Posted by Nepo > May 13, 2020 10:31 PM | Report Abuse
Very poor performance。 So huge cash pile can buy a bit lah, e.g Public Bank quite low already . TTB wants to buy at dirt cheap price at the end not buying anything...poor mgt
What happen if no second round dip down, then loss opportunity to buy in during health pandemic downturn period. Buy a llittle, so many value buy in the market during March and April 2020. E.g Lotte Titan RM 1 recommend public to buy but TTB himself no buying, too conservative old man
TTB will only buy Public Bank stock when it goes down to 5 ringgit a share, then he can tell the world SEE? I TOLD YOU! And build another glory story. If price higher than 5 ringgit, TTB just keep telling the world AIYA, MARKET IS OVER VALUE LAH! , and at the same time keep receiving ICAP paying him millions of fund manager fees every year without taking risk of his HUGE REPUTATION OF VALUE INVESTOR.
TTB don't care ICAP shareholders loh, cheap people die cheap only. Rich people gets richer and richer, like TTB.
@firehawk so now I say, what is your basis of picking 23 Oct 2019 and 25 Mar 2020 when your comment was made on 8 May 2020? By the way, City of London owned 28,326,600 shares in iCap as at 31 Oct 2019. On 21 Apr 2020, City of London owned 28,621,100 shares in iCap. While I "think deeper the difference of holding cash and stock........", I hope this helps you.
Timing the market and value investing is a totally different thing. For those who do not know what are the differences, better think twice. Seek help and do your home work.
Talk is cheap. For those who is serious in investing, don't fall into the trap of some people in this forum who do not know what they are talking about, but pretend that they know a lot, yet dare not reveal their true identity.
One must learn from true experts who have credentials and proper licence.
Sohai this ttb who got only license to cheat mah...!!
Posted by ahhuat56 > May 16, 2020 10:08 AM | Report Abuse
Talk is cheap. For those who is serious in investing, don't fall into the trap of some people in this forum who do not know what they are talking about, but pretend that they know a lot, yet dare not reveal their true identity.
One must learn from true experts who have credentials and proper licence.
“The popular market adage buy low, sell high refers to buying a stock when its share price is low and selling when its share price is high. The ability to buy low and sell high defined in this manner demands that an investor be able to identify or predict when the share price will hit bottom and when the share price will reach its peak.
Such a method is commonly called market timing: that is, investors time the stock market by aiming to buy low (when the index or stock price is low in absolute terms) and aiming to sell high (also in absolute terms). Instead of buying low and selling high, investors often end up doing the precise opposite and losing their hard earned savings. Why?
The most dangerous time to invest is when the stock market is crowded with investors, when investors chase stock prices or buy high, hoping to sell higher. Why do they do this? Because they feel safe in doing so. There is this strange comfort in the fact that everyone else is doing the same and they do not want to miss the boat.
Buy low sell high does not work consistently because it is very difficult to predict a market trend, a company’s earnings or a country’s GDP accurately on a consistent basis. If timing the stock or market could be done accurately on a consistent basis, people like the CEO of Capital Dynamics would be free to sit in front of the monitor and trade profitably; there would be no need to work so hard and conduct all that research and analysis.
The intellectual approach towards investing in the stock market differs greatly between those who time the market or stocks and those that practice value investing. For the former, the market index or stock price is just a number to predict, making it in essence similar to gambling or speculating; for the latter, the market index is meaningless and irrelevant while the stock prices are to be used only in comparisons with the intrinsic value of a stock or business.
Those who think that investing successfully is all about buying low and selling high are deeply ignorant about what it takes to be a successful long-term investor. In contrast, value investing succeeds mainly because it demands the humble acceptance of human fallibility.
The problem with trying to time the market is that one needs to right twice – to buy and sell correctly. If the probability of buying correctly is 70% (a very high chance) and the probability of selling correctly is also 70% then the probability of your investment being profitable is only 49%. These are odds worse than when you toss a coin.
What many investors do no grasp when timing the market and what many successful value investors appreciate about investing is the simple arithmetic of investing/trading. The simple arithmetic of investing or trading means that a 50% loss can totally wipe out a 100% gain and a slightly higher 67% loss can devastate a whopping 200% gain. The chances of a 50% loss are much higher than the chances of a 100% profit. Investing is unfair, just like life is unfair.
This asymmetrical nature of investing or trading is often overlooked or not well understood by investors who buy low sell high and time stocks or the market. Warren Buffett expressed it more humorously: ”We continue to make more money when snoring than when active”. To be sure, value investors are not lazy investors; they actually work pretty damn hard. They are critically self honest and humbly admit that it is impossible to time the market to perfection.
The humble philosophy underlying value investing is that investors need to have a margin of safety in order to deal with unexpected events and one’s own human errors. This is why a value investor will buy a stock or business only when its market price is below its intrinsic value, the difference being the margin of safety created. (continued below)
To be successful, one needs to recognize that mistakes will be made. Investors are after all only human. The strategy then should be to reduce the mistakes or at least reduce the impact these mistakes would have on one’s investments. Another way a value investor expresses their humility is by holding cash – lots of it in fact – when there is nothing attractive to invest in.
If there are not enough securities to fill out a portfolio that meet value investing criteria, the answer is simply to hold cash until such securities can be found. To be sure, holding cash is not the ultimate aim of a value investors; it is a byproduct of the value investing process where humility is a huge part of its risk management. Cash is the heart and blood of businesses.
Cash and liquidity are much more important to a firm’s survival than earnings or profitability. Cash serves a similar purpose from an investor’s or a portfolio manager’s standpoint. Cash is the most vital raw material for an investor. As Tan Teng Boo has previously shared, holding cash is like holding a very valuable option, except that it is one with no expiry date. The value of an option depends on its expiry date, amongst other factors. The longer the expiry date, the more valuable the option becomes.
An option has a fixed conversion price. With cash, it is the investor or the fund manager who decides what the conversion price will be. Since a value investor will buy only at an attractive price, the value of the option or cash goes up. In summary, whether one is managing a business or managing a portfolio, it is a privilege to have a strong balance sheet now, one that is especially filled with cash.
Although icapital.biz Berhad has been buying more shares since its last quarterly report for 30th Nov 2019, it still has plenty of cash or balance sheet strength. Meanwhile, many investors have lost money in the Covid-19 market crash.
This is why we have intentionally written on icapital.biz Berhad in a different way so that its true intrinsic value can be appreciated. In the above pages, we have written on the Covid-19 pandemic, humility, cash, value investing and more in relation to icapital.biz Berhad.
If after reading these pages, you understand and agree with the key investing messages, then, icapital.biz Berhad is most suitable for you.”
icapital.biz stock selection – icapital Volume 31 Number 36, 14 May – 20 May 2020
Posted by JohnDough > May 17, 2020 1:31 PM | Report Abuse
To be successful, one needs to recognize that mistakes will be made. Investors are after all only human. The strategy then should be to reduce the mistakes or at least reduce the impact these mistakes would have on one’s investments. Another way a value investor expresses their humility is by holding cash – lots of it in fact – when there is nothing attractive to invest in.
If there are not enough securities to fill out a portfolio that meet value investing criteria, the answer is simply to hold cash until such securities can be found. To be sure, holding cash is not the ultimate aim of a value investors; it is a byproduct of the value investing process where humility is a huge part of its risk management. Cash is the heart and blood of businesses.
Cash and liquidity are much more important to a firm’s survival than earnings or profitability. Cash serves a similar purpose from an investor’s or a portfolio manager’s standpoint. Cash is the most vital raw material for an investor. As Tan Teng Boo has previously shared, holding cash is like holding a very valuable option, except that it is one with no expiry date. The value of an option depends on its expiry date, amongst other factors. The longer the expiry date, the more valuable the option becomes.
“I’m not recommending that people buy stocks today or tomorrow or next week or next month. I think it all depends on your circumstances, but you shouldn’t buy stocks unless you expect, in my view, you expect to hold them for a very extended period and you are prepared financially and psychologically to hold them, the same way you would hold a farm and never look at a quote.
You’ve got to be prepared when you buy a stock to have it go down 50% or more and be comfortable with it, as long as you’re comfortable with the holding. There had been three times in Berkshire’s history when the price of Berkshire stock went down 50%. Three different times. Now if you hold it on borrowed money, you could have been cleaned out. There wasn’t anything wrong with Berkshire when those three times occurred.
But if you’re going to look at the price of the stock and think that you have to act because it’s doing this or that, or somebody else tells you, “How can you stay with that,” when something else is going up or anything, you’ve got to be in the right psychological position, and frankly, some people are not really careful. Some people are more subject to fear than others.
If they can’t handle it psychologically, then you really shouldn’t own stocks, because you’re going to buy and sell them at the wrong time. And you should not count on somebody else telling you this. You should do something you understand yourself. If you don’t understand it yourself, you’re going to be affected by the next person you talk to.
And so you should be in a position to hold, and I don’t know whether today is a great day to buy stocks. I know it will work out over 20 or 30 years. I don’t know whether it’ll work out over two years at all. I have no idea whether you’ll be ahead or behind on a stock you buy on Monday morning, or the market.”
There are not many attractive opportunities in KLSE for big money fund managers anyway, and attractive companies are usually highly valued. Under such circumstances, a fund manager that builds cash reserves awaiting for valuation to normalize demonstrate the level of discipline he / she possesses. Managing big money that are largely the retirement savings of the middle and lower income population of Malaysia is not as easy as managing one's personal wealth ranging few hundred thousand Ringgit or in the low millions.
wow surprisingly icap forum here is very active since icap fund is not so 'active'
just very curious whether TTB has fully utilise its cash reserve during the massive drop back in March since he has been saying market is crashing for so many years.
looking ahead to the companies that he is interested in since he is the really long term investors that ignoring all the noices (especially during every AGM) hahaha
TTB supporters, be ready to spend another 10 years to wait for the next bear market to arrive, and continue to see ICAP price at 2.05 for 10 years. Very long term investors of ICAP.
Just wondering....if we put the investment into FD, what will be the different in 10 years holding (as a very long term investor in Malaysia).
bstead stock price dropped from 2.90 two years ago to today's 60 sen. And now Boustead wants to take it private. Do you think this is "good news" for "VERY LONG TERM INVESTORS"? Hahaha! It's a joke. You hold the stock, you think maybe 5 years later the stock will rebound 200%. But, major shareholders won't let you take that opportunity, they will take it private at extreme low cost. After that, they restructured and reform the company. Few years later, value arise, the original stock probably valued at 3.00 per share, then the major shareholders re-listed the company, and earn themselves millions of profit. You? "long term investors"? You can only buy it back at 3.00 (while sold to them as penny stock.
There are so many such billionaires in Malaysia who did this kind of exercises many times already, such as Ananda Krishnan and Vincent Tan. But investors forget things very often, and they like to bet their luck too. Therefore, i think an investors friendly management is much more essential than stock valuation when choosing a long term investment target. For this reason, I'd most definitely say this, TTB, is one of the WORST when talking about investors friendly corporate philosophy. When a company's growth become slow and expected to be slow for a reasonably long period of time, an investor friendly CEO and board will often offer some yield to be given to investors. This is the most common thing they do to show appreciation.
TTB maybe worst for rewarding ICAP shareholders, but I can sense that he has tried his best to do investment, but the problem is he couldn't catch the opportunity in Year 2009 (and probably Year 2020..) due to his old man conservative style.
Now ICap has only two main assets, one is cash pile, another one is the trustworthiness of TTB. TTB must take this pandemic health issues to do INVESTMENT.. of course he is renowned Master, I, small chick, can't tell him what to do...
Master is master, he said Genting TP=RM1.50 today in his newsletter. U follow him, then not buy Genting (the price now is RM 3.95) U don't believe him. just buy lor.
Master target point is too too too too too low low low low, no wonder no buying many in last downturn...
Let see what happen next year whether his forecast for Genting TP=1.50 is correct or not? BTW, i just bought Genting, choose not believe him..because he seems some companies toooooo negative...
Posted by angmodan > May 27, 2020 11:45 PM | Report Abuse
@stkstudent but icap investment mandate is on long term, so i don't think allocating 5% for trading is feasible.
could it be their mandate seal their fate, as opportunities aplenty for short-term trading r "lost" due to rigid adherence to one's well intentions but short-sighted philosophy...i dont know...
I own Icap shares from the 1st day of listing till now, never sold, only buy in...show you talent, dont disappointing me..have given you around 15 years to try your best...pls keep it up..
@nepo wah then u must be really a long term investor
but...where do u see he is trying his best to do investment? i was jus thinking whether TTB wasted too much time on analyzing China or the political situation rather than analyzing companies?
u know it is quite annoying sometime that he keeps writing china china china on his klse conclusion rather than talking about the stock market -- u know, the title is 'klse conclusion'... i know local political situation is important, but, he never share his thought on the local stock market. or maybe he is just 'kiam siap' in giving his views.?
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This book is the result of the author's many years of experience and observation throughout his 26 years in the stockbroking industry. It was written for general public to learn to invest based on facts and not on fantasies or hearsay....
ahteck85
36 posts
Posted by ahteck85 > 2020-04-24 15:32 | Report Abuse
Malaysia market may go lower...