Actually I found myself very lazy in updating the blog and I think I should try to put down something. Perhaps I should imitate Szeto in putting down 16 things about myself (BTW, why 16?)
1. I am actually a very lazy person (I call it energy-reserving approach)
2. I only start to work on the day before deadline (therefore if you want me to do something, you must give me a deadline).
3. My first inspiration in primary school was the introduction of "compound interests" in maths class, the concept just opened up my mind.
4. My second biggest inspiration in medical school was when I was told the author of “the oxford handbook of medicine” has made a good living from it and then lived happily forever by practicing in a small village.
5. My student years were mostly spent up in “chatting in classes” or “day-dreaming in classes”. This has nothing to do with my teachers, it was due to point 6.
6. I have attention-concentration-deficit problem and my mind always start wandering whenever anyone start lecturing for few minutes, but nobody will notice it.
7. Point 6 not only applied to sitting in classes and lectures, it also applied to attendances of meetings, hence I cannot become a good administrator.
8. I got 8As in my HKCEE exam, my proudest subject to get A ever is Chinese literature.
9. When I was young, I was allergic to crab and shrimp, but I would secretly took a piriton before taking the delicacy. I successfully desensitize myself and crab is my most favorite food now.
10. I am probably autistic (at least trait) and it get cured after I went to UK for elective training in 2000.
11. I also got space orientation deficit. I cannot recognize a single route even after going through the same route for > 20 times.
12. I start to eat with chopstick when I was 12 years old, I still have problems with the chopsticks now.
13. My friends said I am ataxic, my mom said “my hands worked like the feet”. I have to confess that I just damaged 2 pieces of furniture after I moved in my new house and recently the handle of my friend's fridge.
14. I don't bother to do the IQ test now, because I think I am demented now.
15. I have accepted the fact that my hair is hopeless, but my the other half haven't quite yet and he always force me to attend the hair salon.
16. I consider myself quite a lucky person, hope it will be forever.
2009年1月22日 星期四
2008年12月25日 星期四
Christmas
Today is x'mas. It seems people have calmed down a bit recently. HSI has gone back to 14000-15000. If one buy at 11000, it's already a 30% gain. People now generally believe in CASH IS KING. I think cash is king only if it can buy cheap assets. My only problem is I might be buying too slow. Hopefully, when the next bull come, I will be retiring. My friend asked me, what if the nxt bull never come, just like Japan, I said, ' then make sure what you buy have reasonable yield return and won't go into bankruptcy. Then you can just live on the yield return. When economy is really that bad, inflation will be remote and you probably don't need a lot of money for retirement anyway . So there won't be any problem if your stock doesn't grow. " " Then why should I invest at all?" " Because you never know, if you lose money, you can only lose 100% of the money. If market goes up, it can be 200% 300% etc. Isn't it a good bet?"
2008年10月27日 星期一
Freefall
The stock market is undergoing a freefall recently. There is really no bottom. Today HSI is ~ 11000. For eg. HSBC closed at 75 only with PE 5.8 and yield of 9.3 %. The latest bad news is HSBC is going to reduce its interest yield by half. I don't quite understand if the yield reduce by half, it is still 4.65% isn't it good enough? The other bad news is the emerging markets are collapsing. I am not saying that HSBC should be immuned but I think the market has become quite irrational and uncontrollable now. I think very soon, some headlines like "STOCK IS DEAD" will come up. What I learn is that fund managers are totally useless human beings because what they are doing exactly is to sell cheap and buy high. I still think the best fund is tracker fund if one want to buy HK stock, if one think that HK will not die this time.
2008年9月22日 星期一
Lehman Minibonds
After the bankkruptcy of lehman brothers a week ago, the financial sector has gone into hell. Even AIG is at the verge of collapse. The horrible thing is lehman brothers has been selling out the toxic CDO as minibonds in HK till Aug 2008 and the victims, some even retiree, lost billions.
I must be lucky because I have been buying these "minibonds" for attractive bonus since 2003. Actually I bought the last batch in 2006, and I sold them out in Jan 2008.
Why do I sold it out in Jan 2008? It is because the Lehman brothers were still selling out the minibonds in Jan 08 with big ads everywhere. I read the small print of the ads " the CDO involved are not subprimed related etc" this is really 此地無銀，so I digged out the information booklet and read carefully and found out the word CDO everywhere, with my limited knowledge I know CDO is something bad, so I sold out all my minibonds in Jan 08 with net profit.
Actually I have bought US mortgage-back securities (MBS) too back in 2003. And I sold it out in 2004 luckily again. At the time it was promoted as something very secure with high interest rate, and the track record was a straight upside for > 10 years. Then I noticed a drop at the end of 2003 by 4%. The issuers immediately reassured that the refinancing activities caused the transient hiccup and it would pick up its uptrend soon. I went to the bookstore and searched through these MBS. After reading the whole paragraph, I had no idea of what it was talking about. But only the last sentence caught my eyes " during market downturn, it will fall quickder than bonds etc". So I sold the MBS out next day and made a 4% lost.
I also bought a lot of ELI and ELN (most issued by these big names of investment bank) in the past few years and have made fairly good profit. But I ceased to buy the structural products since 2008 because I think the stocks are becoming cheap and I should save the bullets for cheap stock.
Alas, so I escape from this structural product crises luckily. I put this down as a lesson for myself because I worry that I might not be that lucky again next time.
I must be lucky because I have been buying these "minibonds" for attractive bonus since 2003. Actually I bought the last batch in 2006, and I sold them out in Jan 2008.
Why do I sold it out in Jan 2008? It is because the Lehman brothers were still selling out the minibonds in Jan 08 with big ads everywhere. I read the small print of the ads " the CDO involved are not subprimed related etc" this is really 此地無銀，so I digged out the information booklet and read carefully and found out the word CDO everywhere, with my limited knowledge I know CDO is something bad, so I sold out all my minibonds in Jan 08 with net profit.
Actually I have bought US mortgage-back securities (MBS) too back in 2003. And I sold it out in 2004 luckily again. At the time it was promoted as something very secure with high interest rate, and the track record was a straight upside for > 10 years. Then I noticed a drop at the end of 2003 by 4%. The issuers immediately reassured that the refinancing activities caused the transient hiccup and it would pick up its uptrend soon. I went to the bookstore and searched through these MBS. After reading the whole paragraph, I had no idea of what it was talking about. But only the last sentence caught my eyes " during market downturn, it will fall quickder than bonds etc". So I sold the MBS out next day and made a 4% lost.
I also bought a lot of ELI and ELN (most issued by these big names of investment bank) in the past few years and have made fairly good profit. But I ceased to buy the structural products since 2008 because I think the stocks are becoming cheap and I should save the bullets for cheap stock.
Alas, so I escape from this structural product crises luckily. I put this down as a lesson for myself because I worry that I might not be that lucky again next time.
2008年9月14日 星期日
Shall I start to buy some stock now ?
My friend asked me whether he should start to buy some stock now? He has been asking the same question for the last two months and he thought he was lucky since he hadn't bought anything yet and the market keeps falling now. Normally I won't give any investment advice because I don't believe anyone can time the market. Imagine if everyone think that the bottom of HSI is 16000, but when it reaches 16000, alas, then 911 happens, say, this time in China, then China need to fight a war with someone, etc & etc, HSI will still plummet further. There are so many unpredictables in life and there is no way to guess.
But I told my friend, you can just buy whenever you feel like to buy.
My friend asked," what if next month the price become even lower?" I said. "then you can buy again. Imagine you are now buying a 1000 ft house, you can buy one ft by one ft according to the market price, and it's really a nice house, and you really need a 1000 ft house before you retire, will you just buy one ft now?" Remember to buy one feet by one feet, not the whole 1000 ft altogether.
I use this example for him because my friend has just bought an over 15M flat without a second thought, and never asked around what if next month, the property price goes down?
But I told my friend, you can just buy whenever you feel like to buy.
My friend asked," what if next month the price become even lower?" I said. "then you can buy again. Imagine you are now buying a 1000 ft house, you can buy one ft by one ft according to the market price, and it's really a nice house, and you really need a 1000 ft house before you retire, will you just buy one ft now?" Remember to buy one feet by one feet, not the whole 1000 ft altogether.
I use this example for him because my friend has just bought an over 15M flat without a second thought, and never asked around what if next month, the property price goes down?
2008年9月1日 星期一
Good old friend
Today I meet M on the facebook. She is a good old friend of mine and we were classmates since secondary school and in university. Then M took a different path, she emigrated to Australia, now become a consultant in education, and mother of a lovely baby girl.
We are both very busy and we didn't meet up very often. All I know is she is happy now and she has married a good husband with a cute daughter and that is all enough.
And she sent me this quotation from Kung Fu Panda,
'Yesterday was history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift, that's why it's called Present'.
And I wish M all the best and she will be happy forever and ever.
We are both very busy and we didn't meet up very often. All I know is she is happy now and she has married a good husband with a cute daughter and that is all enough.
And she sent me this quotation from Kung Fu Panda,
'Yesterday was history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift, that's why it's called Present'.
And I wish M all the best and she will be happy forever and ever.
2008年8月21日 星期四
Change my house
I bought my first house in Laguna City in 96, then I changed it to the present location in 1998. (I think it's a right decision, not just from investment point of view, but also from quality of life aspect).
Now it's 2008, I changed my house again, actually I bought the other block, with higher floor zone, better layout and bigger size, and I just sold my old flat and the discovery bay flat. I always treat a self occupant flat like a car (a consumable), therefore during the price fall in the past, I didn't feel bad at all. And to my surprise, it goes back to the original price now. So I believe even if the market falls again this time, my new flat will go back to the original price again in the future, just like HSBC.
From investment point of view, I still think stock is a more suitable tool for me, trading property is so exhausted, the only good thing is the leverage at low cost. So I use the leverage to get a better place to live, and will continue to accumulate stocks. The most important thing is to make sure that the mortgage installment will not affect the cashflow, then one can really forget the purchase price for awhile and enjoy the new home.
Remember, life is short.
Now it's 2008, I changed my house again, actually I bought the other block, with higher floor zone, better layout and bigger size, and I just sold my old flat and the discovery bay flat. I always treat a self occupant flat like a car (a consumable), therefore during the price fall in the past, I didn't feel bad at all. And to my surprise, it goes back to the original price now. So I believe even if the market falls again this time, my new flat will go back to the original price again in the future, just like HSBC.
From investment point of view, I still think stock is a more suitable tool for me, trading property is so exhausted, the only good thing is the leverage at low cost. So I use the leverage to get a better place to live, and will continue to accumulate stocks. The most important thing is to make sure that the mortgage installment will not affect the cashflow, then one can really forget the purchase price for awhile and enjoy the new home.
Remember, life is short.
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