The $1,261 Question (A Thought Process)

Capital Invested (includes costs but excludes dividends & gains from sale) : $13,169

Dividends For Calender Year 09 : $299.54

Yield : approx 2.5%

Current Market Value of Portfolio (includes re-investments from disposals, based on last done) : $23,665

Returns On Invested Capital (ROIC) : 79.7%

Year-to-date ROIC : 3.48%

Proposed Dividends: $425

Net Proposed Injection :  $836

Total Cash Holding : $1,261

% of Capital Invested : 9.6%

% of Portfolio : 5.33%

Portfolio

very busy week at work. thinking of possibly doing another kind of job then devote more time to online writing. does not pay well, but gives me alot of freedom.

The hunt for yields

Here's a selection of regional stocks that appear promising in terms of dividend payouts

By TEH HOOI LING
SENIOR CORRESPONDENT

ONE of the questions I'm asked most often is: which good stocks provide decent dividend yields? Today, I've decided to do a stock screening to see which names I come up with. I ranked stocks based on their dividend yields. And then, to make sure these yields have more certainty of being sustained, I weeded out those with a market capitalisation of less than $100 million and those deemed by StarMine (the provider of the data) to have low earnings quality - whose earnings can swing wildly. I carried out the screening process in four markets - Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan. Here's what I found:

My Portfolio (Continued)

A brief run through of my portfolio continued from the earlier post.

ActionAsia makes the entertainment sets in the cars and buses you see.

Chinese New Year Gloom And Portfolio Diversification

The portfolio showed some improvement with Asiatic being a star performer, although there is no newsflow. China Animal Healthcare, despite all the media time, has not showed any improvement in terms of share price, most likely due to the fact that it did not distribute dividends.

Here is a screen shot of my portfolio from DBS Vickers with a brief run through.

Are Dividends Important?

To cut a long story short, Jeremy Siegel showed in his book "Stock for the long run" that had bought a high yielding stocks, and reinvested the dividends, your returns would have beat all asset classes by a wide margin.

That is the American context. locally in Singapore, there are not many stocks that offer reinvestment scheme. from what i can remember, Keppel Corp has a reinvestment scheme, while OCBC and Pacific Andes have scrip dividend.  A scrip dividend is one whereby you recieve stock instead of cash. There is of course the problem of what do you with the odd lots. For that, you have to talk to your broker or try to sell odd lots with your electronic platform. This might incur additional costs.

Back to the main point, dividends are important for someone with a long investment horizon because Capital Appreciation is prone to fluctuation and volatility. Dividends of course are affected by earnings which are in turn affected by the business cycle. But the thing is, you do not have to sell the stock to recieve this cash inflow, hence reducing transaction costs. You must however not buy a company that will expire or is giving a generous dividend because it is going to hollow out as in the case of Achieva or say Thakral.

To give an example, you bought UOB Kayhian at $0.97 that comes with dividend of $0.05 (interim and final) working out to slightly more than 5% yield. Assume you hold it 5 years with a constant dividend of $0.05 and an ending price of say $1.10, you would have made $0.10 in capital gains with $0.25 in dividends.

Yes, these are simple assumptions. moreover there is no way to predict the end price of any stock. but the pertinent point is that, if you want a decent returns from your stock portfolio, be sure to buy good stocks that offer a good initial yield.

Initial yield is the expected dividend over the price bought. Some companies like SingPost offer very solid dividends. In fact, i recommended it to a few friends because it is a cash generating that might have to restructure and redistribute some of the assets it will eventually sell.

Food for thought

10,000 Hits. Thank You Guys!

I finally hit 10,000 page impressions although i am not sure how many are unique.

My portfolio will still be plastered weekly on this blog. However, I will do writeup on more relevant topics relating to investing in stocks in the coming week. I will write in the more familial style than in a technical language. I have in mind lessons in investing as well as  corporate developments affecting my stocks.

Stay Tuned

ChinaMilk Suspended. Great Way To End The Year of The Cow.

The portfolio recovered. Elite KSB announced results. Revenue and earnings were boosted largely by its acquisition of Jordon. However, it has stated that it remains affected by the strengthening Aussie dollar, which will affect pork prices.

FJ Benjamin has also seen an increase in buying activity after an earlier sell-down by institutional funds. The story for it for me at least is that it will benefit from the opening of the Marina Bay and RWS IRs.

ActionAsia has been relatively silent. the TDR story has slowly faded from public minds. Hope they will announce a good set of results.

Well, I feel very very lucky to have sold off China Milk. Yes, some of my recent acquisitions have not been good. But i can't help feeling a huge sense of relief cutting my small holdings in China Milk. I even manage to make some money before the whole convertible bond issue triggered a suspension. RIP.

Read a nice article by R Siv of the Business Times. He was saying that we are trying to find reasons for the market sell down in the news, when in reality, there has been a decline in money supply (to my surprise). he said, citing a report, that M2 and M3 measures of money have actually declined year on year. Well, now you know.

Next week is Chinese New Year. So enjoy the break it gives you away from the stock market. Cheers. Or rather, Gong Xi Fa Cai

what a bad week in the stock market. my portfolio slumped into the red for the first time this year. this is not unexpected as stated in my earlier post. please do not try to bottom fish but rather pick stocks for the long term.