Hong Leong Finance

Before KeppelCorp, I have bought 10 lots of Hong Leong Finance (HLF) using my CPF OA monies. This was in 2015.

My reason for buying HLF is because of the dividends. The dividend was 12 cents for many years when it dropped to 10 cents for 2015 and 2016.

Nonetheless, at an entry price of 2.28 a share, 0.10 dividend is around 4.39%. This is higher than  the 3.5% (2.5% base interest and 1% extra interest on the 1st 20k in OA) that CPF could offer. I am positive HLF can maintain this yield.

2nd reason for buying HLF - I can't afford to buy local banks' shares. This is the closest to a bank (actually it is a finance company). It is sitting on a billion dollar cash. This is definitely enough for the company to weather through many years of tough times.

3rd reason: The share is hovering below its NAV. This provides me with a margin of safety.

4th reason: It has been around in SG for many years and has weathered through many economic downturns and recessions. It has an established track record.

In recent years, the revenue and profits of the company have declined as interest rates remain low sonce 2008. But as interest is set to rise, the company is expected to reap higher revenue and profits.

Keppelcorp

Why I bought this company's share?

Using the criterion I shared in my earlier post;

1) It is a well established company that has weathered econmic slowdowns and one of SG largest blue chips

2) In SG, it is a conglomerate with business in properties (it acquire keppeland in 2014 as oil and gas sector began to go downhill), oil and gas and others. Other close competitors are Sembcorp, Sembcorp Marine

3) Revenue - revenue was on upward trend until when it has taken a beating in recent years

4) Profit - Profits were stable. Ever since oil price startes dropping, Keppelcorp managed to maintain positive earnings despite trying times. 

4) Cash - before buying keppeland, keppelcorp was sitting on lots of cash. After buying Keppeland, its cash has dropped to 2 billion, enough to tide it through the rough times as oil prices hovers around the price 50-60.

5) Stock price - it reaches one of its lowest price - 5 dollars in Feb 2016 (lowest since 2009). Although $5 a share is not the lowest price that Keppelcorp has ever dropped.

6) Dividends - strong dividend yields in the past few years. Even though the dividend for the stock is not likely to be maintained at past levels, it was still decent enough.

I bought keppelcorp at average of 5 dollars each in Feb-16 and it is at 6.20 @ 14 Dec 2016.

I believe the company stock has more upside than downside. Noted that oil price remains violatile but oil price will go up one day. I am not an expert on oil price trends, but it seems like oil price is set to remain low for quite some time. When I invested in KeppelCorp, my goal is not to sell it in the short term. I intend to hold on to this stock for 10 years or more. 

My approach is long term investment. Hence the monies that I used to invest, are monies that I do not need. This way, I will not be pressed to sell my stocks for luquidity at low prices if an emergency arises.

I kept more than 6 months worth of my pay on hand in case of emergency (retrenchment, medical conditions etc).

Warren Buffet

I learnt of Warren Buffett as the world's richest person who made his wealth through investing. He is my second role model and greatly influenced my investment approach.

I started devouring books on Warren Buffett early in my university days but the books were mostly centred on his life story etc and does not shed light on his approach until Mary Buffett's books came out.

I utilised some of the knowledge and came up with my own criteria for stock pickings:

1. Only buy from companies that have established track records i.e. no IPOs, no China based companies (there have been too many companies delisted and I would rather not touch any of these)
2. Companies should have market presence over others (oligiopoly or monopoly in the market)
3. Companies' product/service is easily understandable (I know where the company makes its money from)
4. Profits per share - should be upward trending over past 10 years
5. Revenue should be trending upward for past 10 years
6. Dividend payout is decent (more than 3%) so that while I wait for the stock prices to go up, the dividends provides me extra cash
7. Total cash holdings should be able to service total debt (both long term and short term) or a large part of it (this can be quite hard to meet) as it signals that the company is able to weather economic slowdown better than those who are laden with debt.
8. Current stock price is below Net Asset Value (this is the cue I take to buy the stock)

With these criteria, I have bought shares from these companies

• Keppelcorp (still holding)
• Hong Leong Finance (still holding)
• Keppeland (sold to Keppelcorp)
• SMRT (sold)
• Capitaland (still holding)
• Raffles Medical (sold)
• Super coffee mix (sold)
• ASL Marine (sold)
• Comfortdelgro (sold)

In my subsequent posts, i will share in more details the stocks I have bought.

Some background of myself

I graduated with a Engineering degree in 2006 and decided to strive for a career in the financial industry. I have tried my hands as a call centre representative at a bank and writing articles for magazine (investment related).

The first myth to debunk: you got to have a degree in Finance to know how to invest....Wrong.

I learnt about the existence of stocks as an investment tool from my late father. He graduated with a Chemical Engineering degree and learnt early in his thirties that working for money is not the way to go. Making your money work for you is the the only way to retire.

There are 2 schools of thoughts in the stock investment realm; Technical versus Value investing.

My father followed the technical school of thought, and diligently tracked the stock prices for the stocks that he is interested in, for almost three decades. He would plot his graph (using just paper and ruler and pens) and use his charts to determine when to buy the stocks. Although I couldn't understand his charts, I knew that he had made money from stock investment from 1980s till 2015 when he passed away.

He was proudest of the moments when he ever made it into SPC's Annual report, as one of the few retail investors with substantial stocks holding under his name. Though there were proud moments, there were also missed opportunities as he recounted stocks that would have made him a millionaire had he hold on to them longer, which include SPC which he had accumulated 300k shares of them from as long as 30ish cents a share. He sold them too early and missed the chance when SPC share rose to 6 dollars plus.

Looking back, he would lament about the SPC but he was still filled with gratitude as he had not lost money on it.

My father deeply remembered the troubled years of 1997s when he was almost let go by his company and reminded us constantly of it. That was a close shave and a wake-up call as he has almost no cash on hand then and had a family of 5 to feed and clothe.

My father emphasized that whatever strategy we are using, there must be an exit strategy before buying a stock. And his was to make 30% profit. With this exit strategy and his self-taught technical analysis, he was able to see 4 children through university and when he retired in 2007 for good, he was able to continue to sustain his lifestyle and my mother's without the children contributing a cent to the family's expenditure.

For this, we children are eternally grateful as unlike our peers, we graduated from university with no debt (my father waived off the CPF repayment for the children) and all we need to do was to find a job that can feed us, without worrying about the family.

During his retirement days, my father was contented to have money to spend on whatever he likes (eating, books etc). His days are spent watching stock prices, reading newspapers and watching TV. He never had to worry about monies and continued to invest in stock until he pass away in Oct 2015.

To me, he was my role model in investment. Not because of his strategy, but because he opened my eyes to the world of investment and he demonstrated his success.

My blog is not to share with my father's technical analysis strategy (which remains a mystery to all the children including myself) but to journey down my investment path as I took on a totally different school of thought from my father's.


The points I would like to make, you don't need a degree to learn about stocks and regardless of the school of thought you adopt, money can be made from stocks. Period.

Starting a blog to write about my investment journey

It's has always been my dream to make $1 million dollars from stocks, write a book about how I did it and retire young and rich.


I have not made $1 million yet but I won't stop trying for it.


I had this dream since I first started work in 2007. It's been almost 9 years since and I am writing this blog to share my journey.


Hopefully it helps remove the fears that many people have, when it comes to investing in stocks and provide a tool for those who are seriously interest to take control of their monies for themselves.