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Seeing 'Three Kingdom' drama, I am also thinking like this Zhuge Liang in that drama, wanting to be free man, doing things we like such as learning things as a scholar. I always want to sit down and carefully study investment and companies. I will work on to the day that I can do like that.
Behavioural Finance in Investment World
I have missed one investment opportunity because I refused to pay few cents more to purchase. Right now, it has gone up to the point where it is useless to buy now. Similarly, I have a good feeling that the other two investment opportunities are going that direction for the same reason as above. It is extremely important not to be overconfidence like those in Sweden who were asked about their confidence in driving car during survey.
It is really tough to keep your emotion check while finding good chance to invest.
Human Resource Management
This arena is very important in making a business to be successful entity in the community. It also serve an important investment identity as mentioned by Philip Fisher. For given the different work environments I work in, I begin to notice the important of human resource handling. If the HR related regulation is outdated and stick in the mud, it will not be able to motivate employees to do on time or proceed good result. When everyone is leaning towards Web 2.0, it is important for HR to recognise the need of short break. It is pretty clear that when we stare LCD screens that have ultra brightness problems, our eyes tend to be tired by staring the same program. I agree with an article from BNET that it will do good to have 1 min short game to be played at facebook. After that, we may be refreshed again to do the same usual work.
Therefore, I will give 5 stars to those HR departments or personnels who are very attentive and aware of the work environment with the ability to modify the HR related regulation to meet the fast changing modern needs.
Account Receivables and Fundamental Analysis
Accountants and Accounts personnels know the flow of the account receivables. The textbook will tell us 20-40 days will be good based on the debtor collection period. I think different industries will have different level of debtor collection period. There is no hard fixed rule.
It is also true that accountants and accounts personnels will know how bad the account receivables are. One thing to them is very obvious: the longer the certain part of account receivable, the lower chance of them being repaid by debtors, the higher chance of them being written off. It can be very amazing if a company fail to know where the debtors are and what financial conditions they are in. With this failure, any company has no choice to write it off. Although banks use some kind of analysis methods to reduce credit risk, I will like to think if a non-financial company is so innovative enough to develop such analysis method to avoid having bad debt written off, it is bound to have higher cash flow in the future. With higher cash flow, it will be well-positioned for the internal growth.
Book
Book Title: The Guru Investor: How to Beat the Market Using History's Best Investment Strategies
Author: John P. Reese and Jack M. Forehand
Rating:6/10
Remark: Interesting guru screeners to find stocks on the basis of gurus' investment criteria. There are some errors.
Movies
Secretariat (Hollywood Movie 2010)
Synopsis:
This movie is based on the real-life story about a lady, who strive to get best throughbred horse that may be the horse racing winner.
Rating:8/10
Remark: Really touching story.
RED (Hollywood Movie 2010)
Synopsis:
A CIA retiree makes an attempt to meet a lady who he never met other than making a call to her frequently on the pretence of getting pension cheque. One day, he discovers someone trying to silence him. It turn out to be that he is up against his former employee. He goes out and meets her in order to protect her and at the same time, he tries to find out the truth on why he must be silenced.
Rating:9/10
Remark: Incredibly good action show. Enough pop-corn quality actions.
Ultramarines : A Warhammer 40,000 Movie (United Kingdom Movie 2010)
Synopsis:
A team of ultramarines answers distress call from Imperial Shine world by travelling there by air. Upon there, they investigate and discover surprising and twisted facts. Can they find the real truth?
Rating:6/10
Remark: Decent story.
Tony Del Piero wrote and posted at at 11:43 pm My next blog post will be published in few days later. The topic of new blog post is likely to be humans and their behaviours.
Matex International Limited
I bought this mentioned stock at SGD$0.095 after discovering that it is undervalued and has an insider buy. It is in very boring and static industry, where we don't expect much growth compared to technology and internet industries. Unfortunately, there is no catalyst for it to propel to true business value per share I perceive. If we buy this stock, we can only wait for this share to rise naturally due the human nature in the stock market. There is unexplained consistent price rise during the last few weeks of December 2010. I observe it and cannot find any relevant news that may explain the price rise.
It seems that market participants are pushing the price up gradually. With no viable catalyst, I sold it at SGD$0.135, making 26.06% profit (transaction costs included). On top of that, I have better investment opportunity, which means that I need to sell that stock obtaining sales proceed to acquire that opportunity.
In summary, it has excellent asset protection with sufficient margin of safety despite of not so rosy net profit recently. It is quite reasonable to have such negative profit during credit crunch and financial crisis that span from 2007 to 2009.
Disclaimer: I now do not own Matex stock as of today. You are to exercise your diligent to examine the stock concerning its company future and financial position. This section is not meant to be a tip for you to buy or sell. In other word, you are liable to yourself and no one else when you buy this stock.
Entrepreneurship
It is really good to watch 'The Social Network' film. Clearly, the article, I have mentioned in past few blog entries, does not consider venture capital issue. In the film, he gets funding from venture capital to put facebook icon globally. If the film depicts Mark's life accurately, then he is one type who do everything original.
It is really hard to do something original as your business start-up. Like what Charlie Munger says, it is difficult to replicate Coke's success even you have similar amount of capital expenditure as Coke. Therefore, it is better to own Coke than to start new soft drink manufacturing business to rival coke. Given my ability and skills, I will do likewise.
Books
Book Title: 100 Minds That Made the Market
Author: Kenneth Fisher
Rating:7/10
Remark: Good financial history book that educates us how successful men and ladies have done.
Book Title: Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Rating: 6.5/10
Remark: Not much difference between this book and the 'Black Swan' book. We will enjoy his process of thought regarding the randomness and the inability of mathematics and statistics to deal with real-time randomness.
Book Title: Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
Author: Michael Lewis
Rating:9/10
Remark: Very good book. I first saw the film of this story the book is covering. I feel stunned and moved by this film towards the miracle of turning a teenager, who is in danger of being beggar to a man, who has realised his potential to do something he excel very well with his pure talent. This extends the detail of that story, which film has not mentioned. It is better to have many Leigh Annies than social homes to save those unfortunate teenagers.
Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: A Long Short Story
Author: David Einhorn
Rating: 10/10
Remark: Einhorn tells us his real-life story about how he lives as short-seller against Allied Capital, who makes a lot of lies and evil acts against him. All investors need to read this book to be aware of any future frauds.
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
Author: Atul Gawande
Rating: 7/10
Remark: Very good book telling us the effectiveness of checklist and type of the checklist. Checklists are very important methods for us to follow the flow of doing without making obvious mistakes. Although we humans may make mistakes, checklists will lessen the chances of us making similar mistakes again.
Movies and Dramas
Animal Kingdom (Australian Movie 2010)
Synopsis:
After Josh's mother's death due to drug overdose, he moves in Grandma's home. Over there, he mingles with three men who have dealing in the drug business.They are facing problem as the cops are fast closing down on them. There is one cop persuading Josh to reveal something. Will Josh say anything or nothing?
Rating:7/10
Remark: Long-winded story with stunning ending.
The Town (Hollywood Movie 2010)
Synopsis:
A group of robbers pull off a series of sophisticated robbery in the banks, taking the money before the cops can catch them. However, in one of these robberies, one of these robbers decides to spy a hostage, who they have taken outside the bank as a mean of bargaining chip, should they trapped by cops. At that time, he fell in love with that hostage. There is upcoming robbery the mastermind wants to do. What will this guy do - Quit as a robber or start a new life?
Rating:9/10
Remark: Quite good story to keep you occupied. I love the moment how the male lead character eludes persistent cop.
Devil (Hollywood Movie 2010)
Synopsis:
This movie starts with the story of how someone can forgive another person, who have killed his/her beloved friends/family. It starts with the devil, who is pretending as a human, joining a small crowd. Then this devil starts killing people until the last person is remaining alive. What will that last person do?
Rating:7/10
Remark: Unique story that we cannot tell head or tail in every minute as the story progress.
Salt (Hollywood Movie 2010)
Synopsis:
A lady, who was trained to do terrorist attack by Russia as a child, is now working for CIA. The trainer of that lady has made a move to remind her who she is. He lays out the plan she is going to undertake in front of the eyes and ears of CIA and secret police. CIA and secret police are not sure whether he is talking truth. Suddenly, on the way out to jail, he escapes. Meanwhile, she becomes anxious and make a quick getaway from her workplace to protect her husband. Can she succeed? Will she carry out the mission assigned by her trainer?
Rating:8/10
Remark: Good action moves here and there. The story is easy to navigate.
The Social Network (Hollywood Movie 2010)
Synopsis:
It is about the life story of Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg.
Rating:9/10
Remark: His life seems to be exciting and entertaining in my point of view. It is pure entrepreneurship lesson that tells the motion picture rather than words spoken by your lecturer or book.
Style (Korean Drama 2009)
Synopsis:
This drama is somewhat similar to the plot of American movie 'The Devil Wear Prada'. An intern is working way too hard to support her superior, assistant manager in the magazine publishing firm, Style. There is internal stifle. Assistant manager want to be manager, enabling her in charge of making decision how the the content should be published in the magazine. Can she prevail?
Rating:8/10
Remark: Interesting story. Give us good picture how workplace functions.
Three Kingdoms (China Drama 2010)
Synopsis:
It is based on the Romance of Three Kingdoms.
Rating:8/10
Remark: It has excellent interpretation on how the process of people interact each other while the result of the process remains the same as usual. It is very unbiased drama like old verison that is too biased towards Liu Bei and his gang.
Juui Dolittle (Japanese Drama 2010)
Synopsis:
Tottori Kenichi has nickname called Dolittle that is given by his close classmate. He may behave like businessman demanding the payment to be paid before he can save pets. In reality, he care pets because his demand implies that they need to be very willing to save their pets as much as they do for their close humans.
Rating:8/10
Remark: Very good human-touching story. We need this as a lesson to educate ourselves on how we care animals.
Nin x Nin: Ninja Hattori-kun (Japanese Drama 2004)
Synopsis:
Adopting from popular manga, Hattori goes on final training assigned by his leader of Iga clan. He is supposed to stick to ninja code, find his master, who will be the first person he will meet, and protect his master. Can he make it?
Rating:6.5/10
Remark: I am not sure whether it is funny one. Nevertheless, it is entertaining show.
Tony Del Piero wrote and posted at at 12:05 am
