How many long-terms can we afford

It never failed to intrigue or impress me each time I have group conversation with young people. Some could articulate well on how they see good personal wealth management should be. Stock market investment not necessarily is one of the tools for good wealth management. Some see it as a devil indulgence while others see it as part and parcel of wealth management. To some extreme, some don't even know what and how stock market works just like they don't know how insurance-investment-linked scheme works. But surprisingly, they willing to part their money in insurance scheme even on monthly basis without knowing or asking hard questions on how it works. Here I am not insinuating that investment-linked insurance scheme is unwise investment. Far from it. I am just asking why people treat investment-linked insurance they way the did but not on stock market. I mean, "will you willing to part some money into stock market in monthly or quarterly basis the way you did for investment-linked insurance?". Most, if not all, responded with no or unsure answers and others said investment-linked has money saving feature in it besides one gets life insurance coverage. Rightly so. One thing for sure is investment-linked insurance is a long term commitment. Not one year or two years commitment but probably 10 years or more. I would say most people have no problem to commit this for long term. But when it comes to stock investment, most would not commit the same. What I want them to give some thought is why not they consider stock market as long term money saving tool the way they see investment-linked insurance.

 

The other day, someone in this blog asked me about what is the longest stock I had ever invested. That is a very interesting question. This question really triggered me to give some further thought about how I see long term investment once again. How many long-terms can we afford in our lifetime? The ultimate reason why we invest in stock market in the first place is to make money, regardless it is short or long term. If one can make 100% return in 5 years is good. If one can make 100% return in 3 years is even better. It is the best if one can make 100% return in 1 year! Of course some will dream of making 100% in 1 month. Nothing wrong. But the question is how many will see it as a life long learning and enriching experience besides making money?

 

Let me tell you this. A person with net worth of say 10 millions will see long term definition very differently from someone with net worth of say 100k. That person of net worth of 10 million will probably enjoy and satisfied even his long term investment gives him 50% return. But for a person of net worth say 100k would probably would not be satisfied even manage to make 2 or 3 long term investments of 100% return in his or her lifetime. What I want to drive at is don't look at making money from stock market purely on money sense alone. You will never satisfy even if you make 100% return. One would probably end up chasing an endless unsatisfied dream over and over again. But rather to treat stock market investment as life long learning and enriching experience. If one take this approach, one will take out the stress when investing in stock market.

 

By the way, OCK goes ex-bonus today. The price adjusted and open below a dollar. We shall see how's the Q3 results look like soon.

 

Its price open at RM0.95 upon ex-bonus today.

DJIA hits new high again

DJIA hit new all-time intraday high at 17,560.31 on Thursday 06.11.2014.

What has that got to do with KLSE market? Sadly, nothing.

 

It seems that KLSE has its own independent mind recently. Whenever DJIA hit new high, KLSE reacted coolly about it. In contrast, whenever DJIA came down, KLSE reacted badly. Many people try to get clues from US stock market to make their position about KLSE. This could be mainly because KLSE itself is not able to provide useful clues to local investors for them to make investment decision. The flow of market information in KLSE is not acute and sufficient enough for the ordinary retail investor to fully comprehend what is happening behind every step of the corporate activities. Many a time news that we got is from third party, fourth party or worse it is unsubstantiated hearsay. This is the disadvantage many local retail players have over here. On the flip side, it is this disadvantage that has been fully make use by certain parties to work to their advantage. Unfortunately, the less informed investors are the one got slaughtered by their game. So how to beat them? You must know that they cannot play their game all the time. So to beat them is to play long term investment. Forget about tips for this and that from who and who. Tips are just to suck you into their games. Be wise and stay wise.

**************

(Reuters) - U.S. stocks edged up in a volatile session on Thursday, with the Dow and S&P 500 hitting fresh record closing highs. This was a record levels for the second straight day Thursday, after European Central Bank president Mario Draghi hinted at monetary stimulus of as much as €1 trillion.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rose 69.94 points, or 0.4 percent, to 17,554.47, the S&P 500 gained 7.64 points, or 0.38 percent, to 2,031.2 and the Nasdaq Composite added 17.75 points, or 0.38 percent, to 4,638.47.

About 6 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, below the 7.3 billion average for the last five sessions.

NYSE advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 1,730 to 1,327, for a 1.30-to-1 ratio on the upside; on the Nasdaq, 1,557 issues rose and 1,121 fell for a 1.39-to-1 ratio favouring advancers.

The benchmark S&P 500 index posted 72 new 52-week highs and three new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 118 new highs and 61 new lows.

OCK - the stage is finally set

The stage is finally set for better things to come.

 

People outside the company will never know how excited it was for the people who had worked so hard for this to finally come to fruition. The sense of accomplishment is all round. It is all about hardwork. Then comes result and then comes recognition. When there is recognition, things will be easier for the business to grow further. All this started as a small sole proprietorship company with limited capital. What it has then, and still has now, is grand idea and passion. That was 15 years ago.

 

One thing for sure. It is not easy for a small company to grow organically and eventually able to be listed in Main Board. This is not to compare to those high flying company with multiple layers of connections and backing.

 

I see this as a success story of the 1st generation of entrepreneur where the seed has been planted and this will carry on to the 2nd generation. We all know about Genting, YTL story and the like. These companies are now coming to their 3rd generation, SPSetia is supposedly in their 2nd generation (unfortunately the plan was scuttled prematurely). These companies may seem like family business oriented company. But who cares as long as it creates values for the shareholders in the long run. Business runs well, making profit continuously, have big vision and ambition to grow the company further.

 

And this is what I see in OCK since last year.

Its price closed at RM1.43 on 05.11.2014.