Thursday, May 10, 2018

Some thooughts on Investing

Tactical Trades

I found myself doing 2 tactical trades lately. I define tactical trades as positions expected to be sold in around 6 months.

The first trade is Singtel, bought at $3.36 and sold at $3.53 yesterday. The second is Valutronics, bought at $0.69. I am hoping to dispose of it at $0.9, if possible.

Both trades are smallish position, unfortunately. I do not have the conviction to buy more, as I do not know if they may drop further at time of purchase.

Variant Perception

Variant Perception, if not wrong, is coined by Michael Steinhardt in his interview many years ago. The idea is to have different thoughts about a stock compared to the general market and hence profit from it.

The above 2 trades seems to illustrate variant percenption somewhat, as at the point when I purchase the stock, I was thinking that the stock price is too low and its outlook may be more favourable than what the market thoughts. Of course, I may be wrong and hence I keep the 2 trades small.

Earning Dividend while waiting for price to close

My recent purchase of Acendas Hospitality trust somewhat reflects the above idea of earning the dividend while waiting for price to reach NAV value. If the price does not increases, at least the dividends will offset my opportunity cost of having my money lock into the stock. Such ideas tend to be low-risk but also low-return.

$1million getting smaller and smaller

Lately, I have been thinking that $1 million dollars is getting less meaningful as it has been getting smaller and smaller. I recalled that when I read the books published many years ago (e.g. Think and Grow Rich published in 1937), such books gave the idea of $1 million being very big and very hard to acheive.

Nowadays, you can see blogs on FIRE having $1 million or a couple of $million. $1 million is really getting smaller and smaller.


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