A Clockwork Investor's Diary

Portfolio Review: Up +55% in 10 mths!

2006-11-02T17:50:00.000+08:00

Marvelous! The recommended investment portfolio grew +55% year-to-date for the 10 months ended October 2006 to HK$620,336 from HK$400,000, significantly outperforming the total returns of both Hang Seng Index (+27%) and Hang Seng China Enterprise Index (+42%) in Hong Kong dollar terms. The impressive outperformance is mainly driven by the portfolio’s holdings in star performers such as HKEx (388), China Mobile (941) and China Life Insurance (2628), and the inactive trading activity during the reporting period. In fact, the portfolio only traded stocks in March, when Manulife Financial (945) was added at the expense of trimming the holdings in other stocks such as Huaneng Power (902).

As stated in the previous report as of August 30, 2006, Manulife Financial (945) and Link REIT (823) have been playing a key defensive role in the portfolio, which helped weather out the aggressive correction in May. From end of August to end of October, the portfolio gained 10% over the two months, which is also impressive.

And, the performance further supports my view that picking the star performers is always much easier than managing a group of star performers. For football fans, this also applies to professional football clubs such as Real Madrid and Chelsea. Both are flooded with super stars, but those stars do not necessarily guaranteed good performance if the manager sucks. If you don’t believe, just look at the disastrous performance of Real Madrid in the Spanish league will do.

It is worth noting that Huaneng Power (902), a laggard in 2006 on lofty coal prices, has started to play catch-up since September. I expect the holding in Huaneng Power will be another major performance contributor in the remainder of this year.

How to survive in the bumpy stock market - portfolio up 39% in 8 mths!

2006-08-28T14:57:00.000+08:00

Hello there! Long time no update! My recommended investment portfolio is now up 39% year-to-date ended 25 August 2006, growing the HK$400,000 portfolio to about HK$559,000 in about 8 months! The performance strongly outperformed the Hang Seng Index, which grew 13.9% (16.7% with dividend reinvested), all in Hong Kong dollar terms.

The significatn outperformce is mainly driven by the portfolio's holdings in star performers such as China Life (2628), Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearings (388), and China Mobile (HK) (941).

Picking a star performance is actually much easier than managing a bunch of stocks, particularly when the market is extremely volatile. Manulife and Link Reit, though have remained flat since the portfolio invested in them, have cushioned the overall performance of the portfolio, especially during the aggresive correction in the market in May and June.

For instance, in May and June, share price of HKEx (388) tumbled from its record high of HK$62 to HK$48, down about 24%! If not Manulife (945) and Link Reits (823), the portfolio should have fallen more than 15%, and touched my nerves to sell off HKEx (388).

My choice of stocks in the recommded portfolio is a well balanced one, which carries both stable and hyper performers, and let me sleep well at night despite the swings in the market.

Monthly Portfolio Review: Up 6.8% in March 06

2006-04-01T10:57:00.000+08:00

Dear All, just a quick wrap. My recommended investment portoflio, which invests in Manulife (945), HKEx (388), China Mobile (941), China Life (2628), PetroChina (857), Huaneng Power (902), Link REIT (823) and Gold has been up 6.81% in March, led by HKEx, China Mobile, China Life, PetroChina and Gold. The addition of Manulife to the portfolio capped the overall performance, coupled with Huaneng Power and Link REIT.

I will post the detialed table of the holdings in my recommende investment portfolio. In the 1Q06, this portoflio is up more than 20%, but the exact figure is not yet confirmed.

Perfomance of my personal portfolio will be posted here soon. Many thx

My Personal Portfolio gained 6.36% in Feb 06

2006-03-26T22:00:00.000+08:00

Hi all, as promised before, I have to review my own personal portfolio's performance for the month of February, which is actually a late call as I have been very very busy at my new job.

My own protfolio, which was 47% in Manulife, 19% in China Mobile, 23% in Link Reit, and 11% in Gold as of 27 Jan 2006, gained 6.36% for the month ended 28 February 2006, led by Link Reit (+13%) and Manulife (+7%), while China Mobile (+0.5) and Gold (-0.9%) lagged. Link Reit shares rose because more and more people are realising that Link Reit is a growth stock with ample supply of public and HOS resident flows. Manulife rose mainly on its impressive 2005 full-year earnings.

I am still confident in China Mobile as the mobile phone operator in Mainland China remains the market leader with stronger fundamentals, such as subscriber base, financials, market shares and network versus competitors China Unicom. And, investors have been skecpital of the share price performance following a stellar year of performanc in the previous year.

Gold remains one of my favorites and demand from India and China should continue amid their robust economic growth in the next couple of decades.

Bought 100 Manulife Shares at the expense of trimming Chinese shares

2006-03-03T19:43:00.000+08:00

In order to strike a more balanced portfolio, in my recommended investment portoflio, I bought 100 Manulife (945) shares at HK$501.5 (proceeds HK$50150) at the expense of sellinng 500 shares of China Mobile at HK$37.1 (HK$18,550), 1000 shares of China Life at HK$9.05 (HK$9050), 2000 shares of PetroChina at HK$7.65 (HK$15300) and 2000 shares of Huaneng Power at HK$5.25 (HK$10,500).

Gross outflow: HK$50,150
Gross inflow: HK$53,400

The cash level will be roughly HK$5200 after paying the brokerage charges of about HK$675. Pls find the updated weighting of the portfolio after the purchase of 100 Manulife shares.

A Clockwork Toni in Action

2006-02-28T23:01:00.000+08:00

A Clockwork Toni (the skinhead) is challenged by two Dogs United Players at Aberdeen (25 February 2006)!!!

Monthly Portfolio Review: Up 4.7% in Feb

2006-02-28T11:14:00.000+08:00

In February, performance of my recomended investment portfolio (RIP) was less blistering versus January as some of the high-flying H-shares softened on profit taking. This is not surprising at all as short-term profit taking is the nature of investors. In fact, the portfolio also has some short-comings that I have been wanting to ratify. It is too much concentrated on H-shares, and I am planning to unload some of the H-shares to add 100 Manulife (945) shares.

For the month ended 28 Febrary 2006, the RIP gained 4.5%, led by China Life (2628), HKEx (388) and Link REIT (823). February's performance was less blistering versus January's 10.25% as several pervious month's star performers like PetroChina (857) softened on investor's profit taking. But this is fine for me as the oil explorer's fundamentals have no change.

Year to date as of 28 February 2006, the RIP gained 15.42%, mainly driven by China life (2628), as the counter has been the driving the portfolio's performance two months in a row. In order to lower the Chinese stock weighting, and I am going to add Manulife (945)to the portfolio at the expense of reducing the Chinese shares in the very near future. Stay tuned.

If you have a large sum of extra cash

2006-02-03T00:36:00.000+08:00

Last nite, my friend asked if he has a pretty large sum of cash, and would like to invest in a safe place instead of making a fixed deposit at the bank. I would suggest him to invest in stocks, long-term star performers and very fundamentally strong plays, namely:

Robust Growth: 50%
HSBC (0005), Manulife Financial (0945)

Blistering Growth: 50%
HKEx (388), PetroChina (857), Huaneng International (902), China Mobile (941), China Life (2628) and Link REIT (0823).

When and what price to buy? tell you later.

Monthly Portfolio Review: Up 10% in Jan 06

2006-01-27T14:02:00.000+08:00

Ahead of the Chinese New Year, I would like to review both my personal and recommended portfolios, for the month ended 27 January 2005. With a little bit of luck, my recommneded portfolio rose 10.25% (net return after brokerage charges). No dividend was recieved in the reporting period. For your reference, Hang Seng Index (HSI) rose about 5.9% to 15753.14 from 14876.43 in the same period. The outperformance mainly came from HKEx (+17.5%), PetroChina (+18.89%), China Life (+13.14%) and GOLD (+8.3%), which are all non-Hang Seng Index members. As only China Mobile in the recommended portfolio belongs to the Hang Seng Index, it is not that fair to compare the performance of my recommended portoflio to HSI directly. But anyway, just give you a brief idea how the overall market is doing in January. One thing that I missed to say last time is that, my recommended portfolio is a high growth one.

I am also happy to tell you the performance of my personal portfolio: up only 3.1% in January, mainly due to the medicore performanc of heavyweight Manulife, which rose 2%, while performance of China Mobile and Link REIT lagged the Hang Seng Index.
And, the reason that my personal portfolio doesnt invest in all the stocks in my recommended one is only that I didnt have HK$400,000 in hand to start a new one, and I dont wanna to sell off my existing holdings. But my personal portfolio would be more stable than my recommended portfolio due to heavyweight Manulife, which I bought at HK$343 about 1 1/2 year ago.
*This Blog is not intended as an offer or solicitation with respect to the purchase or sale of securities, including shares in the Recommended Investment Portfolio. While reasonable care has been taken to ensure the information contained herein is valid, I makes no representation to its accuracy or completeness. Opinions and estimates may be changed without notice. I accepst no liability whatsoever whether direct or indirect that may arise from the use of information contained in this presentation.

I made hefty loss on Hang Seng Bank's Easylife

2006-01-19T18:44:00.000+08:00

I have made up my mind to terminate my Easylife life insurance policy of Hang Seng Bank. Lately, I constructed my personal finance accounting statements with Excel, which show my monthly income and expenses, as well as my assets and liabilities. As a result, I needed to delve into my insurance policies, and I found that after contributing nearly HK$32,000 into my Hang Seng Bank Easylife life insurance policy, the cash value was only about HK$2300, which is far below my Prudential life insurance policy! (Both have savings from my premium). After talking to the so-called personal finance consultant at Hang Seng Bank, I found that the Hang Seng Easylife is really crap. First, it locks up my money, and the break-even point between the cash value and my total paid premium will be 20 years! which is unbelievie. Compared to my Prudential one, which I bought 7 years ago, now is nearly break-even! Even worse, if the inflation rate remains above 3% in the following years, my real income loss will be huge!

However, as I am always a cut-loss philosphy follower, I have decided to stop paying the premium of Easylife, and use the money to increase my Prudential life insurance policy, which gives me more flexibility and higher return.

What separates pro players from club players?

2006-01-18T17:23:00.000+08:00

Snap Wrist
Note the awkward looking "follow through" of Pete Sampras' serve. This is actually the result of an action called the "snap wrist". What this means is that he turns his wrist outwards as he strikes the ball allowing him to generate more power with less effort. This action also allows him to disguise where he intends to direct the ball.

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Hit on the Rise
What this means is that you hit the ball before it reaches the peak of its bounce. The advantages of this is that it gives you more power, since the ball will still be travelling at a high speed when you strike it. This also gives you opponent less time to react to your next shot.

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Stay Low on Volleys
Staying low on volleys, especially low ones. Note also how firm Sampras' wrist is. Staying low prevents the racquet head from dropping down. Ideally it should remain at shoulder level or close to it to provide maximum control.

Source: Howard Ng

每日一字 - Sir

2006-01-18T13:32:00.000+08:00

如果我生個仔, 一定改佢個名單字叫 "瀡". 我姓陳, 佢以後一定好威, 因為人人都要叫佢做"陳瀡" 英文叫 Sir Chan. 問你死未.

Recommended Investment Portfolio: Start-up with HK$400K

2006-01-04T09:25:00.000+08:00

GOLD is up! US$527 an ounce. This year, I added GOLD to both of my personal and recommended portfolios. Frankly speaking, my personal portfolio recorded impressive performance in 2005, up about 35%, with stock investment in Manulife Financial, China Mobile (Hong Kong), Tracker Fund and Link REIT. In this Blog, I would like to share my investment philosphy with you, which is "Keep It Simple and Straight-forward".

Personal Portfolio:
As of today (4 Jan 2006, HKT), my personal portfolio has holdings in Manulife (48%), China Mobile (19%), Link REIT (21%) and GOLD (12%). My investment ideas mainly come from Mr Cho Yan-chiu, Mr Lam Sum-chi and Mr Warren Huang.

Recommended Investment Portfolio:
My recommended investment list, which remains nearly unchanged from last year, with new comers GOLD and Link REIT: Manulife Financial, HSBC Holdings, China Mobile, PetroChina, China Life Insurance, Huaneng Power International, Link REIT, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing and GOLD. Based on the recommended investment list, I constructed a recommended investment portfolio, which started with a capital of HK$400,000 on 30 December 2005. Let's witness how much it gain/lose throughout 2006.

*This Blog is not intended as an offer or solicitation with respect to the purchase or sale of securities, including shares in the Recommended Investment Portfolio. While reasonable care has been taken to ensure the information contained herein is valid, I makes no representation to its accuracy or completeness. Opinions and estimates may be changed without notice. I accepst no liability whatsoever whether direct or indirect that may arise from the use of information contained in this presentation.