Price of Coffee Goes Up

Hi Readers,

Hope you have not been missing me much. Ever since the new year started, I have been busying myself with the more important things in life like spending time with family, reading, work, and of course various leisure activities.

For one, I have managed to watch the Godfather again. Something that I had wanted to do for the longest time but just could not find the spare time to do so.

I have also been reading like crazy. All the books in my house are being read through almost simultaneously.

The year has started off well.

Except for the news of coffee prices going up again, all has been well over at my side. Coffee is a drink that I am sure most people cannot live without. For me, a 10cents increase in a cup of coffee easily translates to a sizeable amount of money.

On the blogging front, I really do hope to blog more.

Concerns Over Dubai World Result in Increase of Debt Insurance Costs

Dubai World, Emirate's flag bearer in global investments, is undergoing a $22 billion debt restructuring. This has provoked a lot of speculations and an air of uncertainty has started to settle over the financial market. As a consequence, bond yields as well the debt insurance cost of Dubai World has started to shoot up. This looks particularly striking when you think of the recent billion dollar bailout of Dubai by Abu Dhabi.

The finance world was virtually speechless when this investing giant declared in November that it is going for a debt payment standstill. Dubai World can proceed with debt payments owing to the extremely expensive bailout by Abu Dhabi. However, no official agreement regarding payment standstill has been reached.

There has been a surprisingly sharp increase of five year credit default swaps (CDS) for Dubai recently. They are right now quoted at 510 bps. Do you understand the implications? It would cost more than .5 million to insure $10 million of the emirate's debt for five years.

The sources at ING investment management say that the announcement from Dubai World was absolutely unexpected and they did not have a clue about it. Sources confirm that ING did not receive any proposal from Dubai World. The whole issue is quite obscure right now.

The CDs are about to reach a level which was witnessed in the eve of the bailout. This has triggered the shooting up of debt insurance costs for Abu Dhabi and Bahrain as well. However, the rise in debt insurance has been relatively small for them. Financial experts opine that Standard and poor’s decision to revoke its rating for Dubai Holding Commercial Group has made quite an impact in this part of the world. Clearly, the apprehensions about Dubai World are affecting other companies like Dubai Holding.

It is significant that the rise in debt insurance costs came at a time when Greece is knee deep in debt and other countries in the euro zone are facing debt crisis as well (In fact debt management is quite an issue in euro zone right now). There is no question of an emergency situation right now but people are naturally skeptical since there is a possibility of debt rescheduling.

The $10 million, thanks to Abu Dhabi, will help Dubai World to refinance for 2010 as well as 2011. Moreover, its sister concern Nakheel has a domestic bond which is supposed to mature soon. Experts predict a $ 1,0 billion in net international bond insurance in this part of the world in the current year.

Author Bio:
This is a guest post by Kevin Craig who is a financial writer for various finance related Communities. He has been providing advice on debt relief since 2007.He has helped many indebted people to get out of debt by giving them proper financial advice for debt management. With his advice many are now living a debt free life. You can get in touch with him at kevin.craig672@gmail.com.

2011 Good Year for Investing?

With the new year celebrations just over, it seems that the stock markets have had a breath of new life. Overall stock portfolio is up and I do hope that this bull run continues. Even with global uncertainties in America and Europe, it seems that people are still pretty optimistic about the future.

What else can we expect from 2011? Here are how things are playing out in my head.

Scenario 1 - Europe and America sink due to debt concerns. Asia's domestic demand not sufficient and developed enough to propel the rest of the world economy. Economy starts to slump by mid or end 2011 due to some silly event.

Scenario 2- whole world recovers and we see another bull run for 2 to 3 years and people who were thinking that Scenario 1 will take place end up cursing their luck for the missed opportunities of the best bull run in Asia.

So which scenario do you think will take place? Let's do a poll!

Mini-Retirements and New Year Resolutions

After reading the 4 hour work week (well, perhaps I should say skimming through), I came across the idea of mini-retirements. Of course, it is not always possible to implement every single thing that is written in the book but I tried to take a mini-retreat during the holiday season, not really being bothered about the money that I would have to spend.

My idea of retirement has changed over the years. I previously shared some of my thoughts on retirement. And I must say that it is quite aligned to what Tim Ferris says in his 4 hour work week book. Basically, retirement is an insurance policy or last resort if I am spending my life doing work that I do not like. Ideally, I should be enjoying my work so much that I do not want to retire. And if that does not happen, then of course, retirement is the only option left to get out of the hole that I might be in.

2011 is really just around the corner and I took a mini-retirement/retreat at a really reasonably nice hotel. Sipping margaritas and listening to lounge music, taking strolls by the beach, dipping in the emerald blue infinity pool and just lazing around with magazine in hand. These were some of the things that I did and I feel rejuvenated to get back to work when the new year starts.

Usually, I spend the year reflecting about what I have done in the past one year and set some resolutions that I would like to achieve for the new year. But I realised that I should just throw away the idea of making resolutions this year. I am bad at keeping them anyway and just feel that I am at a certain place in my life where I am pretty contented with where I am at right now. So I don't really need to make any resolutions at the moment - or at least for the year 2011.

2010 has been a good year for me. At the blogging end, I managed to make inroads into areas I never thought possible. Financially, everything is going well and I would like to think that I am quite financially secure at the moment.

I registered a new domain (sgstockscreener.com) and it has been getting good hits too. So that has been another area which I have been proud of. Just registering the domain and getting the site up was a feat by itself considering how prone I am to procrastination. There are definitely other areas that I would like to explore to bring my blogging to the next level. But that will have to wait till the new year and we will see how things go.

I wish all my readers a happy 2011.

Stock Picks for 2011

At the end of 2009 and beginning of 2010, I posted some of the stock picks by analysts/brokerage houses for the year 2010.

To check out the various stock picks by these analysts for the year 2010, you can look at the following links:
1. DBS Vickers Small/Mid Cap Strategy

2. Stock Picks by Terence Wong (co-head of research at DMG)

3. Stock Picks by Janice Chua (head of research at DBS Vickers)

4. Stock Picks by Carmen Lee (head of research at OCBC)

Were there any stock picks that you followed and made a profit from?

For the year 2011, some of the analysts have also begun to publish their stock picks:

1. OCBC's Market Strategy for 2011

2. Phillip Capital Market Strategy for 2011

What are your stock picks for 2011?

First REIT again?

I have been monitoring First REIT for sometime after exiting it for a tidy profit a while back. First REITs had been consistently giving out good dividends. Its yield was relatively high compared to the other REITs and it also had a very low gearing of 15%. During the recession, the price dipped quite a bit but slowly recovered and I decided to lock in some profits and sold my entire stake in it.

The reasons for exiting it are mainly twofold. While it is a healthcare REIT, it does not really have a parent company to back it up. That is unless u consider Lippo to be its parent. The other thing that weighs heavily on my mind is that majority of its assets are based in Indonesia. There are thus country risks involved. And that is perhaps the reason why it is trading at a seemingly more attractive valuation than the other REITs counters. Personally, I did not want to hold something that was overly exposed and narrowly focused. And that was why I decided to exit it. A stock is cheap for certain reasons and the same applies to First REIT. It reminds me a bit of various s-chip shares I had held over the years because it was cheap when compared to its peers. Remember Unifood and Pfood?

The decision I took then was to start investing in blue chip companies and avoid stocks that were of a higher risk. And that will remain my strategy at least for the time being. I hope to liquidate my small cap stocks slowly and transfer them to bigger and better blue chips. Of course, we are in the midst of an expansion right now so I will perhaps wait a little longer before I start refocusing my efforts.

Though I was tempted to enter into First REiT recently, I shall resist it for the moment.

Iced Caffe Latte at Gusttimo Ion Orchard Rocks!

Was walking around ION Orchard today when I passed by Gusttimo and decided to try one of their coffees to get my caffeine fix which I had missed the entire day.As I had just eaten dinner and still wanted to walk around a bit, I decided to buy an iced cafe latte which is not what I would normally buy for my caffeine fix.

Well, the price is 7 bucks for a very normal looking cup of iced caffe latte but I must say that it tasted superb. Coffee sometimes tend to be too sweet or bitter but the cup that I drank was perfect. Perhaps I managed to add just the right amount of syrup to my drink. I was actually quite worried at the start as there wasn't a single soul in the cafe. But that was probably because I had an early dinner and it was probably dinner time for most people when I bought the coffee.

Continued my festive spending by spending over 40 bucks on a book from Prologue. Was pretty fascinated by the wide variety of books there. Almost comparable to Borders and Kinokuniya. I could have spent the entire night there and would have bought a truckload of books if I wasn't reminded by the fact that I still had a huge number of books waiting to be read at home. Anyway, the book that I bought was by a previous permanent secretary, Ngiam Tong Dow, and the book is titled "Dynamics of the Singapore Success Story". I must say that I have always had a certain fascination with how policies are made in Singapore and the various issues involved for a single policy. This book should keep me busy all the way till the New Year.

Have been splurging quite a bit recently with some mini-retreats planned towards the end of the year. Christmas is really just round the corner and I am sure I will be lamenting how soon it is over. Saw a decoration today that read "Christmas is Love". Indeed, Christmas is all about love if one understands the true meaning of why we celebrate Christmas and give gifts to one another.


Wishing all readers a most Blessed Christmas in advance. Take time to smell the roses and spend time with those you love.