Thursday 29 December 2011

2011 - Year end Review

Similar to most people, let me share my year 2011 review.

My first post is on 1 Apr 2011. April fool day! My blog is now 8 months old!

Thank you!
It was, is and will be a very fulfilling and exciting journey to record and share my journey in investing. In this year I had learnt many things (average in, XIRR, emotion, power of internal strength etc) and had summarise the some of the key things which I have learnt in a blog post earlier. (See http://opposethetrend.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-story-typical-know-nothing-to-know.html).

Beside what I have learnt, I have also made friends with many interesting people such as 50k saving per year, 100k passive income, BBB WJ, Keppel's Uncle with hot daughter in SMU, atas DBSS, audit director, leverage king, sexy mum, small fry, busty froggy, hot doctor, cookie monster, serious MW, drizzt, sexy SMOL, piggybank, pepe le pew, legendary steven ge, prof nick, FT pero, interesting BW etc (please forgive me if I miss naming anyone) on bullythebear's cbox. Although I may not have met them in real life, I have learnt a lot from them and realized that there are actually many like minded people around. Thank you!

Year 2011 portfolio performance
My readers may already know this. I have two portfolio. One account is joint account with my spouse, the other is my personal account and I put in money to these accounts monthly on the day which I received my pay. Thus I am 发薪日光光族! (see http://opposethetrend.blogspot.com/2011/11/or.html)

XIRR for joint account: +13.75%
XIRR for my account: -31.92%

Year 2012 wish list
  1. Be happy for both my family and I
  2. Stay healthy
  3. Enhance my investment knowledge and share with others
  4. Maintain and improve the XIRR for both of my account to +XX% for 2012
  5. Find the right job and career path so that I can earn and save more money!
  6. Stop spouse to use less SKII, splurge less on taxi/restaurants everyday and save more $$$ each month (opps..hope I can stay alive after this point..)
The first two points are most important for me - basic of life.
Point 3 to point 6 are the processes to help me enhance and maintain point 1 and point 2.

Happy new year!

Let me end this post with a picture of my taiwan trip!

Which stage are you in by end 2011?

 Remember this post? http://opposethetrend.blogspot.com/2011/05/sharing-on-how-to-be-emotionless.html


If you seen $XXX,XXX loses before, you will not feel "kan Jiong" on $XX,XXX losses.
If you seen $XX,XXX loses before, you will not feel "kan Jiong" on $X,XXX losses.
If you seen $X,XXX loses before, you will not feel "kan Jiong" on $XXX losses. 
If you seen $XXX loses before, you will not feel "kan Jiong" on $XX losses.

Thanks to the mini bear and my average down without proper risk management this year, I am in the stage bold in red above. :)

Which stage are you in by end 2011?

Friday 23 December 2011

SGX

St Engineering

Singpost - coming soon?


Sometimes keeping simple is good and a picture speaks a thousand words :)

Tuesday 29 November 2011

Vacation Leave - 3 dec to 17 dec

Dear readers,

I be going overseas for splurging trip :)

Any recommended, must visit place in Taiwan?

See you in few weeks time.

Monday 28 November 2011

Interesting Question - Describe your job in a few words

I came across this interesting question "Describe your job in a few words".

If you can summarize your job in a few words, it will tell you more things about your job.

Let me start the ball rolling.

For me, it is "Everyday is draft email/paper, bounce through and fro through many upper level for clearance, in the end what you had wrote earlier is totally different from the final product. Zero worth and zero satisfaction, just work for money."

What about yours?

Friday 25 November 2011

Running out of juice

It been a week since I last posted.

Been running of ideas on what to write for my blog. Does all bloggers have the same difficulty of running out of stuffs to write?

Dear readers, do you have any suggestions on what topics I can write for my blog?

By the way, I broke my "kiam Sapness" over so many years. The past two phones which I bought are $0 and $48 respectively and I always choose the cheapest plan available. I also refuse to get 3G plans because I don't want to end up like other people in MRT where everyone is frantically poking their phones every single second.  

Sadly, I went over to the dark side yesterday.

I had bought a new phone LG Optimus 2X at the cost of $88 and change my current plan of Ioneplus to 3G flexi Lite. My bill will increase by around $11 per month after this! I will be further from my financial goals by $11 per month!


However, I should also thank Standard Chartered Bank for sponsoring $80 for my phone. Thanks!

Tuesday 15 November 2011

LMIR 15 Nov 2011

LMIR mother shares at closing: $0.365
LMIR rights at closing: $0.026

Estimated post-rights yield: $0.0326
Mother shares CD: $0.0106 (xd will appear tomorrow on 16 Nov 2011)

By doing a simple calculation, (0.365-0.0106)-(0.31+0.026) =  0.0184.

It is actually more worth it to get the right shares instead. (Of course this exclude transaction cost.)

The interesting thing will come tomorrow where mother share goes xd.

Theoretically, mother share will become 0.365-0.0106 = 0.3544 (most of the time, the price will drop more than divy, thus I guess it will become lower to around 0.345)


How will the right share react?

Disclaimer: The below is solely my guess.
 
If mother share drop by 1 cent, will right share drop even more? The lowest today is 0.02. My guess it might drop below 0.02. If it hit 0.016, the yield will become 10%. I believe this is a magic point where many will whack at this price. A support? Likely.  If it drop much lower than that, it would be a bonus for those who want to acquire this share cheaply.

Will we reach 0.001? Let's wait and see tomorrow.

My action:
I am a current shareholder.

If mother share did not drop below 0.31, i will pay for my rights and apply excess.
If mother share drop below 0.31, I will buy mother shares instead.

As for the rights, I am not sure if I will go and purchase rights even if it hit 0.016 as I do not want to disobey my rule of investment where the % for any stock should not be more than certain %. 

Tuesday 8 November 2011

Important dates for Lippomall rights

Sunday 6 November 2011

月光族 or 发薪日光光族?

There are people who are 月光族.

For me, I am very poor on the immediate day of my pay check! 发薪日光光族?

On the immediate night of my pay day every month, I would:
  • Transfer around 60-65% of my pay to my Joint account and personal saving account for investment and saving - pay myself first.
  • Give 15% to parents as allowance.
  • Take out a sum of few hundreds cash as food expense and put in cupboard.- this would be my pure food expenditure in hawkers, coffee shops, ntuc groceries for the months. Amount taken out would be dependent on how much I had left from last month.
  • The rest will remains in daily account for stuffs like occasional credit card spending for entertainment, utilities, singtel, conservatory charges etc. 
Thus effectively, 80% of my pay is gone on the immediate day of my pay. Even if I want to overspend also cannot.

I live a poor but happy life! Delay Gratification!

I am 发薪日光光族.

Are you 月光族 or 发薪日光光族?

(sometimes I wonder how great would it be if I can be like my siblings, earned at least double my earned income but yet either don't give parents money or delay very long then give a bit and refuse to offer their place for my parents to stay. I would be able to save much more and reach my FF goal faster. I am just stupid. )

Wednesday 2 November 2011

For sharing: SDIC

https://www.sdic.org.sg/di_calc_of_comp.php

In the event a DI Scheme member fails, all insured deposits placed with that member, except for deposits under the CPF Investment Scheme and CPF Minimum Sum Scheme, are aggregated and insured up to S$50,000. If you are a sole proprietor, your personal eligible accounts will be aggregated with the eligible accounts of your sole proprietorship(s). Trust and client accounts held by non-bank depositors are insured up to S$50,000 per account, without aggregation.

Deposits are not insured separately in each branch office of a DI Scheme member i.e. all your eligible accounts maintained with different branches of a DI Scheme member are aggregated and insured up to S$50,000.


Moneys and deposits under the CPF Investment Scheme (CPFIS) and CPF Minimum Sum Scheme (CPFMS) are aggregated and separately insured up to S$50,000.
_______________________________________________________________

In summary, it is 50k per bank per name. 

Example:
If you have 80k in bank A as joint account with your spouse and you also have 20k in bank A by youself while your spouse has 5k in her account.

Amt considered under your name: 80k/2 + 20k =60k. Thus you are insured with 50k but the remaining 10 k is not insured. For your spouse, the full amount is insured because 80k/2 + 5k = 45k <50k.

If you have also placed S$70,000 of your CPF monies in a fixed deposit under the CPFIS, you are insured with 50k but the remaining 20k is not insured.
___________________________________________________________

Thus, moral of the story, spread your money in different bank and make sure you have max 50k per bank per name.

But as personal opinion, I think local SG banks such as DBS, UOB and OCBC should be safe. I won't not mind put more than 50k in these bank. However, for bank such as CIMB, Maybank, Citi etc, I will aim for 50k per name.

In the event that DBS, UOB and OCBC really die, I cannot imagine what will happen to Singapore then....

By the way, for those who is interested, CIMB starsaver give you 0.8% per annum, not bad as compared to 0.05% of DBS. However, the best choice is put your money in CDP to generate passive income from equity/fixed incomes :)

Sunday 30 October 2011

My story -Typical know nothing to know a little thing investor

When I first started work in June 2008, I listen to my friend aka financial adviser and bought ILP because I just started work and I know that I need investments and protection but I was total noob in finance. (This ILP still haunt me today. Pls see: Best Bargain: Must buy: ILP)

Then I read up more and think that investing by myself is better. (Rich dad Poor Dad changed my mind. Previously, I hated anything to do with finance.) Hence, I bought unit trust in March 2009. I tried different kind of funds including method such as RSP.

I was lucky as March 2009 was market bottom and sold them in Oct 2009 for a bit of profit when I realised that I am actually feeding my profits as annual expense to the rich fund manager. Then I switched to stock.

In Oct 2009, I don't know anything about TA and FA. I listen to radio, see tv, see CNA market forum, see news etc and whacked my first stock golden agriculture at 0.45. In the next few days, the price drop to 0.42 and I felt worried and kan jiong. In the next few days it went back up to 0.46 and I sold it for low $xx profits as my emotion cannot take it.

Since then I started to buy and sell many stocks, but only dare to hold for a few days to few weeks because I do not have any plans or method. I have no confidence in my buy and easily panic as it is my hard earned money. In addition, I am easily influence by the media. The worst investment which I made during that period was blinding following BB Peter Lim, that mistake is still haunting my portfolio.

Since then till today I keep reading up books on FA and TA, learning all the methods which I could in stock investing. Somehow when I go through financial blogs, I discover LP's cbox and started to chat and learn from the people there.

I thought I had already learn many methods in investing such that it will make me a better investor. However, my performance is not good at all. I tend to buy and sell quite fast. I also tried forex but loss badly and read up on warrants but luckily did not tried that. I also wanted to try CFD, I got the account form but end up I never sign up.

Slowly slowly I realised that knowing the methods - TA and FA is not enough and in fact there is no holy grail in the methods. No matter how well verse you are in TA and FA, there is no way which you could predict the market movement.  Hence I started to give up listening to all these noises.

I learnt that I need to manage my portfolio well and do asset allocation. This directly and indirectly link to the emotion in my mind. I learnt and know that how much money I should and can put in each individual stock such that I will not panic when the market drop heavily. I learnt that I should and can only do average in but not average down. I learnt and know that when Mr Market is in panic, I should not panic. Instead, I should start whacking some good stocks slowly according to my asset allocation plan. When Mr Market too optimistic, I know I should start selling and should not have seller remorse.

Overall, now I know that I need to have a strategy. A carefully planned strategy such that I will have asset allocation according to my risk level and what I will do if market goes up and what I will do if market goes down. There is no point to predict market movement. The so called gurus also made so much mistakes, how can a layman like me do prediction? Nowaday, I started to buy slowly and sell slowly. Although it is hard, I force myself to stick to the rules which had planned.

However, I still have 2 past mistakes which is still haunting my portfolio. The school fees incurred in this process of learning is painful. Hopefully, Mr Market will give me a chance to repent.

I hope I am on the right track and I think my XIRR will tell me how I fare in future. All the best to me!

Lastly, thanks to all those had gave me guidance and I will continue to learn as much as I could so that I can improve! Thank you!

Thursday 27 October 2011

So bullish on 27th Oct 2011?


Repenting or?

Are you repenting?


OR?


Wednesday 26 October 2011

Food for thought: Why TA seems to work for many people?

It work because many believe in it.

Self fulfilling prophecy

Wednesday 19 October 2011

why next time?

Long long ago there was a very lazy man, X. He wanted to spend the minimum amount of time in working and just work the bare minimum such that his boss had no reason to sack him. Typically, he worked from 9 to 5 everyday and went fishing or sit by the seasides to enjoy the beautiful scenery everyday after work. He just wanted a decent amount of pay such that he could pay off all of his necessary expenditure with little or no surplus every month.

There was another man, Y who is same age as X.  However, he is totally opposite of X. He is a high flyer in a company, currently holding director position in a company. He spent enormous effort to work hard and work smart in office to please his boss. Typically, he worked from 8 and overtime till 11pm everyday. He want to work hard to get promotion and earn tons of money.

X and Y are secondary school friends and did not see each other often. 

One day, Y past by X when Y is on way to meet his client at 8pm while X is fishing by the seaside, enjoying his life.

Y: Hi X, why are you here again? I think I saw you many times around this time when I am rushing to meet my client.

X: I am fishing and I go fishing everyday after work. Sometimes I just sit by the seaside and enjoy the scenery.

Y: I heard that you are still doing that low paying job after so many years. Why aren't you striving hard to earn more instead of wasting your time fishing everyday? Don't you want to buy big cars, own big houses, with lots of cash and investments so that you can retire without any worry in future when you are old? Look at me, I worked so hard everyday, trying to earn a lot so that I can have lots of money. Next time, I can buy a house by the seaside and enjoy the beautiful scenery when I retire.

Guess what X reply?



X: Why wait till retire? I am already enjoying the seaside scenery everyday.

Monday 3 October 2011

Could sell and buy back cheaper later

Very often, you would heard someone said "Could sell and buy back cheaper later".

Sometimes, someone may also said "If I should have sold it at at x price, and buy back at x-0.5 price. Then I would gain xxx instead of lose yyy."

However, this is all based on hindsight.

Irony is, how many times did the share went up further after you sold? How many times did the share crash after you decide to hold it and think it would go up further? How many times did share you bought drop more just after you just bought it?

If it is so easy to predict the up and down of the market, all of us would be billionaires and don't need to work right?

If you are so zhun, can you please predict and tell me when the market will crash and at which date will it rebound back?

If you are so zhun, can you please predict and tell me if the market will U-turn given the current bad economic conditions?

One classic advice:

Slowly buy, slowly sell. You can never sell at the exact top or buy at the exact bottom - always buy and sell in stages. (The top tick of a rally is the most expensive tick inthe market - fortunes have been lost hunting for it.)

Saturday 1 October 2011

LMIR issue 1 for 1 right.

LMIR TRUST TO ACQUIRE TWO QUALITY RETAIL MALLS
FOR S$388 MILLION
TO BE PARTIALLY FUNDED BY A 1-FOR-1 RIGHTS ISSUE
- 1-for-1 rights issue at S$0.31 per rights unit represents a discount of 42.6% to
the closing price of S$0.54 per unit
- Rights issue to raise gross proceeds of approximately S$337 million
- Proceeds raised to partially fund the acquisitions of Pluit Village in Jakarta
and Plaza Medan Fair in Medan, two strategically located quality retail assets
with attractive net property income yields
- Acquisitions enlarge LMIR Trust’s portfolio to 10 retail malls and 7 retail
spaces, valued at approximately S$1.46 billion

Pluit Village, a five-level retail mall located in Jakarta, Indonesia is to be acquired
from entities linked to the Sponsor of LMIR Trust, PT Lippo Karawaci Tbk,
for S$234 million1 and Plaza Medan Fair, a four-level retail mall
located in Medan, Indonesia, from Asiana Investment Limited, an unrelated third
party, for S$154 million1. The purchase considerations represent a 5.7% discount
to the average valuation for Pluit Village and a discount of 4.1% to the valuation
of Plaza Medan Fair.

To partially fund these acquisitions, the Manager has proposed a one-for-one
renounceable rights issue (“rights issue”) of 1,086,516,497 new units in LMIR
Trust at the issue price of S$0.31, representing a 42.6% discount to the closing
price of S$0.54 on September 30, 2011. This rights issue is expected to raise
gross proceeds of approximately S$337 million1. The balance of the purchase
consideration will be drawn from the S$150 million 30-month term loan (secured
on September 28, 2011) as well as internal cash.

_________________________________________________
388m - 337m = 51m. (51 m will comes from cash or the 150m loan facility drawn recently)

Current it has 110m cash + recently drawn out 200m on 28th sept (the 200m will be use to finance 125 debt + future acquisition).

Asset will grow to around 1.4b. gearing will be less than <10% now.

The problem now is: Are these 2 new properties good?

Friday 30 September 2011

Recap: book

Recently, started to refresh the books which I read before.

First REcap!

"An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and an adequate return."

Who wrote the above?
In addition, it consists equally of three elements:
  1. You must thoroughly analyze a company, and the soundness of its underlying businesses, before you buy its stock.
  2. You must deliberately protect yourself against serious losses.
  3. You must aspire to "adequate", not extraordinary, performance.
So who wrote the above? guess?

Tuesday 27 September 2011

Economic news?

Remember this news?
http://opposethetrend.blogspot.com/2011/09/good-news-bull.html

What about this?
Remember that yesterday and last friday, STI was in red?

What about today?



So is market going up or down?

I guess many people are thinking of bull or bear or sideway everyday?

But do you really have control over these?

Is there a simple formula news A + news B - bad news C = market up?

NO!

It is too complex. Even the so called economic experts or guru couldn't get it right.

It is impossible for layman like us to get it right?

Since you cannot control the market, cannot control the news, what can you do?

CONTROL YOUR OWN PORTFOLIO AND YOUR MONEY!
Place yourself in a way that suit you and could take advantage of both the up and down.

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Money, Time, Freedom, Health

Money, Time, Freedom, Health

The items above are interrelated.

When you are young, you have health, limited or lots of freedom (depends on parents), no money (sometimes parents give you lots of money to replace their time with you, thus depends on parents too).

When you just started work, you wish to have more money so that you can have the freedom to do what you want, generally you have good health. Thus you work very hard for money and have to sacrifice health and time.

When you start to grows older and older, you will have more and more money, but your health starts to deteriorate. In addition, in general, the higher the earned income you got as an employee, the greater the responsbility you have and the less time you have.

By the time, you earned a lot and retired, you may not have good health to enjoy the lots of money in your bank. One day, just leave with regrets in life - why didn't you spend more time with families as well as do more things you like, instead spend too much time to pursue money?

Life is ironic, isn't it?

The moral of the story is: Strike a balance so that you will not regret when you die in future.

Monday 19 September 2011

Kungfu panda inner strength revealed !

http://singaporeanstocksinvestor.blogspot.com/2011/09/120k-annual-passive-income-from-s-reits.html

I guess his internal strength is level 7-8, assuming level 10 is ??? (this exclude 50% cash that he has). Guess how much ??? is.

I target to hit level 3-4 in few years time!!! Good luck to me!

What is your inner strength?

Pls see previous post.

http://opposethetrend.blogspot.com/2011/08/kungfu-andor-inner-strength.html

Thursday 15 September 2011

Good news? Bull?

http://www.businessinsider.com/breaking-ecb-and-fed-announce-new-liquidity-measures-markets-surging-2011-9

5 September 2011 - ECB announces additional US dollar liquidity-providing operations over year-end 


The Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) has decided, in coordination with the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank, to conduct three US dollar liquidity-providing operations with a maturity of approximately three months covering the end of the year. These operations will be conducted in addition to the ongoing weekly seven-day operations announced on 10 May 2010. The schedule for these additional operations is as follows:
Tender date Settlement date Maturity date
12 October 2011 13 October 2011 5 January 2012
9 November 2011 10 November 2011 2 February 2012
7 December 2011 8 December 2011 1 March 2012
These will all take the form of repurchase operations against eligible collateral and will be carried out as fixed rate tender procedures with full allotment.
 ______________________________________________________________

Repo is short for repurchase agreement. Those who deal in government securities use repos as a form of overnight borrowing. A dealer or other holder of government securities (usually T-bills) sells the securities to a lender and agrees to repurchase them at an agreed future date at an agreed price. They are usually very short-term, from overnight to 30 days or more. This short-term maturity and government backing means repos provide lenders with extremely low risk.

Saturday 10 September 2011

Dream!

When I was in secondary, I started to dream of this and this:



I saw other people have it, thus I also want it - My older brother and sister and other friends own the thing in first picture. (wait did I say owned it? Technically it should be own it with loans.)

When I first graduated from university, I still dream of the above. I want to work hard to earn and own it.

I saw many of my friends own the thing in the first picture. But what puzzle me is how did they manage to own it? where did they get so much $$$ to buy it in the first place? (At time time, I was noob. I did not know that they owned it with debt that kills a large portion of their pay.)  Nevertheless, that time I was jealous and hope that one day I can own it too!

However, around 2 years ago till today. I did not dream of above anymore even though my friends now own more than the first picture, they own the thing in the picture below and they complain to me that it eats up all of their cpf and their take home pay. Some even told me that they scare of losing job and have to work hard to secure their jobs for 30 years or even longer. But is there really job security nowaday?

Today, I only own the thing below with little debts. (maybe 1/3 or 1/4 of what their owed banks for the above nice thing.)


Look old and sluggish right?

I may seems to be cheapo to my friends, but....

I know that half of my monthly cpf can cover the monthly installment. (for your info, my pay is not high. In fact much lower than peers.) Although I don't have the so called luxury, but I am happy and content because I know that I can clear the above debts in at most 10 years using both mine and my wife's cpf if I want to or I can clear it immediately with all the cash and cpf both of us have currently. In addition, I do not need to be a slave to my job but I still want a job because i need $$$ to play with Mr Markets for the rest of my life :)

I forgot to mention. For my transport, I have this:

By the way, do you know what is BMW?

In future, I will aim for the second picture which I posted earlier but not for my stay :)
So ultimately, one day I will own something which my friend owned when they first grad but at much later date.


 __________________________________________________________________________

End of story. So what is the moral of the story? I can think of a few. Please feel free to add on.
  1. Be content with what you have
  2. Plan your finance well. Others may looks glamorous in front of you, but you don't know what happen at the end of month when the bills are in. A debt free person is a happy person. A galmorous person may not be
  3. Delay gratification helps
  4. Have a dream
  5. Know the difference between wants and needs
  6. Live within your means

Snowskin Mooncake!!

Been sharing on my financial journey throughout my blogging journey, I decided to share something else. Hope my reader dont throw rotten eggs at me!

I bought most of my ingredients from redman. 

This is the 2nd receipt which I tried yesterday.
White lotus paste (just buy the ready made) 
130g kao fen
160 icing sugar
1tbs shortening
2tsp milk

(1) Make the Lotus paste into balls a day ago before start making the skin

(2) Mix the kao fen, icing sugar, shortening, milk around an hour before making. Put in fridge for around 20 min. Take out and this is what you get.

(3) Scoop 1tbs of the skin

(4) Roll the skin flat and put the lotus in the middle of the skin

(5) Wrap it up and make it into a ball


(6) Put the ball into the mould and press hard. Hit the mould to somewhere hard a few times to get the mooncake out.

(7) Final product. Put in fridge and enjoy an hour later

Sunday 4 September 2011

Portfolio - August 2011

2 Sept 2011

Portfolio 1 (self)

Status: Given volality of market, might add more if price of watchlist hit. 
Movement: No selling/buying of stocks, divy for sabana, LMIR, CMA.

Stock 84.55%
  • Sabana
  • LippoMaple(might sell to take profit off table if hit target)
  • Healthway (selling half mode to recycle capital)
  • Capitalmall Asia
Investable Cash (exclude emergency fund + daily fund) 16.45%
Equity XIRR(13th May 2011 to date): -32.25%


Portfolio 2 (Joint)

Status: Waiting for good opportunity
Movement: Sold cache and bought kingsmen. divy from cache and kingsmen   

Stock 9.98%
  • Kingsmen
Investable Cash(exclude emergency fund) 90.02%
Equity XIRR(13th May 2011 to date): 43.82%

Saturday 3 September 2011

Some wise words...

Wednesday 31 August 2011

bull? bear? mini bull? mini bear? bear in bull skin? bull in bear skin?

Sti raises by 93 pts today, various market also raises a lot these few days. Many seems to forgotten the instability in US and Europe.

Let's poll.Which is your choice?
  1. Last stretch of bull?
  2. Mini bull like mini mooncake?
  3. Bear in Bull skin?
  4. The last 500 pts drop for almost one weeks is bull in bear skin? Bull all the way till last high of 3800?
STI for today:


 STI for past 5 years


Friday 26 August 2011

Kungfu and/or? inner strength

This post is specially dedicated to BB AK in Cbox. As many already known, his blogs are famous and he has many readers who ask him finance related questions. To many of us readers, we admired his kungfu. However, not many of us have his inner strength. 


In stock market, different traders and investors have different kungfu. It may be easy to know and learn other people kungfu but applying it is not that easy.

As a summary, BB AK’s kung fu is:
  • Buy more when price hit new low at resistance and with positive divergence.
  • Don’t sell when the prices form new lows, instead reduce exposure on rebounds.
However, normal people like me cannot keep buying more when price hit new low. We don’t have enough inner strength. If we did that, the % of that stock out of our entire portfolio will be too high such that it causes us sleepless night. Subsequently, many of us will just panic sell when the price keeps hitting lower low, while BB AK keeps buying from us HAPPILY. (Quoting from beary, "AK will win money no matter what.") When rebound really come, we will all regret on hindsight.

Therefore, this boils back to the very fundamental issue of mind and money – the need to train your mind to sit tight when price high and not to panic sell when price goes lower.

Personally, a very good way not to panic sell in bear is to manage your money allocation well. For example, if you have 100k, you put 5k into each stock. This stock only takes up 5% of your portfolio. In addition, due to your prior experiences with losses (see http://opposethetrend.blogspot.com/2011/05/sharing-on-how-to-be-emotionless.html) and the fact that you know how long you can replenish that money from your working income, you will not easily panic sell and can sleep well in night. If you are comfortable with 10% per stock, you can add 5k later to average in. (not average down.). Do not keep averaging down if you do not have enough inner strength. You will 走火如魔,死无全尸。

In short, plan your money allocation well first as this will indirectly train your mind to follow the most simple rule - buy low sell high. 

Remember, you can only be invincible if you have great kungfu with good inner strength and mind.

Wednesday 24 August 2011

FA - ARA

Based on latest FY2011 1H report
  • AUM grows to 18.8B (current) from 9.4B (2007) (it might not be easy to double again.)
 Based on 2007 to 2010,
  • HK 超人 as backup. around 13% from ARA's website.
  • Good ROE, ROA. consistent earnings due to its interesting business model
  • Little or no debt
  • Consistent +ve FCF
  • Current dividend around 3.6%
  • Valuation - fair. PE around 15.4, enterprise value/EBITA around 12.8 for FY2010. Given the potential bear market, could wait longer for cheaper valuation around $1 to enter. $1 gives PE around 10.9 and enterprise value/EBITA around 8.9. Of course, ideal will be PE <10.
(Disclaimer: This is not buy call, just my personal opinion.)

Gearing Ratios

I did some research and realised that the generic term "gearing" that people use have different meanings.

For Reits: Gearing = Total Debt/Total Asset.
Using LMIR as example for FY2010, gearing = 125000 / 1212508 = 10.3% (ST debt of LMIR = 0)
(this is what you see in the presentation in LMIR.)
(For reits, this is usually the gearing which they talk about)

However, some people also use gearing as Total debt/Total Equity where Total debt = LT debt + ST debt
Using LMIR as example for FY2010, gearing = 125000 / 901909 = 13.7%

For Net gearing, which is more comprehensive in my opinion as it account the cash portion.
Net gearing = Net debt / Total equity where Net debt = LT debt + ST debt - cash & cash equivalents. This ratio include the liquid portion of the company, cash & cash equivalents.
Using LMIR as example for FY2010, net gearing = (125000 + 0 -109979) / 901909 =1.67%

Of course, there is also the famous debt to equity ratio. Debt to equity = LT debt/equity.

In summary, there are many gearing ratios available. Different gearing ratios should be use for different purposes. Always think of purpose first before using.

Next time, when other people talk about gearing, please remember to ask them which gearing they are talking about. 

Monday 15 August 2011

TA - Healthway

Healthway daily show potential MCAD divergence but weekly chart does not demonstrate that.

Its Q2 is not good and its not very bad either, but at least its cashflow from ops become positive.  

I pray hard and hope that the daily divergence can get stronger and override the tide so that I can do some cut loss selling. Hope the testing of resistance at 20MA is successful.



Thursday 11 August 2011

100% cash no more!

Yesterday I sold cache to reach 100%. However due to my itchy hand, I went to buy kingsmen today.

No more 100% :(

My current plan is:

If rally for no reason, try to sell to rebalance my portfolio
If fall further, I slowly buy using joint account.

I hope I can stay discipline when the times come. It is really hard to stay clear minded and discipline.

Wednesday 10 August 2011

Joint account portfolio - 100%cash

Sold cache today to recycle capital for other future purchases.

Now I am just waiting for opportunity to come.

Monday 8 August 2011

8 Aug 2011


Friday 5 August 2011

See the similarity?

I think I should stop being greedy for little gain. Should sell slowly into rebound.

Its time to restart and be patient and wait.

Interesting photo!

Long time no see these, must take a photo and put in my blog as loving memory :)


Tuesday 2 August 2011

Portfolio Performance

Since yesterday night, I been trying to redo my excel file to calculate XIRR. Thanks to guidance from Cory, LP and CW in cbox I managed to complete the XIRR for both my accounts with the start date of 13th May 2011.  (I do not have detailed data before this.)


 It can be easily seen that the XIRR values vary a lot with or without considering investible cash as part of the equation.

Basically there are two schools of thoughts
  1. Equity 
  2. Equity + investible cash
For method 1, we should only consider pure equity return to measure the performance and cash should not be included as cash is subjective.

For method 2, we should only consider investible cash as part of the equation as one constantly input funds from one earned income into investible fund. This measure if one has effectively made full use of the investible cash available.

Personally I think both methods are good, it all depends on the objective of the measurement.

If one wants to measure how well the performance of its equity is as benchmark against something, such as STI index, method 1 is good.

If one wants to measure how well one has effectively use the investible cash for investing, method 2 is good.

Of course, besides the 2 method above, the most simple method of absolute and % growth of the entire portfolio should also form part of the equation too. My definition of entire portfolio = all cash + all investments,  exclude CPF and the flat which you currently live in.

Sunday 31 July 2011

July Portfolio Update

Current Portfolio

Portfolio 1 (self)

Status: Unhealthy, need to reduce stock percentage

Stock 84.7%
  • Sabana
  • LippoMaple
  • Healthway
  • Capitalmall Asia
Investable Cash (exclude emergency fund + daily fund) 15.3%

Portfolio 2 (Joint)

Status: Waiting for good opportunity

Stock 14.6%
  • Cache
Investable Cash(exclude emergency fund) 85.4%

Will US default?

Saturday 30 July 2011

News: Healthway

Singapore, 29th July 2011 – Healthway Medical Corporation Limited (the “Company” or
“Healthway”) is pleased to announce that the Health Promotion Board (“HPB”) has
awarded the Company a tender to provide on-site mental health screening services.
Under this pilot initiative spearheaded by HPB, Healthway nurses will conduct mental
health screenings for elderly residents at seven community locations including Hougang,
Woodlands and Choa Chu Kang.

Elderly residents above 50 years old will be screened by nurses using the Geriatric
Depression Scale, a validated screening tool. Based on the preliminary assessment, the
nurses will advise the participants accordingly, either to seek consultations with our onsite
Consultant Psychiatrists from Nobel Psychological Wellness Clinic, a specialist
practice of Healthway or seek further treatment at nearby polyclinics and community
counselling support services.

Dr Marcus Tan of Nobel Psychological Wellness Clinic said, “We are excited to be
involved in this meaningful HPB initiative. Together with HPB and my Healthway
colleagues, we hope to further raise awareness for geriatric depression and allow those
afflicted to know that help is readily available.

Old age can be an especially challenging stage in our lives. Apart from having to
negotiate various losses, individuals may also have to live with medical illnesses. The
latter especially can have an impact on our mood or vice versa. As such, it is not
surprising that the prevalence of depression is significantly higher in the elderly
compared to other age groups,” he added

Mr Lam Pin Woon, President and Executive Director of Healthway said, “We are pleased
to be selected by HPB to provide these mental health screening services to the elderly
residents in the community. This is evident that on top of our well established general
practitioner, specialist, dental and medical aesthetics network of clinics, we have also
built a creditable psychological wellness practice. We are glad to have this great
opportunity to touch the lives of people in Singapore and by doing so, we hope to play
our part to make healthcare more accessible and affordable to the masses.”

source: http://info.sgx.com/webcoranncatth.nsf/VwAttachments/Att_BEF69C27E8854694482578DC003F9494/$file/PressRelease.pdf?openelement

____________________________________________________________________________

Wonder if the above will translate to good financial benefit to healthway?

Thursday 28 July 2011

Best Bargain Must BUY: ILP

I had just received my ILP half yearly statement today.

I bought this policy from my friend when I first graduated from Uni when I have zero financial knowledge.
I was told that is good as it incorporate both investment and protection. It sound so wonderful to me then.

Let me share how "wonderful" this ILP is.

It is the "best" investment that I had ever invested in.

Policy Title: Manulife Flexi Aggressive portfolio.

Started from Aug 08, deducted $200 every month.
Change to $150/mth on Dec 09

Total premium paid to date: $6250
Current cash value as of July 2011: $1801.45
% gain/(loss): -71.18%

Where can you find such marvellous investment? Even my healthway which is currently at 40% loss cannot fight the 71.18%. Furthermore, you have no control over it.

This is the best investment cum protection plan that you can ever have. Please remember to sign up for it and get free 71.18%!

Sunday 24 July 2011

Example - Force index bearish divergence

There are many people who talk about force index. My brokerage Iocbc do not have this indicator, thus I dont bother to go and learn.

However, curiosity overwhelm me yesterday. I went to download ChartNexus and read up about Force Index online.

In this post I shall share what I have learnt and understood from my research.

The Force Index is an indicator that uses price and volume to assess the power behind a move or identify possible turning points.

High positive values mean there is a strong rising trend, and low values signify a strong downward trend.

Force Index (1) = {Close (current period) - Close (prior period)} x Volume
Force Index (13) = 13-period EMA of Force Index (1)

To get the value for force index(13)
(1) Draw EMAC(13)
(2) Minus EMAC(13), example 1.1, of today against EMAC(13), example 1.08, of yesterday. You will get 0.02. If the volume today is 50000, Force Index(13) for today is 50000*0.02 = 1000, which is postive force index value above the zero axis. If today's value is lower than yesterday, you will get a negative force index.

Thus, the Force Index is positive when the current close is above the prior close. The Force Index is negative when the current close is below the prior close.

Let me share an example of Bearish Divergence for Force Index.

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Book summary - Alexandra Elder - Sell and sell short - part 2

How to grade your entries and exit? (as a science person by training, i like calculation. quite interesting, first time see this)

The Buy Grade = the high of the day minus buy price / the high of the day minus the low of the day
The Sell Grade = the sell price minus the low of the day / the high of the day minus the low of the day
You can measure the quality of your buying and selling by comparing your transaction price to that day’s range. When you buy, you want to trade as close to the low of the day as possible. When you sell, you want to trade as close to the high of the day as possible.

The result is expressed as a percentage: if you buy at the low of the day, your grade is 100%, and if you buy the top tick, your grade is 0.

Grades below 25% are poor, above 75% superb, and between 25% and 75% satisfactory.

The result is expressed as a percentage: if you sell at the top tick of the day, your grade is 100%, and if you sell at the bottom tick your grade is 0. Here too, you want to score above 75% for an excellent grade, while anything less than 25% is poor.

IPOs - reflection

Recently, there are quite a number of IPOs coming up. Malacca trust, kitchen culture holdings, 800 super holdings etc.

When I first started 2 years ago, I thought IPOs was very exciting. Within a day it can rise so much and fall so much. Howver, I didn't dare to buy any of these IPOs as I am scare. After seeing some of the IPOs ran up so high on the first day of trade, I sort of regretted why I didn't participate in them.  (but do note, it is on hindsight.)

Recently, I have a different mindset as I realise something. TA and FA rely on historical data which IPOs lack. TA rely on historial phychological support/resistance while FA looks at the fundamental, numbers, business of the company and whether it show good historical durable comparative advantage.

IPOs do not have much historical data. IPOs do not show how the market perceive the price vs value of the company.

Although IPOs is very exciting, but I think it is not the cup of tea for me.

I still prefer:
money management 10-15% per stock/sector-> current market sentiments (be greedy when other are fearful, be fearful when others are greedy) -> FA screen -> TA good price to enter

(Haha, I am really a science student instead of art student, do things must one step follow by another step.)

simple programming

if passion=current job, you=extremely lucky.
              else current job = try to love your job for monthly check

Sunday 10 July 2011

Book summary - Alexandra Elder - Sell and sell short

 As usually, I like to record what I had read in blog just in case I forget it in future.(only read front portion of books so far.)
  • Limit your loss on any trade to 2% of equity in your trading account.
  • Whenever the value your account dips 6% below its closing value at
    the end of last month, stop trading for the rest of this month.
(meaning if you got 100k in total, per trade max can only lose 2k. If you lose 6k in that month, stop trading, take a break and look though and learn your mistakes.)

His money management rule is so strict. No wonder he can preseve the captial in his portfolio so well. However, I don't think I will follow the above two rules strictly unless I am doing active trading daily.

Instead, I am currently trying to restructure my portfolio with the aim of controlling the amount of money which I put into each type of stocks. I only understand the important of this idea recently. I aim to have around 10-15% per type with no more than 60% invested in current market condition.

Mr Market, please give me a chance to succeed in rearranging!

Example - Daily Bearish Divergence

Previously I had shown few examples on Bullish Divergence, I guess it is the time to record something on the other other extreme - bearish divergence.

Although I been discussing about TA recently, overall I am still a more FA person. Fundamentally strong companies should be first consideration before TA. (of course, money management, psychology and current market sentiments are much more important.) However, its good to learn from both school of thoughts.


I listed 5 vertical lines in this chart.

a-b-c-d-e

a-b-c:
Price goes higher high but MCAD histogram goes lower high with b crossing below the center line. This indicate bearish divergence.

A few days after c where the red MCAD histogram bar start to appearing is a good sell. 

d:
price decrease and MCAD histogram went below center line

e:
price went up again to previous high but mcad still cannot make it and did not even cross the centre line above. 

If miss the selling few days before at c, this is the second best time to sell.

Friday 8 July 2011

Sold FR at 0.805 at 8.59am after queuing overnight for many weeks

Sold because of two main reasons.

(1) Recently violate money management rules which I recently set for myself. So i need put money in pocket and restructure entire portfolio

(2) FR NAV should be 0.78. Don't wish to hold reit above NAV although there are still reits holding well above NAV.

Next targets to sell:
CMA
1/2 HW
Cache

Normally I sell too early, so far after I sold, the shares usually went up. haha, maybe this round same again? But it is okay because I want money in pocket.

Saturday 2 July 2011

July 2011 Portfolio update

July 2011

Portfolio 1 (self)

Status: Unhealthy, need to reduce stock percentage

Stock 97.4%
  • Sabana
  • Healthway (selling half mode)
  • First reit
  • LippoMaple
  • Capitalmall Asia (hold and pray mode)
Investable Cash 2.6% (but should have new cash coming in soon)


*Investible Cash exclude emergency fund + daily fund

Portfolio 2 (Joint)

Status: Waiting for good opportunity

Stock 19.8%
  • Cache (selling mode)
Investable Cash(exclude emergency fund) 80.2%

Thursday 30 June 2011

how much money do XXX really owe? anyone can guess what is XXX?

Current Debt Held by the Public Intragovernmental Holdings Total Public Debt Outstanding
06/28/20119,731,228,079,037.894,613,217,240,768.5014,344,445,319,806.39


















Wednesday 29 June 2011

知足常乐

What kind of person are you?

(1) work very hard, limited worklife balance, strive for promotion and earn a lot?
(2) work bare minimal, strive for a happy work life, earn decent?

(of course there are other options other than the above 2 options)

No matter which choice you take, it boil down to the question, how much is enough? 500k? 800k? 1 million? 10 millions?

Different ppl have different wants and hence indirectly affect their choice of lifestyle. In fact, the wants will change with time, place and with your own's goal.

Thus my advice is:

人生苦短,生不带来,死不带去,知足常乐吧!

Could you remember how happy you were when someone passed you a sweet when you were very young?
Or could you remember how hard you work in your office to get more promotion?

Bullish divergence example 2

Copy from previous post:


Bullish divergence:


  • Price form lower low (A->C), MCAD histogram form higher low (a->c)
  • Must have ABC in price chart and abc in histogram chart
  • a and c below center line, b above center line
above only valid and can go long ONLY if
higher time frame show bullish divergence(weekly), current time frame(daily) show bullish divergence


Daily


Weekly


This time round I draw an additional "one" line. If you compare the histogram this "one" line with "a" and "c", the selling pressure ease. Line abc demonstrated divergence. If we add in the support line of 1.86, a good buy will be 1.86 at time of line c which is around slightly more than mid march.

Saturday 25 June 2011

Bullish divergence trading - example 1

Copy from previous post:


Bullish divergence:

  • Price form lower low (A->C), MCAD histogram form higher low (a->c)
  • Must have ABC in price chart and abc in histogram chart
  • a and c below center line, b above center line
above only valid and can go long ONLY if
higher time frame show bullish divergence(weekly), current time frame(daily) show bullish divergence



From my process of searching through the charts to have a sample of the stringent divergence pattern as describe above in bold, I realise that it is not easy to have such chart available. Most of the time, the chart will not demonstrate ALL of the rules above. No wonder it is such a good trading opportunity once such chart are spotted.

In the example below, the daily chart fulfill the abc and ABC.


However, the weekly chart does not fulfill it at all. 


Stringently, the above does not fulfill the daily and weekly bullish divergence. 
However, in the example above, I am using the daily to demonstrate the bullish divergence. 

In this example, a good buy day will be at the day after the vertical line c-C somewhere slightly before mid march around 3.18.

Friday 24 June 2011

Bullish divergence trading - guidance from La papillion

This post summarise what I learn from LP, owner of Bullythebear blog. I will follow on with 5 charts after this post for applying and checking what I had understand so far is correct or not. 

Bullish divergence means that the price has a high chance of going up.
The divergence refer to the fact that price and whatever indicator you are seeing, are moving in opposite direction.
Example, if use vol, then a bullish (vol) divergence means that the price showing a lower low, but vol shows a higher low.

If you see a bullish Divergence on weekly and a bullish Divergence on daily, what will you do?
long

If you see a bearish Divergence on weekly and bearish D on daily, what will you do?
short

If you see bullish Divergence weekly bearish Divergence daily?
There's no correct ans. First of all, the general guide is to either stay sideline. You can either short it but run fast (since weekly is bullish, so you're going against longer timeframe) but you do not buy

If you see bearish Divergence weekly bullish Divergence daily?
hold sideline. can long it but must run fast.

Once weekly and daily sentiments are matched, go in the direction of that sentiment

Example:


Psychologically, the price goes down at A but rises up to break the back of the bear at B, then goes down one more round at C.

But you'll notice that the selling pressure at C is weaker than at A, by looking at the macd histogram the selling has eased off when it reaches C...that's where it's the best time to counter trend and bet on a reversal. Buy once it goes above the price of A. Could add in support and resistances too.

Must have ABC in price and abc in macd histogram. point B indicate the breaking of the back of the bear.




Courtesy from http://triple-screentrading.info/blog/?page_id=813
"The concept of triple screen trading is this: Do not trade in the current time frame unless the upper time frame allows you to trade."

Analogy of bullish divergence on two time frame.
The current time frame is like order from your direct boss whereas the upper time frame is like order from your biggest boss. Big boss determine the stronger trend and rule but sometimes direct boss try to disobey the big boss but it may or may not be successful. As you are only a small fry, you have no choice but to listen to both bosses, but the overall power still in the hand of the biggest boss.

If biggest boss pass down a rule, direct boss try to disobey and cause big anger from biggest boss. As the biggest boss is biggest, you should not disobey. Biggest boss pass down rule 2, direct boss disobey again but manage to succeed one time. Biggest boss pass down rule 3, this time the direct boss try to disobey again. Although there is anger from the biggest boss again, but the anger was much milder as compare to the first time. This shows that there is a probability that the direct boss got chance to break out of the rule of the biggest boss. Thisis the best chance to bet against the biggest boss.

Updated below: Summary
Bullish divergence:
  • Price form lower low (A->C), MCAD histogram form higher low (a->c)
  • Must have ABC in price chart and abc in histogram chart
  • a and c below center line, b above center line
above only valid and can go long ONLY if
higher time frame show bullish divergence(weekly), current time frame(daily) show bullish divergence

Friday 17 June 2011

Good article to know more about Greece debt crisis

source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/17/greece-crisis-quickguide-idUSLDE75G18Z20110617


LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou sacrificed his unpopular finance minister on Friday and gave the job to party rival Evangelos Venizelos, previously in charge of defence. [ID:nLDE75G0CY]
The leaders of France and Germany said they were united behind a new aid package for Greece in which banks that hold Greek debt would voluntarily shoulder some of the burden. [ID:nLDE75G0WW]

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
Greece has a sovereign debt pile of 340 billion euros ($481.5 billion), more than 30,000 euros per person in a population of 11.3 million. It has been rescued once already, accepting a 110 billion euro bailout last year from the European Union and International Monetary Fund. But that has proved insufficient and a second package worth 120 billion euros is now under discussion. Until future funding is agreed, at least in principle, doubt hangs over payment of the next 12 billion euro slice of the first package, which is due on June 29. With its debt equivalent to 150 percent of annual output, Greece holds two unwanted world records: the lowest credit rating for a sovereign state, and the most expensive debt to insure. Its people have run out of patience with an ever-deepening austerity drive that has slashed public sector wages by a fifth and pensions by a tenth, and violent protests broke out in Athens this week.
<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Analysis on Papandreou reshuffle [ID:nLDE75E0TK]
Other stories on euro zone crisis [ID:nLDE68T0MG]
Graphics on debt crisis r.reuters.com/hyb65p
Bank exposure interactive map r.reuters.com/zag39r
Factbox detailing new austerity [ID:nLDE759159]
Timeline [ID:nLDE75D0WB]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
WHY DOES IT MATTER OUTSIDE GREECE?
The longer the crisis drags on, the greater the risk that contagion will spread to other troubled euro zone economies like Ireland and Portugal, which have also been bailed out before, and Spain, which is much bigger and would be far more expensive -- perhaps too expensive -- to rescue.
A default by Greece would hammer the banks that hold its debt, including the European Central Bank and big French and German lenders. [ID:nLDE75F0IN]
It could also prompt credit markets to freeze up, as happened after Lehman's collapse when banks virtually stopped lending to each other.
The White House said on June 16 the Greek crisis was acting as a headwind to the U.S. economy but opinions vary as to the level of exposure of U.S. banks. [ID:nWNA1203] [ID:nN16165734]
A Greek default would be a catastrophe and a humiliation for the European Union, which launched the euro in 1999 as its most ambitious project and a symbol of the continent's unity. It has prompted some commentators to think the unthinkable: that the euro zone might break up, either by the expulsion of Greece or the departure of Germany, the EU's paymaster, which might be tempted to return to its own currency.
SO WHY NOT JUST BAIL GREECE OUT AGAIN?
The EU's big players -- notably Germany, France and the European Central Bank -- have struggled to work out a rescue mechanism. European governments are keen to avoid a "hard default" as that could threaten banks throughout the euro zone and further afield. [ID:nFLAGHE7OH]
They are therefore discussing a "soft landing" in the form of a debt extension or voluntary rollover by creditors, but some of the proposals have been criticised as default by another name.

WHO ARE THE KEY PLAYERS?
Under increasing pressure from street unrest and a split in his own party, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou tried unsuccessfully this week to form a national unity government. He gave the finance portfolio on Friday to Evangelos Venizelos, a party rival. Venizelos is a political heavyweight who ran the preparations for the 2004 Athens Olympics, but has no economic track record.
At the European level, the single most influential figure is German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as head of the EU's biggest economy. Merkel, who is losing popularity and has suffered a string of defeats in state elections, is under intense pressure from a German public that resents footing the bill for what is widely seen as Greek profligacy -- hence her insistence that banks should share some of the pain. Merkel has been accused of holding up the second Greek aid package, further eroding investor confidence which could make the bailout more expensive. [ID:nLDE75F0ST]
WHAT ABOUT THE GREEK PEOPLE?
Public anger over austerity -- including curbs on widespread early retirement, tax rises and cuts in benefits and wages -- has erupted into frequent strikes and protests, some of them violent. Unemployment is rising. In a poll last month, 80 percent of people said they refused to make any more sacrifices to get more EU/IMF aid. Bank and utility workers, public sector contractors and even doctors have taken to the streets. Private sector workers blame the bloated public sector, civil servants blame tax cheats and many Greeks blame corrupt politicians for the country's problems.
"The big problem of Greek society is the tendency to consider somebody else is responsible for everything that goes wrong," said analyst Theodore Couloumbis. [ID:nLDE75F1PT]

HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?
Greece, whose economy had grown strongly but suffered problems with corruption and bureaucracy, joined the euro zone a decade ago, linking its economy to other European countries.
It went into recession in 2009 after 15 years of growth and its budget deficit hit 15.4 percent of GDP after a series of revisions by the government which revealed the country's economy was in far worse shape than it had previously admitted.
Chronic problems include rampant tax evasion -- the labour minister has estimated a quarter of the economy pays nothing.
More broadly, the Greek crisis reflects an inherent weakness in the structure of the euro -- a currency zone with a 'one size fits all' interest rate for a set of widely divergent economies, and 17 different countries running their own fiscal policies. How the crisis plays out will determine the failure or survival of the project. (Writing by Mark Trevelyan and Philippa Fletcher) ($1=.7061 Euro)