I bot into some Sembcorp Marine cum rights at 0.083. And I applied for excess shares, lots of them at 0.08. Got filled.
Now sitting back at cost of 0.082 with Temasek’s backstop of a mandatory bid at 0.08. Temasek’s stake was raised to 46.6% from 42.2% due to its rights issue.
But stock’s not moving: down to 0.081. SAD.
When an ex PAP running dog turned into a foaming at the mouth mad dog, wrote a piece (Visit https://www.facebook.com/thenewsingapore/) castigating the $4G’s performance over Covid-19, I had to do something to defend them.
They know the link between vaccination and economic growth and got over 80% of us vaccinated. Two cheers* for this quick action.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) blames low vaccination rates for ‘diverging’ south-east Asia growth vis-a-vis that of the rest of Asia.
It downgraded Indonesia’s (the largest regional economy) by a percentage point to 3.5%. the Thai economy (second largest) eby more than 2 percentage points to 0.8%, and Vietnam’s (the fastest growing regional economy) by 3.8%, from 6.7%.
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Nike’s woes in Vietnam and Indonesia
Nike’s factories in Vietnam and Indonesia, which make three quarters of its shoes, have been hit by local lockdowns. In Vietnam alone it has cost the firm 10 weeks of production this year.
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While downgrading SE Asian growth because of low vaccination, it upgraded our growth rate by half a percentage point to 6.5%. S’pore has vaxxed about 80% of its population. From DBS:
More from DBS, showing that things are looking good.
And before u dismiss the DBS report as the equivalent of the constructive, nation-building ST (i.e. as BS) note DBS maintains ‘below-consensus’ forecasts with ‘bumpy path’ towards endemic Singapore: https://www.theedgesingapore.com/capital/brokers-calls/dbs-maintains-below-consensus-forecasts-bumpy-path-towards-endemic-singapore
*qualified approval or mild enthusiasm, often used ironically The cybernuts infesting TRE don’t know this.
The US is to donate 500 million more doses of the Pfizer vaccine to developing nations from next year. Recently President Sleepy Joe made the pledge at a virtual Covid-19 summit on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, promising an “arsenal of vaccines”.
The additional jabs will see the total US commitment on vaccine sharing exceed one billion jabs.
The Quad group of nations (US, Japan, Oz and Mamaland) agreed in March to supply a billion doses of vaccine to Asia this year, but India suspended exports during a wave of coronavirus in April. Now the Indians have said exports will resume in October.
The biggest BS artists are the woke Kanucks. The Honourable White have done relatively well.
As for China, their vaccines are rubbish.
She went into Hang Seng and Chinese techies on her gut feel
The above chart reminded me that midweek her bestie called me to update me on the clueless Tai Tai I talked about last yr (Tai tai’s luck runs out, heading for Woodbridge? and Tai tai forgot this) trading performance. Tai tai doesn’t call me. Glad as her BS (one minute tells me she collected, 50k dividend from DBS, next minute it becomes 500k) and arrogance annoys me and I always tell her off.
Her unlucky streak cont’d this yr.
A few months ago, her “bestie” said she went into HK stocks, and China tech shares on her gut feel. The Hang Seng Index lost more than 11 % since her entry point.
And here’s what happened to Chinese tech stocks
But this wasn’t her biggest cock up. I’ll leave that for another day.
If not worse.
And why the Americans, British and Aussies kept France out of their deal.
Yields on US dollar-denominated bonds issued by riskier Asian borrowers rise to almost 12% as the liquidity (solvency?) crisis at Evergrande, the largest Chinese property developer with the largest debts gets from worse to dire,
Asian property cos love junk bonds
And investors love junk bonds (especially Asian junk) because
Further to Why I’m HODLing, last night in NY:
Nuclear power is good for a world that wants to decarbonise fast to avoid frying to death.
But environmentalists hate it and want nuclear plants to be closed, and no new ones to be built. Opponents say that nuclear power poses numerous threats to people and the environment and point to studies in the literature that question if it will ever be a sustainable energy source. These threats include health risks, accidents and environmental damage from uranium mining, processing and transport.
They really hate nuclear power “Because It Means We Don’t Need Renewables”.
Investors also hate nuclear power
America is moving away from nuclear power. Though it is good for the planet, investors prefer cheap and abundant natural gas. In America only one reactor has come online in 25 years; 21 are being decommissioned. Nuclear power’s share of electricity generation is projected to fall from 20% today to 12% by 2050. America, it seems, will have to look elsewhere to achieve its net-zero goals.
Economist Expresso
A Hard Truth of LKY is that the wealthier people get, the more conservative they become. Hence getting people to own 99-year HDB flats was (and is) a Hard Truth: the PAP govt tot 99-year leases don’t decay isit?
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Why 30-year old HDB flats difficult to sell/ Why PAP rule will end in 2029.
If LKY were alive, PAP govt wouldn’t publicly admit that HDB leases end worth nothing?
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Remember the asset enhancement programme when JBJ, and Chiam and two other SDP members got into parly? Like in Xi’s China, property is an important part of the push for the PAP’s version of the CCP’s “common prosperity”.
Well a new study in the UK may be showing that these two Hard Truths are BS. The study says says that wealthy people are more radical people because they can afford to take risks:
[R]adicalism is often thought of as a revolt by the poor, a rival theory turns this on its head. In a recent paper Jane Green of Oxford University and Raluca Pahontu of the London School of Economics argue that wealth acts as “insurance”, cushioning voters from the economic dangers of upending the status quo and thus reducing risk aversion. Better pensions and rising house prices mean that pensioners are now much richer, relative to the rest of the population, than they were a generation ago.
https://www.economist.com/britain/2021/09/11/older-voters-help-power-britains-radical-movements
And the really well-off (not those who live in HDB flats) have a beef against the PAP govt. While they have done well from the PAP govt’s real asset enhancement policies (low taxes and economic policies that favour them: think liberal immigration policies), they are unhappy that their children and grandchildren will not have as good a life style as they do.
Hence their willingness to support the PSP by providing backroom help.
Afterword (26 September 2020): After this post appeared, IPS data supporting its conclusion that the well off here are more radical than the plebs appeared: https://mothership.sg/2021/09/ips-survey-low-ses-singaporeans-challenge-authority-bad/)
S&P closed 1.7% down. its worst trading day since May.
But it had dropped as much as 2.9% earlier before sharply rebounding.
Bulls are buying the dip.
“Trimmed-mean PCE” simply means the that the Fed excludes Personal Consumption Expenditures’ items with the biggest price movements or swings. It argues that just a handful of unusual goods were responsible for the increase: hence taking them out shows more clearly the underlying trend.
To others, this is cheating. Manipulating the data to show the result the Fed wants: inflation is not a problem.
They point to this:
At least the PAP govt only sues and make bankrupt dissidents.
Iron ore traded at US$100.80 on Friday, down 22% over the week. Chinese steel producers dumped stocks as they fear further production curbs by the govt.
Related post: The metals China needs
The news report that the price of chickens from M’sia will go up as the cost pf chicken feed is rising, reminds me of this chart.
Food inflation is on the rise with emerging markets suffering more.
The International Monetary Fund expects inflation will accelerate to 2.4% in 2021 from 0.7% in 2020 in developed countries, and to 5.4% from 5.1% in emerging and developing ones. Rising food and energy prices, pandemic-related supply-chain disruptions and surging shipping costs are among the driving forces.
In rich countries, inflation has been too low in recent years, so a period of catch-up is less of a problem for their central bankers. It’s more of a headache for poorer countries. Food and energy typically account for a bigger chunk of their household spending, so current developments can lead to hardship for their citizens. Central banks in these countries don’t have as much credibility as the Fed or the European Central Bank and can’t afford to lose investors’ trust.
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/emerging-economies-face-stages-inflation-grief-2021-09-16/
As S’pore is sometimes classified as an emerging market but often as an developed country, wonder what’s the position on food? I suspect the latter going by our inflation mumbers.
Seems today would be LKY’s birthday if he were still alive and causing trouble for our PM.
As he tot of the UK as an economic basket case and in perpetual decline, the u/m table showing that S’pore is the UK’s 17th largest greenfield investor would be an appropriate birthday present. The table appeared a few minutes ago in an FT article.
This appeared in an FT article on S’pore’s property market.
So don’t anyhow believe what ang mohs say about S’pore. Don’t be like Kirsten Han and PJ Thum (Remember him?). Don’t be an ang moh tua kee.
Funny that while there are many anti-PAP S’pore’s like them, there are no Indian Indian tua kees among anti-PAP S’poreans to counter the Indian Indian tua kees in the PAP cabinet.
Racism?
I’m surprised that TOC and the anti-PAP cybernuts KPKBing on TRE and FB on the PAP govt’s policy on opening up (if it has one which doesn’t seem to be the case) haven’t picked up on the fact that the Pfizer vaccine which most of us have been vaccinated with is rubbish relative to Moderna’s version.
America’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention released a study showing that Moderna’s covid-19 vaccine was 95% effective at preventing hospitalisation, compared with 80% for Pfizer-BioNTech’s and 60% for Johnson & Johnson’s.
Economist, FT etc
We should have ordered a lot more Moderna. My friend who took Moderna despite having to get vaccinated it at an inconvenient time and place is feeling smug. As she’s in her 50s, she was afraid she might have to settle for Sinovac.
OK, OK, it’s more an understandable misstep than a cock-up. But my point is that the usual suspects are quiet on this. Why?
Btw, a separate study demonstrated that unvaccinated people were 11 times more likely to die of the disease than those who were fully jabbed.
One can only hope that Goh Meng Seng and other anti-vaxxers (Forward this to Goh Meng Seng and other S’poreans who wish us ill) suffer the consequences of trying to kill us with their misinformation. They should remember that Karma is a bitch.
No not our PAP govt. But the govt of the state that many Muslims want to destroy.
Just in
Health-care officials in Israel said that the country, an early leader in the global covid-19 vaccination race, was making plans in case it had to give people a fourth jab. The country, which is closely watched elsewhere for clues about the path of the pandemic, began giving out booster shots last month after a surge in new cases.
Economist Expresso
With this kind of planning, no wonder the Israelis beat the crap out of those Muslims (think the Iranians and their terrorist allies) who want to kill them and and destroy Israel.
(Note this piece was extensively edited after first publication.)
Thermal and coking coal prices are also strong because of Chinese demand. In the case of coking coal (used with iron ore), it’s because it’s boycotting Oz coal But as Oz is one of iron ore’s twin hegemons (Brazil is the other), it still needs Oz’s iron ore, even if China’s demand for it has slowed down because Modhi succeeded in infecting China with the Indian variant.
Way ahead of Japan and Taiwan.
Btw, interesting global table
Further to Grandpa Xi shorted these ang moh shares?,
Chinese love luxury Swiss watches. Swatch and Richemont have many well known luxury watch brands in their stables. Swatch doesn’t only do cheap and cheerful plastic Swatch watches.
About 6% + to GDP and 7% +/- to employment
Further to Time for emerging markets?
Blame the Indian variant of Covid-19 that is causing havoc in China?
No blame Water Margin hero, Grandpa Xi.
Grandpa Xi is shaking down the tech billionaires and calling for “common prosperity”. As these actions are what Robin Hood or the heroes in the “Water Margin” were doing, “robbing the rich to help the poor”,
A senior CCP official said that the push for “common prosperity” did not mean China would “rob the rich to help the poor”.
Xi is no Robin Hood but pork investors are suffering
They’ve been the dog with fleas on it.
Doesn’t seem like it. Not only because
But also because China, makes up 37.5% of the MSCI Emerging Markets index. And we know what is happening there
Grandpa Xi is shaking down the tech billionaires and calling for “common prosperity”. As these actions are what Robin Hood or the heroes in the “Water Margin” were doing, “robbing the rich to help the poor”,
A senior CCP official said that the push for “common prosperity” did not mean China would “rob the rich to help the poor”.
Xi is no Robin Hood but pork investors are suffering
Grandpa Xi is shaking down the tech billionaires, but he’s is no Robin Hood. A senior CCP official said that the push for “common prosperity” did not mean China would “rob the rich to help the poor”.
Whatever, it’s black humourish that investors in pork and related investments are also losing money. GIC and Temasek are big investors Chinese pork and related stocks. As they are are also big investors in the Chinese tech cos, GST will have to rise by 4% next yr to fund the Covid-19 goodies? Remember you heard this here first.
I sure hp[e the various Chinese SWFs made China rich again by shorting these shares before Grandpa Xi cracked the whip to make sure there’s “common prosperity”.
China holds up the sky for luxury goods.
In other words, forward it to TRE, where the anti-vaxxers lurk. (To make it very clear, I don’t think TRE wishes other S’poreans ill or is anti-vaccine. But the anti-vaxxers congregate there.)
Over the past 28 days, the percentage of unvaccinated people in Singapore who became severely ill or died stood at 9.3 per cent, while the figure for the fully vaccinated is only 1.3 per cent.
FT reporting MoH data
Goh Meng Seng and his pals want the hospitals to be filled with unvaccinated, stressing our healyh system : Misinformation blamed for Covid admissions rise https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-58394702https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-58394702
They can then blame the PAP govt for not providing adequate healthcare.
To be fair to Goh Meng Seng, he Walks the Talk. He, his wife and daughter are not vaccinated. Seems he has said (I can’t confirm), he said he’d rather they catch Covid-19 because traditional Chinese medicine can cure them.
Despite getting lots of US aid, Pakistan was cock-a hoop over the Taliban victory.
Wonder if they’ll go crawling to the US of A when the refugees come across the border?
They have, sort of, now that the refugees are pouring in: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58380551.
Now Pakistan is saying it would be dangerous for America and its allies to turn their backs on the new Taliban government. It wants the West to give aid so that more refugees don’t flood into Pakistan.
As Afghan districts fell this summer, one senior Western official said there was now a feeling of Schadenfreude in Washington over what Pakistan may be about to reap from the Taliban takeover. “This is what you wanted, boys. We’re off. Good luck with it all,” the official said.
https://www.economist.com/asia/2021/08/30/the-wests-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-is-complete
Maybe Grandpa Xi will help them?
Don’t count it out/
But the reason for the yield is the currency’s volatility
Thoughts of a Cynical Investor 