Where S’pore has fallen behind very badly

In an article that the PAP govt would consider constructive and nation-building, this fact stuck out like a sore thumb

Overall, the value of the city’s [HK’s] listed stocks runs to nearly $5trn, compared with $7trn in Shanghai and $700bn in Singapore. 

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/06/29/the-battle-between-asias-financial-centres-is-heating-up

I’m old enough to remember when the stock exchanges in S’pore and HK were roughly equal in size.

That’s not all. If you take out the Jardines Group out of S’pore’s numbers, I’m sure we are smaller than the stock markets of Thailand, M’sia and Indonesia.

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Proud mummy gives plebs the bird

Much mocked Imelda Marcos has the last laugh.

On Thursday Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos will take over from Rodrigo Duterte as president of the Philippines. Among the onlookers at the inauguration will be Imelda Marcos, mother of the new president and widow of the first Ferdinand Marcos to hold that position.

…

The rehabilitation of the Marcos dynasty has practical as well as symbolic meaning. Mrs Marcos, who turns 93 on Saturday, is free on bail while she appeals against her conviction for graft in 2018, part of a $200m corruption case stemming from her husband’s two decades in office. But once in office, her son will have the authority to pardon his mother.

Economist’s The world in brief

Great cartoon from the Economist

What are bearish energy analysts smoking?

Brent last night rose 2.5% to US$117.98 a barrel. OPEC is meeting later today.

But bearish energy analysts, such as Citi, expect Brent to fall towards US$75.

Oil chart before today’s spike up.

Head and shoulders pattern emerging? Hence bearish?

Tech: It’s a boys’ club

Inflation expectations: Wisdom of the crowds or irrational heuristics at work?

Consumer prices across the rich world are rising by more than 9% year on year, the highest rate since the 1980s. Worryingly, there is growing evidence that the public is starting to expect consistently high inflation. Figures suggesting that Americans’ medium-term expectations of inflation had risen helped set off the market turmoil of last week, which culminated in the Federal Reserve raising interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2022/06/19/peoples-inflation-expectations-are-rising-and-will-be-hard-to-bring-down

But the crowd nay be wrong. Heuristics are general cognitive frameworks humans rely on regularly to quickly reach a solution. They

are mental shortcuts that can facilitate problem-solving and probability judgments. These strategies are generalizations, or rules-of-thumb, reduce cognitive load, and can be effective for making immediate judgments, however, they often result in irrational or inaccurate conclusions.

https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/heuristics

Asians are rich in America and they don’t like Biden

And they don’t like Biden.

Who in Asean is dependent on Ukrainian wheat?

Bear market? What bear market?

Still 60% up.

If one had bot into the S&P 500 in early March 2020 at its nadir, one would still be up 60% despite the market falling 22% from its January high.

Why M’sia is no longer popular with ang moh investors

No not because Tun M is running the show.

No it’s because of China.

When the MSCI EM index — the benchmark for many equity funds — was launched in 1988, Malaysia was the biggest EM, with more than a third of the index. M’sian equity specialists like me were minting it. Even though I was based here, I didn’t do “S’pore”. It was boring and a waste of time. Btw, it’s still boring but S’pore stocks (and reits) now pay good dividends. Just the thing for me today.

China only joined the index in 1996, with a weight of just 0.46%.

Chinese equities now make up more than 30% of the MSCI EM, followed by Taiwan, India, South Korea and Brazil.

I told my ex-boss yesterday that he and his pals Tun and Anwar were in a sweet spot.

Bear facts

The current bear market (S&P 500 idown 22%) has lasted over 160 days. That is a lot longer than the 33 days in the bear market of February and March 2020. In the Great Financial Crisis, the S&P was in bear territory for 517 days: from October 2007 to March 2009.

Fyi, a bear market is a fall of 20% or more from the most recent peak.

Did our constructive, nation-building media report this?

Worries about cryptocurrency contagion coalesced around Three Arrows, a crypto-based hedge fund in Singapore. The Financial Times reported that it missed margin calls at the weekend, even before Bitcoin plumbed an 18-month low.

Economist’s The world in brief

Ecommerce carnival is over

Even before, last night’s S&P’s massacre, Amazon’s share price had fallen back to its pre-pandemic level.

EFTs

that track the ecommerce sector have done even worse:the Amplify Online Retail ETF is 20 per cent below where it stood when Covid-19 hit.

FT

Go check out price of SEA.

Chinese don’t do risk management

Never heard of diversification of risk?

Talking about Chinese parents

In a highly competitive environment where education is prized as the route to success, many parents would rather spend their money securing a bright future for one child than spread their resources across several. 

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/01/19/chinas-birth-rate-continues-to-fall

What happens if the child is not that bright or has mental issues?

Having two kids sounds a safer bet.

Are we inclusive enough?

Wonder what S’pore spends on human corporate resources?

The FT reports that Japan spends only 0.1% of its corporate human resources, compared with 2.1% in the US and 1.1% in the UK.

It also reports that the Japanese PM places some of the blame on society’s inability to be more inclusive on companies’s failure to invest in their employees.

If our spend on corporate human resources is a lot closer to than of Japan than the ang mohs’, another good reason to KPKB and beat up the millionaire PAP ministers for Talking the Talk of a more equal society but not Walking the Talk.

SDP and Cheng Bock’s gang please do some research. We can only expect the Leader of the Opposition and his wankers to only wank. They can’t even be expected to even talk about the cost of living.

Black Moday: It’s official, US in bear market

S&P 500 fell 4.3% in New York to close at its lowest level since January 2021. Index is more than 20% below its January 2022 all-time high.

The two-year Treasury yield, which tracks shorter-term interest rate expectations, rose 0.27 percentage points to  3.33%, its biggest one-day rise since June 2009.

Our local banks will keep falling. A recession in the US means bad times for S’pore.

China is a “paper tiger”

China’s defence minister, Wei Fenghe, told America to “stop smearing and containing China”, claiming that it was up to America to improve the countries’ relationship. At the Shangri-La security meeting in Singapore, Mr Wei had previously said China would “not hesitate to start a war” if anyone tried to split Taiwan from the mainland. Lloyd Austin, his American counterpart, accused China of taking a “more coercive and aggressive approach to its territorial claims”.

Economist’s The world in brief

Taiwan is already split from China because its an island.

Seriously, it is already split from China because

In a Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation poll conducted in June 2020, 54% of respondents supported de jure independence for Taiwan, 23.4% preferred maintaining the status quo, 12.5% favored unification with China, and 10% did not hold any particular view on the matter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_independence_movement

At least Putin had the balls to start a war, unlike Grandpa Xi who is a paper tiger who Talks the Talk but doesn’t Walk the Talk.

But let’s be glad that he’s only a paper tiger.

NO GST rise, more “goodies”, early GE

S’poreans clearly think the 4G leaders are a bunch of overpaid mediocrities:

Majority of Singaporeans say inflation handled ‘badly’, according to Blackbox poll

…

About 55% of respondents in the mid-May survey conducted by pollster Blackbox Research Pte. said the government was handling everyday price rises “badly.” Almost 20% said it was tackled “very badly,” while 36% felt it was dealt with “quite badly.” At the same time, 37% said the government was performing “quite well” and 7% said “very well.”

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/majority-singaporeans-inflation-handled-badly-080041059.html

My best guess is that if the present inflation trends continue, there’ll be no GST rise next year. The voters are angry and a majority of 51% at the next GE (Remember that only 44% of those poll think our millionaire ministers are doing a good job in handling inflation) will do the $G leaders only harm.

My other prediction is an early GE, either in late 2023 or early 2024, General elections are due to be held in S’pore no later than 23 November 2025 to elect the 15th Parliament of S’pore. In 2025 GST will go up by 2 %age poinrs.

To sweeten the ground, there’ll be plenty of goodies using our $: Ownself pay Ownself.

Remember I predicted in 2018 that LW would be PM: Why PAP should make Lawrence Wong PM. And in 2015 that Heng would be PM-in- waiting: The next PM has been unveiled.

Shanghai: Here we go again/ Three boos for the Chinese way

Defeat after victory was declared:

Parts of Shanghai were locked down yet again, as China’s biggest city continues its pyrrhic battle with covid-19. Minhang district, home to 2m people, will be the latest to be quarantined. Meanwhile, many temporary testing stations—which must be within a 15-minute walk for Shanghainese—are being made permanent. Last week China’s government declared victory against the virus in Shanghai following a costly two-month lockdown.

Economist’s The world in brief

China say’s it’s governance is more superior than that of the West. When Shanghai was last locked down, A Chinese resident in Shanghai posted

“Democracy cannot guarantee the best governance, but it can prevent the worst from happening. That is enough.”

Economist

As usual Spore Inc plays catch up when world moves on

Whatever happened to the Spacs that were going to list on SGX and make SGX Great Again? Three listed and are trading below their issue price.

Spacs are now taboo on Wall Street with investors nursing big losses because many of the companies that listed through Spacs have seen their shares slide. Spacs have raised US$12.7bn this year: “peanuts” compared to the US$166bn raised last year.

“The product is dead. There’s no more Spacs,” said one lawyer at a firm that created its own Spac team to capitalise on the boom.

FT

East Coast’s Long Island

A reclaimed “Long Island” along the south-eastern coast of mainland Singapore may one day not only offer protection against floods and rising sea levels, but also a new spot for leisure and recreation, much like the Marina Barrage.

Living on the “island”, which is envisioned to stretch around 15km from Marina East to Changi, may also be a possibility. 

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/long-island-reclaimed-land-east-coast-ura-plan-housing-rising-sea-levels-1915686

I’ve lived in the East Coast since the early 60s. Had a beach, then saw land reclamation which resulted in Marine Parade and in time a new beach. Hopefully I’ll live long enough to see this.

Do this here?

Germany offers €9-a-month public transport ticket

Cut-price deal allows nationwide travel as Berlin acts to soften the impact of rising inflation and expensive fuel.

Why the bulls are bullish

[F]inancial markets have done a lot of the Fed’s heavy lifting for it. Since the start of the year, bond yields have risen sharply; mortgage rates have surged; spreads on corporate bonds have widened; the dollar has climbed; and share prices have slumped. In a counter-factual world in which financial markets had shrugged off the Fed’s two interest-rate increases so far, the risks of a hard landing for the economy would, paradoxically, be greater. Inflation pressures would keep building. But as things stand, interest rates may not have to go quite as high as they otherwise might have. 

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/05/26/why-investors-are-increasingly-worried-about-recession-in-america

Eat your heart out S’poreans

Where got rise like this in S’pore despite the millionaire dollar salaries our PAP ministers getting?

Rising mortgage rates and property prices mean it is 55% more expensive to purchase a home than it was a year ago

FT: Part of headline in recent Lex column

This is in the US of A.

Our millionaire ministers only know how to raise GST to protect our reserves in an inflationary environment: adding fuel to the fires of inflation.

Biden licks crown prince’s ass

Mr Biden will soon visit Saudi Arabia, several news outlets reported, three years after he vowed to isolate the kingdom over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The rapprochement comes amid Mr Biden’s campaign to boost oil output and reduce prices. On Thursday the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, which include Russia, agreed to raise production by almost 650,000 barrels per day in July, and by a similar amount in August.

Economist’s World in brief

But the price of oil recovered from the previousw day’s fall.

Fyi, Saudi Arabia’s day-to-day ruler, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, was fingered by the CIA in the murder.

Desmond Lee: King Slimer

When I read the headline,

Engaging S’poreans a hallmark of 4G leaders: Desmond Lee

ST

I tot what a King Slimer.

It’s another way of saying that the IG, 2G and 3G leaders didn’t do engaging S’poreans as well as the 4G.

Seriously, it’s an implied criticism of 1- 3G leaders.

If $G leaders so good, why PAP share of vote is back to pass mark of 61% only? And why is 4G leaders NOT listening to the voters on GST rise? Becxause they are $G leaders?

He’s trying to BS us that $G leaders are competent. Think cotton wool comes from sheep: “Do you know about the sheep trees?”

Who is bigger tua kee? China or US?

China holds more than $3tn in foreign currency reserves, while the US holds almost none. 

FT’s Martin Wolf

By our millionaire ministers’ standards China must be more tua kee than the USA. So why is PM not licking Xi’s ass?

Because, the USA

can print them … The ability of the US and its allies to freeze a large proportion of Russia’s currency reserves shows what this power means.

FT’s Martin Wolf