Perpetual bonds should not be a cause for concern

I ,being a small fry, have an investment in Genting Perpetual 5.125% retail which i bought during IPO for diversification. It's only takes up about 5% of my investible assets, excluding property. Now that you know that i am vested,i want to say that i totally do not agree with MAS being alarmed by people buying perpetual bonds. By being alarmed and placing restrictions on these kind of investments, it will simply reduce investment alternatives and push retail investors into more exotic and more risky products.

I feel that for retail investors who do not know how to invest, perpetual bonds offer a relatively safe store of value, with Genting 5.125% matching inflation. The risk of perpetuals are as follows: Genting going bankkrupt being the worst case scenario or interest rate rising, making the price of Genting lower.

Let's look at the worst case scenario, Genting going bankrupt. Holding the perpetuals is still safer than holding the shares as pertpetual holders are paid first from the proceeds of any sale of Genting's assets.

Let's look at the risk of interest rate rising and the price of Genting getting lower. How low can it get? Can you forsee it dropping more than 20%? How about Genting Shares,can you forsee it dropping  more than 20%? In fact, the longer one holds Genting perpetuals, the less risky it becomes as it's accumulated coupons would have reduced the invested outlay by 5.125% every year, and raising by 6.125% in 2022. How much dividends does Genting Shares give?

When i, a small fry retail investor, bought the perpetuals, i did it to hold it to provide me an income after my retirement or sell it when QE3 is announced and funnel it into shares. It was crystal(Internally Flawlessly) clear to me that i can forget about any meaningful upside capital appreciation. The bullshit about it being a perpetual and the company never going to redeem it is irrelevant. I knew i could sell it in the open market to get back my principal, and true enough it was hovering at 1.012-1.011 in the open market, till MAS came up with restrictions and it fell to 1-1.002, still above IPO price.I also took into consideration Ben Bernake's (US Fed) comments about interest rates staying low till at least 2014 when i bought it. 

The announment above, was the last straw that broke the camels's back for me. SRS not being able to buy Genting Perp but allowed to buy shares?????????Huh! My gosh! The longer one holds the perpetual bonds, the safer it is and now SRS, which is for retirement purposes, is not allowed to be used to Genting Perp? Some people do need to wake up.

Having said that, perps is just for diversification. Bonds having maturity is better than perps. Keep perps or bonds to a small percentage of your assets as a store of value only. Market looks like its falling,look at volume and prepare for some firing at shares!

Increasingly Motivated Property Sellers

I was sent an Amortisation Tabe for Progressive Payment for a certain new development from a property agent. He is wasting his time as i told him politely i am not interested in property now as i expect it to go down. I am definitely not buying even after stamp duty rebates, furniture vouchers, special discount here and there, extended warranty and prices magically reducing by some weird way of calculation(hmm did i even hear a renovation rebate, valentines discount..) Setting ridiculously high asking prices and then reducing it is an old marketing trick.

However way i see it, i am increasingly more bearish on the property market. Let us look at the Amortisation Table sent by this agent who seems so persistant, i have to give it to him to at least read his emails.

The purchase price is $1,500,435 after all the discounts,30 years repayment, 80% loan with progressive payment till TOP. During the first few years before TOP, the buyer is charged at a 3-month Sibor (about 0.4319%).
During these first few years before TOP, the buyers have to pay as low as $444 monthly, increasing steadily every 4 months to $1816 monthly till TOP. After TOP, it immediately jumps to $3029.WOW!!. This will be a rude shock and bear in mind all these numbers are based on only 3 month Sibor,without addition of a board rate. It is not 1+3month sibor. The calculation is just based on 3 month sibor which is given to uncompleted properties.

From TOP+1 year to TOP+2 year, the interest rate is 1.75%.(Will it be so low!!This is after 2015!)The monthly repayment is $4430!Its slowly ballooning this cash drain!.

From TOP+2 year t TOP+3 year, the interest rate is 2%.The monthly repayment is now $4565.

From TOP+3 year to TOP+4 year, the interest is 2.5%, The monthly repayment is now $4831

From TOP+3 year to TOP+5 , the interest is 3%.(This is long term average rate i feel but it has spiked up to 6% before.) The monthly repayment is now $5097

From TOP+5 year onward, the interest rate is 3.5%. The monthly repayment is now $5244.

It will be interesting to see how things will unfold when the large supply of new properties start to TOP and there lies the huge jump in monthly repayment which will surely affect the psychology of the sellers. From $444 to $5244. In addition, if you are thinking of renting, think again.

Do not forget to add in the maintenance fees which averages about $250 - $400 per month for newer private apartments after they TOP, before sinking fund fees are even added subsequently.

Oil prices- a negative for property

Everyone knows that property has been propped up by low interest rates and excess cash liquidity in the world. If you haven't noticed yet, the finance sector in Singapore has been silently retrenching people since last November.These banks are mainly those europe ones due to the euro-zone crisis. I am not too sure if these banks are as flush with liquidity given the bad loans that need to be forgiven, Greece for now. maybe Spain next?( 500 singtel employees retrenched and given a new role in Huawei..hmm for how long?Nice spin.SIA offers pilots unpaid leave for up to 2 years...Whats happening?Good deal for SIA)

Some people may say, the Central banks can just pump somemore money into the system to shore up the liquidity of these banks. True....but with oil prices slowly creeping up and inflation becoming more pervasive and with the Iran tensions ongoing...are they able to keep on pumping money into the system? Oil prices determines how much room there is for liquidity which in turn determines how much support there is for property. No data, just reasoning. Too high oil prices can lead to social unrest i feel.

Having said that, my emotional decision for staying in the market with 50% invested has been rewarding with lending fees and dividends dripping in, in addition to some additional capital appreciation.

I am also pleasantly surprised that the district which i am eyeing for my property purchase has shown a massive amount of new listings BUT with ridiculous asking prices which will make Warren Buffet get a heart attack. I am comfortable with my house now...nay maybe i should just stay put for another 10 more years and utilize my cash somewhere else.

Cheers to the stock market. Tata

The disconnect between asset prices and fundamentals

It is weird how asset prices can be so disconnected from the current state of the world economy. If one is to look at the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) which is a good reflection of 2 factors: supply of ships and state of economy ( hence the demand of ships), it is amazing to see how shipping counters like NOL, Cosco, YangZiJiang e.t.c has been rallying like crazy while the BDI has been plummenting like crazy at about the same time. To borrow jargon from the technical analyst's vocabulary there is currently a complete divergence between the BDI and the shipping counters. The current BDI is at 662 and note that this is even lower than it's 5 year low of 663.

Five year Baltic Dry Index Chart

NOL 1 year chart

I still do not believe that this is a real rally but i will be happy if i am proven wrong as i still have 60% of my portfolio in high dividend yielding equities. If the equities market is to rally somemore and become extremely overbought, i would sell some of my equities off. It could rally somemore if china relaxes some lending rules,US print somemore money, EU print somemore money or investors ploughing money into equities as property investing is now too regulated. e.t.c. I really hope that its due to the shifting of money from property to equities as it would fit very very nicely into my strategy.

I believe that the economy will keep on getting worse as the 2 biggest consumers of the world is mired in recession. How can China, Hong Kong or Singapore not be affected? Taking the words of Donald Tsang, Hong Kong's Chief Executive just a few days ago: " I have never been as scared as i am about the world". This speaks volumes. There has also been more retrenchments in the electronic or banking sectors if you were to know industry insiders. Even Mr Tony Tan mentioned that Singapore economy may be threatened in August of 2011 ( Straits times)

Now about property. I am fortunate to know a property developer who made a remark that Singapore property would definitely cool due to the property situation in China as there will be now fewer Chinese buyers snapping up our properties.  From my own experience, I am also of the opinion that Singapore asset prices are laggards. Just look at how the singapore equity market tracks the China equity market and to a lesser extent now, the US market. Whenever there is a big rally in the US S&P the previous night, the STI would rally the next morning.

China property price slide gathers speed - The Telegraph

Are China Properties in free fall - Forbes

China property sector goes from bad to worse - FT alphaville

Hong Kong homes face25% Drop as loans fall in year of dragon.- bloomberg

Singapore home prices fall in December - Reuters

European interest in Singapore Property Markets cooling - Asia Property report.

And the list goes on.......

So what will i do now. Just wait loh. There is a season for sowing and a season for reaping. Now is neither.

Thoughts On Current Environment

It is quite expected of the government to come up with additional property cooling measures as i have said before that property is a public good and any additional meaningful upside in price will be capped. I must say that this recent measure of taxing foreigners the additional 10% stamp duty is a very good and well thought of move by the government. I applaud them and must say they are really responding well to the recent results of the general election. I feel that this move tackles both the issues of foreign competition and also the laments of the young generation of aspiring homeowners. Good Job. So how well will property fare in the coming years?

In my opinion, property will go down in prices and volume but i won't know by how much. Singaporeans have strong holding power from what i observe ( I used to say that property prices may also stagnate but no longer). They have their CPFs, so this is a plus point for property. On the other hand, recent data has shown that foreigners and PRs form a significant proportion of property transactions and since assets are ALWAYS priced at the margins, prices could swing to the south given an expected low transactional volume. All that is needed to really push property to nose dive will be accelerated retrenchments. The holding power of Singaporeans will make sure that property will not go too far south though.The devaluing of fiat currency will also help prop up property. 2013-2015 will be a good time to show-hand in property for investment given the supply and expected interest rate hikes.

Now about the equity markets. In my opinion, money has to flow somewhere. It either flows into stocks or flows into property or flows into Gold or flows into bonds or flows into currencies or flows into savings account. Money now has flowed into safe currencies like USD or Yen and savings account and to some extend flowed out of equity markets and the sing dollar. The reason why equity markets have not corrected massively is just because there is just too much money chasing limited assets. I still have not dipped my toes into the equity market again yet as i feel there is still some downside to go as i feel market confidence is still not yet totally broken.( 60% of my portfolio is currently in equities).  Having said that, some of my stocks in my watchlist has hit or broken their 52weeks low. I have also observed that many of my shares are still being shorted. I just cant wait to squeeze the short sellers, just not yet and im a small fry. haha. Will the harsh property cooling measures result in money flows to the equity market? It would be interesting. Now, i will just sit back and earn my fees from the short sellers and dividends.