Ezra ...Fighting Spirit Among the Ranks!

Wow wow wow...Ezra made it to the top 20 hitlist for highest volume. See article we wrote about Ezra here. ( We neber short the stock ah..promise promise...as you can see the article we wrote wasn't that negative and we are unbiased, only pure facts merlion from our mouth, with substantiated data.) Having said that, we absolutely love Ezra management's swift and sharp response to the Citigroup Investment Research Analyst's report on 22 October 2008. Meeow...Grrrgh...catfight!Owww..Here is their response.

Well SGDividends is neutral to their "intense discussion". (But we kinda like Ezra's management though...but then we also liked Citigroup's "Dream's never sleep" commercial). Whatever...here is something for our readers to think about. This was from Ezra management's mouth in the year 2003 Prospectus. What do you guys (or lovely ladies ...darlings) think, given this current environment?

And if you have read what Citigroup wrote and what Ezra replied about the following term" Market Disruption Clause". Below is an article from The Financial Times regarding it.

To avoid the risk of seeming like we are biased, we have compiled the following link for our readers to read to get the big picture. As our parents always say, let's hear the other side of the story before jumping to conclusions!
Ezra Current Shareholder Responds to a forummer's opinion.
Jaya Holdings, the SGDividends Team is watching you .............

Mr Tan Kin Lian - The Modern Singaporean Ex-CEO Online Citizen...! Don't play play!

Here at SGDividends, we cut off the fluff of House or Instituitional Analysts who have to maintain "diplomatic" relations with companies for IB, commissions..e.t.c. We seek only the truth and nothing but the truth...based on facts..not fluff.... and on independent, common sense research.

We applaud Mr Tan Kin Lian for fighting the cause against fluff by certain "unwholesome" bankers...

Check him out and lend him your support..Go Mr Tan Kin Lian! You go girl...owww!

Taken wholesale from Mr Tan Kin Lian's Blog Section. ( We don't plagarise lah!)

Be careful of your relationship manager
Here are a few frightening stories ....

1. A customer deposited $800,000 into a fixed deposit. He was not aware that the relationship manager placed it in a leverage account which caused a loss of $400,000. The customer was asked to top up the account. The customer is making a Police report. Details are also given to a journalist.

2. Two weeks ago, someone sent an e-mail to me. Her mother lost the entire sum of $500,000 in a dual currency investment. She does not know how it happened. I asked her to get the bank to send a statement to her. I have not heard from her yet. My guess is that the money went into a leveraged account. It is probably leveraged 3 times or more. A 30% drop in the currency, with this type of leverage, could wipe out the entire deposit.

3. A neighbour's relative saw me last night. He was advised by the relationship manager to invest SGD $250,000 in Lehman Brother bonds in April 2008 to earn 4.2%. The bonds are now worthless. Previously, the same RM advised him to invest in a bond, which turned out to be a hedge fund. He has liquidated the investment at a big loss.

I wish to send this message to warn bank customers about the relationship managers. It seems that they have to meet high sales quota and are recommeding risky financial products to their customers, without giving proper advice. As there are so many cases of dishonest acts, we now have to worry about the integrity of the financial institutions and the relationship managers.

If you are a victim, you must lodge a Police report for dishonesty and also a complaint against the relationship manager. We have to act to clean up these dishonesty.

BEWARE..Short Sellers..whoever you are...pls stand up...where is the real SLIM shady

SGDividends would like to inform short sellers that if you are too successful in shorting the stock and the stock price does go down way down...you may not be able to buy it back!...yes its weird..and it happens at some brokerage houses. (maybe not all....but definitely some)

Apparently, when you short a stock and the value of the stock plummets like mad ...the brokerage house risk minimization system will prevent you from buying anymore. This is because when you short a stock the system deems you as "owning" the shorted stock and since the stock has devalued in price....you are deemed to have made a lose. And if this lose is more than a certain percentage of your credit buying power...you cannot buy anymore. And if you can't buy...AND IF you are a naked short seller.....sayonara to you..minimum charge of SGD$1000 imposed by SGX.

You can circumvent this by asking your house to increase your buying power ( way before you start naked shorting by the way)......or adding cash as this decreases your "loss"....or paying up for your previous unsettled contra losses or unsettled shares as these will add on to your "loss". Contra profit will minimise this lost.

Basically, if the system see that your loss is more than a certain percentage of your credit buying power.....you are not able to buy anymore. This applies to those who buy a stock first ( not short) also. If the stock you own goes down, and your total loss exceeds a certain % of your buy limit, you can't buy anymore.

Its only in recession times that we become aware of such mechanism as stocks value falls.(maybe its a new invention...dont know) So well well short sellers...beware...have fun but dont depress the stock too much lah...got auntie uncle life saving inside leh...give chance k.....

Oh yes....the above is the rough story...better to call your brokerage house to clarify and take note that the above is refering to online trading platforms where you place orders online..... offline orders like remisiers or trading representatives..ask yours

Predict Cycles ....Easily...

SGdividends met a student today...yes a student...and we learnt a lot from her...Why? Cos she thinks simply and have not been brainwashed or blasted with loads of marketing research reports..bloomberg...reuters and all the jazz matazz of finance and investing. She told us isn't it obvious 1-2 years ago that something was going to be wrong.... Let's see why she said that...shall we?

Before we continue, just know that if the yield curve is increasing the probability of recession or anything go wrong with the economy is very minimal. If the yield curve becomes flat...higher probability....if it becomes inverted ..very probable....basic economics.

2002 yield curve(above)...its increasing....

2003 yield curve (Above) ....Still increasing


2004 yield curve(above ).. It is still increasing.

2005 Yield Curve...above ...getting flatter but still increasing!

2006 yield curve (Above) seems to show invertness in the near term. Something is going wrong!

2007 Yield Curve (Above)....Persistent invertness..WARNING!

So you see, my friends, at around early part of year 2007, the shape of the 2006 yield curve has already been publicly released ( in fact the yield data is publicly available month by month) and shouldn't we be forewarned already? Start overweighting in cash then and expect increasingly dangerous times ahead.....which we are now...simple? Think John Sloman Economics Text Book.
In 2002, if we had invested, we would have made money ! So where are we now? See the curve below...what do you think?

Think simply to invest profitably.

Safer than Saving Accounts and Higher Returns???

Wow...a reader just told us about this investment idea...safer than the bank deposit and earning more than the rate of return of savings interest, fixed Deposits or even money market funds! Sounds like the perfect plan...but if it sounds too good to be true..it probably is (maybe)..research at your own risk!

7% - 10% returns per annum and safer than bank deposits. Low risk, high returns ( an anomaly, we have always thought the next safest place after the saving account is our Khong Guan Biskit Tin or under our mattress...)

This is taken from their website on why its safer:

Protection of TEPs

Traded Endowments are even "safer" than S$ Bank Deposits. Singapore only has maximum Deposit Insurance up to S$20,000 per bank. Even if you have S$1 million with a bank, you only get back S$20,000 if the bank goes into trouble.

For Traded Endowment, the protection is 90% of the amount of policy cash value, not subject to a maximum amount. Below is the company stating this claims.

Pls note that SGDividends is new to this thing too and we are not here to promote anything..just for awareness sake.....steady boh!

Why Reits are faring so Badly!

MapleLog (Current Assets lesser than Current Liabilities)

Macarther reit (Current Assets lesser than Current Liabilities)
K-reit(Currenct Assets lesser than Current Liabilities)

MPREIT ( This one i dont know why they dont seperate Current from Non Current. Why?Why? Why?Why Reits are faring so badly? Cos its a credit crunch and they need to borrow money and a random pick of some Reits in singapore tells the story. And does anyone know why MPReit doesn't seperate currenct from non current? Hmm

Buying US Stocks .... What's the risk?

People have been asking us whether their US Stocks they bought are safe. Safe not in the investing sense but safe in the way that if the Financial Instituition holding their shares go bankrupt...what will happen to their shares?(Hmm yah hor...)

Some basic Primer, first.When you buy US shares from say, in our case, through DBSV Online for example, the US shares are actually kept or custodised with a foreign broker in the US, similar to how CDP holds our Singapore shares for us. So,how do we know we are protected? Simply check whether the foreign broker is a member of the SIPC.(a.k.a Seriously Idiotic Public Corporations). For example see the red oval.

"The cash and securities – such as stocks and bonds – held by a customer at a financially troubled brokerage firm are protected by SIPC.
Among the investments that are ineligible for SIPC protection are commodity futures contracts and currency, as well as investment contracts (such as limited partnerships) and fixed annuity contracts that are not registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under the Securities Act of 1933. " SIPC ( Securities Investor Protection Corporation. This is the correct one.)website. ( http://www.sipc.org/)