The stock market – from a child to a Frankenstein

Not too long ago, there was this official wisdom floating in the air. Invest your money in stocks, in the long term, do not speculate, and your money will grow faster than any kind of investments. It will definitely be better than keeping it under the pillow or in the banks earning a small interest.
 

Stock market volatility is scorned upon. So were syndicates ramming the market up and down. Stock market was not meant to be traded in that way, in a frenzy. Investors are there for the long term. Syndicates were seen as robbers and criminals and were watched under the microscope for any wrong doings. In double quick time they were got rid off, or many were gotten rid off for creating too much volatility in the market.
 
And their absence left a void to be filled by hedge funds and other bigger fund managers to trade the market in greater ferocity. The market mechanism was redesigned to allow the big boys to trade in greater volumes, to scalp the market, through mini bid size, for intraday trades, for fast trades by the minutes and by the seconds. High volatility is now welcomed because the snake oil sellers and conmen said it is good for the market. High turnovers, small bids, churning big volumes are good. Scrip lending facilities were created for the big boys to trade even more madly. What happens to the old wisdom of long term investment?
 
The health of the stock market today is as sick as a dying patient in the ICU. But no one wants to acknowledge this sad state of affair. Everyone is pretending that it is very healthy. Just encourage more retail investors to come in and trade. Create more products, more derivatives, cut the commissions to make it cheaper. Where got white elephant in the room. The stock market is so healthy!
 
The volumes are definitely much higher, always in the billions. There was a time when hitting a billion shares in a day was a rare phenomenon. Now hitting 3b, 5b is no problem. Anything less than 3b shares daily is bad, too small. And funny thing, where are the investors. No need investors. Just let the computers to do the trading and generate clearing fees for the exchange.
 
The brokerage are encouraged to under cut one another with lower and lower commissions to force the competitors out of business. In the meantime, in their childlike innocence, they are wiping themselves out of the business too when the commission is so low and unable to sustain the operation and pay for the overheads. And they are still scheming to reduce the commissions to even the bare minimum. Are they nuts?
 
But computer trading is not fast enough. The volumes are too small. The next big thing is to bring in High Frequency Trading where a trade can be executed in micro seconds without anyone knowing that millions of trade were done with the blink of an eye. And this is good.
 
What happens to long term investment? Long term investment is no longer about buy and hold for ten or twenty years. Long term is now measured by the seconds. Anything more than a second could be long term.
 
So what is going to happen to the stock market? If it survives in the long term, ie, more than 6 months, with HFT, it would have serve its purpose. Can anyone expect the market to be around in 3 years, 5 years or 10 years? Yes it will still be around, but no more retail investors.

Giving a helping hand

How many Sinkies need a helping hand from the more successful Sinkies? Count the Govt out as they don’t believe in a welfare state. So charity to the less able Singaporeans should be left to the Singaporeans, to NGOs and charitable organizations to do the necessary. And there are many kind souls among the Sinkies who are willing to do their parts to share with the other half of the Sinkies that find it tough to get by. Some do it quietly, some with aplomb, some with great fanfare like on TV. Nonetheless, the objective is commendable.
 
Over the weekend I was involved in one of these big hearted event to share a little of material needs with those who really needed them. The list for the recipients came to more than a hundred families. Everyone was so enthusiastic to help, to give and to share, including the primary school children. The intent is genuine. And everyone felt good too, to be able to do their little bit even for a small amount and a little relief for a few days.
 
The desire to give, especially for those who know that they have done well, or at least are more fortunate than others that are not doing well, is a common feeling among many Sinkies. And this has helped to keep many charitable events going and helped many in the process.
By the end of the programme over the weekend, we were saddled with a bigger task. More than half of the goodie bags were not claimed. More than half of the recipients did not turn up for their goodies. And it was not that they did not need them or did not want them. The programme for the morning were like a little neighbourhood party with performances from the school children to entertain the invited guests, live shows, for free, and with lunch provided.
 
Now we were humbled by our thoughtlessness, by our callousness. We thought by telling the needies to come and collect their little goodie bags they will come forward. There must be many more sensitive ways to help the people in need. In our eagerness and enthusiasm to share, we forgot to put ourselves in their shoes. We forgot what it would be like to be on the receiving end. Mind you, it is no fun for sure. We trampled through the different floors on a door to door delivery mission to distribute the lunch boxes to everyone willing to open the door. Not many did and even for some who did, they declined our gesture and our lunch boxes. We were left with a lot of lunch boxes, decent food, with no takers and a used by date.
 
There must be better ways to reach out to the other section of the community. There must be. While we want to reach out, and knowing that they needed a little assistance, a little kind gesture, we must find a way to bridge the wide gap between the two parties. We fail to see the elephant that was keeping us wide apart. Never shalt the Twains met.
 
Could this be the reason why Rebecca Loh and Gabriel were alone in their struggle to live a normal existence?

Stylo mylo Vivian in Parliament

The most impressive part of the 10 minutes broadcast on Parliament after the news last night was all about Vivian. At least that was the only thing I could remember. He was a class of his own. He dressed very well, dressed to kill, looked very good and spoke damn well. Indeed he was a very polished debater. He peppered his lecture in Parliament with well measured tone and body language. This is fine art. Great stuff. I gave him full marks for presentation.
 
When he was speaking the floor listened intently in silence. No one moved. Hsien Loong and all the ministers were there, in deep thoughts, listening or maybe thinking very hard about something else more important, that I am not sure.
 
It would be nice to know what were in their minds. Were they so impressed and overawed by the articulate performance of Vivian, the smooth talking minister? Or were they thinking that he should cut it off as such matters of ‘I said this, he said that, I am more honourable, he is not, he is lying, she is untruthful’, though well executed, should be said somewhere else and not in Parliament?
 
It is really interesting to know what were in the minds of the ministers and MPs then. Unfortunately there will be no answers to this. But overall it was a great performance by Vivian. In oratory skills, none in Parliament could come close to him. His parting shot to Low Thia Khiang was superb one upmanship, a little patronizing, but he got away with it.

Dependency Syndrome in Sin City

Sinkies have often and regularly been bashed for having a Dependency Syndrome, always depending on the Govt to do the right thing or to offer a little charity.
 
This sickness is deep and widespread, from the bottom to the top. The worst affected are those right at the top, thinking and living dependency instead of being self reliant.
No, don’t get me wrong. The people in general are very hardworking and are depending on themselves to make a living or to eke a living. Look at the oldies parading the roads and those in the foodcourts? They know that they have to depend on themselves, not the Govt. Some even got their savings ‘gantong’ or confiscated in the name of ‘for their own good’. So they continue to struggle to live on. Self reliant, though they could live a bit better if their CPF can be released to them and not held at ransom by all the minimum sum schemes just in case they need to use them.
 
Yes, the sickness is affecting the people right at the top. Still don’t get it? They want sports talents, where do you think they are looking? Of course they are looking elsewhere for foreigners to bring us the medals. Is this not dependency on foreigners?
And sports is only a very small part of this Dependency Syndrome. The whole economy is dependent on foreigners. Our population growth is also dependent on foreigners. We cannot reproduce, so bring in the foreigners to make up the numbers. 6.9m to be made up for by bringing in more foreigners.
 
Now we can’t even create jobs for ourselves. We need the foreigners to be here to create jobs for us. We tempt and invite millionaires and billionaires to be here and hopefully they can drop a few morsels from their tables for us. We hope that they can create jobs and opportunities for our people, open doors for us.
 
Is this not Dependency Syndrome then what is? Why are we so dependent on foreigners for everything? Why can’t we be self reliant and do things for ourselves, create jobs for our own people by ourselves?
 
Coveting thy neighbour’s wife and talent and belongings? We do not want to work anymore if we can bring in foreign talents to work for us. The Govt has shifted from having go getters going out there to fight for jobs to one that is praying that foreigners will be here to help us. It openly said so. We need foreigners to create jobs for us.

Crocodile population increasing

There used to be one, and then two crocodiles in Sungei Buloh Wetland. Last Sunday I was there and I counted 6, two adults, two young adults and two baby crocodiles. The river is rich in fish and is a very safe and fertile sanctuary for the crocodiles to breed. At the rate the crocodiles are breeding, soon there will be a football team and then many football teams.
 
At the moment things are pretty quite, a lull before the storm. The crocodiles are free swimmers and could get out of the wetland into the surrounding areas when children and beach goers frequented. The closest is the mouth of the embanked Kranji River where there is a popular beach for picnickers. And if there is some nasty incidents waiting to happen, this must be the first spot to happen.
 
I hope the Parks and Recreation Dept is watching this development and has put in place some monitoring and control measures to check on the crocodiles before they snap their jaws on some children or human beans.
 
This is clear and present danger. Let’s hope a committee is formed now to tackle this potential threat and not after someone lost a leg or his life. Crocodiles are nice to watch from the comfort of elevated bridges or ground. But they can turn very nasty and the damage is beyond just regrettable.
 
Immediate action is needed from the ministry in charge. Maybe no ministry is in charge. Or maybe there are more immediate problems to tackle and this has yet to be a problem. No one got bitten by a crocodile yet. Would those in charge of catching pythons and wild boars be the best to take care of this problem akan datang? Maybe someone can give them a call. Maybe better to wait until the haze and dengue problems are solved before bringing this matter up.