SGX – Reality sets in

Jeremy Grant wrote ‘Singapore exchange losing out to regional competitors’ in the Financial Times on 23 Apr 14.
 
‘Singapore’s equity market is looking increasingly unloved. Last year the city-state’s stock exchange suffered the indignity of being overtaken in terms of trading volume by its Thai counterpart, knocking Singapore into second place in southeast Asia for the first time. More recently it was also overhauled by Japannext, a relatively small trading platform that competes with the Tokyo bourse.
 
This makes SGX, the Singapore exchange, Asia’s ninth-largest share market – a frustrating state of affairs for an exchange that prides itself on being “the Asian gateway” for investors in the region.
 
Singapore’s problems – a combination of low trading volume, or liquidity; relatively high transaction costs; and a dearth of big-ticket initial public offerings – were highlighted on Wednesday when SGX reported a 22 per cent fall in net profit for the third quarter….’
 
Is it surprising that the SGX is going down into the longkang as a failed stock exchange? People in the industry knew this long ago but the media has been hyping about how successful it has been with increasing volumes in derivatives and all kinds of shit except the real business of stock trading. And many who are supposed to be doing something to right the wrong are pretending to be Rip Van Winkles.
 
There have been a slew of measures rolled out by the SGX and every time it was touted to improve the trading volumes, improve liquidity, good for small investors, and the ridiculous no lunch break to extend trading hours for more volumes. We all know that it did not get better but worst.
 
So, how long would this myth of a fantastically successful stock market, the best managed in Asia, the financial centre that is doing roaring business going to go up in dust? When would the govt face the reality that things are in shit and the SGX is already in the intensive ward? This thing did not happen yesterday. The writings were on the wall a couple of years but everyone turned the other way. No one wants to know, no one wants to lift his little finger, no one wants to take responsibility but only prayed that the magician would continue to pull little rabbits out of his hat. Are there still rabbits left in the hat for the show to go on and everyone clapping for an encore?
 
Do they know what is happening, what is the cause of the dying stock market?

Kopi Level - Yellow

The books that I would want to write

There are so many books that I would like to write about the golden years of Sin City. And many people too will be writing their books on the same topics with some being the originators of these fascinating stories. They could even call them autobiographies.

No, I am not going to write about making my first million in rupiahs. Too many people have written on that. The very first book that came to mind is ‘How to run down a profitable and sound public transport system.’ It is not easy, like they said, when something is running well and smoothly, it will take an exceptional talent to run it down, or maybe a dud to do it in his best. In the latter case, it will be so easy with the dud thinking he has really done an excellent job.

The second book is likely to be ‘How to run down a vibrant and profitable stock market singlehandedly.’ This is a much more difficult task to do compare to running down a train system. To run down a stock market, you must not only have a list of fictitious but grand money making schemes, but must convince those people who think they are very smart that the silly schemes you have hatched are really good. Having a brilliant scheme to convince smart people to go along is elementary. Convincing smart people with fictitious and destructive schemes and to have them going along needs the talent of a genius. The only time when you don’t need a genius is when the smart people are really gullible idiots in disguise. Then the job will be a piece of cake.

The third book, this must be more difficult than the above, ‘How to rob the people’s life savings without them knowing.’ The difficulty of this book is that in the former two, you only need to convince a few people to believe in you. That is not difficult when they themselves did not know what is happening or did not want to know what is happening as long as they can spend time counting their money. To con all the people in a saving’s scheme is not easy. And it is not easy to turn a good saving’s scheme into a monster, a life taking scheme when people have to commit suicide to get their money back.

In this third book, with millions of people having a vested interest to want to protect their money, it is not easy to pull wool over their eyes to prevent them from seeing or knowing what is happening to their money. And you need to keep doing it everyday and make them believe their money is still there when it is not there. For the moment they know their money is gone, everything will fall flat.

My fourth book, ‘How to sell a country right before the eyes of its people.’ In terms of difficulty level this must be above all the three books combined. No one has ever done this in history. Some tried and were killed as traitors. Actually I am wrong on this. There had been many cases of traitors in the history of China for conspiring with foreigner powers. The Ming Dynasty fell because of traitors working with the enemies outside. The Song Dynasty also had the same fate when an idiotic general chose to follow orders blindly, without question and refusing to question, and left his post to allow the enemies to overrun his troops leading to the fall of a dynasty. But some people honoured such idiots as role models of blind loyalty to the emperors.

In modern cities, selling a country is much easier as long as you have a willing citizenry that would not protest, happy to follow instructions or orders, willing to believe the leaders, and lost the ability to think and unable to see when things go wrong. This book is going to be very interesting and would likely be written by many historians in the future.

Come to think of it, there are many people more qualified to write such books as their biographies. It would be instant best sellers, something like ‘kiss and tell’.  Just imagine if the authors actually engineered the downfall of a public transport system or a stock exchange and live to tell the stories. Every book is a fertile material for a Hollywood movie.

Kopi Level - Green

Brave Sinkies commit suicide for their children

ZI Mo wrote in the TRE about his friend of 30 years, at 57, chose to hang himself after a business failure that left him penniless. But his main reason as stated in his suicide note was to withdraw his $200k savings in his CPF to support his two school going sons. Only death could he get access to his CPF savings.

Another blogger commented that one of his best friends jumped from his HDB last year due a $30k debt. He left behind a wife and two daughters and more than $200k in his CPF.

Let’s hope that their last wishes were fulfilled and their CPF savings all went to their families and nothing is being held back, like some being transferred to the beneficiary’s medisave minimum sum account. I stand corrected on this, but so far I have been told that this is the case and not all the balance in the CPF will be paid out in the case of death.

Is this suicide thing going to be a trend and one of the sad ways for a down and out Sinkie, jobless and penniless but with a few hundred thousand in his CPF savings, and killing himself is the only way to release the money to his loved ones?

Many PMETs are living precariously the moment they lost their jobs to a foreigner and find it hard to get another job. And to make matters worse, many have school going children and a housing mortgage to service.

Welcome to the richest city state in the world when one out of two citizens is a millionaire on paper. More such tragedies are in the pipeline.

My advice to those people meddling in people’s life savings and having designs on the money these people have saved for a life time to serve their private agenda, please do good, do more good, and return the money to the rightful owners. You do not know what the invisible hand will do to you next. Do not intentionally cause tragedies to others for your private amusement and vested interests. Go and squander your own money no one will care. When you start to mess around with other people’s money, like the two suicide cases mentioned, you have blood in your hand.

Repent before it is too late. Beg for mercy when you still have time.

Kopi Level at the moment is red.

UOB – The solid local bank

Wee Cho Yaw has spoken, UOB will grow organically and will not join the acquisition frenzy. Neither will UOB join the ‘foreigners are talent’ fad and go on a mindless recruitment to replace local talents with foreign ‘talents’.

Many banks with foreign CEOs are impatient to prove their worth and to justify their fat salaries. Acquisition to grow the bank is a simple way, instant trees, instant fat. The only issue is the cost. But many would not mind paying the Singapore Premium in the acquisition trail. What is the problem? Everything is OPM and if the acquisition is successful, more salary hikes and bonuses. If fails, it is OPM, just take the golden handshake and walk away. It is simply head I win, tail you lose.

Mercenaries have no qualms about spending OPM to make that strike. They need to justify their worth and pay fast. And they work to make sure they get more pay and fast. They invest for quick profit.

Another type of mercenaries is the fund managers. They invest because they have too much money in their war chests, all OPM. They can’t keep their money in the biscuit tins. They must put them to work, to work for them and for the shareholders. When fund managers invest because they need to invest and not when there is a good buy, you can be sure they will invest even in shit.

Wee Cho Yaw said it, UOB would look out for opportunities but only when the buy fits and the price is right. He is not going to be a bloody fool paying huge premiums just to join the bandwagon and be on the news that UOB is also doing the right thing. A solid conservative banker does not gamble with his money and has no need to rush to spend it. Every cent he is spending must be meaningful, not eventful.

 And UOB is going to be a local bank and would not be open to the exploits of foreign mercenaries. He has appointed Hsieh Fu Hua to replace him as Chairman. He is not angmoh or foreigner crazy. He does not have a crush like an 18 year old going gaga with anything novel. This is a solid banker that runs his bank like a bank, not a casino.

With a local talent team, is the UOB doing less well than those under foreign mercenaries?

MH370 – What happened to the mangosteens?

After searching for more than a month in the Antarctics, they are still unable to locate the mangosteens. But who cares, or why would anyone be interested in the mangosteens? Are they worthless, no owners? Or have the rightful owner of the mangosteens already collected them and put them under safe keeping?

The mangosteens, 4 tonnes of them, heavier than a 3 tonner, were casually mentioned by the Malaysian authorities and quickly forgotten as inconsequential. Were they so innocent? It is a fact that the mangosteens were not in season in Malaysia. Where were they from, who was the owner and where were the mangosteens going? Does anyone want to know what is this ‘mangosteen’ thing? It is so obvious that the mangosteens were not mangosteens. What were they? Why were the Malaysian govt not even interested to find out?

Let me suggest a very simple theory on the story of the mangosteens. They were the forbidden fruits. The Malaysian Govt were tipped off on the mangosteens. They were told of a scheme to retrieve the mangosteens by the informer. The Malaysian Govt went along. The flight MH370 was allowed to fly as scheduled not to alarm anyone. The air traffic controllers went through routines and everything was normal.

At the border of Malaysian and Vietnamese airspace, the aircraft took a dip and disappeared from radar with its transponder switched off. It then turned west, climbed back to normal cruise level and flew all the way to Butterworth airbase under full radar contact, landed, unloaded the mangosteens and all the passengers, and flew off just like another MAS aircraft.

After that all the disinformation appeared that the aircraft had headed to the Antarctics either on auto pilot or flown by a suicidal pilot. Both did not make any sense. And somehow the aircraft could send out blips to satellites to let them guess where it was or going. And conveniently they applied the Doppler Effect for the first time to masturbate such information and concluded that it must be going to the Antarctics when the aircraft could have landed in Butterworth with all its mangosteens delivered to whoever that was behind this hoax.

The aircraft could now be flying daily under another MH callsigns all over Malaysia and its foreign destinations. Where are the pilot and co pilot? Are their families raising a ruckus on their disappearance, grieving or unable to grieve, or life was normal at home?

Just a very simple theory of the mangosteens that came from no where, going nowhere, no one wants to know why or where.

And here comes Obama, the President of an Empire, calling on Najib to say thank you for your assistance. We are now friends.

The above is all my imagination that is good enough to be turned into a movie.

Kopi Level - Green