DBS profit up, share price down

DBS announcing another unbelieveable achievement for the 4^th quarter results. At the rate it is making profit, in no time DBS would be the biggest bank in the world and the most profitable one.  4^th quarter profit up 20%, to $1b in 3 mths. Who is saying banks cannot make big profits like the casinos? And revenue hit $10b or $10.79b in a quarter, extrapolate to one year it would be more than $40b! Earning per share also up from $1.32 to $1.57.

With this kind of scintillating performance, the management must be handsomely rewarded by the millions and well deserving. But please put in the claw back clause for safety reasons, just in case like Sembawang and Keppel. But touch wood it would not happen to DBS. DBS can expect to grow and grow and profit to go up and up like the salaries of super talents.

Now the bad news. Share price of DBS bank was down 18% for the year and this was based on yesterday’s price. Today(24 Feb) its price fell by another 26c.  What is happening, with such good results and no bad news, the share price of DBS is falling like a rock! How to explain this?

Didn’t the investors and fund managers believe in the good numbers and start to rush in to buy up more DBS shares for keeps? With 30c of dividend, it is as good as getting 30c discount. The fund managers and investors are not saying they don’t believe in the results right? And it cannot be a sell on news because the share price has been falling and not rising before the announcement. What is going on, what is happening?

DBS is not like those western banks that reported billions and billions of profits only to reveal a big black hole during the banking crisis and begged the US govt for handouts or go bust. The MAS has a very tight control and would not allow local banks to have their accounts cooked like those western banks, creating billions of profits when the truth is losing billions instead. MAS has a very high standard of control and governance and the scintillating results of DBS or any local banks are real. Don’t worry, we are in good hands.

One possible reason, the computers are doing all the damages. Computer trading is never about fundamentals. It is pure trading and gambling. The computers are programmed to trade against the investors. When investors rush in to buy, the computers will be computing when to sell and how much to sell to make profit against the investors. This could be the case. The investors and funds are rushing in to buy only to be sold down by the computers and the victims are the investors and fund managers having faith in the good results, and  the share price of DBS.

The big winners, the computer traders. And if you look at the volume of trades done, more than 10m shares in half a day, or more than $130m of trades done. This could not be the work of small investors or fund managers trading. It is the sign of computers trading and doing the damage.

DBS, Temasek and GIC and big funds are paying a heavy price to the computer traders that would show them the middle fingers as far as fundamentals are concerned. DBS is doing very well, very good company, top bank in Singapore, Batam and Bintan, oops I mean in the Asia and the world. Why is the price falling like a coconut?

Thank you, computer trading. You are a darling, very good for the market and for long term investors buying on fundamentals.

Singapore is a secular state

I try to avoid this sensitive issue of religion because the unthinking and daft sinkies will go into a rage when something negative about religion is said. We are in the 21^st Century, we have learnt and progressed so far since the days of Adam and Eve, since the days the holy scriptures were written by men and women with their limited knowledge of the universe and science, many, to be frank, were half illiterates. Even a secondary school boy or girl of today knows more of the universe and life than those ancients. How much of their sayings are still relevant today and not regarded as rubbish is one thing. How much of the rubbish spouted by the ancients are still clinging on and held closely in the chests of many highly educated modern men and women is unbelieveable. There is this fear, thought or perception, that the rubbish of the ages cannot be questioned and must not be talked about.

We have religion staring right in your face today, in the pages of the media, imposing but claiming not to be imposing, on the values and way of life of non believers.  Many are claiming to be on high moral grounds to talk down on people, people who have nothing to do with their religion, will not subscribe to their beliefs or values, that the non believers are bad people of low morals.

How many of these people are morally that virtuous behind their robes when the truth is revealed, just like the revelation of John Paul and his relations with a woman and all the hidden excesses by people in the robes of all religions?

Common, give Madonna a break. Give the non believers a break. The MDA has rightly classified the show as R18. What more do you want? You want to run the lives of the non believers as well? Just keep to your flocks within the confines of your religious abodes and doctrines. Leave the rest of the people alone to do what they want with their lives. This is the 21^st Century, no more prudes and pricks, no more pretensions of what is good for one and is so good for everyone. No more living the lives of people of the past. The universe has more than a few hundred billion galaxies out there.

Madonna is lucky and safe that she is living in the 21^st Century. In the ignorant Middle Ages she would be stoned to death or burnt at the stake, and called a witch.  Are we going to return to those dark ages of human ignorance and to allow the bigots to take charge and run amok?

No one, not any religion shall be allowed to impose their beliefs and values on anyone outside their religions and beliefs. Keep religion as a personal and private affair from the secular state.  The secular state and rule of law must prevail. It is a very dangerous precedent to set to allow any religion to think they can dictate their wills, beliefs and values on the non believers, the modern men and women.

As a modern state with so many different religions and beliefs, we cannot slip backward to the medieval times of devils and witches and allowing the mob to go into a rampage to hang or burn people that did not agree with their beliefs, values and way of life.

US actions ‘raise chances of conflict significantly’

Below is a report in a reputable media.

President Hussein says US should step back from unilateral action in S China Sea disputes

Buangkok(Tharland) There are areas of genuine tension between China and the United States, said President Hussein, referring to the disputes in the South China Sea about which he gave the blunt assessment that “USA is resorting to old style of might make right”, as opposed to working through international law and norms to resolve territorial disputes. The Americans must not return to gunboat diplomacy to exert their control over the South China Sea.

This has led to “significant potential” for confusion and war among countries in the region,… adding that ‘The more we can convince  the US that it’s in their long term interest to abide by these international rules as well, the more peaceful and secure the whole region would be,” he said in an interview with Channel Newsworld.

President Hussein also said he did not want to hypothesise about the US going to war with China but stressed that the US ought to step back from unilateral action to avoid a war in the region.  The President added, ‘What we learnt is that societies work better when these norms are observed. The same is true at the international level. And USA, as a large country, should have even more investment in wanting these norms to be observed.’

It could take some time, the president said, for the Americans’ own experience over the course of history in genocide, slavery and wars that binding itself to certain norms and rules would allow the US to flourish. ‘I think the US would discover the same thing. They are growing into their size and power and it may take a while for them to recognize that they must obey the rules and norms of international law.’

President Hussein concluded, ‘I am confident that, over time, US will develop not just the desire and the intent, but also the capacity, the bureaucratic capabilities, to carry out some of these functions as a global leader. I think if they do it in a way that is consistent with existing international norms, then that is good for all of us.’

PS. President Obama. The pivot to Asia by bring in all their weapons and setting up more military bases in the region is NOT militarising the region.

Has Singapore become a mouthpiece of the US?

The bashing of China and North Korea is fair game in the West and in America especially during the Presidential Election. The West and the Americans have vested interests to want to do so and attacking foreigners and foreign countries in the name of freedom of expression is another American exceptionalism backed by military might. They need to create fear and tension to sell their weapons of war. Without an enemy to fight for, there is no need for countries to buy more weapons from the Americans. By creating an enemy, it was the Soviet Union, now China and the Axis of Evil in Iran and North Korea, the Americans and the West are dividing the world and dragging them along, telling the daft who are their enemies, and the unthinking daft keep nodding their heads to go along unconsciously making China and North Korea their enemies.

In the case of China, a peaceful and stable world would allow China to get richer and stronger in the long run. There is no need for China to want a war to destroy its pace of economic development. Only countries that depend on an unstable and troubled world to sell weapons want to create tensions and war, to benefit from chaos and destruction, supporting insurgents in the name of resistance forces, agitating and inciting wars, raising tensions all over the world.

In the case of North Korea, it is a hermit state and has nothing to do with any country other than its political differences with the divided South Korea. Why is the rest of the world, especially stupid people in Sin City so disturbed and angry with the North Koreans? Why is the sending up of a satellite seen as provocative and with the intent to start a war when the Americans are in possession of WMDs, 7,000 nuclear warheads that can destroy this world several times over, with 11 aircraft carriers and more than 70 submarines with nuclear capabilities, military bases in all corners of the world, are seen as weapons of peace and not of war? How silly can the Asians be when a gangster is in charge without them knowing?

What is silly and ridiculous is that the local media is splashing anti China and anti North Korea propaganda written by westerners on its pages daily like these two countries are enemies of Sin City?  Has Singapore become a mouthpiece of the Americans in an anti China anti North Korea coalition? The daily publications of such negative and biased views by the Americans would over time create a very negative image on the readers of China and North Korea without them knowing why.  Just look at the hate the bananas have of China and North Korea and you will know why and the outcome of such reporting.  Growing up and a life time of reading such western craps would turn the bananas to think they are Americans or westerners and seeing the world with the western world view and western agenda. How to comprehend why the media would indulge in such rhetoric and propaganda reporting against foreign countries as if it is the right thing to do? Does the govt or MDA have a role in monitoring and managing the neutrality and objectivity of news reporting in the media?

How is Hsien Loong going to explain to the Chinese and North Korean leaders when they meet about these daily barrage of anti China and anti North Korean western articles in the local media? Freedom of the press or we are doing what the Americans and the West dictate to us? Why are we antagonizing the Chinese and North Koreans daily as a normal affair?

Can you believe it, ‘Beijing tensions fuel S$748b arms race in Asia Pacific region’, not because of the American provocations in the South China Sea? So, there will be no arms race if there is no China in the South China Sea? Why are the Asean countries buying arms, to fight China?  And what about this, “China’s actions ‘raise chances of conflict significantly’”. Who is raising tension in the South China Sea? Is China claiming islands belonging to some Asean countries or the US? Or are some Asean countries claiming islands belonging to China?

And what do you think the US warships and war planes are here in the South China Sea and not in the Carribbeans where they belong?

The stages that let to a top financial centre in SE Asia having no local banking and finance talents

I dunno know want to laugh or want to cry when people so happily chirped that Singapore has no local banking and finance talents to fill up the top banking jobs. And no one seems to be disturbed by this fact like it is a natural thing, an expected outcome. We were and still are the top financial centre but someone forgot to train or nurture banking/finance talents and now we have to import them from the 3^rd world and less developed financial centres in the region whose banking systems are nothing better than finance companies and loan shark syndicates.

Just go back a couple of decades and look at the banking/finance landscape? Were not the top bankers mostly locals? What happened? Did these locals acted selfishly, foolishly by not training the next batch of talents to succeed them? Were they so irresponsible, so stupid not to see the need for succession planning? Didn’t they know that it was the govt of the day that consciously put them up into those positions of authority, to be indigenized, to be localized and be self sufficient with our own talents to run out own destiny?

Why is it that after this generation of top bankers had disappeared, there was a dearth of talents and the vacuum had to be filled by 3 world banking talents and not from local talents?

o reach such a state, assuming that we have clever people in charge, must either be a case of conscious design or someone fell asleep in his job. To take the position that someone fell asleep in his job is definitely unlikely.  The dangerous one is conscious design, a conscious choice or a conscious neglect, some kind of hidden agenda to get to where we are today, with no local top banking/finance talents. It cannot be by accident or neglect!

Let’s look at the stages of development to make this pathetic and deplorable state possible.

Stage 1. There is no succession planning. This will mean that after the last generation of top bankers left the scene, no one is suitable to fill the top banking positions through lack of success planning. Now isn’t this bad?

Stage 2.  Refusal or neglect, intentional or otherwise, not to train local talents or in a worst case scenario, intentionally by passing the local talents, not giving them the chance to move up, not giving them the exposure to gain experience to be at the top.

Stage 3. Consciously, by design, to go out to recruit foreigners in the name of foreign talents and so called international exposure as a prerequisite to rule out local talents, so local talents were swept into the dustbin. This becomes a vicious cycle, not given the chance, how to gain experience to become better, to fill the top positions?

Stage 4. Foreign CEOs were allowed to recruit more foreigners and giving foreigners more opportunities to gain experience and exposure and to move up. Local talents sidelined, by passed or made to do the unimportant tasks, backroom boys, office maintenance, jaga physical building security, anything but banking and finance.

Stage 5. The secondary and tertiary institutions were allowed to do as they pleased, even if they chose not to train banking and finance talents needed in the name of liberalization. But worst if the tertiary institutions were filled by foreigners who have different or hidden agenda. The result, no training of locals to feed the essential industries like banking and finance and no one would notice or be disturbed by this development. Bo cheng hu! No one in charge, no one consciously looking at the problem and allowed things to get worse and worse and the need for foreigners become more and more important and necessary. A self inflicted wound.

Stage 6. Allowing foreigners to call the shot. Foreigners said Singapore got no banking and finance talents, just accept it meekly and stupidly and let the foreigners in charge to bring in more foreigners. And let foreign recruiting agencies to have a field day recruiting whoever they want from 3^rd world villages and calling whoever they brought in as talents.

Stage 7. Close one eye to all the fake certificates and degrees and recognize all the 4^th and 5^th grade village universities as good universities. No need to check. Accept everyone that produced a piece of paper as genuine and quality qualification.

Stage 8. The rice is cooked. The realities hit. No local talents. So? No one even bother to ask so? No one was there to ask so. No talent ah, never mind, we will train them in our universities and in 30 years time we will have all the top banking and finance talents we need. Hopefully there will still be a Singapore in 30 years times and not a Singapore with new owners that are not Singaporeans. By then, even if we produced our own talents, the new owners would rather choose to hire their own kinds.

It is not easy for a top financial centre to wake up one day and realized it has no local talents.  It takes a long time, a lot of neglect, a lot of stages and things to happen to reach such a sorry state of affair. How can a first world country that everyday blows its own trumpet about how good it is in planning ahead with so many super talents it has to plan for the future and find itself without local banking and finance talents?

The only thing I can conclude is that it is a miracle to happen this way, an act of God, beyond anyone’s control. It happened. No one is responsible. Or was it part of the plan?