Here is some very high level arithmetic by Lim Guan Eng :

The 18% saves the people and govt RM42bil to RM43bil

My comments : Let us use a real live example and do some arithmetic.

Everyday for 6 days a week my wife and I pay a minimum RM10.60 toll to Plus to get to work and back.  

That’s RM63.60 a week. 

Lets keep it simple and multiply by four weeks, round it up, and get RM255.00 per month. 

So for one year I pay RM3,060.00 to Plus just to drive to work and back.

This means for the remaining 18 years until 2038 I will pay Plus  = RM55,080.00

Now Guan Eng says I get an 18% discount. 

But Guan Eng has extended the toll by another 20 years which becomes 38 years.

So lets take (1 year’s toll minus 18% x 38 years)  :

(RM3,060.00 – 18%) x 38 yrs = RM95,349.60 !!

So my choice is between 

i.  paying a total RM55,080.00 over the next 18 years (the No Changes Option)
ii. paying a total RM95,349.60 over the next 38 years !!  (with 18% discount)

I am actually paying Plus 94% MORE TOLL  over 38 years !!

Guan Eng certainly will have used the Net Present Value method to discount the future cashflows of Plus. 

But the ordinary citizen with a wife, three kids, car and housing instalments to pay does not do any Net Present Value calculations when he stops at the Toll Gate. It is simply got money or no money in the pocket.  

But Guan Eng’s arithmetic says :

• would save govt RM42bil in long run
• govt will save RM28b
• saves the people and govt RM42bil to RM43bil

NPV = Net Present Value again lah.

Police refute claims of cover up in Puchong drug-related case

Police today denied allegations that there had been an attempt to cover up the drug-related case in which 17 individuals were arrested at a condominium in Jalan Puchong, Kuala Lumpur, last month.

Bukit Aman Narcotics Crime Investigation Department director Mohd Khalil Kader Mohd (above) said there were no delays in investigating the case.

“Generally, police have to rely on the pathology reports. People say we are dragging our feet on this (investigation) but that is not true. This is a normal procedure. It is the same with other cases. At times it may take up to three months.

“So, I can’t explain further. I have to wait for the reports before coming to any decision,” he told a press conference after the official launch of Johor Bahru South District police headquarters today.

He said police could not conduct legal proceedings based on the urine test results alone as the pathology reports were required.

He said this when asked on the latest development with regard to media reports that on Jan 12 a state assemblyperson was among those arrested following a raid at a condominium.

Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador in a press conference held the following day confirmed the arrest of 17 individuals in the raid,16 of whom tested positive for drugs. However he did not divulge their identities as the case was still under investigation.

– Bernama

*************************************************

There were 19 Individual having white powder in their “coffee” at the party.

One VVIP Individual left with his driver with the help of the police.

Another VVIP was caught because he was already very, very high but also with the help of the police he went home to sober up for 48 hours hoping to flush out the drugs from his system.

Then there is the original sex video of Azmin Ali and Haziq sucking each other’s cock which was confiscated and handed over to IGP Hamid recently.

THERE ARE 3 THINGS VERY WRONG IN PUTRAJAYA TODAY UNDER MAHATHIR.

FIRST, MOST OF BERSATU/PRIBUMI MEMBERS ARE INTO DRUGS.

SECOND, MOST OF THE MELAYU IN PH COALITION ARE INTO EACH OTHER BACKSIDE.

THIRD, 3/4 OF THE CABINET MINISTERS ARE CORRUPTED AND WEALTHY BEYOND ANY MEANS WITHIN 18 MONTHS.

I WOULD LIKE ASK MAHATHIR KUTTY WHO HAD 22 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE AS PRIME MINISTER PREVIOUSLY WHY HE IS CLOSING HIS EYES TO ALL THIS?

IS IT BECAUSE MAHATHIR IS THE FATHER AND MOTHER OF CROOKS?

IS IT BECAUSE MAHATHIR IS A CROOK HIMSELF, SO HE HAS TO BE BLIND TO ALL THIS?

IS IT BECAUSE MAHATHIR IS NO LONGER CAPABLE AS A MAN TO RUN THIS NATION?

MAHATHIR, YOUR INCOMPETENCY IS DRIVING THIS NATION NUTS AND DOWN THE DRAIN.

STEP DOWN BEFORE WE GO TO THE STREET TO PROTEST TO GET RID OF YOU.

YOU ARE A BLOODY SELFISH AND GREEDY PIG.

The Edge:

The Singapore exchange is about to make life easier for listed companies — the safer ones, at least.

The bourse’s regulatory arm plans to end quarterly earnings reporting requirements that currently apply to all companies with a market capitalization of at least S$75 million ($56 million), according to Tan Boon Gin, the chief executive officer of Singapore Exchange Regulation.

When the rule change takes effect on Feb. 7, only riskier companies will need to report earnings every three months, Tan said at a press briefing. SGX RegCo will also tighten other disclosure rules and introduce a new whistleblowing policy as part of efforts to protect investors, Tan added.

Additional disclosure requirements will be introduced for rights issues
    Acquisitions that reduce net profit or net asset value by 20% or more, or where the target is loss-making or in a net liability position, will be subject to listing rules.
    Companies will need to appoint an independent valuer for significant asset disposals.
    Firms will be asked to disclose material price- and trade-sensitive information, and any changes to near-term earnings prospects.


(Sept 19): AirAsia Group Bhd chief executive officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said he agrees with US President Donald Trump’s call for companies to issue financial reports just twice a year, rather than four times, as it drives analysts to make short-term decisions.

“One of the few things I agree with Donald Trump is quarterly reporting is null and void. Should be six months. Analysts driving to much short-term decision,” he said via Twitter today.

My View:

a) QR should stay. Any listed company, big or small, should have the discipline of being able to look at their financial status at ANY TIME, be it monthly or quarterly at the bare minimum. Half-yearly leaves too much room for things to happen. A company’s management should have the desire to be able to close their books at a week’s notice. Financial discipline is paramount to any company that rides on sound management and have a close eye on deviations. If a company needs to have that, investors should be just as eagle-eyed.

b) QR may be lighter in its requirements. Just the basic financials BS/CF/IS, plus commentary on substantive changes to Debtors and Creditors, or any revaluations/disposals of significance. Keep it to the bare minimum.

c) QR does not and should not add much financial burden on listed companies. As mentioned, all companies should be able to close their books within a week. Are you to tell me monthly meetings obtain figures for discussion that are 6 months past? These are things all listed companies should be doing already.

d) QR would also “help to reduce the leeway” for the massaging of earnings. Enough said.

e) There is already insufficient information pertaining to the company’s fundamentals. The sector’s prospects and outlook are not being highlighted sufficiently by basic financial media. Only the top 40 stocks in Malaysia get any form of decent analyst coverage, what about the other 900? There is a dearth of “credible information” for local investors on local stocks. If The Edge can find a willing audience on a daily basis, shouldn’t that tell you investors need better information flow?

f) Half-yearly reporting also gives rise to “insider knowledge”. The longer the reporting period, the higher the “value” that is accrued to insiders. Owners, board members, CFOs, accountants, corporate lawyers, industry followers, insider share movements, etc… all will benefit more from Half-Yearlies than QR.

g) If you were a substantive shareholder, would you be happy to only get a half-yearly update on your invested company? No. Why should normal investors be deprived of that information?

h) Does QR limits a company’s long range planning? No. Why should short term price gyrations affect your company if your fundamentals are strong. Eventually all QRs will even out positively if your long term fundamentals are good. Yes, stocks will react to QRs, but these are the norm of a market, a daily market place that tries to forward discount a company’s prospects. 

If you argue for long term reporting, why not report all earnings in one month and then close the market for one year, then report again… that is as preposterous as eliminating QRs.

How should one play the “coronavirus” as an investor? Should we even invest at all? Isn’t there something “not quite right” about making money out of certain people’s sufferings? If you bought certain stocks which jumped owing to the coronavirus, is it evil to think in your heart that the longer the virus spreads, the better my returns?

So what is ethical investing anyway? Do these funds shy away from these healthcare-related counters? Do you buy and hold fire extinguisher companies that benefited enormously from the unrelenting Aussie bushfire??? Where do you draw the line? Do you even bother in the first place?

Hence, my views here are not an indication of my values barometer. I assess these stocks as an investment option. How the situation develops is part of the fundamentals’ story. So, please, leave your principles, values, morality and political correctness behind.


Momentum Investing

You can try to rationalize why you shouldn’t jump in, but you cannot block a momentum rally owing to a significant perk in “substantive factors” in a stock’s earnings prospects. 

 Demand yet to surge, but this could happen anytime soon. MQ Research’s checks show glove manufacturers have not yet seen a surge in glove demand on the back of the virus outbreak. MQ Research believes Chinese buyers have increased demand for cheaper vinyl gloves in the first instance. If the outbreak is prolonged, there could be a spillover to rubber gloves. The upcoming travel period around the Lunar New Year holiday could spark an acceleration of the outbreak and spur global glove demand.

Who will be the biggest beneficiary? Glove manufacturers are running close to an optimal utilization rate of 85%. Thus, any spike in demand could tilt the pricing power back to the manufacturers. MQ Research believes manufacturers with the highest exposure to the Asia market and with the highest capacity additions could be the biggest beneficiaries in terms of sales volume from this virus outbreak. Among glove manufacturers, Top Glove has the highest capacity additions, while Supermax and Sri Trang have strong exposure to the Asia market.


Biggest Consideration: Utilisation Capacity, Product Mix & Clientele’s Region Exposure

MQ Research believes manufacturers with the highest exposure to the Asia market and with the highest capacity additions could be the biggest beneficiaries in terms of sales volume from this virus outbreak. Among glove manufacturers, Top Glove has the highest capacity additions, while Supermax and Sri Trang have strong exposure to the Asia market.

Of MQ Research’s covered stocks, MQ Research prefers Top Glove over Hartalega due to its wider product mix, diversified market exposure as well as the potential benefit it could see from this virus outbreak. Nonetheless, Hartalega could also benefit if customers in developed countries (Europe and United States) start stocking up on rubber gloves as a preventive measure. 


Is It Too Late To Get Into The Big 4?

The Big 4 Heavenly Stars: Top Glove, Hartalega, Supermax, and Kossan. Yes, it is late if you get in NOW and you are a trader (i.e. window period of less than a week). No, if you planned to hold. Just look at the long long term charts (2003-now) of some of the Big 4.

You cannot fully anticipate the outbreak of each epidemic, but rest assured epidemics or health scares will be the norm moving forward owing to the mutation abilities of viruses. As long as you buy and keep, EVERYBODY makes money from glove makers. You are even more “secured now” as the Big 4 have reinvested heavily and now carries a huge moat around their business that will be hard to knock off from their perch.

Even the “political collateral damaged” Supermax maintained its long term outperformance since 2003 till now.

Just look at the lovely rise over the years for these stocks. These are stocks you can keep and keep and reinvest.

What About the Newer Players?

You mean Careplus and Comfort. well, just look at these two tables:

Capital expenditure can do a lot of things for the same companies in the same industry. But when the bigger players have the bulge bracket, it is very hard to even be competitive in terms of margin. Even if demand jumped 3x, they do not have the capital to take advantage of the situation.

Cost To Income ration, again in almost any other industry, there will be niches you can explore. However, the overwhelming size of the Big 4 will make it inevitable that every single resource will cost the small guys more. The Big 4 have economies of scale in almost everything.

Oceacash is involved in wide ranges of hygiene manufacturing of diapers, sanitary napkins, wet wipes, surgical apparel, caps, masks and gowns.

Today was only the first day it jumped. Even so, its market cap is still just RM180m on just 245m shares. The hygiene business should dominate proceedings. I think RM1.00 is around fair for a company that happens to be in the right sector, plus with a fantastic correlation to supplying Malaysia’s best selling car. 

We remain positive on Oceancash’s (OCP) business outlook after our recent meeting with management. We continue to like OCP, considering the i) favourable growth prospects in the hygiene’s nonwoven segment, ii) steady contribution of foreign felt sales from Thailand and Indonesia, as well as iii) strong management team with in-depth technical know-how. At 10x 2020E PER on the back of a projected EPS growth of 33% for 2020E, OCP’s valuation looks appealing. We reiterate our BUY call with an unchanged price target of RM0.61. This note marks a transfer of coverage.

Foreign Felt Sales to Drive Insulation Segment Growth
Profitability of the insulation segment was flat in 9M19 despite higher felt sales (+6% yoy) as this was largely offset by weaker PBT margins (-1ppt to 18.7%, exacerbated by adverse forex movement in 1H19). Prospects wise, we believe the increasing contribution from Thailand and Indonesia (foreign felt sales accounted for c. 61% of 9M19 insulation revenue) should be more than sufficient to cover for the expected shortfall in local felt sales (est. 2020 TIV forecasts lower by 1% to 590k units).

Insulation Felt Plant in Thailand Should be Ready for Action by 2H20
Elsewhere, construction of the felt production facility in Thailand remains on track to be completed by 2H20, and OCP is planning to relocate one of its two existing Malaysian production lines to tap into 1) the strong demand for resinated felt and 2) increase utilisation of excess capacity (current utilisation rates: est.50%). Locally, we understand OCP has been supplying felt to Proton refreshed models (ie. Saga, Iriz and Persona), and with this track record, the company is hopeful to participate in the Proton Complete Knocked-Down (CKD) X50 supply chain moving forward. We think OCP may give the CKD X70 contract a miss due to unfavourable pricing, similar to our observation of other auto-parts players.

Hygiene Segment’s Margins to Benefit From Cheaper Resin Cost, …
Outlook for the hygiene segment still looks promising – 9M19 PBT rose by 10% yoy to RM2.5m, on higher revenue (+1% yoy) and improvement in PBT margins (+0.5ppt to 6.1%). We believe the cheaper resin cost (est. 80% of hygiene’s raw material costs) will likely see an uptick in hygiene’s margins in the coming quarters.

Source: Affin Hwang Research – 3 Jan 2020

Well managed, look at the steady earnings. Now what if PBT jumps by 100% over the next 2 years. Is RM180m market cap still valid???

1720 Plague, 1820 Cholera, 1920 Spanish Flu, 2020 Chinese Coronavirus. What’s going on? 

It seems that once in 100 years the world is devastated by a pandemic. The last recent pandemics we can mention are the following: In the year 1720 plague, in the year 1820 cholera outbreak and the most recent pandemic was the Spanish flu of 1920. The researchers said that all of these pandemics we mentioned above have exactly the same pattern as the coronavirus outbreak in China. However, the precision with which these pandemics occur at exactly 100 years of age makes us think better about this topic. Are these pandemics somehow artificially created by a malicious organization? In 1720 there was a deadly pandemic of bubonic plague. It started in Marseille and was later called “The Great Plague of Marseille.”

The researchers estimated the number of deaths as 100,000. In 1820 the first cholera pandemic occurred, somewhere in Asia. Among the affected countries, we can list Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

And this pandemic has killed about the same number of people. About 100,000 officially registered deaths. The main reason for the infection is the consumption of water from lakes infested with this killer bacterium. In 1920 one of the most unrelenting pandemics occurred. This is the Spanish flu that has infected about half a billion people and killed 100 million.

The Spanish flu holds the official record for the deadliest pandemic officially recorded in history. It is now 2020. At the 100th anniversary of the Spanish Influenza, humanity is facing a new potential pandemic called Coronavirus. Although the Chinese authorities were reluctant to make official statements and appealed for calm, the situation deteriorated rapidly.

The Chinese authorities were subsequently forced to quarantine approximately 35 million inhabitants.

Today, the first official cases in Europe and North America were registered.

The future looks dark … What do you think about this Chinese coronavirus epidemic?



Taken from TRUE BLOG. NET

CHINA HAS WUHAN CORONAVIRUS.

Hadi to Muslims: ‘Would you rather be cow herders or pig herders?’

ICON went limit up for the wrong reasons. Some are saying its because the terms were so convoluted and that not many know how to calculate the capital reduction.

PLEASE, this is not your first rodeo, this is not the first capital reduction exercise. You are all supposed to be professional investors or advisors.

The limit up was obviously caused by the 50 into one capital reduction. A simple calculation showed that ICON had 2.377bn shares. Divide that by 50 = 47.5 million shares. That must be close to the fewest number of shares listed by a company on Bursa.

The complaining parties ARE those who SOLD SHORT unwittingly. Imagine you had 100,000 prior to the ex date. It was trading at 4 sen, you value was RM4,000, and as with 99.9999% of ICON investors, you had lost money already big time.

Then you woke up and saw the price going limit up.

(0.035 x 50) + (100 × 0.105) ÷ 101 = 0.12 

Add the 30 sen limit up, you have 42 sen, today add another 30 sen you have 72 sen.

As you can see even at 72 sen, with just 47.5m shares its market cap is just RM34.2m. Of course, there are still other derivatives to cater to but let’s forget that for now.

The main reason for the double limit up… OVERSOLD SHORT. Imagine that same guy with 100,000 shares (value RM4,000) and seeing it going limit up at 42 sen. Sell first lar… Trouble is he sold 100,000 consolidated shares when in reality he had only 100,000/50 = 2,000 shares.

Imagine you have to buy back the 98,000 … say at an average of 62 sen … you would have lost 62-42 = 20 sen x 98,000 =RM19,600

Bearing in mind your value was just RM4,000 to start with. The figures will multiply if you had shorted 1,000,000 …

Bursa has done no wrong. This has been the same process for the longest time. Even our online accounts have default settings that do not allow investors to short sell stocks, i.e. selling what you don’t have in your portfolio.

The ONLY people who can short sell are DAY TRADERS or proprietary traders or company dealers… though some bigshots do deal through company dealers’ accounts first. Hence if you kena short sell… you get very little sympathy from all.

Unlike BN, PH doesn’t have to compensate for toll cuts, Guan Eng tells Najib