Republished from ThumbtackInvestor's blog with permission. ThumbTackInvestor, a Singaporean in his mid-30s, has grown his stock portfolio to over S$1 million.
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TTI’S PORTFOLIO REVIEW – FY17Q1 Before you know it, Q1 has come and gone. TTI’s portfolio generated an internal rate of return of 15.78% annualized. Total net assets under management grew by $105,937.67, from $943,815.80 at the end of FY16Q4 to $1,049,753.47 at the end of FY17Q1. These figures are nett of all fees.
This means that I haven’t received any dividends and would expect most of my dividend collection to take place in the next few months. |
Well, at least those were my happy thoughts initially.
Until I saw what the STI ETF did.
And I had to re-check these figures a few times to be sure I’m not doing it wrongly: Freaking 49.97%!
STI ETF started the year at $2.94, gave out dividends in Feb, and ended Q1 at $3.19.
This means if it grows at it’s current rate, STI ETF will return a massive 49.97%. Of course, this means that STI ETF has to continue growing at this rate for another 9 months, which is a pretty tough feat.
Now, I’ve always maintained that it’s useless to look at your portfolio’s individual returns. A gain is nothing to shout about, unless it beats a passive instrument. So I’m walking the talk here and doing the comparison.
I think most people don’t think of it that way though. I’m concerned as now, I see many people touting their returns and feeling good about it. It always feels good to see a capital gain. But in the context of a passive benchmark, I suddenly don’t feel that great.
I am encouraged though, by the results of my most recent picks. Dutech has been a steady performer thus far, and I’m sitting on 6 digit returns. Geo Energy has been phenomenal since my initial entry on essentially any metric. I’m already profitable in my position in S i2i, despite initiating it barely less than 2 weeks ago.
I’m hoping this streak continues while I implement some of my new thought processes in future investments, while cutting out the legacy issues with some of my previous companies.
Here are my quick thoughts / breakdown of the companies that I own:
LTC Corporation – Nothing much has changed. LTC rose somewhat in Q1, their financial performance improved and more importantly, my initial thesis of continued FCF generation and accumulation remains.
BCA’s steel price index remains steady compared to Q4. And as I’ve explained multiple times in previous posts, LTC’s as well as other steel middlemen’s accounting is such that the earnings grow exponentially when steel prices increases.
I’m optimistic about FY17’s performance in this regard.
BBR Holdings – I’ve previously documented my annoyance with BBR’s management. That does not reflect how the company would perform in FY17 though. My thesis has always revolved around the fact that they’ll eventually complete the loss making general construction projects, while new projects will show better margins and hopefully, better project management execution.
TOP of the Lakelife EC proceeded smoothly and on time, and they’ve already recognized profits partially. This will continue to contribute to earnings in FY17.
The Wisteria project is doing rather well, and as of now, is already >90% sold. So that’s a massive +ve for the company as well.
The main key though, is the completion of all the loss making projects that they’ve undertaken previously. I monitor their projects closely, and I’m pretty confident there are no more losses to be made, or at least minimal losses from this general construction sector.
The share price has risen quite a lot in Q1, but it’s still way below what I value the company at.
King Wan – Terrible. I’m disappointed with the company’s management. There’s no easy way to put it, but they’ve been terrible stewards of the shareholder’s capital. As mentioned previously, the key lesson I’ve learnt with KW, is to not trust management to execute investments. I’d much rather trust my own capital allocation skills and my own due diligence.
Having said that, they’ve reinstated dividends, and the yield is rather juicy at this current share price. I’m not keen to sell out now as they could be in the midst of turning around. I’ll be waiting for more data in the next earnings release.
Boustead Singapore – Now THIS is one company that I can actually kinda ignore. FF Wong is as shrewd a businessman as they come. Add to that is a healthy dose of integrity and a long standing reputation for capital allocation. Boustead gave up chasing 3 investment opportunities in the last FY. I’m actually a bit surprised that they still haven’t done any major acquisitions.
In the meantime, the cash hoard is getting a bit errr embarrassing. I did sell out somewhat in Q1, mainly because I have had odd lots from the acceptance of scrip dividends previously, and yes, I know it’s not good investing practice but I hate to see odd lots.
Also, I’m optimistic about Boustead Projects and think that Boustead Singapore is a good proxy for BP’s fortunes.
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Geo Energy Resources – I’m sitting on >100% returns in 6 months. Yep. Wow. The company has recently announced acquisitions of a new mine. I did some digging up on this latest acquisition recently.
Typical sulfur content in coal: • Anthracite Coal : 0.6 – 0.77 weight % |
Dutech Holdings – Another massive winner thus far. I’m pretty confident in my due diligence done for Dutech, and I intend to make this a long term core position. Dutech will need some time to consolidate their latest acquisition (Metric), but Johnny Liu has a long term track record of doing so successfully.
Hot rolled coil steel prices has also come down substantially since the start of the year, so that further helps their margins.
S i2i – My newest, latest position. Also the smallest by far. Share price continued rising since I bought, I’ve just written about this recently so nothing much to update.
The shares are currently being suspended while a shareholder’s dialogue is scheduled for tomorrow.
It’ll be interesting to see what transpires. This doesn’t affect my overall portfolio much because of the small position sizing, but it’s still very satisfying to see an idea do well because it reinforces my analytical processes.
US listed equities Chesapeake Energy and Valenat Pharma – I haven’t really written about my analysis of foreign companies. It’ll probably be many many posts long if I really do so, but since I don’t think there’s that much interest, I shan’t.
Broadly speaking though, both CHK and VRX have been a drag on my portfolio returns in Q1. VRX in particular, has been in the news constantly for all the wrong reasons.
I’m optimistic though, now that Bill Ackman is out of the way. I’ve spent quite some time understanding VRX’s drugs and products, and I think the market is WAY WAY WAY underestimating the value of VRX’s portfolio and future pipeline.
I don’t even think it’ll take another year for the markets to figure this out. I think with another 2 quarters’ results, we’ll know how well the FCF generation turns out.
Ok that’s all I have for this quick post. As always, happy hunting!