Life For Rent

This article addresses a special threat to the Internet: the individuals and organizations that run botnets. A botnet is a network of computers that can be controlled remotely by hackers. Because of their size (ten thousands of systems can be linked together), botnets are a serious threat to society.

The word ‘bot’ comes from the word robot and means software that runs autonomously and automatically. A bot can be totally innocent. Search engines, for example, use bots to list IP addresses of websites. But a bot can also be used for cyber-crime. A bot-infected computer is called a zombie. A botnet is a network of a large number of unresisting zombie computers that are all infected with the same bot. From a central point, a hacker can instruct all those bots in the network to perform a specific task.

What are botnets used for?
In general, botnets are used for criminal and illegal activities. They can be used in different ways, for instance for:

Quick check on the stock markets. New york rallied on good earnings by IBM but asian markets as expected failed to carry through. Another round of selling. Brutal! SGX down by 86c currently. Cosco down by 26c and yzj.. the infamous stock, is now 1.45 from 1.85 where I told people to sell last Friday. Within 1.5 days it has plunged 40c. My immediate target is 1.4 but it looks like I may have to revise this again. The descending triangle price target is 1.4 which has changed from the head/shoulders formation breakdown at 1.55. I did paper shorting and I would have made thousands in this past 1.5 days if I closed the positions today. Reason why I did paper shorting was to test out my TA skills on shorting and how my favorite indicators work together. So far so good.

Short term, I think it will technically rebound especially if it tests 3000. I’d say, it will rebound but chances are it will tank even further thereafter. Charts are forming lower highs and lower lows which are very bearish downtrends. Suffice to say, when people sell, you buy. But unless you have UNLIMITED funds in billions of dollars, I’ll only say what you see today, tomorrow it’ll be lower. So what’s the point? Why not wait till the sentiment improves and direction is clear? I expect when the reporting season to kick in, things get volatile again. Possible short uptrend. Everyone is hoping for a CNY rally. The word, as taught by Alvin, is HOPING. Hope gets no where. I have not put a single cent in yet cause I am not clear where we are headed yet. I am not willing to gamble on good results and a major rally. If it so happens, then good for those who won. To me, the risk of further downside is high. I may decide to ride on a short term uptrend but even then the risk is high. As I intend to buy low and hold for long, I need to find somewhere near the bottom. Is it now? Or will it be in June? Or maybe end of the year? No one knows. But I’ll buy. However if things deteoriate I will bolt out quickly. I don’t expect a volatile 2008. But I do think the bearish sentiment will stay for a while, until figures from institutes prove that things are getting better. Could be the best time to buy, when the stocks have already been beaten down to a low. The risk/reward ratio is better then. In investments, DO NOT gamble. The whole idea is to balance risk and rewards. Round 2 of selling to be continued later? If this goes on, people on contra are gonna be trapped, as well as those on margins. when margin calls and they don’t pay, it will be forced sold. Another round of sell downs. And the person who held the margin? Ends up like my mom a few years ago. Not pretty.

I’ll say, any technical rebound is a good chance to sell. The technical rebounds are excellent bull traps. Bull traps are exactly what it sounds like.

I’ll say it again. I feel any rally is a sell on strength opportunity, not to buy more / average down at the moment.

There are uptrends, downtrends, distribution and accumulation phases. Getting caught in the mid of a bad downtrend is like being caught in a perfect storm. When storms converge, everything around is trampled to death. In a fierce battle between bulls and bears, you, being the grass they stand on, will DIE. But are bears friends or foes? Without bears, it will be hard for people to find an opportunity to enter the market. So what goes up must come down. Good law. Should keep it that way. Greedy people will be killed in the process though. Bear is a friend to me now, simply because I have cleared positions. For those who are stuck and are waiting to get out, naturally it will be a foe. Really depends which corner one is in, isn’t it?

Moving on, I have been taking cabs for quite a few times to work. Once on a hyundai cab, one during the peak hour in the morning 9am, one off peak and one mid peak. Interesting results, here goes:

From home to Raffles Place,
Off peak, no erp, 11am -> $8.20
Hyundai cab, 9.30am -> $11.40
Peak 9am, inclusive of $3 ERP -> $14.30
Last week of Dec, free flowing traffic -> $12.80

Indeed it seems the 35% surcharge and ERP rates do burn a hole. I also saw a receipt from someone traveling from AMK to town via CTE ($6 in ERP) come up to $32.80 inclusive of booking charges. WOW.

In addition, I am creating a “Remembering Why Not” mixshow. I’ll release it when I am done with it. Why Not club had tracks that were unique in the sense that you’ll never hear those tracks elsewhere! So I thought.. till I heard spice up your life and gasolina at dragonfly. Oh well. But there’s more. Akan Datang!

I sold down a lot of my holdings yesterday. All 60k of it. Like I said I would. Did I make losses? Yes. But decided to wipe the table clean since I am bearish in the upcoming months. Since that is so, it means I anticipate more downside and hence no point holding on. It is easier to begin from scratch. My current holdings are in Ossia, Shanghai Asia, HSBC, MIIF and First REIT now. Both UOL and yangzijiang performed very badly. Let’s look at them individually.

UOL as seen, broke its strong support at 4.28 and than at 4.  It attempted to climb back towards 4 but fell short of it. The increased vol confirmed this break down of descending triangle. I did not draw out the fibonacci retracement chart cause it will make the chart look messy, but if it manages to go back to 4 and hold, we could expect a tech rebound towards 4.25. That’s an optimistic view. Pessimistic view is that it could fall to hit next TP as calculated. That TP also happens to be Q406′s support region. Another one will be at 3.35 region. Bollinger band shows some squeezing for the upside too. In terms of news and forecast, I would expect indicators to turn for the better soon, in anticipation of the reporting season commencing in Feb.   Indicators I am looking for buy signal is MFI pointing back up at 20%, 4r1g histogram system, Stochastic bullish cross over, MACD crossover (usually a few days after stochastic crosses over).

Yangzijiang on the other hand, is very bearish. The chart is self-explanatory.  Zero signs of buy signals anytime soon. All indicators are bearish and I have a strong feel this will have more downside. In terms of news, yzj was affected by a plunge in baltic dry index. The index has surged in 07 (along with yzj’s price) but has plunged more than 25% in the last couple months. A further 6% drop last week spooked investors. It’s announcement on the contract signed recently helped stabalise the price a little but could not hold for long. Depending on who draws the chart, the new TP ranges from 1.4 to 1.55 with mine being the more optimistic one as I drew a short term descending triangle.  If I drew it since late Oct at 2.66, the new TP will be VERY scary…

Since 2 weeks ago, there have been indications that a recession is unavoidable this year. ML released a report today, citing figures such as unemployment and rate cuts from the US an almost confirmation that we are indeed at the beginning of a recession. In brief, based on history a typical recession cycle lasts 1 year. Hence one would consider mid year to be somewhere around the bottom. The S&P 500 is said to typically correct around 25% during this period, with a 60% drop from trough to trough. If I got what they said right, we have sorta gone past the 32% mark. The bull takes a back seat and it would seem any technical rallies are good opportunities to sell into strength. Those holding defensive counters would probably not have to worry too much, although nothing is spared in a bear market. The financial sectors are looking to be hardest hit while utilities and oil appears to be a safe heaven (based on ML’s report). Bonds give low yields but are probably the best they have in a bear cycle. Back home, I would think REITs are probably it.

So brace yourself guys!

Moving on, I was watching a dvd on our upcoming circle line and its construction process. The funniest part of it all was a comment made by the voice-over.  That Singapore, great transport systems and all, is also known for its never ending announcements in the subway system.

How true! Imagine, apart from the ‘do not leave your bags unattended’ messages, there are also ‘going to china town?’ messages, ‘mind the platform gap’, ‘do not board’ messages, yada yada, both on the station platforms and during train rides in between stations. In 4 languages! I am fortunate enough that on my trips to work from newton-raffles place station, there are no such announcements in the train. I swear I’d go mad. As if 6 different announcements are not good enough, it has to go out in 4 languages. There were people who complained of noise pollution last year, and SMRT decided to reduce the frequency of such announcements.

You know, the way I look at it. With all these audio announcements, either they’re stupid, or they think we are.

I promised to post a little something on it so here it is.

I began yesterday. Officially. Yeh! Unfortunately now I have a very sore neck (slept in the wrong position maybe) with a running nose. Probably due to the weather… it is a such a soggy Tuesday. Markets are dreadful in the afternoon too. In fact, it is beginning to get boring just talking bout it. So let’s go into something else instead.

First of all, allow me to say HEEEEELO to someone by the name of Alex. Thanks for dropping by! Hope you’ll find something interesting along the way.

So I promised to talk bout my routine. This routine as I’ve mentioned before, is a weight loss cycle. In technical terms, it is a ripping cycle, with a body fat reduction in mind. The actual weight (mass) is not important though I am looking to cut a couple pounds off. So body fat % monitoring is important in this cycle.

Here are a couple pictures from the Halloween season in 2006, taken on the same day from the gym changing room.  I was on a training program for a month to trim a little to prepare for a topless party night then. Weight was in the 72-73kg support level.

This time round I am intending to go a little differently. So we’ll see how it turns out. I will be looking to break my resistance in weights, as well as bring down body fat mass.

Current resistance:

Bench-press: 115kg (including 20kg from the olympic bar) 6 reps

Bicep: Max 95kg on Preacher Curl machine, 40kg curls using Olympic bar with 5-6 reps

Legs: Cleared static press machines. To move onto modified leg presses using smith presses

Weight sessions are 3x a week. Broken down into the lower body cycle, pectorals and biceps, shoulders lats and triceps cycles. The whole cycle will last for a min of 5 weeks. Damn. This means I will have to miss a training session during CNY? hmmm… Maybe I’d just use someone’s body as a weight. I should be expecting a peak to form around the 4th-5th week itself. Supplement wise, my cupboard is loaded with Myoplex Lite and Vit B complex. Maybe a little Vit C to perk up immunity as my immunity tends to take a beating from the training. Usually I get sick around the 2nd week of training onwards historically, so let’s see how this one goes.

I’m gonna head home and rest a little. Looking forward to snuggle up and watch some DVDs. I need to recupurate…

Keep dry people!

I was reading this article from a forum and I thought it was a good read. In the past, I have always felt, Michael (from Queer as folk) is just about the only gay boy in the whole world who has a mother that is actually proud that her son is gay. Maybe she didn’t begin that way but overtime you’ll see her working in the pub of hers with rainbow tags all over her apron and has been the dream mom every gay boy wished they had.

Today, in China, we see such another mom and I thought it was nice to know that such people actually exists. I guess a lot of us hope for the bare minimum. They know, but don’t talk bout it. I guess that is fine for me too. I read some comments from readers and it seems that for everyone that came out, there is another that didn’t. Some were never close with their parents anyway and they went to their graves without ever finding out.  Others came out as adults. Faced an initial wrath from the father. His comments went along the line of “Tornangel, people, even (especially?) parents say all sorts of things they don’t really mean or know what they are talking about. But they are as human as us all and their perspectives are bound to change given new information of all sorts. I know that my own father at first demanded I see a psychiatrist. Now he hugs and kisses the forehead of my husband every time they meet. Go figure. ” While another wrote “Doubt I’d have that luxury. My mum said that being a prostitute is better than being a lesbian.”

Seems like there is no one true solution for everyone. Play by ear.

There are quite a few support groups here in SGP for and by parents of gay children. I think that’s a really nice thing to have around.

Here are quotes from ‘Auntie Wu’:

Wu, a writer and editor by profession and a self-confessed liberal, said she found it easy to deal with her son’s sexuality because by the time, “Yuantao came out to me… I had read a lot of gay-themed books and movies (by his recommendation). Besides he had also been a good boy in school and in the family; he never made us worried.”

“Just make sure you’re well behaved [and a good student],” she says. This “can hopefully give you more credit when you try to convince your parents that you are gay and it’s fine.” But, Wu adds, not all gay children should feel they have to tell their family their sexuality. “If the parent-child relationship hasn’t been close then I don’t think they should tell.”

Wu also encourages parents to do their homework on what being gay is all about.

“Science can rid them of this unreasonable fear. I feel comfortable that my son is gay because I know being gay is not a crime… or a disgrace.” At the end of the day your child’s happiness is more important than carrying on the family name, she says.

Another male parent wrote: “I am really glad seeing them together, because Mu is so happy when he’s with him (his son’s boyfriend). Now it feels like I have two sons. And I do hope the law will allow them to get married one day.”

Now aint that sweet?

You know, the way I think, you don’t really need the damn LAW to approve. One of the reasons why I can never be a lawyer is because I don’t give a DAMN about the LAW. The law written by other people is of no relevance to me. I have my own laws and as long as those around are in sync of it, who cares? If a gay couple wants to have a wedding, what’s stopping them? So what if the law doesn’t recognise. To put it bluntly, the law and government recognises a lot of issues we have. The poor. Rising inflation but not salary. What are they gonna do bout it? What can they do about it? Absolutely not as much as you hope. The LAW does not solve problems. It CANNOT solve problems. It is a control. And I am not someone to be controlled. So to heck with it. If I want a damn wedding I will have my wedding with all my friends invited. I have been to gay weddings (although it was absolutely unimpressive to me because the grooms behaved like VIPs while their friends was the one who did all the prep and had to ‘surprise’ the grooms, making me wonder who is the one getting married..) and like I said, so what if we can’t get HDB priorities. I will get my own damn private apartment if I have to. Scrimp and save initially but it will pay off eventually. I will still pay my taxes dutifully but I don’t expect the government to owe me anything. I don’t owe them anything either.

And to hell with the law. Let me just say. Crudely as it sounds. It is my prick. Mine and only mine. I will choose where I want to stuff it into and it is none of anyone else’s business what I do with it.

My training program will begin today! Tentative duration for this cycle is 6 weeks. This will be a ripping cycle. In investment talk, I am going to ‘short’ my weight down. Depending how one looks at it, one could see inverse resistance levels or the usual support levels. I have ‘consolidated’ enough to begin some action and I am looking to break the major resistance at 80kg. The next 2 are actually at 78, 77 and 75. I am looking to hold 76kg at the end of this. I am also hoping for a 8% body fat reduction. So we’ll see what happens! I’ll do a bulking cycle next round. Maybe. TIME TO PLAY THE GAME!

 Someone was asking me, should a person hold a stock ‘forever’, like Warren Buffett? My opinion is, unless you are like him, chances are you won’t be picking the ‘right’ stocks as well. As time changes, business direction changes. Never ever buy a stock and just leave it there hoping 10 years later it is 10x the value. If you’re unlucky you’ll end up with a 1c stock literally. One interesting example is L Jacobs.

While some will hold for a long time, they do so cause they have a large margin of safety. They bought a long time ago at a steal, say 20c a piece while its current trading price is say over 2 dollars. That is a large margin. What I would have done is, during uncertain times like now, to capital protect. Sell the number of lots, to gain back my INITIAL capital. What is left in my CDP account would be 100% profits. Therefore, even if the stock market crashes and my stocks become ZERO value, I do not lose anything other than opportunity costs. This is because I have preserved by initial capital. In this aspect, one could leave a stock there for a long period of time.

Another thing is, markets are cyclic in nature. They all move in cycles. Buy at a wrong time and you could be stuck for an extended period of time. Not the wise way to invest at all.

When is it time to sell? Some feel when it has reached fair value. Look for a sell signal and sell.  My own personal style is I will sell when I no longer believe in the business, or feel that its current price is too ‘risky’ for growth. It has reached a pinnacle. Hence I will release, and let someone else carry my ‘baby’. Someone has to be that sucker.

On defensive and high yield stocks like cambridge, it is now trading below fair value stilll. I wanted a resilient stock like First REIT. Cambrige was cheap but I didn’t feel comfortable with it feeling that in a VERY bad situation it will tank very badly along with the other stocks. Defensive stocks to me, don’t move much. Very limited movement, yet provides decent dividend  yields of say 8-10%. Remember inflation is set to be more than 3% now. Your POSB savings account gives you 0.25% and you gotta be a moron to think you’re getting a good deal there. What I neglected to think was, usually yields get higher as the price of the stock gets lower. It is simple logic. Say I will pay you 1c per share as dividend. You own the stock at 1 dollar. I own it at 10c. ie, I paid 100 bucks to get 1c back, while you paid 1000. Of course my yield is higher! Now, in a bad downturn, I am looking at people running into such stocks. They will automatically place themselves at support levels to make full use of good yields at cheap prices. Hence, it could prevent the price from plunging. The downside is, you must make sure the dividends are sustainable. If companies borrow money just to pay dividends, to me, that is a wrong company to invest in. And trust me, there are a LOT of companies that do that. Why go into debt just to feed the investors some panadol? Not wise. Bad debt.

Markets are very bad today. Although we think there is limited downside to go. Will have to monitor closely. In elliot wave theory, analysts feel this is a prolonged wave 4 consolidation phase. Major support to watch for in STI is 3300. DJIA should not tank below 12400 region.

Should I go into cambridge reit? hmmmm…..

It is unfortunate to hear yet another person has passed away from a possible cardiovascular related death. I fondly remember Jimmy as MC King back in those days where he acted as a supermarket assistant with an infamous record of MCs taken. At 40, he is probably just reaching the prime of his life yet he has been denied the chance to proceed with it. Perhaps divine intervention insisted that his time is up. Perhaps it could have been prevented. Regardless, it is yet another stark reminder of how fragile life is. It further emphasizes my belief that nothing should remain undone as far as possible, and live life as if it is one’s last day on earth.  My obsession is to put what I have always wanted to do for my grandma into action. It is not gonna be easy, but not impossible and I’ll do whatever I can to accomplish it.

Moving on, there is this article on alcohol and its relationship to the infamous beer belly. Here it is-

THE CLAIM: The calories from alcohol go to your midsection.

THE FACTS: The phenomenon is known by many names: spare tyre, beer belly, beer gut. But do the calories from alcohol congregate in the midsection at a greater rate than the calories from other sources? That is not so clear.

In general, drinking causes weight gain primarily because alcohol slows the body’s ability to burn fat for energy, not to mention that it increases appetite.

The effects of alcohol on the midsection are complicated, but studies show pretty clearly that beer, wine and spirits have a greater effect on belly fat in adults who drink sporadically than in people who drink regularly but in small amounts.

In one study published in The Journal of Nutrition in 2003, a group of scientists studied more than 2,300 drinkers and non-drinkers and found, after controlling a number of variables, that those who averaged a single drink per day had the lowest levels of abdominal fat.

Those who drank occasionally but had four or more drinks in one sitting had the greatest levels. Several other studies have shown similar results.

One theory is that drinking regularly increases the amount of enzymes that break down alcohol. More research is still needed.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Moderate drinking does not seem to increase abdominal fat. Excessive drinking might.

Before I begin, I’ll like to declare, that I think I have a possessed lamp! It turns on and off randomly. I really wonder what is happening here..

What a Saturday it was.Decked out in a guess top and jeans, my dear and I went to get our hair ‘tidied up’. I love my new top. Great fit, the kind of material that I like with great jeans.  In fact, I’d rate a 9.5/10 for the top. Black, with an interesting design behind. I do wonder what will happen when I lose more inches around the waist for this pair but we’ll see what happens. And then it is onto dinner and then dragonfly. Goodness me. I never could imagine myself in there. I was quite impressed with the layout and height of the ceiling though. A powerstation generally has a high ceiling, perfect for a dance club. As an ametuer DJ, I was naturally drawn onto the guy behind the deck. Usually the DJs come in between ‘concert’ style sets. The second set DJ reminded me of DJ George Leong in the past year. Cap. Built and all. I never found out who this DJ was but an hour long search on the internet (yes people don’t usually give 2 shits about DJs when they are there to hear scorpion sing) seem to suggest he is DJ Aaron Lim. He used to dish out tracks in the Mhd Sultan region and indeed the style used by the DJ in Dragonfly is very Mdm Wong style. A lot of top 40s which seemed to bring us back to our Why Not days, with tracks like Spice up your life, Gasolina, Umbrella, It’s my life and yes the gay anthem track “Dancing Queen”. In fact I think the only track not dished out was Can’t Take My Eyes Off You with a mix done by.. ahem.. yours truly DJ Charlesming. The sets went onto the rnb genre and the ’3 AJs’ (all of us agreed we were probably the only AJs in the whole damn club) agreed the tracks are very Rach type. Pity she left just some 10 mins earlier. I was of course very impressed with the DJ for his versatility in genre as well as mixing. He used mostly originals with only one or two remixed tracks and even those were not the ‘hard house’ type. Mixing in originals involve a different technique. Some has beats in and out of the track while others are silent and you gotta use the ‘chopping’ method to throw in the next track. Very impressed, and the style reminds me of how Jansen does his mixing as well. The one thing this DJ also has which is something I don’t usually get to see, is the ability to work the crowd vocally too. His vocal pitch and diction would have put lots of radio DJs to shame even. Talented. Experienced. Quick. His beat matching speed shows he is no noob. Unfortunately the lighting guy is more familiar with the ‘concert’ bands rather than the disco tracks, understandably since the bands are the highlight of the nights at Dragon fly. My dear was having fun and Ceddy was bouncing to the tunes even. That alone is a testimony that the DJ can work the AJ crowd very well if he gets to play for the audience. Is he AJ too? I don’t know. But he does remind me a lot of George Leong. DJ Andrew T on the other hand always appear stiff and stressed but that is just how he appears. I like DJs who are at ease with what they play and are truly enjoying what they play. There are a couple DJs who just stand there and play (I shall not name names but she appears to be a transsexual DJ) stiffly. Quite a turn off cause the DJ is the heart of the party and if it doesn’t beat, the crowd will notice it eventually. And yes eventually she got booted out of the club or something. Very good technically, but we agree she cannot work the crowd that much.

And so, looking at a DJ from another angle is refreshing. In fact I am impressed enough to email Dragonfly on who this DJ is, so let’s see where this goes. And yes, my si fu is right from the very first day I took lessons from him. He said, from now on when my ears are trained, the party dance floor days are literally over.

I was told that Dragonfly was a place to pick up and be picked up. Someone next to me commented that the girls in that place all have the “please fuck me” look all written over. What I didn’t count on was someone among our own group, got picked up. I was quite amused, but not impressed. For reasons I shall keep to myself.

It was quite an experience. But I’ll tell you what. Give me the DJ, and I’ll show him where the happening crowd is. If he has never played for an AJ crowd, I think he will be in for a treat too!

Has anyone caught the night sky though? At 2am earlier today it was partially cloudy, yet the stars were shinning so brightly. Orion was in full glory. It is the only constellation I can identify and it held special meaning for me in the past. Today, it still overlooks me during this part of the year. It reminds me of how much things have changed, yet there are stuff that do not. Someday, Orion will cease to exist. Like everything in the world. It suggests, everything is good while it lasts. However there’s something celestial and angelic about Orion.  And It will remain so, for as long as it lives.

DJIA plunged on bad employment figures that were below expectations. Fewer employment figures but higher unemployment claims. Need to monitor this closely alongside with how mnay times the feds are going to ‘inject’ rate cuts. While I am not too worried bout the subprime issues as I feel for now the market has been conditioned to it and bad news comes with a knee jerk response only. DJIA plunged to 12800, which is EXACTLY on a strong support level. It cannot tank below this level for obvious reasons.

Analysts from UOBKH posted very interesting analysis on Friday morning while STI was still going down:

Singapore bourse- What has changed ? Very little. Typically in  a consolidation phase, market mood vacillates between positive and negative sentiment. The best time to add positions within a consolidation phase is when sentiment turns negative. The  negative news flow from the US, has been the primary  reason behind the sell down in Asian bourses. Even so, there is very little indication that suggest that the US indices are about to break down from their own consolidation phases. On the contrary, both the DOW & S&P500 appear relatively resilient and both are above recent lows. Additionally, we see a positive divergence in 2 of the risk premium indicators that we track suggesting that both indices are nearing an important inflexion point.

We expect the same for the STI. Chances are that the 3300 level will hold and the index could head up to 3680 or so within the next 1-2 months. In fact, we think the index will be supported near the 3350-3370 range an stage a bounce over the next 2-3 days. On a worst case, the STI could head down to 3300. We think today would be an opportune time to start adding some long positions. Some of the stocks that we favour are Cosco at $5.50.

SembCorp Marine at $4.00, Yangzijiang at $1.86 -1.90, YanLord at $3.08-3.10, Sino Tech Fibre at $0.88-0.90,Sino Enviroment  at $2.20-2.24, JES at $0.75-0.76.

 I suspect they are using fibonacci analysis while in the past they usually use Elliot wave. This is also known as the Dow theory. Still trying to read about it.

What I am worried about is the china property market. I feel the market has not factored in the bubble that is forming there. Unlike Singapore’s property market where the rises are on fundamentals, China’s property has been speculated up just like its stock market prices. This is a bubble waiting to form and burst if there isn’t a correction. Property and stock markets are closely related in terms of trends. From the ground I have heard of people who bought property at a high and are facing problems with loans. Also, it is getting hard to find people to rent the property. All of this can build to a bubble burst and a burst can lead to a stock market crash. Never mind there is an olympics happening in Beijing later this year. People are far too optimistic about the US elections and Beijing olympics. While no one wants a recession, those events alone cannot avoid a recession. The more optimistic people are, the greater the burst. If China market tanks, the implications are terrible.

Some economists like Dr Doom are forecasting such a major correction in China and India along with regional markets.  If US and China markets both fall, WOW!

My own take is to take profit during rallies and sit on the sidelines. For mid-long term investments, one can hold onto it and prepare to average down if the need arises if you have a large margin of safety. Short term plays can proceed but be cautious. I personally feel it is a good time to accumulate ‘bullets’ for opportunities to buy.

STI is currently testing resistance, which did not break. It tends to follow DJIA on opening but gets direction from regional markets especially HSI. To hit 3300, it has a 100 pt margin. This level, like the DJIA at 12800, cannot break. People are looking at the next CNY rally. Will it happen? Maybe. But this is a period of profit taking and accumulation of bullets in my opinion.

Quite a few s shares broke out. I sold my China XLX a tad too early. I put the price at past resistance but it broke out of it with strength. Fortunately I sold off part of my holdings so I am holding onto 2 lots left for upside growth. From another blog, the TP for it is now 1.60 but it has a lot of resistance to clear. We’ll see what happens and I will make my next moves accordingly. My portfolio includes:

Shanghai Asia

Ossia

China XLX

Yangzijiang

For my mom, I have given her:

HSBC

UOL

MIIF

First REIT

Of course she owns other stocks like golden agri which has been on a rally of late. To go defensive or not, I’ll be watching..

Have a good weekend all!