albertyyf on Xanga

Albert-kun	Random Thoughts

albertyyf

read my profile
sign my guestbook

Name: Albert
Birthday: 4/27/1983
Gender: Male

Interests: Stocks, bonds, real estates, and other investment vehicles! I am a self-proclaimed small time investor, though I must admit, I am still a newbie at stock investing! I have been investing in stocks for over a year and my equity portfolio consists of only Canadian stocks. My investment philosophy: Buy and Hold. Thus, I don't buy or sell very frequently. I have beaten the TSX index in my first year... maybe its just newbie luck. We will see! =)
Expertise: Eat and Sleep
Occupation: Student
Industry: Other

Message: message me

Member Since: 11/3/2004

SubscriptionsSites I Read
Subscribe to albertyyf Get trial subscription

Posting Calendar

\|<< oldest \| newest >>\|
view all weblog archives

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Okay. It's one week before final exams and I can hardly focus on my studies this week because of recent news in the market. Wendy's spinning off Tim Horton. Kinder Morgan just bought Terasen gas on Monday. Adidas just bought Reebok today! Both of the latter, I had a chance to get in before their stocks soar. I hate it when hesitation comes back and bites you. No more analysing anymore stocks till my final exams are done. Below I listed the main stocks (and their current price) I've been tracking and some info about each company. They are in no particular order:

Sony (SNE): 33.61
I like Sony headphones and I like Vaio. I am monitoring Sony because of their PS3. Coming out next year featuring the blue laser to read the cd instead of red laser, so the memory storage can be significantly higher (hmm... have to find out how blue laser works). Let's see how PS3 will compete with XBOX360 (who doesn't have this technology but have great marketing plans to penetrate japan's market). Currently, PS2 has the larger market share in the game industry beating Xbox and Nintendo. Let's see how 360 and Revolution will measure up against PS3.

Cameco (CCO): 58.14
A huge deal surrounding uranium a few months back when energy stocks soared.
Even Warren Buffet is into Uranium. Prospect in this industry is high (Which energy stock is not?)

Teck cominco TEK.MV.A: 49.70
I have always been interested in monitoring precious metal especially after taking MMAT 380 (a killer material course at UBC)l. Nickle and other precious metals are used to make stainless steel. Demand in steel (well along with other commodities) is still strong in Asia. So I'd say its worth monitoring. I think precious metal is a niche market itself. (I might be wrong though.)

Husky (HSE): 56.51
Li Ka-shing own most of the shares. Amazing how he got into oil/gas before the energy stocks took off. This man is a genius.

Imperial Oil (IMO): 110.50
Largest refiner and marketer of petroleum products in Canada. I love this stock!

Suncor (SU): 63.12
I knew of Suncor from Co-op posting at UBC. It taps Alberta oil sands, apparently one of the biggest in the world, to produce crude oil.

Nexen (NXY): 48.86
Same as Suncor, I knew of this company from Co-op. A big oil/gas exploration company. Something happened a while back which sent its stock soaring. Can't remember much though.

On a side note, I've tracked IMO, SU, NXY, HSE for the past 1.5 years. These were the companies I was deciding on when I started investing. I picked Imperial Oil. NXY does have a higher ROI since then, but the percentage difference is not by much.

Fluor (FLR): 64.95
I don't know much about this company other than they are in mining industry. My friend Candice and David is working there. (That's how I know of this company) Very consistent growth in this company for the past years. Have to do more research on this company though.

Lafarge (LAF): 69.09
Larfarge operates cement plants. You will see Lafarge cement truck driving around Vancouver. Really strong growth in their stocks. I recently heard of this company when a friend of mine talked about Lafarge using self consolidating concrete. Need to investigate more into this. Basically self consolidating concrete is better than normal cement (it moves around steel reinforcement better when poured), but more expensive.

Ipsco (IPS): 70.20
I actually had an interview with IPSCO 2 years ago. Their stock went up 400% since then. =( I should have paid more attention to this steel manufacturing company. With the energy stocks soaring, more constructions of pipelines, power plants are required. I believe the company will keep growing. I jumped into this stock at a really good price recently. Worth keeping for a while.

Nike (NKE): 86.92
I own a lot of nike sports wear. They had this huge charity run last month in Toronto. A very good marketing strategy. I am into atheletics wear recently because of my marketing class. There were 2 presentations on Reebok and Adidas. ...

Reebok (RBK): 57.14
This is the stock that really gets to me. Like I said before, there was a presentation on this company in my marketing class last week, and I actually said something like: "It has good earning and reebok is changing its image to target a younger target market. Their stock history is stable too." Guess what? I should've bought their shares! Their stocks went up 30% JUST TODAY! Adidas bought Reebok! ENTIRE REEBOK bought by ADIDAS! 30% increase in share price! OUCH! Okay. Enough already. Anyways, Puma is really competing with Adidas in Europe. It's hot on Adidas tail. (BTW, Puma ROI is 1500% the past 5 years!) I guess Adidas has plans up its sleeve.

RBC (RY): 77.76
This is a dividend stock like all canadian bank stocks. Dividend yield: 3%. Dividend: $2.44 a share. You rather have your money in bank stocks than GIC. (They paid as much interest and have a chance to appreciate!) Bank stocks won't get you 20% ROI, but if held long enough, you can get 20% per quarter on their dividend! (More on dividend stock later) RBC had strong earnings in their past quarters. My sister works there as an investment advisor associate. Is it a good thing? Haha

TD (TD): 55.79
TD is offering iPod Shuffle if you switch from other bank account to TD account. Pretty sweet deal. When this marketing strategy was implemented, TD's stock went up higher than other banks. Interesting.

BMO (BMO): 61.40
Another bank stocks. Their stocks went up recently. Didn't have time to find out why. BMO doesn't pay as much dividend compared to other banks though.

CIBC (CM): 74.55
Just settled $2.4Billion with Enron. Stocks plummeted 7% yesterday. A turnaround stock soon?

Alcan (AL): 41.6
Been monitoring this stock for awhile. This is a cyclical stock. All the news from the financial post showed that the stocks are about to take off as Alcan acquire research facilities in Australia and expand into South Africa where utility cost is lower. Alcan has a packaging product line as well.

Apple (APPL): 43.22
iPod Sales are still strong. (I own one!) It will be interesting to see what is Apple's next big step. Heard from my girfriend that they are hiring marketers. Hmmm. Need to really look into this.

Starbucks (SBUX): 51.90
I've been tracking this stocks along with the oil/gas stocks when I first started investing. Starbucks are still expanding. There is even a starbucks in the new Mcleod building!! One thing I notice though is that it really knows where to locate their outlets. I predict that their land capital asset will appreciate in later years since they are buying property (good ones too) to build their coffee shops.

12:32 AM - 8 views - 6 eprops - 4 comments - email it

Sunday, July 31, 2005

My performance:
I invested in the canadian stock market for the past 1.5 year. The following is a break down of my portfolio since:

March 2004 - March 2005:
Equities 70%, Cash 30%
In my first year, I held 30% of cash, and 70% in stocks. My reason was quite simple. I had zero to little knowledge about stocks! The stock I invested in were canadian energy stock. Yes, that's right. I threw 70% of my portfolio into one stock! It was sheer luck that I picked oil and gas stock before the energy sector soar. (Well, maybe it's not all luck. The reason was actually quite simple. I saw these oil and gas companies hiring a lot of students for coop, so I figured they should be doing well, so I chose the company with good stable history and believed that the bigger the company, the less risk there was.) Thus, the stock I invested in was very conservative. I invested in the biggest canadian oil and gas company with the biggest market cap in the energy sector in canada.

Result:
Just over 40% growth of my stock, netting my portfolio ROI to 28%. Not bad for a novice!

April 2005 - Present:
Equities 97% , Cash 3%
I became a little bit more active/aggresive (if u want to put it that way). I bought TSX-Venture stock with the remaining cash. A big big mistake! My theory in investing in coal stock was right however. But I didn't invest in the right company. I picked company that had no stable financial history (or I just wasn't capable of reading their financial report) I did my research however, it looked like a pretty good company. Pretty dedicated. But TSX-Venture stocks are penny stocks, very high risk. I lost 40% in the first few months. Sold at a lost when I saw an opening in a steel manufacturing company and bought it at a really nice price. So my performance so far...

Result:
My oil and gas stock, still holding, net another 40% (Invested 70% of portfolio)
Coal stock sold at a lost of 40% (Invested 27% of portfolio)
Steel stock currently held gained 20% (Invested 15% of portfolio)
Netting my portfolio ROI of just a little bit over 20%.

Coming up:
I will be trying out different strategies soon. I will sell a small portion of my energy stocks at a good price and look for good opportunities in junior companies. I will diversify my portfolio a little bit more and be more aggressive. I think that the stocks I am invested in now are very conservative. I have learned new investment strategies and am more familiar with the markets, so I can be a little bit more aggressive. This will be a good opportunity to venture into the US market as well. My portfoilio is just big enough for me to diversify into different sectors. Of course results do matter, but I want to learn about different strategy and try out different sectors, so don't be surprise to see a losing portfolio come next year!

10:37 PM - 19 views - add eprops - add comments - email it

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Currently Reading
One Up On Wall Street : How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In The Market
By Peter Lynch, John Rothchild
see related

Some background about the author:
Peter Lynch is vice chairman of Fidelity Management and Research Company. Anyone who is into stock market have probably heard of the Fidelity Magellan Fund. Mr. Lynch was the portfolio manager of Fidelity Magellan Fund, which was the best performing fund in the world of its time.

This is a great book on investing in stocks! I've only read 60 of this 300 page literature and I am already hooked with his investing strategy. I have to say this book is quite entertaning as well. Not many books on investment are informative and yet entertaining at the same time. His investment philosophy is almost like Warren Buffet's, except one major distinction: he doesn't put all his egg in one basket. But he has a "buy and hold" philosophy. I love his theory on investing. Here is some of the great lines taken from his book:

"Your losses are limited to the amount you invest in each stock (it can't go lower than zero), while your gains have no absolute limit. Invest $1,000 in a loser and in the worst case, maybe you lose $1,000. Invest $1,000 in a high achiever, and you could make $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 and beyond over several years."
Simple theory, so true!

"..amateur investor has numerous built-in advantages that if exploited, should result in his or her outperforming the experts, and also the market in general."
Again, it's true! You don't need a PhD to outperform the market and to beat the experts in their own game! Heck, you only need:

"All the math you need in the stock market you get in fourth grade."
Ya! You don't need differential equations, fourier series, partial derivatives or triple intergrations! All you need is a little common sense.

"Investing in stock is an art, not a science, and people who've been trained to rigidly quantify everything have a big disadvantage."
I hate to agree with him since I am an engineering student. But you know, he is so right. Stock picking to me is more of an art than science.

This book is highly recommended! Very cleverly written with a great sense of humour. It's the New York Times bestseller after all.

11:16 PM - 4 views - 4 eprops - 5 comments - email it

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

INTEL INC.
Their quarterly report showed a 16% increase in profit:
"Intel Corp., the world's largest computer-chip maker, said Tuesday that second-quarter profit rose 16 per cent amid rising demand for chips used in laptops."
Apple is switching from IBM chips to Intel chips right? hmmm...

Let's monitor IBM too:

Is it me? or is the US market bulling?

Lastminute.com
On the England side: (my first post on UK economy!)
Lastminute.com made its final trade in the London Stock Exchange.
Travelocity bought Lastminute.com for 577m pound. I guess some entrepreneurs are getting off wealthy!

2:02 AM - 4 views - add eprops - add comments - email it

Monday, July 18, 2005

Harry Potter!!!
2 million of the sixth J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, "Half-Blood Prince" sold in Britain in the first 24hours...shattering the record previously held by the previous book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."
6.9 million sold in US in the first day. The previous record was 5 millions copies sold in US.

Scholastic is the publisher, so I think its worth looking at their stock. Their stock is traded at Nasdaq BTW.

One year

Five Year

Alcan:
Although my previous post stated showed a potential investment opportunity in Alcan, we have to keep in mind that aluminum is a highly recycable metal. Think about your pop can. In addition, aluminum manufacturing produces one of the highest pollutants, namely, PCB's. Now that everyone is into environment issue, not sure how this is going to effect aluminum production. .

8:16 PM - 16 views - 2 eprops - 1 comment - email it

Next 5 >>