[Photography] Photowalk: Pasir Ris Park (Again)

Pasir Ris Park is a quaint and quiet park that I enjoy visiting. In addition one can spot many birds rather easily.

Today a juvenile Oriental Magpie Robin showed its finesse in hunting. It caught 3 insects in a minute. Later I came across the regular residents - Collared Kingfisher. There were a couple of them around. I did not see the Stork-billed or the Laced Woodpecker this time. I was hoping to see a one-eyed Fish Owl called Buffy though.

Oh well.

The juvi OMR greeted me when I arrived at PRP.

One of its catch. Couldn't get a sharper copy because this guy was moving around so fast! Before this bug, it caught an grasshopper. After this bug, it caught another bug!

Before it vanished back into the woods, it did a pose for me.

Collared KF is becoming a common sight in PRP for me. Here's one looking up. If you see closely there's another one on the right. I honestly did not see it when I was taking this photograph. 

This Collared KF was perching in another location while I was on my way to see if I could spot any owl.

~ZF

[Photography] Photowalk: Pasir Ris Park

Just went for a walk at Pasir Ris Park, and took the opportunity to spot some birds. Birdwatching in the afternoon is never a good idea. Not only the Sun is hot, not many birds are going to appear since most of them would have done their hunting and feeding in the morning.

I was just lucky, managed to capture a Common Iora, not 1 but 3 Stork-billed Kingfisher, a Collared Kingfisher and a pair of Common Flamebacks Laced Woodpeckers, with none other than the Fujifilm X-T1 and the XF 100-400mm lens.

A Common Iora. Their calls are actually very nice to listen too! But they can be challenging to photograph, given their size and speed.

A Collared Kingfisher. They are probably the noisiest kingfishers that I know of.

As mentioned, I saw not 1 but 3 Stork-billed Kingfishers. Not sure if they are a family. This is SBKF #1. Perching on one of the branches amongst the mangrove. Took this because I did not know they could turn their head almost 180 degrees.

Still SBKF #1 because it was the closest to me and easiest to photograph. I decided to use the Velvia film simulation in the X-T1 to do these colourful birds more justice.

SBKF #2. Perching on a tree beside a river (or canal). SBKF #3 not shown.

Near SBKF #1 were these beautiful Common Flamebacks Laced Woodpeckers. I suppose it was a mother-daughter couple, the mother is in the background, because I saw her feeding the one on the foreground. Highly elusive birds. The photo did not turn out crisp sharp, I was a tat disappointed, but I guess I'll accept this for now, since it is pretty rare to be able to photograph these.

~ZF

[Photography] 5 Reasons To Visit Singapore's Botanic Gardens

1. Because of its history.

I am not a history buff, but I know it is more than a century old. More info in the wiki page. You can learn much of its history there.

The gate at the Bukit Timah entrance, just outside the train station.

2. Because it is accessible.

The botanic gardens is one of the interchange stops for the Downtown Line (DTL) and Circle Line (CCL), situated at the Bukit Timah Entrance. There is another entrance, the Tanglin Entrance, which is also accessible by foot from Orchard Road, but it will be quite a walk.

3. Because it is a large and quiet place.

While it is situated in somewhat prime land, the botanic gardens is a great place to escape from the city buzz. While it can be crowded during weekends, you can still enjoy some tranquility, because the area is just too big.

There are many benches like this for visitors just to sit and enjoy the tranquility. [Taken with the Redmi Note 3]

If you like quiet with a touch of nature, the botanic gardens is the place to go! [Taken with the Redmi Note 3]

4. Because it is also home to many birds and little critters.

I have been to the botanic gardens a couple of times to bird-watch. Yes, there are raptors and many birds to be spotted. Unfortunately it was rainy today and many of them went to hiding. Nevertheless I still have a couple of shots that I could share here.

An Oriental Magpie Robin. [Taken with Fujifilm X-T1 + XF 100-400mm]

A squirrel. They are quite common in the gardens! [Taken with Fujifilm X-T1 + XF 100-400mm]

A monitor lizard. Well, there are three lakes in the gardens, so I suppose they can be common, just that these creatures are elusive. [Taken with Fujifilm X-T1 + XF 100-400mm]

A red-neck slider. These, unfortunately, are probably released by pet-owners. [Taken with Fujifilm X-T1 + XF 100-400mm]

A White-breasted Water Hen taking a plunge! [Taken with Fujifilm X-T1 + XF 100-400mm]

5. Because it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site!

It was awarded the status on 4 July 2015, which was considered one of an apt gift for Singapore's Golden Jubilee in that year.

At the Bukit Timah entrance.

A plaque at the Tanglin/Nassim entrance.

Due to unfavourable weather, I was not able to cover the whole gardens. But it is a great place to hang out with family and friends, provided the weather is good of course. Nevertheless, here are some photographs I would like to share.

Just an old tree. I was trying to compose something I think.

I do not know what species of papaya these are but the tree is rather short.

The stage at the Symphony Lake. This is one of the landmarks in botanic gardens. Many concerts and performances are occasionally held here.

Side note: The Redmi Note 3 camera is only so-so, but I have to make do as my wide angle camera for now.

~yZhifa

[Photography] PhotoWalk: Lower and Upper Pierce Reservoirs

Just some photographs to share from this morning's walk at the Lower and Upper Pierce Reservoirs.

Needed some tranquility, so I headed down to take a walk. No regrets. The reservoirs in Singapore are nice places to hang out, take photos and enjoy the serenity and nature.

White-bellied Sea Eagle.

White-belly Sea Eagle.

A very old wind vane at the Lower Pierce Reservoir, which was opened in 1977.

A boat by the water.

Wide.

Lower Pierce Reservoir.

The eagle was taken with the Fujifim X-T1 + XF100-400mm, the rest of the photos are taken with the mobile phone camera (Xiaomi Redmi Note 3).

~yZhiFa

[Investing] My Thoughts on the Delisting of SMRT

SMRT was considered a good piece of blue-chip stock. Its rail business is profitable, and its media and real estate are doing pretty decently too. It is no surprise why so many are upset when it was announced to be privatised (reference). Then a friend did ask me "Isn't SMRT already private?"

I did not buy the stock despite its assumingly delicious and stable dividends payout for two reasons.

Firstly, its book value is only about $0.60. The stock price when I last checked was about $1.80-$1.90. SMRT EPS stands at abt $0.07 a share. Operating profit is about 10%. It made no sense to me paying a 300% premium for something like that.

Secondly, I roughly understand how this kind of things work. Being public-listed means it had to be profit driven. I believe that public transport should do public good. Being profit-driven normally means that this basic function is compromised, whether privatising will really make it efficient or not. It will be nice to have the best of both worlds though.

Since fares are regulated, SMRT cannot raise fares prices as much as they wish, which is the easiest way to be profitable. So they have to be lean, and most corporations approach that by coming out with cost-cutting measurement.

Cost-cutting is good, except when times when essential functions are cut because they are not generating profits. Nobody would actually see the downstream problems, while the "hero" who recommended the cost-cutting measure was exalted for his/her "forward-looking" and "outstanding" leadership. Then we know what happened later.

Of course there are many other issues that I do not understand, such as the rail infrastructure being publicly funded but the profits are disbursed back to the public (and reliability suffered).

In short I just find it "unethical" (unethical is a strong word, but my vocabulary is lacking) to buy stocks like this. I was called "silly" but I am glad I stood firm to my beliefs.

It's silly I know. There are many who would grab money at any opportunity. I am just happy being the "silly" few.

~yZhiFa

This post is also in my investing blog! Thanks for your support!

[Investing] Efficiency Measures in Investing

Just a quick question:

If you have a dollar, would you buy something that is worth 1) $0.90 or 2) $1.10?

My answer is "depends". It depends if I am in a desperate need of that something. It is a question on the word worth, which is also an important element in investing. But if that something happens to be a share, I will definitely choose 2). That way my $1 is well spent! In fact I managed to increase its value by 10%. 

That is a crude way to introduce efficiency. Efficiency is getting the maximum output give fixed resources. In the previous example, my "output", or reward, would be -10% if I choose to buy 1) and +10% if i chose 2).

As you can see, efficiency is a relative measure. It is important as it affects operation costs and also infers the management's capability. In general, if a company is not efficient, it will incur high costs to produce its products or services, which will then be translated to the customers. Unless the company is the price setter, which is not usually the case, customers will stop doing business with them and find alternatives that are cheaper (customers ARE efficient). The company may increase its margin to compensate for the sales lost instead of being efficient, and thereby increase the cost, and continue to lose customers. This cycle will continue until the company realises the need to be efficient, or go bankrupt.

As investors, we want to make sure that our money is used efficiently to benefit the company (to make the company profitable in general) so it will in turn benefit us. I opine that efficiency is the most important factor to assess if a company is worthy investment.

How to assess efficiency then?

Efficiency is a relative measure, hence a single metrics by itself is not meaningful - something has to be measured against another. There are several metrics that can be useful in helping us make investing decisions.

Earnings Per Share (EPS)

While this may not be considered an efficiency measure, EPS is important. The shares do not make the earnings per se, but the EPS infers the earning power, or profitability, of the company. But as with all ratios, it is dependent on the numerator and the numerator. If the number of shares (denominator) is massive, it dilutes the earnings. Imagine having a piece of 16" pizza to go around 10 people. How about 20? 100? 1000? EPS gives us a quick glimpse of how much of that "pizza" are we going to be entitled to. The next question is, how much should we pay for it?

Earnings Yield

This is the proportion of the price paid that can be accounted by the earnings. (Although there is another interpretation, that is, how much earnings is there for every dollar of the shares paid. I find this interpretation a little warpy). This is a measure of how efficient our (the investor) capital can be used. Suppose a stock with EPS $0.20 that is going for $1. The earnings yield is 20%. Obviously, the higher the number, the better.

"Return in" Ratios

There are a number of return ratios, and the Return on Assets (or Capital) are particularly useful. It compares the earnings over the assets of the company. It shows how efficient the company is at deploying its asset in generating earnings.

Turnover Ratios

These are generally used to measure the company's management efficiency. The inventory and receivable turnover ratios are particularly useful if we want to assess if the company is good at managing its inventory and collecting outstanding payments respectively.

~yZhiFa

[Investing] Risks and the Value Investor

Warren Buffett says it in it simplest form: Risk is not knowing what you are doing.

Every form of investment involves guessing the future, but nobody is good in that and therefore there is always a certain degree of uncertainty (or risk) in investing.

Value investing minimizes that risks by evaluating a company, as if you have a share of the company (you do when you eventually bought shares of that company).  In general, a company must be  at least financially strong and consistently profitable. Next, the investor has to use his funds efficiently. I will share my thoughts on efficiency in the next post.

Financially Strong

Some of the measures to determine if the company is financially strong are:

Book Value Per Share: Book value is also the net asset value (or equity - see how confusing things can be?) after minusing the liabilities. The per-share value is commonly used by some investor as the proxy for intrinsic value of a company. For example, if a company's book value is $1 per share, and the share price is at $0.90, it is deemed a bargain, because you are paying a discount of $0.10 for some share of the assets which are valued (in the balance sheet) at $1 per share. However, this is assessment is generally not accurate, because there is more to the intrinsic value of a company. How wonder it would if it is so simple? 

Furthermore, future money, such as Receivables and Payables can be so inflated that it can create a false reality of the financial strength of the company, especially the Receivables since they are considered as assets. 

Current Ratio: The current ratio, current assets/current liabilities, measures how much current assets a company has in excess of the current liabilities. This ensures that the company can fulfill its short-term financial obligations. 

Debt/Equity Ratio: Debt and Equity are capital sources of the company. This ratio can be high or low depending on the business operations. Care must be taken if this ratio is exceptionally high, because the company is either servicing a large amount of debt, or it does not need investors (Equity) after all.

Positive Cashflow: The company must generate cash from its operations to pay debts, dividends, etc. This can be determined from the statement of cashflows. Extra care must be taken when a company promises to pay high dividends but generate negative cashflows.

Profitability

Income Statement: In general, if a company is consistently profitable, it will improve the share price in the long run. The profitability of a company can be determined from the income statement. There are a few basic things to note. Firstly, a increasing trend must be observed. Consistency is the key word here.

Secondly, the sources of income must come largely from its organic business. Most businesses have "sideline" investments nowadays, and I wouldn't be surprised if they have more income from their investments than their core business. However, if that's the case I would rather invest in  a holding company.

Thirdly, beware of goodwill. I honestly do not know why it is in the Income Statement. But goodwills are premiums paid when the company acquired another company, and they are not tangible. Be especially careful if the goodwill is reported in very large amount, relative to the company's assets and liabilities.

EPS: EPS is important because it essentially says how much earnings each shares is "making" Compare this relative to the share price, i.e EPS/Price, we get the Earnings Yield, which is the proportion of the price of the share that is attributed to the earnings. The inverse of this ratio gives the P/E ratio, the very popular ratio for investing, but IMO it must be used with other metrics to be useful.

The idea of value investing is to piece all the information that one could get to tell a story of a company. Some metrics are suggested here, but there could be more. However, too much information can be paralysing and therefore use only what is required.

Next up would be something on efficiency!

Stay tune!

~yZhiFa

[Investing] Compounding - How Wealth and Debt Build Up

There was a time, quite recent actually, where I received a shock from a credit card bill (from a boat-brand bank) - I forgot to pay my credit card balance of $2,389.29 (yes, I have to be this precise). I was topped up with a Late Charge of $60 and an Interest Charge of $145.30, a total of $205.30, not forgetting calls from the company "reminding" me to pay the bill and that they cannot waive the interest charge because of my forgetfulness (this is the first time I forget to pay the credit card bill by the way). I quickly paid the bill, and then closed the account. Well, this account has nice perks, like earning up to 3.5% interest, if you meet some prerequisites, like spending a minimum amount, cashing in your salary, etc. But the interest charge is too much for me. I do not have much money inside that account (heh~).

Not including the Late Payment Fee (as if the interest is not enough), the interest is already at about 6% (145.30/2389.29). Or ~8.6% if I include the Late Charge. This is a 1 month late debt. If I translate it to a per annum value, if I may, it is a 72% interest. To the bank!

What would happen if I continue not paying?

How Debt Accumulates

So I will owe the bank $2,594.59 on the Month 1. If I do not pay I incur yet another $60 and 6%, which becomes $2,810.27 ($2,594.59 *1.06 + $60). This is $420.90, or ~18%,  increase from the original sum owed. What was ~8.6% becomes ~18% in 2 months.

If I continue it for 12 months (assuming I do not get a lawyer's letter from the bank after 3 months), I will have to pay a whopping $5,819.92, 144% increase from the original debt. See the picture below.

The effect of compounding is clearly shown here. Interest is applied on what was owed. And interest charges pile up (or compound) quickly. At 6% interest rate each month (the compounding period) it takes about 12 months to double the amount owed (this is the Rule of 72). 

So the lesson learn is: Do not owe the bank money.

But you might think - but it is not fair, The bank pays us next to nothing (about 0.024%) for the deposits we make and they charge us so much when we owe them money? Well this emphasize the need for investing the savings, to make your savings work harder, and the good news is that we can make use compounding to our advantage too!

How Wealth Accumulates

Now suppose the above example, you are the one receiving the 6% per compounding period. With $2,400 in an investment that gives 6% per month, you will get about $4,800 in 12 months! 

But how does one really make compounding work? Many books I have read do not explicitly say, but I can think of some:

Reinvesting Dividends

This approach consistently buys a share that pays good dividends, and the dividends are used to buy in more shares. By good dividends I mean at least 4%, which is the rate where most blue chip stocks in Singapore are paying.

For example, for an investment of $1,000 in a stock that costs $1/share (hence I would have 1000 shares) and pays 10% dividends, I will receive $100 every year as dividends, which I will use to buy an additional 100 shares. The following year, I will receive $110 which I will buy 110 shares. At the end of the second year, I would have 1210 shares. This means I will have $121 dividends in the third year, and so on.

This is the idea, but in practise it is not that easy to execute namely because:

1. The number of stocks that can be bought is likely to be constrained by the minimum lot size. In Singapore the minimum lot size is 100 shares. If the dividends paid out can buy 1 lot of shares, no problem. The problems lies when we cannot buy 1 lot of shares with the dividends we received - likely due to too little holdings or the dividend yield is too low. The work around could be topping up the difference to buy 1 lot of shares.
2. 1 year is actually a pretty long time frame, relatively speaking. Discipline is required to be consistent. Suppose we are unable to buy 1 lot of shares with the dividends and we opt to wait for the next dividends period (which may be the following year, or may not depending if the company could pay dividends), we might actually forget about this little agreement we made to ourselves. Add in uncertainty, and the dividend next year may not be enough to even supply the balance funds to buy 1 lot of shares, which means waiting another year?  

Reinvesting Capital Gains

This approach is similar to dividend counterpart, but this time the stocks are actually sold, at a profit, and the money is used to buy the same stock or the different stock of the similar yield. Not only this approach has the challenges mentioned in the dividends approach, we have to be an expert in picking stocks that are cheap and we know that it is going to appreciate in the stock price. Definitely a no-no.

Regular Savings Plan (RSP)

RSP are plans that lets you put in say $100 every month to buy a stock or a fund (a unit trusts, ETF, etc). It makes use of dollar-cost-averaging, which the dividends and capital gains approach make use of. You buy more when the price is low, and less when the price is high, but all the value is the same. Except that RSP are generally on autopilot because chances are the funds are managed by professionals. Of course we can set up our own funds (or portfolio) to invest in, we can adopt the Dividends Reinvesting (it is also called Drip Investing) approach to do it. But RSP works only if the time horizon is very long, I would say at least 3 years.

Compounding is a double-edge sword. But understanding it is much more beneficial because it will help us avoid debts and make better investment choices. I have already discussed how a debts can accumulate into a nightmare because of compounding. The contrary is also true, that compounding can help accelerate returns for our investments.

Compounding is dubbed the eighth wonder of the world.

The only outstanding task to do is the execution of the plan, which will be in my future post.

Stay tuned!

~ZF

[Others] Kawasaki Disease

[This is still in the draft state as I write it in the hospital while Little E is sleeping. Will add in more details when everything settles..]

It is the 8th day we are in the hospital, where Little E was admitted for Kawasaki Disease.

It started with a fever on 27 April. My wife brought him to see the PD. She was told to give Little E paracetamol and bring him to a hospital if the fever hits 38.5degC.

The fever reached that level that very night. Little E looked more sleepy than usual. We rushed him to KKH at 3am the following day.

It was the wee hour, there wasnt a crowd, so i thought it would be fast. I saw a sign saying the waiting hour was 2 hour, I thought they did not update. It turned out that we indeed waited for 2 hours before a doctor saw us.

The doctor told us it could be a viral infection. Little E had no signs of HFMD or dengue. We were to give him higher dosage of paracetamol. We gave him 2.5ml of it, following the post-vaccination jab dose. This was not enough given Little E's weight. He was given 4ml of paracetmol, and we waited another hour or so before seeing the doctor again. Groan. Little E's temperature went down to 36.9 degC and he was discharged subsequently, at qbout 7am. We were told to go back to KKH if the fever persisted for more than 5 days. And no, teething was not the cause of the fever.

We did not doubt the competency of the doctor, but we felt something was still not right and that bothered us. We got home, and I went to get whatever I could to cool him down, including a cooling mat. Little E slept throughout the day.

That night, we noticed rashes had developed around his mouth. Could be the drool, we thought. The fever persisted. During the night, he was having fits and his hands and feet turned blue periodically. We covered him up, thinking that it was the fever's doing. By 10am, 28 Apr, there was no signs that Little E was getting better. Instead, his rashes worsened. The fever was measuring between 38 and 39 degC. The highest temperature we measured was 39.4 degC. We decided to go Mt. Alvernia Hospital.

At the MAH Emergency hospital, we waited at the isolation waiting room for a few hours. Ethan had his blood tested and was sponged while waiting for the blood test results. We were told there was no room, so we waited again.

The results were finally out. Little E's C-Reactive Protein is 10 fold of the normal range. I had no idea what it is, but the doctor said Little E could have a respiratory infection. He was not sure as he is not a PD, so he referred us to the International Children and Adoloscents Clinic (ICAC), also located in MAH, while waiting for a room.

Dr. Koh Poh Khian attended to Little E at ICAC. He is knowledgeable and detailed in his practise. He looked at Little E, who was irritable and drowsy, and told us Ethan could have Kawasaki Disease.

Kawasaki what?

He said from the blood tests he was quite sure Little E had KD. He went on to explain what the KD is.

KD is an autoimmune disease that could affect the heart, by dilating the artery (or is it aorta?). It is a relatively new disease, only formally described in the 1970s. The diseased is named after the doctor who discovered it. The cause of KD is unclear. Most cases of KD are left undiscovered and treated. Its treatment is equally uncertain and varied, with the best treatment observed with the immunoglublin (IVIG), an expensive blood product, so far. Steroids are sometimes used.

We were at loss. We intended to admit Little E in MAH, but there was no bed for him. Knowing this, Dr Koh referred us to NUH, and called Dr. Quek Swee Chye, the head of pediatric cardiology in NUH. He wrote a note to Dr. Quek, and told us to show the note to the staff in the NUH's Children's A&E. Before we left, Dr. Koh reassured us that Little E would be fine, given that NUH is an 'academic' hospital with a small but dedicated pediatric team, and Dr. Quek has been studying and seeing KD cases for many years.

One of his staff advised us to go back home and bring the necessities, but we did not heed that because we felt that it was more urgent to get Ethan to professional care as soon as possible. On hindsight, it was a good decision because along the way Little E's had fit and his face was turning blue.

It was about 6pm. Ethan was quickly attended to. Blood and urine samples were taken to test for infection. The staff were frantically trying to stabilise his pulse and blood pressure, and trying to IV him. It was difficult to find a vein on Ethan. An Indian lady doctor, we were too upset to capture any name, kept explaining to us the situation and reassuring us. It pained us to see this innocent little baby going through all the pricking.  We broke down at the bed, and were eventually escorted out to wait.

About 30min later, the lady doctor came out to tell us they managed to stabilise Ethan, and his colour wad better. We went in to see him and he was sleepy. Probably too exhausted, but it was a relieved to see our baby in a better shape. We noticed his lips was bright red, we were not sure if it was the infection. We hanged around in the A&E for awhile before we were transferred to a ward. It was already 9pm then. I returned home to prepare the necessities while my wife stayed with the boy.

The following day, Dr. Quek saw the boy and felt that treatment for KD should not be delayed and Little E was put up for KD treatment, 1 dose (3 bottles) of IVIG wad administered over a course of 1.5 days, together with some antibiotics.

Ethan responded well to the treatment. On 2 May, when the IVIG was completed, the rashes and fever subsided, he became more alert.

Right now, Ethan is still warded under observation as the fever keeps coming back. Little E is a fighter. He is fighting hard to recover.

I am grateful for the dedicated doctors and nurses in NUH.

I hope our personal account of KD helps to gain awareness of this mysterious disease, and also hope parents who are affected by this disease, like us, will find solace in our experience. Our Little Ones are fighters. We have to have faith in them and be with them.

I really hope we can go home soon, but I'll let Little E take his time to recover.

~ZF

[Photography] A Photowalk with the Fujifilm XF100-400mm F4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR

Yes, managed to acquire the very new Fujifilm XF 100-400mm, which was released in early February, and I missed the pre-order promotion which I may get the 1.4 teleconverter for FREE..

Nevertheless, been eyeing this lens for very long, since it was released from the X lenses roadmap. I am glad it is finally out.

Before making the purchase, I was trying to find sample images, but I could not. I guess the lens was pretty niche and new, so I decided to go out take some for reference to people like me. Photographs are taken with the X-T1. The photographs have the size reduced, to view full size photographs, see here.

A random photograph of a dragonfly.

A Little Bronze Cuckoo (I think?).

A Yellow-vented bulbul.

An Ashy Tailorbird.

Size wise, the lens is slightly shorter than Tamron 150-600mm.

The Bigron (top) vs the Fuji (bottom).

The lens feels solid and dense. It is actually slightly heavier than the Bigron. It is sharp and responsive, and coupled with the superb performance of a X camera (a X-T1, or an X-Pro2, maybe?), it is a viable system for nature photography, esp. birdwatching.

Goodbye to bulky telephoto system!

~ZF