Take profit or hold ...

Recent movement of KLCI and regional burses raise question to many investor, should I aim for short term profit or long term investing. A multimillion question that most investor ask and yet to found a good answer.

The fact that icap investment strategy on value investing is more on long term profit, it did took profit when a portfolio hit full valuation like Digi and some met with uncertainty like corporate excersice. However, as I remembered, some of its portfolio like mieco invested in 2002 and 2003, price ranging from 1.3 to 1.5 after corporate exercise, did not exit all when the share price reach an all time high at 3.20 only to see the price dip till 0.30 recently. Sometimes, it is all about psycology and the action you have taken.

Also, there is a school of thot in the market on exit and cut lost strategy. By reading a tool, one exit or enter the market so that to stay relevant always in the market. Not sure the profit or loss incur on it.

"Blue Chip" in Mesdaq

Recently, had the opportunity to meet up with the CEO of Exel force, Jeff Wang in the Co AGM. To be surprise, he is really a hands on CEO, basically knew what his company product from head to tail. I had an opportunity to seat with him after the AGM and posted a few questions to him.
1st on local progress and expansion, and then on competitors either local or foreign. According to him, there is no direct local competitor except for n2n. It seems to him N2N is not perform well as per annual report which posted losses for the past quarter. Foreign competitor not able to come in due to cost factor, as such not a treat as of now. There are 18 stock broking house and 6 banks using excel force back office and Jeff is very confident it can get more to its plate looking at the more liberalise SC rules moving forward. I noticed too that more and more stock broking are using excel force as their online trading platform. It seems to me they are gaining market share moving forward.
On oversea expansion, apart from Thailand and Singapore, it is now looking to expand further in Vietnam and Indonesia. The future looks promising minus how fast it can expand base on its scarce resources of 50 as of now.
As to the company's employee is concern, he did annual exam on them on their progress and apparently asked those had failed the exam to reconsider their position in the company. Well, it sounds good to a growing company but to the staff there, it is really pressurize.
I asked him about future product features. He said there are lots more in the pipe line to be launched soon in a few months times, program buying and selling features is one of them. Many will mirror those from US stock broking house.
I asked him despite a profitable track record but the share price did not really match its profit. His thot is to move the company to the main board to make the company more visible to investor. Also, some future earning distribution at 50% of net profit as dividen may make the company looks more attractive.
Overall, am quite satisfy with those answer from the CEO although had more questions to ask ..

The start of a correction ...

Last week KLCI had started to move down substantialy from its peak. A number of investors had infact made a handsome return from this round. On average, they had made around 40% within 2 months, exited from KLCI and is holding hard cash now.
The challenge now is to spot when this correction over and how to catch the up wave again.
Some said the A(H1N1) effect is started to make significant impact to world economics already. The spread of the virus at major airports around the world constitude a decline of travellers. A friend of mine just return from USA. She is saying, the folks there just not bother about the flu thingy and it is life as usual. Having say that, I noticed that, our mainline media aspecially, Sin Chew, had been publishing the news almost daily for the past 1 months.
The regional indexes also seems heading south ... hope to be able to catch the up swing again this round ....

US top 10 Biggest Trading Partners continue ...

5. Germany
Total Trade: $180.3 billionPercent of Total US Trade: 4.5%US Exports: $65.8 billionUS Imports: $114.4 billionTrade Gap: $48.6 billion

6. United Kingdom
Total Trade: $134.8 billionPercent of Total US Trade: 3.4%US Exports: $65.5 billionUS Imports: $69.3 billionTrade Gap: $3.8 billion

7. South Korea
Total Trade: $98.2 billionPercent of Total US Trade: 2.5%US Exports: $40.5 billionUS Imports: $57.8 billionTrade Gap: $17.3 billion

8. France
Total Trade: $88.5 billionPercent of Total US Trade: 2.2%US Exports: $36.2 billionUS Imports: $52.4 billionTrade Gap: $16.2 billion

9. Brazil
Total Trade: $74.1 billionPercent of Total US Trade: 1.9%US Exports: $38.8 billionUS Imports: $35.2 billionTrade Gap: $3.6 billion (in U.S. favor)

10. Netherlands
Total Trade: $73.1 billionPercent of Total US Trade: 1.8%US Exports: $48.1 billionUS Imports: $24.9 billionTrade Gap: $23.2 billion (in U.S. favor)

US 10 Largest trading partner

1. Canada
Total Trade: $696.3 billion Percent of Total US Trade: 17.4%US Exports: $308.4 billionUS Imports: $387.9 billionTrade Gap: $79.5 billion

2. China
Total Trade: $488.5 billionPercent of Total US Trade: 12.2%US Exports: $85.9 billionUS Imports: $402.6 billionTrade Gap: $316.7 billion

3. Mexico
Total Trade: $435.3 billionPercent of Total US Trade: 10.8%US Exports: $180.6 billionUS Imports: $254.7 billionTrade Gap: $74.1 billion

4. Japan
Total Trade: $240.2 billionPercent of Total US Trade: 6.0%US Exports: $79.3 billionUS Imports: $161 billionTrade Gap: $81.7 billion