This is a month filled with volatility and action for me. As previously posted, I had sold all my holdings in Rotary with a huge realized loss. Instead of being depressed, I actually felt more relieved, as it seems to me that Rotary, like First Ship Lease Trust, had been a long term burden in my portfolio, and finally I have plucked up the courage to bite the bullet and realize all losses to admit that I have made the wrong decisions.
With the freed up remaining capital from the sale of Rotary, I am ready to look for better opportunity out there. At that time, my focus laid on Noble. Noble has recovered from its loss a year ago to churn a profit for the third quarter. However, as it was below analysts expectations, it led to a slide in share price. In my opinion, I saw this as an opportunity as Noble was not making a loss this time, thus its fundamentals have already improved from he previous year. It was just beaten down as it missed expectations. Hence I bought into this strong commodity trader, awaiting for it to reverse its course.
Unfortunately, at this point of time, a substantial shareholder of Noble decided to sell a huge chuck of his shares at a discount. This caused the share price to plunge the following day, and it weigh down my portfolio. Just as a ray of hope shines through the gloomy skies as the Chairman of Noble stepped into the market soon after to purchase shares, all was in vain as the outbreak of the "war of words" between competitor Olam and Muddy Waters created more doubts in commodity firms, which translates to further selling pressure. At this point of time I can only hold on to the shares to await the release of next quarter's results, which could boost the shares once again, provided if its fundamentals remain intact.
In addition, I added my holdings in Far East HTrust and FJ Benjamin, both with the intention of averaging down the buying price after the recent drop in share price. The drop in share price for FJ Benjamin was rather significant, due to the counter going Ex-Dividend. However, since fundamentals did not change, the drop will not deter me from adding on to my holdings. Both counters are involved in the hospitality and retail sector, which is one of the stronghold of Singapore's economy. Although downward pressures in profitability remains, especially due to rising labour costs and miscellaneous expenses, I believe they will still have the capability to outperform.
Next month is the last month of 2012. I hope to see the window dressing and the exuberance in the stock market that may help to propel my portfolio to new highs.
My Current Portfolio:
Lessons learnt: Do not look back on loss-making investments. Once sold with realized losses as decisions has been made, you should move on.
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