Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Ranking My Stock Purchases during Covid-19

Since the market crashed in Feb 2020 due to the global pandemic, I have been gradually buying stocks without fail and fear in the past 3 months. I wanted to analyse which are the better and poor buys and tried to see what lessons can I learn from them.

No Counter Purchase date Entry Price Sold/Current Price % Change
1 OCBC 23 Mar 2020 7.87 8.98 14.1
2 Frasers L&C Trust 28 Apr 2020 0.97 1.09 12.3
3 CapitaLand Mall Trust 30 Mar 2020 1.75 1.82 4.0
4 Mapletree Industrial Trust 24 Apr 2020 2.39 2.48 3.8
5 Frasers Centrepoint Trust 12 May 2020 2.03 2.07 2.0
6 SATS 12 Mar 2020 3.69 2.87 -22.2
7 Comfortdelgro 17 Feb 2020 2.09 1.58 -24.4

My best buy is catching OCBC at the bottom on 23 Mar 2020 when after my order is filled at 7.87. The share price continue to slide below 7.80 and languish without any price support till the market closed. On the same day, I saw DBS fluctuate wildly below 17 but I have no spare ammo to buy. Then the following day it gapped up and the rest of the recovery is history. Adding OCBC using dollar cost averaging to my SRS portfolio was a long term plan after topping up my SRS account every year

My second best buy is a recent purchase of Frasers L&C Trust one day before announcement of its 2Q FY20 results, which will confirm the 1H FY20 cleanup DPU amount after its merger with FCOT. I saw the stabilisation of its share price above 0.95 for several weeks, expected the results to be solid, hence decided to perform a calculated bet on its recovery. Afterall, Frasts L&C Trust is doing the same nature of business as Mapletree Logistics Trust which has recovered fast and proven its resiliency.

My third best buy was adding CapitaLand Mall Trust in a planned move to round up my existing units to prepare for merger. So after payday, I just placed my order at 1.75 and it got filled. In subsequent weeks, it share price even plunged below 1.50 but I have run out of ammo to average down further even though it is highly rewarding to capitalise on the irrational behaviour of sellers cutting losses on the future biggest Reit in Sg at distressed prices.

My fourth and fifth best buys involve quick trades that involve buying Mapletree Industrial Trust before its results was announced and buying Frasers Centrepoint Trust after it went XD. The results are earning quick bucks for Kopi money but the returns are not fantastic. In fact, the prices run much higher after I sold them.

My worst buy was Comfortdelgro when its share price was beginning to tank before the Budget announcement in Feb 2020. I was catching a falling knife and speculated on a quick rebound after the Budget as I expected reliefs from the government to assist taxi drivers to drive the share price up. It was a failed speculative move so I have to hold this counter for the long term and ride on the slow but eventual recovery process of land transport, which I believe to be a necessity in a city state.

My second worst buy was SATS during its free fall. Similar to Comfortdelgro, I was catching a falling knife but that was part of my plan to add on to SATS using dollar cost averaging to my SRS portfolio after I top up my SRS account. SATS is a high ROE and great company that I thought can leverage on the long term prospects of a global aviation hub in Singapore and the built up Terminal 5 in 2030. Hence it was a long term play for me but it would be better if I entered below 2.50 instead to have a higher margin of safety.

Lessons learnt
Avoid distressed sectors during a crisis
My poorest purchases came from transport and aviation related companies from the likes of Comfortdelgro and SATS. It was a bad time to buy them at times when we all know they are most heavily impacted by this health crisis. We should target stocks and Reits in sectors that are less affected by the crisis so that their share prices will rebound faster during the recovery and more returns will be reaped.

Speculation involves high risk and the results are same as gambling
Speculation on share price rebounds and shorting of stocks to speculate on share price drops are risky moves that give higher gains or losses. It is not investment in businesses but merely betting on numbers. For long-term investors, I would not recommend doing such things. For short-term traders, it is important to make hedged or calculated risk managed trades to improve on the risk-reward ratio.

Stick to own plan at all times 
It is important to come up with our own investment strategy, deployment of war chest allocation, a buying list of stocks and Reits during a crisis so that we could capitalise on the presented opportunities to reap rewards for the long term. We should enter based on our plan and not gut instincts or greed.

Long term positions give potentially higher returns than short term trades that give quick bucks
Even though quick trades give decent profits for short term swings of a stock share price within a short period of time, the amount earned is very small relative to holding a long term position at discounted prices with high margin of safety. I believe income investors should still stick to the buy and hold strategy, while performing rebalancing of portfolio only when there are good reasons to do so. It is costly and not effective to time the market and make frequent selling and buying.

I hope that we all can learn much from this crisis and do better in our investment journeys for the future. Thanks for reading.

Love & Peace,
Qiongster

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