I will start off this blog post with some personal updates about myself. The past 2 weeks has been a real struggle for me. Last Monday, while preparing to go back to office, I performed my ART routine as usual and this time round, I was shocked to see a double line. I did not feel unwell except for feeling a bit of itchiness in my throat at that time only. I also became the pioneer employee who became the first staff to contract COVID in my company. Thereafter, all hell broke lose and COVID became rampant in Singapore with daily cases over 15K to 16K. Good news is that it feels like getting the normal flu with a bit of blocked nose and sore throat similar to what the MOH website published 99.7% statistics of people who got COVID will experience mild symptoms. But well, you never know whether you will end up as the 0.3% statistics of severe case that need hospitalization treatment for oxygen or other medical treatments if we take this too lightly.
1. War in Eastern Europe by Russia against Ukraine- Time to sell off investments or Investment Opportunities?
Just coming off the worldwide interest rate hike crisis which hits stocks badly, we now have another crisis coming out of Eastern Europe. Russia has decided to invade Ukraine. The Singapore Stock market plunged on 24 February 2022 (Thursday) with the short announcement by Putin (who increasingly seems to be behaving a lot like the previous dictator Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union) that Russia will be launching a "military operations" against Ukraine. I think that this is just playing with words. An invasion and war is what it is. Let's call a spade a spade.
Just coming off the worldwide interest rate hike crisis which hits stocks badly, we now have another crisis coming out of Eastern Europe. Russia has decided to invade Ukraine. The Singapore Stock market plunged on 24 February 2022 (Thursday) with the short announcement by Putin (who increasingly seems to be behaving a lot like the previous dictator Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union) that Russia will be launching a "military operations" against Ukraine. I think that this is just playing with words. An invasion and war is what it is. Let's call a spade a spade.
It is interesting to see their ally China being placed in an awkward position with their foreign affairs ministry also trying to label this invasion as a "military operations" instead of an ongoing war in order to show solidarity behind Russia.
So is it now the time to sell off all stocks to avert the current market instability and further downsides?
2. Time to sell off all stock investments?
My usual thoughts are that it is very difficult to time the market. While the initial shock will typically cause the stock markets to sink into the red, the stock markets will eventually recover. I only did some minor sell off during the past few days to capitalize on stocks which have dropped significantly. No point trying to do mass selling and then trying time a market low to re-enter as one may miss out on the recovery surge. Anyone who tells you that they can accurately predict high point to sell and low point to re-enter the market from their crystal ball is just nonsense.
My usual thoughts are that it is very difficult to time the market. While the initial shock will typically cause the stock markets to sink into the red, the stock markets will eventually recover. I only did some minor sell off during the past few days to capitalize on stocks which have dropped significantly. No point trying to do mass selling and then trying time a market low to re-enter as one may miss out on the recovery surge. Anyone who tells you that they can accurately predict high point to sell and low point to re-enter the market from their crystal ball is just nonsense.
My own personal thoughts are that the end game is near. Without US and NATO support, Ukraine is doomed from the start against a more advanced and bigger armed forces of Russia. It also does not help that by end of Day 1 of the invasion, Russia has won air supremacy over the whole of Ukraine.
I do not think that this will be a long drawn out war that will affect oil and gas supplies for too long. While Ukraine history with Russia is complicated and both of its people are vastly different, there are many with families with ties in both countries. Hence I do not think Putin is out to totally destroy the people of Ukraine. Rather, Russia is trying to control the government of Ukraine to turn it into a puppet state in order to secure its own dominance in Eastern Europe.
3. Investment opportunities and my watchlist
There are many good bargains from the recent decline in stock prices on SGX. USA stock market still appear very high to me. China stock market is worrying due to the near collapse of their property sector which made up a huge proportion of GDP. As alluded to point 2 above, I do not think the current fear of sanctions and oil supplies disruption will spill over excessively on a long term basis to cause irreparable damages to global economies.
OCBC is interesting. Despite missing their Q4 2021 results against expectations of market analysts, it is still at an overall improvement of 35% net profit for FY2021 relative to FY2020. What's more, the reason for missing target is due more to conservative allowances being made. Personally, I felt that the market seems to have overreacted with a 5.8% drop in OCBC from S$13.16 to S$12.40 on 23 February 2022. Then as at 25 Feburary 2022, it further slumped to S$11.85 per share following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I have started accumulating additional OCBC shares during this period.
Another fascinating one would be United Hamsphire US REIT. It has consistently performed well with an extremely attractive distribution yield of 10.0%. United Hamsphire has delivered resilient results throughout this COVID crisis. However, its unit price is currently at a miserable US$0.610 as at 25 February 2022.
Parting thoughts:
For every crisis, there will also be an opportunity. 2022 seems to have kicked off with a big bang. I look forward to deploying my upcoming dividends receipt of S$12K in March 2022 back into the market.
Last but not least, I wish everyone good health and all the best to you folks in your 2022 investment!
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