What happened to inflation

Just not too long ago, many economists were worried about inflation due to many countries printing money and starting the similar QE programs. A few months ago, oil crashed, and this changed the whole equation. Now, the same economists are talking about a possible deflation in most countries. Lately, we have seen countries launching their own programs whether through interest rates or currency to prevent their economy from falling into deflation.

Yesterday, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said it will let our Sing dollar to appreciate at slower pace, news from channelnewsasia. The core inflation is also down from the earlier forecast of 2 to 3 percent. For the longest time, we have always been told that one need to own assets like property, commodities or gold to protect oneself from inflation. With the latest action from MAS, what do we need to do and now with a possibly sign of deflation, what do we do?

Cash/USD

Remember cash is 'king', no matter which situation you are in. It's without doubt that USD is still a global recognised and traded currency, one which investors like to have in times of uncertainty. I mean USD has performed strongly against major currency and looking at all the positives signs on the US economy, what is preventing the USD from moving up some more.

Buy High Good Dividend Stocks

Whether is it inflation or deflation, we still need to buy things that we need to us daily, these will be good sector to look at. It will be even better if one is able to find valued high dividend paying stock. Just not too long ago, Asia superman, Mr. Li Ka Shing ramped up his huge purchased of assets in the UK, especially the Utilities asset. Is he preparing for deflation too?

Let's see how this will turn out and I guess no point trying to predict, we will know in time to come.

My first purchase in 2015

UMS holdings is in the semiconductor industry with facilities in Singapore, Penang and US. In this post, I will be sharing my simple assessment on this counter, and reason for getting my first exposure into this industry. The share price has been in range of $0.495 and $0.5 for last week, and below is the chart from yahoo for past few years.

 












The stock is trading on PE ratio of 5.5, and dividend yield of 9%, as shown below from Bloomberg.

Comparing with it's peers, UMS does not look expensive.

So why semiconductor? This is my first counter in the semiconductor industry. I first noticed this industry when reading some tech article about the Apple 'iwatch' and TSMC. Everybody is waiting and watching the launch of the 'iwatch' this year, deemed to be THE launch of 2015, and this is going to bring the semiconductor to the next level with other similar launches of consumer electronics. This has also been shared in a recent article about TSMC, the world largest foundary in the industry. The founder and boss of TSMC, Mr Morris Chang spoke at length about the next big internet things on all consumer electornics. The same sentiment was also shared by Samsung CEO in the recent CES show in Vegas, that year 2015, will be the start of internet of things. Below were just few articles which I have come acrossed;

1. CTIMES News - Mr Morris Chang
2. Techradar on iwatch
3. Samsung CEO at CES, Vegas
4. Gartner on semiconductor spending

Based on the above, I took a small bite on UMS holdgings.

A good way to keep track of your expense

I can't remember what was my New year resolution last year, and as the New year had started, I thought I will try to have one. I try not to be too ambitious here, if there are too many resolutions, it might be hard to keep to it. I am sure many people have already made their new year resolution, but I am not sure how many of these resolutions are about improving one's financial health.

I am going to start with a basic one, which is to keep track of my household expense. I still remembered I used to have an army mate who will record daily without fail, how much he spent into the good old blue colour small notebook. Over the years, I tried many times starting to keep track of my expense. It didnt last more than 6 months as it was too cumbersome to maintain. I guess it will definitely help if it is convenient and easily accessible to record these expenses, it will have to be a smartphone application then.

I started using this money app, 'money journal',  at the start of the year, which is supported on IOS. It is a simple money budgeting app and really easy to use. It has the typical functions of allowing one to key in income, budget for the month and expense. The feature that I like most is the ability to export the file to google docs. This is really a useful feature as it allows one to do more creative calculation or graphs on excel.

I do understand the benefits of keeping track of one's expense, then you know where the money was being spent on and one can then take appropriate action to reduce any unnecessary spending. What about you, recommendations are welcome. :)