What is real investing?

The everyday investor is exposed to numerous media coverage of investment ideas and stock picks.  But where does one really find these picks?  If you think the research reports are a good idea, think again.  A lot of times these documents just update you on what the companies are doing but rarely can one invest on them.  Financial institutions are required to churn out updates for their clients to act on.

Turn on the television, lots of pundits such as the ones below will give you their stock and investment picks and views.

Most likely,  the stock's boat has already sailed.

I'm not going to lie to you.  The answer is short, but the process is long has a lot of dead ends.  In fact I've just went through a long document and probably didn't find out much.  But such is the life of investing, turning up many stones but finding nothing underneath.

I just read this document:

Financial Masterplan blueprint by Bank Negara Malaysia.  It's long and quite dull.  But if you are an investor you will read these documents as they tell you basically what the nation is going to invest in and where the money will be flowing to.  Then as the investor you will have to piece the whole investment story together.  That's what investment is about, not just simply read a report, like the story, and buy it.  

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Perfect world cup stock

The world cup is finally here, and I have the perfect stock choice.  Truth be told, I've missed the boat on this one, but I'll be sure to get in on the stock next time around.  A few industries do well during the world cup, but many falter as the world lacks productivity during the tounament.

The one who has the most to gain from the world cup directly would be Astro, the broadcaster of the world cup.  Simply, they do the broadcasting for most of the football games.  Even TM Hypp TV uses their sports channels.  TM will do well of course, but Astro looks to hit a homer with a lower cost base and a boost in revenues due to the World Cup.

Other industries I thought might do well such as liquor didn't impress as much as I thought.  I figure that sales of the World Cup aren't significant enough to move the stock price.

I'll know what I'll be buying 6 months from the next world cup, assuming Astro still has the World cup broadcast rights!

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Plantation reits

I was actually a fan of the old Boustead REIT.  It's sad that they made the stock private to facilitate the new Boustead Plantation IPO.  Although I wouldn't necessarily recommend the IPO as I have yet to do solid research, Plantation REITs sound like solid investments.

Palm oil plantations' stock prices dependent on the price of palm oil, a commodity notorious for price volatility depending on agricultural prices caused by external factors.

Palm oil companies have been through the hard and good times.  They know how important it is to keep capital on the balance sheet and thus out of investor's pockets.  But sometimes, capital on the balance sheet leads to pressure to be fool hardy and double down on their investment, such as buy more land for palm oil plantations, than to concentrate on shareholder returns and efficiency.

The structure of REITs for plantations actually makes a Plantation CEO's task much easier, to return as much money to the shareholder as possible.  And if the price is good, to sell the REIT to a high bidder.

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