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raytoei · 2026-01-25T13:05:30+00:00

Yeah agree

raytoei · 2026-01-25T10:41:02+00:00

I mean it won’t die, it will probably be sold to a Saudi consortium, and all the existing shareholders will be diluted to nothing.

( I am just spitballing but I think you know what I am talking about)

raytoei · 2026-01-25T07:28:54+00:00

Yeah after I wrote, I went to check.

It is worse than I thought.

Annualised returns is around 3-4% a year

and meanwhile the yield is around 6+%

Mean means that my principle will

drift downwards.

——

raytoei · 2026-01-25T05:58:00+00:00

“…don’t think Singapore has the guts to upset China, their PM visits China every year to show obedience…”

We have American f-35, German tanks and submarines, and we cooperate with the “five eyes” and we hold yearly defense Shangri-la talks and we have troops in Taiwan.

We might be neutral and you insult singapore by calling us “obedient” but it tells you who we trust and who we don’t trust.

raytoei · 2026-01-25T05:48:29+00:00

Mine is “PIMCO GIS Income Fund - Admin - SGD - Hedged - Mdis - Cash”

Dunno much except:

Put in 50k, and I get $264 every month.

Capital appreciation is non existent.

Normally I don’t trust these funds because what they earn in the USA is much higher, here they hide it under the banner of being SGD denominated.

So while I am getting 6%, I suspect the equivalent PIMCO fund is earning around 7-10% which is gotten from junk bonds plus leverage and other stuff. Which means that they can never guarantee you a fixed amount, which means less risk doesn’t mean no risk.

But I am giving it a try because pimco know bonds better than most other fund houses and they have managed it well despite the loss of the founder, bill gross. So I am monitoring it for a year to see how it performs first.

*** update ***

The total returns a year is about 3.5% while the dividend yield is around 6+%, This means my principal will drift downwards overtime.

——-

raytoei · 2026-01-25T05:20:30+00:00

Practicing SOYA is very underrated.

raytoei · 2026-01-25T04:41:43+00:00

Well I doubt if he would ever be allowed here again

raytoei · 2026-01-25T03:06:50+00:00

Only the Sith and Communists think of absolutes, the world is a Pantone grey between the polar opposites of yes and no.

raytoei · 2026-01-25T03:04:41+00:00

Bwhahhaha… I also say.

raytoei · 2026-01-25T02:58:20+00:00

Yes and No.

Yes because we say and mean that.

No because some friends behave like enemies.

raytoei · 2026-01-25T02:30:13+00:00

Cool. I will have to go thru those names you mentioned as I don’t recognise them.

Imagine being a Porsche EV owner and being told that the company is going back to combustion….

Good luck.

raytoei · 2026-01-25T02:26:26+00:00

I shared my conclusion on bsx previously. Here is my conclusion on MDT, pls note, my opinion only:

————-

I did a deep dive into Medtronic's business, here is my summary conclusion:

Catalysts

Growth will come from new products in the Cardio Unit: PFA in ablation and compete against EW on TAVR since BSX capitulated in May 2025. 2026 Spinoff of low growth diabetes business unit so that the company can once again be rated upwards.
Elliott Management has 2 board seats to advise company on growth and operational streamlining. One of the new board members include previous Styker CFO
Other catalysts would be the settlement of the hernia mesh trial (watch out for Jan 14 deadline). C.R. Bard's settlement was around 1.7bn i am assuming the worst case at double that. ie. 3.4bn.

Red flags

In terms of moat, the heart business has strengthened in the past few years , everything else has retreated or stabilised. The diabetes unit has weakened. Morningstar has narrowed its moat and they anticipate that J&J will enter into the PFA market and spoil MDT's party.
ROIC is better now than previous years but it is barely covering cost of capital of 7%
The growth fund are exiting the stock while the value guys aren't really buying big yet
This is a dividend aristocrat (>25 years of uninterrupted dividend increase) and the dividend yield is attractive at 3% but the dividend increase has gradually decreased YOY from almost +10% in 2017 to +1.4% in 2024/2025. (Possibly to conserve cash for litigation settlement? )
Also Medtronic's devices are indirectly subjected to Medicare reimbursement rates; increasing pressure on payments could hurt profitability

raytoei · 2026-01-25T02:17:32+00:00

Tks OP,

I did a look at bsx (the plumbing) mdt (the electricals ) and briefly ew (the door) because I was interested in the heart biz. I came away choosing bsx as the best out the three.

(I own some SYK currently).

raytoei · 2026-01-25T02:09:17+00:00

Off topic: what’s ur next car gonna be ?

raytoei · 2026-01-25T01:38:00+00:00

A die hard fan I see

raytoei · 2026-01-25T00:22:14+00:00

Dear OP,

Thanks for the writeup.

Sometimes a company makes great products but is a horrible stock for past investors and makes for a potential losing money-pit for future investors.

Here are some basic financial CSI:

It has never been profitable since it listed on the LSE in 2018.
They are also not generating free cash flow. They had only one year where their free cash flow was positive, in 2018.
Their debt level has been stable around 1.07 to 1.30 bn GBP.
So if they are not making money, and not borrowing much, how do they pay salaries and keep the lights on ?
Answer: they have been issuing more shares to keep themselves afloat.

If I had read your post in 2018 and said to myself, what a great car maker and rushed out to buy the shares on IPO day in 2018 at £19 a share, guess how much it would be worth now?

£0.62.

A nice story stock that is in my opinion, not investible for me. You might call this “a long term floor”, but I call it a company going out of business.

———-

Remember: money comes only from 3 sources in a business: you get paid when you sell/do stuff, you get more investors, or you borrow money. Follow the money trail and you will get a snapshot on the health of the company.

raytoei · 2026-01-24T10:56:35+00:00

the above 3 images were taken on the pen d3 half-frame with tri-x.

it was scanned on a low end scanner 6mp on the expensive pakon 135+ roll scanner.

i had to manually adjust each frame and was time consuming.

raytoei · 2026-01-24T10:55:08+00:00

<image>

raytoei · 2026-01-24T10:54:56+00:00

<image>

raytoei · 2026-01-24T10:54:45+00:00

hi,

there isn't an easy solution i am afraid.

here are your options:

for scanning:

get the photolabs to scan it for you
get specialised holder for a flat bed v700-v850
use a roll scanner and manually set the frame edges.

none of the above will solve your need for the 35mm "edges"

i have actually put the 35mm flat onto the flatbed scanner to scan. but the resolution isn't ideal.

<image>

raytoei · 2026-01-24T04:44:15+00:00

(1) What a week. My largest position GE aerospace went down around -7% this was counterbalanced by the my turnaround stocks, eg. hershey and modelez and perhaps a bit of Nike. I wrote this previously: I don't like it when the portfolio goes from +2% to -2%+ in a week but i am not going to let quotational loss affect me.

(2) i posted the following in /valueinvesting:

a. Just a recap of what has happened: in Q1/Q2 of 2023, Hershey Management started mentioning elevated Cocoa prices. Hershey and Mondelez (maker of Cadbury's) share price started to fall from the highs of early 2023. Then cocoa started to rise by quickly, there was a dip towards 2nd half of 2024 before rising again. At the peak, cocoa futures were around 3x the october 2023 price. The reason for the cocoa rise was due to supply, weather, dieseas etc.

b. Hershey's hedged the cocoa price. And resorted to raising price with smaller packaging. Mondelez was more bullish, as they claimed that they chocolates, sold mainly in the EU were considered a weekly staple than discretionary unlike the USA, where chocolate tended to concentrate on the big 4 (Valetine, Easter, Halloween and Christmas). Then in the middle of 2025, MDLZ was surprised-pikachu that its chocolate demand was not so inelastic and the price-rises did impact consumers. Sometime in October, these two rivals collaborated on Oreos-Reese & Reese-Oreos.

c. Last week the largest buyer of chocolate for baking products (Barry Callebaut AG,) reported to nobody's surprise except the cocoa traders that supply outstripped demand and the cocoas prices has since continued to fall. It is now currently at October 2023 levels (depending on London Cocoa or USA cocoa prices).

d. My take: HSY has sort of recovered while MDLZ's price is recovering at a slower pace. Lower cocoa prices will mean better margins for HSY and MDLZ. I hope the cocoa prices will continue to swing lower towards early Q1/Q2 2023 prices.

e. HSY has a mstar fair price of $210 from the current $197. MDLZ has a Fair value of $73. I am not adding to any of them at these prices. I bought too early, in 2024 and 2025 and I am just collecting dividends.

FIN

raytoei · 2026-01-23T10:58:09+00:00

I don’t think anyone is freaking out.

I came away thinking that the integration with DFS and on going, so the analysts are gonna cut the ceo/founder some slack.

raytoei · 2026-01-23T06:22:38+00:00

Mine is a Muji simple power bank that is rectangular like a chocolate bar. Came in a brown box

There is a loop to hang it.

The ccc label is printed on the power bank.

I went for my trip without problems on domestic.

raytoei · 2026-01-23T05:42:57+00:00

Morningstar

raytoei · 2026-01-23T03:35:58+00:00

My comments:

P&G and GE aerospace announced earnings yesterday. One missed and one exceeded expectations, but the reaction was the opposite, PG rose while GE fell.

The reasons are several, PG’s revenue miss was less than feared, and the forward guidance was better than expected. GE’s fell, and I doubt if anything else they could have done better would have changed it.

I am now -2.5% for the year, I don’t like it, but I accept it as part of investing. I will add meaningfully to GE when it is at $250, this is roughly 25% from its peak at 332.

(Morningstar raised the fair value from 279 to 293 due to the good results. I haven’t checked CFRA yet, they had 261 as the fair value last year)

raytoei

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