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Why Singapore is Sizzling
I have always had a love/hate relationship with Singapore. During the seventies, the autocratic Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, regularly locked up journalist friends of mine and banned magazines like The Economist that published my stories. The country is also notorious for public canings of offenders who had the audacity to discard chewing gum on public streets.
On the other hand, my hedge fund was once one of the largest commission generators on the Singapore Monetary Exchange (SIMEX), and there is no better place to spend a weekend with ten grand burning a hole in your pocket. I spent more than a few nights closing down the bar at the Raffles Hotel, home of the Singapore Sling.
Today, Singapore has won the sweepstakes to become the world’s fastest growing economy, bringing in a white hot first half 18.1% GDP growth rate. Analysts believe that the full year number could come in as high as 15%. Global equity investors have taken notice, pushing the stock index up 5%, making it one of the best performers (EWS).
The Singapore dollar has also been appreciating against its competitors. Even a slow ratcheting up of interest rates by the Monetary Authority of Singapore has done little to cool things off. The results were powered by a booming financial sector, which saw assets under management soar by 40% to $871 billion last year, thanks to an explosion of newly minted Chinese millionaires and billionaires.
Foreign banks are jumping on the gravy train, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley scrambling to add local staff. Tourism has received a huge shot in the arm, thanks to the recent legalization of gambling. Drug giants like Pfizer, Sanofi Aventis, Roche, and Glaxo-Smith Kline have gravitated there to ramp up large scale manufacturing for export to the rest of Asia.
The country’s leaders have wisely parlayed decades of trade surpluses into Temasek Holdings, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, and long a major player in the foreign exchange markets (click here for their link at http://www.temasekholdings.com.sg/).
You heard international stock guru, Vivian Lewis of Global Investing, list this island nation as one of her favorite picks on Hedge Fund Radio (click here for the link at http://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/june-15-20100-vivian-lewis.html ). You also listened to Adrian Day of Adrian Day Asset Management extol the virtues of Singapore because of its believable accounting and super strong balance sheets (click here for the link at http://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/july-6-2010-adrian-day.html ).
I’m not one to let an old grudge steer me away from a great investment opportunity, so better pick up a position in the best managed country in the world on any serious dips, even if the train has already left the station.
To see the data, charts, and graphs that support this research piece, as well as more iconoclastic and out-of-consensus analysis, please visit me at www.madhedgefundtrader.com . There, you will find the conventional wisdom mercilessly flailed and tortured daily, and my last two years of research reports available for free. You can also listen to me on Hedge Fund Radio by clicking on “This Week on Hedge Fund Radio” in the upper right corner of my home page.
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William Gibson characterized Singapore as "Disneyland with the Death Penalty"
i can see MrTheMadHedgeFundFucker now, rattling off well practiced lines of drivel on submerging markets far & wide in an excited sort of way to innocent well-heeled punters in raffles-like bars sandwiched between pairs of short time half naked oriental stunners purpose of which to keep punters distracted/mesmerized, firstly. Marcissimo Faber does same in Bangkoke. Where there's a nice looking sandwich there you'll find him. It's a head, heart, dick, pussy in various orders of catastrophe thing). Have you fucked a stunner today?
Sub 3% mortgage rates tied to Sibor for 3 year terms. You can build/buy a lot of square concrete boxes at sub 3%. If those rates blow out look out below. Suspect some of that Chinese ramp in loan volume made its way to the island nation.
I looked through the EWS prospectus recently and tossed the whole idea of putting any money there. Like FLOTUS Nancy taught us, Just Say No.
From all the annoyed responses. Here are two things you can bet on.
One: It's a tiny jutting outlet in the south Pacific that requires food, oil and people to show up. What happens when two things fail? I bet it won't be people. Even though it's muslim, who honestly thinks it will be helped before Dubai.
Second: It's on the shit list of around ten countries in the area historically and not just China. Mainly because it's seen as a bad Muslim influence.
As a side the writer is a sham douche nozzel that would sell press to flog one more sub of his garbage news letter of "hot penny picks" after spamming the yahoo finance groups (and thanking himself in subsequent posts under spam capcha filters with his hired curry crew.)
I hope he's paying well to write this drivel. Your site doesn't need a pump and dump hand job artist here. If anything you should counter this ass nugget by inviting his antithesis Tim Sykes to counter.
umm, Singapore is predominantly Chinese, not Muslim. Maybe thinking of Malaysia or Indonesia?
The logic of chinese people live there still baffles me. Chinese people are like the Irish, we're everywhere, doesn't mean we run the place. Just means people PAY us to work for them. Until the pay run out, those in charge stay alive. When the pay does run out, the owners luck runs out.
Keep that in mind.
The Chinese run Singapore.
It is Malaysia. It's part of Malaysia. Always has been. It's some piss ant town on the coast of Malaysia. Can you not read a map?
Nice internet muscles. There is a border between the two. Or was I just dreaming when I had to present my passport crossing between the two?
Singapore? I guess its better than China, but nah, Ill sit that one out too.
If anything, Indonesia would be a better bet, but not by much.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOa3m4hsl3M&playnext=1&videos=wT71_ziGPrk
Singapore: clean and mean.
Third world shit hole pretending to be more than a mud hut village full of superstitious cowards under a shield of Muslim ideas and dogma.
That's Singapore. Not sure where you are talking about. There are Mud hut villages in the middle of Brazil that are more sophisticated and friendly to each other while arguing over poaching rights and coke deals.
Third world shit hole pretending to be more than a mud hut village full of superstitious cowards under a shield of Muslim ideas and dogma.
You are mistaken, it isn't an Islamic country or founded on Islamic ideas. Singapore is predominantly Chinese. Shithole ?
Singapore is the fourth wealthiest country in the world in terms of GDP (PPP) per capita, and the twentieth wealthiest in terms of GDP (nominal) per capita. Despite Singapore's small size, it has the world's ninth largest foreign reserves.[18][19] The Economist Intelligence Unit in its "Quality-Of-Life Index" ranks Singapore as having the best quality of life in Asia and eleventh overall in the world.[20] Today, the port of Singapore continues to be among the top five busiest ports in the world.[21] The Singapore Armed Forces are the most technologically advanced and well-equipped in the region. (WIKIPEDIA)
Thanks Rick64, nice name btw put alot of thought into it did you? Plus you left out the newly revisited citations needed in the wiki article. Ass.
What is the largest religon of Singapore? According to my wiki download last year it was muslim. Today though, it's Buddism witha huge Chinese population even though it's a Malaysian mut hut shit hole.
Somehow I doubt a two month edit job in the wiki is going to change my mind visiting said mut hut shit hole two years ago. It's an asian-burka-stan, it's still on everyone's shit list. Nobody really cares to save it so why is anyone pumping it? China still doesn't look sideways at it and the only people interested in keeping the sump pump of Asia is anyone owning anything in Singapore.
Don't sell a shit sandwich and expect anyone to take a bite please.
Thanks Rick64, nice name btw put alot of thought into it did you? Plus you left out the newly revisited citations needed in the wiki article. Ass.
Thanks for your comments on my name because that is very relevant to the this argument. I mean if I can't come up with a name that would dazzle and wow you then my statements must not be worth anything. Good reasoning.
Revisited citations. Damn it. Another relevant point. There goes my pulitzer.
You visited Singapore and now you are an expert. I lived there for about 6 yrs. so my opinion isn't based on a visit. On everyones shitlist ? It is economically stable, politically stable, and a safe country. If it was on a shitlist then I don't think there would be massive foriegn investment. It doesn't need pumping up, what gives you this impression? Look how it has weathered the recessions as well as the current one. I was there during the Asian currency crisis and while Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, ect.. currencies were severely impacted the SGD suffered very little.
What is the largest religon of Singapore? According to my wiki download last year it was muslim. Today though, it's Buddism witha huge Chinese population even though it's a Malaysian mut hut shit hole.
So the predominantly Chinese(Mostly Buddist) country with a predominantly Chinese government is an Islamic based country. Ok that makes sense. You should talk to the Malays there, they would laugh at this.
If ignorance is the shit sandwich you are talking about then you should have a sandwich named after you.
At least the head hunters don't pretend they don't hunt heads.
Just another bubble...lots of froth out there.
"I’m not one to let an old grudge steer me away from a great investment opportunity"
Dear madhedgefundtrader, are u talking about yourself or about Andy Xie, ex-Morgan Stanley economist who wrote about Singapore deriving the bulk of its money from Indonesians laundering their ill-gotten gains in Singapore? For the rest of us, just know that John Mack got a call from Temasek and Andy never found a job anywhere else on Wall Street. Pity, Andy is as sharp and straight as you find when it comes to China/Asia.
Here is Xie's email:
Andy Xie
I participated in the panels on Commodity (sic) and China-India and in some obligatory dinner parties. On Friday night the Singapore prime minister invited the speakers at the meeting that the Singapore government organised. Trichet, Larry Summers, Paul Volker (sic) Chuck Price, the finance ministers of ASEAN countries were there. No government official from China was there …guess I was there to make it look like China was represented.
The dinner was turned into an Oprah with PM Lee Hsein Long (sic) at the center. The topic was on the future of globalization. People fawned him like a prince. Of course, he is. There are two reigning princes in the world that the Davos crowd kiss up to, Jordan and Singapore. The Davos crowd are Republican on economic issues and democratic on social issues. Somehow they manage to put aside their moral misgivings and kiss up to Lee Hsein Long and Abdullah.
I tried to find out why Singapore was chosen to host the conference. Nobody knew. Some thought it was a strange choice because Singapore was so far from any action or the hot topic of China and India. Mumbai or Shanghai would have been a lot more appropriate. ASEAN has been a failure. Its GDP in nominal dollar terms has not changed for 10 years. Singapore’s per capita income has not changed either at $25,000. China’s GDP in dollar terms has tripled during the same period.
I thought the questioners were competing with each other to praise Singapore as the success story of globalisation. Actually, Singapore’s success came mainly from being the money laundering center for corrupt Indonesian businessmen and government officials. Indonesia has no money. So Singapore isn’t doing well. To sustain its economy, Singapore is building casinos to attract corrupt money from China.
These western people didn’t know what they were talking about. Aside from the nauseating pleasantries some useful information came out of it. Trichet sounded very bullish on euro-zone economy (sic). He noted that euro-zone was catching up with the US in growth rate (sic) and talked about further gain in 2007. His tone was much more bullish than our house view. As Japan is surprising on the downside, I don't see how the rise of euro-yen could be stopped.
Larry Summers and Paul Volker (sic) were very worried about the US economy. As you probably know, Alan Greenspan is talking the same way. At the CLSA conference last week, he talked like one of his critics. There is fear of a US collapse. Many Americans think that an RMB reval (sic) would save the US. This is just a dream, in my view.
Most were worried about the future of globalisation due to income inequality. As average workers in the west are not seeing wage increase (sic), they may vote against globalisation. I thought that they were understating the benefit from cheap consumer goods. However, as inflation comes back, it does diminish the benefits for western consumers.
No-one was worried about the growth outlook for China and India. The Indian Planning Minister was very bullish, talking about 9% forever.
My sense is that policymakers are relexed (sic) about the short-term economic outlook but anticipate a US collapse at some point. Americans think that RMB reval could save the US. So they would keep pressuring China."
Andy Xie
Morgan Stanley
The Lee family does not like it when people talk about the origins of their wealth being money laundering. It messess up the fantasy story they have created and sold to the world. But its true. Money laundering is the basis of the "Singapore miracle." Lee family are a crime syndicate and singapore is a crime den. Fake democracy, fake country. Now, having said that, its currency is pretty damn stable.
Much admire the results Singapore has achieved,hard work rewarded. For living there,much prefer life in Malaysia myself.
Everyone remember the late 1990's or 97 to 2000? It was the Asian currency crisis, singapore went into a recession and know it's coming out. What is happening is the same as what was happening back then. There was hot money in thatt part of the world and alot of it. And when the currency or it could be any crisis started foreign money was leaving. But now it's coming back and it's starting the game all over again. Remember, Dubai as of a 24 months ago was the "Singapore" of the time until they imploded. There will always be another place where the regulations are lax and billionaires congregate. And where the money is people follow in order to make there fortunes.
Was looking at Suntec, and REIT in Singapore, with 8.5% yield, but it's not listed on exchanges in the United States.
Any trick to trading the Singapore exchange?
Yes, but you have to write the check out to cash, my mother's maiden name, and send it to me.
I'll fill you in on all the details you need to know.
Actually i just need a void check and I'll fax you a form to fill out to help you understand how the money will be spent. I promise my returns..shit..slipped out...your returns will be ENORMOUS!! *by receiving pictures of me drinking your money away.
Anyone else want to "help" this person with his "investment".
lol
Ths Singapore GDP figures are always extremely volatile. Nothing new here. It can be double digits one quarter and down double digits the next. That's because it is a very small place.
" public canings of offenders who had the audacity to discard chewing gum on public streets."?
Actually, there was a fine when I lived there for importing chewing gum it was something like $500, more than the $100S fine for urinating in a lift, really. I have no idea where you got the idea that there were public canings for chewing gum.
BTW the authorities in Singapore are very serious about drug smuggling, they have actually executed people, so if you must have dope do it somewhere else.
i was there many years ago when you needed a haircut to get in, and no tattos were allowed. they still had a few opium dens and a real arab quarter. the raffles needed paint.
sterile would be the only word i could use to describe any place where a bald policeman without tattos issues fines for spitting out gum.
short it.
When I lived there nobody was caned for discarding chewing gum on the street, thats a crock of shit. It is my understanding that they banned it because of people discarding it on and around the MRT and buses. It isn't illegal to chew, but you can't buy it or sell it in Singapore. Many people go to Malaysia and bring it back with them. They do have a mandatory death sentence for drug smugglers(drugs in possession over a certain amount) and the appeal process is very quick.
Lee was the equivelant of a dictator, but he cared about his country more than pilfering and looting it like the others. Singapore is what it is today because of him.
Raffles Hotel bar? Not really the place to be in Singapore.
Lee was the equivelant of a dictator, but he cared about his country Singapore is what it is today because of him.
Lee still is a dictator
You are correct; it is his country
And singapore is what it is because of him.
Singapore's economy shrank by 19.7% in the first quarter of 2009 compared with the previous three months, its biggest quarterly contraction on record.
This is true. The economy contracted, but the impact on the people wasn't as severe as in the US.
It is a very, very well run nation. In the near future, she'll have a correction in property. Long term, Singapore will be a success.
Agree. I was there during the Asian currency crisis and they weathered that crisis very well compared to the other Asian countries.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1289194/Marina-Bay-Sands-resort-opens-Singapore.html
"...the best managed country in the world…"
Soon after Lee Kuan Yew stepped down as PM, he was invited to give a major speech to the Chinese gov't. LKY gave his audience of senior officials what amounted to a lecture on how China should be run. Following the speech his Chinese host graciously put him in his place, stating that when Shanghai needs a new mayor, they would keep him in mind.
One of Spores wealth funds has a brutal record,
Shanghai does need a new mayor.
DOW daily chart posted at blog, showing two megaphone wedges . . .
http://stockmarket618.wordpress.com
I like Singapore Airlines, but I wouldn't want to live there. My company has seen increased orders from Singapore customers after years of little or nothing. Somebody is pumping liquidity into that little city.
Ok MHFT, you got my attention, which currency to bet against the SGD?
What the FUCK. THIS FUCKING COCKSUCKER IS STILL HERE!?!?!?!?!
WTF TYLER! I'd trust my 2 year old daughter with money before I'd trust this guy with money. Boot his website pimping ass.
He must be doing something right if he has $10,000 to blow on Asian call girls.
Yeah, where's the receipts? Why would a hedge fund guru be blogging his ideas? He's a wannabe, a nobody!
"Why would a hedge fund guru be blogging his ideas?" How about "Marketing in the new age"??? I guess he may attract some xtra $$$ to add to his AUM...
But still I agree with your first question: in order to establish credibility as a money manager he must show those receipts :-)
MHFT inspires so much love.
Watch the "integrated resorts". They're the (South) East Asian version of the island palms in Dubai. Singapore has bet the farm on casinos, condo's and high end office space.
When the financial crisis started in the United States the papers will full of stories of MBA grads going to Dubai for work. The banks were hiring there too. That Goldman is hiring is a contrarian indicator. In fact, if I were slightly more ambitious, I'm sure I could build a model to discover the (strong, I'm sure) correlation between what the iBanks and recent MBA's think is the Next Big Thing and a looming catastrophe.
Sort-of already been done. It's more general than that, though. There's a negative correlation between the number of new MBA iBank hires and the performance of the markets. i.e. iBanks employ a higher-than-average number of MBAs in a particular year - markets tend to underperform in the subsequent year. Unfortunately, can't remember off the top of my head who published the study...
Ah, good thing I'm not more ambitious then!