“I Told You So”

How many times have we heard from some investor or trader telling you personally or through some social media application the famous words “I told you so”. 

Picture generated by Meta AI

It could be irritating and disturbing at times when we were told of such words; irritating that it may be construed as a conceited statement, and disturbing to the point that one may doubt his/her investing/trading thesis and viewpoints.

All these could be boiled down to one thing: the assumed ability to predict the markets. A lot of us are trying to predict the markets, but no matter how hard we work on it, it is very hard to even tell what would happen eventually.

We could get things right when the planets align to our favour, which to most events it will occur. The difficult part is to know when it manifests. Throughout the years I have had heard of hyperbolic predictions and somewhat they did come true, to which I give them credit as some had carried out research and used data to back them up. The issue that I (and I guess many of us) have is the ego that accompanies the right prediction.

To me, it is alright to announce the right calls made, as it is a form of sharing learning points with others, and on the individual level, to gain a sense of achievement and recognition. The negative part is the haughtiness in claiming the credit, and to the point of dissing and belittling others.

Though it may hurt especially when the comments are directed at one personally, there is no need to be bothered by such situations. The foreseen event did happen at that point of time. The next question is how long the event would last. If it is security price, it may be at that anticipated price level until likely the next market cycle, or if it is a trend/product (e.g., artificial intelligence/iPhone), it would become an evolution after the initial revolution; both scenarios would end up tapering to a “nothing much to shout about” phase.

Investing (and trading) is a long game, and those who could play the game longer, wins. As what my ex-colleague and investor once quipped, “Only time will tell”, on knowing who would prevail in their desired prediction outcomes.

Related posts

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The Only Answerable Person On One’s Investment Is To Oneself

All About Price: The Concept Of Freehold

This is part of my intermittent series on price, one of the most important and commonly encountered considerations in investing and trading. For this post, I will be touching on a relatively local concept called “freehold”.

Picture generated by Meta AI

 

“Freehold” on Securities

While it is a term associated with properties, the word “freehold” in securities investing meant that the returns, be it capital and/or income via dividends/distributions, had covered the initial amount of the investment. Any further gains from the securities in question were treated as “free”.

The origins of the use of the word in this context were unknown to me, but the best I could surmise was probably a mix of the view of an investment paying it off itself, and the sense of freedom of doing whatever one wants with the extra returns. It is akin to having a stock price achieving a “two-bagger” status, i.e., being doubled in its value.

What to Do After

Though the freehold status has been achieved (and enjoying the moment of “full of win” feeling), the next immediate thought would be what one is going to do about it. A common approach would be to sell off the excess above the initial investment or deploy later dividends/distributions received into other asset classes or securities, but this action would be very much dependent on circumstances. 

For example, if there is further room for the share price to grow, or if even after reaching a two-bagger status, the book value of the share is not reached, then it is wiser to keep them in place. Another is that if there are no alternative or incentivising assets or securities to invest in, and one’s portfolio is not due or relevant for rebalancing, then it is prudent to just leave it as it is. 

If one has multiple portfolios (i.e., the Portfolio Multiverse concept), the choice of divesting the excess and channel them to other portfolios is plausible (e.g., trading, CPF, SRS, etc.). This could work for dividends/distributions received, too, since they are cash in nature and liquid enough to move around.

The Bedokian’s Experience

One of the rare moments which compels me to practice the “selling of excess” was our partial divestment of Apple and using the proceeds to initiate a trading (and subsequently investing) position into Nvidia back in March 2024 (which I shared here). Ironically, in the same link, I had also shared that we had bought back Apple (it had hit our entry price) around a month and a half later after selling some away. 

On hindsight, it turned out to be a good move as our first Nvidia tranche had returned more than 100% (freehold!) while it would just gain around 50% had the capital remained in Apple.

 

Check out the other posts in my All About Price series.

All About Price: Introduction & Valuation of Value 

All About Price: Buyer/Seller Remorse and Premorse

All About Price: The 52-Week High/Low

All About Price: Reversion To The Mean

All About Price: Bottom Fishing

All About Price: The (Price) Margin Of Safety

All About Price: The Price Ratios

Disclosure

The Bedokian is vested in Apple and Nvidia.

Disclaimer

More Screener Apps Introduced!

       

Over the weekend I had released the Growth Indicator stock screener app, and now I am releasing two more apps for use, for FREE.

 

 

Click on the pictures above to use the respective apps!

 

Introducing the Equities Indicator app for use on value/dividend counters, and the S-REITs Indicator app for use on Singapore-listed REITs. Similar to the Growth Indicator app, you could either use it as a webpage or bookmark it on your desktop/mobile like an app.

 

All three apps worked the same; just input the counter name and see if it fulfils the selection guidelines highlighted in The Bedokian Portfolio eBook¹.

 

Below are sample screenshots of a query output on the Equities Indicator and S-REITs Indicator apps:

 

Screenshot of Equities Indicator app (click for a larger view)

  

Screenshot of S-REITs Indicator app (click for a larger view)

 

For these two apps, the display results will take a little bit longer as the app algorithms are fetching real time data and performing some calculations in the background, hence some patience is appreciated.

 

As usual, these apps are for educational and reference purposes only, and does not constitute financial advice. A thorough fundamental analysis is required before making the decision.

 

Disclosure

The Bedokian is vested in Haw Par and Frasers Logistics and Commercial Trust.

 

Disclaimer

1 – The Bedokian Portfolio (2^nd Ed), p103-107

 

Introducing The Growth Indicator App

Click on the picture above to access the app!

In The Bedokian Portfolio eBook, I had written about guidelines on selecting value, income and growth equities, real estate investment trusts, etc., using financial data like price-to-earnings ratio, dividend yield, free cash flow, etc.

 

Though there are screeners available out there to assist in the research, it could be tedious sometimes when some information is not readily available.

 

With the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), specifically in the field of large language models and scripting powers, I had developed an app that could generate a graphical screener akin to traffic light signals in simplifying and visualizing the selection guidelines for growth investing¹.

 

And I would like to introduce the Growth Indicator app, right in our newly created Apps page link above.

 

Below is a screenshot of a query output for Microsoft on the Growth Indicator (click for a larger view):

 

And yes, the app is FREE.

 

However, do understand that this app is for educational and reference purposes only, and does not constitute financial advice. A thorough fundamental analysis is needed, especially on other quantitative (e.g., further analysis on income statement, market share percentages, etc.) and qualitative (sectoral trends and inferences on macroeconomic effects, etc.) data.

Disclosure

The Bedokian is vested in Microsoft.

 

Disclaimer 

1 – The Bedokian Portfolio (2^nd ed), p151-153

 

Private Credit Woes

Besides the geopolitical news that is happening now at the Persian Gulf, another event is rocking the financial markets at the moment, too, and that is private credit.

 

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What is Private Credit?

Traditionally, companies that required loans would either go through the mainstream banks, or via public markets in the form of bonds issuance. Private credit, on the other hand, are loans issued by institutional investors or private funds. A major attractive point of private credit to companies is that the debt structure can be negotiated with the lender, like interest rates and repayment terms. On the other end of the deal, investors who lend to companies through the private credit vehicle are expected to have higher returns to that of conventional bonds.

Though investing in private credit typically open to accredited and institutional investors, there are other slightly indirect ways for retail investors to participate using publicly listed securities. One is by investing in listed business development companies (BDCs), and the other is using exchange traded funds (ETFs). The majority of BDCs and private credit ETFs are traded on the United States market.

So, What’s the Problem Now?

A few reasons came together for the woes facing the private credit sector, with the main ones on the vulnerability of the software sector (Saas-pocalypse), and the aftereffects of having too long a period of low interest rates, which make highly leveraged companies unable to sustain payments in a rising interest rate period.

The above concerns, and in part due to private credit funds’ opaque nature of valuation, had led to a high number of private credit investors to start pulling out their monies for flight to safety. Being a closed end investment vehicle, managers of private credit funds had to curb the redemption requests as loans to companies are illiquid and could not be recalled quickly. All these resulted in a downward spiral which some analysts say may result in a crash seen during 2007/2008.

Impact

The impact on listed BDCs and private credit ETFs could be seen; BDC Blue Owl Capital (ticker: OBDC) had seen a drop of -12.6% year-to-date (YTD) of its share price, and the Simplify VettaFi Private Credit Strategy ETF (ticker: PCR) was down -13.6%, to name a couple.

Mainstreet Capital (ticker: MAIN), a BDC in our portfolio, also suffered with around -13%, and was dragged along with the rest. However, MAIN’s software exposure to software companies was relatively low (2%-6%¹) as compared to OBDC’s (at least 20%²), thus in the event of a major default happening in the software sector, MAIN would probably be the least affected from a fundamental point of view.

The Bedokian’s Take

One could see the interconnectedness of the various sectors and industries at play in the markets and economy, and recognising this and knowing how it works is important. This is part of associative investing³, where one could spot opportunities and possible threats by linking up their relationships around.

As for our investment in MAIN, we are considering adding positions to it; based on our 10-30 Rule price analysis⁴ and using the start and end closing prices of 2025, the 0.9 times of the average price is at about USD 53.75, which is above the closing price of USD 52.63 on 2 Apr 2026, signalling an entry.

Disclosure

The Bedokian is vested in MAIN.

Related post

Inside The Bedokian’s Portfolio: Mainstreet Capital

Disclaimer

All data is obtained and calculated from Yahoo Finance unless otherwise stated.

1 – Mainstreet Capital Corporation. Investor Presentation. Fourth Quarter – 2025. https://d1io3yog0oux5.cloudfront.net/_b292ae5bca9821007cb321f572787174/mainstcapital/db/396/11076/pdf/Q4+2025+MAIN+Investor+Presentation+-+v.2.25.26+-+320PM.pdf (accessed 3 Apr 2026)

2 – Pitcher, Jack & Wirz, Matt. Private Credit’s Exposure to Ailing Software Industry Is Bigger Than Advertised. The Wall Street Journal. 29 Mar 2026. https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/private-credits-exposure-to-ailing-software-industry-is-bigger-than-advertised-d80da378 (accessed 3 Apr 2026)

3 – The Bedokian Portfolio (2^nd Ed), p137-138

4 – ibid, p131-133

“Can Buy?”

As at the close of the market on Friday, our Bedokian Portfolio was down by about 4.75% since the beginning of the year, majority in part due to pessimistic market sentiments brought about by the ongoing Saas-pocalypse, rising oil prices and the fear of the collapse of private credit, to name a few obvious ones. It could have been worse, but we gave credit to the diversified nature of our investment portfolio and income returns from dividends for having a not-so-painful drawdown.

Picture generated by Meta AI

 

During this down market, some participants are engaged in panic selling, but seasoned investors instead see this as opportunities, after which the next question would be “can buy?”.

For us, we use what we call indicators and signs, which I had mentioned a bit in the eBook¹. In short, indicators are statistics, figures and hard data, i.e., quantitative, whereas signs are personal observations, user experiences and the subjective “gut feel”, i.e., qualitative. They are like instrument gauges to provide better clarity and judgement to make the final decision, i.e., push the “Buy” button.

Indicators

One of the indicators that we use is the “10-30 Rule” which I also shared in the eBook², but we shall look at the “10” part instead; for instance, to see if the general market is ripe to enter, for this period, we would take an index (e.g., the S&P500) closing numbers at the beginning and end of 2025, sum them up, divide by two, and multiply it by 0.9 (10% less, hence the “10”), which calculated to be around 5,721 points. With this number still below the last closing of 6,368.85 points, it tells us that the current situation is not low enough.

The “10-30 Rule” could also be tested on individual counters; take Microsoft’s price points at the start and end of 2025 and going through the formula, the number is USD 405.99, and with the last closing price of USD 356.77 below the former, it presented a strong buy consideration.

Another indicator utilised is the relative price-to-earnings (P/E) between the index and a selected counter. The common case study for this is Alphabet’s P/E compared with the S&P500’s, which was 17.36 and 21.76 respectively back in 2025³, and it was one of the key factors for us to load up additional Alphabet shares in that year.

Signs

While indicators can be calculated, signs require a more qualitative understanding of the goings-on of the market and companies in question, and they can be subjective. The important thing is to see if there is an upside potential for the market or business going forward.

The current example which I could show would be the Saas-pocalypse where artificial intelligence (AI) is going to eat every software company’s lunches. There are already two camps split over the future direction, with some believing AI is going to take over them, while others felt it is an overreaction and saw the possibility of AI and software companies working together: in economic studies terms, substitute or complementary.

Putting signs into the context of buy prices, the conviction is to have the notion of “the rest are wrong and I am right”, and the current price is mismatched to the potential value of the counter.

Fundamental Analysis

Indicators and signs are some of the tools used in conducting fundamental analysis, and there are many others that could be contemplated in making a buy call, like ratios, profitability, market share, etc. A complete look is necessary before deciding on the key factors and ultimately, the go-ahead to press the button.

Disclosure

The Bedokian is vested in the S&P 500 via the SPY ETF, Microsoft and Alphabet.

Disclaimer

1 – The Bedokian Portfolio (2^nd Ed), p153-154

2 – ibid, p131-133

3 – Foelber, Daniel. Meet the Only “Magnificent Seven” Stock That Is Cheaper Than the S&P 500 (According to This Key Metric). 27 Jun 2025. https://www.fool.com/investing/2025/06/27/magnificent-seven-stock-sp-500-buy-alphabet/ (accessed 28 Mar 2026)

The Straits Times Index: Revisited

Tariffs, heightening tensions between the United States and China, and recently the conflict in the Persian Gulf. This string of events happening since the beginning of 2025 had rocked markets worldwide from a geopolitical perspective, sending volatility to major markets. Yet, quietly, for Singapore’s Straits Times Index (STI), it rose around 30.18% from 1 Jan 2025 till now (20 Mar 2026), higher than the United States’ S&P500 (9.49%), China’s CSI300 (20.98%) and Europe’s STOXX50 (12.93%), with Japan’s N225 (33.78%) performing slightly better.

(Picture credit: aKasakow from pixabay.com)

There were a few factors, direct and indirect, contributing to STI’s rise, along with some other equity counters; the news of global capital inflows into our tiny little island, the launch of the Equity Market Development Programme (EQDP) by the government, and reputation of being a safe and neutral haven, were some of them. A few days ago, the STI went back above the 5,000-point mark since Feb 2026, before settling below it just a couple of days later.

Historically since the last peak experienced prior to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in Oct 2007 and the subsequent recovery two years later, the STI had been hovering between the ranges of 2,500 and 3,500 points for a period of a decade and a half before the climb happening near the end of 2024. It was during this period that some investors had labelled the STI as going sideways with no direction, with worse descriptions being given to it. The tune now is different, with analysts predicting a 6,500-point level within the next nine months or so¹, a very bull case for our local stock market as a rising tide (of the STI) would be raising all boats (other counters).

Every dog would have its day, as the saying goes. Markets go in cycles, bust and boom, with probably different regions/countries having different peak-trough-peak wavelengths (e.g., Japan’s versus the United States’ markets). Hence, the past couple of years, and possibly at least the next half decade or so, we are seeing some growth in our local equities market, which in the past were regarded only as a “dividend farm”.

However, looking from the flip side of things, Singapore is still a country that relies on trade (imports and exports) and external resources to fully function, traits that are vulnerable and could cause challenges and a reversal of recent fortunes experienced by our locally listed companies. We are still a small market after all, unable to influence much in the whole global equity game: the total market capitalization of all the 30 companies in the STI stood closely to Palantir, just one company, at around SGD 461 billion or so². Bringing up to a larger scale, STI just represented around slightly less than 10% of Alphabet’s³.

The Bedokian’s Take

Going back to the basics of investing as per The Bedokian Portfolio’s methodology, geographical diversification via regions/countries is the next degree lower to that of diversification of asset classes, as explained that different places would have different market and economic conditions at a given time. Granted that most local investors had benefited from the recent STI bull run due to the heavy home bias, it does pay well (pun intended) by having a part of the portfolio in foreign equities, as based on past data, returns did surpass the STI’s depending on the timeframe viewed.

Disclosure

The Bedokian is vested in the STI via the Amova Singapore STI ETF, the S&P 500 via the SPY ETF and Alphabet.

Related post

Is The Straits Times Index That Bad In Performance?

Disclaimer

All data is obtained and calculated from Yahoo Finance unless otherwise stated.

1 – Soh, Terese. STI could hit as high as 6,500 on extended rally, says JPMorgan, giving its top picks. 29 Jan 2026. https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/capital-markets-currencies/sti-could-hit-high-6500-extended-rally-says-jpmorgan-giving-its-top-picks (accessed 21 Mar 2026)

2 – FTSE Russell Factsheet. Straits Times Index (STI). 27 Feb 2026. https://research.ftserussell.com/Analytics/FactSheets/Home/DownloadSingleIssue?issueName=STI&isManual=False (accessed 21 Mar 2026)

3 – Companiesmarketcap.com (accessed 21 Mar 2026)