A tale of two DAQS, as the MESDAQ and SESDAQ indices are poised for a blowoff run...

As you can see from the two charts above, the UOB-SESDAQ Index is beginning its next leg up, and a long-term chart indicates that a measured-move target has an objective of at least 180-185. My trading strategy now is to pick up counters that have not already run up by 30%.

Some of my picks(again, I have only a limited vision of all SESDAQ counters):

ABR

As you can see, ABR is WAAAY off it's high of over S$1.50 in the Indonesian connection heydays and only less than triple its all time low of 7.5c.

Results at this F&B operator are not endearing, but I hope I'm not too simplistic in suggesting that F&B will never go out of fashion like garments or mobile phones, and ABR has it's finger in ice-cream, pizzas and other types of confectionary businesses.

Excellent balance sheets make this a good buy should it not leap as anticipated towards at least 40c. I have just entered the fray on Friday at 23c.

Medtecs

Back to the ex-Indonesian play theme, I have latched on to a counter which caught my eye as I was browsing through the SGX stocklists over a masala thosai and a cup of kopitiam coffee.


Its name brings back fond memories of my biggest single gain on a stock ever, and that was in my undergraduate days!

The year was 1996. The month : August.

A certain small-capitalisation stock tumbled vertically down from over S$10 for no apparent reason.

As it breached S$5 on the fourth day of falls, I started to take notice, buying 1000 shares at $4.92, and then, more nervously as it continued to take out the thin bids below my entry, at $4.72.

My heart dropped with the share price as Transmarco breached $4.50, and then took out $4.30. When I checked it out of the corner of my eye at about 40 minutes to the close, it was trading at around $3.90 and my paper losses already exceeded all the income I had from tutoring for the past two years.

I turned away.

The next day, I was disheartened enough to ignore the market as I attended my lectures. When I checked the market's top gainers after 5pm, there was Transmarco leading the list, with a last-traded price of S$5.90!

The next morning, I eagerly phoned in to my remisier to sell and got an order filled at S$6.25 not long after the market open. I had a gut feeling something was brewing so I resisted the temptation to release my only other 1000 shares with all my might.

The share price close much higher that my done price that morning. The next day, an internal debate raged within me as to whether to dispose of the remainder as the share price continued to vault higher.

When I called in at mid-morning, my remisier quoted 7.00/7.05 and when I decided finally to queue at 7.50, he expressed incredulity at my choice. I should have used that as a contrarian signal to queue even higher,as the order was filled within the next half- an- hour!

To cut the story short, I made slightly over S$4000 on those two teeny lots of shares.

I would encounter the same company's stock again, as it piqued my interest in October '98, when I was happily using my friend's money to pick stocks battered by the Asian Financial Crisis.

Getting an order filled through my friend's broker at 80.5c, I had the fortune to have picked it on the very day it bottomed.

I sold the stock two weeks later at S$2.06, but it vaulted much higher, to a peak of not much under S$4.

After the sale, I channelled the funds to shares of Jardine Strategic, which I got for US$1.02.

My friend still holds that stock today.

Putera Sampoerna is at it again. He is the Indonesian cigarette tycoon who took over Transmarco at a heady highest price of S$11.90 in those halcyon days of 1996. Now he is offering S$0.75 for shares in the company he does not own.

And I'm talking about a company that has only 41.5 million shares, one of the smallest listed on the SGX, and 71% of these shares are Sampoerna's, no doubt many acquired at the decade ago prices of close to S$10.


It's currently trading below it's NTA, and has recently disposed of its troublesome Lanka Bell business and refocused on its traditional, more dependable trading business.


The technicals look promising, with the share up a mere 86% from it's lowest price ever of
I am ready to resume my love affair with this stock, as it's trading at around a rights issue-adjusted price of S$1.26, which is relatively low, considering where it has been! It's also apparently below its current NTA.

My immediate target for the Mesdaq Composite Index(MCI) is slightly under 140 points. I have GHLSys, NovaMSC, Wimems, The Media Shoppe, Connect County, SilverRidge, InsBio,Flonic and GreenYB in my MESDAQ portfolio, all acquired within the past 52 weeks.