It has always been my dream for StocksCafe to automatically sync all your transactions from every brokerage you use—so that manual data entry becomes a thing of the past. To make this a reality, brokerages need to offer modern, open APIs. While many still remain closed off and stuck in legacy systems, a few forward-thinking brokerages are leading the way. One such example is LongBridge, which...
This morning, we upgraded our cache servers, which resulted in all caches being cleared. As a result, some users may see their portfolio data appearing empty or missing. Please rest assured that all your data is completely safe. How to recover Portfolio Data? To restore your portfolio, simply click on “Recompute Portfolio” at the bottom left of the portfolio page. (For mobile users...
When StocksCafe first started, the intention was for it to be free. But as we know, nothing is free in life, someone (or some business) has to pay for it one way or another. In our quest to let users use StocksCafe for free (while still paying the bills), StocksCafe has collaborations with several brokerages where we believe is a win-win-win situation. StocksCafe get referral fees from brokerage...
TLDR: Sign up with LongBridge via StocksCafe and fund your account with at least SGD 2,000 and keep it there for 30 days to get 2 years free StocksCafe Global Friend subscription on top of goodies from LongBridge. Simply send me your registered phone number via the forum after funding the account. This promotion is limited to Singapore residents only. Today, we would like to share a new...
Discover how StocksCafe simplifies dividend investing by automating tracking and forecasting future dividends.
In 2025, we are dedicating significantly more effort to creating valuable content and sharing it on YouTube and Instagram. Whether you’re a long-time user or new to StocksCafe, this is a great opportunity to deepen your knowledge and make the most of the platform. Our upcoming content will cover a range of topics, including:📌 StocksCafe Feature Guides & Tutorials – Master StocksCafe...
For most investors, receiving dividends is one of the most rewarding aspects of investing. It’s no surprise that dividend-related features are among the most loved tools on StocksCafe! From tracking received dividends to projecting future ones, StocksCafe offers a suite of tools designed to help you stay on top of your dividend income. This weekend, we’ve taken it a step further by...
Recently, a user requested the ability to import option transactions into StocksCafe. One of the main challenges of tracking options is the additional fields required compared to stock transactions, making the process more cumbersome and prone to errors. At StocksCafe, we’re always striving to enhance your investment journey. Over the weekend, we dedicated time to building this feature...
This December is a great time to be signing up with Moomoo via StocksCafe as there are tons of giveaways! An exclusive additional SGD 80 + 2 years free StocksCafe subscription that is limited for sign ups via StocksCafe referrals only! This promotion is limited to Singapore residents and ends on 31 December 2024, 2159 SGT. Below is a summary, but do also read the detailed Terms and Conditions...
The Mooncake Festival, or Mid-Autumn Festival, is a time deeply rooted in friends and family gatherings and reunions. Traditionally, families come together to celebrate the full moon, which symbolizes unity and harmony. Personally, I really enjoy such gatherings to eat mooncakes and carry lanterns. Never too old to carry lanterns! Of course, eating delicious mooncakes is another very important...
Free Stock Valuation Tool As you might have known, we have been working on QuantsCafe, our new platform designed to support data-driven investment decisions and today, we are happy to share that it now has a Stock Valuation tool (e.g. GOOGL), which allows you to evaluate a stock from multiple perspectives. For growth stocks, you can assess whether a company is growing fast enough for its...
Happy National Day! Today, we would like to announce a special promotion together with Moomoo on Singapore National Day. Essentially, we are giving out more goodies 🙂 Note1: This promotion is limited to SG residents only. Note2: Even if you have already signed up with Moomoo, you can always refer your friends or family members to sign up using StocksCafe’s referral link and if they are...
Update on 1 August 2024: You can now also include Hospitalization plans. Due to personal experience, I am a strong believer in having adequate insurance coverage for wealth protection. Over the years, I have accumulated several policies for myself, my parents, and my wife. Managing these policies with spreadsheets became cumbersome, prompting me to add the ability to track insurance in StocksCafe...
This promotion is valid till 31 Dec 2025 We are very happy to share that we will be continuing our collaboration with Tiger Brokers and currently, we are giving out great exclusive rewards on top of Tiger’s already generous promotions. Note: You need to be a resident of Singapore to qualify for the following promotion. Step 1: Sign up and fund your account with at least SGD 1,500 via...
If you are not using StocksCafe to track your option trades, you can skip this post. Recently, we updated the two pages on Desktop under Closed Position (i.e. Summary and Details) with more information for options traders to better understand their performance. In this post, we would like to explain the some of the key terms and definitions in these pages: P&L: It only considers the...
We are excited to announce our new collaboration with The Loan Connection, a trusted mortgage broker specializing in providing personalized mortgage solutions in Singapore. The Loan Connection works with a network of banks and financial institutions to offer competitive rates and tailored mortgage options for both residential and commercial properties. I have personally engaged the services of...
If you are not trading options or not tracking them using StocksCafe, you can skip this article. If you are, from today onwards, you will see an additional section in your daily email updates (see image below). It will basically give you information about the performance of your Options trades. This section will be shown as long as you have any Options transactions. Of course, we can make this...
As DBS (SGX:D05) is the most popular stock in StocksCafe, I thought that it deserves a dedicated post to share how to handle the Bonus Shares issuance that happened today (i.e. ExDate is 22 April 2024). What happened? DBS is giving out 1 new share for every 10 shares that you are holding (see announcement). What do I need to do? We have already created an event to help you handle this. All you...
One of the first features that I built when I started StocksCafe is the “Market Update” email. It is also one of StocksCafe’s most popular features. Personally, I look forward to receiving this email everyday to see how my portfolio performed for the day. Old Market Update Email (Demo portfolio) After 9 years, we are happy to share that this feature is now getting a new look...
Is your cash balance appearing as red/negative on StocksCafe? It should not be. I had a chat with a user recently and she thought that it is normal for cash balance to be negative when P&L is negative. Recall that cash balance is meant to easily tell you how much cash is available in that portfolio. Therefore, it should not be negative unless you want to use it to indicate that you are...
As we step into the Lunar New Year, we find the stock market mirroring the Dragon’s famed volatility—powerful and unpredictable. Here’s a concise guide with suggested tools to keeping your portfolio (and heart) on course, harnessing the Dragon’s wisdom and courage as we sail through the choppy financial waters. Table of ContentsUnderstanding Volatile MarketsThe Power of...
Two week ago, we experimented with opening up slots for users to arrange a 15-min Zoom meeting with me to ask me anything (or give feedback) about StocksCafe or QuantsCafe. It was a relatively successful experiment as we learnt a lot from listening to everyone’s feedback and questions as always. Thank you to all who took time out of their busy lives to chat!Here are 2 quick learnings to...
There are two big things coming to Webull in Jan 2024. First of all, you can now start trading Singapore market with Webull! They are offering 3 years of commission-free trading for Singapore market. Secondly, if sign up with WeBull and fund the account with at least SGD 1 before 31 January 2024 15:59 SGT, you will get 1 year of Global Friend of StocksCafe subscription (worth SGD 45) and you...
Last weekend, I met up with a StocksCafe user for lunch and I realized that sometimes people simply live with some minor questions/issues that they are facing with StocksCafe despite having different ways to reach and ask or feedback it to me. So, I would like to experiment with this idea of allowing users to create a 15-min Zoom meeting with me to ask me anything (or give feedback) about...
One of the recent most popular request is to have the ability to personalize your portfolio view on mobile. As always, ask and we will try our best to make it happen 🙂
Ensure that you are on version 3.4.15 or later. To update, simply refresh the browser.
Happy investing!
Webull is back again with a sweet deal for StocksCafe users in November! To qualify All you need to do is open a Webull account using StocksCafe’s referral link and fund the account with at least SGD 1 (but we recommend at least SGD 4,150. Continue reading to see why) before 30 November 15:59 SGT. Anyone who has opened a Webull account using StocksCafe’s referral link previously but...
About 50% of users access StocksCafe via their mobile devices, and we have been making various improvements to the mobile user’s experience. Today, I am happy to share that we have made another two improvements (ensure that you are on at least v3.4.4 to see these changes on mobile; the version number can be found on the menu, just below the logout button). Dashboard on Mobile Recently, we...
The last time StocksCafe increased prices was almost 3 years ago in 2021. With the recent high inflation, StocksCafe might have to increase prices in 2024. However, we have many collaborations with brokerages for you to receive free StocksCafe subscriptions. There is no limit to the number of years of free subscriptions you can receive through these collaborations. Even if you have already signed...
We first introduced Dashboard in 2019. We also introduced the concept of Net Worth and Financial Freedom Index (FFI) then. However, with the deprecation of Other Assets (which is included in the calculation of both Net Worth and FFI), Dashboard was overdue for an upgrade. We are happy to introduce the newly upgraded Dashboard. We have added several key metrics and graphs such as Day Change...
Many users in StocksCafe are heavy dividend investors, including myself. It is a great feeling to receive dividends regularly. In Singapore, REITs are extremely popular for dividends because of our love for owning properties and how they have generally proven to be paying stable and regular dividends. I always like to tell my friends that I own a brick in the shopping mall where we are hanging...
Webull is running a great promotion for their money market funds product called MoneyBull. And in typical Webull fashion, there is a very good deal going on right now. Perhaps most importantly, this deal can be enjoyed by both new and existing customers. New to Webull? If you are new to Webull, you can also qualify for the welcome rewards on top of MoneyBull promotion by signing up via...
If you are still contemplating where to transfer your TDA assets to, here is another good option. And YES! Moomoo is ACATS supported for easy transfer. For new users of Moomoo (defined by never deposited any funds before), if you transfer at least SGD 5,000 worth of assets (between 27 Sep and 31 Dec 2023) from TDA and keep it there for more than 30 days, you will qualify for the following...
Two days ago, TD Ameritrade Singapore abruptly announced that they will only be focusing on Accredited Investors (AI) and non-AI users have less than a month to leave or they will charge a hefty monthly account maintenance fee of USD 50 from 27 Oct 2023. This is extremely disappointing as I personally really liked their interface for trading options, and of course their cheap fees. But in...
TradingView is arguably the gold standard in charting nowadays. Furthermore, in the recent round of Zoom discussions, it was also one of the features that was requested by a few users. So, as always, ask and you shall be given 🙂 Today, we are happy to share that we have successfully integrated with TradingView (in Desktop for now). If you go to any stock page (e.g. DBS, Apple), you will see that...
Update: This issue is now fixed. Many have reached out about HK data still stuck on 31 August. We are very sorry for the issue. This is caused by an issue on our data provider’s end and we are working with them to get this resolved as soon as possible. Meanwhile, we are also exploring alternative data vendors if our current provider continues to give us issues. However, to be fair, they...
Many of us in Singapore have an active CPF account and also maybe a property. Hence we would often get a question on how one can track their CPF and property “properly” in StocksCafe. First of all, StocksCafe is designed to track stocks hence it is not “perfect” for tracking non-stocks assets but we believe it can do a pretty decent job since it is after all simply about...
[Deprecated due to extremely low usage] I’m sure you will agree that one of the biggest pain points of StocksCafe users is that we have to painstakingly manually enter the transactions made. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all transactions could be synced to StocksCafe automatically? Today, I am super excited to share our collaboration with uSMART! This is a special collaboration because...
It has been quiet on the blog for the past month or so, but a lot (of mostly boring development) has been happening back-end. Here are some updates that are more likely to interest you: Auto-Sweep This is used in conjunction with the Cash Balance feature. Quick Recap: Cash Balance allows you to easily track the amount of cash you currently have by tracking cash movements due to buy/sell...
For those that took time to join the meeting, thank you! Thank you also for answering the post-event survey. There are a few learnings for the next event:1) A few users could not join due to technical issues. In future, I will send out a link in advance on where to get technical help and have people on standby during the event.2) Slow down the pace, as I was speaking and demonstrating too fast3)...
For those who have registered for StockCafe’s first-ever Zoom meetup, see you tomorrow, 1 July 2023, at 10am on Zoom. Please go to this link on Saturday morning to join the Zoom meeting. If you have not registered, there are still 20 spots left at the time of writing. As there are still spots left, we have decided to open it to everyone (no longer limited to Friends of StocksCafe only)...
Webull is ending its anniversary celebration with a Tesla Model 3 lucky draw on 30 June, 17:30 SGT. Sign up with Webull by 30 June 15:59 SGT to be eligible for the draw. In addition, if you fund your account with SGD 100, you are guaranteed to get 4-20 free shares worth between USD 3 to 1,000! Keep the SGD 100 there for 30 days to get another 2-20 free shares. On top of all these, you will also...
TLDR; Sign up now to join StocksCafe’s first-ever Zoom event on 1 July 2023, 10am to 11am! As Zoom Pro only allows for 100 participants, we will be limiting it to only Friends of StocksCafe for now. A big THANK YOU to all who took time to participate in the recent user interviews. It was really great to be able to chat with everyone and learn about your investment journey and how StocksCafe...
[Expired – Read this post for latest promotion] Final reminder 🙂 Webull’s current attractive deal is set to end on May 31, 2023, at 15:59 SGT (4:00 PM). After this cutoff time, the deal will be modified and become less appealing. If you are considering signing up with Webull using StocksCafe referral, please note that you have less than 24 hours remaining to take advantage of this...
TLDR; We have two updates to share: 1) Starting from June, Webull is expected to decrease their signup rewards and implement stricter qualification criteria. Sign up in May to qualify for their current generous rewards with just SGD 1 funding. 2) We are currently collaborating with our users to shape the future of StocksCafe. This is an opportunity for you to make your voice heard and influence...
Approximately a year ago, we introduced the Events feature, which greatly simplified the management of events, particularly stock splits. When you accept a pending event, the system automatically generates transactions for you to effortlessly handle the stock split. This means that buy and sell transactions are automatically created with the accurate number of shares and corresponding pricing...
If you have yet to sign up with Webull, now is a great time to do so via StocksCafe’s referral link as Webull and StocksCafe are giving out great sign-up gifts! And if you’re already a Webull user, be sure to share this amazing offer with your friends and family. Webull is celebrating its 1st birthday and is giving out the best sign-up gifts to date!1) Guaranteed to win shares worth...
In the previous article, we promised to create a tool for users to easily migrate from Other Assets to Custom Assets. Here are the steps to easily migrate. Go to this page on desktop Choose the asset to migrate. Choose the portfolio to migrate the transactions to Choose the symbol for the asset [Optional] Add a website for the asset, if any Tip: We highly encourage users to create a separate...
TLDR; If you are using or plan to use the Other Assets feature in StocksCafe, you should continue reading. Else, you can skip. About 5 years ago, we introduced the ability to track assets other than those listed in exchanges supported by StocksCafe. The motivation is simple. Everyone of us have assets beyond those supported by StocksCafe. However, we made a mistake. In the backend, we created...
Being laid off is definitely not a good feeling. It somewhat reminds me of getting dumped. Lots of emotions and full of confusion 🙁 The silver lining is that I have received such overwhelming support after the previous post. It is easily the most commented and liked post! So many have volunteered to join the discussion, quite a few reached out to suggest ways to collaborate, and a few literally...
TLDR; Do not worry, your stock position(s) in StocksCafe did not get impacted. This is more of a personal update. As many of you might know, I have always held a full time job while I built StocksCafe on the side. However, that has changed due to a dreadful email titled “Your Position Has Been Impacted” that I received just a few days ago. Unfortunately, I am one of the many that got...
TLDR; In March 2023, signing up with Moomoo or Webull through StocksCafe referral link can still earn you fantastic rewards, including up to five years of free Global Friend subscription. Occasionally, some users express concern over the cost of StocksCafe. To address this, we have partnered with brokerages. By signing up with them through StocksCafe referral, you can test their platforms and...
TLDR; If you have some free time and wants to learn more about Evan Koh & StocksCafe, you can watch this interview (recommended to watch at 2x speed) I recently attended a networking event organized by Moomoo and had the good fortune of meeting Kelvin. Kelvin is a well-known YouTuber who runs the channel “Kelvin Learns Investing” where he covers various topics related to finance...
TLDR; If you do not own Keppel (SGX:BN4), you can stop reading. If you have them on 23 Feb 2023, you can either accept this event or handle it yourself with the recommendations below. For every 1000 shares of Keppel that you have on 23 Feb 2023, you are expected to get 191,000 shares of Sembcorp (SGX:S51). See SGX announcement. Several users have asked how to handle this in this forum thread...
TLDR; We have increase the promotion for signing up with Webull via StocksCafe referral to 3 years of Global Friend Subscription for Feb 2023! As mentioned previously, if we are able to cross the 60 referrals mark in Feb 2023 (which we did!), we will award everyone who signed up with Webull via StocksCafe referral link during Feb 2023 an extra year of subscription (i.e. total of 3 years). Thank...
About 5 months ago, StocksCafe started supporting Singapore T-Bills as it was becoming popular due to the ever increasing interest rates. Soon, hundreds of users have enter their T-Bills transactions into StocksCafe. Today, I would like to share two features that was added yesterday that will make your T-Billing life easier. Auto-create sell transactions Previously, you would need to create both...
TLDR; StocksCafe and Webull have a special collaboration from now till 28 Feb 2023 where you just need to fund your Webull account with at least SGD 1 and you are guaranteed to get at least USD 50 worth of stocks (up to USD 500). In addition, you will also get two years Global Friend of StocksCafe subscription worth SGD 90. Sign up now via StocksCafe referral link to participate in this great...
TLDR; Sign up with WeBull and fund the account with at least SGD 1 and keep your account for 30 days to get USD 50 to 500 worth of shares and 2 years of Global Friend of StocksCafe subscription (worth SGD 90) before 28 Feb 2023.
Learn more about this deal here. Thanks!
We are happy to share that we have built a new feature where you will be notified whenever you receive dividends (i.e. on PayDate)! All you need to do is simply go to the settings page (for desktop, for mobile), look under the “Dividend Notification Email” section, and check the “On PayDate” box. Then, on days when you are expected to receive dividends, you will receive an...
This page was last updated on 26 January 2025. It has been quite a few months since we started our collaboration with Moomoo, and we thought it was time to negotiate with Moomoo to update it with a better deal. For Singapore Residents To qualify, you need to be a resident of Singapore (i.e. have a Singapore address). So from now till 31 December 2025, when you sign up with Moomoo and fund it with...
TLDR; For users who are still using username & password or Facebook Login to sign in to StocksCafe, please read on. If you are already using Google Login or very happy using username & password, you can skip 🙂 As we switch to the new mobile web interface, a few users are sharing that they are facing issues with saving the login and password (so that they do not need to remember them)...
TLDR; If you are still using the StocksCafe mobile app downloaded from AppStore or PlayStore, we highly recommend you switch over to using web browser to access on your mobile phone instead. Why are we deprecating the mobile app? When everyone else is releasing mobile app, why is StocksCafe removing ours? There are a few reasons why. Too costly – Developing and maintaining three different...
TLDR; If you signup (and fund) with Webull via StocksCafe in Dec 2022, you will get 4 years of StocksCafe subscription and up to USD 150 Cash Vouchers. From 1 Jan 2023, the rewards will drop to 1 year of StocksCafe subscription (and also require SGD2,000 min funding). We are happy to be announcing a piece of good news on Christmas day! In a previous post, we mentioned that we made a special deal...
TLDR; In 2023, StocksCafe will increase the price for the 3-year plan. The best way to lock in the 3-years plan for free is simply sign up for Webull via StocksCafe and you can even get USD 150 cash voucher from Webull! (Promotion till 31 December 2022.) When we first started StocksCafe, we wanted to provide it for free but as investors, we all know that nothing is free. Someone has to be paying...
TLDR; From now on, when you access on mobile web browsers, you will be redirected to where you will experience the new mobile web interface. By the end of this year, we will replace the Mobile App with the Mobile Web interface. Previously, StocksCafe had three different interfaces:1) Desktop interface for users using browsers on desktop Portfolio page on desktop browser 2) Mobile App interface...
When we first announced our collaboration with Webull in September, we received very good response with almost a hundred users signing up in just 10 days. Hence this December, Webull worked with StocksCafe to create a special promotion that is apt for the season of giving. Special Promotion Details Sign up (and fund) with WeBull via StocksCafe before 31 Dec 2022 and you can get up to USD 150...
Sea Limited was established in Singapore in 2009 and is a leading tech company, with businesses in Digital Entertainment, E-commerce, and Digital Financial Services. As the stock market continues to crash as we enter 2022, the sector which is most adversely affected is the technology sector. If an investor is not knowledgeable enough, it could be both daunting and risky to venture into this space...
StocksCafe has started working with Moomoo recently. Moomoo is constantly coming up with new products and promotions. I am often confused as well. Hence I would like to do a short summary of the great deals for our users. Invest SGD 100 into moomoo cash plus and get up to SGD 20 Cash back (i.e. SGD 2 daily). In addition, you are guaranteed to get 5% p.a. for 3 months.E.g. if you deposit SGD 10K...
Recently, a user reached out and asked a question: Portfolio Cost Yield is calculated as:Portfolio Cost Yield = Sum(Cost Yield x Portfolio %)I’d like to understand why “Portfolio %” was used instead of “Portfolio Cost %”. This is a great question, and honestly when I first implemented it, I did not think too deeply into it. Hence I decided to discuss more with that user. Let’s use an...
The U.S. CPI surged to a 40-year high, leading to market expectations that the Fed may continue to push with quicker and larger rate hikes. Despite being in a falling market, we need not focus purely on losses. We can turn our perspective around and see what is presented to us as an opportunity. Below are some investment ideas for the current market environment. Quality Stocks A rising market...
The pharmaceutical industry has been ranked among the most profitable and dynamic industries for a long time now. The hold of the prominent players in this industry has only strengthened in the market during the past few years. With the onset of COVID-19 and increased attention of the market towards pharmaceutical companies, the stock prices of medical stocks began to climb. Investors started to...
Since the announcement about StocksCafe’s collaboration with Webull, many users welcomed the collaboration and have signed up with Webull via StocksCafe’s referral link. Hence, we have decided to upsize the rewards just for the month of September! If you sign up with Webull via StocksCafe’s referral and fund your account with at least SGD 1 (but we recommend SGD2,000 so that you...
The spread of the deadly coronavirus impacted not only the day-to-day lives of everyone, but was just as harmful to the economy. Economic activity came to a grinding halt and the monetary policy strategy employed by many countries to reinvigorate the economy was to cut interest rates. Now that the situation has stabilized, interest rates are on the rise to counter the growing inflation. It might...
Note: This promotion is not valid anymore This page was last updated on 5 Feb 2024. TLDR; Sign up with WeBull and fund the account with at least SGD 1 before 29 Feburary 2024 15:59 SGT, you will get 1 year of Global Friend of StocksCafe subscription (worth SGD 49). Bonus from Webull for Feb 2024: If you fund at least SGD 2,000 and keep the money there until 31 March 2024, Webull will give you SGD...
Note: Please read this article to learn about new features added for T-Bills. Due to the recent bearish market, many investors are looking for safer opportunities. It seems like the popular investment among many StocksCafe users now are T-Bills. After receiving several requests for StocksCafe to support them, I decided to spend my weekend implementing a simple way for StocksCafe to support...
The US stock market is home to some of the most famous stocks in the world, such as McDonald’s Corp (NYSE: MCD), Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX), and Nike Inc (NYSE: NKE). Many may not know, but the US market also contains the world’s biggest companies by market capitalisation. The top four largest companies are (as of 8 September 2022): Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL), Saudi...
We are very pleased to share that StocksCafe has now partnered with yet another brokerage powerhouse, Moomoo (listed in the US as FUTU).Moomoo is a powerful investing app with all the functionality that you expect from a modern investing platform. It is also regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) with Tencent as one of their key strategic investors. The Referral Program Outdated:...
Temasek is one of two sovereign wealth funds in Singapore. Since its inception in 1974, some 48 years ago, Temasek’s total shareholder return (TSR) stood at an annualized rate of 14%, which is commendable. In comparison, the MSCI World Index has posted a yearly return of around 8% since 1987. Even though the time frame is not the same, Temasek has managed to beat the average market returns over...
The founder of StocksCafe turns 40 in July! In the spirit of celebration, StocksCafe will be having never-before-seen promotions! For new paying users: Get 40% off your first paid subscription for all monthly and 1-year subscription plans! Go to the pricing page to check out the new discounted pricing. For those who have paid for a subscription before: Get 40% referral fees instead of the usual...
Recently, several popular US companies have underwent or will be having stock splits (e.g. AMZN, GOOG, SHOP). How to handle stock splits In StocksCafe, the “correct” way to handle stock splits are to simply create two transactions on the split date. Example: Amazon recently had a stock split on 6 June 2022 of 1:20. Let’s assume you have 1 share of Amazon bought at $2,500 on 1 June...
A slice of Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake contains 1,679 calories and 51 teaspoons of sugar, and even though it sounds (and is!) unhealthy, most of us would just consume it without much thought. What if we could “project” the impact of the chocolate cake on your overall health before your consumption? For example, what your fat percentage, arteries, or waistline would look like if you ate that...
This article is written by Liyang, one of StocksCafe’s users, and also the owner of The Sloth Investor. Black swans in the stock market are sudden, awful, unpredictable and extremely rare. The Covid-19 pandemic and Russia-Ukraine War are two good recent examples. Overnight, the stock prices fell tremendously. It’s only human to react strongly to these perceived threats, and many...
We could never thank enough the many supportive users who have been with StocksCafe for years. Zi Chao is one of them. He started using StocksCafe since 2016. Let’s hear what he has to say about StocksCafe: “My first foray into finance started relatively early, when my parents were trying to trade the market using the teletext channel on TV (the pre-internet days of seeing stock price...
First of all, we are glad to announce that StocksCafe family is expanding. We now have a dedicated person who will be managing StocksCafe’s Social Media going forward. Please join me in welcoming Yvonne Law! She will be focusing on using 3 main channels: YouTubeFacebookInstagram YouTube will mostly be about video tutorials sharing what cool things you can achieve with StocksCafe. Facebook...
When I speak to people these days, I get a strong sense of uncertainty about the markets and in particular stocks. I don’t blame them. If you watch or read any financial news, you are bombarded with news that would make you question your decision to own stocks. Despite these, dividends are an ideal source of income for multiple reasons. Studies show that people with multiple sources of...
TLDR; StocksCafe is migrating to CoinGecko as our upstream cryptocurrencies data provider. How to migrate If you only hold popular cryptocurrencies (>5 followers in StocksCafe), then the migration is already done for you. You simply have to check if everything looks ok. That is, everything is in exchange CG (prefix CG:) and nothing is in exchange CC (prefix CC:). Please let me know if anything is...
Thank you once again to everyone who participated in the recent survey. There are so much that we learnt through this survey and we will slowly but surely incorporate most if not all of the learnings. Key Learnings: 1. many of StockCafe’s features are not used Essentially, most users only love/use the Portfolio Management feature and everything else can be a distraction. So, we will...
A big THANK YOU to all 236 users who responded to the survey. As a token of appreciation, we have increased the number of lucky draw winners to 12 so that you have about 5% chance of winning 🙂 The following are the 12 lucky draw winners. Congratulations!1. mi**se2. mi**yj3. ar**al4. re**gs5. lk**es6. wx**857. fl**je8. ta**ng9. fo**6710. we**ju11. ye**ee12. qi**93 All winners have already been...
Not sure about you, but I was not one of the 8 winners for yesterday’s $19.4 Million Toto 🙁 If you did not win too, here is another chance! Simply take a few minutes to do a survey for StocksCafe and you can be one of the 10 lucky winners for 3 months of Global Friends of StocksCafe! Yes, we have increased the number of winners from 3 to 10 to increase your chances. With 116 responders so...
We are currently running a survey and a mid-point check made us realized that some users did not know about some of the features that already exists in StocksCafe 🙂 If you have yet to respond to the survey, do so by 15 Feb 2022 to stand a chance to win free subscriptions to StocksCafe! 1. Did you know that you can set dividend withholding taxes in StocksCafe? Many of us invest in US exchanges and...
Happy Lunar New Year! One of the main focus of 2022 is to get more people to understand and appreciate the value that StocksCafe can bring to them. In order to do that, we would love to hear your thoughts! Therefore, it would be great if you could spare a few mins to do a survey. To thank you for your time, we will be doing a lucky draw and 3 winners will be awarded 3 months of Global Friends of...
One of the key focus for StocksCafe in 2022 is getting more people to understand and appreciate the value that StocksCafe can bring them. This is especially true for new users who just joined us. Hence, we just released a “Welcome Week” series that aims to help you better leverage StocksCafe in your investing journey. Over the course of 7 days, it will send a short private message...
StocksCafe is always doing its best to improve itself, and the latest addition to StocksCafe is indexes. You can view the list of indexes that is now supported by StocksCafe. For now, we have only added a few popular ones. If there are others that you would like to see, let us know and we will see if we can add it. What Can You Do With Indexes? You can use it as a benchmark if you like. Although...
Note: This is not working now due to TD Ameritrade blocking it for Singapore accounts 🙁 One of the few processes in StocksCafe that has yet to be fully automated is the entering of transactions into StocksCafe. While we would love to make your investment journey as smooth as possible, it is not easy to get this data from most brokerages. Thankfully, there are some exceptions such as TD Ameritrade...
It’s been a while since I shared a feature update. Again, this does not mean that I am not working hard on StocksCafe, it’s just that I did not want to disrupt you with too many emails. Talking about emails, one of the more popular features in StocksCafe is the daily (or weekly, depending on your settings) market update emails. I regularly get notified by users if that email is...
One of StocksCafe’s collaborators, Kenny Loh, will be giving a free webinar hosted by SGX. Date: 11 November 2021, ThursdayTime: 7 – 8.30 pm, SGTPrice: FreeEvent Link: sgxacademy.comAgenda Outline: – Gain insight into the characteristics of REITs as an Asset class– Explore the benefits and suitability of REITs in your retirement portfolio– Factors to consider when building your...
I am happy to share that StocksCafe now supports Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and Indian National Stock Exchange (NSE)! This brings the total number of supported exchanges in StocksCafe to 10 – SGX, HKEX, KLSE, USX, LSE, TSE, SHE, SHG, BSE, and NSE! Of course, in addition to that, we also support Cryptocurrencies and Singapore Savings Bonds. If you know anyone that is investing in any of the...
Since I started StocksCafe (SGXCafe then), I easily spent over 90% of the time on building the product. However, for a company to be sustainable and grow, building the product is only part of the equation. It is equally, if not more important, to put effort into marketing and representing the product properly. This is especially true for StocksCafe. As StocksCafe becomes more feature-loaded, it...
Many users have been requesting for StocksCafe to join the Dark side 🙂 That is, to make Dark mode an option. As always, we do our best to meet users’ requests as long as it is within our means, especially if many requested for it. Today, we are happy to share that you can now choose between the Light and Dark color schemes. As this is our first iteration for the Dark color scheme, please...
StocksCafe first started as SGXCafe in 2015 as we only supported SGX then. Over time, more exchanges were added as requested by users. However, some users started sharing that they only needed SGX and prefer not to purchase a plan that included everything. It took a while to work out and make the changes, but today – on National Day – we are happy to announce a new plan that is solely...
When I first started StocksCafe more than 5 years ago, my intention was to share it freely. However, there are costs to keep a site like StocksCafe running, of which the biggest expense is data licensing, which easily runs north of 5 digits annually. Due to this, I started charging a small fee for usage. However, I understand that nothing beats being free. So I started searching for different...
It’s been more than a month since I shared updates about StocksCafe. Looking back at the tickets completed in May, many of them revolve around the improvement of Screener. 1) New simple preset screeners If you are new to using screeners in StocksCafe, we have added a few simple preset screeners for you to start with. When you are ready to dive deeper, you can also change the conditions to...
StocksCafe participated in its first event – Seedly Personal Finance Festival 2021 last weekend! To those who attended StocksCafe’s workshop, a big, BIG THANK YOU! I was told that there are some of you who purchased tickets to the event just to show support for StocksCafe’s workshop…! Hearing that makes all the hard work on StocksCafe all worth it! Thank you so much! As...
Note: Please read this article as we have migrated to CoinGecko. For those who are not trading cryptocurrencies, you can skip this article. Disclaimer: I am not encouraging anyone to invest/trade in cryptocurrencies. This is just to share that if you are, StocksCafe now supports it as well. Many users have shared that they would want to track CryptoCurrencies in StocksCafe (see ticket). So over...
For those who are not trading options, you can skip this article. Disclaimer: I am not encouraging anyone to do options trading. Just sharing that if you are, StocksCafe now supports it as well. Over the years, there have been various requests for StocksCafe to support Options trading, and I know that some users use the “Other Assets” feature to track options. Over the last few days...
By now, you might have heard about the Seedly Personal Finance Festival 2021 that will be taking place virtually on 10 April. There is an impressive lineup of speakers, which includes heavyweights like Catherine Wood and Jamus Lim, representatives from many popular blogs/websites and *ahem* your very own Evan Koh 🙂 Even though StocksCafe has been around since 2015, this is the first time I will...
New Data Provider for US and London If you do not own US or London stocks, feel free to skip this part. One of the limitations of StocksCafe is getting quality data at a reasonable price. While StocksCafe would love to support all exchanges and display all sorts of financial information, obtaining quality data and properly licensing them with a limited budget is extremely challenging. Therefore...
New Pricing StocksCafe will be revising its pricing from 1 Jan 2021. It will be SGD 5.5 / 45 / 115 for monthly / yearly / 3 years respectively. So if you are still considering whether or not to become a Friend of StocksCafe, this is your chance to get it before the price increase! Rationale Time flies. The annual price of SGD 39 was introduced 3 years ago on 1 Jan 2018. Back then, StocksCafe...
StocksCafe x Morningstar StocksCafe recently signed a deal with Morningstar. In case you have never heard of Morningstar, here is a wiki article about them. Basically, Morningstar is an established company that provides a wide array of products and services to both retail and institutional investors. With the recently signed deal, StocksCafe will now be getting financials data directly from...
New additions Shenzhen + Shanghai I have always wanted to support Shenzhen and Shanghai exchanges but simply could not find the time to work on it as there are always a million other things in StocksCafe to work on 🙁 This weekend, I finally set aside time to make it happen! This brings the number of supported exchanges by StocksCafe to 8! They are Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Tokyo, United...
We often have different ideas and strategies that we would like to try out. However, it would be too costly in terms of both money and time to test every single strategy live. What we need is a backtesting tool that can easily let us know how our wild ideas and strategies would turn out if we actually did deploy them. Recently, StocksCafe established a collaboration with PyInvesting, a powerful...
Note: If you are investing only in stocks that are denominated in your base currency (e.g. SGD), you can skip this article. The old way of handling FX Previously, StocksCafe handled portfolio with multiple currencies very simplistically. It would directly convert any non-base currency using the latest FX rate when needed (except for dividends where the FX rate used is the one on ex-date). While...
Note: This collaboration is still ongoing. Please see this page for details. This is a friendly reminder that the special promotion to celebrate the collaboration between Tiger Brokers and StocksCafe will be ending soon on 30 September 2020, 11.59pm. For those who are seeing this for the first time, you will be able get 1 year Friend of StocksCafe (worth SGD 39) simply by opening and funding a...
Note: This collaboration is still ongoing. Please see this page for details. When I first started StocksCafe more than 5 years ago, my intention was to share it freely. However, there are costs to keep a site like StocksCafe running, of which the biggest expense is data licensing, which easily run north of 5 digits annually. Due to this, I started charging a small fee for usage. Today, I am glad...
One benefit of collaborating with Kenny is that I am becoming more knowledgeable about REITs and get updated on the recent developments. It seems like a student accommodation REIT is about to be listed in Singapore and there will be a webinar soon where Kenny and the fund manager will be sharing more about it. Kenny invited me, and I decided to share this with StocksCafe users. Date: 5 August...
A feature that has been requested by various users is the ability to tag stocks. With that, one would be able to group stocks by their own definitions and a wide variety of possibilities would open up. One specific application would be to look at what percentage of your portfolio is in various groupings (for example, you can now see what percentage of your portfolio are made up of dividend...
US Screener is back Recently, StocksCafe switched data providers for the US market. Due to the change, the ability to screen for US stocks was temporarily taken offline and several users have reached out to me about it. Today, I am happy to share that the ability to screen for US stocks is back! Please check it out and let me know if there are any issues. In addition, we were also able to secure...
Last year, I met up with Kenny from MyStocksInvesting. Despite it being the first time we met, we hit it off well. In that meeting itself, we decided to work together to build a REIT screener combining his REIT knowledge and my software skills. In this post, I would like to share what we have built in collaboration. There are basically four main components at this point: 1) [Free] REITs Overview...
Although I work on StocksCafe every single day, I realize it’s been a while since my last update. Here is a quick update on recent developments: 1) Short-Selling StocksCafe was originally created to serve my own needs, and as I personally do not short-sell, the ability to handle such transactions is not there. Not until recently, that is. Many users have requested for it, and I have...
Quick recap Cash Balance allows you to easily track the amount of cash you currently have by tracking cash movements due to buy/sell transactions and dividends payments. However, just knowing how much cash we have currently might not be enough for some, and several users have independently requested to let cash be considered as part of the current portfolio so that we can understand how our cash...
Free COVID-19 Insurance With the daily new cases worldwide still climbing, it is likely COVID-19 is far from over. While some might view this period as an opportune time to shop for discounted stocks, it might also be a good idea to check and ensure that you and your loved ones have sufficient insurance coverage against COVID-19. In case you are not aware, there are several companies offering...
Time files! Five years ago, I published the very first article of StocksCafe (it was known as SGXCafe back then). In the five years since then, we have achieved many things together. Today, I would like to take this opportunity to plan, together with you, on what we would like StocksCafe to achieve in the next five years! Please take this two-question survey to share what changes you would love...
I am happy to share that StocksCafe can now fully support Tokyo Stock Exchange! You should be able to use all the features that are available for Tokyo as well. This brings the total number of supported exchanges to six (SGX, HKEX, KLSE, USX, LSE and TSE!) One thing to note though is that I was unable to locate good English sources for news and blogs that covers the Tokyo market. So if you know...
Quick Summary 1) Activate the Cash Balance feature if you want to track your portfolio’s cash portion and/or see your portfolio’s detailed cash transactions. 2) Whenever you realize that your DIVIDEND transactions are out of sync, simply click “Sync Cash Balance Dividend” on this page. Or simply check “Auto Cash Balance Dividend Sync” in step 1 and the chance...
Over the last few weekends, I have been focusing on improving and adding features to the StocksCafe mobile app. While it is still far from perfection, I believe it should have many features that you would need on the go. Go to App Store (iOS) or Play Store (Android) today and download it if you have yet to. If you already have the app, do update it to v0.5.0 to access all the newly added features...
The most viewed page in StocksCafe is undoubtedly the Portfolio Overview page. Within that page, we have the Current Portfolio table that gives you various columns/information about the stocks that you are holding. While investors can easily control the columns displayed, they could not control the ordering of it previously. The purpose for this article is to inform you that you can now not only...
In my opinion, one unique feature of StocksCafe is the ability for users to feedback directly and influence StocksCafe. While I cannot promise that all feature requests are met, I do read through every single feature request and consider them. Below are two feature requests from users that I have recently implemented that I would like to highlight. (FYI I most certainly worked on more than two...
In this article, I would like to share a renewed tool, Risk Manager. As an investor, understanding your portfolio risks is of paramount importance. Using this tool, you can see the changes to various portfolio risk metrics (i.e. Beta, Value At Risk and Expected Shortfall) after you buy (or sell) a specific amount (defaulted to SGD 5,000 but you can change it here) of selected stocks. Why focus on...
Note: I am a strong believer of insurance but not insurance linked investments/savings (or however they name it). I would like to believe that I can invest my own money better 🙂 What are your thoughts on insurance? Do you actively find out about how to best insure yourself and your loved ones? Or do your insides shrink up at the mention of “insurance”, as you avert your gaze and try...
One relatively under-utilized feature in StocksCafe is Alerts. At this point, there are only 615 unique users using it. Recently, we have made two improvements based on suggestions by Friends of StocksCafe. Hopefully, it will make the Alerts feature more prominent and useful. 1) More accessible In the past, it is not easy to navigate to the Alerts feature. In addition, the stock must first be...
The current top request (i.e. the most likes) is for StocksCafe to support the London Stock Exchange (LSE), and I am very happy to share that StocksCafe now provides limited support for LSE! What does limited mean? It means that StocksCafe only has End of Day pricing data for LSE. We were unable to secure dividend nor fundamental data. However, with this, you can enter transactions for London...
In February this year, StocksCafe started a referral program where you can get a high quality limited edition StocksCafe T-shirt if you refer people to sign up with StocksCafe and become a Friend of StocksCafe. The program was supposed to end on 9th August 2019. I have received feedback from some users who are actively referring that they really love the T-shirt. Therefore, I have decided to...
Today is a special day for StocksCafe! After 1,604 days or (about 4 years and 5 months), we finally have our 10,000th registered user. That is about an average of 6.23 users/day. While this is not an amazing sign up rate, it is still an awesome achievement in my opinion considering that we have 1,265 users who have contributed to StocksCafe and 1,082 who are still contributing. A 10% active...
Dividends – be it past, upcoming, or projected – is one of the most popular features in StocksCafe. I understand how important it is for them to be updated and accurate, and with this new feature, we are one step closer to that. Not updated and inaccurate dividends Often, users would write to me and highlight a dividend not reflected in StocksCafe even though the company has already...
StocksCafe has integrated Facebook login to allow for quicker login (bonus: you have one less password to remember)! For existing users, please go this page and click on the continue with Facebook button to associate your existing StocksCafe account with your Facebook account. Once you have done that, you will be able to login either via Facebook or StocksCafe username/email. For new users, you...
When StocksCafe was first built, it was built with many assumptions based on my personal (albeit limited) understanding of stock trading. It included the assumption that fees are only incurred as part of a buy or sell transaction. Clearly, that is incorrect. There are many instances when non-transaction fees are incurred such as the monthly management fees incurred by robo advisors (e.g...
Slow-loading Pages If you have been using StocksCafe for the last few days, you might have experienced extremely slow loading of some of the pages on desktop. I apologize for the poor experience. It is likely due to the auto-completion feature (suggesting stocks as you type) that is available on some pages such as this and this. It is the combination of poor design of the auto-complete feature...
UPDATE Oct 2021: Find the comprehensive tutorial on Scrip dividends on StocksCafe Academy. Some companies/stocks regularly give the option to receive dividends as either cash or shares. Often, to encourage investors to choose shares, they would even offer them at a discounted price to the currently traded price. All along, StocksCafe has always assumed that users would choose cash because it is...
Last week, I spent some time improving Stock Screener. This week, I took time to focus on Portfolio Report & My Dashboard. Apart from various tweaks here and there, I would like to bring your attention to two updates: 1) Customize Baseline: Previously, the performance of portfolios were compared against SGX:ES3 as the baseline. Now, you can customize and set the baseline to be any stock...
Over the last few days, I spent time making several improvements and bug fixes to StocksCafe Screener. Two improvements to bring to attention: 1) Display Metrics: You can now display any metric you want in the results without having to use them in your screener. This can be useful for exploration when you do not yet know the correct value to set for that particular metric in your screener. 2)...
Note: StocksCafe API is now deprecated and not available anymore Short StoryWe now have an open source project aim at educating/sharing on how to use StocksCafe API. You can literally build any feature that you want! Simply go to this GitHub page to learn about all the awesome stuff you can do with StocksCafe API (such as generating and customizing the above graph easily). Full StoryThe ability...
Happy Lunar New Year! As you might know, one of the main objectives of StocksCafe this year is to grow. So as you are sharing/talking about your financial freedom journey with your friends and family during this festive season, it would be great if you could also take this opportunity to share the tool/website that hopefully helped a little in your journey 🙂 Token of Appreciation For every person...
Often, users do not agree with the stock’s sector and/or industry which are categorized by my upstream data source. Now, you can override them easily. Steps: 1) Using your desktop browser, go to the individual stock page (e.g. DBS). 2) Click on “Edit Sector/Industry”. 3) Select the new sector/industry you want. 4) Click update to save. Note that this will only affect your own...
Short Story Mobile app for StocksCafe is now available again! Here is the Android link and this is the iOS link. This is an early version and hence lacking many features. Of course, I will continue to add more features to it over time and the final goal is to make it as comprehensive as the desktop web version where possible. If you prefer to install the pseudo mobile app which has more features...
Update: Since Other Assets is now deprecated, changes are made to the following equations. With the new ability to include any asset into StocksCafe, we can now compute some interesting numbers useful to almost all investors. I have created a clean-cut dashboard page to display these numbers. Net Worth I hope it is obvious why as an investor you need to know your net worth. In case it is not, you...
Regularly, I would receive requests asking, “When will StocksCafe include XXX?”. They are typically other exchanges like London Stock Exchange or Australia Stock Exchange. Occasionally, it would be about commodities or other assets such as insurance, mutual funds, etc. Ideally, StocksCafe would be able to include at least all major exchanges, commodities, and funds in the future...
StocksCafe API Note: StocksCafe API is now deprecated and not available anymore. As StocksCafe continues to grow in term of the number of features and complexity, it is time to shift from Monolithic Architecture to Microservices Architecture in order to maintain flexibility and scalability among other advantages. In laymen terms, this simply means that instead of StocksCafe being one giant chunk...
No man is an island. StocksCafe has come a long way with the support of many, many people and users. Today, under the suggestion and support of an awesome user, urameshi85, I am very happy to announce a new StocksCafe initiative – StocksCafe Tutorials. With new features being regularly added to StocksCafe but often not properly documented, the number one complaint from new users (especially...
I am very sorry but as the title indicates, the last 3 days of data on StocksCafe Forum (forum.stocks.cafe) are lost. Please rest assured that this did not affect other StocksCafe systems and/or data at all as they are on independent servers. I am now glad that I spent the extra money to keep them separated. Why? The main reason is mostly due to my ignorance. I was trying to update the open...
Note: If you are already Friend of StocksCafe (when your subscription ends), price changes does not affect you. It will always be fixed at the rate (your personalized rate) when you first contributed and as long as you continuously contribute 🙂 Last year, when I announced the price change and switch to contribution mode in mid December, several users feedbacked that the announcement was too last...
With the increasing interest rates, Singapore Savings Bonds is becoming more and more popular. Naturally, many users have requested for StocksCafe to support them. As usual, StocksCafe answered your call 🙂 If you do not know what Singapore Savings Bonds is about, you can learn more here and here. I am happy to share that StocksCafe now supports Singapore Savings Bonds! Click here to see the...
Just wanted to share what’s going on behind the scenes at StocksCafe lately. 1) More Stable I am happy to share that since the infrastructure improvements (to two web servers) a month ago, there have been no known downtime (no complains from users and no logs suggesting that) for StocksCafe website. Once in a while, one server would go down but the second server would keep StocksCafe...
I am happy to share that I have created a forum for StocksCafe. This forum will replace the Cafe feature in StocksCafe where users would post questions and start discussions. Why replace the Cafe feature? As the number of features in StocksCafe continue to grow, I am having a hard time maintaining all of them. Therefore, I have decided to “slim down” StocksCafe and maintain as little...
On my recent trip back to Singapore, I met up with Alvin and Jon (both of them from DrWealth) for breakfast. We had a good chat and agreed that there could be good synergy between StocksCafe and DrWealth and decided to try working together more closely going forward. For those who do not know, DrWealth is a financial education provider. I attended one of their online courses two years back and...
I just realized that it has been almost a month since I last wrote in here! I wanted to drop a quick note so that people know that StocksCafe is still in active development 🙂 Apart from all the bug fixes and touch ups here and there, I have been spending most of my energy on upgrading the infrastructure of StocksCafe. Previously, everything about StocksCafe is basically packed into one server. As...
Users input various information into StocksCafe such as what stocks they bought and when, and many would also record notes either about the transactions or stocks itself. All these are very precious data to users and often, users would like to keep a backup copy. Up until now, they can only be manually exported. I am happy to share that I have now set it up such that you can get a copy...
Firstly, I would like to apologize to users who were affected by this “migration” last night and seeing errors on many StocksCafe pages. I was making a seemingly simple change, but is actually more complicated. I was making a database change for the field “shares quantity” from only accepting whole numbers (i.e. integers) to allow decimal values (i.e. floats). As integers...
I am very happy to share that the integration of US fundamental data is complete and StocksCafe now fully supports US stocks. You should now be able to see profile pages (e.g. Facebook) for US stocks, be able to screen for US stocks in screener and see related fundamentals in your portfolio profile or watchlist profile. This brings the number of supported exchanges to four; namely SG, KL, HK, and...
I realized that I did not post any article for the whole of June. It is due to a combination of various reasons but the main reason was that I tried switching to a new caching system (i.e. Redis) for StocksCafe thinking that it is better. However, due to my lack of experience with it, it instead made StocksCafe unstable. Causing out of memory issues, displaying stale data, etc. These resulted in...
I have not worked much on the US market beyond adding EOD data and other basic features, and I’m happy to announce that I finally had some time to improve as well as add a few new features to it. 1) Similar Stocks – You can now see other stocks that are similar to the one you are viewing (e.g. Google) on the right hand side (in desktop view). 2) Shared Portfolio Statistics – You are...
One question that I regularly receive is whether the lifetime friend program is still available. For those that do not know about it, previously, you could contribute a one-off amount between SGD 200-288 and become a friend of StocksCafe for as long as it exists. While I am very thankful for the strong support, it is a very heavy commitment and hence I decided to stop offering that option. What I...
One main feedback from new users of StocksCafe is that there are too many features and it can be too overwhelming to start using StocksCafe. Therefore, I have designed a simple landing page which hopefully will help new users warm up to StocksCafe. You can find the new welcome page here. 1) As you can see, there is still free space for more icons. Please suggest what other information you think...
Everyone is different and uses StocksCafe differently. This is why there are many ways to customize StocksCafe so that it best suits your usage. To make StocksCafe work the best for you, I strongly encourage everyone to go though the different customizable options available if you have not already done so. Here are the six main customizable categories, along with the recommended settings: Email...
One thing I wished for in StocksCafe is the sharing of knowledge and information between users. It was the main motivation of having “Cafe”. However, it has not been as lively as I had hoped for. I have made some changes to it recently, hoping to encourage more sharing between users. 1) Less Clutter – I have removed and rearranged sections in order to create a simpler and...
A user recently recommended a stock screener website, Uncle Stock, to me. Upon checking the site out, I found that it’s an extremely comprehensive (able to screen all major markets) and powerful (able to screen from >100 metrics) stock screener website. Overflowing with information, this website might be daunting for new investors to navigate, but will prove to be a mighty tool for those...
In the next few months, there will be many AGMs for shareholders to attend to learn more about the recent financials and future plans of the company. As some users have suggested, it would be nice to have a venue to learn when and where these AGMs are happening. And perhaps more interestingly, to be able to share thoughts, consolidate questions, or simply to know who else would be attending them...
March is the birthday month of StocksCafe! In the blink of an eye, StocksCafe has already been around for three years! Thanks to the support of many, StocksCafe would very likely be around for many more three years to come. Thank you! StocksCafe’s next goal is to be profitable enough so that Evan or someone else can be working on it full-time! New Features You might have realized that new...
Update: Please check this article! In short, referral program is now extended to lifetime (instead of just one year) Although StocksCafe basically takes up most of my weekday nights and weekends, it is becoming more enjoyable to work on mainly because there is a growing number of users who love StocksCafe. Beyond raising feature requests and bug reports, many users even share the worry of how to...
Regularly, users would independently request for an iOS app to be built for StocksCafe. Due to limited resources, it is unlikely I can satisfy this request in the near future. However, a recent feature request made by a Friend of StocksCafe actually made me realize that I could create a pseudo app for StocksCafe. It is to simply create a shortcut (which looks like an app) on your phone that will...
Happy Lunar New Year! I apologize for not having any updates of late. While I continued to maintain StocksCafe and work on bugs, I took a short break from developing new features during the CNY period. In any case, I am back and the first new small feature is the ability to perform simple price simulations. Previously, whenever I wanted to find out things like what my P&L (or current yield)...
While StocksCafe is constantly fixing bugs and adding new features, once in a while, I would like to highlight and explain some new features or changes. The following are recent updates which I believe deserve to be highlighted: 1. Market Update Emails Market update emails is one of the more popular features in StocksCafe. In the past, it was catered solely for the Singapore market thus over the...
Happy New Year! Review of 2017 2017 has been an exciting year for StocksCafe. It started with the change of name to StocksCafe, which included the migration of domains as well as architecture change. I remember it caused many issues in the beginning and I truly appreciate your patience during those times. The main reason for all those changes was to prepare for expansion beyond Singapore. And...
Merry Christmas! I hope you are enjoying yourself this holiday season. Just wanted to quickly share some changes I have made over this weekend: Dividend Withholding Tax As StocksCafe recently started supporting US stocks, some users have requested for StocksCafe to automatically adjust for dividends based on individuals’ tax status. For example, most Singapore residents would incur a 30%...
2017 is coming to an end, and I hope this has been a good year for you and your investments. This year, StocksCafe continued to enjoy great support from users. More than 300 users have contributed, either monetarily, reporting errors, or suggesting improvements. Unfortunately, as it is costly to license financial data, StocksCafe will very likely end this year in the red again despite the support...
After months of planning, sourcing, and coding, I am happy to announce that US data is now available in StocksCafe! It is not completely integrated yet, but some of the most popular features are already available. 1) Add to Portfolio or Watchlist: You can now add your US market transactions! You can also add US stocks to your watchlists. 2) Stock Page: Some basic information including dividends...
This is a quick updates of two changes that I thought would be important/useful to communicate to everyone. Day Change Computation Previously, the day change shown on the main page of your personal portfolio was computed naively. It was simply how many shares of a stock you own at the end of the day multiply by the change in price (TodayClose – YesterdayClose). DayChangeForAStockPreviously...
This is to inform you that it is likely that there will be a period of downtime for StocksCafe this weekend. It might become inaccessible as I proceed to migrate away from my current hosting provider, DigitalOcean. Thank you for your understanding. Note: You can stop reading here if you have no intention of using hosting services. The following is written because DigitalOcean has pissed me off...
I would like to apologize for the email outage for the last three days. I have finally fixed the issue. All emails should be operating as usual from now on. Below is the reason why I had to manually activate accounts for new sign ups and why no daily market update emails were sent. The Short Version – My hosting provider, DigitalOcean, decided to block my SMTP port (needed for sending...
Recently, several users have independently highlighted to me the issue of delisting dividends. What are delisting dividends? I am referring to dividends that are given when the stock is delisted, redeemed, or cancelled. These dividends usually have a dividend yield of ~100%. However, note that not all dividends with ~100% dividend yield are delisting dividends, for example: 8Telecom’s...
Many stocks give out dividends and it is what many investors like about investing. Often, dividends are listed in the currency that the stock is traded in. However, there are many exceptions to that, especially for foreign-listed companies. For example, United Overseas Australia Limited is traded in SGD but states its dividends in AUD. In StocksCafe, I wrongly assumed that you would receive the...
After the recent release of new visuals for portfolio dividends, there have been more requests regarding visuals’ representations. They include the following: 1) Consistent Color: Previously, the same sector would be represented by different colors across different pie charts on the same page. I have since fixed that. Now, the same sector would be represented by the same color on the same...
The Short Version – Cannot login to my Apple developer account. – Cannot pay Apple. – Apple took down my app. – Wanted to re-upload it but it was excessively complicated hence gave up. – Please use mobile browser for now (possibly forever). The Long Story Recently, many users have been contacting me about the missing iOS app. Previously, I released a iOS for...
Visualization is often easier to understand than numbers. Hence over the weekend, I took time out to add more graphs that would allow you to visualize dividends generated by your portfolio and answer questions about them at a quick glance. 1) Are your dividends growing over the years? What about the cost yield? 2) Are you over-reliant on a particular sector, industry, or stock? These new graphs...
Among the numerous minor improvements in StocksCafe, I think the following will be one of interest to many. Every user using StocksCafe would have a portfolio named “Default”. To some, this has been unwanted and they would like to have it renamed or deleted. The main reason why I have not allowed this so far is simply because StocksCafe was built upon the assumption that a user would...
It’s been three weeks since my last article, but in case you think StocksCafe is going dormant, it is not! During these three weeks, I have still been maintaining StocksCafe, answering queries and fixing reported bugs, etc. It’s just that I did not have time to sit down and build a more sizeable feature that is worth mentioning. The main reason for this is because of my recent...
The first donations for StocksCafe came in May 2016. Although I was very thrilled to know that whatever I built is of enough value to people that many are willing to back it up, it was not my intention to build a paid product. However, the truth is StocksCafe is very dependent on donations as the ad revenue sustains only about 35-45% of current operating costs of StocksCafe. I have been thinking...
A little more than a year ago, I added a feature that projects how much dividends you are likely to receive for the current year in your Portfolio Report. Although it is a simple feature with naive assumptions, it is actually one of the top most-liked features. Hence, upon the request of Friends of StocksCafe, I spent some time over the weekend to include dividend projection in more areas of...
Recently, I have changed how the “P&L + Dividends + Closed” percentage was computed, from being based on “Current Cost” to “Total Cost” (read more about it in this article). However, several users have reached out and suggested that to base the “P&L + Dividends + Closed” percentage on “Total Cost” would penalize users who trade...
I am happy to share that after almost four months of effort, I have completed the integration for both Hong Kong & Malaysia. Almost every feature that is available for the Singapore market is also available for Hong Kong and Malaysia markets. A few exceptions are Dividend Strength, Future Yield (which is based on Dividend Strength) and Earnings Release. I will be attempting to build Dividend...
All along, I have naively displayed “Last Traded Price” and used it for all computations in StocksCafe without much consideration. That is until recently, when a user brought to my attention the difference between “Last Traded Price” and “Close Price”. This led me to spend time learning about it and ultimately switch to using “Close Price” in...
Wrong Total Cost Recently, a user highlighted that Total Cost in StocksCafe was computed wrongly and he (I assumed it’s a he based on the username) is correct. I previously computed Total Cost as “Sum of [buy price x number of shares] for each stock currently in portfolio”. However, this is inaccurate as he has pointed out, and I agree. Therefore I have changed the definitions...
Since the drastic move to re-architecture StocksCafe and adding support for two new markets at the same time in April, StocksCafe website have became slower. I am aware of that and have been taking significant amount of time trying to improve it. To be very honest, I am not 100% sure what is the true cause although I am inclined to think that it is due to a summation of reasons such as poor...
For the past two days, some users have noticed missing information in their market update emails. Specifically, it is the Cost, Day Change, P&L, etc of each portfolio that is missing. This issue affected users who have only a single currency in their portfolio. It has now been fixed and you should see those details in your emails again from today onwards. A big thank you to all users who...
As StocksCafe is currently expanding beyond Singapore to other markets in Asia, I am now looking to feature financial bloggers from around Asia. If you are a financial blogger or if you know of any financial blogger that writes about stocks or financial related topics focusing on Asia, please let me know either via private messaging or by simply commenting on this article. In other updates, I...
If you looked at your portfolio report these past few days, you might have noticed an unreasonable increase (typically well beyond 1000%) in your portfolio time-weighted returns, as well as a sharp increase in ES3’s monthly volatility (>20%). Firstly, I am very thankful to users who took the time and effort to report this issue. Some users even went a step further to take screenshots to...
As I was working on the final phase of the HK integration, I realized that it might be better if I also had Malaysia stocks information because news agency and blogs that I wanted to index tend to have news/articles on both markets. Hence, last weekend, I switched gears and started integrating Malaysia stocks into StocksCafe as well. I am happy to share that you can look up information of...
This is a short article to quickly share what I did for StocksCafe this past weekend: Screen for HK stocks I have updated the Screener so that you can now also screen for Hong Kong stocks! New Facebook Page As I have recently migrated the website from SGXcafe to StocksCafe, I wanted to change name on the facebook page from SGXcafe to StocksCafe, but was repeatedly rejected by Facebook. Hence, I...
As the number of registered users in StocksCafe continue to increase, there are bound to be users who have registered but stopped using StocksCafe. Currently, I continue to update their portfolio and even send them the daily market update emails (if they have set it up that way). However, this is bad for everyone. For the inactive users, the daily market update emails are likely deemed as spam...
After successfully migrating StocksCafe to the new domain and infrastructure, I have been working on further integration with the Hong Kong Market. Hong Kong Market Integration I am glad to share that phase 2 (of 3) of the Hong Kong Market integration is completed. This means you can now add Hong Kong stocks into your portfolio and/or watchlist, and of course also have access to all the...
Slow Loading Due to my lack of experience with infrastructure configuration, for the most part of last week, the experience of using StocksCafe has been unpleasantly slow. I apologize for that and am thankful for your patience. Truth be told, it was rather stressful for me. I personally hate to use slow websites so I was waking up at ungodly hours (read: 4am) to configure the servers so as to...
Over the weekend, I have successfully migrated everything to the new domain, stocks.cafe, with upgraded software and hardware. However, the migration over the weekend did not proceed as smooth as I had hoped. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. On hindsight, I should not have tried to upgrade everything at the same time. There were numerous bugs and errors that I had to fix throughout the...
The migration of SGXcafe to StocksCafe will happen this weekend! This is more than simply the changing of domain names. When I first started SGXcafe, it was meant for myself hence I simply dumped everything onto a single server. That was easy and convenient, but certainly not robust nor scalable. I have spent the last few days designing and configuring a brand new multi-server infrastructure and...
After many hours of coding, I am happy to share that Phase 1 (of 3) of the expansion to Hong Kong is now complete! Information about Hong Kong stocks is now available in SGXcafe (e.g. CK Hutchison). At the moment, it hasn’t been incorporated into the search yet, but you can find the full list of active stocks in Hong Kong Stock Exchange here. In Phase 2, I will focus on features revolving...
After a round of voting and discussion with Friends of SGXcafe, I am happy to share that we have decided to support APAC markets in the upcoming expansion! I have already started work to include Hong Kong exchange data. You should start to see changes within this week. Supporting a brand new market is not easy and would take time to iron out all the details, especially since I developed SGXcafe...
The first article of SGXcafe appeared on 15 March 2015, hence I set this date to be the birthday of SGXcafe. On this day, let’s review the good and bad that happened in the past year. The Good SGXcafe has grown significantly in the past year; it currently has more than half a million pageviews every month coming from 30,000 unique visitors. More importantly, it has received support from 177...
One of the most highly voted feature now in Friends of SGXcafe is “Stock of The Day”. The idea is to feature a stock every trading day based on some criteria. At the moment, I have come up with five criteria to select the stock of the day. 1) Significant Increase in Visitors – The number of visitors viewing a stock’s page significantly increased in the last three days...
As the amount of content in SGXcafe continues to grow, it is increasing hard for users to easily keep track of everything that is happening. SGXcafe wall is the first effort to make it easier for users to catch up with the latest happenings, especially on the go (via mobile view). Although the wall is customizable to your liking, only 42 users actually tailor it. Hence I would like to introduce...
It have been two weeks since the last article, and I thought I should just give a quick update of the improvements made to SGXcafe over the last two weeks in case you think that SGXcafe is becoming inactive 🙂 In fact, on the contrary, I have been actively adding new features! I will just highlight a few features that might be of interest: 1) Who owns this stock? At the point of writing, there are...
This seemingly simple equation is in fact not that easy to compute. I recently adjusted and optimized the calculation of Current Yield from insights and discussions that several users have brought forth. What is Current Yield? English Definition: Current yield is an investment’s annual income (interest or dividends) divided by the current price of the security (Source: Investopedia)...
At the moment, one of the most highly voted features in Friends of SGXcafe is “Use various known methods to compute the intrinsic value of stocks”. As much as I want to do it, it is not easy to compute the real “intrinsic” value of stocks, assuming it even exists. All methods that I have found require subjective opinions of the future. And often, small deviations in...
First of all, Gong Xi Fa Cai! As I am currently in Japan, I’ve got nowhere to go “bai nian”. In combination with my wife not feeling so well, I’ve got on my hands an entire weekend to work on SGXcafe. One thing that is starting to irritate me is that as SGXcafe continues to add more features, I would have to make numerous clicks just to access a particular feature. This...
As mentioned in the first article of 2017, one of SGXcafe’s focus is to improve mobile engagement. So here we are, with our first baby step. I was never a fan of how SGXcafe’s home page was as it did not allow users to easily catch up on the latest happenings since their last visit, and the format was not mobile-friendly. Hence we are introducing a Wall that is inspired by...
I had some time this weekend and managed to finish up a few user requests, and would like to share them: 1) Individual Portfolio in Daily Market Update Emails Now you can opt to view the performance of each portfolio you own by simply going to this page and checking the “Individual Portfolio – Information about each portfolio you own” box. You will see the performance of your...
Review of 2016 2016 have been a year with its ups and downs for SGXcafe. At one point, it is faced with the possibility of shutting down. However, with the support of many users, it managed to march on. I truly appreciate each and every one of you for using SGXcafe especially those whom also contributed financially and/or by sharing about SGXcafe. Looking back at the articles of 2016, I realized...
SGXcafe was originally built to help manage my own portfolio. I decided to share it freely when I realized it might be useful to many other retail investors like myself who do not have access to proper portfolio management tools. However, I was soon notified by SGX that SGXcafe requires appropriate licensing to continue operating publicly. At that time, under the encouragement of many users, I...
I have been interested in learning and integrating various approaches, namely fundamental analysis, technical analysis, portfolio management and machine learning to help myself make better investments/trades. This is the one of the reasons why SGXcafe exists. Recently, I started learning more about technical analysis through a book titled, Come into my Trading Room. I am thankful to Azrael for...
On average, I spend one to two hours a day working on SGXcafe. Sometimes, the features added are large and obvious. At other times, they are essentially invisible to most users. Today, I would like to share a few “invisible” feature updates that have been made recently. 1) Desktop view on mobile phones As mobile phone screens become larger, there have been requests to view the...
It has often been advocated to avoid any stocks with a high P/E. The common argument is that you would be overpaying for hype stocks. However, overpaying or not depends on how the high P/E stocks behaves in future. For example, if high P/E stocks actually do grow at a rate that is significantly higher than low P/E stocks, then it is arguably justifiable to buy stocks with a high P/E. One real...
Since the introduction of the new stock screener, I have received numerous requests to add more metrics and/or to add more ways to build the constraints so that different strategies can be easily implemented using the new screener. Hence the number of metrics have grown, from the initial 30 to the current 60+ different metrics covering both technicals and fundamentals. The number of ways to build...
Recently, I introduced the new Stock Screener. It was well-received with many requests to add metrics and capabilities to it. This week, I spent some time to add the ability to share your Screener easily. There are a few things I hope to achieve with this sharing feature. 1) Easy Translation – To demonstrate how to easy it is to translate a strategy in your mind into a concrete screener. I...
Previously, I mostly viewed “What stocks to buy” as a ranking problem. What this means is that I would rank all the stocks available based on some criteria and pick the top few to purchase. Hence, tools that I built tend to generate a score and ranked accordingly. Examples are iAssist, Dividend Strength and Scorer (Scorer was previously known as Screener). However, after taking the...
By now, you have probably noticed that SGXcafe recently started a “Cafe”. It is a place where people can ask questions or discuss anything related to investment. It also includes blog posts aggregated from blogs mainly from Singapore that are sharing financial/investment knowledge and information. Special thanks goes to Derek from TheFinance.sg for helping me to get permission from...
Each year, BigFatPurse organises a gathering for investors to check on their current year’s performance and to get new investing ideas for the upcoming year. It used to be opened only to their members. As more people heard about their gathering, they received more requests to open it up to the public. And this year, they have finally opened it. With a star-studded speaker line up made up of...
I have always wanted to attend the Value Investing Mastery Course (or VIMC) by BigFatPurse as I have heard many good things about it. However, as I am working and living in Tokyo, there was no opportunity for me to attend. Luckily for me, they recently released eVIMC, which is the e-learning equivalent of the popular VIMC. Personally, I have always preferred e-learning over physical lectures as...
BeatTheMarket is a mini-game that I built in SGXcafe. The idea is simple: you will be given facts of an anonymous stock on a historical date. Based on the information, you will choose whether to invest or ignore that stock. Once you’ve decided, SGXcafe will immediately tell you on the next screen if that stock beat the index one year later. If you have not tried it, I encourage you to try...
Several users have independently suggested that SGXcafe should have its own forum. Hence, I spent the last week building it and I am excited to share that the forum is live and ready for use! For a forum to be successful, it requires the active participation of the community. Currently, SGXcafe has several tens of thousand visitors every month, of which several thousands are heavy users of...
Our portfolios are very personal and sensitive information. While many users have generously shared them publicly, many more are not comfortable with opening up their portfolio and share with just anyone who visits stocks.cafe. This is totally understandable. Even I only share my portfolio partially (portfolio is displayed without exact values). Hence, I have recently added a followers/following...
Many Stock Screeners (including the one on SGXcafe previously) only allows you to screen for stocks based on the current value of metrics. However, we are sometimes more interested in the trend of the metric than its current value. Hence, I have recently added more than 50 metrics trends to SGXcafe. At the moment, you are able to use them in two main places. 1) In Screener You can now use SGXcafe...
As an investor, we often want to believe that we can pick stocks that can beat the market. So I made a game that allows us to test if we could actually pick stocks that can beat the market. The idea is simple: you will be given facts of an anonymous stock on a historical date. Based on the information, you will choose whether to invest or ignore that stock. Once you have made the decision...
For each listed stock in SGX, there is a profile page (e.g. DBS) that displays the valuation and financial metrics of that stock. Personally, I use it often to learn the historical and current fundamental values of the stock. However, there are limitations to it. 1) Due to space constraint, I can only display partial information. For example, for Valuation metrics, I only show 52 weeks high, low...
One of the recent most-voted feature in Friends of SGXcafe is having a cash component to track your cash balance. It is a seemingly easy feature, but was actually tedious to implement because it intertwines with several other existing components in SGXcafe. What is Cash Balance? Easily track the amount of cash you currently have on hand after you buy or sell stocks, receive dividends, or deposit...
About four months have passed since the major crisis faced by SGXcafe. At that time, SGXcafe had to choose between paying tens of thousands in licensing fees yearly to continue running, or face closing down. I have chosen the former, which is why SGXcafe is still operating today. Although it put a huge dent in my savings, I do not regret my decision, because in the last four months, the number of...
A few weeks ago, I released an iOS app for SGXcafe. Naturally, Android users started to request an app as well. However, just like it was for iOS, I do not have any experience with Android development either. Hence, I jokingly requested a friend from work to build the SGXcafe Android app for me and to my utmost surprise, he showed me a first version the next day. Of course, SGXcafe mobile apps...
Dividends Override was introduced to SGXcafe during the time when one account can hold only one portfolio. Soon after, I introduced the support for Multiple Portfolios in SGXcafe. However, Dividends Override was not updated to support Multiple Portfolios. This mistake potentially caused some mistakes in computing the total dividends you have collected if you happen to hold the same stock in...
Many users use SGXcafe to track their dividends, and I have received suggestions regarding it. I am always happy to hear from users, and where possible, I do my best to implement them in SGXcafe. This weekend, I spent some time and worked on a few aspects related to dividends: Dividend Projection In Portfolio Report, I have added a feature that projects how much dividends you are likely to...
Yes, SGXcafe finally has an app! According to Google Analytics, about 40% of visitors use mobile devices to access SGXcafe. Naturally, there have been numerous requests for SGXcafe to have a mobile app. Personally, I also wanted a mobile app for SGXcafe to better serve users, but I know nothing about iOS and Andriod development hence I have been procrastinating it. However, “iOS Universal...
Many features that you see in SGXcafe are requests made by users. I appreciate feedback and feature requests from users, and do my best to make it happen whenever possible. Therefore, if there is any feature that you wish to see in SGXcafe, feel free to let me know! This weekend, I spent some time working on adding new columns (e.g. annualized dividends % and annualized P&L %) to current...
Screener has always been one tool in SGXcafe that I enjoy using. With it, I can easily rank the hundreds of stocks listed in SGX based on whatever metrics I want. Which is also the reason why I decided to spend some time this weekend enhancing it. Firstly, I added a few more metrics to it. Namely: – Dividend Strength – NAV / Price – Cash / Price – Cashflow / Price There...
StocksCafe is constantly evolving, and as I continue to add features to StocksCafe, even I am starting to lose count of them. Therefore, I believe that many users – especially new users – might miss out on many features that StocksCafe offers. This article aims to record all the features available in StocksCafe, and this article will be updated as new features are added. I highly...
One of the main goals of SGXcafe is providing a portfolio management tool. It is also one of the most popular features in SGXcafe. When I added the ability for one account to have multiple portfolios, it was quickly adopted and used by hundreds of users. However, at that time, you could not look at individual portfolio for the portfolio reporting tab and a few users requested to have this feature...
As many of you would know, I initially built SGXcafe for my personal investment needs. Hence many tools here exist because I use them personally for my own investing. iAssist and iSuggest were tools that I built in an attempt to help me diversify my portfolio as it was rather challenging to decide which stock to add to my portfolio among the several hundred stocks listed in SGX. However, there is...
A quick update on a few tweaks around SGXcafe. One of the top feature requests recently in SGXcafe is having more visualization. Specifically, the ability to see at a glance how much dividends you receive monthly (against other years) historically and pie charts to see your portfolio’s breakdown by sector, industry and companies. Feel free to suggest more if there is other information...
Recently, quite a few users have independently requested for the ability to have multiple portfolios in a single account. It seems typical to have multiple investment accounts, such as CDP, CPF, and SRS. Although this seems like a straightforward feature, it actually requires significant amount of time and effort to build because: 1. SGXcafe was built with the assumption of one portfolio per...
Recently, I finally managed to convince my wife to start investing directly using her own account. That is, she now has to decide for herself what and when to buy/sell. I did this partly so that she can directly feedback to me about what features needs to be improved or added to SGXcafe for users like her. I’ll let her tell you about her experience using SGXcafe. — Unlike Evan, I have...
Initially, the portfolio sharing feature was added with the intention to allow SGXcafe users to easily share their portfolios on their own blogs as I saw many financial bloggers in Singapore sharing their well-crafted portfolios but in a technically-inefficient way (e.g. copy and paste from excel sheet to html). Interestingly, this feature is gaining popularity in SGXcafe itself, especially after...
Out of the several hundred stocks listed in SGX, how do you choose which one to buy? Use value investing to find the undervalued stocks? Find stocks with huge growth potential? Find income stocks that would give high and stable dividends for many years to come? Or…? Everyone has their own school of thought (e.g. Value investing, Growth investing, Income investing, etc) for choosing what...
Long Story Short SGXcafe will continue to be free, but to cover for the high operating costs due to licensing, I would like to invite you to do one or more of the following if you would like to show your support for SGXcafe. 1) Help increase awareness of SGXcafe. You can do this via your blog, share SGXcafe’s articles on facebook, or simply via word of mouth to people whom you believe can...
These days, I have been preoccupied with making the switch to using properly licensed data from data I used to crawl from all over the internet. There are still some issues to iron out, but otherwise it is progressing quite well. Due to the switch, I had to take down several features temporarily, and one of the features that went offline was “Dividends Collected”. “Dividends...
It has been two weeks since my last update. I am happy to share that most administrative issues with SGX and third party data providers have been handled. Next on the list would be to tackle the technical issues of integrating data that I have licensed into SGXcafe. I have already started integrating dividend information, since this is something numerous users have been asking me about. At this...
It has been a week since the survey. Thank you to all who responded to the survey. The survey results are quite open to interpretation. If we simply look at the absolute number of people willing to pay to keep SGXcafe going, the logical choice would be to close SGXcafe as it is far from sufficient. However, if we look at the percentage of people willing to pay, it is quite encouraging as 42% of...
Note: There is a one-question survey at the end of the post, and your input is appreciated. Today, I am writing because SGXcafe has reached a crossroad. You might know that SGXcafe started out as a personal project, but I made it available for public use when I thought it might help other small retail investors like myself invest better. However, SGX recently contacted me and said that SGXcafe...
Note: This feature is not available anymore due to licensing issues. Here is a question: How do you decide when to buy or sell a stock? I started trading in SGX a year ago, and every time I have money to invest, I always wonder “Should I buy now? But if not now, then when?” Since I didn’t have a good answer to that question, what I’ve been doing till now is simply buy the...
Note: Instead of every minute, alerts will be check daily at the end of day due to licensing issues. In an ideal world, we would be able to monitor the stock market around the clock, so that we would know the instant the stock reaches a price we’ve been gunning for, or when the stock we’ve KIV-ed at the back of our minds is approaching the ex-dividend date. Alas, we don’t live...
Are you keeping track of your portfolio by Excel or some other tedious method? There is a way to do it painlessly, and it even allows you to share it on your own site with just a single line of html code! The best part? It’s all available for free! There are many awesome financial bloggers in Singapore who share their portfolios on their blog. To me, it is to demonstrate that having a good...
The first SGXcafe article was released on 15 March 2015, so SGXcafe officially turns one today! Many things have happened in this one year. One thousand daily visitors In this one year, SGXcafe has grown from just one daily visitor (me) to more than a thousand daily visitors now. I’m so glad so many people enjoy using SGXcafe. Thank you for your support! Invest using only SGXcafe I have...
In a previous article, I introduced a model which uses fundamental data to estimate Dividend Strength, P(“same or more dividends next year” | “predicted to be giving same or more dividends next year”). Numerous people have shown interest in this estimation model, therefore I decided to spend more time improving its performance. Its performance have increased from AUC (Area...
The company that I am currently working for in Tokyo has a cafeteria that serves free lunch to all employees, hence during lunchtime, we would get together for lunch and chat. Occasionally, the topic about money management would come up, and to date, I have yet to find a Japanese colleague who invests in the stock market, citing reasons of either finding it too risky, lack of knowledge, or more...
Like many others, I enjoy buying stocks that pay good dividends. The challenge is in identifying companies that will be able to pay good dividends year after year. Many might suggest reading through years of financial statements, as well as getting to know the top management and their vision for the company as it is the ideal way of projecting its future cashflow and thus, dividends. I do agree...
In the previous article, I looked at how Debt-to-equity and Operating Cashflow (referred to as DER and OC from hereon) would influence Dividend Per Share (DPS). In particular, I looked at see how change of DER and change of OC in year X influences the DPS in year X+1. In this article, I would like to focus on the how absolute DER and absolute OC in year X could be a predictor of DPS in year X+1...
I believe there are many investors like me who love to invest in companies that pay dividends. Naturally, we hope that companies we invest in would have growing dividends. So, the question is “How can we differentiate companies that will have growing dividends from others?” In an attempt to find an answer to this question, I will perform a series of analyses in this and upcoming...
I regularly read articles from “The Motley Fool Singapore”. One person that is frequently mentioned there is John Neff. “John Neff (born 1931) is one of the best known mutual fund investors of the past 40 years, notable for his contrarian and value investing styles as well as heading Vanguard’s Windsor Fund. Windsor was the best performing mutual fund during his tenure and...
Note: This feature has since been removed due to low usage. We all have a limited amount of time. Are you spending that time wisely? And are you spending more time than you should be scrolling through Facebook? I am 🙁 In an attempt to change that, I thought that if I’m going to scroll through something on my phone, I might as well be scrolling through information on companies that I have...
Previously, I wrote an article about some simple analysis I did of companies listed in SGX that pays dividends. The main conclusion of that article was as follows: 1) If a company is giving out dividends this year, the chance that it would give out same or more dividends (absolute amount per share) next year was 60%. 2) If a company is giving out dividends this year, the chance that it would give...
Last week, when I shared my portfolio in another article. I received comments privately from several people such as “50 stocks in your portfolio?!?! I think 30 should provide more than enough diversification”, “Have you heard of Warren Buffet’s 20 slot rules?”, “Why are you holding so many different stocks?” etc. Well, there are a few reasons to this. 1)...
Although 2015 is not my first year investing in the stock market, it is my first time investing in the Singapore market. Previously, I was focusing on the US market mainly due to two reasons: 1) The minimum to invest in many of the Singapore companies was relatively high (compared to the US) due to the minimum purchase of 1000 shares. I was a poor student then hence this was a fairly big...
Analyze Every investor has his/her favorite set of metrics that they look at when performing stock analysis and valuation. Therefore, it is difficult to decide which metric to display in SGXcafe, hence most of the time, I simply choose to display information that I am personally interested in. But I want to make SGXcafe more customizable so that it can provide better value to everyone...
As 2015 is coming to an end, I am interested to see how well I did, especially since this is the first year where I had sufficient surplus to invest seriously in the stock market. I am especially interested to know how well I fared against a form of benchmark. In a previous article, I suggested that an easy and good way for anyone to start investing is via ES3, an Index ETF tracking STI. The...
Sometimes, I think I have an investing addiction. Just like people with a shopping addiction who feel compelled to go shopping whenever they have the time or money, likewise, I feel compelled to read up on stocks whenever I have the time (which was why I built SGXcafe to gather as much useful information as I can find for my ease of reading) and buy them whenever I have the money. However, I face...
There exists hundreds of stocks in SGX and deciding what to buy next is not an easy task. In part one of the “What to buy next?” article, I shared a few tools in SGXcafe designed to help me with this problem, including a new screener tool, Screener added to SGXcafe about 3 weeks ago. Screener was met with very positive response and high usage, and I received comments on how useful it...
On a recent business trip to India, I was stranded in Chennai because of massive flooding everywhere, including the airport, due to the worst rains the city has seen in the recent century. I shall skip the details of who, what, when, where, why and how I was trapped and escaped, but focus instead on what I felt during my time there. The Rich vs The Poor It was Day 3 since the heavy flooding...
“What to buy next?” Almost every month, I ask myself this same question whenever my salary arrives or when a good amount of dividends have accumulated. When I first started investing, I wanted a diversified portfolio which is why I built the tool, iSuggest (iSuggest is free for all registered users). It worked well at first, as it quickly brought my portfolio risk down to a minimum...
“No price is too high for a bull or too low for a bear” – an old Wall Street proverb It is a known fact that investors can be over-optimistic or over-pessimistic at times. When a series of good news happens, investors switch into the optimistic mode, often over-optimistic, and significantly bid up the price of a stock ditching any rational pricing theory whatsoever. Any high...
Recently, I read a book, A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel. In the book, he discussed two ways to valuate a stock – The firm-foundation theory and the castle-in-the-air theory. The firm-foundation theory assumes that each stock has a true value which is equal to the present value of all its future dividends. It is likely that you have heard something similar because this...
One factor that affects whether I purchase a stock or not is how much dividends it gave out last year, and for how many years it has been doing so. This is because when I purchase stocks, I am hoping mainly to benefit from dividend gains rather than capital gains. One obvious question would be: how much can we rely on the dividends that was paid out in the past to predict future dividends? One...
Recently, a friend of mine sent me an article about how you should create a “total portfolio” that takes your career into account as part of the portfolio. That is, if you have a stable job, you should buy risky stocks so that you would have opportunities for huge gains since you are unlikely to get large pay raises. Likewise, if you are an entrepreneur, you should hold safe bonds...
As the idiom goes, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. It is common knowledge that diversification is very important when it comes to investing. However, the questions are: How to diversify?How diversified are you?How do you measure diversification? Google “How to diversify” and there are countless articles out there “teaching” people how to...
Everyone has a limited time on earth. Are you making full use of your time? Are you truly doing what you want with your limited time? If money is no concern, would you still be working in the same place where you are now? I would not be. Don’t get me wrong; I do have a wonderful job. It pays well, management is great, colleagues are awesome and the workplace is always full of fun. The...
Investing in the stock market is often deemed as risky and difficult by many. Here, I would show how a simple strategy would perform for a someone who does not know much about the stock market and is very unlucky when it comes to investing. Firstly, for someone without much knowledge in investing, index investing is ideal because it gives good diversification with just one stock. Also, rather...
I generally prefer a buy and hold approach. It is because I view shares of companies as entitlement to profits, and profits of good companies would only increase over time even if their short-term share price fluctuates. Also, capital gain is not recurring income whereas dividend gain is, and the latter is important to me since I am investing to retire. Of course, the question would be how to...
When I started investing in Singapore stocks, I could not find any website that allows me to freely and easily access simple information regarding Singapore stocks or maintain my portfolio of Singapore stocks. Therefore, I decided to create SGXcafe to help myself and anyone else who faces the same predicament as me. There are currently two main ways you can use SGXcafe: 1) To gather information I...
