The Straits Times Index (SGX: ^STI) has rallied 2.1% as of the time of writing today. The spike comes after US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a truce on the trade war over dinner on Saturday after the G20 summit. If you are wondering what stocks you should consider for your portfolio amid the rally, you have to look no further. Using data from S&P Global Market Intelligence and the Magic Formula investing strategy developed by investor Joel Greenblatt, I found some of the best Singapore-listed stocks for December that could go on to do well. The basic premise of the Magic Formula is to find the 30 best shares in the market as ranked by their cheapness and their quality, and to hold on to that basket shares for a year before repeating the ranking proc

HRnetGroup Ltd (SGX: CHZ) has been growing at a consistent pace since its initial public offering (IPO) last year. The group continued its impressive track record of growth in its latest quarter, registering a 7.7% increase in revenue and a 17.8% improvement in profit after tax and minority interest. Beyond these solid numbers, there are two reasons to believe the strong growth trend can continue. Expanding its headcount while maintaining employee productivity In the past 12 months, the total number of permanent employees increased by 13.0%. Of which, 80 were sales employees. These figures suggest that HRnetGroup is actively looking to grow its business. More impressively, the group has managed to improve its sales staff efficiency while increasing headcount. Gross profit per sales employe

If you are looking for new growth stocks to add to your portfolio, you may want to consider BreadTalk Group Limited (SGX: CTN) and HRnetGroup Ltd (SGX: CHZ). Despite lower profits in its most recent quarter, BreadTalk is poised for international growth, while recruitment firm, HRnetGroup, is making big strides both in the North Asia market and its core market in Singapore. The world is its oyster BreadTalk certainly needs little introduction. The group owns F&B chains in Singapore such as Michelin star-rated Din Tai Fung, Toast Box and BreadTalk, which is well-loved for its famous pork floss buns. In its most recent quarter, BreadTalk delivered a mixed performance with higher revenue but a sharp drop in profit. However, if we look beyond these numbers, there are good reasons to belie

Recruitment firm, HRnetGroup Ltd (SGX: CHZ), delivered another strong set of results for the third quarter of 2018. With revenue and net profit after growing by a healthy clip, there were many things for shareholders to be pleased about. Here’s what investors should know from its latest earnings announcement. What’s behind the numbers? Source: Author’s compilation of data from HRnetGroup 2018Q3 earnings report As you can see, there were strong growths in both the top and bottom line. HRnetGroup splits its business into two segments — professional recruitment and flexible staffing. Management cited there was strong performance in its professional recruitment segment from existing business units in North Asia, particularly China and Hong Kong, and in Singapore. Gross profit

Warren Buffett is a huge advocate of businesses buying back their stocks. He believes that share buybacks can reveal a thing or two about the company’s management. He once said: “What you’d like to do as an investor is hook them up to a machine and run a polygraph to see whether it’s true. Short of a polygraph the best sign of a shareholder-oriented management — assuming its stock is undervalued — is repurchases. A polygraph proxy, that’s what it is.” With that, let’s look at three companies picked randomly that have repurchased their shares thus far during the week, as of market open today. HRnetGroup Ltd (SGX: CHZ) HRnetGroup is the biggest Asia-based recruitment agency in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan. On 22 October 2018, the r

Legendary investor Warren Buffett is a huge advocate of companies buying back shares – if done for the right reasons. And that is, if the company’s shares are undervalued, and the reinvestment opportunities for the business are not as appealing. On that note, last month, 35 companies in Singapore’s stock market repurchased 32.4 million shares for a total amount of S$93.6 million, according to a report released by Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX: S68) recently. The September buyback level was 62% lower from August’s buyback amount of S$245 million, which was a 35-month record. In August, the Straits Times Index (SGX: ^STI) fell by 3.2% while in September, the index rose 1.4%. Share buybacks tend to increase when the stock market falls, and vice versa. The top four companies wit

In the first part of this two-part series, we focused on RHB’s top 2H18 stock picks with a top down strategy. Apart from taking a top down approach of identifying key sectors that could outperform the broader market, RHB also assessed stocks on individual merits using a bottom up approach. In this article, we highlight two investment themes that derived from a bottom up strategy. Investors Takeaway: 2 Bottom Up Investment Themes For 2H18 Investment Theme 1: Growth Plays With Potential Earnings Upside There are four stocks that RHB identified to have the potential to deliver strong earnings growth or to deliver earnings surprises. China Aviation Oil China Aviation Oil is expected to see the return of earnings growth in FY18. RHB is expecting growth to be aided by strong contribution fr

I received a lot of queries pertaining to the amount of little cash that I'm holding for my investment purpose so I thought I'll use this chance to explain the thought process on my portfolio construction.Our goal as a family has always been to ensure that we have $5,000 / month worth of passive income in order to reach our definition of financial independence. Working back the maths, this means we would need $60k/year or $1m portfolio at 6% yield.While this amount would give us financial independence, we also know that we needed some sort of margin of safety so over the long term we also aim for our passive income to exceed our expenses by 1.5x in order for our capital to grow.With this in mind, our objective would look like this:1.) $1m Liquid Portfolio at 6% yield -> Provides Cashflo

Amazon.com briefly joined Apple in the trillion dollar club on Tuesday when its shares hit a high of US$2,050.50 apiece. Although the share price has since dipped back to US$1,994 (as of 6 September), it still marked a historic accomplishment for chief executive, Jeff Bezos, who founded the company as a small online book seller a mere 24 years ago. Bezos is now the world’s wealthiest person, with Amazon.com a diversified enterprise that has more than US$200 billion in annual sales and more than 575,000 employees. Amazon shares have more than tripled since 2015 and are up more than 500 times the IPO price, after accounting for share splits. Share buybacks in Singapore reached a 35-month high in August as 43.6 million shares worth S$245.4 million were repurchased by 30 companies. The total

One of the best investors the world has to offer, Warren Buffett, is an advocate of companies buying back their shares for the right reasons. And that is, if the firm’s shares are undervalued, and the reinvestment opportunities into the company are not as attractive. On that note, let’s check out three businesses picked at random that have repurchased their shares thus far during the week, as of market open today. HRnet Group Ltd (SGX: CHZ) HRnetGroup, which went public in June last year, is the biggest Asia-based recruitment agency in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan. For those who wish to know more about HRnetGroup and its growth prospects, you can check out the article here. On 4 September 2018, the company bought back 200,000 shares at a price range of between S$0.89 and S

In August, there were 30 companies buying back 43.6 million shares or units for a total amount of S$245.4 million, according to a report released by the Singapore Exchange yesterday. Compared to a year ago, the repurchases last month was up 300%. The buyback on a month-on-month basis more than doubled – in July 2018, the total share buyback amount was S$109 million. The top five companies with the largest buyback considerations were Straits Times Index (SGX: ^STI) components. In the magnitude of total buyback considerations, those five blue-chips were DBS Group Holdings Ltd (SGX: D05), CapitaLand Limited (SGX: C31), United Overseas Bank Ltd (SGX: U11), Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp Limited (SGX: O39) and City Developments Limited (SGX: C09). Coming in sixth was HRnetGroup Ltd (SGX: CHZ

At the beginning of the year, my Foolish colleague, Ser Jing, wrote an article on the top 30 stocks for 2018. The stocks were chosen based on a formula developed by Joel Greenblatt, which was described in his 2005 investing book, The Little Book That Beats The Market. Among the top 30 stocks listed, HRnetGroup Ltd (SGX:CHZ) caught my eye. The company boasts a solid track record of growth and recently announced double-digit growth in both revenue and its bottom line. With that in mind, I took a closer look at the company and found a few things that make it an appealing growth stock. Skin in the game Warren Buffett was a keen believer in investing in companies which management themselves are shareholders. This ensures that management’s and minority shareholders’ interests are aligned. H

Over the past two months, I have made a couple of purchases in the market. Firstly, on 11/8/17, I bought into Memtech International at $0.965 when it retraced a little from its highs. My purchase of Memtech’s stock is purely on a valuation perspective, as I felt it was still relatively undervalued compared to its […]