Who Moved My Singapore Cheese

By the way I think with all the heat online about Temasek, maybe the citizens can be expecting a little bit of angpow goodie again soon! Can pay for maybe 1 month of ezlink. Phew.

Jeyaretnam Joshua Benjamin v Lee Kuan Yew, 1992

http://www.singaporelaw.sg/rss/judg/9713.html

I sometimes wonder if I will get into legal trouble for writing about issues concerning Singapore critically. Like libel suits and what not...maybe for writing about stuff with a tad bit too strong an emotion that translated into what can be somehow in a convoluted, legal way, become construed as accusations. As it is I am already doing my best to steer clear of making statements that can be held as inflammatory. This fear that my outspoken blog will come back and bite my ass is getting stronger.

Some friends say "so-and-so blogger dares to write that way is ONLY BECAUSE he or she is outside of Singapore already", and I cannot refute that their sentiments bear some truth.

My fiancee wants me to write more about non-political stuff...saying its "boring" for me to keep on this topic. I feel the concern.

If there are any legal eagles out there who are reading this, please leave your comments for me, perhaps to guide me on how to blog, express my views, without getting too close to the sharp blades of Singapore's legal system.

http://business.smh.com.au/business/lumbered-with-the-bosss-wife-20090729-e1oc.html?page=-1

People are speculating in online forums if they will get sued for publishing this already... interestingly the writer is based in Singapore

Note the Value-at-Risk portion...I really hope she will come out and address how come their VAR model is using a 16% tail and not 1% - 5% as per usual practice.


http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/07/29/64376/when-is-an-swf-not-an-swf/

Joke No. 1

Ho Ching has done it again! Read this article from Straits Times. It's just one shocking revelation after another.

Ho Ching's ability to lead Temasek is proving to be rather questionable. She does not have even the basic knowledge of risk management to lead Temasek. And she totally exposed this today by saying :

In our Temasek Review last year, we reported an annual value-at-risk of almost $40 billion last March. This meant a 16 per cent probability for our portfolio value to drop more than $40 billion by March this year. Indeed, it has turned out to be so, and more,' said Ms Ho in her speech.

Not a risk person myself, I still sensed something was wrong. So I checked with a professional risk manager friend of mine, and he rubbished her statement. He said she probably got fed the info from her kakia that they operate with a 16%, 40billion VAR, which is traditionally a 99% Confidence Interval, or thereabouts, meaning in the tail event of 1% chance, which did happen this time, they would lose 40 billion, unless Temasek operates on a 84% Confidence Interval VAR, which is actually scarier than the prospect that Ho Ching does not know her risk management ABCs. Anyway, keep a lookout for my friend's professional analysis of her statement on his blog sgpirategame.

Joke No.2

To top off a good publicity day for Temasek, they also announced today that they "may allow" retail investors to co-invest. Read article here. Hahahaha. Another friend of mine, a hedge fund trader, told me he would "farkin liquidate everything if he could", and that "this must be the joke of the century".

But if we think about it, well the joke is on us, because we the citizens are in effect the unwilling investors by having our CPF funds invested in Temasek's bonds at 2.5%, which is kinda ridiculously low for a corporate bond that is obviously nowhere near low risk, one with an undiversified porfolio like theirs does not get to pay only 2.5% for their bonds in the free market.

http://s-pores.com/2009/07/once-bonded/