LCTITAN needs a new direction. It's core products facing margin compression. India, Vietnam, Thailand and China started their own country industrial petrol chem manufacturing plant which may hit LCtitan when they come online in 2025
This is the reason why I say “Don’t chase”. Lucky manage to sell significant amount at 1.4x to 1.5x. However still have slightly more than half unsold. Will be looking to buy back what’s sold at 1.1x and 1.0x (if it gets there).
Hmmm ... after 7 consecutive quarter reporting losses, chart action suggests that speculators are now trying to pick bottoms and betting that LCTITAN's prospects are now looking brighter.
Can't complain. Not chasing. Happy to hold and watch.
@raider, agree it is long term cyclical, that's a sound strategy for cyclicals, except the question is - has it bottomed yet ? What is your average accumulation price and position size (what % of capital) in LCTITAN?
My most recent accumulation price is 1.19. It brings my average price down to 1.33, so, I'm still in red. I have around 2.5% of my capital here, so, the unrealized loss is very small.
Normally, I'm not excited at my losses, so, I don't think I'll add more because I already added at 1.19.
For myself having a long term view any short term share price fluctuations isn't really a concern. However our ringgit depreciating value vs the USD is a real concern. LCtitan group borrowings of USD 2.2 billion in 2020with the Korean excim bank to finance their factory Indonesian plant an expansion is a real concern. From an estimated cost of app 10billion ringgit. Now it's has ballooned up to 11 billion in ringgit terms. Obviously this USD borrowing's will have an impart on thier bottom line. Worse the Fed Reserve isn't going to lower their rates any time soon. The Korean Exim Bank rates aren't cheap { at 5.0-5.5%
Strong price drop from 1.57 swing high down to 1.15 close over short time (1+ months). Significant fear there. Originally planned to accumulate at 1.10 and 1.00, but in view of strong price drop, will only bite small there. Odds to make new all time lows below 0.975 is now significant - say 20%-30% chance. We like fear opportunities, but the question is always - where is that point of maximum fear? So many levels to choose from.
In the scenario where it makes new all time low, patience is required for cyclical stock. It could take years. Meanwhile EPF monies earn consistently 5%-7% per annum returns, so, why rush? If 3 years, your EPF earns 20% profit already. If you own LCTITAN, you are betting that it will rebound faster but more likely (in view of downtrend) to lose out to EPF.
Always play with the odds. Better to not add to your losers, but if must add, add small and be prepared to be underwater for up to years if need be.
Lctitan market is Malaysia 33%, Indonesia 34%, (China 7% only), Southeast Asia 14%, Northeast Asia 6%, Indian Sub-Continent 5% and other 1%. Lctitan Indonesia LINE Project is on schedule and expected to be completed in 2025. Hopefully can tackle Indonesia Market and contribute to the revenue.
LOTTE CHEMICAL { Korea } has embarked to sell it's loss making subsidiary Malaysian unit LCTITAN. In 2023 LOTTE Chemical Korea racked up 201 billion won in losses in its petrol chemical division. This was reported by market insight in the Korea Economic Daily capital market news. Looks like the petrol chemical industry is facing terrible headwinds. Oversupply and dwindling demand with Chinese companies aggressively increasing their own domestic production.
Looking at LCtitan from a business point. Father letting off the son business after investing and borrowing USD 2.5billion for the Indonesian project. What's troubling n worrying is the borrowings under Lctitan Malaysia unit if LCtitan Korea sell off the Indonesian plant on a individual basis at a fire sale price citing unfavourable economic conditions. Malaysian unit will carry the burden of write off and high borrowing costs
Dividendguy67 in his postings many times said his portfolio made new high. Is it true when Lotte keep dropping?
Posted by DividendGuy67 > 2 weeks ago | Report Abuse
My most recent accumulation price is 1.19. It brings my average price down to 1.33, so, I'm still in red. I have around 2.5% of my capital here, so, the unrealized loss is very small.
Normally, I'm not excited at my losses, so, I don't think I'll add more because I already added at 1.19.
Announcement of the proposed sale by Lotte Korea comes right after their deteriorating financial position in FY 2022 and FY 2023. Coming 1st QTR result ending 31st March for FY 2024 may see more write off in inventories and worse off performance. Coming QTR result is expected to be out by end April next month
Market Cap with current price RM.1.15 only RM 2.6B, Total physical asset around RM17.2B, Long Term & other Assets RM2.7B & etc. Korean so smart, do u think his want to sell w only current price 1.15 (market cap RM2.6B).
@cheated, what an interesting handle name. If you click on my name, follow carefully my comments in its entirety (rather than cherry picking), then, you'll know that I am very highly diversified. I have at least 33 holdings where the DY is 4% or higher. My portfolio DY is currently around 5.4% (market price basis), so, I won't get very large % gains, but like an FD balance, each day, your FD is just going to keep rising and rising isn't it?
My LCTITAN is small. When it crossed to around 1.5 or so recently, I sold nearly half of my holdings. So, I just bought some at 1.1 today. Whilst my core holdings are long term dividend yields, I also sometimes do trading like this for LCTITAN because it's a cyclical stock. More often than not, price tends to mean revert. Sometimes, strong trends emerges and that's when selling loses out profits.
Neither is necessarily better styles, but for my own risk appetite, I prefer to buy when it's low and start taking profits slowly when it starts to beat my gain expectations and depending (it's judgement), either accelerate the selling as price goes higher or slow down the selling as price goes higher. Here, I'm only half right with LCTITAN as after hitting 1.5, I didn't expect it to fall so much, else I would have sold more above 1.5.
But that sort of activity does smoothen my portfolio results but it's not uncommon for my portfolio, for majority of months, to keep making new highs, largely due to a combination of recent market moves up and the high dividend yield (and also buying when price is low and also buying above average quality stocks).
6 days ago, I wrote this ... I shared I plan to accumulate at 1.10 and 1.00, but bite less ... I followed my plan. I bite LCTITAN at 1.10 and I bite "less". Now, LCTITAN is 3% of my portfolio. That's a neutral position for me. Not feeling greedy nor fearful, just neutral. And I have many other stocks in my highly diversified portfolio.
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Strong price drop from 1.57 swing high down to 1.15 close over short time (1+ months). Significant fear there. Originally planned to accumulate at 1.10 and 1.00, but in view of strong price drop, will only bite small there. Odds to make new all time lows below 0.975 is now significant - say 20%-30% chance. We like fear opportunities, but the question is always - where is that point of maximum fear? So many levels to choose from.
In the scenario where it makes new all time low, patience is required for cyclical stock. It could take years. Meanwhile EPF monies earn consistently 5%-7% per annum returns, so, why rush? If 3 years, your EPF earns 20% profit already. If you own LCTITAN, you are betting that it will rebound faster but more likely (in view of downtrend) to lose out to EPF.
Always play with the odds. Better to not add to your losers, but if must add, add small and be prepared to be underwater for up to years if need be.
I don't have special insights into LCTITAN. I blog and you'll see I do make mistakes like RAPID (but RAPID is tiny). When LCTITAN went to 1.5+, iirc, it was around 5% +/- of my portfolio if not mistaken (going by memory here, which can be hazy) and that is considered big in my portfolio as I am very highly diversified. But I did take profits as price went up as I said I would. I kept more than half for higher prices to let go but price didn't accomodate me, before it crashes.
But fwiw, when I include the past dividends, my average cost price (after reducing by dividends) is 1.14. Today closed at 1.15, so, I no longer lose any monies here. It helps that when a stock price is volatile, cyclical, adopt some buying and selling at logical price ranges - that helps to lower your average cost progressively. But it requires good chart readings. In my previous life (over a decade ago), I was a chart based swing trader but not very good because of overtrading. Today, I do much better as a dividend investor, focusing on fundamentals and incorporating chart trading in my entries and exits, but the number 1 factor is position sizing. This gives a much more stable result.
There's a few principles regarding position size. Here's a theoretical example (not talking about LCTITAN anymore).
1. If you first entered at RM2 with 1 lot, and bought RM 1 with 10 lots, your average cost is going to be closer to RM1 than RM2. It has an average cost of RM1.09.
2. If price goes to RM1.5 and you sell 5 lots (nearly half), your average cost will drop to 75 sen.
3. If price goes back down to RM1, and you buy back 5 lots, your average cost will rise to 86 sen.
If you understand this principles, and apply them to certain type of stocks, then, you can get the kind of results that I got. It's mathematics. Combined with charts. Combined with what you know about cyclical stocks and fundamentals.
There's also another principle regarding statistical edge.
If you have an edge in trading - let say 60% win rate, 40% lose rate (my win rate is much higher because I combine fundamentals).
You want to make as many constant bet size as possible. (Hence I diversify with over 33 high dividend yield stocks). The more you "trade", the greater the odds of winning to grow your total portfolio.
And more importantly, is prepare for more price falls. Let say price falls to 97 sen. What will I do? Very likely, as I said, I have already looked at the long term charts. It will tell me to buy again at 1.00. Smaller. The great thing about being diversified so much is your emotions doesn't come into the picture. What's the worst loss that I can have, if price falls to 97 sen, when average cost is 1.14 and at 1.15 it is 3% capital?
1. When price falls from 1.15 to 97 sen, the 3% capital shrinks. - If you don't average down, your loss shrinks. - If all else is equal, now, your LCTITAN shrink to around 2.55% capital. - So, you lose 0.45% capital. Big deal.
2. Here, you use your chart reading skills. Has it bottomed? Because price action is key. I can't tell in advance. I have to wait until the chart forms itself. Have to wait for other things. The decision on when to average down is usually a bit trickier if it's not obvious from long term charts.
So, here, my trading plan is hazy. I'll have to wait and see. But regardless, losing 0.45% capital is tiny. I have many other stocks that offsets these kind of losses. Hence, overall, these tend to rise more than fall because of the higher win rate.
Think of it this way. When your entire portfolio dividend yield is 5.4%, you know you have an edge. After 1 year, if price don't fall, you earned 5.4%. That's a positive edge.
So, I trade here and there occasionally. Like RAPID - I bet 0.5% capital and now, I lost like 0.3% capital. 0.3% capital is small relative to dividends. Each month, on average, my dividends is around 0.45%. So, whilst RAPID loses over 60%, it is tiny and in less than a month, I made that up from dividends elsewhere. So, my RAPID is not a permanent loss, because more than a month has passed and I have forgotten about my RAPID.
Basically, you want to put yourself in these type of position. Even when you are hugely wrong, you still grow your monies.
Means don't average down blindly when you are losing.
If you don't average down, you'll never have big losses.
And if you learn how to fish yourself, in a year, I find 50 ideas quite easily. 1 wrong idea, still got 49 other ideas. My actual win rate is in the region of 85%+. I include LCTITAN since despite entering at RM2, my average cost is now RM1.14 and since today closed RM1.15, it's a win!!!
With the positive bias from a decent dividend yield portfolio, plus a win rate much higher than lose rate, plus never ever lose big from any one trade, your portfolio is just going to make new highs quite regularly. The goal is to beat EPF by 1%-2% but in reality exceeding this significantly more. So, it's not exciting. It's kind of boring. So many others make much, much larger % gains. But I can invest much bigger $ in this. Scaleable. Same strategy whether 5 digit, 6 digit, or 7 digit. Hopefully can keep doing this for long periods of time, to keep accumulating higher than EPF rate. It's subconscious for me now for a few years already.
it will trigger mandatory takeover offer once shareholder sold major stake in the company.. do you think they will sell at RM1.2 with net asset value RM5? Even sell at RM3 is considered cheap... why not buy some and keep now?
Current low price is not about losses. It's something else. Why? Look at past 7 consecutive quarter loss - total is only 70 sen. Averaging 10 sen per quarter loss. This is tiny. The current gap between NTA and current price is at least RM4. For this gap to be bridged, that's 40 consecutive quarters. That's 10 years! It needs 10 years of consecutive losses, to bring the NTA down to current price.
So, to me, it's not about losses. It's definitely something else.
If I have 10 years to work with and if I'm LCTITAN malaysian management, here's what I do. Next year, throw in the kitchen sink. Book all losses and book huge loss provisions to report the biggest mother of all losses in 2024. Book it so big and write off so much that you engineer sustainable earnings over the next 3 years by unlocking provisions. The stock will crash and rise back up. But right now, it needs to shake off a lot of weak holders first. Still early stages.
LINE Project LOTTE Chemical Titan Holding Berhad’s (“LCT”) strategic expansion initiative to develop an Integrated Petrochemical Facility (“IPF”) known as the LOTTE Chemical Indonesia New Ethylene Project or the LINE Project, through its subsidiary, PT LOTTE Chemical Indonesia (“LCI’) is aimed to increase the company’s production capacity and realise LCT’s vision to be a Top-Tier Petrochemical Company in Southeast Asia. The joint venture project between LCT and LOTTE Chemical Corporation (“LCC”), will develop a 1 million tonne per year naphtha cracker and other related downstream facilities in Merak, Cilegon, Banten Province, Indonesia. With the completion of the LINE Project, the enlarged facility will provide enhanced operational efficiencies and significantly increase LCT’s production capacity through integration of the production process in LCT’s existing plants in Indonesia. LCT believes that the LINE Project is an attractive business proposition due to Indonesia’s dependency on petrochemical imports from other Southeast Asia countries because of its insufficient domestic production. The country is also expected to remain a large net importer of polyolefins and the domestic plastic demand gap is expected to further widen following the rising population and healthy consumption growth.
The LINE project includes the development of a cracker plant that will use naphtha and liquefied petroleum gas as its feedstock to produce, among others, 1,000 kilo tonnes per annum (KTA) of ethylene and 520KTA of propylene. “The completion of the loan facility for the LINE project marked an important milestone with the finalisation of the remaining capital funding for the project. “The LINE project serves as a key strategic expansion for the group to solidify LCT’s position as a top-tier petrochemical company in South-East Asia,” Park said. He said the project also provides synergistic advantages to the group’s three existing standalone polyethylene plants, which are in the vicinity of the project, by reducing feedstock transportation and logistics costs, as well as higher operational and cost efficiencies. “As Indonesia is a net importer of petrochemical products, the project will enable us to capitalise on the anticipated increase in demand for our products in the country,” Upon completion, Park said, the production capacity of the group will increase by 65% to 5,878KTA from its existing production capacity of 3,568KTA.
Without disrespect to any parties. LCtitan was previously taken private with a low valuations. Against this back drop there is always a strong possibility of the Board to follow or use this route {i. e. to delist the company} kitchen sinking exercise is permissible and fastest means to bring down the valuations} Or the worst case scenario as the expense of minorities to sell off the Indonesia plant at a loss while LCtitan Malaysia carries the losses. Hopefully the LCtitan board would not resort to this underhand tactics. The losses can be utilised as tax credits or against future earnongs
The 4 IB's covering Lctitan has given an underperform ratings for FY 2024/2025. Last revised TP is set between a high of 1.35 and a low of 93 sen . Consensus target price is at 1.08
This book is the result of the author's many years of experience and observation throughout his 26 years in the stockbroking industry. It was written for general public to learn to invest based on facts and not on fantasies or hearsay....
Tigerchan
366 posts
Posted by Tigerchan > 2024-01-30 22:44 | Report Abuse
Its going to 0.55 after CNY. Eat oranges first, i am waiting.