Bullbear Buffett

Keep INVESTING Simple and Safe (KISS) ****Investment Philosophy, Strategy and various Valuation Methods**** The same forces that bring risk into investing in the stock market also make possible the large gains many investors enjoy. It’s true that the fluctuations in the market make for losses as well as gains but if you have a proven strategy and stick with it over the long term you will be a winner!****Warren Buffett: Rule No. 1 - Never lose money. Rule No. 2 - Never forget Rule No. 1.

Sunday, 7 December 2025

Why are manipulated stocks so risky?

Questions: Why are manipulated stocks so risky?

https://myinvestingnotes.blogspot.com/search?q=manipulators

14.1.2010

Here are the main points why manipulated stocks are so risky.

List of Main Points

Market Structure Facilitates Manipulation: Bursa Malaysia has an abnormally high number of listed companies for its small market size and economy, creating a pool of low-value, illiquid stocks that are easy targets.
Shifted Motivation for Manipulation: After the 1997-98 crisis, banks became wary of accepting inflated stocks as loan collateral. The primary goal of manipulation is now to directly profit from pumping and dumping shares on retail investors.
The Manipulation Playbook ("Pump and Dump"):
- Accumulation & Cornering: Manipulators buy up large stakes at very low prices.
- Artificial Inflation: They use tactics like wash trading (fake accounts), ambitious announcements, and large fake buy orders to create false volume and demand, driving the price up.
- Enticing Punters: The rising price and fabricated activity lure in speculative retail investors ("punters").
- The Dump: While maintaining the illusion of demand, manipulators secretly sell their holdings at inflated prices. Eventually, they dump all remaining shares, causing a crash.
Extreme Risk for Investors:
- Predictability: It's nearly impossible for outsiders to know when the dump will happen.
- Crash, Not Correction: The decline is typically sudden and severe ("crashes").
- Asymmetrical Outcome: Investors risk losing everything ("lose a bomb") on a single failed exit, while gains from timely exits are speculative and risky.
Fundamental Worthlessness of Targets: In Malaysia, many manipulated stocks are from fundamentally weak companies on the "brink of bankruptcy" with little chance of a real turnaround, making them pure gambling vehicles.
Author's Advice & Disclaimer:
- Strong Warning: Trading such stocks is compared unfavorably to casino gambling.
- Alternative Suggestion: For those drawn to speculation, exploring speculative stocks on the ASX (Australian Securities Exchange) is presented as a potentially better option, as many are exploration companies with genuine, if slim, prospects.
- Recommended Approach: The only safe way in Malaysia is fundamental, long-term investing.
- Legal Disclaimer: The author states they are not a licensed adviser and shifts responsibility to the reader and their licensed remisier (broker).

Discussion

The text provides a coherent and critical analysis of stock manipulation in the Malaysian context. It effectively traces the evolution from collateral-based fraud in the 1990s to the modern retail-focused "pump and dump" scheme. The core argument is that the risk is systemic and exacerbated by local market conditions.

The discussion highlights the asymmetry of information and control. Manipulators control the supply, information flow (via announcements), and even the appearance of demand. Retail investors are at a severe disadvantage, participating in a rigged game where the exit doors are controlled by the manipulators.

The comparison to a casino is apt but with a crucial distinction: in a casino, the odds are mathematically known and regulated. In a manipulated stock, the "house" (the manipulator) not only controls the odds but can also change the rules of the game mid-play.

The author's perspective is notably cynical about the quality of speculative Malaysian companies and suggests a geographical arbitrage—speculating in Australian resource explorers is framed as having more merit due to the nature of their business (seeking a genuine discovery) compared to the "worthless" Malaysian counterparts.

Summary

Manipulated stocks are exceptionally risky because they represent a controlled deception rather than a genuine investment. In markets like Malaysia, where many small, low-quality companies are listed, manipulators can easily corner a stock. They artificially inflate its price through fake volume and misleading news, creating a false narrative of success to lure speculative retail investors. Once enough outsiders buy in, the manipulators dump their shares, collapsing the price. The retail investor faces a near-impossible task of timing their exit before this crash, often leading to catastrophic losses. The entire process is characterized by a fundamental disconnect between the stock's price and its underlying value, making it a form of financial gambling where the odds are deliberately and opaquely stacked against the public participant. The only advised antidote is to avoid such schemes entirely and stick to fundamental investing.

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My 18 points guide to Successfully compounding your money in Stocks

Be a good stock picker.
Think as a business owner.
Always look at value rather than the price. Do the homework.
Buy and hold is alright for selected stocks.
Compounding is your friend, get this to work its magic.
Mr. Market is there to be taken advantage of. Do not be the sucker instead. BFS;STS.
Always buy a lot when the price is low.
Never buy when the stock is overpriced.
It is alright to buy when the selected stock is at a fair price.
Phasing in or dollar cost averaging is safe for such stocks during a downtrend, unless the price is still obviously too high.
Do not time the market for such or any stocks.
By keeping to the above strategy, the returns will be delivered through the growth of the company's business.
So, when do you sell the stock? Almost never, as long as the fundamentals remain sound and the future prospects intact.
The downside risk is protected through only buying when the price is low or fairly priced.
Tactical dynamic asset allocation or rebalancing based on valuation can be employed but this sounds easier than is practical, except in extreme market situations.
Sell urgently when the company business fundamental has deteriorated irreversibly.
You may also wish to sell should the growth of the company has obviously slowed and you can reinvest into another company with greater growth potential of similar quality. However, unlike point 16, you can do so leisurely.
In conclusion, a critical key to successful investing is in your stock picking ability.

http://myinvestingnotes.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-18-points-guide-to-successfully.html

11 Lessons From Peter Lynch

Peter Lynch taught me:

1. Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it’s doing.
2. Never invest in any idea you can’t illustrate with a crayon.
3. Over the short term, there may be no correlation between the success of a company’s operations and the success of its stock. Over the long term, there’s a 100% correlation.
4. Buying stocks without studying the companies is the same as playing poker – and never looking at your cards.
5. Time is on your side when you own shares of superior companies.
6. Owning stock is like having children. Don’t get involved with more than you can handle.
7. When the insiders are buying, it’s a good sign.
8. Unless you’re a short seller, it never pays to be pessimistic.
9. A stock market decline is as predictable as a January blizzard in Colorado. If you’re prepared, it can’t hurt you.
10. Everyone has the brainpower to make money in stocks. Not everyone has the stomach.
11. Nobody can predict interest rates, the future direction of the economy, or the stock market. Dismiss all such forecasts and concentrate on what’s actually happening to the companies in which you’ve invested.

Lynch’s advice had a profound effect on my stock market approach. He taught me that investment success isn’t the result of developing the right macro-economic view or deciding when to jump in or out of the market. Success is about researching companies to identify those that are likely to report positive surprises.

Capital Expenditure

A great company with a Durable Competitive Advantage will have a ratio of Capital Expenditures to Net Income of less than 25%. Less is better.

Capital Expenditures are expenses on:
- fixed assets such as equipment, property, or industrial buildings
- fixing problems with an asset
- preparing an asset to be used in business
- restoring property
- starting new businesses

A good company will have a ratio of Capital Expenditures to Net Income of less than 50%.

A great company with a Durable Competitive Advantage will have a ratio of less than 25%.

Less is better.

Benjamin Graham's 113 Wise Words

The true investor scarcely ever is forced to sell his shares, and at all times he is free to disregard the current price quotation. He need pay attention to it and act upon it only to the extent that it suits his book, and no more. Thus the investor who permits himself to be stampeded or unduly worried by unjustified market declines in his holdings is perversely transforming his basic advantage into a basic disadvantage. That man would be better off if his stocks had no market quotation at all, for he would then be spared the mental anguish caused him by other persons' mistakes of judgement."

Philip Fisher's Wise Words

"The refusal to sell at a loss, while completely natural and normal, is probably one of the most dangerous in which we can indulge ourselves in the entire investment process.

More money has probably been lost by investors holding a stock they really did not want until they could 'at least come out even' than from any other single reason. If to these actual losses are added the profits that might have been made through the proper reinvestment of these funds if such reinvestment had been made when the mistake was first realized, the cost of self-indulgence becomes truly tremendous."

(Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits)

The Ultimate Hold-versus-Sell Test

Here is the overriding primary test, followed by observations on why it is so critically important:

Knowing all that you now know and expect about the company and its stock (not what you originally believed or hoped at time of purchase), and assuming that you had available capital, and assuming that it would not cause a portfolio imbalance to do so, would you buy this stock today, at today's price?

No equivocation. Yes or no?

Answers such as maybe or probably are not acceptable since they are ways of dodging the issue. No investor probably buys a stock; they either place an order or do not.

Here is the implication of your answer to that critical test: if you did not answer with a clear affirmative, you should sell; only if you said a strong yes, are you justified to hold.

Some thoughts on Analysing Stocks (KISS)

Ideally a stock you plan to purchase should have all of the following charateristics:

• A rising trend of earnings dividends and book value per share.
• A balance sheet with less debt than other companies in its particular industry.
• A P/E ratio no higher than average.
• A dividend yield that suits your particular needs.
• A below-average dividend pay-out ratio.
• A history of earnings and dividends not pockmarked by erratic ups and downs.
• Companies whose ROE is 15 or better.
• A ratio of price to cash flow (P/CF) that is not too high when compared to other stocks in the same industry.

Margin of Safety Concept: Stocks should be bought like groceries, not like perfume

The high CAGR in the early years of the investing period, due to buying at a discount, tended to decline and approach that of the intrinsic EPS GR of the companies over a longer investment time-frame.

Chapter 20 - “Margin of Safety” as the Central Concept of Investment

A single quote by Graham on page 516 struck me:

Observation over many years has taught us that the chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of favorable business conditions.

Basically, Graham is saying that most stock investors lose money because they invest in companies that seem good at a particular point in time, but are lacking the fundamentals of a long-lasting stable company.

This seems obvious on the surface, but it’s actually a great argument for thinking more carefully about your individual stock investments. If most of your losses come from buying companies that seem healthy but really aren’t, isn’t that a profound argument for carefully studying any company you might invest in?

Bullbear Buffett

Sunday, 7 December 2025

Why are manipulated stocks so risky?

Questions: Why are manipulated stocks so risky?

List of Main Points

Discussion

Summary

No comments:

All equity security investments present a risk of loss of capital

The Ultimate Hold-versus-Sell Test

Some thoughts on Analysing Stocks (KISS)

Benjamin Graham

Sell the losers, let the winners run.

Investment Style

Warren Buffett

Political and Economic News

Interesting Blogs