Steve Jobs abrasive style drove people away, says biographer

Posted on 24 October 2011 - 11:12am

Last updated on 24 October 2011 - 06:45pm

A customers holds a copy of the book Steve Jobs – a biography about the late co-founder of Apple – at a book store in Taipei on Oct 24, 2011. AFP

APPLE Inc co-founder Steve Jobs revolutionised multiple industries with his cutting-edge products but he was not the world's best manager, biographer Walter Isaacson said.

Jobs changed the course of personal computing during two stints at Apple and then brought a revolution to the mobile market but the inspiring genius is known for his hard edges that have often times alienated colleagues and early investors with his my-way-or-the-highway dictums.

"He's not warm and fuzzy," Isaacson said in an interview with 60 Minutes on CBS on Sunday. "He was not the world's greatest manager. In fact, he could have been one of the world's worst managers."

"He could be very, very mean to people at times," he added.

Jobs loved to argue but not everyone around him shared that passion, which drove some of his top people away. While his style had yielded breakthrough products, it didn't make for "great management style," Isaacson said.

In one of the more than 40 interviews that Jobs gave the biographer, the technology icon said he felt totally comfortable being brutally honest.

"That's the ante for being in the room. So we're brutally honest with each other and all of them can tell me they think I'm full of s**t, and I can tell anyone I think they're full of s**t," Jobs said. "And we've had some rip-roaring arguments where we're yelling at each other."

Isaacson's biography Steve Jobs, which hits bookstores on Monday, reveals that Jobs refused potentially life-saving cancer surgery for nine months, was bullied in school, tried various quirky diets as a teenager, and exhibited early strange behaviour such as staring at others without blinking.

The book is expected to paint an unprecedented, no-holds-barred portrait of a man who famously guarded his privacy fiercely but whose death ignited a global outpouring of grief and tribute.

Isaacson said in the interview that the reality distortion theory that had always been associated with Jobs stemmed from the Apple co-founder's belief that he was special and that the rules didn't apply to him.

'Magical thinking'

"He could drive himself by magical thinking," Isaacson said. "By believing something that the rest of us couldn't possibly believe, and sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't."

Jobs, who has revolutionized the world of personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet, digital publishing and retail stores, would have liked to conquer television as well, Isaacson said.

"He had a few other visions. He would love to make an easy-to-use television set," said Isaacson, speaking of Job's last two-and-a-half years of life. "But he started focusing on his family again as well. And it was a painful brutal struggle. And he would talk, often to me about the pain."

Jobs, in his final meeting with Isaacson in mid-August, still held out hope that there might be one new drug that could save him. He also wanted to believe in God and an afterlife.

"Ever since I've had cancer, I've been thinking about (God) more. And I find myself believing a bit more. Maybe it's because I want to believe in an afterlife. That when you die, it doesn't just all disappear," Isaacson quoted Jobs as saying.

"Then he paused for a second and he said 'yeah, but sometimes I think it's just like an on-off switch. Click and you're gone," Isaacson said of Jobs. "He paused again, and he said: And that's why I don't like putting on-off switches on Apple devices." – Reuters

How many hours are you willing to invest to be the best you can?

The magic number is 10,000

Posted on 23 October 2011 - 08:24pm
Last updated on 24 October 2011 - 07:35am

COMMENT
by Tony Pereira

TEN thousand.

That, according to research, is the magic number to become world class in whatever field one chooses. Whether it is to become a musician, sports player, programming specialist or top-notch executive.

Ten thousand hours of graft specialising on the skill of your job. I sat in on an operations meeting last week. The CEO had been having a discussion with one of his staff who wanted to leave the organisation because he could not see a career path. The CEO asked him a few questions — simple questions to "see where he (the employee) was coming from". Much to the dismay of the CEO, the employee revealed that he had only done a couple of installations since he joined this telecommunications company a year ago.

Needless to say, the operations meeting was not a happy one. One by one, the CEO went round the table and tabulated the number of installations each of the engineers had done in the past year. He found that the two senior engineers pretty much did all the work; the underlings simply watched their superiors whilst the installations were being done. I guessed these underlings also checked their Facebook and Twitter and Linked In instead of improving their skills.

Armed with knowledge I had acquired over the weekend reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, I revealed the research results Gladwell shares in his book. The secret to success is 10,000 hours of graft. The results of various research studies showed that to be truly world class in anything one does, one needs to invest about just over one year of one's life to become an expert in that field. And we are not talking about academic time. We are talking about time taken on the actual task.

In Outliers, Gladwell examines the success stories of Bill Gates, Bill Joy (who co-founded Sun Microsystems), The Beatles and others. And what he found common amongst all of them is the number of hours they spent working on their special skill. There were other factors that contributed to their success but without the investment of time, these people would not have made it to the top of their ladder.

The consequences of this research to companies, manufacturers, installers, service providers and others are very clear. The differentiator is training and focus. If an executive wants his or her business to be the best, they need to develop a culture where the employee is focused on his particular skill and keeps repeating it. It sounds straightforward. But how many companies actually track this.

Airlines do for their pilots. The medical profession does. The accounting profession does — kind of, although it is mainly for billing purposes. Consulting companies, IT companies and other service providers all also do some form of tracking but it is more for accounting than for training and performance improvement purposes.

So the challenge to companies wanting to be world class is straightforward.

How many hours does it take for your employee to be become world class?

The challenge to individuals is also simple.

How many hours are you willing to invest to be the best you can?

During one interview I saw on television, Sir Alex Ferguson recalled how Eric Cantona would continue practising after training had ended. He would practise his volleying, his kicking and various other skills. And this was from an established world-class player.

The companies that perform the best will spend the most. These companies however will spend wisely. When Jack Welch set about transforming General Electric, he cut headcount significantly. At the same time, he invested in their training centre at Crotonville because he believed that to make GE the best, he had to provide the best training possible. Six Sigma has saved Motorola (which developed this concept) more than US$17 billion in savings since 1986. The doctrine of Six Sigma is to continuously improve processes to reduce defects. To produce these savings, Motorola had to invest in this programme. Short-term pain but recurring long-term benefits.

When I looked at the success stories of individuals and companies, it all made sense. Successful companies have a differentiator from their competitors. They are able to produce a product more cheaply or at a better quality. They did not get there by accident. They got there because they followed a carefully laid-out plan which sets out to make them the best at what they do. And that involved an investment of time.

Just like Bill Gates. Just like Bill Joy. Just like The Beatles. The common denominator was 10,000. Hours, that is.

So, to all CEOs and the training departments of companies which want to be world class... just remember the magic number. Ten thousand.

Tony Pereira is a chartered accountant and CFO of a private venture fund

http://www.thesundaily.my/news/186509

Singapore eases monetary policy, warns of inflation

Posted on 14 October 2011 - 09:27am

Last updated on 14 October 2011 - 02:29pm

SINGAPORE (Oct 14, 2011): Singapore's central bank loosened monetary policy slightly on Friday in the face of global economic weakness but not as much as markets had expected, stressing inflation was expected to remain elevated in the near term.

The decision to allow the Singapore dollar to appreciate at a more modest pace sent the local currency up as much as 0.7% in early trade, and highlighted a policy dilemma for Asian central banks as they face both slowing growth and persistent price pressures.

"MAS will continue with the policy of a modest and gradual appreciation of the Singapore dollar NEER (nominal effective exchange rate) policy band in the period ahead," the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in its half-yearly policy statement.

"However, given the expected moderation in core inflation, the slope of the policy band will be reduced, with no change to the width of the band and the level at which it is centred," MAS added.

The Singapore dollar traded around 1.2745 against the US dollar, up from 1.2770 just before the announcement and 1.285 earlier in the Asian day.

"MAS slightly surprised with a less bearish stance. The market expected more easing," said Goh Puay Yeong, Asia FX strategist at Credit Suisse in Singapore.

Singapore manages monetary policy by letting the local dollar rise or fall against a secret basket of currencies of its main trading partners to boost growth or control imported inflation. Its currency is the world's 12th most actively traded.

Growth trends in the highly open economy and its monetary settings are a bellwether not just for demand from developed markets but may also give hints on policy in China, whose managed float of the yuan is believed to be modelled on the Singapore dollar.

Chua Hak Bin, an economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said the MAS statement suggested headline inflation will remain high at 5 percent or above in coming months.

"That is probably the reason why the MAS is probably a bit more constrained in easing to a neutral bias," he said.

MAS said in its policy statement that "headline inflation will be elevated for the rest of this year before easing, especially in the second half of 2012".

Singapore also reported on Friday that its economy grew 1.3% in the third quarter on a seasonally adjusted and annualised rate, beating forecasts for an expansion of 0.8%.

This meant the city-state narrowly avoided a recession as its economy had contracted a revised 6.3% in the second quarter.

However, third quarter growth was due primarily to a surge in biomedical production that more than offset the continued decline in electronics. On a sequential basis, Singapore's services industries contracted 0.7%.

Output from the biomedical sector can be highly volatile.

Singapore's decision to loosen policy follows numerous economists' downgrades of global growth forecasts for this year and 2012, and Indonesia's surprise decision earlier this week to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point.

All 13 economists polled by Reuters before the policy statement had predicted Singapore would loosen policy in some way as global demand cools, although only one expected MAS to switch to a neutral currency bias.

Singapore slightly tightened policy in April by sanctioning an immediate rise in the value of its dollar, saying headline inflation will likely stay elevated. – Reuters

Parkson said to list retail arm in S$200 m S'pore

Posted on 19 October 2011 - 11:21am

Last updated on 19 October 2011 - 04:38pm

SINGAPORE (Oct 19, 2011): The Asian retail arm of Malaysia's Parkson Holdings is planning to raise up to S$200 illion ((RM494.6 million) in a Singapore initial public offering (IPO), a source told Reuters on Wednesday.

Parkson Retail Asia, a department-store operator with operations in Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia, is looking to sell shares at an indicative price of S$0.935-S$1.07 each, the source with direct knowledge of the deal said.

The source could not be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media. A spokesperson for Parkson Holdings could not immediately be reached for comment.

Parkson Retail, 90% owned by Parkson Holdings, on Wednesday filed a preliminary prospectus with the Singapore regulator. Indonesia's PT Mitra Samaya owns the remaining 10% in the company.

The global offering comprises 80 million primary shares and 67 million secondary shares offered by Parkson Holdings' subsidiary East Crest International and Mitra Samaya, with an over-allotment option of 22.05 million secondary shares, IFR Asia reported.

The indicative price range is 12.4-14.2 times the expected earnings for calendar year 2012.

Its parent Parkson Holdings has a 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio of 20.3 times, compared with a sector median of 19.9, according to Starmine data.

In August, Parkson Holdings said Parkson Retail had net assets of S$140.3 million as of June 30.

HSBC has been appointed the sole global coordinator and issue manager for the offering. CIMB and HSBC are the joint bookrunners and underwriters, while CLSA is the co-lead manager.

At 0413 GMT, shares of Parkson Holdings were down 1.95% at RM5.54. – Reuters

World wealth to grow 50% in 5 years: Credit Suisse

Posted on 19 October 2011 - 04:52pm

Last updated on 20 October 2011 - 07:58am

ZURICH (Oct 19, 2011): Global wealth could rise 50% to US$345 trillion over the next five years, spurred by a near doubling of total household wealth in China and strong growth in Asia Pacific, Latin America and Africa, a Credit Suisse report released on Wednesday said.

The Global Wealth Report 2011 from Credit Suisse research said total global wealth jumped 14% between January 2010 and June 2011, ending the period at US$231 trillion, with Asia Pacific countries responsible for 54% of the rise.

"These are times of unprecedented economic change, and a radical reconfiguration of the world's economic order is taking shape," said Osama Abbasi, chief executive Officer for Asia Pacific at Credit Suisse.

"Emerging markets are important drivers of the global recovery and remain the key growth engines of global wealth."

With an expected US$81 trillion, the United States is seen remaining in the top spot in 2016 in terms of total household wealth, while China is set to leapfrog Japan into second place by almost doubling its household wealth to US$39 trillion.

Adults in Switzerland, Australia and Norway are the richest in the world, with Swiss adults holding average wealth of US$540,010, the only country where the average adult has more than US$500,000.

The net worth of the average Swiss person when measured in US dollars, was bumped up by the strength of the Swiss franc, which rose about 10% in value against the greenback from the start of the year to the end of June. – Reuters

How much should you invest in a stock?

		Teh Hooi Ling Sat, Nov 24, 2007 The Business Times
How much should you invest in a stock?
THE science of numbers has developed quite a bit since June 1955, when a new quiz show called The $64,000 Question made its debut on American television. The show was a hit. It captured as much as 85 per cent of the viewing audience and spawned dozens of copycat shows. There was even betting on which contestants would win. But the problem was the show was produced in New York and aired live on the East Coast of the US. The telecast, however, was delayed by three hours on the West Coast. A gambler took advantage of the time difference by finding out by phone who the winners were, and then placing his bets before the West Coast airing. John Kelly, a physicist at Bell Labs, heard about the scam on the news. After some pondering, he was convinced that a gambler with "inside information" could use some of the equations developed by his colleague - Claude Shannon - to achieve the highest return on his capital. Mr Shannon, who created information theory after having realised that computers could express numbers, words, pictures, audio and video as strings of digital 0s and 1s, had developed formulas to deal with the signal noise of long-distance telephone transmission. Mr Kelly saw that the equations could be applied to the problem of a gambler who has inside information, say, about a horse race, and who is trying to determine his optimum bet size. A gamblr gets a tip on a race's outcome. He could bet everything he's got on the horse that's supposed to win. But if the gambler adopts this approach, he will lose everything should the information turn out to be wrong. Alternatively, he could play it safe and bet a minimal amount on each tip. This squanders the considerable advantage the inside tips supply. In Kelly's analysis, the smart gambler should be interested in "compound return" on capital. That is, to optimise the long-term growth rate of one's capital, the gambler - the theory also applies to investors - should vary the wager as a proportion to his overall capital depending on the probability of bet being a winning one, and on the payout of the winning bet. The Kelly formula or Kelly criterion has become a popular money-management formula for investors, hedge fund managers and economists. Uncertain events As the saying goes, the only certainties in life are death and taxes. For everything else, we form some kind of expectations of the outcome based on our experience, or what have been documented by others. In finance, the expected value is used to account for the uncertain outcome of, say, a project or an investment. Project A, has 30 per cent chance of making a profit of 20 per cent, 40 per cent of a profit of 12 per cent and 30 per cent of making a loss of 15 per cent. So the expected return is 6.3 per cent  (30%x20% + 40%x12% + 30% x -15%). If there are numerous investment opportunities with that kind of probabilistic outcome, then over a long period of time, the investor will earn an average of 6.3 per cent return per investment, as indicated by the expected return. However, some investments or gambles are such that there is a one in a million chance of getting a $2.5 million payoff for a $1 bet. But for the other 999,999 times, you lose 100 per cent of your wager. The expected return is a good 150 per cent. But if one were to bet a significant sum of one's wealth on this kind of gamble, it is almost a certainty that one would be bankrupted before the big payoff comes along. According to Kelly's formula, two numbers should decide how much capital one should allocate to bet on an uncertain event: the probability of the bet being a winning one, and the payout. The formula is this: (Probability of bet being a winning one x (expected rate of return +2) -1) / (expected rate of return + 1). So if you think that an investment has a 51 per cent chance of returning 20 per cent, then according to the formula, you should put 10 per cent of your capital in that investment. But if the probability of the investment yielding 20 per cent drops to 45 per cent or less, then you should not make any bet at all. Meanwhile, a stock with half a chance of returning 30 per cent, the wager size should be 11.5 per cent of your portfolio. This method forces an investor to seriously and thoroughly analyse the potential of a stock. And when he or she comes across a stock whose potential they think is severely unappreciated by the market, then they should have the conviction to commit a sizeable bet on it. The prerequisite for this kind of approach is that the investor must have deep understanding of a stock and the industry it operates in, and have knowledge of how companies are valued by the market. In a way, the world's most successful investor, Warren Buffett, also subscribes to this strategy. He advocates focus investing, and to bet big on high probability events. There have been studies done that, using Kelly's formula one can minimise the expected time to reach a fixed fortune. From the table, it appears that the probability of a favourable outcome carries a much bigger weight in determining how much one should put into an investment. Disadvantages The Kelly formula was developed to solve similar problems in gambling where the outcome is either win or lose. And it assumes a 100 per cent loss when the outcome is unfavourable. In the stock market, one rarely lose 100 per cent of one's investment in a single trade.  Also, a financial investor cannot completely rely on the number suggested by the Kelly formula as it does not take into consideration the possibility of a few available investment options. In gambling, using Kelly's formula can produce a rather volatile result. There is a one-third chance of halving the bankroll before it is doubled. According to some literature, a popular alternative is to bet only half the amount suggested, which gives three-quarters of the investment return with much less volatility. Where money accumulates at 9.06 per cent compound interest with full bets, it still accumulates at 7.5 per cent for half-bets. And as mentioned, this kind of strategy is applicable to those who know their ways around the stock market. But even for experts, putting 30 per cent of one's portfolio in a stock with a 60 per cent probability of a 35 per cent return seems rather big a bet. The numbers should at best be used as a rough guide. And for those who don't have the time or the inclination to carry out in-depth studies of stocks, a diversified  approach is perhaps safer. The writer is a CFA charterholder. She can be reached at hooiling@sph.com.sg

Warrants trading: What you need to know

These cheap investment tools were virtually non-existent in Singapore a few years ago, but a recent growth spurt has sent their popularity soaring. Let's look at reasons to invest in warrants and how to go about it.
IF THE experts are right, the current boom in this investment tool is far from petering out.

They say more and more market traders are jumping in, as well as investors looking beyond stocks and bonds to bolster their portfolios.

To get an idea of just how popular they have become, consider this: Warrants turnover on the Singapore Exchange has grown from zero in 2003 to about $3 billion a month now.

The number of active warrant accounts has also shot up more than tenfold, to 20,154 this June from 12 months earlier.

A key attraction of warrants is that they are cheap.

Warrants trade around 20 cents to 30 cents, so the minimum investment for one lot - 1,000 shares - could be as low as $200 to $300.

As with any instrument, money can be made and lost when trading warrants.

For example, say an investor bought a call warrant on stock X for 30 cents with an exercise price of $5. Also, assume the conversion ratio is one to one, which means one warrant can be converted into one share.
The current share price is $5.25.

If the investor holds the warrant to maturity and exercises it, he is effectively paying $5.30 apiece for the shares (30 cents warrant cost plus $5 exercise price).

If the price of stock X stays at $5.25, he will get back 25 cents, so effectively, he will lose five cents ($5.30 minus $5.25).

If the share price falls to $5 or below, he will lose just his investment capital of 30 cents, but no more, even if the share price falls drastically.

On the other hand, if the stock's market price shoots up to $5.35, converting the warrant into a share would mean a five cent profit.

Consultant Peter Ang, 32, started trading warrants this year with a principal sum of $15,000. He made a 25 per cent return in just three days, after he bought DBS Group Holdings and CapitaLand warrants in September. But he lost about $20,000 in two weeks when the stock market nosedived recently. 'I wasn't careful, so I didn't cut my losses fast enough,' he said.

Despite the spectacular growth in the Singapore warrants market, Hong Kong is still well ahead because of a flood of China listings there.

Previous attempts to launch warrants trading here in 1995, and again in 1999, tanked for various reasons - including overly stringent listing rules and inadequate investor education.  

But three years ago, warrant issuers - some of the biggest players include Deutsche Bank, Macquarie Bank, Societe Generale and BNP Paribas - started to double as market makers. This means these banks provided buy and sell prices on warrants to ensure that investors had the chance to enter or exit the market.  They also embarked on investor education seminars and dedicated websites featuring trading tools.


How to pick a suitable warrant?


Directional view
Without getting bogged down in technical terms such as 'implied volatility', you should consider one factor when picking a warrant: whether you think the underlying asset is likely to go up or down in value.
Your view will determine whether you select a call warrant or a put warrant.
For example, suppose the Government has announced a new project and the likelihood of CapitaLand securing the project is high.
If you think this is good news for CapitaLand, you could consider buying call warrants on the stock - since you would expect the stock price to rise.
But if you think CapitaLand's share price is more likely to fall, you might want to buy a put warrant.
'Theoretically, if one has a neutral view on a stock, it would not be advisable to invest in warrants,' Deutsche vice-president Sandra Lee cautioned.

Timing
You also need to factor in the timeframe - and be confident that the underlying asset price is set to reach your price target at the same time that the warrant matures.
Take a call warrant, for example. The longer the time to expiry, the more time there is for the underlying asset to appreciate, which in turn will increase the price of the call warrant.
A call warrant that is far 'out-of-the money' with very little time to expiry is considered highly risky. This is because it has an exercise price that is much higher than its underlying price and yet has little time to appreciate.
In contrast, when the call warrant's exercise price is lower than its underlying price, the warrant is regarded as 'in-the-money'.
For both call warrants and put warrants, if the exercise price is equal to the underlying price, the warrants are said to be 'at-the-money'.
'If you believe the market is going to have a sharp correction soon, you should choose a short-term out-of-the- money put warrant,' said Mr Simon Yung, BNP's head of retail listed products sales for Singapore and Hong Kong.
'If you expect a stock to move up gradually in one to two months' time, you should choose a mid-term at-the- money or a 1 to 5 per cent out-of-the- money call warrant.'


Why invest in warrants?
Gearing effect
The biggest advantage warrants trading has over stocks trading is the gearing effect, which means that you can make huge gains from a modest investment outlay.
For example, it can cost nearly $20,000 to buy one lot of DBS shares (assuming a market price of $20 a share).
An increase of 1 per cent in the DBS share price will give you a return of $200.
But if you buy a DBS warrant with an effective gearing of 10 times, it should roughly return the same profit of $200.
The effective gearing indicates roughly how many per cent a warrant price will move if the underlying stock changes by 1 per cent.
In this case, trading in the DBS warrant costs just $2,000 but reaps the same $200 return.
'If the share price moves in your favour, you will get higher returns with a higher level of gearing. But if you get your view wrong, losses will also be greater,' said Mr Barnaby Matthews, Macquarie's head of warrants sales.
Since warrants are typically cheaper than underlying shares, this potentially frees up investors' cash for other purposes.

A hedging tool
Buying a put warrant - which gives you the right to sell the underlying asset later - is like buying an insurance policy for your portfolio, as it protects you from falls in the market.

'If the underlying asset declines, then put warrants will appreciate in price to offset losses suffered by the underlying asset,' said Mr Ooi Lid Seng, Societe Generale's vice-president of structured products for Asia ex-Japan.

For example, one can hold OCBC Bank shares and buy OCBC put warrants. If the OCBC share price keeps falling, losses will be partially offset by the gain in the put warrant price.

As warrants can be used to capture both the upside (call warrants) and the downside (put warrants), they can be used as a tool for risk management in a stock portfolio.

Mr Yung said that warrants can be a perfect instrument for balancing a portfolio's risk profile. 'A portfolio with only bonds, property and stock may not be able to optimise the risk-taking capability of the investor,' he said.


Tips on investing

FIRST, investors should never invest all their investment capital in warrants.

'Generally, we do not advise them to invest more than 10 per cent of their total investment capital in warrants due to the high-risk and high-return nature of warrants,' Mr Ooi said.

Retirees should also not use retirement funds needed to maintain their lifestyle to invest in warrants, as they generally have a lower risk tolerance, he added.

Investors should also be disciplined about taking profits and cutting losses. Mr Matthews advised investors to monitor their positions closely as warrants tend to move in greater percentage terms than shares.
Customer service manager Jason Kua, 37, would know. Three weeks ago, he lost about $25,000 in just two weeks after trading in some Straits Times Index warrants.

'Greed made me lose a lot. I was hoping my initial losses could be recovered, but this didn't happen,' he said.
Finally, investors should attend a seminar or do some reading to ensure that they understand the product before investing.

'Asking the expert before you invest is always a good idea,' Mr Yung said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is a warrant?

WARRANTS are 'derivative' investment products - that is, they derive their value from an underlying asset such as a stock or a market index such as the Straits Times Index.
They give the investor the right to buy or sell the underlying asset from the issuer by paying a specific 'strike' or exercise price within a certain timeframe.
A call warrant gives the holder the option to buy, while a put warrant gives the option to sell.
Take a Keppel Corp call warrant for example.
If the price of the underlying Keppel stock rises above the exercise price before the expiry of the warrant, it will clearly be to your advantage to exercise the right to buy Keppel shares.
If you plan to exercise the Keppel warrant - that is, convert it into a Keppel share - you must do so before the expiration date. Of course, if Keppel's price stays below the exercise price, the warrants will expire worthless.


But investors often do not have to hold warrants to maturity. Normally, they simply buy and sell warrants on the stock market as they move in line with movements in the underlying share price.


'Warrants, unlike shares, have a finite lifespan,' said Deutsche Bank vice-president Sandra Lee. 'For each day the investor holds on to the warrant, the warrant loses some time value.'

Warrants usually have three- to six-month expiry dates.


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