To The Moon

Hello Tigers,

In this article, allow us to introduce @Chi_Keng , a cash boost account trader, and his in-depth investment journey. We hope his story and experiences change your perspective on Chinese conceptual stocks.

Read the full story on Chi Keng's first-person visual explanation here: 

🎉CBA Trader Interview: Tay Chi Keng spotlights Opportunities in China

If you have any points of interest, please leave comments to further communicate with him.

Interview Questions

 1. Personal Information Q&A

Q: How long have you been involved in investing？

Tay: (Officially on my own) I started when I was in the 2nd year, while serving national service; it’s been 7 years since then. (When younger, before coming of age, I did park my funds with my dad and bought stocks “under him”)

Q: What’s your investing background? (share your motivation, experiences & knowledge accumulation)

Tay: Since I was young, I have been under the constant influence of my dad, who is a veteran investor & trader, so we talk about economics, politics, and finance quite regularly. So, I guess it’s just a natural progression. Then, thereafter, I decided to do Accountancy and Business Administration at the University and majored in Finance.

Q: How frequently do you trade? Why？

Tay: If you talk about trading, I don’t really trade frequently – the most I do is just using a small part of the portfolio to do cash secured puts (IE, selling put options). I focus more on long-term investing, so in most months, you will probably only see me taking one action, which is buying stocks.

Q: What's your trading style？ A short-term, frequent trader or a long-term value investor？

Tay: I do identify more as a long-term value investor.

Q: Have any investment gurus, relevant personnel, or books influenced your investment strategies?

Tay: I do follow all your mainstream gurus like Buffett, Munger, Lynch, etc. I won’t credit whose strategy I “copied” the most – but I prefer understanding them and practicing them on my own to find out which method or philosophy suits me most and adapt along the way. I don’t believe there’s the “best” strategy, just the best one for you.

Q: What has been your most profitable or successful trade so far?

Tay: If it’s by percentage, it would be $Meta Platforms, Inc.(META)$ (and I’m still holding). I remember averaging down during the 2022 bear crash until $160 – it should be easily tripled now (although it’s not a lot in absolute figures.

If it’s by absolute dollar amount, it would be $TENCENT(00700)$ (and I’m still holding). Currently sitting on a 70% gain, and that’s about 20K SGD. Unrealized. Accumulated them throughout the Chinese tech bear market. My average is under 300 HKD per share.

Q: Do you think your strategy of valuation can be duplicated to increase winning rates in trade? Why?

Tay: I think the underlying reasoning is more of patience (and knowing what you want to achieve), which is a trait that can be trained.

2. Questions regarding your analysis and trades in Chinese concept stocks

Q: You’ve built a strong following by analyzing Chinese concept stocks. What inspired you to focus on this niche, and how do you evaluate their long-term potential compared to other markets?

Tay: If you look through the past 7 years of my journey, they just so happen to be the ones in the longest bear market with the most opportunity (in my view). I’m geographically agnostic, and I just gravitate to wherever I see value. And it just so happens, I’m fishing at an area where we have a great juggernaut of companies, trading at insane valuations, so I concentrate my portfolio heavily on them.  

Q: Many investors are wary of Chinese concept stocks due to regulatory risks. How do you assess these risks, and what’s your framework for identifying resilient companies in this space?

Tay: I often joke, at least you know there’s regulatory risk in China, and the market has done a pretty good job in trying to assess the regulatory “discount”. I do focus more on bottom-up valuation – looking at company fundamentals and the ‘softer’ side of things like economic moat, company culture as well, and not too much about the macro stuff because it’s something I cannot control.

Take, for example, the gaming crackdown they have had in the past 3 to 5 years; companies like $TENCENT(00700)$ and $NetEase(NTES)$ bore the brunt of those developments. But as a Tencent shareholder, I know it’ll hurt their numbers as they go through this ‘cleaning up’ phase, but in the longer run, they’ll adapt, and continue to execute (as we’ve seen in the last 3 decades), and bounce back again from here. Besides, the valuations back then implied that the whole gaming business was zero, which was quite a steal if you look back in hindsight, especially in the most recent quarter, when the gaming division lapped and broke new records in growth and revenue.

Q: Do you ever trade Chinese concept stocks? If yes, what are some of the companies or stocks you typically trade? If not, why?

Tay: Like trading in and out? Rarely. I mostly just buy and hold. Because the whole basket of Chinese concept stocks is very volatile, and it feels quite hard to “predict” what news and developments are coming out, and not only that, try to interpret how the market will react. That is asking too much of me. I do the much simpler buy-and-hold.

Q: Are there any indicators that you would advise traders to focus on when evaluating and trading Chinese concept stocks?

Tay: I don’t trade much, so I don’t have any specific indicators, but I have something interesting to share. A “soft” indicator was when I look at friends or acquaintances around me giving up their Chinese positions, that’s when I know the bottom is near (this was in 2022/23)

Q: Are there any Chinese concept stocks that you are attentive to as we approach the latter half of the year?

Tay: I remain very bullish about those that I own, mainly in the consumption and tech space, like $Alibaba(BABA)$ , $TENCENT(00700)$ , $MEITUAN(MPNGF)$ , $HAIDILAO(06862)$ , etc. I do hold a medium-to long-term bullish view on them and still see a lot of potential legs to run as we see them eclipse this cycle of disbelief and pessimism.

3. Concluding Thoughts

Q:  What are your investment goals for 2025 or the upcoming years?

Tay: I don’t have any specific goals, but the portfolio that I’m building should be used to fund my retirement, and I do have a longer-term target of $ 1.3 M.

Q: Are there any industries, sectors, or even individual stocks that you feel will be bullish in the long run?

Tay: Alibaba and Tencent make up 50% of my portfolio exposure, so you tell me how I think about them in the long run.

Q: For beginners exploring Chinese concept stocks, what’s your top tip to avoid common pitfalls?

Tay: Like any investment, I think it’s important to build your ground-up understanding about the business and be clear about your thesis. Don’t buy just because it looks like a credible opportunity you heard from some friends or gurus. Conviction cannot be borrowed. And it’s only when the tide is out that you know who is swimming naked.

Q: Do you have any tips and advice you would like to provide to traders on the Tiger App?

Tay: Tiger was one of the first few pioneers that allowed for the democratization and ease of more regular folks to start investing and trading (disrupting the incumbents with their ridiculous fee structure) – and we have to thank them greatly for that.

I know it might start as something exciting that has the potential to give you another stream of income and fund your retirement/expenses, but be sure to always focus on improving your process and be intellectually honest. The P&L is brutal, and there’s no point bluffing yourself. If it’s not working, go back to the drawing board and see how to fix certain parts of your process or investing/trading framework, and test it out again.

Q: What do you think of Tiger's App and the Cash Boost Account?

Tay: Tiger has been a very trusted partner, and I’ve been building my portfolio with them since 2020. I’ve recently seen that I can equip the “1500 day” badge on my avatar. They’ve made access to capital markets never been easier, and people can no longer have the excuse that “It’s so difficult to go into the stock market” – so I think we must take advantage of it.

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