Disclaimer: This DD is to help start forming a market view as per RBI announcements. Also a gentle reminder that fundamentals play out over a longer time frame than intraday. The authors take no responsiblity for your yolos.
With contributions by Asli Bakchodi, Bran OP & dragononweed!
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What is the RBI?
RBI is the central bank of India. They are one of the key players who affect India’s economic trajectory. They control currency supply, banking rules and more. This means that it is not a bank in which retailers or corporates can open an account with. Instead they are a bank for bankers and the Government of India.
Their functions can be broadly classified into 6.
· Monetary authority
· Financial supervisor for financial system
· Issuer of currency
· Manages Foreign exchange
· Bankers bank
· Banker to the government
This DD will take a look at each of these functions. It will be followed by a list of rates the RBI sets, and how changes in them can affect the market.
1. Monetary Authority
One of RBI’s functions is to achieve the goal of “Price Stability” in the economy. This essentially means achieving an inflation rate that is within a desired limit.
A monetary policy committee (MPC) decides on the desired inflation rate and its limits through majority vote of its 6 members, in consultation with the GoI.
The current inflation target for RBI is as follows
Consumer Price Inflation (CPI): 4%
Upper Limit: 6%
Lower Limit: 2%
An increase in CPI means less purchasing power. Generally speaking, if inflation is too high, the public starts cutting down on spending, leading to a negative impact on the markets. And vice versa. Lower inflation leads to more purchasing power, more spending, more investments leading to a positive impact on the market.
2. Financial Supervisor For Financial System
A financial system consists of financial markets (Capital market, money market, forex market etc.), financial institutions (banks, stock exchanges, NBFC etc) & financial assets (currencies, bills, bonds etc)
RBI supervises this entire system and lays down the rules and regulations for it. It can also use further ‘Selective Credit Controls’ to regulate banks.
3. Issues of currency
The RBI is responsible for the printing of currency notes. RBI is free to print as much as it wants as long as the minimum reserve of Rs 200 Cr (Gold 112 Cr) is maintained. The RBI has total assets or a balance size sheet of Rs. 51 trillion (April 2020). (1 Trillion = 1 Lakh crore)
India’s current reserves mean our increase in currency circulation is well managed.
4. Manages Foreign Exchange
RBI regulates all of India’s foreign exchange transactions. It is the custodian of all of foreign currencies in India. It allows for the foreign exchange value of the rupee to be controlled. RBI also buy and sell rupees in the foreign exchange market at its discretion.
In case of any currency movement, a country’s central bank can directly intervene to either push the currency up, as India has been doing, or to keep it artificially low, as the Chinese central bank does. To push up a currency, a central bank can sell dollars, which is the global reserve currency, or the currency against which all others are measured. To push down a currency, a central bank can buy dollars.
The RBI deciding this depends on the import/export and financial health of the country. Generally a weaker rupee means imports are more expensive, but are favourable for exports. And a stronger rupee means imports are cheaper but are unfavourable for exports.
A weaker rupee can make foreign investment more lucrative driving up FII. A stronger rupee can have an adverse effect of FII investing in markets.
5. Banker’s Bank
Every bank has to maintain a certain amount of reserve with the RBI. A certain percentage of a bank’s liabilities (anywhere between 3-15% as decided by RBI) has to be maintained in this account. This is called the Cash Reserve Ratio. This is determined by the MPC during the monetary policy review (which happens every six weeks at present).
It lends money from this reserve to other banks if they are short on cash, but generally, it is seen as a last resort move. Banks are encouraged to meet their shortfalls of cash from other resources.
6. Banker to the government
RBI is the entity that carries out ALL monetary transactions on behalf of the Government. It holds custody of the cash balance of the Government, gives temporary loans to both central and state governments and manages the debt operations of the central Government, through instruments of debt and the interest rates associated with them - like bonds.
The different rates set & managed by RBI
- Repo rate
The rate at which RBI is willing to lend to commercial banks is called as Repo Rate.
Banks sometimes need money for emergency or to maintain the SLR and CRR (explained below). They borrow this from RBI but have to pay some interest on it. The interest that is to be paid on the amount to the RBI is called as Repo Rate.
It does not function like a normal loan but acts like a forward contract. Banks have to provide collateral like government bonds, T-bills etc. Repo means Repurchase Option is the true meaning of Repo an agreement where the bank promises to repurchase these government securities after the repo period is over.
As a tool to control inflation, RBI increases the Repo Rate making it more expensive for banks to borrow from the RBI with a view to restrict availability of money. Exact opposite stance shall be taken in case of deflationary environment.
The change of repo rate is aimed to affect the flow of money in the economy. An increase in repo rate decreases the flow of money in the economy, while the decrease in repo rate increases the flow of money in the economy. RBI by changing these rates shows its stance to the economy at large whether they prioritize growth or inflation.
- Reverse Repo Rate
The rate at which the RBI is willing to borrow from the Banks is called as Reverse Repo Rate. If the RBI increases the reverse repo rate, it means that the RBI is willing to offer lucrative interest rate to banks to park their money with the RBI. Banks in this case agree to resell government securities after reverse repo period.
Generally, an increase in reverse repo rate that banks will have a higher incentive to park their money with RBI. It decreases liquidity, affecting the market in a negative manner. Decrease in reverse repo rate increases liquidity affecting the market in a positive manner.
Both the repo rate and reverse repo rate fall under the Liquidity Adjustment Facility tools for RBI.
- Cash reserve ratio (CRR)
Banks in India are required to deposit a specific percentage of their net demand and time liabilities (NDTL) in the form of CASH with the RBI. This minimum ratio (that is the part of the total deposits to be held as cash) is stipulated by the RBI and is known as the CRR or Cash Reserve Ratio. These reserves will not be in circulation at any point in time.
For example, if a bank had a NDTL (like current Account, Savings Account and Fixed Deposits) of 100Cr and the CRR is at 3%, it would have to keep 3Cr as Cash reserve ratio to the RBI. This amount earns no interest.
Currently it is at 3%. A lower cash ratio means banks can deposit just a lower amount and use the remaining money leading to higher liquidity. This translates to more money to invest which is seen as positive for the market. Inversely, a higher cash ratio equates to lower liquidity which translates to a negative market sentiment.
Thus, the RBI uses the CRR to control excess money flow and regulate liquidity in the economy.
- Statutory liquidity ratio (SLR)
Banks in India have to keep a certain percentage of their net demand and time liabilities WITH THEMSELVES. And this can be in the form of liquid assets like gold and government securities, not just cash. A lot of banks keep them in government bonds as they give a decent interest.
The current SLR ratio of 18.25%, which means that for every Rs.100 deposited in a bank, it has to invest Rs.18.50 in any of the asset classes approved by RBI.
A low SLR means higher levels of loans to the private sector. This boosts investment and acts as a positive sentiment for the market. Conversely a high SLR means tighter levels of credit and can cause a negative effect on the market.
Essentially, the RBI uses the SLR to control ease of credit in the economy. It also ensures that the banks maintain a certain level of funds to meet depositor’s demands instead of over liquidation.
- Bank Rate
Bank rate is a rate at which the Reserve Bank of India provides the loan to commercial banks without keeping any security. There is no agreement on repurchase that will be drawn up or agreed upon with no collateral as well. This is different from repo rate as loans taken with repo rate are taken on the basis of securities. Bank rate hence is higher than the repo rate.
Currently the bank rate is 4.25%. Since bank rate is essentially a loan interest rate like repo rate, it affects the market in similar ways.
- Marginal Cost of Funds based Lending Rate (MCLR)
This is the minimum rate below which the banks are not allowed to lend. Raising this rate, makes loans more expensive, drying up liquidity, affecting the market in a negative way. Similarly, lower MCLR rates will bring in high liquidity, affecting the market in a positive way.
MCLR is a varying lending rate instead of a single rate according to the kind of loans. Currently, the MCLR rate is between 6.65% - 7.15%
- Marginal Standing facility
Marginal Standing Facility is the interest rate at which a depository institution (generally banks) lends or borrows funds with another depository institution in the overnight market. Overnight market is the part of financial market which offers the shortest term loans. These loans have to be repaid the next day.
MSF can be used by a bank after it exhausts its eligible security holdings for borrowing under other options like the Liquidity adjustment facilities.
The MSF would be a penal rate for banks and the banks can borrow funds by pledging government securities within the limits of the statutory liquidity ratio.
The current rate stands at 4.25%. The effect it has on the market is synonymous with the other lending rates such as repo rate & bank rate.
- Loan to value ratio
The loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is an assessment of lending risk that financial institutions and other lenders examine before approving a mortgage. Typically, loan assessments with high LTV ratios are considered higher risk loans.
Basically, if a companies preferred form of collateral rises in value and leads the market (growing faster than the market), then the company will see the loans that it signed with higher LTV suddenly reduce (but the interest rate remains the same).
Let’s consider an example of gold as a collateral. Consider a loan was approved with gold as collateral. The market price for gold is Rs 2000/g, and for each g, a loan of Rs 1500 was given. (The numbers are simplified for understanding). This would put LTV of the loan at 1500/2000 = 0.75. Since it is a substantial LTV, say the company priced the loan at 20% interest rate.
Now the next year, the price of gold rose to Rs 3000/kg. This would mean that the LTV of the current loan has changed to 0.5 but the company is not obligated to change the interest rate. This means that even if the company sees a lot of defaults, it is fairly protected by the unexpected surge in the underlying asset. Moreover, since the underlying asset is more valuable, default rates for the loans goes down as people are more protective of the collateral they have placed.
The same scenario for gold is happening right now and is the reason for gold backed loan providers like MUTHOOT to hit ATHs as gold is leading the economy right now. Also, these in these scenarios, it also enables companies to offer additional loan on same gold for those who are interested Instead of keeping the loan amount same most of the gold loan companies.
Based on above, we can see that as RBI changes LTV for certain assets, we are in a position to identify potential institutions that could get a good Quarterly result and try to enter it early.
Conclusion
The above rates contain the ways in the Central Bank manages the monetary policy, growth and inflation in the country.
Its impact on Stock market is often seen when these rates are changed, they act as triggers for the intraday positions on that day. But overall, the outlook is always maintained on how the RBI sees the country is doing, and knee jerk reactions are limited to intraday positions. The long term stance is always well within the limits of the outlook the big players in the market are expecting.
The important thing to keep in mind is that the problems facing the economy needn’t be uni-dimensional. Problems with inflation, growth, liquidity, currency depreciation all can come together, for which the RBI will have to play a balancing role with all it powers to change these rates and the forex reserve. So the effect on the market needs to be given more thought than simply extrapolated as ‘rates go low, markets go up’.
But understanding these individual effects of these rates allows you to start putting together the puzzle of how and where the market and the economy could go.

Today’s lesson goes to be somewhat controversial and should ruffle some feathers. I shall blow wide open and debunk tons of the knowledge you've got presumably been exposed to the present far in your trading journey.
The average trader is out there walking through a confusing and conflicting maze of data from a spread of sources including; blogs, forums, broker websites, books, e-books, courses and YouTube videos.
With of these learning resources available there's naturally getting to be some excellent and a few very bad information, but actually , there just isn’t how for many aspiring traders to understand what to concentrate to, who to concentrate to, or what information is useful and what information is non-beneficial.
I’m not getting to pretend that there's how for an aspiring trader to filter this giant sea of data composed by of these resources and mentors out there, because there simply isn’t. knowledgeable trader with 10,000 hours of experience might stand an opportunity of deciding the great from the bad and therefore the valid from the invalid. However, you, the beginner or intermediate trader simply won’t possess that filtering ability yet.
Becoming ‘Non-Average’
As traders, we concede to our instinctive feelings of social trustworthiness supported what we see and listen to , often to our extreme detriment. we frequently tend to require a leap of religion with our mentors and have a habit of taking things said to us at face value. we would like to hold close information that resonates with us and is sensible to us, especially if it’s delivered by a well-known source that we've come to understand and trust.
The ‘average trader’s brain’ is usually trying to find a shortcut due to the overwhelming desire to form money and be free. The brain wants to urge a winning result immediately with the smallest amount amount of effort possible. If you would like to ever make it as a professional trader or investor, I suggest you are doing everything you'll to avoid thinking with the ‘average trader’s brain‘ and begin being ‘non-average’. meaning becoming far more aware, thinking outside the box more and questioning and filtering the knowledge you read and watch. most significantly , slowing everything all down!
This now begs the apparent question…how does one even know what I’m close to write during this lesson is actually valid and factual? How are you able to really be sure? the reality is unless you've got followed me and my posts on this blog for an extended time and know me and know my work, then you can’t really make certain , and that i don’t expect you to easily believe it at face value. If you would like to return back and re-read this lesson during a few weeks, or a couple of months, or a couple of years, after you work out that i'm somebody worth taking note of about trading OR that i'm somebody not worth taking note of about trading, then so be it.
So with a degree of healthy skepticism, I ask you to think about the below list of eye-opening secrets that professional traders and therefore the trading industry, don’t want you to understand about or understand. I hope it helps…
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FOREX isn’t the sole market the Professionals trade
The FX market is large , with billions of dollars per day changing hands. It can cause you to great money if you recognize what you’re doing OR it can send you broke if you don’t. It’s a really popular market to trade globally, BUT it’s not the sole market the professional’s trade and it’s not always the simplest market to trade either.
A note on leverage:
The brokers and platform providers want you to trade FX on high leverage because the profit margins are very high for them. However, if you trade FX on lower leverage, the profit margins shrink dramatically for them. once you trade FX, start brooding about what can fail rather than just brooding about what can go right. I suggest avoiding stupidly high leverage like 400 to 1, as this will be very dangerous for you if the market moves quickly or experiences a price gap and your stop-loss orders aren’t executed at the worth you set. A more sensible leverage level would be 100 to 1 or 200 to 1, but any higher seems crazy. (Using an excessive amount of leverage is what wiped tons of traders out during Swiss Bank Crisis in 2015, The Brexit choose 2016 and therefore the Currency flash crash in early 2019).
Broaden your view:
Going forward, it'll serve you well in your trading career to start out watching a spread of worldwide markets including FX, Stock Indicies and Commodities. additionally to FX, I personally trade GOLD (XAUUSD), S&P500 Index USA, the SPI200 Index Australia, and therefore the Hang Seng Index Hong Kong , and sometimes individual stocks on various global exchanges. In short, there's more to the trading world than simply FX. I discuss the foremost popular markets I trade this lesson here.
Day trading isn’t what Pro trading really is
The internet is crammed with marketing trying to convince folks that the definition of a trader may be a one that spends all day actively trading in and out of the market on a brief term basis, all whilst living the life-style of a Wall St millionaire. there's a significant agenda within the industry to push this story to the masses, it's been relentless for many years .
I am yet to satisfy one successful day trader who is consistent over the future and that i have almost 25,000 students and 250,000 readers on this blog. i'm not saying there isn’t a couple of out there, but 99.9% of the people that do this sort of trading or attempt to live up to the standard day trader stereotype are getting to fail and perhaps even harm themselves financially or mentally. Watching a screen all day and searching for trades constantly is that the like a compulsive gambler playing roulette during a casino.
The successful traders i do know of (myself included) are watching higher time frames and longer time horizons (minimum 4-hour chart timeframes and predominantly daily chart time frames). they need no restriction on how long they're looking to carry a trade for and that they tend to let the trades find them. The professionals i do know , don't day trade, they are doing not watch screens all day, they are doing not search for trades constantly. they're going to typically fall under the category of a swing trader, trend trader or position trader.
The obvious paradox and conflicting reality within the ‘day trader story’ is blatantly obvious. How does a trader who is consistently watching a screen and constantly trading have time to enjoy his life and live the lifestyle? They chose to trade as a profession to possess a life, they didn’t choose it to observe a screen 24/5.
Here are some points to think about that employment against the so-called ‘ day trader’:
The shorter the time-frame the more noise and random price movement there's , thus increasing your chance of simply being stopped out of the trade.
Your ‘trading edge’ features a higher chance of yielding a result for you if you’re not trading within the intraday noise.
The same trading edge doesn't work or produce an equivalent results on a 5 min chart compared to a Daily chart.
Commissions and spreads churn your account, therefore the more you trade the more you lose in broker platform costs. (I will mention this below)
Risk-Reward ratios aren't relative on shorter and longer time frames. Statistical average volatility across different time periods also as natural market dynamics play an enormous role during this . there's much more weight behind higher time frames than lower timeframes.
Great trades take time because the market moves slower than most of the people ever anticipate. Trading from the upper timeframes and holding trades for extended time periods will provide you with greater opportunities to ascertain trades mature into big winners. However, shorter timeframes don’t provide you with this same opportunity fairly often .

If you're looking for a way to earn free trx, there are many ways that you can go about doing so. These ways, in order from easy to hard, are: Sign up for a reliable trx webste. Setup an online private wallet. Earn free trx via an iPhone application. In this article, I'm going to describe each of these methods and how they can help you make free trx!
If you don't already have a reliable coin trading community, it's important to take the time to do so before you start looking for a place to get involved in this exciting industry. You'll quickly realize that the more people you know in this field, the more likely it is that you'll be able to trade freely. This is one of the most important reasons to become part of a community.
My first tip is to join a great place to learn about trading. There are literally dozens of great sites out there that cover every aspect of this industry. If you want to earn free trx, you should definitely do your research and find a great place to learn about it.
My second tip is to set up your very own online private wallets to earn free trx. You can do this in two ways. Either get a software program that allows you to trade for free with no risk or create your own wallet with your personal details and generate income with it. Both methods work well and can produce some good income.
My third tip is to buy some free trx from people that you know. This can be a very lucrative way of making some extra money on the side. If you don't want to spend too much money initially, buying a few coins and selling them off again can work really well.
Hopefully, after reading through this article you'll have a much better idea of how to get started earning free trx. If you follow my advice, you should soon be seeing some nice profits!
Online trading is a very fun way to earn money online and it's a great way to learn the ins and outs of how to become an expert in this field. Once you're used to it, you can also set up your own website to help you sell other people's cryptos and profit as well.
When you're trading with other currencies, your margins tend to be lower compared to the ones you would get in Forex trading, but you'll make a lot more money in this industry. The reason for this is because you trade multiple currencies on a daily basis.
The great thing about this is that you can get started trading Forex on autopilot with just a few mouse clicks. It's very convenient and very fast. Plus, there are literally hundreds of Forex traders out there willing to help you.

I'm hopeless at formatting text, so if you think you can structure this post better take everything i write and put it into an easy to digest way. I'm just going to type out everything i know in text as fast as possible. I'm not a legal expert, I'm not somehow who understands every bit of information in the PDF's below, but i know I'm a retail trader that uses leverage to make profit which is why I'm posting this, in the hope that someone who can run a charge better than me, will.
Some of you are already aware of what might be happening, this is just a post to educate retail traders on changes that might be coming to certain brokers. This effects Australian Customers the most, but also effects those living in other countries that use Australian brokers, such as Pepperstone and others.
Last year in August 2019, ASIC ( Australian Securities and Investments Commission ) was concerned about retail traders going into Forex and Binary options without understanding these instruments properly and started sticking their noses in for tough regulation.
ASIC asked brokers and anyone with interest in the industry to write to them and explain what should and should not change from the changes they proposed, some of the proposed changes are very misguided and come from a lack of understanding exactly how OTC derivatives actually work.
I will provide the link to the paper further down so you can read it yourself and i will provide a link to all the submission made by all parties that sent submissions to ASIC, however the 2 main points of debate are:
1, To reduce the overall leverage available to retail traders to either 20:1 or 30:1. This means people who currently use leverage such as 100:1 to 500:1 and everything in between will be effected the most, even more so are those traders with relatively small accounts, meaning in order to get your foot in the door to trading you will need more capital for it to be viable.
^^ This point above is very important.
2, The removing of Binary options trading, which basically includes products like "Bet if gold will rise to this price in the next 30 seconds" This sort of stuff. So far from all the submissions from brokers and individuals nobody really cares if this changes as far as i know, though if you have concerns about this i would start voicing your disapproval. Though i would not waste your time here, all is pointing to this being eradicated completely with brokers also supporting the changes, I've never used such a product and know very little about them.
^^ This point above isn't very important and will probably be enforced in the future.
Still to this day i see retail traders not understanding leverage, they think of it as "dangerous and scary", it's not, position size is the real danger, not leverage. So ASIC is aiming to limit retail traders access to high leverage, they are claiming it is a way to protect traders who don't really understand what they are getting into by attacking leverage and not the real problem which is position size relative to your capital.
If it was truly about protecting retail traders from blowing up their accounts, they would look for ways to educate traders on "understanding position sizes and why it's important" rather than attacking leverage, but their goal is misguided or has an ulterior motive . I will give you a small example below.
EXAMPLE - We will use 2 demo accounts for demonstration purposes. If you don't understand my example, i suggest you try it for yourself. - Skip if not interested in examples.
Lets say we open 2 demo accounts with $1000 in both, one with 20:1 leverage and one with 500:1 leverage and we open an identical position on both accounts ( say a micro lot '0.01' on EURUSD ). You are safer on the 500:1 account as you don't need to put up as much margin as collateral as you would on the 20:1. If the trade we just opened goes against us and continues against us, the account with 20:1 leverage will run out of free margin a lot faster than the 500:1 account. In this simple example is shows you that leverage is not dangerous but safer and gives you a lot more breathing room. This trade was a small micro lot, so it would take hundreds of pips movements to get margin called and blow up that $1000 on each account. Lets now use a different position size to truly understand why retail traders blow up accounts and is the reason why trading can be dangerous.
This time instead of opening a micro lot of '0.01' on our $1000 dollar demo accounts, lets open a position size much larger, 5 lots. Remember we only have $1000 and we are about to open a position much larger relative to our capital ( which we should never do because we can't afford to do that ) the 20:1 probably wont even let you place that trade if you don't have enough margin as collateral or if you could open the position you would have a very tiny amount of free margin left over, meaning a small pip movement against you will instantly blow up your $1000 account. On the 500:1 account you wouldn't need to put up as much margin as collateral with more free margin if the trade goes bad, but again a small movement could blow up your account. In this example, both accounts were dangerous because the lack of understanding position sizes, opening a position you can't afford to open. This is what the true danger is, not the leverage.
Even in the second example, the higher leverage would "margin call" you out later. So i would go as far to say that lower leverage is more dangerous for you because it margin calls you out faster and just by having a lower leverage doesn't stop you from opening big positions that can blow you up in a 5 pip movement anymore, any leverage size is dangerous if you're opening positions you can't afford to open. This is also taking into consideration that no risk management is being used, with risk management higher leverage is even more powerful.
ASIC believes lowering leverage will stop people opening positions that they can't afford. When the reality is no matter how much capital you have $500, $1000, $5000, $50,000, $500,000, $5,000,000. You don't open position sizes that will blow that capital up completely with small movements. The same thing can happen on a 20:1 or 500:1 account.
Leverage is a tool, use it, if your on a lower leverage already such as 20:1, 30:1 it means your country has been regulated and you already have harder trading conditions. Just remember higher leverage allows you to open larger position sizes in total for the amount of money you own, but the issue is NOT that your using the higher leverage but because you are opening positions you can't afford, for what ever reason that is, the only fix for this is education and will not be fixed by simply lowing leverage, since you can just as easy blow up your account on low leverage just as fast or if not faster.
So what is going on?
There might ( get your tinfoil hats on ) be more that is involved here, deeper than you think, other agendas to try and stop small time retail traders from making money via OTC products, theories such as governments not wanting their citizens to be traders, rather would prefer you to get out there and work a 9 to 5 instead. Effective ways to do this would be making conditions harder with a much larger barrier of entry and the best way to increase the barrier of entry for retail traders is to limit leverage, lower leverage means you need to put up more money, less breathing room for trades, lower potential. They are limiting your upside potential and the downside stays the same, a blown account is a blow account.
Think of leverage as a weapon, a person wielding a butchers knife can probably destroy a person wielding a steak knife, but both knifes can prove fatal. They want to make sure your holding the butter knife then tell you to butcher a cow with it. 30:1 leverage is still workable and can still be profitable, but not as profitable as 500:1 accounts. This is why they are allowing professionals to use high leverage, this gives them another edge over successful retail traders who will still be trying to butcher a cow with a butter knife, while they are slaying limbs off the cow with machetes.
It's a way to hamstring you and keep you away rather than trying to "protect" you. The real danger is not leverage, they are barking up the wrong tree, how convenient to be barking up the very tree most retail traders don't fully understand ( leverage) , pass legislation to make trading conditions harder and at the same time push the narrative that trading is dangerous by making it even harder. A full circle strategy to make your trading conditions worse, so you don't succeed.
Listen carefully especially if you trade with any of the brokers that have provided their submissions to ASIC. Brokers want to seem like they are on your side and so far some of the submissions ( i haven't read them all ) have brokers willing to drop their leverage down to 30:1 because they know by dropping the leverage down it will start margin calling out their clients at a much faster rate, causing more blown up accounts / abandoned accounts with residual margin called funds, but they also know that if they make trading environments too hard less people will trade or even worse move their funds elsewhere offshore to unregulated brokers that offer higher leverage.
Right now it's all just a proposal, but as governments expand and continue to gain more control over it's citizens, it's just a matter of time till it's law, it's up to you to be vocal about it, let your broker know that if they drop their leverage, you're out, force them to fight for you.
If you have any more information related to this, or have anything to add, post below. I'm not an expert at this technical law talk, i know that i do well with 500:1 leverage and turn profits with it, it would be harder for me to do on a lower leverage, this is the reason for my post.
All related documents HERE
CP-322 ( Consultation paper 322 ) & Submissions from brokers and others.
https://asic.gov.au/regulatory-resources/find-a-document/consultation-papers/cp-322-product-intervention-otc-binary-options-and-cfds/

November 2030
Well, uh, this sucks. Just a few short months after the Arab States of the Gulf finally unified, the world economy decided to explode. This is what we in the business of economics call a very bad thing.
The effects across the FAS have been relatively disparate. The United Arab Emirates, easily the most diversified economy in the region, has been the least heavily impacted (though it's still bad). Diversification programs in Oman and Bahrain have also helped to stave off some of the worst impacts of the crisis, though they haven't been as successful in avoiding the effects as the UAE. Qatar and Kuwait, still almost entirely reliant on hydrocarbon exports, are not happy with this turn of events. Falling global oil prices, though propped up a little by a sudden increase in demand from China, have left their economies struggling much more than the rest of the country, and in desperate need of assistance from the better off parts of the country.
One major pain point in this crisis has been the FAS's economic ties to the United States. While most of the FAS's trade is with Asia, Africa, and Europe, the US financial system still plays a crucial role in the FAS. The stability of the US Dollar has long been used to protect the economies of the Gulf using their vast Forex reserves (earned from oil sales) to peg their currency to the US Dollar. With the US Dollar in complete collapse, the value of the Khaleeji is plummeting right along with it, causing a significant degree of harm to the FAS's economy.
To help offset this harm (and to decouple the FAS's economy from a country that the FAS is starting to view as maybe not the most reliable economic partner), the Central Bank in Dubai has announced that the Khaleeji will switch its peg from the US Dollar to a basket of foreign currencies (the Euro, the Pound Sterling, the Swiss Franc, the US Dollar, and the Japanese Yen). The FAS hopes that this will help to salvage the Khaleeji's value, better protecting the economy from the collapse of the dollar-based international financial system. Rumor has it that the Central Bank is discussing the idea of unpegging the Khaleeji entirely and allowing it to float freely, but so far, the Central Bank has made no moves towards floating the Khaleeji.
Crises suck. They shatter the status quo and throw established norms and procedures into chaos. No one really wins during a crisis.
But in another sense, they're a double-edged sword. The status quo is often a repressive entity, reinforcing existing hierarchies and preventing dramatic shifts in the order of things. Chaos breaks that apart, giving the ingenuitive and the entrepreneurial on opportunity to better their lot in ways they otherwise could not.
Put differently: chaos is a ladder, and the FAS intends to be the one climbing it. As the largest economy in the Arab World (and one of the world's 20 largest economies) by both nominal GDP and GDP per capita (by a significant margin--it's probably either Saudi Arabia or Egypt in second place in nominal GDP, and definitely Saudi Arabia in second place in GDP per capita, but the FAS more than doubles the country in second place in both categories, so it's sort of a moot point), the FAS hopes to cement its place as the regional economic power.
The FAS has announced a new slate of policies intended to attract rich investors, manufacturing firms, and financiers fleeing the new nationalization program of the United States. New free trade zones have been created throughout the country--especially in the struggling, undiversified regions of Kuwait and Qatar--with the goal of convincing fleeing American manufacturers to set up shop in these areas. Attractions include wildly low tax rates (as low as zero percent in some instances), a common law framework (as opposed to the Sharia-based legal system in most of the FAS), highly subsidized land prices (sometimes free), relaxed financial restrictions (making it easier to move money in and out of the FTZ), and, for large enough firms moving enough operations into the country, preferential visa treatment (making it easier for them to relocate foreign employees into the country). Sitting at one of the major crossroads of global trade, moving operations to the FAS offers easy access to both the world's established consumer markets (like the EU and East Asia) as well as to some of its largest growing markets (South and Southeast Asia, East Africa, and MENA). Pair this with wildly high standards of living (for people who aren't slaves Asian or African migrant workers) and established expatriate communities, and the FAS becomes an incredibly attractive option for American and other foreign firms looking to relocate.
In addition to manufacturing-oriented FTZs, special attention has been paid to attracting service-oriented firms to new and existing FTZs in the vein of Dubai Internet City, Dubai Design District, Dubai Knowledge Park, and Dubai Media City, with the goal of developing a robust service economy that can capture growing markets in the MENA, South Asia, and East African regions. In advertising these zones, the governments of the FAS have highlighted the success of previous ventures in Dubai, which have attracted the regional headquarters of giants like Facebook, Intel, LinkedIn, Google, Dell, Samsung, Microsoft, IBM, Tata Consultancy, and more.
Perhaps one of the most substantial pushes, though, is to attract American financial services and FinTech firms to base in the FAS (particularly Dubai, Kuwait City, Doha, and Abu Dhabi, the traditional centers of regional finance). New financial industry free trade zones have been set up in the four cities, structured in the vein of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). These financial FTZs boast an independent and internationally regulated regulatory and judicial system, a common law framework, and extremely low taxation rates. All government services in these regions are available in English (the lingua franca of international finance), and in events where ambiguity exists in the legal and regulatory systems, the systems are set to default to English Common Law (except for the Kuwait City International Financial Centre, which is hoping to better tailor itself towards American financial firms by defaulting to American Civil Law from pre-2020 rather than English Common Law). Much like in the DIFC, these new FTZs will also run their own courts, staffed in large part by top judicial talent from Common Law (or in the case of Kuwait City, American Civil Law) jurisdictions like Singapore, England, and (formerly) Hong Kong. Using these FTZ, the four cities hope to raise their profile as financial centers. Dubai in particular is hoping to break into the top ten global financial centers--and it stands a good chance of doing so, too, as it sits at number 12, just behind cities like LA, SF, and Shenzhen--while the other cities are just hoping to boost their profile into the 20s or 10s (according to Long Finance, Dubai is number 12 in the world and 1 in the region, Abu Dhabi is number 39 in the world and two in the region, Doha is number 48 in the world, and Kuwait City is number 91).

Again within 24 hours of trying to work out a way to make this sustainable and workable for everyone I've noticed it's not worth the hassle to do so. It seems a lot of you expect everything for nothing.
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I'm afraid that is not going to work for me. Nothing I am doing is free for me, and if people do not want to pitch in the tiniest bit to help with that I can only conclude one of two things;
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1 - The info is not worth $50 to you. In which case it is not worth my time writing it.
2 - People are ungrateful. In which case it is not worth my time writing it.
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If people were willing to meet me half way, I'd have went a lot further. People seem to want to stand where they are and shout over to me I'm a scammer for not bringing it all to their feet. That's a perspective. You can have it. I do not mind. But if this is your talk, I'll trade in silence. I'll also show you what happens with the "Scammy" info I was going to provide you for $50.
In the week ahead I'll set up an account with a similar amount to the amount of money people seem to think it's egregious to ask for, and I'll run the same trades on this as will be in the trading plans shared in the proposed offer. I'll use recognised results tracking programs that will automatically verify and display the results.
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Build up phase:
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I'll start with currency trades. These are the lowest barrier to entry since I can trade micro lots and also have access to leverage. Currency trades should give me about 400 'pips' margin of error. Realistically, I should not need more than 40. I think SPX will be up 2 - 4% next week, this should give gains to on the Aussie against the Swiss (AUDCHF) - I'll go long AUDCHF.
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Margin up phase:
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After the currency trades I should have enough to trade SPX. I'll start to position short on SPX around 3080 and I'll take a first target of 2377. Given the right setups I'll add to my SPX short as prices are falling to bulk up the net take profit on the trade if it works. I'll trail my stops on the first trades to mke sure I'm not increasing my risk .
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Big up phase:
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By this time I should have enough margin to trade the Dow. Here I can make some real money. Around 21,000 I'll start to short the Dow and I'll be targeting 10,000. This trade should pay me somewhere in the region of $50,000 per traded lot. During the move I should be able to build up a position of at least 4 - 5 lots on the margin I have. Should be over $200,000 if it hits.
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Cash flow up phase:
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Once the drop has happened, I will begin to go long and do it in ways that will generate me daily income. I'll do this by transferring about $100K into options account and selling puts for 100 SPY. I'll also switch back to currency trades and I'll engage in what are known as "Carry trades", these will pay me every day I hold the trade based upon the "Swap".
The best carry trades will depend upon what respective interest rates are at the time. Assuming things are similar (relatively) to how they currently are, I will be buying the Aussie, Kiwi and Turkish currencies and I'll be selling them against the dollar and Yen. This will be long AUDUSD, NZDUSD, AUDJPY, NZDJPY and short USDTRY. I'll allocate $50,000 to carry trades.
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I'll use the remaining money to hedge and offset risks/losses on my cash flow trades if that is needed, and if not I will use it to make similar trades but ones based upon a short time frame and geared towards risk:reward based profit rather than passive cash flow. I'll keep doing this until the Dow is back to around 17,000 - 18,000.
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Crash cash phase:
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For the next phase of the drop I will again switch to trading the Dow. This is where I can make most money. I might also allocate $100 - 200K to OTM puts, but since this can be a slower more steady crash it will make more sense to build a position in the CFD market on the Dow. Again my Dow trade should pay over $50,000 per lot. This time building up over 20 lots should be fairly easy.
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Cash flow decade phase:
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Once the market has crashed I will start to become a big options seller. i'll also engage in carry trades if interest rates are not all screwed up (Which is there are 'currency wars' they could be). Being able to be on the right side of a carry trade will determine if this is viable or not - and that has some variables that can not be known at this time. I'd love to be able to just short USDTRY, though. If it's viable.
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With options, I will be selling both put options and call options. I think once the crash has happened we will enter into a long term theta market last 10 - 15 years - this period is known as a 'Lost decade)'. I'll sell SPY puts for under the lows and I'll also sell SPY calls each time there is jumps in upside volatility. I'll be happy to sell SPY calls for 200 for literally years on end.
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By this time I should have more than $50.
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I'll update my swing plans either bi-weekly, weekly or monthly. Pending on how much free time I have. I'll edit this post to add in the results tracking material when I set it up.
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Update: Here's the tracking link. http://www.myfxbook.com/members/2020sBeasomething-for-nothing/6040046
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I set the copy software to invert trades & the first trades went short AUDCHF rather than long. That puts me on quite a substantial losing start, but it should not matter. Might push the start of SPX trades back a week. Probably won't. Let me just show the value of what I've been trying to teach you.

Hey guys, I'm a total noobie here and can't seem to find the answer to this question anywhere.
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In Canada, if you incorporate yourself and run your trades through your business and earn business income, do you also have to pay GST/HST to the CRA as another business would?
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I am asking this question because for my current job, I am incorporated (different field) and charge GST/HST, which then goes to the CRA. However, seeing as this is Forex, would it be the same? It's not like you can collect GST/HST from the market....lol
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Essentially I'm trying to see what is the best option to save my profits going forward. This scenario is based on generating 500K/year in profit via trading:
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1. Claim Capital Gains - 50% of the profit will be taxed at your marginal rate (Until how long though? At what point will the CRA consider it business income instead?)
2. Sole Proprietor - Income is taxed at the personal income tax rate and you can also claim expenses, in addition you do not pay GST/HST
3. Incorporated Business - Income is taxed at the corporate tax rate, you can claim expenses and pay yourself dividends (even lower tax rate), BUT - Do you have to pay GST/HST as well?

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Sorry for the stupid question, the answer is probably no, but I want to be sure.
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If I don't have to pay GST/HST then I think registering as a business is a no-brainer. In fact, you can save more money than purely capital gains up to a certain point. Not to mention all the tax-hacks you can have like using the business' money to buy yourself a home completely tax-free in Canada, if you know how to do it. Essentially I'm seeing the best way to pay myself 100K/year while saving the other 400K, to then take it out tax-free on a future home. But yeah, do businesses have to pay GST/HST?
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Thanks everyone.

I just feel like I finally need to share my story (only person who knows so far is my sister, I absolutely needed to tell someone).
So I've never understood the appeal of gambling. I never played slots, never ran poker for money or anything. My first sports bet was a Floyd Mayweather fight. Knowing what I know about boxing, getting a 20% return on my investment for May fighting McGregor was an absolute no-brainer. What I didn't know, though, is that I signed up for an extra promo and the cash out would not work. So this quickly spiraled into parlays and obscure tennis and football matches all over the world to be able to cash out what I put in. I lost 200 bucks, but the insight into people analyzing these things all day was somewhat fun. Shit result, but nothing that really hurt retrospectively. Wrote that off and never ever looked back at sports betting.
Enter summer 2019. I get interested in the stock market. I read a lot, I actually do research on financial statements and decide to invest in actual stocks. It works. Commissions take the fun out, make gains miniscule, but it works. Enter finding out about Forex and CFDs. Leveraged. Again I start slowly, news tickers, books, lots of observation. Technical analysis is like old people horoscopes, but if I see movements that overshoot, I find out what causes them and decide if reversing them might make sense. I start with 200€ again. And it works. Beginners luck and the fact the stakes weren't high, but after a couple of weeks im up by 500€. 150% gain, Over 50 positive trades in succession. Not a single loss. The perfectionism will become my downfall as you might imagine.
October '19. The FED is injecting repos into a market that keeps having these mini-recessions. The liquidity brings the spikes they hoped for, but the underlying problems won't just dissapear. So slowly, I am shorting the market. It keeps running up - I become aware that these trades will be longer term. I can hold the positions for a year. I know it will blow, I just wasn't sure when. On the ride up, I keep shorting. I'm slow to realize how the margin shrinks. I need to deposit more money. I can spare another 500. And another 250. And another 500. They say the market can be irrational longer than you can be solvent. November I lose my job.
By January the P/L hits -4500€. I'm confident that this can't hold but I am running out of money. I'm ashamed to ask for financial help and I would never risk losing anyone else's money. So the credit card has to to. My card, my debt.
WWIII almost kicks off the year and it finally dips. A single night later I witness the strength of the irrationality. My mental time frame is now to hold until middle of march.
But the margin kills me, I am running out of money. I can't hold my positions. So one after another I start closing, panicking, how will I make this back?? This is it: I'll raise the stakes and just make this back. After all, these were my very first losing trades, even though they were huge. This is where I start to realize I am now gambling. I'm blindly taking positions to make money as fast as possible.
Instead of making it back, I keep losing more.
3000 gone.
another 1500.
1500 in a day.
700.
1150.
Today I'm down 8000€. On a historic day. The one I was actually anticipating since October. The "coulda woulda shouldas" are incredible in this one. Not only would I still have 8000€, but I would've raked some extreme profits if I was able to hold.
Instead, being unemployed gave me all the time in the world to watch charts and treat this liek a game I could gamble on. Unneccessary trade over unnecessary trade, ever shorter time frames, chasing every loss. The chasing and the frequency made me realize I have an addiction. The fact I deleted the app and still kept checking charts, just to hop back in and lose again.
I started listening to the after gambling podcast and all the themes were so familiar, even when I wasn't betting, playing slots or cards or roulette. The mechanisms that ruined me were exactly the same. I just sold myself this dream instead of having someone else advertise it to me.
This is by far the lowest point of my life so far and I can't tell wether that's a good or a bad thing.
Debt is now about 1.5k + 6k student loans. Just the thought that I could be debt free today kills me. The thoughts of the vacations, the furniture and all the little gifts and trinkets the money could've been for me and the most loving girlfriend I have. It's gut wrenching. But more than anything else: The sleep, the health, the peace of mind that I have lost - the time - all the things I could have spent my time on. Educating myself, sports. Life was fuckin great until October, I ran my first half marathon; today I feel like a shell of my actual self.
I am sorry for this massive wall of text, but I really needed to let go of this. Today is day 1 and we will count to infinity. Have a great day and keep those spirits high. <3

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https://preview.redd.it/gp18bjnlabr41.jpg?width=768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6054e7f52e8d52da403016139ae43e0e799abf15
Download PDF of this article here: https://docdro.id/6eLgUPo
In light of the recent fall in oil prices due to the Saudi-Russian dispute and dampening demand for oil due to the lockdowns implemented globally, O&G stocks have taken a severe beating, falling approximately 50% from their highs at the beginning of the year. Not spared from this onslaught is Hibiscus Petroleum Berhad (Hibiscus), a listed oil and gas (O&G) exploration and production (E&P) company.
Why invest in O&G stocks in this particularly uncertain period? For one, valuations of these stocks have fallen to multi-year lows, bringing the potential ROI on these stocks to attractive levels. Oil prices are cyclical, and are bound to return to the mean given a sufficiently long time horizon. The trick is to find those companies who can survive through this downturn and emerge into “normal” profitability once oil prices rebound.
In this article, I will explore the upsides and downsides of investing in Hibiscus. I will do my best to cater this report to newcomers to the O&G industry – rather than address exclusively experts and veterans of the O&G sector. As an equity analyst, I aim to provide a view on the company primarily, and will generally refrain from providing macro views on oil or opinions about secular trends of the sector. I hope you enjoy reading it!
Stock code: 5199.KL
Stock name: Hibiscus Petroleum Berhad
Financial information and financial reports: https://www.malaysiastock.biz/Corporate-Infomation.aspx?securityCode=5199
Company website: https://www.hibiscuspetroleum.com/
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Company Snapshot

Hibiscus Petroleum Berhad (5199.KL) is an oil and gas (O&G) upstream exploration and production (E&P) company located in Malaysia. As an E&P company, their business can be basically described as:
· looking for oil,
· drawing it out of the ground, and
· selling it on global oil markets.
This means Hibiscus’s profits are particularly exposed to fluctuating oil prices. With oil prices falling to sub-$30 from about $60 at the beginning of the year, Hibiscus’s stock price has also fallen by about 50% YTD – from around RM 1.00 to RM 0.45 (as of 5 April 2020).
https://preview.redd.it/3dqc4jraabr41.png?width=641&format=png&auto=webp&s=7ba0e8614c4e9d781edfc670016a874b90560684
https://preview.redd.it/lvdkrf0cabr41.png?width=356&format=png&auto=webp&s=46f250a713887b06986932fa475dc59c7c28582e
While the company is domiciled in Malaysia, its two main oil producing fields are located in both Malaysia and the UK. The Malaysian oil field is commonly referred to as the North Sabah field, while the UK oil field is commonly referred to as the Anasuria oil field. Hibiscus has licenses to other oil fields in different parts of the world, notably the Marigold/Sunflower oil fields in the UK and the VIC cluster in Australia, but its revenues and profits mainly stem from the former two oil producing fields.
Given that it’s a small player and has only two primary producing oil fields, it’s not surprising that Hibiscus sells its oil to a concentrated pool of customers, with 2 of them representing 80% of its revenues (i.e. Petronas and BP). Fortunately, both these customers are oil supermajors, and are unlikely to default on their obligations despite low oil prices.
At RM 0.45 per share, the market capitalization is RM 714.7m and it has a trailing PE ratio of about 5x. It doesn’t carry any debt, and it hasn’t paid a dividend in its listing history. The MD, Mr. Kenneth Gerard Pereira, owns about 10% of the company’s outstanding shares.
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Reserves (Total recoverable oil) & Production (bbl/day)

To begin analyzing the company, it’s necessary to understand a little of the industry jargon. We’ll start with Reserves and Production.
In general, there are three types of categories for a company’s recoverable oil volumes – Reserves, Contingent Resources and Prospective Resources. Reserves are those oil fields which are “commercial”, which is defined as below:
^{As defined by the SPE PRMS, Reserves are “… quantities of petroleum anticipated to be commercially recoverable by application of development projects to known accumulations from a given date forward under defined conditions.” Therefore, Reserves must be discovered (by drilling}, recoverable (with current technology), remaining in the subsurface (at the effective date of the evaluation) and “commercial” based on the development project proposed.)
^{Note that Reserves are associated with development projects. To be considered as “commercial”, there must be a firm intention to proceed with the project in a reasonable time frame (typically 5 years}, and such intention must be based upon all of the following criteria:)
^{- A reasonable assessment of the future economics of the development project meeting defined investment and operating criteria; - A reasonable expectation that there will be a market for all or at least the expected sales quantities of production required to justify development; - Evidence that the necessary production and transportation facilities are available or can be made available; and - Evidence that legal, contractual, environmental and other social and economic concerns will allow for the actual implementation of the recovery project being evaluated.}
Contingent Resources and Prospective Resources are further defined as below:
^{- Contingent Resources: potentially recoverable volumes associated with a development plan that targets discovered volumes but is not (yet} commercial (as defined above); and) ^{- Prospective Resources: potentially recoverable volumes associated with a development plan that targets as yet undiscovered volumes.}
In the industry lingo, we generally refer to Reserves as ‘P’ and Contingent Resources as ‘C’. These ‘P’ and ‘C’ resources can be further categorized into 1P/2P/3P resources and 1C/2C/3C resources, each referring to a low/medium/high estimate of the company’s potential recoverable oil volumes:
^{- Low/1C/1P estimate: there should be reasonable certainty that volumes actually recovered will equal or exceed the estimate; - Best/2C/2P estimate: there should be an equal likelihood of the actual volumes of petroleum being larger or smaller than the estimate; and - High/3C/3P estimate: there is a low probability that the estimate will be exceeded.}
Hence in the E&P industry, it is easy to see why most investors and analysts refer to the 2P estimate as the best estimate for a company’s actual recoverable oil volumes. This is because 2P reserves (‘2P’ referring to ‘Proved and Probable’) are a middle estimate of the recoverable oil volumes legally recognized as “commercial”.
However, there’s nothing stopping you from including 2C resources (riskier) or utilizing 1P resources (conservative) as your estimate for total recoverable oil volumes, depending on your risk appetite. In this instance, the company has provided a snapshot of its 2P and 2C resources in its analyst presentation:
https://preview.redd.it/o8qejdyc8br41.png?width=710&format=png&auto=webp&s=b3ab9be8f83badf0206adc982feda3a558d43e78
Basically, what the company is saying here is that by 2021, it will have classified as 2P reserves at least 23.7 million bbl from its Anasuria field and 20.5 million bbl from its North Sabah field – for total 2P reserves of 44.2 million bbl (we are ignoring the Australian VIC cluster as it is only estimated to reach first oil by 2022).
Furthermore, the company is stating that they have discovered (but not yet legally classified as “commercial”) a further 71 million bbl of oil from both the Anasuria and North Sabah fields, as well as the Marigold/Sunflower fields. If we include these 2C resources, the total potential recoverable oil volumes could exceed 100 million bbl.
In this report, we shall explore all valuation scenarios giving consideration to both 2P and 2C resources.
https://preview.redd.it/gk54qplf8br41.png?width=489&format=png&auto=webp&s=c905b7a6328432218b5b9dfd53cc9ef1390bd604
The company further targets a 2021 production rate of 20,000 bbl (LTM: 8,000 bbl), which includes 5,000 bbl from its Anasuria field (LTM: 2,500 bbl) and 7,000 bbl from its North Sabah field (LTM: 5,300 bbl).
This is a substantial increase in forecasted production from both existing and prospective oil fields. If it materializes, annual production rate could be as high as 7,300 mmbbl, and 2021 revenues (given FY20 USD/bbl of $60) could exceed RM 1.5 billion (FY20: RM 988 million).
However, this targeted forecast is quite a stretch from current production levels. Nevertheless, we shall consider all provided information in estimating a valuation for Hibiscus.
To understand Hibiscus’s oil production capacity and forecast its revenues and profits, we need to have a better appreciation of the performance of its two main cash-generating assets – the North Sabah field and the Anasuria field.
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North Sabah oil field
https://preview.redd.it/62nssexj8br41.png?width=1003&format=png&auto=webp&s=cd78f86d51165fb9a93015e49496f7f98dad64dd
Hibiscus owns a 50% interest in the North Sabah field together with its partner Petronas, and has production rights over the field up to year 2040. The asset contains 4 oil fields, namely the St Joseph field, South Furious field, SF 30 field and Barton field.
For the sake of brevity, we shall not delve deep into the operational aspects of the fields or the contractual nature of its production sharing contract (PSC). We’ll just focus on the factors which relate to its financial performance. These are:
· Average uptime
· Total oil sold
· Average realized oil price
· Average OPEX per bbl
With regards to average uptime, we can see that the company maintains relative high facility availability, exceeding 90% uptime in all quarters of the LTM with exception of Jul-Sep 2019. The dip in average uptime was due to production enhancement projects and maintenance activities undertaken to improve the production capacity of the St Joseph and SF30 oil fields.
Hence, we can conclude that management has a good handle on operational performance. It also implies that there is little room for further improvement in production resulting from increased uptime.
As North Sabah is under a production sharing contract (PSC), there is a distinction between gross oil production and net oil production. The former relates to total oil drawn out of the ground, whereas the latter refers to Hibiscus’s share of oil production after taxes, royalties and expenses are accounted for. In this case, we want to pay attention to net oil production, not gross.
We can arrive at Hibiscus’s total oil sold for the last twelve months (LTM) by adding up the total oil sold for each of the last 4 quarters. Summing up the figures yields total oil sold for the LTM of approximately 2,075,305 bbl.
Then, we can arrive at an average realized oil price over the LTM by averaging the average realized oil price for the last 4 quarters, giving us an average realized oil price over the LTM of USD 68.57/bbl. We can do the same for average OPEX per bbl, giving us an average OPEX per bbl over the LTM of USD 13.23/bbl.
Thus, we can sum up the above financial performance of the North Sabah field with the following figures:
· Total oil sold: 2,075,305 bbl
· Average realized oil price: USD 68.57/bbl
· Average OPEX per bbl: USD 13.23/bbl
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Anasuria oil field
https://preview.redd.it/586u4kfo8br41.png?width=1038&format=png&auto=webp&s=7580fc7f7df7e948754d025745a5cf47d4393c0f
Doing the same exercise as above for the Anasuria field, we arrive at the following financial performance for the Anasuria field:
· Total oil sold: 1,073,304 bbl
· Average realized oil price: USD 63.57/bbl
· Average OPEX per bbl: USD 23.22/bbl
As gas production is relatively immaterial, and to be conservative, we shall only consider the crude oil production from the Anasuria field in forecasting revenues.
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Valuation (Method 1)

Putting the figures from both oil fields together, we get the following data:
https://preview.redd.it/7y6064dq8br41.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=2a4120563a011cf61fc6090e1cd5932602599dc2
Given that we have determined LTM EBITDA of RM 632m, the next step would be to subtract ITDA (interest, tax, depreciation & amortization) from it to obtain estimated LTM Net Profit. Using FY2020’s ITDA of approximately RM 318m as a guideline, we arrive at an estimated LTM Net Profit of RM 314m (FY20: 230m). Given the current market capitalization of RM 714.7m, this implies a trailing LTM PE of 2.3x.
Performing a sensitivity analysis given different oil prices, we arrive at the following net profit table for the company under different oil price scenarios, assuming oil production rate and ITDA remain constant:
https://preview.redd.it/xixge5sr8br41.png?width=433&format=png&auto=webp&s=288a00f6e5088d01936f0217ae7798d2cfcf11f2
From the above exercise, it becomes apparent that Hibiscus has a breakeven oil price of about USD 41.8863/bbl, and has a lot of operating leverage given the exponential rate of increase in its Net Profit with each consequent increase in oil prices.
Considering that the oil production rate (EBITDA) is likely to increase faster than ITDA’s proportion to revenues (fixed costs), at an implied PE of 4.33x, it seems likely that an investment in Hibiscus will be profitable over the next 10 years (with the assumption that oil prices will revert to the mean in the long-term).
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Valuation (Method 2)

Of course, there are a lot of assumptions behind the above method of valuation. Hence, it would be prudent to perform multiple methods of valuation and compare the figures to one another.
As opposed to the profit/loss assessment in Valuation (Method 1), another way of performing a valuation would be to estimate its balance sheet value, i.e. total revenues from 2P Reserves, and assign a reasonable margin to it.
https://preview.redd.it/o2eiss6u8br41.png?width=710&format=png&auto=webp&s=03960cce698d9cedb076f3d5f571b3c59d908fa8
From the above, we understand that Hibiscus’s 2P reserves from the North Sabah and Anasuria fields alone are approximately 44.2 mmbbl (we ignore contribution from Australia’s VIC cluster as it hasn’t been developed yet).
Doing a similar sensitivity analysis of different oil prices as above, we arrive at the following estimated total revenues and accumulated net profit:
https://preview.redd.it/h8hubrmw8br41.png?width=450&format=png&auto=webp&s=6d23f0f9c3dafda89e758b815072ba335467f33e
Let’s assume that the above average of RM 9.68 billion in total realizable revenues from current 2P reserves holds true. If we assign a conservative Net Profit margin of 15% (FY20: 23%; past 5 years average: 16%), we arrive at estimated accumulated Net Profit from 2P Reserves of RM 1.452 billion. Given the current market capitalization of RM 714 million, we might be able to say that the equity is worth about twice the current share price.
However, it is understandable that some readers might feel that the figures used in the above estimate (e.g. net profit margin of 15%) were randomly plucked from the sky. So how do we reconcile them with figures from the financial statements? Fortunately, there appears to be a way to do just that.
Intangible Assets
I refer you to a figure in the financial statements which provides a shortcut to the valuation of 2P Reserves. This is the carrying value of Intangible Assets on the Balance Sheet.
As of 2QFY21, that amount was RM 1,468,860,000 (i.e. RM 1.468 billion).
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Quite coincidentally, one might observe that this figure is dangerously close to the estimated accumulated Net Profit from 2P Reserves of RM 1.452 billion we calculated earlier. But why would this amount matter at all?
To answer that, I refer you to the notes of the Annual Report FY20 (AR20). On page 148 of the AR20, we find the following two paragraphs:
^{E&E assets comprise of rights and concession and conventional studies. Following the acquisition of a concession right to explore a licensed area, the costs incurred such as geological and geophysical surveys, drilling, commercial appraisal costs and other directly attributable costs of exploration and appraisal including technical and administrative costs, are capitalised as conventional studies, presented as intangible assets.
E&E assets are assessed for impairment when facts and circumstances suggest that the carrying amount of an E&E asset may exceed its recoverable amount. The Group will allocate E&E assets to cash generating unit (“CGU”}s or groups of CGUs for the purpose of assessing such assets for impairment. Each CGU or group of units to which an E&E asset is allocated will not be larger than an operating segment as disclosed in Note 39 to the financial statements.)
Hence, we can determine that firstly, the intangible asset value represents capitalized costs of acquisition of the oil fields, including technical exploration costs and costs of acquiring the relevant licenses. Secondly, an impairment review will be carried out when “the carrying amount of an E&E asset may exceed its recoverable amount”, with E&E assets being allocated to “cash generating units” (CGU) for the purposes of assessment.
On page 169 of the AR20, we find the following:
^{Carrying amounts of the Group’s intangible assets, oil and gas assets and FPSO are reviewed for possible impairment annually including any indicators of impairment. For the purpose of assessing impairment, assets are grouped at the lowest level CGUs for which there is a separately identifiable cash flow available. These CGUs are based on operating areas, represented by the 2011 North Sabah EOR PSC (“North Sabah”}, the Anasuria Cluster, the Marigold and Sunflower fields, the VIC/P57 exploration permit (“VIC/P57”) and the VIC/L31 production license (“VIC/L31”).)
So apparently, the CGUs that have been assigned refer to the respective oil producing fields, two of which include the North Sabah field and the Anasuria field. In order to perform the impairment review, estimates of future cash flow will be made by management to assess the “recoverable amount” (as described above), subject to assumptions and an appropriate discount rate.
Hence, what we can gather up to now is that management will estimate future recoverable cash flows from a CGU (i.e. the North Sabah and Anasuria oil fields), compare that to their carrying value, and perform an impairment if their future recoverable cash flows are less than their carrying value. In other words, if estimated accumulated profits from the North Sabah and Anasuria oil fields are less than their carrying value, an impairment is required.
So where do we find the carrying values for the North Sabah and Anasuria oil fields? Further down on page 184 in the AR20, we see the following:
^{Included in rights and concession are the carrying amounts of producing field licenses in the Anasuria Cluster amounting to RM668,211,518 (2018: RM687,664,530}, producing field licenses in North Sabah amounting to RM471,031,008 (2018: RM414,333,116))
Hence, we can determine that the carrying values for the North Sabah and Anasuria oil fields are RM 471m and RM 668m respectively. But where do we find the future recoverable cash flows of the fields as estimated by management, and what are the assumptions used in that calculation?
Fortunately, we find just that on page 185:
^{17 INTANGIBLE ASSETS (CONTINUED})
^(a Anasuria Cluster)
^{The Directors have concluded that there is no impairment indicator for Anasuria Cluster during the current financial year. In the previous financial year, due to uncertainties in crude oil prices, the Group has assessed the recoverable amount of the intangible assets, oil and gas assets and FPSO relating to the Anasuria Cluster. The recoverable amount is determined using the FVLCTS model based on discounted cash flows (“DCF”} derived from the expected cash in/outflow pattern over the production lives.)
^{The key assumptions used to determine the recoverable amount for the Anasuria Cluster were as follows:
(i} Discount rate of 10%;)
⁽ⁱⁱ Future cost inflation factor of 2% per annum;)
⁽ⁱⁱⁱ Oil price forecast based on the oil price forward curve from independent parties; and,)
^(iv Oil production profile based on the assessment by independent oil and gas reserve experts.)
^{Based on the assessments performed, the Directors concluded that the recoverable amount calculated based on the valuation model is higher than the carrying amount.
(b} North Sabah)
^{The acquisition of the North Sabah assets was completed in the previous financial year. Details of the acquisition are as disclosed in Note 15 to the financial statements.
The Directors have concluded that there is no impairment indicator for North Sabah during the current financial year.}
Here, we can see that the recoverable amount of the Anasuria field was estimated based on a DCF of expected future cash flows over the production life of the asset. The key assumptions used by management all seem appropriate, including a discount rate of 10% and oil price and oil production estimates based on independent assessment. From there, management concludes that the recoverable amount of the Anasuria field is higher than its carrying amount (i.e. no impairment required). Likewise, for the North Sabah field.
How do we interpret this? Basically, what management is saying is that given a 10% discount rate and independent oil price and oil production estimates, the accumulated profits (i.e. recoverable amount) from both the North Sabah and the Anasuria fields exceed their carrying amounts of RM 471m and RM 668m respectively.
In other words, according to management’s own estimates, the carrying value of the Intangible Assets of RM 1.468 billion approximates the accumulated Net Profit recoverable from 2P reserves.
To conclude Valuation (Method 2), we arrive at the following:
​

	Our estimates	Management estimates
Accumulated Net Profit from 2P Reserves	RM 1.452 billion	RM 1.468 billion

​

Financials

By now, we have established the basic economics of Hibiscus’s business, including its revenues (i.e. oil production and oil price scenarios), costs (OPEX, ITDA), profitability (breakeven, future earnings potential) and balance sheet value (2P reserves, valuation). Moving on, we want to gain a deeper understanding of the 3 statements to anticipate any blind spots and risks. We’ll refer to the financial statements of both the FY20 annual report and the 2Q21 quarterly report in this analysis.
For the sake of brevity, I’ll only point out those line items which need extra attention, and skip over the rest. Feel free to go through the financial statements on your own to gain a better familiarity of the business.
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Income Statement
First, we’ll start with the Income Statement on page 135 of the AR20. Revenues are straightforward, as we’ve discussed above. Cost of Sales and Administrative Expenses fall under the jurisdiction of OPEX, which we’ve also seen earlier. Other Expenses are mostly made up of Depreciation & Amortization of RM 115m.
Finance Costs are where things start to get tricky. Why does a company which carries no debt have such huge amounts of finance costs? The reason can be found in Note 8, where it is revealed that the bulk of finance costs relate to the unwinding of discount of provision for decommissioning costs of RM 25m (Note 32).
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This actually refers to the expected future costs of restoring the Anasuria and North Sabah fields to their original condition once the oil reserves have been depleted. Accounting standards require the company to provide for these decommissioning costs as they are estimable and probable. The way the decommissioning costs are accounted for is the same as an amortized loan, where the initial carrying value is recognized as a liability and the discount rate applied is reversed each year as an expense on the Income Statement. However, these expenses are largely non-cash in nature and do not necessitate a cash outflow every year (FY20: RM 69m).
Unwinding of discount on non-current other payables of RM 12m relate to contractual payments to the North Sabah sellers. We will discuss it later.
Taxation is another tricky subject, and is even more significant than Finance Costs at RM 161m. In gist, Hibiscus is subject to the 38% PITA (Petroleum Income Tax Act) under Malaysian jurisdiction, and the 30% Petroleum tax + 10% Supplementary tax under UK jurisdiction. Of the RM 161m, RM 41m of it relates to deferred tax which originates from the difference between tax treatment and accounting treatment on capitalized assets (accelerated depreciation vs straight-line depreciation). Nonetheless, what you should take away from this is that the tax expense is a tangible expense and material to breakeven analysis.
Fortunately, tax is a variable expense, and should not materially impact the cash flow of Hibiscus in today’s low oil price environment.
Note: Cash outflows for Tax Paid in FY20 was RM 97m, substantially below the RM 161m tax expense.
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Balance Sheet
The balance sheet of Hibiscus is unexciting; I’ll just bring your attention to those line items which need additional scrutiny. I’ll use the figures in the latest 2Q21 quarterly report (2Q21) and refer to the notes in AR20 for clarity.
We’ve already discussed Intangible Assets in the section above, so I won’t dwell on it again.
Moving on, the company has Equipment of RM 582m, largely relating to O&G assets (e.g. the Anasuria FPSO vessel and CAPEX incurred on production enhancement projects). Restricted cash and bank balances represent contractual obligations for decommissioning costs of the Anasuria Cluster, and are inaccessible for use in operations.
Inventories are relatively low, despite Hibiscus being an E&P company, so forex fluctuations on carrying value of inventories are relatively immaterial. Trade receivables largely relate to entitlements from Petronas and BP (both oil supermajors), and are hence quite safe from impairment. Other receivables, deposits and prepayments are significant as they relate to security deposits placed with sellers of the oil fields acquired; these should be ignored for cash flow purposes.
^{Note: Total cash and bank balances do not include approximately RM 105 m proceeds from the North Sabah December 2019 offtake (which was received in January 2020})
Cash and bank balances of RM 90m do not include RM 105m of proceeds from offtake received in 3Q21 (Jan 2020). Hence, the actual cash and bank balances as of 2Q21 approximate RM 200m.
Liabilities are a little more interesting. First, I’ll draw your attention to the significant Deferred tax liabilities of RM 457m. These largely relate to the amortization of CAPEX (i.e. Equipment and capitalized E&E expenses), which is given an accelerated depreciation treatment for tax purposes.
The way this works is that the government gives Hibiscus a favorable tax treatment on capital expenditures incurred via an accelerated depreciation schedule, so that the taxable income is less than usual. However, this leads to the taxable depreciation being utilized quicker than accounting depreciation, hence the tax payable merely deferred to a later period – when the tax depreciation runs out but accounting depreciation remains. Given the capital intensive nature of the business, it is understandable why Deferred tax liabilities are so large.
We’ve discussed Provision for decommissioning costs under the Finance Costs section earlier. They are also quite significant at RM 266m.
Notably, the Other Payables and Accruals are a hefty RM 431m. What do they relate to? Basically, they are contractual obligations to the sellers of the oil fields which are only payable upon oil prices reaching certain thresholds. Hence, while they are current in nature, they will only become payable when oil prices recover to previous highs, and are hence not an immediate cash outflow concern given today’s low oil prices.
Cash Flow Statement
There is nothing in the cash flow statement which warrants concern.
Notably, the company generated OCF of approximately RM 500m in FY20 and RM 116m in 2Q21. It further incurred RM 330m and RM 234m of CAPEX in FY20 and 2Q21 respectively, largely owing to production enhancement projects to increase the production rate of the Anasuria and North Sabah fields, which according to management estimates are accretive to ROI.
Tax paid was RM 97m in FY20 and RM 61m in 2Q21 (tax expense: RM 161m and RM 62m respectively).
​

Risks

There are a few obvious and not-so-obvious risks that one should be aware of before investing in Hibiscus. We shall not consider operational risks (e.g. uptime, OPEX) as they are outside the jurisdiction of the equity analyst. Instead, we shall focus on the financial and strategic risks largely outside the control of management. The main ones are:
· Oil prices remaining subdued for long periods of time
· Fluctuation of exchange rates
· Customer concentration risk
· 2P Reserves being less than estimated
· Significant current and non-current liabilities
· Potential issuance of equity
Oil prices remaining subdued
Of topmost concern in the minds of most analysts is whether Hibiscus has the wherewithal to sustain itself through this period of low oil prices (sub-$30). A quick and dirty estimate of annual cash outflow (i.e. burn rate) assuming a $20 oil world and historical production rates is between RM 50m-70m per year, which considering the RM 200m cash balance implies about 3-4 years of sustainability before the company runs out of cash and has to rely on external assistance for financing.
Table 1: Hibiscus EBITDA at different oil price and exchange rates
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The above table shows different EBITDA scenarios (RM ‘m) given different oil prices (left column) and USD:MYR exchange rates (top row). Currently, oil prices are $27 and USD:MYR is 1:4.36.
Given conservative assumptions of average OPEX/bbl of $20 (current: $15), we can safely say that the company will be loss-making as long as oil remains at $20 or below (red). However, we can see that once oil prices hit $25, the company can tank the lower-end estimate of the annual burn rate of RM 50m (orange), while at RM $27 it can sufficiently muddle through the higher-end estimate of the annual burn rate of RM 70m (green).
Hence, we can assume that as long as the average oil price over the next 3-4 years remains above $25, Hibiscus should come out of this fine without the need for any external financing.
Customer Concentration Risk
With regards to customer concentration risk, there is not much the analyst or investor can do except to accept the risk. Fortunately, 80% of revenues can be attributed to two oil supermajors (Petronas and BP), hence the risk of default on contractual obligations and trade receivables seems to be quite diminished.
2P Reserves being less than estimated
2P Reserves being less than estimated is another risk that one should keep in mind. Fortunately, the current market cap is merely RM 714m – at half of estimated recoverable amounts of RM 1.468 billion – so there’s a decent margin of safety. In addition, there are other mitigating factors which shall be discussed in the next section (‘Opportunities’).
Significant non-current and current liabilities
The significant non-current and current liabilities have been addressed in the previous section. It has been determined that they pose no threat to immediate cash flow due to them being long-term in nature (e.g. decommissioning costs, deferred tax, etc). Hence, for the purpose of assessing going concern, their amounts should not be a cause for concern.
Potential issuance of equity
Finally, we come to the possibility of external financing being required in this low oil price environment. While the company should last 3-4 years on existing cash reserves, there is always the risk of other black swan events materializing (e.g. coronavirus) or simply oil prices remaining muted for longer than 4 years.
Furthermore, management has hinted that they wish to acquire new oil assets at presently depressed prices to increase daily production rate to a targeted 20,000 bbl by end-2021. They have room to acquire debt, but they may also wish to issue equity for this purpose. Hence, the possibility of dilution to existing shareholders cannot be entirely ruled out.
However, given management’s historical track record of prioritizing ROI and optimal capital allocation, and in consideration of the fact that the MD owns 10% of outstanding shares, there is some assurance that any potential acquisitions will be accretive to EPS and therefore valuations.
​

Opportunities

As with the existence of risk, the presence of material opportunities also looms over the company. Some of them are discussed below:
· Increased Daily Oil Production Rate
· Inclusion of 2C Resources
· Future oil prices exceeding $50 and effects from coronavirus dissipating
Increased Daily Oil Production Rate
The first and most obvious opportunity is the potential for increased production rate. We’ve seen in the last quarter (2Q21) that the North Sabah field increased its daily production rate by approximately 20% as a result of production enhancement projects (infill drilling), lowering OPEX/bbl as a result. To vastly oversimplify, infill drilling is the process of maximizing well density by drilling in the spaces between existing wells to improve oil production.
The same improvements are being undertaken at the Anasuria field via infill drilling, subsea debottlenecking, water injection and sidetracking of existing wells. Without boring you with industry jargon, this basically means future production rate is likely to improve going forward.
By how much can the oil production rate be improved by? Management estimates in their analyst presentation that enhancements in the Anasuria field will be able to yield 5,000 bbl/day by 2021 (current: 2,500 bbl/day).
Similarly, improvements in the North Sabah field is expected to yield 7,000 bbl/day by 2021 (current: 5,300 bbl/day).
This implies a total 2021 expected daily production rate from the two fields alone of 12,000 bbl/day (current: 8,000 bbl/day). That’s a 50% increase in yields which we haven’t factored into our valuation yet.
Furthermore, we haven’t considered any production from existing 2C resources (e.g. Marigold/Sunflower) or any potential acquisitions which may occur in the future. By management estimates, this can potentially increase production by another 8,000 bbl/day, bringing total production to 20,000 bbl/day.
While this seems like a stretch of the imagination, it pays to keep them in mind when forecasting future revenues and valuations.
Just to play around with the numbers, I’ve come up with a sensitivity analysis of possible annual EBITDA at different oil prices and daily oil production rates:
Table 2: Hibiscus EBITDA at different oil price and daily oil production rates
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The left column represents different oil prices while the top row represents different daily oil production rates.
The green column represents EBITDA at current daily production rate of 8,000 bbl/day; the orange column represents EBITDA at targeted daily production rate of 12,000 bbl/day; while the purple column represents EBITDA at maximum daily production rate of 20,000 bbl/day.
Even conservatively assuming increased estimated annual ITDA of RM 500m (FY20: RM 318m), and long-term average oil prices of $50 (FY20: $60), the estimated Net Profit and P/E ratio is potentially lucrative at daily oil production rates of 12,000 bbl/day and above.
2C Resources
Since we’re on the topic of improved daily oil production rate, it bears to pay in mind the relatively enormous potential from Hibiscus’s 2C Resources. North Sabah’s 2C Resources alone exceed 30 mmbbl; while those from the yet undiagnosed Marigold/Sunflower fields also reach 30 mmbbl. Altogether, 2C Resources exceed 70 mmbbl, which dwarfs the 44 mmbbl of 2P Reserves we have considered up to this point in our valuation estimates.
To refresh your memory, 2C Resources represents oil volumes which have been discovered but are not yet classified as “commercial”. This means that there is reasonable certainty of the oil being recoverable, as opposed to simply being in the very early stages of exploration. So, to be conservative, we will imagine that only 50% of 2C Resources are eligible for reclassification to 2P reserves, i.e. 35 mmbbl of oil.
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This additional 35 mmbbl of oil represents an 80% increase to existing 2P reserves. Assuming the daily oil production rate increases similarly by 80%, we will arrive at 14,400 bbl/day of oil production. According to Table 2 above, this would yield an EBITDA of roughly RM 630m assuming $50 oil.
Comparing that estimated EBITDA to FY20’s actual EBITDA:

	FY20	FY21 (incl. 2C)	Difference
Daily oil production (bbl/day)	8,626	14,400	+66%
Average oil price (USD/bbl)	$68.57	$50	-27%
Average OPEX/bbl (USD)	$16.64	$20	+20%
EBITDA (RM ‘m)	632	630	-

Hence, even conservatively assuming lower oil prices and higher OPEX/bbl (which should decrease in the presence of higher oil volumes) than last year, we get approximately the same EBITDA as FY20.
For the sake of completeness, let’s assume that Hibiscus issues twice the no. of existing shares over the next 10 years, effectively diluting shareholders by 50%. Even without accounting for the possibility of the acquisition of new oil fields, at the current market capitalization of RM 714m, the prospective P/E would be about 10x. Not too shabby.
Future oil prices exceeding $50 and effects from coronavirus dissipating
Hibiscus shares have recently been hit by a one-two punch from oil prices cratering from $60 to $30, as a result of both the Saudi-Russian dispute and depressed demand for oil due to coronavirus. This has massively increased supply and at the same time hugely depressed demand for oil (due to the globally coordinated lockdowns being implemented).
Given a long enough timeframe, I fully expect OPEC+ to come to an agreement and the economic effects from the coronavirus to dissipate, allowing oil prices to rebound. As we equity investors are aware, oil prices are cyclical and are bound to recover over the next 10 years.
When it does, valuations of O&G stocks (including Hibiscus’s) are likely to improve as investors overshoot expectations and begin to forecast higher oil prices into perpetuity, as they always tend to do in good times. When that time arrives, Hibiscus’s valuations are likely to become overoptimistic as all O&G stocks tend to do during oil upcycles, resulting in valuations far exceeding reasonable estimates of future earnings. If you can hold the shares up until then, it’s likely you will make much more on your investment than what we’ve been estimating.

Conclusion

Wrapping up what we’ve discussed so far, we can conclude that Hibiscus’s market capitalization of RM 714m far undershoots reasonable estimates of fair value even under conservative assumptions of recoverable oil volumes and long-term average oil prices. As a value investor, I hesitate to assign a target share price, but it’s safe to say that this stock is worth at least RM 1.00 (current: RM 0.45). Risk is relatively contained and the upside far exceeds the downside. While I have no opinion on the short-term trajectory of oil prices, I can safely recommend this stock as a long-term Buy based on fundamental research.