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Published in the Straits Times on the 4th January 2004

Using biblical story of Joseph, one investor looks forward to seven fat years

By Leong Chan Teik

MR SIMON Sim will be a rich man if he is right in his forecast that the Singapore stock market will rise higher and higher until around 2008.

The 50-year-old has invested $400,000 in stocks and will be holding them until around 2008, which will mark the end of his seven-year cycle.

Mr Sim is the author of a new book which claims that stock markets, or at least the Singapore market, rise and fall in seven-year cycles.

So far he has been more or less right.

He says he parked most of his money in stocks, such as Singapore Exchange, United Food, ST Engineering, Autron and Want Want, in 1998 and 2001 when he determined the markets were scraping the bottom.

In 2001, the Straits Times Index hit a low of 1,197 points.

Year 2002 saw a recovery which continued last year. Now the STI is at around 1,800 points. By Mr Sim's forecast, the STI will reach around 4,300 points in 2008.

'The best is yet to come,' says Mr Sim. 'I'm locking away my stocks and will only consider selling in 2007 or 2008.'

His book is titled The Joseph Cycle. The title was inspired by Joseph, the Biblical figure, who was summoned to interpret a troubling dream of the Pharaoh.

Joseph said the dream meant that Egypt would face seven good years followed by seven lean years.

Mr Sim first gleaned insights into cycles of the stock market when he was head of technical analysis at Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) for 13 years beginning from 1985.

He was into analysing trends in the stock market. He says in his book that he made many accurate forecasts.

Before the previous bear market came around in 1994, he sold out his stocks and warned traders at his former workplace that the stock market had reached a cycle top.

'They didn't listen, and paid the price when the stock market cracked,' he says.

In 1998, he left UBS to write software on his trading system, and to conduct courses on technical analysis.

He also set up a website, www.echartbook.com, to provide stock commentaries and technical analyses.

By Christopher Cheong

THERE is an investment saying that there are three types of investment experts. The first always knows what to buy, the second why to buy, while the third only knows when to buy.

Guess who made the most money? The third expert.

Mr Simon Sim, author of the just released book The Joseph Cycle, could very well be an expert in the third category.

He has been a technical analyst for 25 years. As head of technical analysis at UBS from 1985 to 1998, he made some major forecasts including a major cycle top in the Nikkei Index in 1990. Within three months, the index crashed from 38,931 to 20,000.

In March last year, at a Toastmasters Club speech, he predicted correctly as it has turned out that the Straits Times Index (STI) would rise from 1,300 to 1,800 points by the year-end.

His book's thesis is that the Singapore stock market can be divided into seven-year bull and seven-year bear runs.

It explains stock market rises and falls in Singapore since its self-governance in 1959 and major cycles since 1819. The Joseph Cycle identified stock market tops in 1980 and 1994 as well as stock market bottoms in 1986 and 2001.

Such a cycle has been observed by some investment professionals. The length of a cycle need not be precisely 14 years.

Nevertheless, this book will help readers acquire an understanding of market behaviour and what causes booms and busts. It shows the way to ride bull runs and bear runs, and time your investment in stocks, real estate and business.

No matter how disastrous an event may be, a bull run continues.

Following seven years of bad events such as the 1997 Asian economic crisis and the 2000 Nasdaq collapse that plagued the local stock market, the author reasons that the worst is over.

Now we are in the early stages of a forecasted 2002-2008 bull run, which the author calculates using various techniques will take the STI to possibly 4,300 points.

Mr Sim points out that most investors have only two precious major opportunities in a lifetime to take advantage of the Joseph Cycle due to the long cycle length of 14 years.

This book is strongly recommended to those who need to know the 'right time' in their investment decisions.

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