Maximising Return Minimising Risk Maintaining Resilience
rainforest investment portfolio
Portfolio Attributes
Resilient portfolio shown to be capable of withstanding financial crises and economic slowdown.
Absolute positive returns.
Significant outperformance over the Index.
Contact Us to find out more about our investments and performance.
“I am concerned about my retirement planning, mortgage payments and cost of my children’s higher education. Rainforest’s efforts to understand my financial needs and to address them through careful and thoughtful investment is a great help to me.”
Rainforest Notes - august 2025
Our Investment Manager's Commentary for the Month
US Tariffs – USA has announced a slew of tariffs at varying rates for different countries, causing confusion as details are scant and understanding differs between the respective parties. E.g. 15% for Japan and Korea, 20% for Taiwan, 10% for Singapore, 50% for India, etc.
Given the unprecedented confusion, the following is likely to happen in the next half year:
(a) Business investment slowdown – manufacturers simply cannot forecast demand or know for sure how much tariffs they have to pay, so holding back investments to adopt a wait & see attitude is prudent.
(b) Inflation - will likely tick upwards as goods will cost more due to tariffs imposed, even while President Trump continues to demand that the US Fed lowers interest rates. This contradictory combination is contrary to economic principles, and the outcome is unforeseeable.
We are reviewing our Fund and Managed Account portfolios to shield against the above risks.
Another notable development in recent times is the simultaneous weakening of USA equity, bond and foreign exchange rates. This indicates that foreign investors may be shifting out of US-denominated assets. This will not affect those of our investment portfolios which are quoted in USD, as the underlying assets are all denominated in Asian currencies.
China – continues to push hard in the innovation space. Huawei has started producing 5nm Chips, indicating that efforts to stop China from advancement in chip technology has likely failed. This has provided investment opportunities for us at Rainforest Research Investment Managers as a slew of semiconductor companies have emerged and listed in China. There have also been Humanoid Robot competitions held, where different companies competed on their humanoid robot development in areas of combat, chores, etc.
E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWq8RebJeOc
Hong Kong – HK’s financial markets show continuing signs of improvement with the IPOs of CATL (batteries), Mirxes (biotech), etc. Going forward, there will be further benefit from companies (currently listed in USA & China) seeking secondary listings, cementing HK’s position as a major financial centre. Trading volume is going up as well.
Singapore – recently celebrated its 60th birthday. We wish all Singaporeans and their friends a very Happy National Day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II_5jBaYmGQ&list=RDII_5jBaYmGQ&start_radio=1
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NEWS
Interview of Richard Choong in The Edge
Investing Wisdom
Value and Quality
“...findings of a review of the 1000 largest US equities (by market cap) over 1975-2013. Value was a higher driver of performance than quality, but companies that were both high quality and inexpensively valued with respect to fundamentals delivered the most consistent outperformance....”
Market Ups and Downs
“It’s in the nature of stock markets to go way down from time to time. There’s no system to avoid bad markets. You can’t do it unless you try to time the market, which is a seriously dumb thing to do. Conservative investing with steady savings without expecting miracles is the way to go. ”
Why Invest in Equities
“Investment possibilities are both many and varied. There are three major categories, however, and it’s important to understand the characteristics of each. So let’s survey the field.
Investments that are denominated in a given currency include money-market funds, bonds, mortgages, bank deposits, and other instruments. Most of these currency-based investments are thought of as “safe.” In truth they are among the most dangerous of assets. Their beta may be zero, but their risk is huge. …
The second major category of investments involves assets that will never produce anything,… forever unproductive… The major asset in this category is gold. …
My own preference - and you knew this was coming – is our third category: investment in productive assets, whether businesses, farms, or real estate. …
Berkshire’s goal will be to increase its ownership of first-class businesses. Our first choice will be to own them in their entirety – but we will also be owners by way of holding sizable amounts of marketable stocks. I believe that over any extended period of time this category of investing will prove to be the runaway winner among the three we’ve examined. More important, it will be BY FAR the safest.”