Today is Sunday and it is 23:00 now. The day is almost over now. I slept after eating dinner. I feel I wasted time but I do this sometimes, unfortunately. This weekend is a long weekend so I am not in hurry still tomorrow is a day off.
I am playing the FF8 by using Nintendo Switch. To be honest, FF7 is a much better game than FF8. Maybe I am not used to FF8 yet but I feel that way. I should have played both games when I was a high school student but I don’t remember how they ended so I am playing this again. These two games were sold in 1997 and 1999, they were old. I can’t believe it has passed two decades. I believe their graphics were impressive and they still are.
I am having a good long weekend off. I am getting energy for the next week. I have so many presentations in October and November, hopefully, I don’t spend too much time on this. I should remember to finish the important jobs instead of just spending too much time on presentations. Also, the experiments are starting up in October so I will have so many things to do. I will have the 2nd dose of vaccination in mid-October, I should be really careful before then otherwise I feel stupid by getting COVID-19 at the last minute.
I have looked over my expense last three months. I am doing this all the time I am not super minimalist but I want to minimize the unnecessary expense. Currently roughly, I am using 42% of my monthly salary to living costs. This is kind of high I should improve this. I am not interested in retiring early but I should know how much I am spending so I can calculate how long I can survive if I lost my job. Currently, I should say I am safe for about 60 months = 5 years. If I write down, I feel it is short. I will try to reach 120 months for the next goal. Since COVID-19 forced us to stay at home so I didn’t use much money for travelling, so I am using more usually. It is now time to accumulate the assets.
(I don’t think this is my final analysis of the company, I will keep updating and adding more analysis)
Whitehaven Coal is a coal mining and exploration company listed in ASX. The price on Friday, Aug.13th 2021 ended at 2.38 and on Thursday of Sept. 30th, 2020 ended at 3.23. About 36% up in just one month and a half. The share of outstanding is 1.03B so that market capitalization is A$3.33B. The company sells high-quality coal products to the Asian market mainly Japan (55%), Taiwan (16%), Korea (15%) for thermal coal, India (48%), Japan (16%), Vietnam (12%), and Korea (11%) in FY20. The company’s share price soars because the coal price is now the highest at least the last 10 years. I am not sure the coal price keeps at this level. The demand for coal surged after the COVID-19 restriction started lifting around the world. Also, there are Chinese demands although the Whitehaven is not selling their coal directly to China. I wrote here until when I hold this company of shares.
FY20-1 (million)
FY20-2 (million)
FY21-1 (million)
FY21-2 (million)
Revenue
885.1
836.5
699.3
857.7
EBITDA
177.3
128.7
37.2
167.3
NPAT
27.4
2.6
-94.5
-449.4
Dividend
1.5
0
0
0
Last 4 half-year results
The company was having a hard time last the 4 half-year results because of the coal price. After the coal price came back, the price of the share has been rising. I believe the company will start making money in FY22-1 because of the high coal price. I could not see a big picture here so I checked at least 5 years of history as below.
\A$m
FY17
FY18
FY19
FY20
FY21
Revenue
1,773.2
2,257.4
2,487.9
1,721.6
1557.0
EBITDA(underlying)(*)
714.2
1011.9
1041.7
306
204.5
Net profit after tax
405.4
524.5
564.9
30
-543.9
EPS (taken from WSJ)
0.41
0.53
0.53
0.03
-0.55
Operating Cashflow (**)
607.6
883.4
916.5
146.4
138.8
Net debt
311.1
270.4
161.5
787.5
808.5
Dividend (cents)
6
40
50
1.5
0
Last five years of results
Surprisingly, on the day of releasing FY21 results, the share price rose 4.95%. I believe the investor understood this NPAT is the worst last 5 years because of the A$650m impairment of their asset. Revenue went down last two financial years it is because the coal price was low. I will show you later but the coal production does not change much last 5 years. In the last 5 years, FY18 and FY19 they had good NPAT but now the coal price is much higher since the beginning of FY22.
(*)I tried to find information from the company’s financial report but I saw some inconsistency. (**)I took data from the company’s financial report and the WSJ website.
\A$m
FY17
FY18
FY19
FY20
FY21
Unit cost/ton $Am
58
58(62)(***)
67
75
74
Realized thermal coal Prices USD/t
81
98
100
66
68
Matellgurical USD/t
102
119
119
89
85
ROM coal production Mt
23.1
23.0
23.2
20.7
20.7
Sales Mt
20.7
22.1
21.6
20.2
19.8
Thearmal coal (Mt)
16.2
16.1
17.5
17.2
17.2
Metallurgical coal (Mt)
4.4
6.0(****)
4.1
3.0
2.6
0.75
0.78
0.72
0.67
0.74
Last five years of operations
I have tried to calculate some here. The coal run-of-mine (ROM) production FY21 was 20.7Mt, Managed coal sales were 19.8Mt. The company sells coal about 20Mt each year. The production and sales look stable for at least 5 years even with COVID-19 and bushfires, and floods. So, the average sales of coal are about 20Mt/year = 55kt/day. The gross profit a day would be 55kt*(212USD/0.719-74)= A$12.1 million a day. They are getting 12.1 m/1.03 b = $0.0117 per share a day. If I assume 55kt*(120USD/0.719-74)= A$5.11 million a day. They are getting 5.13 m/1.03 b = $0.005 per share a day. The net debt is 808.5m at the end of FY21, 67 days just needed to pay them all with the current 212USD/ton level.
Somehow, I am off for about 371m and 321m from Revenues, why? I need to revise here again.
FY21 profit = 17.2Mt*(68/0.74-74)+2.6Mt*(85/0.74-74)=308m+106m=412m, this is also different from EBITDA or NPAT. Maybe I need to understand the account better. I will update these later.
(***) I see the inconsistency of the cost of coal/ton or unit cost/ton (****) I might have missed but I could not find the number in financial reports from WHC.
Monday is just gone. I have started working by looking at the reviewing paper. The paper is considered to publish in a physical journal. The journal is well-read in the community in condensed matter physics. Today, I just read through the paper, I got an impression that the paper is not good enough for publication. That was my first impression. From tomorrow, I will look into the manuscript carefully. Maybe it is because of my English reading skill or my background in physics but I felt I didn’t see much physics on their manuscript. I believe their skills of studying the material is right but I didn’t clearly understand what the problem of the research is. I can see they solve the structure better than before and detailed crystal structure revealed. However, I can’t see how this new structural information helps us to understand physics we haven’t solved so far. To be honest, I see similar things from my colleague’s paper recently. I don’t criticize them but I will raise my thoughts on this when I am replying to the editor and author. By doing this, I should be learning this kind of thing can easily happen to me. If I wanted to write a physics paper, I have to solve the physics problem by solving the structures. If we solved magnetic or crystal structure better than before, so what? What does it means to the physics of the material we are working on. What was solved?
This week just started but I feel already behind. This week I am attending the conference in Brazil. I don’t need to present my research so I am relaxed but I have to watch the presentation middle of the night since we have 13 hours difference. I really hope I can watch the recording later during the day here.
ASX200 went up 0.6 % today. However, my portfolio underperformed by about 2.3%. I didn’t see any particularly good news nor bad news so this is just fluctuation of the market. The gold price can be lower even though I see some come back today, it is not stable yet. One of my shares went down a lot I want to buy more if I have a chance. The global financial crisis is coming? I am not sure. Some say soon. Evergrande? I am not sure. At least Ray Dalio said this is not the case. But anyways, I will collect information as much as I can and try to understand what is happening. I personally I don’t care much how the economy goes, I just need to make sure of my understanding of the shares I have.
Vaccination in NSW keeps improving. So the NSW government started talking about reopening. I should do the 2nd dose by mid-October. But it seems 70% second dose is happening around October 11th and 80% by the end of October. It seems life in NSW will change completely at the beginning of November. The government now say it is time to plan travelling at Christmas time. I started thinking about what to do around Christmas time since I don’t have chance to come back to Japan to see my family yet. I am sure I can go back to Japan but I am not sure if I can come back to Australia after that. Also, I need to work on my visa in Australia so I don’t want risk them. Hope everything is fixed by early 2022.
現在9月26日の日曜日の夕方にこの文章を書き始めたところ。夕飯用に玄米を仕込んだところでこれを書いている。日曜日だが結構リラックスして過ごすことができた。朝からのランニングからいろいろと読書もできたし少しオーストラリア関連のニュースも見直した。本は堀江貴文著の「我が闘争」で英語の本として「The Last Correspondent」by Michael Smith。
「The Last Correspondent」by Michael Smith はやはりなぜこの本を取ったかは自分の境遇がそうさせているのかと思う。台湾と中国がTPPに加入を申請したという話とか中国の恒大集団の膨大な負債に焦点が当たったりとしているがこれまでの経緯を見るとある方向性をもって歴史が進行しているように感じる。今読んでいるところはちょうど香港の若い活動家たちに対して著者がインタビューをしていろいろと意見を聞いているところ。まあ西側諸国バイアスもあるだろうし、台湾バイアスも、日本バイアスもあるだろうが、その都度その都度考えて自分にできることをしていくしかないと思う。変化の速いこの世の中ではやはり哲学の勉強しなおしが必要かと思う。哲学といえば西洋的な哲学がまあ主流になるのでそちらに流されてしまうが、私自身はかなり西洋哲学に納得感をもってしまう。勉強をしなおして私はどういった考えをもとにして自分の倫理観を持っているか確認しておかないと理性的や感情的でしかロジックを作らない人々に対して自分自身がどういった違和感を持っているかがはっきりしなくなる。まあいろんな考え方がありますね。みたいな感じで対面では空気を壊さないように対面では流してしまうのだが、自分の中でははっきりさせておかないとUncomfortableに感じる。情報量が多い時はまずは感情的に圧倒されて自分を見失わないこと笑、そしてその次にはデータの分析方法に目を奪われすぎないこと、まずはプリンシパルを確認したい。私はここでどういう原則に立ってこのデータ取ったかそして向き合うべきかを最初にと問いたいということ。
息抜きとしては今日はNintendoSwitchでFinal Fantasy VIIIを買った。懐かしいゲームをやりたくなってしまう。新しいゲームもしないと脳は老化していくばかりだが新しいゲームもやってみる。最近のゲームはiPadとかで無料でできるゲームもレベルが高い。大学生になってから今までゲーム機を持ってかなかった。16年間くらいゲーム機で家でゲームをしていなかったがどうなんだろ。ゲームをするのもいろいろと覚えることがあって頭を使う。とにかくやってなかったことをやってみることは良いことだと思う。人生興味を失わず楽しいことを見つけて夢中にやっていければそれが勝ちだと思う。
The week is gone now. I was taking easy for this week because of vaccines, I didn’t expect to work hard in case the side effect of the vaccine is severe. I was lucky because I didn’t have severe symptoms after the 1st dose. It is already after 56 hours. But I heard there might be from the 2nd dose. Anyways, hope the vaccine protect me from severer COVID-19 symptom and the death.
I was writing this blog to think. Today, I listened to some Youtube videos that describe the history of the next candidate of prime minister in Japan. I didn’t know much about her but the video taught me how strong her personality is. I am very impressed. She was writing the blog for 20 years and it seems her mind is already determined. She knows what she wants to achieve. She spent 20 years preparing. Currently, Japan has 4 candidates and I don’t know much about them but she seems to be a strong candidate. As far as I understand, her first priority is to protect the people in Japan and its territory. It seems she has a strong will on the purpose. It sounds scary for some people but yeah. For this election, I don’t have the right to vote so I can’t do anything about it but anyways, it is a good time to review those 4 candidates. Everyone has a unique history, thoughts, and policies. So I can take a look at whose team I should support next election. The world is changing faster than ever. Even though Japan has problems to overcome, there are many ways we can solve them. I help them by doing what I can.
Today, after I came back from the vaccine centre, I started working in the afternoon. I started working again on revising the paper. All data and analysis are ready so I should finish up the revised manuscript in a week or so. Also, I got one review request from a physical journal, I would like to do the review for them.
For the physics, for the next paper, I am working on the frustrated magnets. I thought my original ideas were good but I spent too much on them. I spent almost 7 years finishing this. But I also find interesting findings on the way to finish the manuscript, hope the work is welcomed by the community. This work is kind of too much in detail no one has ever investigated. Some can say it is trivial and I sometimes think so but I can see the meaning to finish it. For this paper, I am working on the 120 degrees antiferromagnetic structure under the symmetry of the crystal. By using current experiment techniques, no one is unable to solve it. It is actually unsolvable. So on that paper, I actually describe how hard it is and also I provide another method which tried to solve it. But unfortunately, that can’t solve it either. Maybe it sounds bad but I will show these results on the paper. So that I can offer what I found so far in the process. Hope some people find something interesting from it to attack another problem.
This is what I do. I solve problems in physics. If the problem is unsolvable, I will try to find out why we cannot. I found it interesting in doing so. I need this kind of feeling. That motivates me. I want to solve problems that no one has ever solved. From that, I can also go further. Also after I got tenure, I decided to solve problems in important problems in physics, which might take more than 10 years or so. It is because, by working on each paper or problem, we are kind of specialized in some topics. It is good when we think we are professionals but I should never forget the big picture in physics or science, what I have been trying to achieve by doing physiscs. For me, I am very thankful for working as a physicist, please give me more problems to solve. Solving problem actually including finishing the paper so other can see it. Anyways, I will face it with thanks.