Translate This Page

Malaysia Bank Swift Code

What is Swift code? Swift code is known as ISO 9362 and is a standard format of Bank Identifier Codes approved by the International Organiza...

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Buy Insurance

Financial planning is probably the most important thing that we must be aware of. Most young adults find it difficult to plan for their financial condition because of the "yum cha" and cool cultures....most young adults are probably pampered way too much by their parents...their studies and everything are planned out so well....honestly, I am envied of those students who have their parents sponsored everything. Anyway, I appreciate what I have as well and I believe the first step to financial planning is protection. 


Some of my friends told me that they are going to buy insurance but now is not the right time....as they are just starting out, they need more time. I am not an insurance agent but working in an insurance company, I come to realize that protection is probably the first thing that we get for ourselves. It is not about the profit from these insurance policies but the protection that comes with it. Of course, one should not buy too many insurance policies either...it will be ridiculous to do that....don't trust that insurance agent if he or she persuade you to buy a few policies...haha!!


Anyway back to the basics...get a protection, something that covers your life and medical expenses should you have any critical illness. I have just bought one for myself (a month ago) and together with my sister, get one for my mom. (medical card purpose).


This is not a sales pitch but the first thing to financial planning for me is about protection. Protect yourself and then you can start looking at other things.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Ways to Cut Budget: Buy Only What You Need



In financial management, in order to keep our financial in healthy condition, growing money via investment or increment is not always the best solution. Many times we need to spend below our means rather than spending within our means. But then again, of course everyone is asking to increase income because by increasing income, you do not need to sacrifice a lot of things.


Well, I have been quite free the last few days that I managed to read Reader's Digest and find out one article which is very suitable for this. It also serves as a good reminder for myself as well, as I will be cash strapped throughout this year as big portion of the money will be used for house renovation as well as to pay the house down payment.

The following are the ways to cut budget:-

Buy only what you need
This one sounds obvious, but how many of us really buy what is truly necessary? A lot of us often buy in bulk in order to reduce our costs but sometimes we ended up wasting what we might not be using it after all. This happens a lot on products which have expiry such as food. Of course, if you intended to buy in bulk, make sure you share the cost with family or friends as this is part of the smart spending strategy to cope with the inflation.

Another thing is, majority of us usually buy expensive gadgets with additional features, although we seldom use the feature when we actually can get the same gadget with about all the feature that we wanted for a whole lot less money. In the end, we are actually paying for the research and development of the features that we might not be using it throughout the lifespan of the gadget. What I would suggest is, rather than getting the highest end segment of the product, why not look into the mid range? Of course I will not encourage getting the gadget from the lowest end segment as most of the time the replacement parts of the gadget might even end of life or we are staring at the product which might already not in production anymore and there is no support for the hardware or even the software.



Finally, we always buy something that we deemed cheap - actually I was one of the victim as well until I realized that last year I actually bought a lot of clothes for Chinese New Year, and the total of the whole purchase could be even more than thousands. The fact that I bought those clothes during cheap sales or buy one free one season made me think I actually save a lot, but in actual fact I am spending a whole lot for clothes that I might not even wear it throughout the year. Should I have not spend it, I will be having additional savings or cash for other purposes.

Guess that's all I have to share now. I will post more on ways to cut budget moving forward.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

2012 CLSA Feng Shui Chart



As we are entering the Chinese New Year season, let's look into what the Feng Shui master said about the overall market sentiment for the Water Dragon Year. Last year CLSA Feng Shui chart was not that accurate especially towards the end of the year, so we'll see what will happen this year. The Water Dragon is supposedly to be good for the stock market, it seems, but we will see what will happen. Anyway, the chart is just for reference and it is not for one to follow blindly.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The More You Trade The Less You Earn

After about a month since my last post, this will be my first blog post in this blog for the year 2012. Well, it has been like a crazy and busy weekends for me to keep following up on my house renovation back in Ipoh. Anyway, while I was reading some articles from the Internet related stocks trading, there is one article that really open up my mind. I mean the article is not about easy way to get rich with stocks or something like that. And if one is to notice my blog post title, one would realized that it is not about making money with stocks, but losing money with it.

While this blog is all about becoming the money master rather than to be the slave to the money, we need to know that earning money with money is not easy. In fact, it is easier to lose money if we are trying to earn money with money without some basic knowledge or skills. Even some of the most reputable fund managers in the world also lose big bucks in the stocks.

Back to the blog post, do you realized that the likelihood that we as retail investors or traders lose money is higher that profiting from it? The article from the following will explains the theory behind it.




Behavioral finance researchers have studied the performance of stock market traders in both America and Asia. Interestingly, they discovered that traders in both countries under-perform the world’s broad markets by significant amounts. One study analyzed 66,400 accounts at a major Wall Street firm over a seven-year period. Another studied all the active traders on the Taiwan, China exchange.

In spite of the cultural differences, the results were virtually the same. Why? Due to the high transaction costs, taxes and bad decisions, the bottom line is simple: “The more you trade the less you earn.” In fact, about 80% of all day traders lose money. In researching the Americans, the study found that the active investors who turned over their portfolios 258% annually made less than 12% on their money. Passive investors who bought and held, with only 2% portfolio turnover, had average returns of roughly 18%, which is about fifty percent higher than the returns of the active investors. Still, investors believe they can “beat The Street,” simple because the Wall Street “Hype Machine” has programmed them to believe that myth.

It was billed as a “debate,” on a nationally syndicated show. Me, a buy’n’holder to the core, versus John Mauldin, author of the Bull’s Eye Investor and Millennium Wave Investments, a newsletter publisher and investment adviser. John’s a guy who’s not only pro-trading, he hates a buy’n’hold strategy with a passion. So why’s he against buy’n’hold? Well, a good part of the reason is he believes the market’s going nowhere for the rest of this decade, maybe longer. Volatile, risky, unpredictable. But, he ‘s convinced that by using active and aggressive strategies, you can beat the market.

Mauldin is so thoroughly convinced that if you don’t give up on a long-term buy’n’hold strategy and actively engage in alternative strategies (such as hedge funds, gold stocks and trading in value stocks), you’ll lose a lot of money and retire a pauper. So, who won the debate? Buy’n’hold or the hyper-active Bull’s Eye Investor? Nobody! In fact, nobody ever wins this debate. Nobody. Ever!

Different DNA? Then you better play a “different game”

Why? Probably because over ninety percent of American investors are born with a buy’n’hold gene. They are born as passive investors who instinctively tend toward well-diversified portfolios of low-cost index funds. They don’t have the time, or money or the interest in active portfolio management, nor do they trust in the market or in professional market experts.

Meanwhile, the DNA of other ten percent or less—those macho “Bull’s Eye Investors”—contains a rare over-confidence gene that pumps an “I’m-convinced-I-will-beat-the-market” drug directly into their veins and brains. Of course the odds are against them beating the averages, but that gene also contains a blocker that suppresses contrary negative information—even when they’re on a losing streak. The brain chemistry and psychological profiles of these two types of investors are world’s apart. If you listened to a debate between passive Main Street investors and Bull’s Eye Investors you’d think you were talking to two aliens, one from Mars, the other from Venus.

Warning, 82% of all day traders are losers! But deny it!

Moreover, never the twain shall meet. Each type of investor is as dogmatic as the other. DNA-based ideologies control each one, not rationality. Why? Their minds are made up in advance. Their opinions and beliefs were already cast in stone long ago. To each, facts about the other are totally irrelevant. Indeed, that was a given from the start, as I found out once again in our so-called debate. Here’s why: Just before this little debate we discovered some interesting new data from a BusinessWeek article.

The bottom line is simple—most traders are losers. Earlier, Forbes reported on a study that the “North American Securities Administrators found that 77% of day traders lost money.” Now comes more evidence, BusinessWeek was reporting that 82% of all day traders lose money. That data comes from a recent study by a couple professors at the University of Taipei working in conjunction with University of California behavioral finance professors Terry Odean and Brad Barber. And yes, that is the same Odean and Barber who researched 66,400 Wall Street investors a decade ago and concluded, “The more you trade the less you earn.”

In fact, their earlier study proved that the returns of passive buy’n’hold investors (with just two percent turnover) were a whopping 50 percent higher than the returns of the most active traders (averaging 258 percent annual turnover). Why? Very simple, transaction costs, commissions and taxes were killing returns.
In the new study four behavioral finance professors had access to all the records of the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) for the 1995-1999 period. Not just 66,400 randomly selected accounts in Wall Street’s huge database of millions of clients, but all 100 percent of the traders on TSE, including their identities, a total of 925,000 investors. Assuming the DNA of a Taiwanese trader is essentially the same as the DNA of a trader at Goldman, Morgan or Merrill, the new Odean-Barber study results actually confirm what we already know, that market timing and day-trading are a loser’s game.

Dumb and dumber—and yet, they can’t stop losing

All this research also shows that the most active traders—a small group equaling about one percent of all traders—actually accounted for over half of all the exchange’s volume. However, while those guys did make money in their trading—after transaction costs were deducted they were net losers. The study actually went much deeper: Listen to this new bit of information about the strange self-sabotaging obsession traders have to lose money: The study separated the traders into six groups depending on their past successes. The researchers wanted to see if past winners repeated. The answer was yes, but at a very high cost:

– The average winning trader did in fact repeat as a winner, netting $251 a day after transaction costs. But overall, things were so bad that 82% of all the traders lost money, for an average loss of $45 a day.
– That’s right: Out of 925,000 traders in the study, about 750,000 of them were losers. And assuming 250 trading days a year, each trader lost roughly $11,250 a year for a total loss of about $8.4 billion annually.
– On the other hand, the 175,000 repeat winners each made an estimated $62,750 a year after transaction costs, for a total annual gain by the winners of roughly $11 billion. So even the small number of the top-performing traders made only $62,750 a year for all their risk-taking.

Big deal? It gets even worse. Remember, those study covered the manic trading days of the late nineties. Those were the heady go-go days of the great bull market when even 30 percent returns on funds were considered so-so. Those were the days when over a couple hundred funds generated returns in excess of 100 percent in 1999, many over 300 percent—the days when few lost money.

Chimp makes chump of best day-traders

Let me remind you of one very unique “competitor” in the trading world at the time: Raven the chimpanzee! Raven created a winning portfolio by throwing darts to pick stocks—regularly beating even hot portfolio managers returning 300% annually on the Monkeydex portfolio. So the joke’s on all of America’s hot-shot traders. And just in case you think this is just a cute joke, for several years The Wall Street Journal ran a regular contest pitting dart-throwing versus picks based on a comment made by Princeton Professor Burton Malkiel in his classic, A Random Walk Down Wall Street: “A blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper’s financial pages could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one carefully selected by the experts.”

In short, the new study is a huge embarrassment for the online discount trading firms, for example, who hype the payoffs from trading. Unfortunately, their trader-clients are not only big losers, the 82 percent who are repeat losers are so blind and dumb that they stay in this loser’s game, in denial, and just kept on losing. That’s the trader’s DNA at work!

Dumb, dumber … now the dumbest

Worse yet, the “winners” were the dumbest of all. The so-called winning traders were not only making less than Raven the monkey, they were making less than a buy’n’hold investor would have made from a portfolio with a thousands just sitting passively in tech funds and stocks in the 1995-1999 period. So once again our hat’s off to Odean and Barber, their two studies confirm the truth about trading, that … trading is a loser’s game.

The only people who really make money trading on a regular basis are the service professionals, especially the commission brokers. These pros make their commissions no matter how much investors and traders lose. Even in bear markets their ads paint a deceptive picture aimed at the wannabe trader’s super-confident but addictive and self-sabotaging genes—ads designed to convince naïve wannabe traders that the pros have some special secret that’ll beat the market—secrets they’re willing to share for a fee, naturally.

The truth is: They can’t … they never do … and they never will beat the market … no matter how long they try … trading’s a loser‘s game. But as I found out one more time in this “debate,” as I do in every “debate” with an expert who may be making a living selling trading secrets … I may as well have been trying to convince Raven the chimpanzee that eventually he too would lose, and lose big.

In that respect however, chimpanzees are superior to human traders. The trader’s DNA control their brains, they have no choice but to keep chasing the impossible dream that they can beat the market. The truth is, they’re addicted to losing. The pros know this, so they can take advantage of the wannabe traders never-ending delusional “winner’s fantasy.” And the game goes on ad infinitum, with the pros having a big laugh as they rake off big fees and commissions and get rich off the 82 percent of all traders who are repeat losers.

Labels

Investment News share market bursa malaysia FBM KLCI market daily report stock stock market Brokers Report Malaysia Financial Management brokers call Personal Finance research report Financial Economy General stock investment Money Articles FBMKLCI Stocks market PublicInvest Research Budget Wall Street Update PublicInvest research report Wall Street KLCI oil & gas 1MDB Hong Leong Investment Bank research report Personal Opinion Dow Jones Issue US bursa Credit Card Debt Kenanga research report equity market kenanga research oil price politics ringgit Market Watch PPP klse najib property development Malaysia Weekly Highlights Nasdaq oil property thoughts EPF Hong Leong Investment Bank Research Income Tax construction Maybank Research Misc Money Master Najib Razak S&P 500 Index The Edge Financial Daily US stock market bank negara weekly weekly investment term China Companies in Focus Inflation Loan Rules Theedgemarkets business maybank plantation s&P 500 warren buffett Crude Oil Insurance MIDF research report Maybank IB research Retirement Planning Reuters business news finance global opinion spending stocks with momentum technology Bank Brokers Feng Shui OPEC Savings Wealth bear market currency financial services global market investing microsoft wallstreet 1 Malaysia Development Bhd 1Malaysia Development Bhd BNM International Reserves Billionaire Budget 2016 Commodity Disney Investment Term Malaysia News PCB Petronas Richest People STD Saudi Arabia bloomberg british american tobacco gaming sector low oil price media publicInvest russia share investment stock pick telecommunication top glove trading wallstreet update weakened Ringgit 2010 2016 Air Asia America Bad Debt Bill Gates Billy Toh Budget 2017 Calculation Chinese New Year Currency Exchange Education Fed Forex Gold IPIC Income Iran Kenanga Research research report Lembaga Tabung Haji MAS Macquarie research report Oil & Gas sector Quote RHB Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) Star Wars Star Wars: The Force Awakens US Fed hike affin hwang capital airasia analyst apple axiata bearish market business highlights construction & engineering consumer products dow jones industrial average earnings report equity expenses global bear market healthcare hup seng industries berhad inari inari amertron berhad interest rate learning malaysia airlines market news maybank investment bank oil and gas oil palm plantation oil prices opr overnight policy rate (OPR) s&P500 s&p satya nadella scandal thought thought of the day 2013 2014 Bank Negara reserves Broker Report Budget 2020 Cash Rebate Donald Trump Earn Financial Planning Financial World Forbes Global Competitiveness Report Global News Global semiconductor sales Goldman Sachs Good Debt How The Rich Get Richer IOI Corp Bhd India Intelligent Investor Interest Rates Linear Income M&A Securities Mahathir Malaysia Business Highlights Maybank 2 card P1 Passive Income Privacy Policy PublicInvest Bank research report REIT RHB Investment Research RHB Research Report RM SIA Sector review TA Research TM TPPA Telekom Malaysia Tun Dr Mahathir US news USD USD against MYR United States Wall Street Journal World Economic Forum Zeti airasia x airlines apple inc asset allocation automotive aviation sector azure banking sector bat beverage bonds box office brent crude budget 2015 bumi armada buy property cash consumer discretionary default developer electricity tariff hike engineering financial market global economy greece gst home hong leong investment bank house infrastructure iphone jobs kossan rubber industries macquarie equities research report malaysia Ringgit market close market updates mukhriz nadella new era for oil opinions pipeline services politic public bank random rate hike research retirement ringgit crisis sector update semiconductor semiconductor sales semiconductor sector shale producers share sime darby stock market. oil & gas industry tax technical analysis telco sector the edge weekly news world market 0% Easy Payment Plan 1MDB scandal 1mdb story 20 cents 2009 2011 29 minutes 3.25% 53 cost cutting measures 7-eleven 9 Things Rich People Do Differently Every Day ABNxcess AFP NEWS AMMB Abu Dhabi fund AirAsia X Bhd Alcohol AmInvestment Bank research report Amazon Ambank Aminvestment research report Ann Joo Ann Joo Resources Bhd Anwar Apple watch Asia Asian stock market Avengers BIMB Securities Research BJ Auto BP Plastics Holding Bhd BSI Singapore Bailout Banking and finance sector Benjamin Graham Biden Bio Osmo Book Borneo Oil Bhd CIMB CLIQ Energy Bhd CPO export tax CPO price CSI 300 Carlos Slim Carlsberg Cepatwawasan Group Bhd Charts China General Nuclear Power Corp China's bond market China's wealthiest man Christmas Circuit breaker Citibank Cash Back card Commodity Watch Credit Customer Service DSKH Holdings (M) Bhd Dagang NeXchange Bhd Datasonic Group Bhd David cameron Debt Status Deficit Deloitte Dividend Domestic news Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd E.U ECB EON Eastern & Oriental Bhd Eco World Eco World Development Group Bhd Edra Euro Europe Central Bank European Union Evergreen External Trade FPSO Genesis Fed rate hike Federal Reserves Federal rate Fitbit Fitbit Inc Gamuda Genting Malaysia Berhad George Kent (M) Bhd Global Competitiveness Index Global Issue Gordon Growth Greece exit Greed is Good Guan Chong Bhd Guinness HSBC Hasbro Hektar Reit Hiap Teck Ventures Bhd Highlights Hillary Clinton Hock Seng Lee Hong Leong Bank Bhd Hong Leong Bank Investment research report Hong Leong Bank Wise card Hong Leong Industries Bhd ICB IMF INTC IPO IPOs IT Ibraco Bhd Intel Corporation International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) Islamic Banking and finance sector Ismail Sabri JF Apex Securities JF Apex Securities Research Janet Yellen Jerasia Capital Bhd Junk KNM KNM Group Bhd KVMRT 2 Investment KWSP Keep Up With The Joneses Khir Toyo LHDN Leissner Lim Kit Siang Lucasfilm M+ online Market Wrap MARA MH370 MIDA MISC Bhd MLTA MPC MRTA MSN Money News Madza Malaysia Airports Holdings Malaysia Banking Malaysia Bond Market Malaysia fund Malaysian Palm Oil Board Malaysian Ringgit Mara Digital Store March CPO export tax Maxis Maybankard 2 Card Microsoft in the new era Millionaire Next Door Mistakes Motivation N2N Connect NAP 2014 NTPM Holdings Bhd Nazir Razak News Update News at a Glance Nikkei O&G OCBC OPEC war OSA Obama Office 365 Windows 10 Oil Watch PTPTN Packet One Parkson Paypal Perdana Perisai Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd Petronas Gas Bhd Pintaras Jaya Bhd Pioneer Natural Resources Co Power Practical ways on spending Prestariang Bhd Public Investment Research PublicInvestresearch report RBC Capital Markets RCP average poll of US election RGB International Bhd RHB Research RM crisis RM2.6 billion ROE Ranhill Holdings Bhd Rants Rating Raya holiday Recession Ringgit's volatility SEM SKB Shutters Corp Bhd SME segment SP Setia SRR Saizen REIT SapuraKencana Seacera Group Bhd Shale oil Sime Darby Bhd Simee Darby Singles Stimulus Plan Stock Selection for the Enterprising Investor Sunway Construction Bhd Superlon Holdings Bhd Swift Code TIME TMI TNB TOYOTA TRC Synergy Tan Sri Tony Fernandes Tax Reliefs Technorati Tenaga Tenaga Nasional Bhd The Citizens Declaration The Edge Weekly The Negative Side The New York Times Tim Cook Titijaya Land Bhd Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Trump v Clinton Tsipras U.K UEM Edgenta Bhd UMNO UMW Oil & Gas UOA US Box Office US election US fed US manufacturing data US market US patent and trademark US prosecutors US stocks USA USD/MYR USEconomy Uchi Technologies Bhd Ultra-Rich Networth individuals UniFi United Kingdom Uob one card Versatile Creative Bhd W-8BEN WCT Holdings Wahid Wal-Mart Wall Street support Warren's Way Windows 10 Yak Yew Chee Yellen Yinson Holding abenomics aemulus affordable housing ahmad bashah ahmad zahid airline airports alibaba alternative investment aluminium asian market audit automobile azure machine learning bank negara malaysia below $30 a barrel berjaya auto bhd berjaya food bond market borneo utara highway brexit britain broadband budget 2018 budget revision bulk purchase of property bullish bullish market burse cloud computing cocoa coffee consumer staples consumption power cost of having a baby crane customer data debt investor deflation risk development downpayment for your home early election earnings per share economic outlook economic outlook 2016 economic sanction economics economy outlook ecoworld effective gross income egi election election budget electric utility electricity electricity bill electricity production endowment plan energy sector entertaiment eps essay european central bank eversendai eversendai corp export data family food beverage food services forecasts foreign-worker levy hike fundamental questions on retirement genting group genting plantation george soros global energy global stock market globetronic glove goldman great eastern group purchase of property has oil bottom? health higher price home business household & Personal product how low can ringgit drop? humor industrial package industry product interest internet investment income investment plan investment strategy iraq jack ma jack ma ready to take on the world jaks resources bhd japan jobless kimlun klci index knowledge land reclaimation work lawsuits life lifestyle lifestyle inflation liquefied natural gas (LNG) machine learning maintain buy malaysia government managing debt manchester united manufacture polyrethane product manufacturing marine engineering market closing market outlook markets mazda medical insurance metering microsoft earnings middle class monetary policy committee moneymaster mortgage movie negative nestle noon market offshore marine support services oil & gas services oil gain oil madness oil market oil production oil rally oil&gas oldtown opr hike patent petrol petrol chemical petroleum petronas gas pipeline project positive power generation power plant prime minister primus pacific private placement profitability ratios project reference property & infrastructure property development and investment putrajaya quantitative easing relative strength index (RSI) renewable energy reputational risk resources retail retailing retirement fund rhb research institute risk risks ruble salesforce sapurakencana petroleum savings for retirement scicom scientex scomi energy services bhd sector sell share markets share price shinzo abe shipbuilding shopping mall stagnation star publication (M) bHd starbucks statistics steel stock market bursa malaysia stock market investment stock price swiss swiss bank takaful tech technical indicator telco the malaysian insider the star thermo-vacuum form plastic packaging manufacturer time value money top gainers top losers trade volume index (TVI) traditional healthcare uchi tech umw holdings upstream oil & gas ursa malaysia value of compounding wal-mart effect warren buffet water related engineering wearable tech webe windows worldwide sales zecon