Friday, June 10, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Oversold, quite bearish
It's about time I do a bit of justice to my readers by posting stock market related write up.
It's has been a while I did not visit bespoke website, finally I did and found this chart. It's quite interesting actually.
Industrials, financials, materials and technology are in oversold territory. The market is clearly taking money off the table because they think the economic slow down is here and more to come. The market is certainly pricing in a slow down in 2H 2011. Oversold may warrant some rebound but the bigger question is: are we going to see a recession again? My take is not yet because you don't raise interest rate when the whole world say we have a weak economy.
What should we do? We all need to sit and wait until the market is tired of the word slow down, then I think we are going to see S & P of 1,350 - 1,400 or Dow 13,9000 or KLCI 1,700. When, probably end of 2011.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Renovation -- DIY or Hiring ID
I felt a lot better after taking a break.
Want to take some time to jot down my thoughts on the subject. The easy way out of course is leaving it to ID. The trouble of leaving it to ID is that they will not know what we like or what don't like. This can be tough especially when you have different family members with different ideas of what they want.
The second path is to order all the main stuffs we like and ask ID to design around it. We can order all the lights, furniture, kitchen, wardrobe, etc. Well, if we have done almost 90% of the work, why we do need them? They probably will advise us what color to paint our wall, pick some wall paper, improvise here and there. But this is not a bad alternative because they are good at what they are doing for a living. Besides, they have a pool of contractors for civil, electrical, carpentering, plumbing, etc. If you don't like to deal with contractors, let ID earns the money. They probably will charge consultation fees between RM $ 5 - 15 k.
The other advantage of ID is their 3D drawing that allow you to feel the concept. However, this is only from their perspective. Unless you do your own homework like you want to include your grandfather clock, a grand piano and etc, it will be left out and end up rojak after you move in.
One disadvantage of ID is they could been over zealous to show off their design. Based on the feedback that I got, if I let ID guy to design downlight for me, they could have doubled the number of lights I would need. Like artist, some of them will really want to create something different to carve out a name for themselves, you may ended up paying something you don't need.
I suspect we will still need to go through the same mess as much as DIY.
The greatest advantages of DIY are
i. obviously, saving on consultation fees,
ii. much more user base design -- it will force you think through all your needs.
iii. take advantage of specialist knowledge
iv. take advantage of great offers ( you may pick up some real good deals especially from furniture fair on many items)
v. blending your old furniture with new furniture
DIY, coordinating with various specialist has it own draw back.
The biggest challenge of doing DIY is to iron out all the nitty gritty details. I'll need to work through most of the sketches or drawings so that I can visualize what kind of design I want. Some of them are easy for example, where am I going to have wall lights. If I decided to have wall lights, how high do I need to put them - 6 ft or 6 ft 3 in? The answer would pretty much depend on the height and size of the wall light.
I've ordered my kitchen. They provided me the details of wiring for cabinet lights, switches for appliances, water filter, in-let piping, outlet piping, etc. But I need to get the contractor to prepare all these details.
I hit into a problem earlier of the week as the location of exhaust pipe was not matching -- too far out. When we decided to move in 30 inch nearer, that location hit the building structure. So we got to back off and I need to rework the plaster ceiling dimension. I just got back from my house and finally I think I've it done. I earlier wanted a big airy window for our kitchen, now I need to give up about 1 feet so that I can keep the whole design in balance.
It's very easy to access to a lot of specialists but I need to be a synthesizer to process all of them so I can keep the big picture view. Each of them are very good of what they are doing. The kitchen specialist design for example, can easily beat ID's design hands down. They offers latest technology such as melamin board, solid surface, quartz stone, granite, etc or accessories for lazy man. Gone are the days that you and your wife need to wipe your plates dry before putting them into cabinet. They design a through hole tray and you just place them into cabinet and let the water drip into your basin bowls.
We actually try some simulations of what we need when we move into our house. There are some simple things like how are we going to vacuum our staircase since there is no power outlet socket around that area? We ordered a new bed with about 11 feet wide(with built in side table), so how far out do we need another power outlet socket to place our next bed light? Since we are going to put our this piece of furniture here or there, how many more sockets do we need for our standing lights? Daddy, I need a socket for my piano heater. You can see how tedious is the planning process. I'm glad that our family members have done enough what ifs, and we got that electrical plan nailed down. The electrician is going to start work tomorrow.
I do have curtain specialist to advise me. But there are questions like do you like the conventional daylight curtain or roller bind? Do you need to make curtain to cover exact sliding door or extending them? There is one corner for example that I plan to place our piano and there will be another 2 feet to the sliding door. I was thinking whether I should let the curtain run closer to the piano so that I don't get the "funny" gap or place a painting in between them or a standing light, etc....
My wife and I share a lot of common interest. We like simplicity and at the same time with classical flavors. We don't mind to borrow some ideas from magazine but we certainly do not want to copy wholesale. At times, we do have clashes. To resolve the differences, we will have to drive around the town/island to search something that we both can agree to it. I can tell you this will really wear you down.
When I post I'm hitting the wall this morning, we have spend almost 2 months on planning, coordinating, shopping but still feel pretty much work-in-progress. I guess the toughest part of building a house is laying the foundation. Once we get over that stage, the rest will feel much more satisfying. I guess we just need to be patient because there are certain steps need to be completed before we can see our blueprint will finally be materialized. Those guys still need to bang the tiles, lay the cable, lay the bricks, cleaning up the mess, etc before we can ask for delivery of furniture, lights, plants, grille, etc...........
Want to take some time to jot down my thoughts on the subject. The easy way out of course is leaving it to ID. The trouble of leaving it to ID is that they will not know what we like or what don't like. This can be tough especially when you have different family members with different ideas of what they want.
The second path is to order all the main stuffs we like and ask ID to design around it. We can order all the lights, furniture, kitchen, wardrobe, etc. Well, if we have done almost 90% of the work, why we do need them? They probably will advise us what color to paint our wall, pick some wall paper, improvise here and there. But this is not a bad alternative because they are good at what they are doing for a living. Besides, they have a pool of contractors for civil, electrical, carpentering, plumbing, etc. If you don't like to deal with contractors, let ID earns the money. They probably will charge consultation fees between RM $ 5 - 15 k.
The other advantage of ID is their 3D drawing that allow you to feel the concept. However, this is only from their perspective. Unless you do your own homework like you want to include your grandfather clock, a grand piano and etc, it will be left out and end up rojak after you move in.
One disadvantage of ID is they could been over zealous to show off their design. Based on the feedback that I got, if I let ID guy to design downlight for me, they could have doubled the number of lights I would need. Like artist, some of them will really want to create something different to carve out a name for themselves, you may ended up paying something you don't need.
I suspect we will still need to go through the same mess as much as DIY.
The greatest advantages of DIY are
i. obviously, saving on consultation fees,
ii. much more user base design -- it will force you think through all your needs.
iii. take advantage of specialist knowledge
iv. take advantage of great offers ( you may pick up some real good deals especially from furniture fair on many items)
v. blending your old furniture with new furniture
DIY, coordinating with various specialist has it own draw back.
The biggest challenge of doing DIY is to iron out all the nitty gritty details. I'll need to work through most of the sketches or drawings so that I can visualize what kind of design I want. Some of them are easy for example, where am I going to have wall lights. If I decided to have wall lights, how high do I need to put them - 6 ft or 6 ft 3 in? The answer would pretty much depend on the height and size of the wall light.
I've ordered my kitchen. They provided me the details of wiring for cabinet lights, switches for appliances, water filter, in-let piping, outlet piping, etc. But I need to get the contractor to prepare all these details.
I hit into a problem earlier of the week as the location of exhaust pipe was not matching -- too far out. When we decided to move in 30 inch nearer, that location hit the building structure. So we got to back off and I need to rework the plaster ceiling dimension. I just got back from my house and finally I think I've it done. I earlier wanted a big airy window for our kitchen, now I need to give up about 1 feet so that I can keep the whole design in balance.
It's very easy to access to a lot of specialists but I need to be a synthesizer to process all of them so I can keep the big picture view. Each of them are very good of what they are doing. The kitchen specialist design for example, can easily beat ID's design hands down. They offers latest technology such as melamin board, solid surface, quartz stone, granite, etc or accessories for lazy man. Gone are the days that you and your wife need to wipe your plates dry before putting them into cabinet. They design a through hole tray and you just place them into cabinet and let the water drip into your basin bowls.
We actually try some simulations of what we need when we move into our house. There are some simple things like how are we going to vacuum our staircase since there is no power outlet socket around that area? We ordered a new bed with about 11 feet wide(with built in side table), so how far out do we need another power outlet socket to place our next bed light? Since we are going to put our this piece of furniture here or there, how many more sockets do we need for our standing lights? Daddy, I need a socket for my piano heater. You can see how tedious is the planning process. I'm glad that our family members have done enough what ifs, and we got that electrical plan nailed down. The electrician is going to start work tomorrow.
I do have curtain specialist to advise me. But there are questions like do you like the conventional daylight curtain or roller bind? Do you need to make curtain to cover exact sliding door or extending them? There is one corner for example that I plan to place our piano and there will be another 2 feet to the sliding door. I was thinking whether I should let the curtain run closer to the piano so that I don't get the "funny" gap or place a painting in between them or a standing light, etc....
My wife and I share a lot of common interest. We like simplicity and at the same time with classical flavors. We don't mind to borrow some ideas from magazine but we certainly do not want to copy wholesale. At times, we do have clashes. To resolve the differences, we will have to drive around the town/island to search something that we both can agree to it. I can tell you this will really wear you down.
When I post I'm hitting the wall this morning, we have spend almost 2 months on planning, coordinating, shopping but still feel pretty much work-in-progress. I guess the toughest part of building a house is laying the foundation. Once we get over that stage, the rest will feel much more satisfying. I guess we just need to be patient because there are certain steps need to be completed before we can see our blueprint will finally be materialized. Those guys still need to bang the tiles, lay the cable, lay the bricks, cleaning up the mess, etc before we can ask for delivery of furniture, lights, plants, grille, etc...........
Hitting the wall
Taking a renovation break.
Fatigue sets in.
Ideas seem to stall.
Progress seems to be slow.
Doubts seems to creep in.
Regrets are negotiating their ways in. You should have turned in the whole project to interior designer.
But I remember the experience of marathon. "Hitting the wall" experience. It's time to hang on, to realize the vision that I had in my mind.
I'll keep looking at my sketches and turn them into reality. Here is one of them.
Fatigue sets in.
Ideas seem to stall.
Progress seems to be slow.
Doubts seems to creep in.
Regrets are negotiating their ways in. You should have turned in the whole project to interior designer.
But I remember the experience of marathon. "Hitting the wall" experience. It's time to hang on, to realize the vision that I had in my mind.
I'll keep looking at my sketches and turn them into reality. Here is one of them.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Be fair
If the car import tax is so high, why our streets are flooded with Mercedes, BMW or Audi?
Because they can afford it.
How can they afford it?
It's because they have a good paying job or their business is making good money.
If that is the case, Penang manufacturing hub must be well alive?
Si, Senor.
Why?
Look at this chart -- labor cost comparison.
The original reason of putting manufacturing plants in China is no longer compeling. Originally, western companies put up plants in China were to take advantage of low wages. Unfortunately, the low wage advantage is dissapearing fast. You have people commited suicide and organized strike demanding higher wages. Dong Tao, Chief Asia Economist for Credit Suisse said 'This is the beginning of the end of an era for China as the world's factory'.
Income growth is their priority. They want to move up to higher value added manufacturing activities. They will continue to raise minimum wage.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-20/china-to-boost-minimum-wage-20-annually-in-next-five-years-scmp-reports.html
At 20% rate, labor cost in China will surpass South East Asia's in 5 years. They have just lost Calvin Klein last year.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-21/china-loses-as-calvin-klein-bra-maker-moves-factory-plan-to-southeast-asia.html
Our current Penang government is doing a good job to take advantage of this trend. Our CM, Guan Eng said his team is working off their butts to attract investment. This is how they market Penang.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2065153,00.html#ixzz1OHVBoAK3
The fact that they bring in St. Jude, National Instruments and Honeywell, we all should applaud Guan Eng's team initial success.
If his team continue to govern for the next few terms, we will see Penang will be a different today's Penang.
I know we have some problems created by a minority group(Umno-Putra) to take advantage of Malaysians but I'm optimistic that this will be resolved in the future. If not in GE 13, it will be one of the GEs. I want to appeal to Malaysian who resides in overseas to be fair when making statements. After all said and done, we all should not forget our root.
Because they can afford it.
How can they afford it?
It's because they have a good paying job or their business is making good money.
If that is the case, Penang manufacturing hub must be well alive?
Si, Senor.
Why?
Look at this chart -- labor cost comparison.
The original reason of putting manufacturing plants in China is no longer compeling. Originally, western companies put up plants in China were to take advantage of low wages. Unfortunately, the low wage advantage is dissapearing fast. You have people commited suicide and organized strike demanding higher wages. Dong Tao, Chief Asia Economist for Credit Suisse said 'This is the beginning of the end of an era for China as the world's factory'.
Income growth is their priority. They want to move up to higher value added manufacturing activities. They will continue to raise minimum wage.
China plans to increase its minimum wage by at least 20 percent annually in the next five years, more than doubling it by 2015, to increase spending power and consumption, the South China Morning Post said, citing Huang Mengfu, a government adviser.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-20/china-to-boost-minimum-wage-20-annually-in-next-five-years-scmp-reports.html
At 20% rate, labor cost in China will surpass South East Asia's in 5 years. They have just lost Calvin Klein last year.
China’s rising labor costs prompted Top Form International Ltd., a bra maker for Calvin Klein, to pick Southeast Asia for a new factory, adding to signs of a reshaping of the economy away from export-tied regions.
“We’ve halted plans to open a fourth factory in China,” Eddie Wong, group managing director and co-founder of Hong Kong- based Top Form, which also supplies brands including Maidenform, said in an interview yesterday. “We can consider other cities in China but it’s only a matter of time before wages will rise again and it will get more expensive for us.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-21/china-loses-as-calvin-klein-bra-maker-moves-factory-plan-to-southeast-asia.html
Our current Penang government is doing a good job to take advantage of this trend. Our CM, Guan Eng said his team is working off their butts to attract investment. This is how they market Penang.
But Malaysia has a host of additional competitive advantages in the new manufacturing race, from logistics to geography. The island of Penang, for instance, has wide roads, a steady stream of university science graduates, an efficient power supply and a modern airport from which goods are flown around the world. "From Penang, we can get our products anywhere in 48 hours," says Purushothaman of National Instruments, which is currently building an $80 million factory close to the airport.
In addition, Penang has inherited the British legal system from its former colonial masters, which gives those doing business there a degree of comfort. "If you look at the region, companies feel comfortable with the intellectual protection measures and legal system in Malaysia," says Lee Kah Choon, chairman of Invest Penang, a government-run investment-promotion agency. "Whereas in China, they're very uncomfortable that whatever is introduced there can be copied."
The importance of intellectual-property protection is echoed by a wide range of technology executives who operate in both Malaysia and China. Almost universally, there is unease about the latter's commitment to copyrights and patents. "It's not as transparent as we want it to be," says Steven Siaw, a co-founder of Penang-based Vitrox Corp., an 11-year-old tech start-up that produces automated vision-inspection systems and has a presence in China. "There's a certain degree of respect for intellectual-property rights in Malaysia. We want peace of mind."
"We're paranoid about intellectual property," says Atul Bhargava, managing director of Intel Malaysia. How paranoid? Consistent with its global practices, Intel severely restricts media tours of its Penang factory lines: permission is rarely granted, and cell phones are always banned, lest illicit photos be secretly snapped. Any employee who leaves the firm is told, in a less than collegial fashion, that any proprietary work done at Intel does not leave the building. "You have to make sure there is a firewall," says Bhargava. Malaysia's commitment to intellectual-property protection, he says, is one of the reasons Intel employs roughly 10,000 people in Penang — the semiconductor firm's single largest bloc of workers outside the U.S.
Penang's recent economic momentum will continue, claim senior government officials. "We've worked our butts off to get investment in," says chief minister Lim. The effort appears to be paying off. National Instruments, Citigroup and health-equipment company St. Jude Medical are all poised to significantly increase their Penang headcounts over the next few years. Online job postings in Penang, according to Kuala Lumpur — based Jobstreet.com, soared 80% in 2010 over the previous year. According to Chook Yuh Yng, Jobstreet's country manager, postings for this year are looking pretty good too.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2065153,00.html#ixzz1OHVBoAK3
The fact that they bring in St. Jude, National Instruments and Honeywell, we all should applaud Guan Eng's team initial success.
If his team continue to govern for the next few terms, we will see Penang will be a different today's Penang.
I know we have some problems created by a minority group(Umno-Putra) to take advantage of Malaysians but I'm optimistic that this will be resolved in the future. If not in GE 13, it will be one of the GEs. I want to appeal to Malaysian who resides in overseas to be fair when making statements. After all said and done, we all should not forget our root.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Why am I still a Malaysian, in Malaysia?
If you are rich, it does not matter who and where you are. Your wealth will bring you freedom of movement and freedom of doing something good for humankind. And please don't get me wrong. I'm not rich but I've enough to survive comfortably till I'm six feet under. I was not educated overseas. My family was not rich enough to send me to overseas. I still remember that I got very sicked of sending my friends to airport when I was a teen. Neither I belong to the class of creme de la creme and not smart enough to be given an overseas scholarship. I was not given even a local scholarship, I need to borrow to complete my studies. In other words, I'm the stupid one that left behind in Malaysia.
I came to Malaysia not by choice. It was my parents choice. But, after growing up, I do have a choice: to stay in Malaysia or to follow my grandparents' footstep to search for much greener pasture. The trouble was I could not define what is greener pasture. Is greener pasture define as avoiding harm like May 13, 1969? Or similar case of Indonesian Chinese being persecuted in 1998? Or to be a millionaire? Or to be a saint, providing care to the needy? Or to satisfy my ego that I belong to the developed world?
Is the repeat of May 13 a fat tail event? To me, it's just another political risk. I will equate that risk similar of the repeat of 9/11.
Unless I want to be a Prime Minister or a top government servant, the rest is pretty much up to me. In life, I prefer to be lucky than smart. I can adopt Napoleon's philosophy easily, he prefers lucky general than brilliant generals. I also believe the harder and more miserable they(yes our fucking government) make our lives, the harder we'll fight back. Every adversity is an equal or greater opportunity.
We have Malaysian non-bumi billionaires like Robert Kuok, Ananda Krishnan, Lee Shin Cheng, Teh Hong Piow, Lim Kok Thay, Quek Leng Chan, Lee Kim Hua and Vincent Tan.
We also have Filipinos Chinese billionaires like Henry Sy, Lucio Tan, Andrew Tan, John Gokongwei, Tony Tan and George Ty.
We also have Indonesian Chinese billionaires like Micheal Hartono, Robert Budi Hartono, Peter Sandakh, Low Tuck Kwong, etc......
Why these entrepreneurs succeeded, despite of fuck up environment they are in? It's seems like a very low correlation between individual net worth and corrupt government. These are old fashion folks will rise up early in the morning while young folks are still on their beds trying to recover from hangover. They took the risk and with a little bit of luck on their side, they made it. They also hire a lot of people much smarter than themselves.
Idealism sometimes does not work in the business world or wealth building.
I still have not answered why I'm a Malaysian, in Malaysia. I was lucky that I started my career with a multi-national company that has a branch in Malaysia. In other words, the competitions were not that keen because smart people were not interested in my job. With disciplined approach, I compounded my saving at a reasonable rate. With a little bit of luck, I've achieved my financial goals and freedom.
I'm comfortable with the political risk that I'm taking, for now. As I grow older, I embrace the concept of global citizenship. I don't have to spend all my time in Malaysia. I can be in China, Japan, America, Britain, Spain, Australia, Timbuktu, India, Nepal, Brazil, Argentina, etc....... In short the world is my country. If I really care without pretending like pharisees, I should spend my time, money and energy to reduce international imbalances. It's the poor and unfortunate that I need to serve not the strong and powerful. It's the corrupt one that I need to fight.
In every 5 years or so, since I'm not happy with the ruling government, I can fuck them by voting against them. If each and everyone of us are doing the same, there is where we will make our voices heard. And that voice is getting louder. BN, ignore at your own peril.
I came to Malaysia not by choice. It was my parents choice. But, after growing up, I do have a choice: to stay in Malaysia or to follow my grandparents' footstep to search for much greener pasture. The trouble was I could not define what is greener pasture. Is greener pasture define as avoiding harm like May 13, 1969? Or similar case of Indonesian Chinese being persecuted in 1998? Or to be a millionaire? Or to be a saint, providing care to the needy? Or to satisfy my ego that I belong to the developed world?
Is the repeat of May 13 a fat tail event? To me, it's just another political risk. I will equate that risk similar of the repeat of 9/11.
Unless I want to be a Prime Minister or a top government servant, the rest is pretty much up to me. In life, I prefer to be lucky than smart. I can adopt Napoleon's philosophy easily, he prefers lucky general than brilliant generals. I also believe the harder and more miserable they(yes our fucking government) make our lives, the harder we'll fight back. Every adversity is an equal or greater opportunity.
We have Malaysian non-bumi billionaires like Robert Kuok, Ananda Krishnan, Lee Shin Cheng, Teh Hong Piow, Lim Kok Thay, Quek Leng Chan, Lee Kim Hua and Vincent Tan.
We also have Filipinos Chinese billionaires like Henry Sy, Lucio Tan, Andrew Tan, John Gokongwei, Tony Tan and George Ty.
We also have Indonesian Chinese billionaires like Micheal Hartono, Robert Budi Hartono, Peter Sandakh, Low Tuck Kwong, etc......
Why these entrepreneurs succeeded, despite of fuck up environment they are in? It's seems like a very low correlation between individual net worth and corrupt government. These are old fashion folks will rise up early in the morning while young folks are still on their beds trying to recover from hangover. They took the risk and with a little bit of luck on their side, they made it. They also hire a lot of people much smarter than themselves.
Idealism sometimes does not work in the business world or wealth building.
I still have not answered why I'm a Malaysian, in Malaysia. I was lucky that I started my career with a multi-national company that has a branch in Malaysia. In other words, the competitions were not that keen because smart people were not interested in my job. With disciplined approach, I compounded my saving at a reasonable rate. With a little bit of luck, I've achieved my financial goals and freedom.
I'm comfortable with the political risk that I'm taking, for now. As I grow older, I embrace the concept of global citizenship. I don't have to spend all my time in Malaysia. I can be in China, Japan, America, Britain, Spain, Australia, Timbuktu, India, Nepal, Brazil, Argentina, etc....... In short the world is my country. If I really care without pretending like pharisees, I should spend my time, money and energy to reduce international imbalances. It's the poor and unfortunate that I need to serve not the strong and powerful. It's the corrupt one that I need to fight.
In every 5 years or so, since I'm not happy with the ruling government, I can fuck them by voting against them. If each and everyone of us are doing the same, there is where we will make our voices heard. And that voice is getting louder. BN, ignore at your own peril.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Now you got my attention
First, let me do the routine portfolio update. Received 888 saving for the month of June.
Yesterday sold off in the US market finally got my attention. I love to see headline of any indices dived 2% on heavy volume. It's one of those signs pointing either we are getting closer to capitulation or the end of a correction. If you look that the short term trend, it's almost like beginning of a downtrend, every rebound is lower than the previous rebound high. However, if you look at the medium term, the market is still in the uptrend but trying to get back to lower part of the uptrend channel.
I think this is a third time that I said that we are going to have consolidation for at least 2 - 3 months time, the market is likely to fluctuate within 2 - 3%, 12,000 - 13,000 range for the Dow.
When the bull market goes into second or third year plus some other factor like QE 2 exit, summer time, etc ......we can expect investment maxim of Sell in May and Go Away will hold very true for traders.
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