I'm finally vindicated, says Anwar

A good reason to cheer on Monday! Hoooooooraaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!!

BREAKING NEWS In a surprising twist, Anwar Ibrahim was today acquitted by the Kuala Lumpur High Court of sodomising his former 23-year-old aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

In discharging the 64-year-old PKR de-facto leader, Justice Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah cast doubt on the DNA evidence provided by the prosecution.

"After going through the evidence, I cannot be 100 percent certain that the evidence could have been compromised.

"Hence, the court is reluctant to convict on such corrobaration of evidence from SP1 Saiful."

On hearing the surprise verdict, the courtroom exploded in jubilation.

Anwar's wife Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail cried and hugged her elated husband.

In an immediate reaction, Anwar thanked his lawyers.

"I'm finally vindicated after the smearing of my character. I'm thankful to Wan Azizah and the team of lawyers led by Karpal Singh.

He also thanked the support of Pakatan Rakyat leaders.

"We want to continue on the reform agenda, fighting corruption, and freedom of the press."

Anwar was represented by a team of lawyers led by Bukit Gelugor MP and DAP chairperson Karpal. Outgoing solicitor-general II Mohd Yusof Zainal Abiden led the prosecution.

Anwar, a former deputy prime minister was charged with sodomising Saiful at the Desa Damansara condominium between 3.01pm and 4.30pm on June 26, 2008.

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/186058

Negara-Ku?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z51N0mjn3kM

The possibility of Anwar going back to jail troubled me a lot. Just don't know why. His personal suffering is one thing, perhaps the future of Malaysia is truly troubling me. Time is running out for Malaysia.

Forget about the separation of powers. Forget about the judicial independent. Talking about pricing in? Just look at the picture of the crowd, taken yesterday night. They priced in 100% that Anwar is going back to jail today.

The recent RM 500 Bantuan 1 Malaysia and RM 100 for every student made me very angry. My face is like a cooked lobster -- very red with steam over my head. Talking about borrow "sword to kill somebody", this is it. I am not angry with the needy people but needy people got bribed and giving one vote to make the current ruling government stay made me angry. You and I are funding our own enemy, without ours consent.

Fortunately, they are still a few good men around. Unfortunately, these "young men" and "young lady" are already getting into 60, 70, 80 years old. I suppose they have seen what was Malaya look like. Those born after 80s can only hear the great old nostalgia stories.

I believe the educated camp needs no further selling. It's the grass root level needs to be converted. It's an uphill battle I know. Giving up is easy. Walking away is easy. Turning back is easy.

As I research more about Mr. Koon, my admiration and respect for him is growing stronger than ever. He is a good role model. Talking is cheap. Transforming aspirations into actions are very expensive. Stepping outside our comfort zone to do something is very uncomfortable but something has to be done.

By Koon Yew Yin

1. I am not a politician. But I know politics is very important because it affects you and your children. I want to help you win the coming election. I have already donated RM100,000 during your last dinner to celebrate Lim Kit Siang’s 70th Birthday, a few months ago. (Admin note: RM100,000 donated to DAP Perak)

I put my money where my mouth is. Many people would grumble and complain about BN government’s corruptions, abuse of power and Chinese cannot get university places and also employment in the civil services, etc but they dare not come forward to support Pakatan Rakyat to change the Government.

I hope my coming forward openly will encourage many people to show support. Your party needs money and I hope you all will donate as much as you can afford.

2. You must bear in mind that the population of the non Malays is relatively small, even all non Malays vote for the PR and without Malays winning some seats, Pakatan Ryakyat cannot control the Perak State Government or Putrajaya. After tonight’s dinner, I would like each of you to make a serious effort to make friend with at least one Malay and convince him to vote for PR.

3. I wish to remind you that in the last Gen Election, PR won control of Perak, but lost control because a few frogs jumped over to BN. On your table you will read my article ‘Restore democracy to Perak: appeal to Sultan Aslan Shah’, but the Sultan did not dissolve the State Assembly as I requested. In the next election, you must make sure we can win a lot more seats to regain control.

4. Many of you would have heard about UTAR in Kampar rejected my Rm 30 M donation offer to build hostels to help students because the MCA leaders who own the land outside the University campus do not want me to disturb their very profitable rental business. There are 12,500 students and each of them pays Rm 200 per month and the total monthly rental income is about RM2.5 million or RM30 m a year. They cannot build fast enough to cater for the yearly students increase. Remember the greedy MCA leaders will continue to suck your blood.

5. MCA has been in the BN government since Merdeka more than 54 years ago. Did MCA ever dare to criticise UMNO to protect non Malays’ interest? Now the World Bank has reported 2 days ago that a large number of non Malayshave migrated to Singapore, UK, Australia etc due to unfair treatment. 4 of my 5 children have gone out of the country to find work. I am sure some of you and your friends have children migrated overseas simply because we are called ‘PENDATAN’, visitors.

6. I have given scholarships to 80 poor students whose parents are earning less than RM2,000 per month. If you know of any poor parent who needs scholarships please contact my assistant Dr. Jeffrey Yee, 012-5286696. He graduated with a PhD from Cambridge, He will address you in Mandarin.

Thank you

Source: http://blog.limkitsiang.com/2011/05/07/rm30-million-donation-rejected-and-scholarship-for-the-poor/

Is investing hard?........Part II

In part I, the punch line that I wanted to get through was

face the reality.

Knowing the reality is so important. For what you may ask. Reality is the opposite of illusion or fantasy. The reality is many have tried and only a few succeeded.

The second punch line was

it is only meaningful when you can win over a long period of time.

At times when I met new converts(newbies), they will lecture me that the most powerful force in the universe is Compounding force. A 26,000 will turn into 1,000,000 if you can compound 20 years over 20% annual compound rate. Bless you bros.

What impressed me the most when I read Mr. Koon Yew Yin's essay was this. He began to invest in public listed companies seriously when he was 50 years old. I suppose he spent all his energies running businesses he co-founded before that. I was not sure what were his reasons of not "playing" in the stock market in his younger days.

In many cases, personal finance consultants are right, when you retire you should not take too much risks. What risks? Are risks associated with price fluctuations of blue chips companies or penny stocks? There are huge distinctions between the two.

He did not say it in too many words, he said he did not know how to read balance sheet. Most people who do not know how to read balance sheet will default to technical analysis camp. But certainly not him. I supposed he took efforts to do crash course like Finance for non-finance managers or a self-study for ACCA professional qualification.

What impressed me even more is this. He was like Chow Yuen Fatt, smiled charmingly and stylishly, GOING ALL IN. That must me around 1996/1997. How old was he? If he retired in 1983 at 50 years old, he could be around 63 or 64 years old. This old wise man really got big balls.

This lead to my third punch line

you can be in 5/100 club regardless of background or age.

A big BUT, this club is certainly not for the ignorant, lazy, lucky, tipsy-taker,.........(you fill in the rest).

Is investing hard?..........Part I

I have not been dwelling in investing philosophy for a while. Wish to make one or two more entries, the so called popular by demand, before I move on to some other themes.

I made a statement that good investors are made, not born. For many of you who are in managerial positions, it's the same question, are good leaders made or born? To make it sounds even more text book-ish, is it nature or nurture?

To be even more screw up, let's talk about statistics.



In a natural distribution curve, in relative terms, most of us will fall right in the middle. Finding the extreme end of IQ 55 or 145 will be extremely difficult. If you don't have big enough sample size, you can't even find closer to one. You can only find rough about 1 in 1,000 people.

Let me go back to investing. Let say the super-investors can generate annual compound rate of return roughly about 20% and the super-idiot-investors will also generate about -20%(NEGATIVE 20, make sure you don't mis-read that), the big majority will generate about 0% return? A large percentage of will make money and a large percentage will lose money? You must be feeling very positive now that you can make money out of stock markets. From the normal bell curve, you must be thinking that you have 50% chance making positive return. 50% is a very good chance, so obvious right? You must be feeling very warm now.

You see I already fooled you into cognitive bias. I borrowed a concept that is so intuitive, so familiar, so logical yet so flaw? Eeeeerrrrrr. How?

According to many studies, this is how it is supposed to look like.



Only 10 in 100 will make money. We have not even talk about time horizon. Over 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years? Try to stay above zero return over 5, 10, 15, 20 years. Do you have confidence of doing that? If not, put your money in fixed deposit?

I know many of my readers eat, sleep, shit and breath, not in oxygen, but in stocks. They are good enough to stay above ground ZERO, but can you at least beat FD rate over 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 years? My gut feel is may only 7 out of 100 can do that.

Then there are a few of my readers, who do not depend on luck, but something else(eeerrr don't know what) can at least beat the EPF number of 4.5%. 5 of out 100 can do that.

Then there are about 3 - 4 out of 100 can compound above 10% over a long period of time. The time period that I am talking about is 20 to 30 years.

May be 1/100 person above 15%.

And may be 1/1000 person above 20%, that person will be crown as a super-investor. Let me help you to visualize this.



Hey, I am seeing your aspiration is evaporating fast. Don't be like that lah. Investing is easy, very easy in fact. But to be in the club of 5-100? Try 5100 in coming 4D. :)

Self assessment

Read Mr. Koon Yew Yin’s write up posted by MalaysianFinance: Can you become a super investor?

He argued that we have nothing to lose if we aim to be a super investor. The bad news is you got to be genetically coded to be a super investor. But the good news is even we fail to be a super investor, we’re still going to be better than average Joe.

He said there are seven traits to be a super investor and I am going to rate myself as honest as possible. After having a pack of whisky certainly helps.

Trait #1: Be a contrarian investor. B to B+.

Making a big bet when an opportunity shows up. C.

Trait #2: Obsession in playing the game and wanting to win. B+

Trait #3: The willingness to learn from the past mistakes. C

Trait #4: An inherent sense of risk based on common sense. C+

Trait #5: Confidence B-

Trait #6: Clear thinking. B-

Trait #7: The ability to live through volatility without

changing investment thought process C +

Overall. B – or C ++

Remark: Hopefully this failed super investor will at least be a better investor. :)

http://www.malaysiafinance.blogspot.com/2012/01/can-you-become-super-investor.html

Shangri-La Hotels -- Solid investment but no rush

Companies own by Robert Kuok are usually well run. His conservatism and down to earth leadership has strong root that can weather all kind of business conditions, especially cyclical ones.

Hotel business is cyclical in nature. This business can tell us a lot about the global economic boom and bust story. It's a place people conduct businesses to make a lot of money or to indulge themselves after making a lot of money. Keyword: a lot of money = boom. It's also a place many people will desert licking their wounds or get quarantine in their office in bad times. Deserted = bust! There are three bold lines that will tell it all.


The first line reminded us a lot about dot.com bust, 9-11, SARS, etc. Those were the truly difficult times. Right after 2004, the world has unprecedented global economic growth without realizing it would come to an abrupt end. Thank you Greenspan.

The second bold line told a story of the US housing bubble bust that led the world into recession and financial crisis. After the market bottomed out in 2009, everything looks fine for the last one and the half year. Thank you chairman Bernanke.

A little warning. Shangri-La stock price peaked out in October 2010 and has been in a down-trend for more than a year. This is the story of the third bold line but not sure who to thank.



The EPS trend is more or less telling the same story of the price chart. The world went out from the soft patch in 2003 and enjoying a nice long period of 4 to 5 years of prosperity. A little second warning. The yellow light is flashing, again. The earning appears to have peaked out in 2010.

To understand Shangri-La business, we need to understand two drivers. First, Shangri-La operates a group hotels, resorts and property management in Malaysia. In 2010, it had a total revenue of RM 422 million. The breakdown of revenue contributions can be found here.



Three of Shang's hotels contributing almost three-quarter to the group's revenue. The data point of occupancy rate is a contrarian indicator. No good times(2004-2007) or bad times(2001-2003) are going to last forever.



The occupancy rate in the first 9 months of 2011 is very high. Taking comfort in this lagging data is certainly not wise. The typical business segment of Shangri-La hotels like Shangri-La Kuala Lumpur and Traders Penang occupancy rates are very high. 70% occupancy of Shangri-La Kuala Lumpur is as high as 2004 - 2007 period. The Traders hotel's occupancy rate is even unusual, 85%, a new record for the last ten years. Do you think this is going to be sustainable?

On the resorts side of the business, first it will get hit by Rasa Ria because they are renovating and secondly a lot of their clients are Europeans and Aussies followed by Asians from the North.

The rest, Rasa Sayang and Golden Sands, look reasonable.

All in all, I would expect earnings of Shangri-La group to soften in anticipation of lower business volume and slower resort business. This is not a bad news to me because a well run business that being oversold at the bottom of the cycle is a good investment.

Disclosure: None.

Turtle Portfolio Update - Jan 2012

To many 2011 can be a disappointing year. KLCI ended flat compared to beginning of 2011.

I managed to turn in 3.67% annual compounding return for Turtle portfolio that I started about 47 months ago. I was thrilled last year because I achieved my target of 10% annual compounding return. It was a good year for everybody for sure. I am falling short of my 10% annual compounding return this year. Blame it to a flat year? Noooooo....

I supposed there is no need to come out with a long list of reasons why I should be happy or to thrash myself. Kicking myself harder or shower with more gentle words on myself will not help me to achieve my target. I am man enough to accept that I did not reach my target this year. I should never lower my bar of 10% target. 10% means 10%.

Unlike many need to re-write their new year resolutions, my annual review is usually simple. All I need is to measure myself against long term objectives that I set.

I have set an expiry date for this blog since day one(you may want to check out my first entry). I have made a 15 years commitment or 180 months. This is what I called BEGIN with the END in MIND. By February 12, 2023 this blog will no longer be talking.

I have just completed about 26% of this journey. I still have three quarter to go. I also made a goal to beat professional investors of which I have no idea whether I have done that or not.

I have no idea what 2012 will bring. My attitude towards life is like Forest Gump. “Momma always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.“

Just do one thing at a time. Keep walking buddy.