Wellbeing (Part 1)

What is the meaning of WELLBEING to you?  According to Oxford Dictionaries Online, WELLBEING is defined as "the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy".  In other words, to achieve WELLBEING of our life, it is not restricted in only one or two areas.  For example, say you have multimillion dollars in your bank account but hard work has resulted in your bad health.  In this case, your WELLBEING is in question as what you have earn is being "contributed" to your doctor but not your life fulfillment.

Book Review: Warren Buffett and the Art of Stock Arbitrage

This is another wonderful book from Mary Buffett and David Clark. Last year, I read their "Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements: The Search for the Company with a Durable Competitive Advantage", many doubts on how Warren read financial statements are clarified.  This year, I am further enlightened by how Warren benefits from the companies mergers, take overs, reorganization .... .  The book provides very good insight on each condition and how Warren goes about it.

Book Review: The Lazy Millionaire

I bought this book at Popular Mega Book Fair in Johor Bahru.  It is really a simple and straight forward book.  The author, Marc Fisher, gives a number of good ideas on how to have your life nice and easy.

Follow-Up

Now is almost the end of the year 2010.  Have you started to think about your agendas for the year to come - 2011?  Well, before that, how about the achievement status of your 2010 agendas?  Have you achieved all or needed some catching up?  Or, you have no idea at all?

Frugal = Stingy?

Whenever I spend, I always ask myself a question: Is it my need or want?  Is it worth for me to spend my valued money?  Most of the time, my answer will lead me to avoid no-value spending.  I believe this is the reason why I often heard from my friend who let the others know that I am a stingy person.  Or, am I?

Determine the Entry and Exit Point of KepCorp

A reader of my book, "Infinite Wealth", inquire about my view of Process #2 for KepCorp, a Singaporean stock.

How Much do You Save for Yourself?

We have been working hard, day in and day out.  Suffering sickness due to work pressure and limited time with family.  Have you ever think about the purpose of doing this way and what do you actually get?

Fund Allocation for Life / Critical Illness / Medical Insurance

In my previous posts on insurance planning, I have been emphasizing the importance of insurance as a protection tool to cover our financial aspects in any unforeseeable circumstances.  Due to different in nature on different kind of insurance policy, I also advocate to spend less on insurance premium while getting the highest possible protect and invest the rest for maximum return.

My Reading List 2010

Reading has been my favorite hobby for years.  I feel down without holding a book during my free time; I feel being left behind for not learning continuously; I feel time will be just wasted by sitting in front of TV instead of a book.  Anyway, I have set my target to read at least a book in a month and books' titles cover not only on financial aspects but also literary works.  Following is my 2010 reading list so far:

1. "The One Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealth" by Mark Victor Hansen & Robert G. Allen

2. "The New Buffettology" by Mary Buffett & David Clark

How Do You Feel Today?

I watched this video through You Tube and it makes me feel life can't be better than what you are now.  Appreciate what you have and you are creating value for yourself.  Nobody is useless.  No excuse to be valueless.  Trust yourself and be yourself.

Happy always.

Is Your Insurance Agent Still Around? (Part 2)

During our chit-chatting, my wife told me that her colleague (hereinafter called Ms. A) is facing problem with her insurance servicing agent. While my wife has limited knowledge on insurance, Ms. A asked for her advice. Now, could you see the problem? The fact is, around us, there is a large percentage of public do not understand how insurance work. Therefore, it is the servicing agent’s responsibilities to ensure his/her client understand the nature of each and every policy before any commitment. However, how many servicing agents are actually caring their clients? Or are they caring their rice bowl?

My REITs Investment Performance as at 31-July-2010

Refer to my previous post on REITs Investment Performance as at 31-May-2010, my REITs portfolio has grown another 0.8% in annualized return, from 21.1% to 21.9%, within 2 months.  This impressive return are main contributed by outstanding yield from HEKTAR and AXREIT which are generating 32.7% and 44.1% annual compounding rate.

Accept the fact that other good counters in Bursa were actually performing much better than REITs.  For example, my MAYBANK's holding was giving me a annual return of 67.3% as of 31-July-2010 for a holding period of a year and four months.

No matter you are buying REITs or other counters, there is, of course, another important factor that contributes terrific gain.  That is buy them when they are really cheap.  Majority of my current holdings were bought in early 2009 when market was so pessimistic.

As of my opinion, REITs is a good vehicle to generate stable and impressive income with relatively stable pricing. I might treat it as one of my income source during retirement.  If you have extra fund (after consideration of emergency buffer requirement) and have no idea where to invest, instead of putting it in low risk low return FD, do consider REITs.  Of course, some homework before any investment need to be done beforehand.

Good luck.

Infinite Wealth

This is my first very own stock investment book to share my years of experience on countering unpredictable stock market movement.

As stock market is so unpredictable, I have designed a system that works well and enable me to receive an average 15~20% annual return, no matter how the market moves.

In my book, I will reveal my very own company evaluation system to identify fundamentally sound companies.  With these shortlisted established financially sound companies in your list, I will also show my technique on spotting the right timing on entering and exiting for profit maximization.

The processes indicate in my book have been proven through years of pilot testing by using my hard-earned money.  As get out the rat-race by my early 40s is my major financial target, sustainable passive income is a must.  I must have a solid system to ensure that and here I have developed one.  It works and I will like to share it with my fellow readers.

Do grab a copy at any major bookstore.  Your inquiry, testimonial and/or comments are most welcome.

Happy investing.

How Much do You Worth? (Part 3)

Do you have any idea how much of your income has been used for loan repayment? You will be able to by calculating debt servicing ratio by dividing your loan repayment with your net take home income. You should keep your debt servicing ratio below 35% of your net take home income so that you have enough cash to meet other end needs.

How Much do You Worth? (Part 2)

In my previous post, I have shared a simple formula on calculating your net worth. By having positive worth does not translate into good financial health. Just imagine, remaining healthy, it will be better to have regular medical check up so that any abnormal symptom can be taken care of at no time.

How Much do You Worth? (Part 1)

We able to know a company's financial condition based on its income statement, cash flow statement and balance sheet.  A number of financial ratios can be generated from different items listed among these reports to identify a company's financial strengths and weaknesses.  For individual perspective, the same can be applied as well.  Now, ask yourself a question, do you know how much you worth?  If you able to tell immediately, congratulation, you are on the right track towards or already achieve financial freedom.  If you are not, it will be better to have one ASAP.  Sometime, you will be surprise what your personal balance sheet will tell you.

What & How to Do

If you attended any seminars, courses or workshops before, you may have a number of questions on how exactly to carry out what you have learned afterwards. Don’t worry, this is normal.

A Bee Or A Fly

One day, a man laid the bottom part of an opened glass bottle in front of a window. He carefully put a bee into the bottle and started his observation. The bee kept hitting the bottom part inside the bottle where it could see the light. After a while, it gave up and rest in the bottle.

Is Your Insurance Coverage Enough?

Recently, one of my cousins asked my opinion on whether she should cancel her life policy or not? She is married with 2 young children. This is really a one-million-dollar question. If she asks her insurance agent, I guarantee her agent will advise her not to cancel but top up some more because her life is invaluable. My experience tells me that her agent might not help her on calculating insurance need because her agent might not know how to or don’t want to help as, in her agent’s mind, commission earning come first. So, the only way she can do is to learn how to calculate her insurance need and act accordingly.

A Story to Live By

Following is a story I received which I would like to share with my readers – to appreciate what we have:

There was a blind girl who hated herself because she was blind. She hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend. He was always there for her. She told her boyfriend, 'If I could only see the world, I will marry you.'

One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her. When the bandages came off, she was able to see everything, including her boyfriend.

He asked her, 'Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?' The girl looked at her boyfriend and saw that he was blind. The sight of his closed eyelids shocked her. She hadn't expected that. The thought of looking at them the rest of her life led her to refuse to marry him.

Her boyfriend left in tears and days later wrote a note to her saying: 'Take good care of your eyes, my dear, for before they were yours, they were mine.'

This is how the human brain often works when our status changes. Only a very few remember what life was like before, and who was always by their side in the most painful situations.

Life Is a Gift

Today before you say an unkind word - Think of someone who can't speak.

Before you complain about the taste of your food - Think of someone who has nothing to eat.

Before you complain about your husband or wife - Think of someone who's crying out to GOD for a companion.

Today before you complain about life - Think of someone who died too early on this earth.

Before you complain about your children - Think of someone who desires children but they're barren.

Before you argue about your dirty house someone didn't clean or sweep - Think of the people who are living in the streets.

Before whining about the distance you drive Think of someone who walks the same distance with their feet.

And when you are tired and complain about your job - Think of the unemployed, the disabled, and those who wish they had your job.

But before you think of pointing the finger or condemning another - Remember that not one of us is without sin.

And when depressing thoughts seem to get you down - Put a smile on your face and think: you're alive and still around.

The Strength of Mindset

You are what you think you are.  You can't be rich if you think that it will never happen to you.

You may have no idea what and how to be succesful in life now.  However, believe me, correct mindset will generate action plan through continuous learning and various source of life experience.

Here is meaningful story about mindset:

Step by Step

What are your dreams (financial targets)?  Are you aiming for early retirement, starting you own business or having enough fund for children's education?  No matter what dreams you have in mind, you need to plan in order to achieve these dreams within stipulated period.  The amount required for each of your dream may be huge that may made you feel very difficult, or impossible, to achieve.  Is it really true that you really can’t achieve them?  If you think you can’t, you really can’t.

Return of REITs

There are comments that emphasize leverage works well on direct property investment but not REITs.  Real estate leveraging means you are using other people’s money (such as housing loan from bank) to invest in properties.  You may rent out your investment properties for rental in the expectation that net rental received (after installment as well as all related charges, expenses and/or opportunity loss) able to provide impressive return over your investment outlay. 

Be a Great "Dreamer"

What you are is what you think you are.

Sound weird?  I used to think so but no more now.

Time for Yourself

Have you ever wonder how much time do you allocate for yourself?  I have roughly calculated mine. It surprise me.

Contingency Plan

You might have personal budget or financial plan.  You might also follow your plan closely.  However, do you ever realize that, most of the time, the result might not follow according to plan.  This is because the return of your investment might not according to your plan.  You are expecting your share investment to give you an annual return 20% but it gives you -10% due to unexpected market downturn.

Don't Try. Do It!

I spent an hour to discuss with 3 of my subordinates after lunch hour today.  The purpose was to follow-up the on-job-training progress of my new staff who only joined one and a half months ago.  

Estate Planning (Part 2)

To have effective estate plan, you should:

1. Prepare your will. I have shared the impact of a person dies without a will in my previous post that DISTRIBUTION ACT 1958 (As Amended in 1997) will distribute the estate according to the ACT. Is this what you want?

Estate Planning (Part 1)

What is an estate planning all about? It is your plan on how your assets to be distributed effectively with the least troubles. Please note that writing a will is only part of the process. Most importantly, as life goes on, the will shall be reviewed and updated according to your estate plan. If a person dies without a will, DISTRIBUTION ACT 1958 (Amended in 1997) will be applied. In other words, estates will be distributed according to the ACT rather than own wish:

Balance Sheet Of Life

I received an email with very interesting description on life.  I would like to share it with all my fellow readers.


Balance Sheet Of Life

Our Birth is our Opening Balance!
Our Death is our Closing Balance!
Our Prejudiced Views are our Liabilities
Our Creative Ideas are our Assets

Heart is our Current Asset
Soul is our Fixed Asset
Brain is our Fixed Deposit
Thinking is our Current Account

Achievements are our Capital
Character & Morals, our Stock-in-Trade
Friends are our General Reserves
Values & Behavior are our Goodwill
Patience is our Interest Earned
Love is our Dividend
Children are our Bonus Issues
Education is Brands / Patents

Knowledge is our Investment
Experience is our Premium Account
The Aim is to Tally the Balance Sheet Accurately.
The Goal is to get the Best Presented Accounts Award.

Some very Good and Very bad things ..
The most destructive habit....... ........ ....Worry
The greatest Joy......... ......... ........... ...Giving
The greatest loss........Loss of self-respect

The most satisfying work....... ......Helping others
The ugliest personality trait.......... .....Selfishness
The most endangered species..... ....Dedicated leaders
Our greatest natural resource.... ......... ...Our youth

The greatest 'shot in the arm'........ ..Encouragement
The greatest problem to overcome.... ........ ..Fear
The most effective sleeping pill....... Peace of mind
The most crippling failure disease........ .......Excuses

The most powerful force in life........ ............ Love
The most dangerous act...... .A gossip
The world's most incredible computer..... ....The brain
The worst thing to be without..... ............ ..... Hope

The deadliest weapon...... ....... ..........The tongue
The two most power-filled words....... ........ 'I Can'
The greatest asset....... .......... ........ ....Faith
The most worthless emotion.... ......... ....Self- pity

The most beautiful attire...... ......... ........SMILE!
The most prized possession.. ........ .....Integrity
The most powerful channel of communication. ......Prayer
The most contagious spirit...... .......... ......Enthusiasm

Life ends; when you stop Dreaming,
Hope ends; when you stop Believing,
Love ends; when you stop Caring,
Friendship ends; when you stop loving,

And

Relationship ends; when you stop Sharing...!!!

Are You Working for Your Future?

Think about these questions.  What is the reason for us to go to work in the early morning and return late, day in day out?  You may say it is for earning more bucks or may be for career advancement.  What is the purpose of having financial plan?  It may be for comfortable retirement or able to send your children for overseas education.  Whatever reasons you can provide for these questions, at the bottom line, you need to have money to work for you.  But where is the money come from?  Very simple, it will be from your savings.  But the big question is, how to save?

Is the Company You Invested in Conservatively Financed?

In the normal cause of business, debts are raised for expansion.  One of the purposes of having business loan is to exercise the power of leverage.  That is, use small amount of other people's money to earn big buck.  If this is the case, the business loan can be repaid easily.  How about if the case that, in actual, it does not ended as per plan?  In another scenario, there may be cases like too much debts being raised for over aggressive plans.

Money Management

Is one million dollar enough for you?  Well, for some, one million dollar is too small while, for others, it is a day-dream amount.  The sufficiency of this one million dollar is subject to the money management skill of each individual.  There are people who earn millions, or even billions, a year but still claiming "money not enough".  Only money management can provide the answer.  In fact, money management should be considered more like a skill on how to spend money than how to earn.

Blame, Justify, Denial, Quit

Have you ever observed how people react whenever they face the obstacle that make them difficult to move ahead further?  Most likely, you will hear them complaining.  Why are they complaining then?  Simply because they are blaming, justifying or denying those unfavorable outcomes are not their fault.  They are defending themselves.

The Choice is Yours

I would like to share a story I have heard recently.

There were two men who wanted to learn from the famous Zen Master in Japan who was known to be able to answer any question.  As they were approaching where Zen Master was, they had yet to prepare the question to ask.  Out of the sudden, a man saw a low flying bird.  He jumped up and caught the bird.  When they were seeing the famous Zen Master, the man who caught the bird questioned the Zen Master to tell them whether the bird in his was dead or alive.  The Zen Master stood up and bowed to the two gentlemen and said, "If I would tell you that the bird in your hand is dead, you'll let it go and claim that I am wrong.  However, if I would tell you that the bird in your hand is alive, you'll squeeze it until it is dead and I would be wrong again.  Therefore, the choice is in your hand."

eDividend

I believe eDividend, which was proposed in 2010 Budget, is the most effective service to be provided to share investors.

For years, I have been worrying about loss of dividend cheque as a result of loss in mail as they are all sent by normal mail.  Even though loss in mail is an uncontrollable factor to us, we have to realize that we will be penalized for the loss.  We need to inform respective share registrar and pay a penalty of RM5 for cheque replacement even though it is not our fault.  Thanks for eDividend, all dividend payment will be credited directly into our designated bank accounts.  According to Bursa, the bank-in date will be the same as dividend payment date and we are safe on the risk of loss in mail, penalty and save petrol on going to the bank for cheque deposit.

The registration is now on and is FOC until 18th April 2011.  There might be charges for registration after 18th April 2011.  So, prepare a copy of your IC and a copy of your bank statement (for current account) or savings passbook and visit your brokerage company to fill up an application form.  That is all.  All your dividend will be banked into your account for payment after 1st September 2010.

Happy investing.

Are You a Victor or a Victim?

I believe this is human nature. We blame whenever things are not going along the way we are expecting. Worst still, we sometimes tend to justify what happened.

For me, blaming and justifying are actions of giving excuses. In my previous post, I explained that excuses are providing “protection” on us not to learn from problems or mistakes. In other words, excuses are preventing us to seek for continual improvement. Under this scenario, people tend to claim themselves as victims. The bottom line, they are stepping backwards but not ahead. All they have “learned” are complaining.

Four Factors that Affecting Your Route to Financial Freedom

In my previous post, “What does Financial Freedom mean to you?”, I have highlighted there are 4 factors need to be carefully considered when generating financial plan with clear vision. These 4 factors are:

Available resources: We need to know where we are now. This information can be obtained from our personal balance sheet. In balance sheet, we can clearly see what assets and liabilities we are holding as well as our net worth. Also, we need to look into our personal cash flow statement to understand our fund movement as well as cash availability. In other words, we are getting information about our financial strengths and weaknesses. Of course, what we need to do at this step is to enhance our strengths and overcome weaknesses with clear goal in mind.

What does Financial Freedom Mean to You?

Ask yourself this question. What is the definition of Financial Freedom to you? Having millions of dollars? Having your dream cars or houses? I bet the list will go on. Now, calm down and think again. What does Financial Freedom really mean to you?

I would like to share my definition of Financial Freedom. For me, it means to have adequate financial resources to fund my requirement on good life. From here, I can conclude that the required financial resources are varied from individual to individual as each of us have different requirement on good life. Have you noted that there are two elements to achieve Financial Freedom? They are “good life requirement” and “financial resources”.

Savings Plan, anyone?

Quite often, I hear from my friends that they have bought savings plan for retirement and/or children education. When I inquired the reason for them to do so, the reply were either have no idea on investment or the insurance company will take care of them when anything happen. For a financial knowledge sound individual, these myths are disaster.

Are we all millionaires?

Have you ever realized that what is the amount of money that passes your hand in your life?

We received our petty cash from our parents during our school time. We worked part-time during holidays when we were in high school and university. We are now working full time and/or part time to earn for living. Do some calculation and you will realize that you have earned more than a million dollars by the age of 55. This figure is even before consideration of any increment of your income.

Option

Since the day we born, we have to make decision. When cause and effect come into the picture, each decision we opt for will lead us to different result output. When we were students, for example, we have options on either studying hard or playing hard. If we studied hard, the outcome would be outstanding exam score with praise while we lost our playing time and vice-versa. In other words, each option will come with sacrifice in order to allow us to move ahead towards expected result.

Ways to Become Richer

I always am informed by my friends who keep complaining about money not enough. They are living in a life of paycheck to paycheck. Their happiest day of the month is the pay day and their face turn sour two weeks later. They blame employer, company policy, inflation, taxation etc in order to express their dissatisfaction.

Debt – a Tool or a Woe

Nowadays, we keep receiving message from public media that encouraging us to buy things on credit or do credit card balance transfer. In other words, these activities have more or less stimulate consumers to buy anything they want (but not essential need) by raising consumer debt. In this case, are we using debt (credit) as tool to get something that we don’t really need?

Income Protection Policy

You may already have life policy, medical policy, critical illness policy, PA etc. However, do you have Income Protection Policy? Well, an Income Protection Policy is an insurance that cover certain percentage of your yearly income (as declared during the commencement of the policy) to be payable in case you are temporary or permanently disable.

Good Financial Decision

In our education system, there is no subject that teaches us how to invest or manage our money. However, our system may be is the best system to allow us to become a good employee. Even our parents are telling us to study hard and get a high pay job. As a result, in our subconscious mind, we all have been programmed like so. Does it mean that we totally do not know how to invest or manage our money? Well, not exactly. As a matter of fact, we are learning these skills from our parents.

Decision

After reading Chapter 8 of "Think and Grow Rich" which is talking about “Decision”, I totally agree with Napoleon about what he has emphasized.

You may recall in my previous post entitled “Investment: Do you know what you want?”, I stress that we should learn continuously in order to improve our confidence on investment as our investment knowledge grow. In other words, knowledge will allow us to make effective decision.

To be Successful in Life

Do you want you life to be normal? You will be if you follow ordinary crowds. So, what are ordinary crowds doing? Well based on my observation as well as after reading "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill, they tend to: