Middle Class Invest Maze

REIT

2010-07-22T20:13:00.000-07:00

Long didn't write, was busy searching through REIT.

Now passed the 2 big IPO REIT in Malaysia history. Kind of too late to talk about them ?

Sunway REIT IPO price was 90 cents, but till to-date, those subscribed to the IPO have yet breakeven.

Have a look at this site :
http://boyboycute.blogspot.com/2010/07/sunway-reit-ipothe-biggest-ripped-off.html

Make your own judgement by reading through the very simple statistic of return for each REIT. Of course, there are still more to learn before get your head wet.

Ah Yap's Blog

2010-04-08T18:01:00.000-07:00

I like to read this guy's post, though sometime is quite ..... hmm... you read it and you will know.

He opens our eye by looking at the same stuff from a different ankle, of course, he may not right, read and judge with your wisdom.

But the important thing is, I always wanted to know the bad of something when everybody is telling you it is good .... every sword got 2 side, how can it be always only good ... in a 3 dimension world, that cannot happen. Can you imagine of how a sword look like with only 1 side ??

So, be skeptical with open mind, you will see the world is so big and huge and full of opportunities ...... btw, it is flat some more ......

MREITs

2010-04-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

Aha, venturing into new stuff ..... started to study on MREIT and REIT potential ...

I have very bad experience with property investment, mostly I don't really believe in 'collect rent' methodology which used to be a good one during our grandmother times.

With a medium cost apartment I have, the rent is not enough to cover the loan repayment, and if happened the toilet leaking, the sinking is stucked, few months rent gone. Furthermore, the tenant keep come and go, with the apartment being vacant for months (meaning no $$) before you can find another tenant and the hassle of rent payment not on time .... I am not suitable to be a 'rent collecting female boss'....

Hence, look for alternative ... the REIT market. May post more after I did enought study on this stuff ...

Time Sharing, Anyone ?

2010-02-28T01:08:00.000-08:00

I was called to attend a 'short talk' on the travelling programme or normally they call it time sharing. Actually, I do feel it is quite an attractive package, with around 14K of lifelong membership, you will get good deal in hotel, travel and local tour packages, but for this particular one, I like their cruise, really amazing cruise. However, I didn't sign up, I don't have that 14K though hahaha....

OK, what is time sharing ? Well, I don't really have much idea too, but after doing some search from the net, yeah, it is something to do with travelling accomodation cost saving programme. I saw there are a lot of complains. By looking at these complains, you may also pick up the pro and cons of it.

For those who likes travel, you may open up your mind, go for a few of this kind of 'talk', and get some information from their 'talk'... at least, you know there's something else out there, besides the convention travel agency. However, don't rush to sign up the deal immediately due to they have the 'special' promotion on that day (well, that is sales talk). By just listening to them for 2 hours without doing further research, that is definitely don't bring you to the level of 'understand the investment'. But most of the people being trapped in that way, bought what they don't really understand, the pro and the cons

To me, this is 1 kind of investment as well. We spend money to travel, to enjoy our hard earn money. We spend thousands a year for travelling, of course we will try to get the best out of the deal to makesure the 'investment' is with 'good return'. Hence, it doesn't run away from 'invesment'.

Millionaire Mind Intensive

2010-02-28T00:50:00.000-08:00

I hit into this article when I was trying to search for t. harv eker.

http://www.moritherapy.org/article/11-things-i-learned-at-millionaire-mind-intensive/

Like the first one : dream big; you’ll never be bigger than your dreams .....

I do feel we are always confined by our own thought .... every move or speech before we start, we already put in the assumptions .... do open your mind ... listen first before you filter .... not filter before you listen .....

Common Pitfalls of Investing

2010-01-28T18:59:00.000-08:00

Investing is drive by the anxiety to have the money work for us harder. But you need to set a goal (or goals) of what actually you wanted to achive in long run.

Some common mistake investors make, which they may or may not notice, they may put the blame to the wrong topic.

1. No emergency fund before investing
This will cut into the investment portfolio and a forced selling may happen if cash flow is too tight and emergency happened.

2. Time the market
Warren Buffett don't time the market because it doesn't really work well, at least for him.

3. Delaying to start investing
Do you know people has claim "compounding rate" is the 8th wonder of the world ?

4. Taking too much or too little risk
The rate of risk 'feel' by the investor will increase if they understand more on a particular product. But investor tends to 'not feeling the risk' or "feel like it is very low risk" if they don't really understand that product. Diversification is also a way of reducing risk

5. Decision making == Emotion Feeling
Greed and fear drive the decision making. Investor may not even realised it, and the mistake will repeat, but blame is on the market, not themselves.

2010 Resolution

2010-01-07T23:57:00.000-08:00

Been quite long didn't update the blog, busy is a very good and publicly accepted excuse :-).

Have you made your new year resolution ? I read an article, where this statement really strike me :There are things that is very urgent but not important, and there are things that is very important but not urgent.

Of course there are another 2 groups, very important and very urgent, and, not important and not urgent.

We tend to put the urgent but not important tasks on top of our to-do list, and the important and not urgent at the end of the list or the never done list ....

Clearing the piled up laundry is urgent but not important. Writing a will is important but not urgent .... which one you have done and which you have not ?

Unit Trust Game Rule #3

2009-11-13T19:47:00.000-08:00

Asset Allocation

I think this is not only limited to Unit Trust, but any investment instrument as well.

The allocation in UT mainly has 3 categories, Equity fund, Balanced fund and Bond fund.

An investor need to review his asset each year to determine if re-allocation is required, due to needs change and age change.

The simple rule of thumb, when we are approaching retirement age, we will need to reallocate high risk instrument to a lower risk instrument. Same go for child education plan, when we approach the time for withdrawal for the kids, then, we should start re-allocating the fund into a lower risk instrument, to warrant the return gained in previous years.

Everything doesn't run away on the principle of 'financial planning'.

Have you start thinking and plan for yourself and your beloving one ?

Federation of Investment Manager Malaysia

2009-10-31T02:36:00.000-07:00

Do you know FIMM govern the unit trust industry in Malaysia ? They have very basic informations which would help an investor to understand unit trust before get 'too involved' in this area .... take a look ....

http://www.fmutm.com.my/

Top 17 SCAMS in Malaysia

2009-10-23T20:03:00.000-07:00

Have you ever think of putting little money for "small" investment ?

There are lots of scam out there. I found this interesting write-up. It is not new, but 'skim cepat kaya' tricks are all old tricks where still people being 'con' .....

http://www.meshio.com/2009/05/top-17-scams-in-malaysia/

Unit Trust Game Rule #2

2009-10-17T01:57:00.000-07:00

Here come rule #2 .....

Dollar Cost Averaging ??!!

3 things:
1) Works well in a highly volatile market to accumulates more units at a lower average cost
2) Cushion the impact of a falling market
3) Ignore Timing Issue

What you do is : you save a fixed amount of money every month in buying Unit Trust Fund.

First, Invest in UT lower down your risk if compare to invest directly in share market. Dollar cost averaging will 'lagi' lower down your risk in investment.

It works very logically. If the NAV is rising, should we invest more ? NO. Hence, with the same amount of $$, we buy less unit. If the NAV is dumpling down, why not we buy more ? Hence, with the same $$, we buy more unit.

Second, it is forced saving, promise yourself every 1st of the month, save the $$ into the UT account.

Do you know why your highest amount saving account is EPF ? Because it is forced saving. You save into that EPF account before you can event withdraw a cent for spending, that's why you have huge amount there. Same go for this, if you plan to save for longer term, think about saving into UT too, beside putting them into FD only.

Third, it is stress-less.

No sweat if the market rise, less sweat when the market fall. Because, you know you will buy less when the market is already 'high', and you are buying more when the market is 'low'.

Below is a chart showing the total return for a patience investor start with RM1000, and keep saving RM200 each month from the first day the fund launched and until to-date.

Hence, do your dollar cost averaging, for UT, for FD (opppsss... FD rate don't change too much), foreign currency etc etc .....

Unit Trust Game Rule #1

2009-10-04T23:34:00.000-07:00

Why invest in Unit Trust is always a "at least 3-5 years" saving plan ? This seems like a magic number ... the number 3 & 5 ....

Actually, it is not, it is a survey and statistic run that proven if you have this kind of patient (wait for at least 5 years ??), and the fund selected is not really that BAD (well, be realistic, we have people score all As' and some score nothing, so does Mutual Fund)....

I had checked out several funds, seems like this is the acceptable timeframe one needs to wait for their fruit grows if they are prepare not to do much 'watering' and 'gardening'

For sure, this don't apply to those who is in 'Unit Trust TRADING" .... they managed their investment differently.

I am taking one fund to show the example.
Say, an investment of RM10K, comparing with FD & EPF return.
Green line = investment return
Yellow = EPF return
Blue = FD return

This chart shows an investment for 17 years. (2009 -1992 = 17 years)

Suprisingly, even in the last round of global crisis where the return is badly affected, but still the return is better then EPF & FD. Kind of 'down turn proof' already.

Same fund, but invested 5 years ago.

The return is impacted and return is lower than EPF and FD at early year of 2, and, it is bad during the down turn.

However, it picks up again when the economy recover.

If a fellow panic and sell off during the down turn, this must be the fellow that you met once upon a time and tell you UT sucks where he loses huge in the game.

Hence, a person who don't have enough patient, might not able to play the UT game well and win in the game.

How Much is Needed for Retirement ?

2009-09-03T09:53:00.000-07:00

Have you ever got the 'courage' to calculate how much you need for to live until the 'last day', without depending on others to support you .... but only on your early days saving ....

Have a look the screen capture. By only saving the money for a day 3 meals, you need about 550K ... so, ask yourself, have you ever save enough just for 3 meals a day for 23 years ?

Don't forgot, you need money to pay your electrical bill, water bill, other utility bill, medical bill ... did you plan enough for your old age ? Put aside a few minute to think about it ....

ASM

2008-12-02T02:07:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday, saw the advertisement PNB is going to launch another ASM for non-bumi on Monday 1/12/2008. Aiyah, why I always miss the news, Saturday is just too late to do any transaction, I am running out of money to buy this so call ‘better than fixed deposit’ investment tool.

At last, I borrowed some money from hubby, which he needs to transfer the money from his account (different bank) to mine, and without knowing that actually the GIRO banking is only ‘working’ on weekday, and one processing at every night, money didn't appear in my account. Shit……

At last, I borrowed some money from mummy, who has the account in the same bank as mine. At last, money show up in my balance.

Thinking this have no bumi and non-bumi quota, should be able to purchase even if going a bit late to the bank, I went to bank at around 9.30am. Suprisingly, the crowd is even larger than the ASW 2020! My queue was 40+, where for ½ hour, they only manage to open 2 new accounts!

An ‘aunty’ come to me and tell me, why not you guys go to POS and open the account, then only come back to top up the account. (Normally top up is faster than opening account). So, I went to POS, and open account, well, they are really fast, the only problem is they only accept cash. With current safety issue in whole Malaysia, who dare to bring along 10 – 20 K around to POS ? But surprisingly, I saw a few uncle and aunty wanted to top up, and, they just ‘bang’ a big envelope (full of cash) and pass it to the cashier !!

Wah, I am thinking next time should I do the same : measuring the risk of kena robbed and the extra time of 3 hours waiting in queue ?

ASW 2020

2008-11-26T18:42:00.000-08:00

Saw the newspaper yesterday night knowing ASNB is going to launch new fund for Amanah Saham Wawasan 2020 today. This round they are going to limit 10K per person.

Trying very hard source some money from the other bank to my MBB account, unfortunately then only realise banks' internet banking also 'close' midnigth, e-FD upliftment is only until 7pm, GIRO transfer is the next day effective..... wah lau, what kind of service is that ? Dig her and there, still couldn't make up the maximum 10K, oklah, just put in whatever I have in hand.

This morning, unwillingly, wake up early 6am, thinking should I go and queue ? OK lah, just give it a try, I didn't manage to grab single unit last few round they launch new fund. When I reach the MBB branh, suprisingly, only 2 fellow is queueing. Maybe those heavy weight customers look down on the 10K limitation, not worth to queue for hours.

Eventually, I managed to grab my first ASW 2020 book and unit, walking happily out from the MBB door by 10am. So, did you know about this new fund, try to go and grab some, I think this round it won't finish that fast (I mean for NON-Bumi) due to the maximum limit set.

Foreign Currency Fixed Deposit

2008-11-25T01:40:00.000-08:00

I had put some money (actually, quite a huge amount as that’s the minimum requirement) into New Zealand dollar few months ago as the “Foreign Currency FD” in Public Bank. Being blind by greed, they have high interest rate, from pass 10 years history, NZ Dollar has never dropped below un-accepted level. But, recently, it drops badly, very bad.

The interest rate is dropping fast as well, following the rate cut by the country. I am now considering, should I buy more but the interest rate is no more attractive at this point of time which it only has 5++% or should I cut lost? All kind of ‘expert’ is predicting US will rise, and don’t know why it rises, but all other currency will drop.

Cash Is King

2008-11-25T01:38:00.000-08:00

At current economic condition, I guess most of the people are holding quite a big chunk of cash in hand rather then spending them or investing them into the share market.

Even holding them in hand (well, in bank actually) also create fear due to the financial crisis happened recently. You can say I am ‘ignorance’, if we don’t save our money in bank, where else can we keep it ?

First Post

2008-11-16T20:59:00.000-08:00

My first post.... got to make it interesting...hehehe....

Wanted to write down some of my thoughts, my way of investing, how does the return comes along so that more people will share their with me too.