China shows some brains ...

By now most should have at least heard that USA is to be blame when they define their own USD currency as "value" and not gold anymore, just in case you still don't know yet, you may read here.

Whatever it was, the fact is USD is the definition of value in today's world simply because everyone agree to use USD as the standard currency in international tradings. When you travel oversea to a less popular country, you are most likely not able to get the currency of that country from the exchange shop in your own country. Instead, you will have exchange to USD and then when you arrive at the destination country, you may exchange your USD to the currency of that country.

During this world recession, everyone is thinking to break away from this association with USD. However, most of the continentals have made their comments that they wouldn't be able to do it. The most disappointing one is from Europe, "It is not easy to use a new currency standard.", they said.

However, today I over heard a TV news saying that China is now starting to quote all international trades in RMB especially with near by regions like Taiwan and South East Asia.

I always have doubts on China's capability to take over USA's responsibility on world finance simply because no brains were shown from China ... well, history starts to change. The transition may happen earlier than I previously predicted after all.

FREE eBook Released !! eMoney Tips 0904

This is properly the FIRST group writting project in Malaysia, for FREE !  It consist of varies different topics written by very different people.  It should be quite interesting bed time or tea time reading material.  Anyone is welcome to write something too !  Do leave feedback !  Download the ebook here

These are the Contents in this ebook along with my comments.

Creatively Invest Your Money by Amey

I agree mostly that the best time to enter stock market is when it is low.  He even talks about starting your own business verse investing in stock market.  Most of the content in this article is about get creative and manage your 'income', not a part of the finance plan itself in malpf's definition.

Investment diversification is a genuine financial “free lunch.” by Larry Russell

This typically talks about how good diversification is.  But since he didn't mention over diversify could be bad.  I would suggest readers also check out the other side of this story and decide a balance when pratising diversification concept.

Larry is properly the highest profile guy in this ebook edition.  But these contents are also what malpf refers as 20th century methods sometimes.  Its good fundamental knowledge and all, but we will need something more in today's challenges.

But this article is the BEST write up, most suitable for ALL to read and great writting skill in all aspects.

8 Great Tips to Make Your First Million by Jacquelyn

Indeed all are great and important tips to make and keep the million.  Most tips are toward entrepreneurship and how you should become smarter etc.  None on how to still make my million if I am dump and lazy.  Which sometimes is what malpf talk about.

Renting a Property by Mohd Fauzi Puniran

5 basic steps on renting out your property safe and sound ways.

10 tips to stay poor (or things to avoid) By Bob

This is a take-a-break reading material.  Fun to read and all but still many of us indeed commit to exactly doing what keep us stay cool .... no I meant poor ...

Turbo Charging your Financial Transformation by Father Sez

Most probably sharing his very own experience how he did exactly that, turbo charged his own financial transformation.  So very 1st hand info and practical stuff to follow through.  Start a blog can turbo charge your ...

10 Ways How to Make the Recession Works for You by Yow Chuan

One of the best write up.  Contents well structured, followed with self opinionated stories and compensated with great self-drawn-cartoon.  But I got offended personally when he asked me to quit my drinking in order to make recession works for me :p   ... and even draw a carton for that some more !

How To Survive in a Bear Market  by Tushar Mathur  ( not shown in the content section but in page 32 )

3 simple straight forward and practical things to do during a bear market.  Exactly how and when to apply which method could be contraversy.  And that could be very good extension topics for malpf to cover in future.

How to Find a Good Financial Advisor By The Financial Blogger

wow, this is an article hard to comment because I both love and hate it.  Its basically sharing real concerns about non expert managing your finance including yourself, the financial idiot.  If you think he is a financial planner ofcourse he will tell you to use a financial planner therefore all his words are all nonsense; then you may be passing out a great opportunity.  ( but I didn't say he is all right neither ).  The disagreement part is malpf promotes self manage own finance and it should be done in a bold and straight forward way.  If there are truth in personal finance, even an idiot can get it right without understanding much as long as the he did the right things as per the truth.  Which is the opposite of what this article talk about.  Basically he asks everybody not to listen to me anymore :p

Gold Investment In Malaysia by Carson Ding

Simple, straight forward and facts oriented, all Malaysian wanted to invest in gold should definitely read  this. Ironically, this ebook is published 5 minutes after I posted up an article about the same topic too.  And the content is almost exactly the same!  I don't think I can convince anyone I didn't copy Carson's article but it proves to me that Malaysia is really having limited resources in gold investment since both my research and his experience is exactly the same.

How to know if a real estate is worth investing? by OngKL

A bingo article on property investment.  Too bad his experience is more on southern Malaysia, while the most happening area is in central region.  But in fact, it doesn't matter, just like any other investment, when the numbers are right, the investment will most probably turn out the way you want it to be too.

Is It Alright that We Buy Insurance Only After We Get Married? By Loke Cheng Leong

Very short write up but cover all the concerns needed for the above question.  If you are asking that question, this is a must read also.

Accounting Loss vs. Real Loss By Jadelynn

As always, usually I don't really get how an accountant thinks.  Sorry but either this is a plain comparison between paper lost and actual lost or there are something more to it.  Err, no, that is it !  If you don't know wha tis paper lost vs actual lost yet, then read this gua !?

Budget by saltlamp2u

This is actually an article I forced my staff to submit.  Apparently they made it too sale oriented where at the end they ask you to buy salt lamp.  And the transition from the article to the sale pitch is not smooth at all.  Well, cann't complain when you force someone to do something can you ?

Why do Rich People commit suicide during recession? By MTSen

Actually quite poorly written, I am not sure what he is saying.  I think its something about "you should have a solid finance plan or else you may kill yourself even if you get very rich in future".  And he emphasizes that income is not part of the finance plan, as in it doesn't matter how rich you are, your personal finance plan should be an independant entity.  But this guy needs to learn some content management writtings.

All Money Made is Equal by KCLau

I don't know and I cann't be sure.  Together with his recent article about Dummy Finance, I think his recent preaching is matching more and more toward malpf's.  Indeed, no matter what money you got, you should treat it as an income and start saving a portion of it the very FIRST thing you do.  Oh ... that's not what the article say, its just what malpf says .....

So guys, have fun reading this FREE ebook and do leave comments what you think about it so we can improve the next time.  The team is aiming to make this a eMagazine instead of just an eBook, targeting to publish monthly.  Honestly I don't think that is a good idea but I will be wrong if all of you submit your articles too !!  

info : click here to see how to submit articles as per kclau's method

or simply send me anything and I will make them into a submitable format to kclau's requirments - at my own paste.  And I have to warn you, that could mean forever :P

Where to Invest in Gold

son of the gun, 5 minutes after I published this article, I found that Cardon Ding has just written almost exactly the same article in a FREE ebook, download here to view all great articles of this group writting project !

When an experience investor does not know what the future holds, he invests in gold.

The best way to invest in gold is to buy the purest form of physical gold as possible, namely the bullion bars or coins.  If given the option, bars are better than coins.  In principal the less art work the better.  The more art work on a bullion will usually comes with higher price spread.  Bullion price spread is usually 3% to 7%

The most common Malaysia gold bullion in Malaysia is the Kijang Emas Gold Bullion Coin.  I only know you can get them from Maybank, you can check current gold counter rate here and it can be purchased from selected Maybank branches nationwide

---

UOB also offer saying that they have widest range of gold bullions and it seems they do provide narrower spread (2.6% onwards) in their price list.  You will need to call or email them for info.

There are also some retail sellers like   Poh Kong and PAMP but they don't guarantee buy back at market rate or they may buy back at 15-20% lower than market price.

Other sellers like myNetGold, Gold2Trade, R2Gold, SecureGold aren't really proper gold investment.  As of right now, I don't see them any better than a private company's shopping vouchers.  If you must deal with one, I myself may start looking at Public Gold, which has nothing to do with Public Bank.  Its just a tiny company in Penang.

However, those un-real gold sellers can be a good medium to 'speculate' gold price.  If that is your main goal then you may also open a gold investment account with Public Bank or Maybank.

Generally if you cann't afford even one ounce of gold bullion (MYR 3,000), then you should forget about gold investment.  But you still can speculate them using virtual accounts as mentioned above.  

The heavier bullion bar you buy, the smaller the price spread it is.  There is a saying that for about MYR 100,000 the spread can be as small as 1%+ which makes it extremely attractive over a shorter term accumulation says 1-3 years of fighting inflation during economy down turn.

baaa!

Ok so this post is not about RE in Vancouver. It is much more important!

The Federal government is just about to give a large chunk of your money to private Broadcasters like CTV and Global.

This government has a visceral dislike for the CBC, and recently refused it any more money forcing hundreds of job cuts.

However they want to help their supporters and cronies in the big monopolistic media companies.

The same companies- like Global which owns most of our print media, that has gotten itself into $3.9 Billion of debt by over-paying for newspapers, and has paid it's senior executives several Millions of dollars a year each for their bad decisions.

However they couldn't just come and hand over the money or there might be a backlash. So they had to find a way to hand it over, while making it sound good for the Canada. Eventually some bright spark came up with the idea of giving the money to save small local stations and small town programming.

B.S.! There is no better way of protecting local programming than by having a strong CBC with it's large network of local correspondants and an excellent international reputation. If they hate the CBC so much, why not support local journalistic co-ops directly?? instead of sending the money to these failed outfits, so they take their cut.

If this goes through it will be an absolute disgrace, and will confirm to regular people that our money is spent based on who has connections and not on merit.

This is how the 'NEWS' is served up to you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CanWest_Global

This is how you can contact your MP before this calamity goes through. Lets not be sheep herded to be shorn again:

http://canada.gc.ca/directories-repertoires/direct-eng.html

.............................................................................................................................................

In fact this is related to RE. How many articles were there in Vancouver's papers warning people of the bubble and telling them to hold back in the go-go years?

Not many! The Vancouver Sun, Province, North Shore News, West Ender and the National Post all happen to have the same owner. ( as well as the Times Colonist and almost all the other major newspapers in Canada - this is what passes for free speach in Canada)

The Bear has a snooze...

Things are definitely looking a little brighter- in the financial markets and in housing.

The question bears have to ask themselves is whether this is just a bull trap and we continue the down-trend, stablise or even whether we will blast off from here and hit new highs.

Either are possible scenarios. However the graph in my previous post below, has defined the bubble psychology and prices, pretty accurately so far, and a blip up would be expected right about now- before resuming the down-trend.

Why do we get a blip up after the first big drop down? Due to those who have been left out for the last few years, and have been kicking themselves. They were smart enough to avoid buying on the final run up, but are still anxious that they could miss out if they don't get in on this drop.

To add to the fire, interest rates have come down significantly and we have seasonal strength. The result is a self-fulfilling bounce, which causes folks who are anxious to finally take the plunge. I suspect some sellers are thanking their lucky stars to be able to unload at what are still very good prices.

Anyone who bought before 2006 is probably still sitting on a profit. However as I have noted before, things usually go down a lot faster than they went up in a bubble. We have erased over two years of gains in less than a year.

Where to from here?

Now it gets interesting. If we did indeed pass THE top last year, then this blip may last another month or two. The normal seasonal pop comes in Feb- May and then we could resume the down turn, with MOI and over 90 day listings increasing rapidly.

If this bubble is the first one in history not to drop dramatically after topping out, then we can expect a gradually stabilising market, with sellers holding out until inflation and a stronger economy supports their prices.

Which will happen? You know which side of the fence I'm on. However my opinion and a loonie wont even get you a coffee. The critical factors will be jobs and the worldwide economy.

If jobs continue weak then domestic demand weakens. If the worldwide economy deesn't fix itself soon, then the overseas demand drops.

I suspect the bears will continue to be tested for next two months. Of course they have been tested for the last 4-5 years, so what's another two months!

June will be the important month.

Bear Anxiety

Ok Folks I read a lot of bear anxiety in the blogosphere about the up-tick in sales for March and the missing deluge of listings.

This is despite the drop in prices, which in some areas has been nothing less than a slide off a cliff. (what else can you can YOY drops of 25-38%)

BTW a 25% drop in prices erases a previous 30% gain. The bubble is deflating much faster than it blew up.

Can I give the bears complete reassurance. No. If I was that smart I would be sitting on the beach in Monaco with George Soros, instead of writing this obscure blog. However consider this graph.



Where do you think we are on it??

Is your Finance all about money ?

Sorry for the silence, it seems that I may get tight up for a while recently.  You may have already observed that I no longer have time to find cartoon for my articles :)  I started writting for other publication so I get a bit confused and find it hard to balance the content between this blog and the other responsibility during this transition.  But there are so many more drafts to be released in this blog.  Bad Debt topics have a lot of hanky panky so I need to spend more time before proper release for public reading.  So I hope you guys do enjoy reading and do comment more so that I have better clues what articles to put up during the limited time I have now.

I have shared Gabriel's story, a 68 years old who used to be typical middle income group who sort of make it in his finance planning.  His neighbours don't even know him by name, his ex-colleges don't even remember him when they met on the street, his clients don't remember using his services, but yet he makes it better than many others who are holding high positions in careers, running a much more bigger scale business than him.

But his case doesn't come easy as a matter of fact.  It wasn't easy for him to save money in banks actually.  That were wars all around and everyone kept all their stuff under their own pillow - the safest place to be at that time.  There was only one choice when he invested in mutual fund and even newspaper warn people to be careful because the private mutual fund was ran by someone without linkage to bumiputera.  It was considered as the biggest scam at that time.

Gabriel first kid went to local university.  Gabriel taught well to his kids on finance matters.  Well actually no, he just taught his kids on income matters.  His first kid worked part time since high school and earned half of the expenses during his degree years.  

When the 2nd kid started to hint wanting to get foreign education, Gabriel made an interesting move.  He migrated to Australia.  It costed him MYR 3,000 at that time.  ( It costs more than MYR 10,000 now without a consultant ).  He didn't really like it there but it wasn't a decision for him anyway.  Eventually both of his 2nd and 3rd kids graduated with Australia degrees.  Costed him less than his first kid's degree.  

To him, this migration was the biggest sacrifies he made for his legacy, you can observe his business income was negative during that time, the only year his business runs a lost whole his life.  Because he thinks helping his whole family settling down in Australia was more important.  But this move also brought him some surprising result, that he actually retired earlier than he thought would be.

There are quite a few more interesting stories about Gabriel, but most of them are based on the same principal. 

When you need to achieve something in your finance matter and get stuck with the numbers ie. not enough money.  Try to elevate a little bit and ask yourself, what was it you are trying to achieve again ?  Most often one is pursuing the figures or money too hard that they forgot what the real purpose was.  

When you focus on the real purpose and not the money itself, you may suddenly realize money is not the only way to achieve your purpose.  And sometimes, you may find certain ways to achieve your purpose without money at all.

If the whole purpose of your personal finance is all about money, then you do not need personal finance planning actually.  What you need is to dedicate your whole life to making income.  Perhaps bank teller would be a good start.

So, is your finance all about money now ?

( part 1, part 2 ,part 3)