The Top Ten Reasons Driving the Stock Market Back to its Year Highs at Year End

Those concerned that the US sub-prime crisis will continue to have an adverse impact on the Equities front should read John's article. In it, he talks about why he believes the Stock Market will move up by year end, despite ongoing circumstances. Even though the Fed has cut rates by 0.25%, financial stocks tanked as investors were expecting a 0.5% cut. Are people over-reacting to the whole situation? We will know in 2 weeks, won't we?

Housing Woes (Part 2)

Telok Blangah Towers

We have applied for one of the 210 Premium Units (4-rm) of the above and there are already 6100+ ppl on queue for this. This translates to a ~3% chance of getting a flat for every couple. Assuming a 50% drop-out rate, we will require a Q no. of about 400. To make matters worse, it is a BTO exercise, so we have to wait for another 5 years for the flat to be built, even if we do get it. This means that during these 5 years of waiting, we have to find another flat for rental. With rental prices soaring every month, I wonder how much it will cost to rent a 3-room flat.

It's literally impossible to live in Singapore.

Review: Car Guy Garage

What do you do with your garage? Is it still a place for your car to sleep in? After I have sold my car off last year (as I live a mere 10 mins away from my workplace), my garage has become my storeroom. I really dread going in there as I fear my old junk may just fall on me if they are not stacked properly, haha!

If you, like me, are thinking of "pimping up" your garage by installing some cool garage cabinets, why not pay carguygarage.com a visit? They cabinets, workbenches, tool boxes, garage flooring, garage storage, garage cabinets, garage door openers, organization, garage heaters, garage floor tile, floor mats, garage floor paint, storage systems, laundry room cabinets and other garage packages. You should be able to find something to spruce up your garage.

Housing Woes (Part 1)

It's so difficult to get a place to live in Singapore.

Let me share some statistics on the resale flats I have viewed in the past month for your own research:-

(1) Stirling Rd
Block 181
Floor level: #11 to #15
Size: 4-room (95 sqm)
Convenience: 1 min walk from/to MRT
Overall feeling: Although the flat is only 7 years old, the flat exterior looks like it has been around since the late 80's. How about the interior? It's worse - It's not renovated at all and the current owners look like they can move out at a whim's notice.
Valuation: $398K
Asking Price: $478K ($80K COV)

(2)Redhill
Block 63B
Floor level: #5 to #10
Size: 4-room (100 sqm)
Age: 6 years
Convenience: 3 mins walk from/to MRT
Overall feeling: They have marble flooring! That's worth like $20K I was told. Its quite well renovated, so we can definitely save on renovation costs.
Valuation: $410K
Asking Price: $495K ($85K COV)

So amongst the 2 above, I don't mind paying $17K more for the Redhill property.

Magic Loans

Magic Loans.

The name itself makes you wonder if the lender will just disappear with your money, doesn't it?

This company basically offers 3 types of loans:-
(a) Homeowner Loans - For new homebuyers or for existing homeowners who can use the money towards the refurbishment/improvement of their houses;
(b) Consolidation Loans - To pay off those outstanding repayments and high interest credit card bills; and
(c) Secured Loans - For those miscelleaneous purposes like buying a new car, taking that dream holiday or financing something very special, such as a family wedding or similar special celebration.

At the prevailing interest rate of 10.9% per annum, I think you can get a better deal elsewhere.

My advise? Caveat Emptor.

My article was featured!

I have previously written a finance article for Helium back in May, and it was recently featured on the homepage! (Don't ask me why they took 5 months to feature it as I have no idea) This is the first time my writing has been recognized! And it's not even highly ranked amongst the Helium readers... Hmmm... I wonder why it made the cut in the first place...

Here's a link to the article.

I have stopped writing for Helium since 18th May 2007 because my consolidated earnings for these 5 months has been a staggering 65 cents... Haha...

PayPerPost has definitely been more rewarding, although I am only picking up drips and draps... Those US$100+ Opps are out of my reach due to my low Google PR...

Do you have adequate insurance?

With over a thousand general insurance companies operating in the UK, wouldn't it be great if there's a website that will compare the insurance plans, premiums, T&Cs, etc., and simply tell you which plan is most suited for your particular profile? Well, head on down to nationsfinance.co.uk then!

To adequately protect your wealth in the event of a fire or a burglary, I would advise that you do not save on Home insurance.

Similarly, if you own a car, you should protect yourself by buying adequate Car insurance, especially if you are still servicing a loan on it.

Lastly, to minimize your loasses from the loss of a luggage during an overseas trip, you should have travel insurance before you even embark on the holiday.

In conclusion, whatever you may do, mitigate your risk with the appropriate insurance policies. It's money you cannot afford to not spend.

Why oil isn't so expensive after all

Source: Moneyweek.com

I was reading an email form an ex-colleague in America this morning. He was arguing that the oil price would hit $300 a barrel should the US invade Iran. This seems more and more likely in my mind as the rhetoric ratchets up - and I hold my head in despair. (aC: US$300 per barrel on pure speculation?? Can that still be considered speculation or a calculated move?)

I fear that an attack on Iran is becoming a real and present danger, despite US government denials. After all, I remember Donald Rumsfeld saying on TV soon after 9/11 that the US government hawks would not use the terrorist attacks in New York as an excuse to attack Iraq. We all know what happened next.

The thought of oil at $300 is shocking, but is it realistic? Isn’t oil really expensive at the moment as it is?

Well, although I believe that $300 a barrel is unlikely in the short, or even the medium term, but I don’t think that oil is particularly expensive at the moment, despite it being at historic nominal highs.

I expect the price to rise – we should easily see $100 a barrel next year… maybe even this year should the White House warmongers hit the red Iran button. (aC: Hmmm... somehow I can picture the US President having a physical red button labelled "War"... Not as hard to imagine, compared to a $300 per barrel of crude oil.)

If you adjust for inflation, the oil price peak at the start of 1981 was in excess of $100. We are still below that figure. But this is not why I believe that the current oil price is cheap. Let’s take a look at some figures to illustrate my point of view.

First, let’s ask ourselves a basic question – how much crude is there in a barrel of oil…

One barrel of oil officially contains 42 US gallons…
This converts into 35 imperial gallons…
There are 8 pints in a gallon…
That means one barrel of oil contains 280 pints...
WTI futures are currently approximately $87 a barrel…
That means one pint of crude oil costs 31 cents, or 15p in real money...

When put like that, it does not sound as outrageously expensive as some commentators claim. So, what else can you buy for 15p a pint?

I took a quick look around Tesco.com to try and find out…

One pint of milk costs 40p.
The one pint equivalent of Evian water costs around 70p.
The cheapest vegetable oil costs 39p a pint.
Extra virgin olive oil costs 227p a pint.

And then there’s beer… The average cost of a pint of beer in the UK is 250p, according to a report I read on the BBC. However, that’s not what it costs the pub. It is not exactly easy to find out how much your local boozer pays for its beer, so I have to go as far back as 2004 and a written submission from the Federation of Small Businesses to the Trade & Industry Committee.

In this submission, it was revealed that Carlsberg-Tetley charged 42p a pint for Carlsberg lager when it supplied it to a freehouse. You can expect it to be higher than this level now, but 42p for a pint of Carling is significantly higher than 15p for a pint of crude.

Now, of course we are not really comparing like with like here, I understand that. Crude oil is a feed substrate not a finished product like the items on my Tesco shopping list or a pint of beer from a brewery. However, I think for illustrative purposes it makes a good point.

The truth is that oil is NOT extortionately priced and it is almost inevitable that the price is going to rise.

Also worth noting is that in 1981, when oil hit its peak price because of the Iran-Iraq war, a pint of milk cost 17p. That is still more expensive than a pint of crude costs today; without even taking the monster of inflation into consideration.

Oil is cheap, despite the newspaper headlines. The world population is soaring and demand is rising significantly. According to US government forecasts, world petroleum liquids consumption is expected to increases from 83 million barrels per day in 2004 to 118 million barrels per day in 2030.

That’s an increase of almost 30%... and we are not finding enough new oil reserves to meet this demand.

The price of oil has to increase otherwise it would be betraying the laws of economics. I bet that in 10 year’s time after the Asian population has boomed and gentrified and peak oil has hit home hard, you will have to agree with me that oil at $87 a barrel was cheap, cheap, cheap… (aC: Just like how we thought the prices of 1981 were expensive when oil was just traded at $21 per barrel...)

(aC: Hmmm... But it leaves me to ponder - What if mankind discovered other renewable sources of energy that could replace or potentially replace crude oil? Would oil price still mindlessly climb up? Well, we all know from economics 101 what near perfect substitutes does to the price of a commodity. And in this day and age, is it impossible to make such a "discovery" in chemical laboratories? So before you buy go all out to buy gallons of oil futures at $89, think again...)

Taking the Credit for Credit Cards

cardguide.com.uk is an online website that provides a comparison guide of all the major credit cards available in the UK.

With regard to the hot topic of balance transfers, the above website recommends that one selects a credit card that offers 0% balance transfer and use it solely for its balance transfer feature. Do not make purchases on it. Why? This way, any repayment made to that card goes straight to repaying the balance transfer - and only the balance transfer. Make sure the balance is fully paid off before the 0% deal expires to avoid incurring interest charges, or transfer the debt remaining to another card.

There are also 0% purchase credit cards available. In a nutshell, these 0% credit cards offer you free credit for an introductory period before the standard annual interest reate is applied, in essence giving you a loan at 0% for a specified period of time before the credit card's standard rate kicks in. The "free period" ranges from 3 months to 13 months. My advise? Grab the 13-month one of course!

Singapore Banking Stocks - DBS & UOB (Part 1)

DBS Group Holdings

DBS will be releasing its Q3 Results on 26 Oct 07 before market opens for trading.

On Sept 19 07, DBS announched a S$400 million share buy-back programme. Share buy-back tends to give a lift to the stock price, due to a decrease in the Shares Outstanding. As this buy-back has not been effected yet, we will not see the upward movement in the stock price in the short term due to the buy-back.

On 27 Sept 07, DBS announced that DBS Vickers Securities Online is now fully owned by its subsidiary. Given the current trading volume of the Singapore Stock market, and DBS Vickers' market share of online brokerage, this should have a positive contribution to DBS's bottomline, even after accounting for the cash consideration of $6.5 million. However, we should see this contributing to the Q4 results and not Q3.

On Oct 8 07, DBS China launched its RMB products - Although this has no material impact to its upcoming results, it should nonetheless have a positive contribution to its Q4 results.

From the above, I think my recommendation is kinda obvious by now. Hold DBS stocks/warrants till the release of its Q4 (FY) results.

Price target: $24 by year end.

eDeal Finder

Ho Ho Ho! Christmas is just round the corner... Are you feeling overwhelmed by the tons of gifts you have/need to buy?

If you are, why not check out edealfinder.com for some amazing discount coupons?

Thinking of buying some jewellery from Blue Nile for that special someone, do check out these great BlueNile coupons!

For Computer and peripherals, go check out these fantastic Dell discounts!

Online Christmas Shopping has never been easier.

Bernanke has warning for Wall Street

In a speech in New York, the Fed chairman said the central bank's big interest rate cut last month has helped but that the Fed can't 'insulate investors from risk.'

(Source: CNNMoney.com)

In a speech to the New York Economic Club Monday night, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank's rate cut in September has shown signs of success, but cautioned that lenders and investors must bear responsibility for financial decisions that caused the subprime mortgage meltdown.

"Although the Federal Reserve can seek to provide a more stable economic background that will benefit both investors and non-investors, the truth is that it can hardly insulate investors from risk, even if it wished to do so," Bernanke said, adding that "over the past few months...those who made bad investment decisions lost money."

The Fed slashed the federal funds rate, a key short-term interest rate that impacts rates on consumer loans, by a half of a percentage point on September 18. Bernanke said the rate cut, combined with an earlier cut to the symbolic discount rate in August, helped to "reduce some of the pressure in financial markets" and that "the improved functioning of financial markets is a positive development."

Behind the Citigroup rescue
Bernanke also said that the weakness in the housing market "is likely to be a significant drag on growth in the current quarter and through early next year."

But he hinted that it may not get that much worse and that investors and lenders may have learned from their mistakes. He did not specifically mention a plan unveiled Monday by a group of big banks to create a fund to buy mortgage-backed securities in his prepared remarks, however.

"Rather than becoming more crisis-prone, the financial system is likely to emerge from this episode healthier and more stable than before," he said.

Investors looking for a sign that the Fed may cut rates again at the conclusion of a two-day meeting on October 31 may be disappointed though. He indicated that the Fed "was prepared to reverse the policy easing if inflation pressures proved stronger than expected."

But during a question and answer session following his speech, David Malpass, chief economist at Bear Stearns, asked Bernanke if he thought the value of the dollar impacts inflation. Bernanke said he did not think a fixed exchange rate system affects the economy.

(aC: I will stick my neck out and state it here that I do not think the Fed will cut its rates any further at its coming Oct 31 meeting. Reason? The Dow is back to its all time high at the 14,000 level; There has been no news lately with regard to any financial institutions going bankrupt because of the sub-prime mortgage crisis; Consumer confidence is back judging from job data and Consumer Price Index.)

National Pay Day

Everybody's after your salary even before you earn it. Nope, not just your wife, but Everybody!

Banks are charging lesser on transaction costs if you invest in their mutual funds products on a monthly basis using your salary. This is becasue your salary acts as a form of guaranteed monthly cash flow for the bank, and they are "banking" on the fact that most people tend to forget where their money is being siphoned off to if its done electronically and remains hassle free for the investor.

Anyway, coming back to the point of short term loans, who needs short term loans in the first place? If you barely qualify for the no faxing payday loan that National Pay Day offers, then you are probably the right candidate. If you make about $1,000 per month, a 16-day tenure loan of a max of $600 means a 60% increase in your salary. But if $600 is considered critical for your needs, and you have no other avenues to turn to except for short-term loan companies, my advise is that you start saving. Seriously, please start examining your financial health because you should have at least 3 months worth of savings for emergency users.

I know this is probably easy for me to say esp. since I am not in any financial crisis, but I'm saying this because you will probably just dig yourself in a deeper hole by turning to short term loans. Don't forget that the interest rate is 25% - that's 1% higher than what most credit card companies are charging on a late payment. So, I guess the only reason you should take out a short term loan is if you can find an investment that guarantees you a 26% return within 16 days on a $600 principal. If you can find such a vehicle, pls let me know; I don't mind earning $6 every 16 days.

For those with strong willpower, that's a good offer for you - Your first $300 from National Pay Day is Free. Free in the sense that you just have to pay back $300 after 16 days and not $375. Again I stress that this is for those with strong willpower.

Are You A Better Investor (Part 3)

This Post is continued from Part 2.

Three rules to invest by
So how do you put all the innovations of the past 35 years to the best use for you, not Wall Street? Follow these rules:

(1) If there's a cheap way and an expensive way to solve an investing
problem, stick with the cheap one.
The typical hedge fund gouges clients but produces mediocre returns. As for mutual funds, a recent study found that each 1 percent increase in annual expenses reduces performance by 1.6 percent; managers may be taking on more risk to overcome the drag of higher costs.
(aC: Some studies have shown that an actively managed stock portfolio is not able to beat the after cost net profits of a randonly picked stock portfolio that is passively managed. This means that you don't get anything in return for paying more)

(2) High returns and low risks don't come in the same package.
As Milton Friedman said, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." Just this summer, bank-loan and long-short funds became the latest "low risk, high return" products to flame out.
(aC: Maybe to make this more complete, it should be mentioned that High Returns and High Risks dont necessarily come in the same package either)

(3)If you are presented with too many choices, you'll end up afraid to choose at all.
Psychologists have shown that having to pick among dozens of options not only makes it much harder for us to make up our minds, but it also fills us with regret. No matter what we choose, we worry that another choice must have been better. So don't bother scouring among thousands of mutual funds and packing your 401(k) and other accounts with 78 of them. Instead, own a handful of low-cost, diversified index funds, add to them every month and do nothing else.
(aC: How true this is; If we are unable to filter the barrage of information that bombards us everyday, we will end up being paralysed by the wealth of information that the Internet and Media has brought us in today's world. I think one way to filter choices is to know clearly what you want in the first place, only after that when you presented with choices/options, you know which is the best/right choice. If you do not know what you want in the first place, you can be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information)

The bottom line
Despite Wall Street's unrelenting efforts to complicate it, investing can be simple. But it isn't easy. In 2007 as in 1972, building wealth is very much like losing weight. Eat less, exercise more: That's simple! But it's not easy, because the world is teeming with chocolate cake and Cheetos.

Likewise, buy a diversified basket of index funds and do nothing: That's simple! But it's not easy because the world is full of TV touts, cold-calling brokers and (temporarily) hot funds. Realize that what's good about the difference between 1972 and 2007 is also what's bad. Lower cost is great if you trade rarely and wisely, but
not if it tempts you into buying and selling constantly. More choice is great if you add a few selected good things to your portfolio in moderation, but not if you end up with an unplanned jumble of investments. More convenience is great if you use it to make your life easier, but not if you take time away from family and friends to update your stock portfolio.

Lower cost, more choice and greater convenience are not means to an end, they are the end. Use them to achieve some other result, and you will fritter away the advantages the past 35 years have brought. You might as well be back in 1972, wearing plaid bell-bottoms and driving a Dodge Dart.

Review: DialAFlight

If you are thinking of taking weekend breaks, short breaks or even city breaks with your friends or family, why not pay DialAFlight a visit, as they got some awesome deals for you.

DialAFlight is filled with some Cheap Flights and Incredible Holiday Offers! For example, on the top right hand corner of the site, you will find that you can stay at the Serpent Hostel for only £24! If you doubt the quality or question the comfort of a 1 star hotel, you can just scroll down the list as the offers are arranged according to the number of (hotel related) stars.

Hmmm... Again, I'm itching to recommend some improvements to the site. I know this is a UK-based company, but why should everything be displayed in "£"? If the target audience is that of an international one, I recommend that the website implement a function which would allow its users to change the currency of the displayed prices. The available currencies should at the very least include the countries being featured on the website.

Another laudable feature of the site is the ability to hire a vehicle, and it offers a different set of wheels for different states of Australia. Hmmm... £144 for a one-week drive of the Hyundai Getz in Cairns - Nice!

Lastly, if you accept DialAFlight's bundle offer of booking both a Flight as well as a Hotel stay, you get to enjoy a preferential rate! As to how "preferential" this rate is, you gotta call/phone/dial them to find out. Put your negotiation skills to the test!

Are you a better investor? (Part 2)

This post is continued from Part 1.

2007: A simpler time
Fast-forward to 2007. Your stockbroker and your banker are a swirl of electrons. Adjusted for inflation, the average commission on a retail stock trade comes to about 3 percent of what it cost in 1972. You can choose from among more than 8,000 mutual funds and over 500 exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. You can buy a stock without getting out of your pajamas, and you've never had a trade fail to deliver. And you can watch the prices of your stocks change in real time from your office computer or your iPhone. (aC: Assuming you have already paid a premium for the live prices and dont mind the data charges on your iPhone)

Less cost, more choice and greater convenience: Investing has never been simpler. The birth of the index fund in 1976 enabled anybody with a couple thousand dollars to own every major U.S. stock for less than 0.2 percent in annual expenses. Critics scoffed when Vanguard rolled out the first index fund - "The name of the game is to be the best," said Fidelity chairman Ned Johnson, "and I can't conceive of investment managers not even trying to do better than average" - but year in and year out, indexing has beaten roughly three-quarters of all funds. The investor who minimizes costs maximizes returns. Period.

More recently, indexing has spread to other markets - bonds, foreign stocks, real estate - so you can minimize your costs and maximize your opportunities for profit by covering every base. Meanwhile, the electronic ease of dollar-cost averaging (automatically routing a fixed amount from your bank to your index funds once a month, every month) means you can be a committed investor without ever lifting a finger, second-guessing yourself or timing the market. Combine the two strategies of indexing and dollar-cost averaging and you an hold the entire planet in a single portfolio on permanent autopilot.

Nothing could be simpler.
One thing, however, hasn't changed over the past 35 years: human nature. In 1972, Benjamin Graham was finishing the revise of his seminal work, "The Intelligent Investor," in which he reminded readers that "the investor's chief obstacle - indeed, his worst enemy - is likely to be himself." (aC: I strongly recommend this book for all serious investors out there. Its 400 pages thick and most of the info is rather dry, though the tone of the author can become rather humourous at times, it is definitely a book you will learn a lot from. Best $25 I have invested!)

Then, as now, investors got in trouble by acting on impulse: either getting carried away by greed or being paralyzed by fear. And solutions like indexing have always seemed a little unsatisfying. You want investing to be more complex so you can feel special when you figure it out. And Wall Street wants it to be more complex so it can make more money off your attempts to figure it out.

Thus in the first seven months of 2007, more than 130 ETFs were created to invest in commodities, foreign currencies and single-industry sectors. You can bet on the Swedish krona, buy a basket of carbon-emissions trading credits or attempt to gain twice as much as mid-size stocks lose when they go down. There's now a fund for every conceivable need - and for plenty of inconceivable needs too.

Review: Coupon Chief

Well, Christmas is in 2 months time and with the recent Bull Run, everybody's got that extra cash to spend! So what's a great place to do your Christmas shopping?

If you are looking for Home Electronics, do check out these amazing BestBuy.com deals!

• 10% Off on all Maytag & Whirlpool major kitchen appliances
• $100 Off any Frigidaire front-loading laundry pair;
• $10 - $50 Off select MP3 players plus Free Shipping;
• $30 price drop on Sony T20 Cyber-shot 8.1MP digital camera; and
• $50 price drop on Casio S770 EXILIM 7.2MP digital camera.

Or, if you prefer some Computers related gizmos, check out these great Dell.com bargains!

• $20 off Viewsonic 19-inch Monitor with iPod Dock;
• $16 off Samsung 19-inch Monitor; and
• $584 off Inspiron E1405.

So what are you waiting for? Hurry on down to Coupon Chief to do your online shopping today!

Are You a Better Investor? (Part 1)

Over the past 35 years, investing has become simple, cheap and convenient. Now it's a snap to build your wealth - or destroy it.

By Jason Zweig, Money Magazine senior writer/columnist

It is Oct. 26, 1972. You turn on your transistor radio and the newscaster reads the closing-bell report from the New York Stock Exchange: The Dow Jones industrial average - led by stocks like Bethlehem Steel, International Harvester, Johns-Manville and Union Carbide - closed at 950.56 on an extremely heavy volume of 20.8 million shares.

The next morning you drive over to see George, your stockbroker. He recommends the Fidelity Trend Fund, which charges a sales commission, or load, of only 8.5 percent; most of the 400 or so load funds in existence charge 8.75 percent. Whenever you buy and sell a stock, George's commission will average about 1.3 percent of the transaction. But so would any other broker's.

In 1972 "the investing world was much easier to comprehend," says Joel Seligman, a financial historian and president of the University of Rochester. You knew your broker, and he sold stocks, not funds of hedge funds. Your bank took deposits, not mutual-fund commissions. Your insurance agent didn't come at you swinging a variable annuity like a meat ax. During a typical week in 1972, the total of all trades on the New York Stock Exchange was less than the trading volume of Microsoft shares on a typical day in 2007.

Road map to a rich life
But the investing world of 1972 was also low in choice, high in cost and short on convenience and information. Nasdaq and money-market funds were less than a year old. There was no such thing as a discount broker, an index fund or a municipal bond fund, not to mention an IRA or a 401(k).

If you wanted a no-load fund, "first you had to find it," recalls fund expert Michael Lipper of Lipper Advisory Services. That meant watching for an ad, making a toll call, waiting for the prospectus, then mailing in the check - a process that could take weeks.

And 7 percent of all stock trades in 1972 "failed to deliver," meaning that the paper certificates for the shares did not change hands within five days, potentially voiding the transaction. To check on your investments, you waited for tomorrow's newspaper, or next week's - or the maiden issue of Money Magazine that October, which many charter subscribers signed up for as the only convenient way to track their mutual funds.

(aC: So which do you prefer? The 1970s or the 2007s? The cost of a trade transaction is definitely cheaper now, but the cost have been transferred to other avenues. If you want "Live Prices" - you gotta pay. If you want daily corporate news update - you gotta pay. Why? Because if you don't, you will be at a disadvantage. The speed of information is so important nowadays that news out in this morning's papers are already considered old news. There should be an update on the word "newspaper" to "oldpaper")

Continue to Part 2...

Car Guy Garage

What do you do with your garage? Is it still a place for your car to sleep in? After I have sold my car off last year (as I live a mere 10 mins away from my workplace), my garage has become my storeroom. I really dread going in there as I fear my old junk may just fall on me if they are not stacked properly, haha!

If you, like me, are thinking of "pimping up" your garages, why not pay carguygarage.com a visit? They cabinets, workbenches, tool boxes, garage flooring, garage storage, garage cabinets, garage door openers, organization, garage heaters, garage floor tile, floor mats, garage floor paint, storage systems, laundry room cabinets and other garage packages. You should be able to find something to spruce up your garage.

Why stocks can shake off mortgage meltdown (Part 2)

This post is continued from Part 1.

(3) Economy still fundamentally strong Turmoil in the credit markets is being caused by a repricing of risk, and not from problems stemming from the broader economy, many say.

"In our opinion this is a financial market event rather than a real economy event," said John Ip, senior economist for Morley Fund Management in London.

As a result, highly leveraged companies and financial firms are likely to feel the pain. But so far, it doesn't look like the upheaval is affecting the ability of companies on sound footing to get credit, he said.

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said Wednesday that the fallout from subprime problems was contained and that the global economy remains strong, Reuters reported.

In a sign of the strength of the worldwide economy, the International Monetary Fund last week revised its global growth forecast for 2007 and 2008 to 5.2 percent, up from a previous forecast of 4.9 percent.

(4) Plenty of cash out there Despite problems roiling the debt markets, liquidity - or the amount of money available for investing - remains plentiful worldwide.

China and Russia, for example, have accumulated massive reserves. The global economic boom has also helped drive corporate profits, and many companies are sitting on loads of cash.

"Liquidity is quite abundant and it will cushion the world's economy and the financial markets against the current turmoil," Tony Crescenzi, chief bond market strategist at Miller Tabak and Co. in New York, wrote in a note this week

The tumult in the credit market may persist for some time, but it's likely that "credit formation will return to levels sufficient to power a continuation of the global economic expansion," he wrote.

Review: Hotel Reservations

How does Hotel Reservations stand out among its peers and competitors?

Here's what I think. Because of my background, I will be coming mostly from an Usability point of view and I do hope that the website owner will find my criticisms constructive enough to actually implement some of my recommendations to further enhance its website.

Homepage: Upon entering the homepage, I am bombarded by tons of information. Tons! The Homepage is too cluttered, just like most other online websites. Online surfers are impatient people with short attention spans, so they are easily put off when an encyclopedia wealth of information is being thrown in their face.

Recommendation Sub-page: I have problems getting started or even knowing how/where to get started; If I happen to be brought to the homepage without a destination in mind, will I know what to do next or will I just look for the exit? I hope the website can design a "Recommendations" page for those who were stung by the travelling bug but are clueless as to where they wanna go in the meantime.

Book Online: If you guys notice, there's a "Book online" tab near the top right hand corner of the screen. It would be useful to turn this plain text into a hyperlink to direct potential customers straight to the "Hotel Reservations" page.

Hotel Filter: At the Hotels sub-page, you can sort the Hotels according to "Best Value", "Quality", "Price" and "A-Z". Here's a breakdown of what this means:-

"Quality" - Hotels are arranged from 5 stars to 0 stars
"Price" - Hotels are arranged from the cheapest to the most expensive
"A-Z" - Alphabetical order

My question is - What does "Best Value" mean? Cheapest Hotel in each Quality standard? How does it differ from "Price"? (I did a sort according to both "Best Value" and "Price" and they both return different results) Maybe it would help if there's a pop-up text box which explains the above 4 categories when users do a scroll-over.

"Save up to 70% off": At the top right hand corner, I am sure you will be attracted by these 5 words. It would definitely help if HotelReservations.com can explain or give a breakdown as to why users can save up to 70% off when they make online bookings through the website.

"$100 Rebate" Promotion: There's an ongoing promotion which gives up to $100 cash rebate with online booking. The catch? You gotta make a 12-night booking. I'm sure you have heard of the phrase: "Nothing in life is free". Well, I have a personal saying which goes: "Free stuff often comes at a high price".

Conclusion: I have seen about 10 out of the 71 posts made by other bloggers, and they were all generic in nature, and nothing which were specific to HotelReservations.com. I do hope that the owners will appreciate my honest review of their website and implement some of my recommendations. Competition is stiff in this industry, and we must all strive to improve continuously. Overall, I think it is a good online travel website, but with a few tweaks, it can become better.

Investment: How many Stocks should you own? (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1 of this post.

So the heck with diversification, right?

Well, not exactly.

First, the least-diversified investors frequently lagged the market; they just lagged by less than investors who held more stocks. Second, because stock returns are so uneven, the "average" undiversified investor doesn't really exist. At any given point, there are something like 10,000 stocks in the United States. Most of them are mediocre, but a handful are what Bill Bernstein of Efficient Frontier Advisers dubs "superstocks" capable of delivering gargantuan returns for years. Think Microsoft in the '90s, when it returned 9,000%. More often superstocks are lesser-known companies. (aC: This is so true; That is why my strategy is always to go after penny stocks with great fundamentals. You can buy more volume of stock A that's worth only $0.20 and wait for it to move to $1.20 as compared to a stock B that's worth $2.00 and watch it move to $3.00, even though the latter will usually move faster. With the same $10,000, you can buy 50 lots of stock A and reap $50,000 in gross profit as compared to 5 lots of stock B and gain just $5,000. Of course, the hard part lies in identifying those Stock As; Stock Bs are your typical Blue chips)

Across a large group of people whose portfolios are mostly in one or two stocks, the lucky few with superstock portfolios will make the group's average return look great, even if the vast majority of individual members have lousy or middling results.

On the other hand, investors who spread their bets across dozens of stocks have only a slightly better chance at catching a superstock. And if they do land one, it won't have nearly as much impact on their portfolios, or on the group's average return.

So the real story is that you need a lot of stocks to be adequately diversified, and you need a concentrated portfolio to give yourself a shot at striking it rich. An unsolvable catch-22? Hardly. In fact, you can have it both ways by employing a straightforward, two-part strategy.

First, direct 90 percent of your U.S. equity allocation into a total stock market index fund that automatically gives you a stake in thousands of companies. (aC: In Singapore terms, this will your ETFs that track indexes like your STI ETF 100) That guarantees you a piece of every superstock that already exists or might emerge later - and, more important, it means you'll be adequately diversified and your investing costs will be at rock bottom.

Then pursue your search for the next Microsoft or Google by researching the daylights out of a very small number of companies and putting the remaining 10 percent of your portfolio into your one to three best ideas. This way you'll let yourself have a little fun. You will also minimize your risk and maximize your hope.

(aC: Hmmm... I have a different recommendation here - I would recommend the allocation to be 70% ETF and 30% "undervalued penny stock". If it's 90/10 as recommended above, I dont think gains from the UPS portion will provide any meaningful offset to the market return of the ETFs.)

Review: Submit2Please

Traffic - The currency equivalent of the Internet realm.

Submit2Please is an online business which offers manual directory submission to various directories across the world. They promise that your website's URL will not only be submitted but they will eventually be listed on the targeted directory.

So why is directory submission important?

Directory submission has 3 major benefits and they can be broken down as:-

Higher Positioning in Search Engine Results
Indexing of Web Site/Blog
Higher Probability of Click Through Traffic (otherwise known as CTC)

How much is it?

Submission to 500 Directories within 18 days - $99.95

Submission to 250 Directories (of PR 3+) within 14 days - $74.95

Submission to 250 Directories within 14 Days - $64.95

Submission to 150 Directories (of PR 4+) within 8 Days - $49.95

Guaranteed inclusion in Google index within 10 days - $9.95

Is the above expensive? That depends on how much revenue you are currently generating from your Blog/Website in the first place. My rule of thumb is 30% of your revenue should go into online marketing/advertising expenditure. So how do we put this into practise? Let's say your Blog is currently generating $50 a month, I would advise you to sacrifice 1 month of your revenue and pay for the 150 Directory submission and see if this boost up your revenue. If it does not result an increase in your monthly revenue by 200% (i.e. $150), then I would say it was a waste of money.

Lastly, let me touch on the ROI considerations provided by the website as follows:-

Assumptions (worst case scenario):

Consider our deal of submission to 500 directories for USD 99.95
Consider only 50% directories accept your site submission
Further you can safely consider that every directory which accepts your website will send your way at least four visitor in the entire year! So you still get 250 x 4 = 1000 unique visitors in an entire year for a cost of USD 99.95. So you get one unique visitor for less than 10 cents!

Here's what I think of the above. Firstly, a 50% hit rate is overly optimistic; A more realistic figure would be 5%. Secondly, I will use back the assumption that each directory will only send 4 visitors to our targeted URL over a one year period, because I think this is reasonable.

What we have is the following: 25 X 4 = 100 unique visitors over a one year period for a cost of ~US$100 or approximately US$1 per visitor. I personally find that too expensive. Furthermore, there's no guarantee that these visitors will return for a 2nd visit. Anyway, for those blogs that have 100 visitors in a single day will probably not be too thrilled by this kinda stats...

59th Emmy Awards - Stronger

"Th Th Th Tha hat that dont kill me
Can only make me Stronger
I need you to hurry up now
Cos I can't wait much longer"

Haha! Have you guys seen the Emmys? The above video is super funny (if you take away the whole Ryan Seacrest part)

Rainn Wilson of "The Office" (US) fame has to compete with the king of hip hop, Kanye West in a rap song contest in order to win... NADA! As Wayne Brady puts it, the people at the Emmys are rich enough; They don't need no more prizes. Instead, the winner of the rap song showndown will get to present the next award - "Best Reality TV Series" (which explains the whole setup)

Review: PayPerPost

I have been with PayPerPost, an online business that pays Bloggers to write sponsored content for them, since early August 2007. I have written about 7 Posts for them in this Blog so far (you can identify them by their "Sponsored" label) and have had both good and bad experiences with them.

Here's my story:-

The Good
(1) Support Ticket System - Fast response and some of the support personnel are very helpful.
(2) Active Community - Just pay a visit to their Forums section and you'll know what I mean; Some of the other Bloggers are very helpful too.
(3) PPP Direct - This is a feature of PayPerPost which brings advertiser directly to your doorstep. My first PPP Direct client found me within 2 weeks and if you are interested in reading this post, it is labelled as "PPP Direct".
(4) $1K Tuesday - There are loads of Opportunities (that pay a premium as high as $500), being released on every Tuesday. Such Opportunities are open to everyone, even those Blogs with a low Google Page Rank.

The Bad
(1) Support Ticket System - The response is fast but responses from some of the support personnel make you feel that they are more concerned with closing the ticket promptly rather than addressing your concerns
(2) Post Review - The posts are almost never reviewed within 72 hours as claimed by the TOS. I always have to send a trouble ticket to remind them.
(3) Payment - Have to wait for 30 days after your Sponsored Post has been put up.
(4) Opportunities - If you are joining this with hopes to snag a $500 Opportunity or even $50 ones, I would advise you to think again. Such Opportunities are rare gems and are snapped within seconds. No kidding, they are snatched the moment they are released. The highest amount I have gotten so far is $20.

The Verdict
It will be worth your while to sign up, but it will not make you the next Internet millionaire.

Investment: How many Stocks should you own? (Part 1)

The answer is a lot more, and a lot fewer, than you probably think.

By Jason Zweig, Money Magazine senior writer/columnist

With the market near record highs and yet bouncy as a beat-up couch, you may be thinking it's time to focus on a small number of stocks that you know really well. What better way to keep returns up and risk down?

Conventional wisdom and new academic research certainly seem to suggest
that this is the way to go. Many financial planners and brokers will tell you that a portfolio of as few as 12 stocks (and up to 30) will
sufficiently diversify your (entire) holdings. (aC: The benefits of Diversification can be measured mathematically by the correlation coefficient of a portfolio; There is diversification benefit only if the addition of a new stock to a portfolio leads to a decrease in the overall correlation coefficient of a portfolio. So, the above study is saying that the addition of an additional stock (or more) to a portfolio of 30 stocks will not lower the overall correlation coefficient, and hence there is no diversification benefit from doing so.)

And three recent studies have found that individuals who own fewer stocks do better than those who own many.

However, as is often the case with conventional wisdom (and academic research), there's a lot more to the story. Fact is, if you build your portfolio entirely on the principle of "less is more," you're a lot more likely to end up with less than more. Here's why and what to do instead.

Those were the days
The idea that 12 to 30 stocks are all you need dates back at least to the 1960s, when academics, including Burton Malkiel, author of the classic "A Random Walk Down Wall Street," concluded that that's what it took to eliminate most of the risk from a portfolio. (They usually defined "risk" as the chance of suffering big swings away from the average market return.) (aC: Or even more specifically, it is defined as "unsystematic risk" - the kind of risk that can be diversifed away by adding certain uncorrelated stocks to an exisitng portfolio. There's also another kind of risk known as "systematic risk" that cannot be diversified away.)

But back in the days of hula hoops and transistor radios, and before computer-generated trading became common, stocks didn't bounce around the way they do today. In 2001, Malkiel found that it took 50 stocks to get the risk reduction that 20 used to provide. Others estimate that true diversification requires hundreds of stocks.

The focus factor
Just recently, however, researchers studying the performance of individual investors have discovered something that, at first glance, seems electrifying: The more concentrated a portfolio is, the higher the returns. One study found that investors whose portfolios were dominated by one or two stocks outperformed the most diversified stock owners by 0.8 to 4.8 percentage points annually on average. That's a huge gap. And roughly 8 percent of the top performers had portfolios concentrated in a single stock.

(aC: If you look at the definition of risk as defined above, you can see that risk may not neccessarily be a bad thing. If risk is the fluctuation around a certain mean/average return value, then this fluctuation can also be positive. In other words, becasue of the added risk, your portfolio returns can be higher. This is the basis for the saying - "Higher Risk; Higher Returns")

Continue here.

Review: CompuCram

For those interested in taking the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) (previously the National Association of Securities Dealers or NASD) Series 7 license exam, do check out CompuCram.

The Series 7 provides an individual with the qualifications necessary in order to make different types of trades with all types of corporate securities, excluding commodities and futures. It is also one of the steps necessary in order for a member firm associate to register with FINRA. The Series 7 exam must be passed in order to take many other principal exams offered by FINRA.

So how will the CompuCram Exam Preparation Software help you pass the Exam? At a mere $69, you will enjoy the following benefits:-

(a) The software is written by a team of financial industry experts, all of whom are working professionals with up-to-date knowledge and experience.

(b) There is virtually an unlimited no. of exams which are continually updated with the latest questions; I guess this is the most important factor, because we just gotta practise, practise and practise for such financial exams.

(c) CompuCram provides a 100% guarantee that if you do not pass the exam, you will get a refund of your original purchase price (if you call them within 30 days of activation), so its virtually risk-free.

(d) There is no expiration date on the system.

Investment: The Top 10 Trading Rules - Part 2

This is continued from my earlier post.

(6) Adapt your style to the market
At various junctures, different investment approaches are warranted and applying the right methodology is half the battle. Identify your time horizon and employ a risk profile that allows the market to work for you.

(7) Maximize your reward relative to your risk
If you're patient and pick your spots, edges will emerge that provide an advantageous risk/reward. Proactive patience is a virtue. (aC: This is very true in a sense; I realised that my Contra trades will never do better than the stocks that I hold even for just a few months)

(8) Perception is reality in the marketplace
Identifying the prevalent psychology is a necessary process when trading. It's not "what is," it's what's perceived to be that dictates supply and demand. (aC: On the philosophical side, isn't "Reality" itself just a matter of one's perception? One person's reality may be completely different or even opposite from another person's)

(9) When unsure, trade "in between"
Your risk profile should always be an extension of your thought process. If you're unsure, trade smaller--or paper trade--until your identify your comfort zone. (aC: THIS is the time to do that - during times of great volatility and extreme price fluctuations.)

(10) Don't let your bad trades turn into investments
Rationalization has no place in trading. If you put a position on for a catalyst and it passes, take the risk of win, lose or draw. (aC: Alright, hands up! I'm guilty of this too, but there ARE times when bad investments can be turned into good ones; That's a strategy I will leave till another time.)

There are obviously many more rules but I've found these to be my common threads through the years. Each of you has a unique risk profile and time horizon, so some of these commandments may not apply.

As always, I share these thoughts with hopes that they add value to your process. Find a style that works for you and always allow for a margin of error. No approach is failsafe and any trader worth his or her salt has endured periods of pain.

Good traders know how to make money but great traders know how to take a loss. For if there wasn't risk in this profession, it would be called "winning" rather than "trading."

Source: CNN Money.com

Pingo Mobile

I previously owned a pre-paid card and it had a one year expiry date. When my card expired, I didn't even know about it until I tried making an outgoing call. The service provider should have the courtesy to inform its customers that their cards are expiring because of the following drawbacks when one's card becomes expired - Firstly, the stored value in the card is unredeemable. Secondly, the mobile number cannot be re-used, even when you offered to pay to do so. I guess such a problem wouldn't happen with Pingo since its prepaid calling cards have no supposed expiry dates (I would however recommend one to call their customer hotline to confirm this as this info isn't explicitly mentioned on their website.)

So, let's get down to it - What are some of the perks of becoming a Pingo user?

(a) Special phone card blog discount coupon: “ppp3” valid for $3 off Pingo

(b) Pingo offers one of the Cheapest Phone Card

(c) Receive $25 phone card for just $17 (I personally wouldn't be enticed by such offers becuase I don't believe in spending X dollars to save Y dollars)

(d) Pingo’s calling card affiliate program pays $15 for each new customer you refer

Why wait? Sign up for their instant calling card now!

(P.S. Pingo is a service of iBasis, which is a major provider of international long distance service to phone companies around the world.)

Investment: The Top 10 Trading Rules - Part 1

By Todd Harrison

I remember why I wanted to be a trader. I figured that the easiest way to make money was to stand near the cash register. Of course, as I discovered through my 17-year career, there's a reason why consistent producers get paid the big bucks. Flashy bets and big swings sometimes connect but, in the end, a disciplined approach pays the bills.

I've tripped plenty through the years, the types of missteps that almost cost me my livelihood. But I persevered, climbed the ladder and morphed those mistakes into valuable lessons.
I evolved and matured as a vice-president at Morgan Stanley (MS), a Managing Director at the Galleon Group and as the President of Cramer Berkowitz, a $400 million hedge fund. My approach wasn't always constant but, in the end, certain rules allowed me to stay in the game.

These are those rules.

(1) Respect the price action but never defer to it
The action (or "eyes") is a valuable tool when trading but if you defer to the flickering ticks, stocks would be "better" up and "worse" down and that's a losing proposition.

(2) Discipline trumps conviction
No matter how strongly you feel on a given position, you must defer to the principles of discipline when trading. Always attempt to define your risk and never believe that you're smarter than the market.

(3) Opportunities are made up easier than losses
It's not necessary to play every day, it's only necessary to have a high winning percentage on the trades you choose to make. Sometimes the ability not to trade is as important as trading ability. (aC: Oh man, this is so true! The tempation to make a quick buck is always there, so one of the top trader's discipline is to resist temptation.)

(4) Emotion is the enemy when trading
Emotional decisions always have a way of coming back to haunt you. If you're personally attached to a position, your decision making process will be flawed. Always take a deep breath before risking your hard earned coin.

(5) Zig when others Zag
(aC: This is otherwise known as the Contrarian rule; Contrarians believe that the general investing public is usually wrong in its trading strategy, so the smart thing to do is to do the opposite) Sell hope, buy despair and take the other side of emotional disconnects (in the context of controlled risk). If you can't find the sheep in the herd, chances are that you're it.

Read Part 2 of this Post here...

Writing a New York Times Bestseller

For the professional writers out there, if you are wondering why your books don't sell like Robert Kiyosaki's, even if you may be a more qualified writer than he is (Robert has always claimed that he has failed English in school), then you gotta check out John Kremer's webpage: BookMarket.com. John will teach you the tips on how to market your simple book to become a New York Times Bestseller List.



P.S. If you are wondering who Robert Kiyosaki is... You are probably in the wrong business to begin with...

The 10 Principles of Economics

This is an interesting video on the 10 Principles of Economics. Don't worry, it's not boring nor dry... In fact, if only all economics professors were half as humourous as this guy, we would have more interesting macroeconomic articles in our local newspapers...

Improving Home Improvement

Whenever I have free time (haha, does anybody has that nowadays?), I like to decorate or reorganise things around my house (esp. my room and study area). I will wonder: "How would this look here?" or "Would this be more accessible if I place it here?" or "How can I create more space as my room's pretty cramped and cluttered with stuff?" Well, if you share the same thoughts as me, why not hop on by to Anglian Home Improvements for more ideas?

Oh, do also check out their Conservatory page. I currently do not own a Conservatory at my place, but looking at the following pictures really makes me consider building one:






Imagine just chilling out in your own Conservatory with a good book. It's an ideal place to show off your plants to too!

Don't think you know it all, IDA

Before I am where I am, I actually went for an interview at IDA. The job posting on Recruit highlighted that the role was that of project management with no hint that one must be very technically sound. The 1st part of the interview was the standard essay questions (as for most government or civil service related jobs), which was relatively routine. The second part was an interview with the immediate supervisor. You can tell right away that this guy was a techincal nerd and he started firing me all the technical questions after 5 mins of pleasantries. I was dumbfounded half the time as I didn't expect the job to be techincally focused. I went there with the mindset that the job requires you to understand the technical jargon but it does not require you to exemplify it. And he gave me a "What is this guy doing here?" look. I then told him that: "Well, your recruiting advert clearly stated that you are looking for a Project Manager with no requirements in technical expertise mentioned at all. But it seems to me that you are looking for a Project Engineer instead since the job is so techincally focused." HR then apologised for the misrepresentation.

Notwithstanding this, the techincal interviewer continued with his assault and asked me one final question: "So what do you think of IDA's 10 year masterplan?" I told him that it is quite a well conceived plan, encompassing the Financial sector to Education. However, there's one area that is not covered, and that is Transport. I'm a public transport commuter and there's a problem that bugs us public transport users which private car owners like y'self wouldn't understand. When I'm at the bus-stop, it would be helpful to know when my bus is arriving. And I think this problem can be easily solved using the same GPS technology that the EZ-link tap reader incorporates. An information (LED-display) board can then be constructed at bus-stops to show the estimated arrival times of each bus.

The arrogant interviewer then told me that: "Do you know why it is not done right now, even though we have the technology? This is because it is not economically feasible for LTA to do so. How are they going to fund such a project? They might have to increase transport costs by a dollar if they want to implement something like that. This is why this transport scheme is not part of the Masterplan."

Well, I beg to differ. Looks like LTA and I share the same thoughts. I seriously think that if this short-sighted, arrogant guy continues to a Director at IDA, I don't see how Infocomm can ever take off in Singapore.

LTA rolls out pilot project to provide arrival info at bus stops

By Asha Popatlal, Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE : The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has rolled out a pilot project to provide real-time bus arrival information at selected bus stops. This is expected to take the guesswork out of waiting for a bus for commuters. Panels with LED displays will be set up at the bus stops. They will list bus service numbers, what time the next and subsequent buses will arrive, plus or minus three minutes, and whether they are wheelchair-friendly.

The panels will be progressively installed at 30 selected bus stops in the Orchard Road, Ang Mo Kio and Yishun areas, at a cost of just over a million dollars. For now, it is a pilot scheme for 6 months. Although the panels will be located at a fairly low level, LTA says they should be fairly tamper-proof as they are made up of strong tempered glass surrounded by stainless steel frames. Many commuters say they are all for it, if it works well. "Sometimes you don't know when the bus is going to arrive. Supposedly they say bus interval is about 15 minutes, but it can be delayed by up to half an hour or one hour, (especially) during traffic jams. So with these bus panels, I think it will be... useful," said one commuter.

"Sometimes I'm not sure if I'll be late for school. So if I know the bus is taking too long, I can take a cab straight away and won't waste too much time," said another. "But the thing is that - will they really come? If they say 5 minutes, will the bus really come? To me, it's the same - not much difference. I'm used to waiting already." This is not the first time the LTA has tried out such a system. In 2003, the LTA aborted a three-year-old venture with homegrown company Stratech for a bus commuter information system. But Transport Minister Raymond Lim said things are different now. He said: "The main difference is that technology has improved and cost has come down."

Mr Lim added that the authorities want feedback from commuters before they go any further. Still, even if the scheme works well, it will not be going island-wide. Mr Lim said: "Because it's not cost effective. There are 4,000 over bus stops. You might not want to put one in every single bus stop. You look at where are the major areas where there are high commuter traffic and you target them." Also introduced on a pilot level are Key Bus Services Maps which will be installed at 36 key bus stops around Orchard Road by end-August. Primarily meant to help tourists, they are pictorial representations of surrounding landmarks and how to get there using the nearest bus stops and MRT stations.

DialAFlight.com

If you are thinking of booking flights to Australia or spending your school holidays in Australia, why not give DialAFlight a try?

DialAFlight is filled with some Cheap Flights and Incredible Holiday Offers! For example, on the top right hand corner of the site, you will find that you can stay at the Serpent Hostel for only £24! If you doubt the quality or question the comfort of a 1 star hotel, you can just scroll down the list as the offers are arranged according to the number of (hotel related) stars.

Hmmm... Again, I'm itching to recommend some improvements to the site. I know this is a UK-based company, but why should everything be displayed in "£"? If the target audience is that of an international one, I recommend that the website implement a function which would allow its users to change the currency of the displayed prices. The available currencies should at the very least include the countries being featured on the website.

Another laudable feature of the site is the ability to hire a vehicle, and it offers a different set of wheels for different states of Australia. Hmmm... £144 for a one-week drive of the Hyundai Getz in Cairns - That's not bad!

Lastly, if you accept DialAFlight's bundle offer of booking both a Flight as well as a Hotel stay, you get to enjoy a preferential rate! However, as to how "preferential" this rate will be, you gotta call/phone/dial them to find out!

15-year-old clinches S$17,000 in online sales!

15-year-old clinches S$17,000 in online sales within a month
Source: channelnewsasia.com

He sold $16,800 worth of electronic gadgets — mainly iPods and mobile phones — simply by monitoring eBay transactions and offering them below the prevailing prices.

He did this within just one month. And oh, Sanchit Bareja is 15 years old.

With entrepreneurship no longer just the domain of adults, the NUS High School student is one of many youths who are jumping into the business world — and out-doing them.

For Sanchit, it is simply a game of keen observation and good timing. (aC: At least he's honest about it. I don't see how he could have won an entreprenuership competition with such a concept. If you are talking about a competition titled Highest eBay S'pore Sales Volume in 2 weeks, then my hat's off him... But Entrepreneurship??)

“I have always known this shop along Race Course Road, which sold electronic goods cheaply,” said Sanchit, whose businessman father inspired his interest in entrepreneurship.

“Nowadays, you see a lot of youngsters buying new phones every three months, and I think the iPod has been quite a success as well, which is why I concentrated on these two items.”

Going by his eBay moniker Laptopnextdoor, he monitored the bids for these items and offered them at cheaper prices. (aC: Well, a skillset necessary for day trading, so we in fact have a day trader in the making!)

“I had to do so as I do not own a shop, and also, I’ve not built up a reputation for myself yet,” Sanchit said. “If customers could get a similar bargain from Sim Lim, why would they buy it from a young, unreliable and inexperienced guy like me?”

He did not reveal his profits. (aC: I did a search on eBay and this is what I found: Mr laptopnextdoor is selling the Nokia E65 for $630, iPods Shuffle 1GB for $130 and iPod nano 2GB for $225; I can't reasonably estimte his profits w/o a good grasp of the product costs.)

Sanchit’s business idea was part of the annual Enterprise Day Forum, a nationwide ebusiness competition where students from primary schools to tertiary institutions developed business plans and competed for sales on eBay. The competition was held two weekends ago, and saw some 200 students participate. His outstanding sales figure earned him the top prize of $1,500 in the non-tertiary category.

He also earned himself an endorsement from Minister of State for Trade and Industry Lee Yi Shyan, who said: “I understand from eBay that some 4,000 Singaporeans sell on eBay. And every hour, a Singaporean sells 300 MP3 players and 27 watches to the world. Imagine if this continues, what will happen to the watch retailing industry? Clearly this tells us that business models are changing.”

Mr Lee added: “The 15-year-old is arbitraging differences in price and product knowledge. (aC: There's just a every chim or profound way of saying: "he monitored the bids for these items and offered them at cheaper prices.") If he represents a new generation of entrepreneurs, then imagine the impact on existing physical stores.”

Indeed, competitions like these are springing up regularly. Another such contest — the ninth annual Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge — attracted 79 teams from 46 secondary schools recently.

Organised by Singapore Polytechnic’s School of Business, the competition reported interesting and more importantly, highly feasible proposals, including convertible high heels for ladies and a voltage-cum-ampere indicator for car batteries.

“We came up with the idea of constructing an ultra slim backup battery that is not as bulky as conventional ones, as well as an indicator which alerts drivers when their battery current and voltage is running low,” said Dunman Secondary School student Iris Tan, a member of the winning team.

It may be some time before these student entrepreneurs change the dynamics of the business world — but current statistics do show that more Singaporeans are starting their own business.

Results from the Start-Up Enterprise study — commissioned by credit and business information bureau DP Information Group — reflects a positive entrepreneurship trend in Singapore, with about 43,000 new companies and businesses established in 2005 — an all-time high.

-End of Article-

aC: My question is - How is selling something on eBay a newly developed business model? Isn't that eBay's business model? So he won because he acquired the most revenue? Makes me wonder what the rules of the Enterprise Day Forum are...

According to ACE which organises the competition, the participants are judged on the creativity and sustainability of their business plan, as well as the popularity of their webpage and sales volume. So, if you are curious like me, here is a breakdown of the judging criteria:

Target Market & Marketing Plan - 20%
Innovation & Creativity - 10%
Business Sustainability and Scalability - 10%
Effectiveness - 20% (This is based on the sales volume and the number of ‘views’ generated by listings/auction listing design from 14 May 2007 to 1 July 2007 (both dates inclusive). All you have to do is to sell more items on any eBay sites and achieve higher growth in eBay GMV or listing counts than other participating students with your account for the duration of this Contest.)

Unique Positive Feedback Score - 10%
About Me Page & Blogging - 10%
Bonus Points - 20% (Bonus point will be awarded to participants who take up a charity/social enterprise, offer Paypal as mode of payment and list internationally)

Detailed Product Comparison from BestBuy

For page loading efficiency, I have moved this post to:-

http://a-bstraction.blogspot.com/2007/08/detailed-product-comparison-from.html

Fold your shirt in 2 seconds!

2 Second T-Shirt Fold!! - Watch more funny videos here

The above video is one of the more popular online videos that has been circulating around the Internet.

There's one drawback to this whole 2 second folding time saving thing though - It doesn't take into account the time taken needed to lay out the shirt neatly on a flat surface prior to the fold; That itself took longer than just 2 seconds...

Website Review

Merchant Circle is basically an online business which offers the following services for 2 types of businesses:

(1) For Online Businesses - Merchant Circle helps to create awareness, increase traffic and basically handles the online marketing aspects (including ATL promos) of the business.

(2) For Offline Businesses - Merchant Circle helps to create an online element to one's existing physical shop/office/company.

There are basically 3 Plans that a Business Owner can choose from:

(1) Free
Package includes Pictures & Video Upload, Coupon creation, Ad on Merchant
Circle network and Blog creation; I think this is sufficient for those businesses that currently do not have an online presence. For those businesses that already have an online presence, you might find this Free package pretty useless and you should consider the next one.

(2) Gold ($29.95/mth)
Package includes the following:-
(i)Ads on Google & Yahoo search engines - Create up to 1 rotating ad per month
(ii) Management of online reputation - Monitor and control what's being said about your company
(iii) Increase business's visibility in nearby cities - Add 2 additional cities (service areas) where customers can find you when searching for products and services
(iv) Premium customer support

I think 2(i) and 2(ii) are useful tools to have, especially the latter. This is because this tool will probably allow you to gather customer feedback about your company's products or services, and thus allowing you to improve/enhance your products and services.

I have no idea what 2(iii) does, and I was also not able to find any information on this from the website.

Orlando

For page loading efficiency, I have moved this post to:-

http://a-bstraction.blogspot.com/2007/08/orlando.html

Movie Review - Transformers

It's visually stunning... but where's the plot??

Wonder why they are bringing all the 1980s toys and cartoons to the big screen. First you have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ("TMNT"), then Transformers and next, we are going to have the Simpsons... But come to think of it, is it because there are no other toys to feature in the first place? I mean, do you know any iconic toys from the 90's or after year 2000? (Pls, pls, PLS do not mention the Teletubbies... The mere thought sickens me...)

Anyway, here's my review of the Transformers

The Good
Great "Transformation" special effects!
Bumble Bee has better acting chops and conveys more emotions than the human actors. (And he beats them hands down by hardly talking for 99% of the film)

The Bad
One of the worst plots ever.
One of the worst ending ever.
Ultimas Prime behaves like a wussy.
Can hardly differentiate one Autobot from the Decepticon.
Lousy acting from all human characters.
What's with the batman trademark move? (The "lighted symbol shining into the nightsky" thing)
Can't see why they keep promoting Shia Labeouf as Hollywood's "Next Big Thing".

The Verdict
Go watch the original cartoons or the 1987 animated movie; They are much better. I literally shudder at the thought of another Transforers Movie by Michael Bay, as the ending seems to hint...

Well... As Ultimus Prime would say: "Autobots... Fall out..."

Don't be arrogant, Google

Honest to goodness, I wanted to post a blog with the above title for sometime now, but the article below beat me to it.

But allow me to qualify first, what I wanted to say weeks ago has nothing to do with the article below. A few weeks back, I was an Adsense Publisher, but I was shut down by Google, without any prior warning that they would do so, because they suspected "invalid clicks". I was really pissed off at that time because I had qualified for their minimum payout of US$100 after 4 months of displaying their ads. Questions raced through my mind: "Is Google shutting me down because they do not want to pay me?? Would a Company that is earning billions in Revenue do that?? If they really suspected "invalid clicks", why didn't they shut me down earlier (i.e. 1,2 or even 3 months back)? Why shut me down only when I am due for payment at the end of the month?? This is ridiculous.

So, I emailed Google asking for an explanation. I requested to view their data logs to verify that the clicks I have received are "invalid". Here is my email:

Hi,

Pls send me a detailed breakdown of all the clicks for my site. Isn't it true that Google has a way of filtering valid clicks from those that are invalid? Isn't the publisher already not paid on days when invalid clicks were suspected? So shouldn't only valid clicks be recorded in my Adsense report?

I do not appreciate my account being deactivated esp. when payment is due to me at the end of this month. My account could have been deactivated earlier if invalid clicks were indeed suspected, but this deactivation just 2 weeks before I am due to receive payment makes me wonder if Google has had the intention of not paying me all along, and has set me up to publish its ads for free.

Regards,
aC

Below is Google's standard reply:-

Hello aC,

Thank you for your email.

As you know, Google treats instances of invalidclicks very seriously. By disabling your account, we feel that we have taken the necessary measures to ensure that invalid clicks will not continue to occur on your site. Due to the proprietary nature of our monitoring system , we are not able to disclose any specific details of these clicks. As previously noted, if you would like to appeal the disabling of youraccount, please contact us only through this form:http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/request.py?contact=invalid_clicks_appeal&hl=en_GB

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

"proprietary nature of our monitoring system" - Ha! How convenient!

No one is asking to look at the source code of your Adsense program, I just wanted to look at the (audited) logs to verify that "invalid clicks" were indeed present. I subsequently appealed against this disabling of account but it was to no avail. In their last reply, Google said they will not entertain any more requests.

In such situations, what kind of recourse can the little guy take against a conglomerate? It seems like Google has the final say (in everything internet related), and we can do nothing else but accept its decision. If you are so sure that you are right, you should come clean and be transparent in your records. Prove your case to us instead of just simply mandating your decision upon us and expect us to accept them, knowing full well there isn't any alternatives for us, the little guys.

Will that stop this little guy from putting up Ads on my Blog? No way. So, don't be so arrogant Google. If you do not want us to be your publisher, there are other companies who will accept us (e.g. Bidvertiser).

(There's a danger in putting up this post because, as you know, Blogspot belongs to Google. So, in the near future, if you type in my URL and you find an error prompt which says "No such website found...", you know the reason... But some things need to be said.)

Dont be so arrogant

Google is starting to act like your garden-variety monopoly, says Fortune's Brent Schlender.

By Brent Schlender, Fortune editor-at-large(Fortune Magazine)

-- What was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. - Charles E. Wilson, president of GM, 1953

What is it about powerful companies that makes them conflate their own selfish interests with those of their customers, their industry, and even the world at large? This is especially true in high tech. You could plug the name of any prominent Fortune 500 tech company into Charles Wilson's famous quote, and the result would sound like a mission statement for some of our most notorious corporate bullies. "What's good for Microsoft is good for the Internet." Oops, that's how Gates & Co. ran afoul of federal trustbusters as they trampled Netscape underfoot. Seriously, when a company attains extreme market domination, hubris and a sense of infallibility can't be far behind. It's only a matter of time before said market dominator tries to tell everyone else how to run their businesses.

The latest example is Google which lobbied hard in Washington to dictate the terms of an upcoming FCC auction of radio spectrum. The frequencies, currently used for UHF television, are to be sold next January. In 2009 the winning bidders will take their swaths of spectrum and unleash a new and (they hope) profitable era of data-intensive wireless devices - smartphones, media players, car computers and gizmos no one's thought of yet.

Why would the Google guys bother themselves with this auction? After all, the company isn't even in the big-time telecom biz ... yet. The answer is simple. Google wants to take its breathtakingly profitable targeted advertising beyond PCs and inject it into any other medium it can find, whether it be radio or TV or even newspapers and magazines. (aC: Seriously, I know the author is just trying to make a point here that Google is trying to dominate every known media known to men, but what synergy can Google possibly find or how can they incorporate their advertising algoirthm to the media of radio and print??? Enlighten me pls...) But the biggest prize of all may be cellphones. Why? Because there are so damn many of them, and they're behaving more and more like pocket-sized, full-blown computers (e.g. the iPhone).

Now we come to the hubris part. Google promised the FCC it would bid at least $4.6 billion to purchase spectrum rights - but only if the FCC met all of Google's terms. Specifically, the FCC must ensure that all networks using the new parcels of spectrum be "open platforms." That means four things: (1) The new networks must allow consumers to use any device they desire; (2) they would support standard software like Internet browsers and e-mail; (3) network operators would be required to lease some capacity to other providers; and (4) the new networks would all have to be mutually compatible. In other words, Google wants this spectrum to behave a lot like the Internet.

Sounds reasonable. Wouldn't it be nice to use your cellphone on any network you wanted? But traditional telecom powers like Verizon and AT&T which run tightly controlled wireless networks, felt blindsided when they first heard of Google's demands. Allow any old device to plug into their new networks to run any old software? That's giving away the store! Even more galling was the notion of being forced to lease out capacity to all comers. If they pay billions for spectrum, shouldn't they be entitled to use it as they see fit? What are we, communists? Moreover, by preemptively offering to meet the FCC's minimum bid if its conditions were met, Google appeared to be forcing the agency into an auction for spectrum that would arguably have far less business value. The spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association called it nothing short of "Silicon Valley welfare."

The FCC has offered a compromise: yes on the open devices and software; no on the other two conditions. Hungry for the new spectrum, AT&T reluctantly announced its support; at presstime, Verizon was mulling its choices. Google should be thrilled that the FCC adopted even some of its suggestions, given that it's not a big telecom player. But apparently "compromise" isn't in the company's vocabulary. After the vote, the nicest thing Google's chief telecom lobbyist could say was that the FCC ruling was "real, if incomplete, progress," adding that the company would take weeks before deciding whether to participate in the auction.

Open networks are a legitimate goal for Google and are good for consumers. But all the grandstanding has probably hurt Google's chances to get open networks. Message to the "Don't be evil" people: Don't be so arrogant, either.

Why stocks can shake off mortgage meltdown (Part 1)

The following article is for people who are afraid that recent financial events are the onset of a Bear Market.

Turmoil in the credit markets is sparking a global sell off, but are investors overreacting?
By Grace Wong, CNNMoney.com staff writer

The threat of a broad credit crunch has jittery investors rushing for the exits, but those concerns may be overdone.

Problems in the risky debt and subprime mortgage sector have sparked wild swings in the market recently - these days few bat an eye at 100 point-plus drops and gains on the Dow Jones industrial average.

Investors have been rattled by a wave of credit woes that has hit leveraged buyouts and the mortgage sector. The worry is that a tightening of credit will have a broader impact on consumers and the economy.

Don't freak out about the Dow
There are reasons for concern. American Home Mortgage (Charts) said Tuesday lenders had cut off its access to credit and that it may have to sell off its assets. The collapse of companies like American Home and other mortgage lenders could make home loans more expensive for borrowers.

And after two years of rapid-fire deal making, the buyout boom is facing a lull. As a debt crunch starts to squeeze private equity firms, the boost take-private deals have provided for stocks could start to crumble.

Uncertainty about how wide credit problems will spread is likely to persist, which means investors are in for more sharp swings in the market. (Watch how you can protect your portfolio -- 6:07.) But there are a number of reasons why stocks aren't likely to fall off a cliff, analysts say.

(1) Stock valuations are reasonable For one, stocks aren't too pricey and sell offs are likely to bring in buyers looking for a bargain.

"A lot of stocks are looking reasonably cheap," said Peter Dixon, strategist at Commerzbank in London. "On the basis of valuations, you've got to continue to favor equities," he said.

In the U.S., the S&P 500 index is valued at about 15 times 2008 earnings, which makes stocks attractive investments, according to Stephen Leeb, president of New York-based Leeb Capital Management.

(2) Deals not doomed Private equity buyouts have helped support the stock rally in the U.S. and Europe as investors have bet that nearly any public company could be taken over.

The outlook for these deals is looking murky as buyout firms face hurdles securing financing, but a slowdown in leveraged buyouts isn't going to have a substantial impact on stocks.

"The exit of private equity is not going to be what caps this market. There are lots of corporate buyers out there willing to step up to the plate and fill the gaps left by private equity," Leeb said.

Continue Part 2 here...

Movie Review - Simpsons The Movie

"Spider pig, Spider pig, And it does whatever Spider pig does..."

Haha! My Precious and I went to see this movie over the weekend and this is be far the best movie I have seen for the year 2007! It's a real hoot with it's laugh-a-minute jokes! I thought it would be tiring at first, but it didn't feel that way at all!


The Good

The sappy part when Marge taped over the wedding video to tell Homer she was going to leave him... ("Why do birds, suddenly appear... Every time... you are near...")

Green Day going: "Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da" (Count the no. of "Da"s; it's correct) and the ship sinking ala Titanic style

Arnie going: "I was elected by the people to Lead... Not to Read!"

Homer scolding the audience (i.e. us) for watching a paid movie when we have been watching the cartoon on TV for free for so many years

My Precious likes the Naked Bart scene and the Boob Lady

Maggie 1st word: "Sequel" (Hopefully I don't have to wait another 18 years for that... Don't even know if I will still be around then...)

And of course - The Spider Pig song with the opera singers backup during the rolling of the Credits


The Bad

The hole through which the Simpsons escape from the Dome; Seems a bit too easy.

The side story about Bart wanting Ned Flenders as his Dad instead of Homer... Seems like the theme for one of the cartoon episodes... A bit repetitive...

The Verdict

Why are you still reading my review? Go watch the movie NOW!