Sunday, August 17, 2008

A Quick Aligment Check - Part 3

5.Our Family and Love

With commitment comes results. Do things with love & contribute and be thankful for doing it.

As outline in earlier sections, it’s important to love your family / partner for their own values in life and not for yours.

A little reinforcement can be done by outlining each other values in relationship and try to create a linked between yours & her and vice versa as you process down the ‘value’ list. This is a small lesson you can do every day to live by the statement of “Appreciate your love one for who that are love them for who they are”

*When you are careless with someone, you look down on them.

*When you are careful with someone, you look up to them.

*When you are caring with someone, you all look eye to eye.

6. Physical Health

Body work efficiently when you are in harmony/ love and we should eat to live and not live to eat. Vitality in life is shown via our vision of life. I guess that makes exercising a must.

As I’m only able to take bits and pieces of what Dr John Demartini. The above are only parts which I deem interesting and valuable to me. To know more in detail, there’s always the book to read on in detail or attend 1 of his seminar that Dr Demartini will be conducting in your area.

It’s a refreshing seminar that share some new ideas and view and reinforcing some existing knowledge. The above are only my personal insight gain over the seminar and the books that I purchases has not been delivery yet neither did I sign up for his seminar. Cheers.

A Quick Aligment Check - Part 2

3.Mental Development

Spend half an hour a day to study a subject of your interest and 4 years later, you be a leader in the field. Spend an hour and it be down to 2years, take about speed learning.

“The quality of my life is base on the quality question I ask”

Show gratitude in everything that we do, be thankful for the things we have. It allows us to be more productive and make learning/work more meaningful.
Prioritize our actions to free time to do what we value most. (“You don’t CEO does house work right?”)

Do what you love and loving what you do after all the world outside is a reflection of my world inside. Value yourself and the world value you. * reciprocal.

Side Track~
While employing a staff or finding a job in a new company make sure the 4 emotional condition is fulfilled.

1.Grateful for the Job.
2.Love what they will be doing.
3.Inspired by the company.
4.Enthusiasm in what they will be doing.

Whatever time / space is created, it will be filled. Thus it’s important for us to fill it with high value / priority things.

Energy is infinite and when you life is driven with certainty and clarity in a orderly manner, people will be drawn to it like how plants are drawn to the sun.


4.Financial Independence.
In Life, we can have something for nothing. It’s always something for something. ( A Balance in life )

Thus it’s possible to Save more and yet Increase your life style at the same time. Manage money wisely and there be more money to manage. (Similar concept in the Law of Attraction.)

To reinforce what you vision, associate with likeminded individual. (Successful in the field of your interest / Wealthy individual that started out from the bottom) and work to save other that have yet to see.

Fixed income is for fixed people. In truth, everyone can transcend their personal income.

*End of Part 2/3

A Quick Aligment Check on Life - Part 1

Over an evening, 13 Aug 08 to be exact, a friend invited me along for a evening seminar conducted by Dr John Demartini, a renowned speaker I best associate with in the book ‘The Secret’.

Its held at Suntec Convention Hall Theatre and ticket to this event is purchased via Global 1 Event.
(Singapore)

The topic of the seminar happens to be the latest release of his book, The Riches Within, The Seven Secret Treasure.

Before I start, a few points to highlight is that views and opinions given are solely base on my personal thoughts and feel and no bias towards anything or anyone.

Over a short session of less then 2 hours, Dr Demartini outline the 7 areas that make up a balance complete life in general.


1. Mind development.
2. Spiritual Quest.
3. The Genius in us / Mental Development.
4. Financial Independence.
5. Our Family and Love
6. Physical Health.
7. Social responsibility, Contribution to Society.

1. Mind Development.

Each unique individual has a set of values important to themselves. The higher on the list the value is the greater priority and the more discipline we have to do follow through.

A lack of interest, disorder in doing particular task or procrastinations are common reactions related to one doing things low on the ‘value’ list. The lower it gets the more negative it is.

Such value dictates what we do and in return we are bias towards our environment. (Selective attention) Eg to say, a mum who place the child on the top list of value will look out for things associate with the child while in the shopping mall where as a business man will look out for things that is of business / investment element. (It’s a sub coconscious thing just like book reading. Some does other don’t.)

It is because of these values that when setting goals, we have to align it with our highest values.

Cause it be easier to achieve and we have the motivation to work towards it.
Likewise if we set goals on with values indicated by others, if the values of that individual don’t match us, we have a difficult time achieving it.

But by understanding this concept, we can shift our values to suits our specific goals cause when believes a line with goals, our self confidence increase and in eventually a boost of self worth.
Highest value allows an individual to give his maximum attention and retention to the subject matter as does the intention of learning it. Everyone wants to learn something that is able to enhance their highest value.

And thus, according to Dr Demartini, each and every one of us is yearning to express that genius in us. The genius refers to our top most value. It just if we have identify our highest value yet and is working and spending time on it.

‘We feel good when it’s done close to our values’

2.Relationship

Children express what the parents repress. Honours people value rather than projecting your values on others as that will result in conflict, disappointment in particular relationship.

To get the your other half to live and work with your values will only kills a relationship. After all its the difference that attracts, not the links.

Find value in your spouse, compliment their value to what you are doing. Create the link. Take for example her out spoken personality compliment your solitude personality. Learn what is important to them and work with it. It grows the relationship and make it meaningful.

*End of Part 1/3



 

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Classification, classification, classification.

Everything around us is being segregated, sub divided label into classification for easy identification and the stock market is no different.
A recent evening investment seminar of a few hours shares some insight of stock selection. After all, there are hundreds of mine favourite to choose from compare to thousands of stock out there.

The area of focus on is call sector. Which sector is hot, which is not?
The first is to know what the market sentiment is. Is it bullish (up) or bearish (down) We don’t want to be cause buying a stock that look cheap when the sentiment is bearish or selling down a stock that is ‘overprice’ or seem expensive when the sentiment is bullish.
After which we move into which sector of the industry, just like GDP contribution making up of consumer, manufacturing, service and such. The more common one are Finance (Banks / Investment Firms), Property, (Developer / Hotels) to Transport , not to mention a hot sector call resources these days.

Next up, we identifying which sector is the leader (Sector that react strongly to market sentiment), we move on to identify which particular stock receive most attention. (The big capitalization company to the smaller one) Share price and daily trading volume and Company branding are a few common indicators.

Upon narrowing down our selection, the next thing we sniff around for in news indicating the sector we selected is still hot or is the sector changing. The term I was taught is call sector rotation which I’m relative green to it still. (Commonly used to describe deep pocket investors/ fund houses identify another sector of better return and shifting funds to that sector before retail investor does.)

In a more layman term is, look for the wave to ride on, get out before it crashes. This seminar shown me that stock buying is an art of screening and filtering. Not just buying evergreen stock that be around long and hold long for a small gain after all, inflation is in all time high again~

*I can only discuss basic as I only get the basic gist. Contact me if you like to help me out on the quest of understanding sector rotation.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Option Course in Singapore

A week or 2 back, a friend invited me to tag along to an option seminar.

Is a 3 Day option trading with Clemen Chiang at www.freely.com

Throughout the evening, he share some of his insight and personal event that is inspiring and heart warming at the same time.

Below is bits and pieces of what I manage to capture from a load off of information that he was sharing and is by no means a gauge of the course nor to make an impact on each individual interest to take up Dr Clemen course as this blog is aim for general learning purpose and future reading fun.

Time Squeeze refers to getting maximum profit in the shortest time period. Shortest Time, Maximum profit.
Risk Reward Analysis.
1 Year time frame or more – Long Term investor.

1 Month time frame – Med Term investor.

1 Day time frame – Short Term investor.
Look for only 1 headline a day. Understand that 1 head line and you can manage your psychology

Risk is define as the amt of $$$ you are prepared to lose in the first place.
1. Margin Trading.
2. Short Selling.
The above give unlimited risk. What option provide is fixed risked, unlimited reward.

Stocks Vs Options
1. Leverage of 10 times.
2. Profit to be made in a bear, bull and sideway market.
3. Get out in style & still make $$ when your prediction is wrong.

Singapore will be the next future of growth. Areas that position to benefit are.
1. Bio Science
2. Chemicals
3. Clean Energy
4. Education Services
5. Electronics
6. Engineering & Environment
7. Emerging Industries
8. Headquarters & Professional services
9. Info Com & Media
10. Logistic
11. Precision Engineering
12. Transport Engineering.

Stock Price & Volume.
Look for company stock prices that will move aggressively in a short time. Gapping up / down. ( Eg, Bear Sterns )

Gapping that place when there is a large liquidity in the market.

The H3 strategy employed.
1. Hardworking – Understanding freely method.
2. Humility – Accepting the rules of investing.
3. Heart – Invest for the good reason.

In my humble opinion, he is 1 of a few great speaker that has make the evening fun. Inspring me that theres more upside to life then what it is now.

Well, I might have sign up if I happen to have the credit card on offer that can use installment.

Hard Luck I guess~

Should any reader be interested to know more, they can be reach at support@freely.com or thought any contact information found at their webby.

Cheers.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Thinking Hats - Life Prespective.

Recently I was having a conversation with a mentor. Its goes about say that when one is poor, with not much money. You tend to have the urge to want to eat everything during your basic meals.

I want to eat the chicken rice with the carrot cake and some fried sausage with ice freeze mango for example.

And when one move from poor to have a BIT of money. one tend to really order everything and anything and still yet finish it. Feeling content at the same time.

However, when they starts to have lost of moeny. Instead of eating quantity, they start to be selective and eat quality food.

Making choices and picking what they eat. Choosing between organic salads, fresh prawns and such now.

Does that happen to each and individual of us? Is that how we unknowingly conduct our life?

On another day, while flipping over a book in a library. I spotted a short essay that gave me some enlightenment.

A class of student was assemble with a philosophy lecturer in a garden. Among the lecturer is several buckets of rocks, stones and sands.

Taking an bucket full with large rocks, the lecturer move to an empty bucket and begin pouring it into a empty bucket. when the rocks are full too the top with no room for more.

He asked the student, 'Is this bucket consider full now?' The student answered 'Yes'

Next, he went to bucket with small stones, each about a fist size or so and pour it into the bucket fill with large rocks. after all the small stones have fill up the gaps.

He asked the student, 'Is this bucket consider full now?' The student replied 'Yes'

Do being done, he pick up another bucket, this time with small pepples and begin the same process again, managing to fill the bucket that was 'full' in the student view.

After getting the same answer from the group of student, he pick up another bucket of fine sand and begin pouring it until the bucket over flow.

And said, there maybe only 1 life, but you can live it 4 times.

Credit to the author / writter that share this insight~

For it dawn upon me was that such things are always made know to us. Priotize what is important and clear it out first and move on. This allows up to have more room..more time for other things.

Given that much thoguht, sleeping away half day and idle the other half will not yield any meaningful results in life.

As the saying goes, its the little things that we do everyday that make a big difference. Have you found the little thing which can change your life? improve it?

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Wise Up To Money - Part 1

Recently I went for a 3h talk on a sat afternoon with a couple of friends and 1 of the speaker, Dr Sarah Mavrinac was covering on the topic of Facing the Facts - Defining our financial priorities.

Some of the insight I gain are..

A good life consist of Good health, Meaningful relationship and Financial security.

We need to be facing the facts of defining our financial priorities.
The present & future generation face the crisis of short sightedness of money management.

As of 2007, 11% of GDP is made up of consumer debt. ( Thats quite a huge amt. Imagine the recent surplus of the GDP of with 10% is made up of our own loans and debt)

The process is broken down into 3 steps.
Step 1: making and doing the job of managing my money the #1 job.
Step 2: taking stock of what you have.
Step 3: making priorities explicit.

What is keeping us away from taking step 1 could be analysis paralysis / lack of time / fear of change. ( cause it be sad if we realize we spend wat we earn and a bit more of our saving)

We must realize the impact of consumer spending and bemoney conscious, take the less indulgence approach.

Commit to saving for the future by managing money today. Government promote self reliance as what they provide is basic support.

Step 2 involved taking stocks, getting yourself organize.

What do you have and where is it? (No point having money everywhere and not being able to find it.)

Budgeting 101 - Know where your money is. If not, don’t save.

How much can you invest?

Have a check list of the following for easy accessing.
1. Emergency contact information.
2. Health Records.
3. Degree / Diploma Certs.
4. CV / Resume.
5. Bills, statement from Bank / CPF.
6. Insurance.
7. Wills.

Its good to know that expenses are not created equal.

They could be
a. Mandatory (income tax, cpf contribution) Vs Non mandatory.
b. Essential ( grocery ) Vs Non essential (Handphone , Mp3 player)
c. Fixed Vs Variable ( handphone bill)
d. Regular Vs Irregular (anniversary present, friends weddings)
e. Expected Vs Unexpected ( Medical Cost)

Keep track of our money expenses on a daily basis for even the smallest purchase. A excel spreadsheet, 5mins at night to consolidate all expenses. This simple action over time will allow us to identify which area can be trim and where all our moeny is going to.


Step 3: Specifying priority.

Dream Big, Hope for the best & plan for the worst then pick out from the list 3 most important and start working on it. Discuss it with your spouse / financial planner.

The list could be something like,
1. Debt reduction ( loan , credit cards )
2. Create a short term cash saving fund.
3. Insurance purchases / rebalancing.
4. Home purchase / renovation.
5. Retirement saving.
6. So on so forth.


One common myth is that we plan short of our retirement needs. We normally need more money then assumed. (Inflation and low interest rates) We have to be realistic and get help. Be ready to change and adjust our plans and expectation and remember our spouse and accept that there will be trade off but recognize that time is on our side.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

General Guildlines To Start Investing In Stock Market.

So we got an online brokerage ac open. What the next step?

For a start,  there's free news feeds we have access to on the market. Start reading it and creating watch list on the stock of your interest.

That's all. No Buy. No Sell. Yet.

Step 1:
We start of by defining the capital we want to set investing with. Preferably not your whole life saving. May be $100,000 or $20,000 depending on how much you have and your risk appetite.

If I have $100,000, 20% is $20,000. If I only have $20,000, 20% is only $2000. The amount of capital you can set aside will depend on what type of stock you can look at.

Step 2:
Understanding your risk profile. There are lots of investment risk profile test online. Just Google it. It will mainly classified us under 1 of the 3/4.

a.Highly Adventurous. ( 10% or more loss)
b.Adventurous. ( 7% max loss)
c.Cautious ( 3% max loss)
d.Peace finder ( 0% loss)

I only emphasise on loss this point of time because, who wants their profit be cap? we stop at 7% if there upside of 4% more?

But losses is some thing we all want to avoid,  by determine the figure before we start, we are able to make rational decision and not emotion hope, pray for better price tomorrow investor.

Another simple method is of the capital you set aside. $50,000. What is the maximum lost of capital i can absorb before I will declare its the end of the world, the stock market is not meant for me feeling floods the mind. If its $2500. Your risk appetite would be $2500/ $50,000 giving you 5%

Step 3:
Though I'm not sure where this 7-8% stop loss come about. I believe it got to do with something about support and resistance and if the stock drop more then 7-8% a day. Its going to tank more.

There are some point of time we have to cut loss. Lose a leg to diabetes or I die keeping that leg with me. Don be fool into situation Long term investor because the stock that I purchase has drop 40% and I can't sell it now.

Step 4:
Stocks moves along various ranges. In Singapore context, a Bank share can move against / with
you on a spread of 0.1 to 0.5. ($100 - $500) where as a Telco Share range between 0.02 to 0.1 ($20-$100) in an intraday.

If I'm starting out with a capital of $10,000 with a risk tolerance of 5%.  it works out to be $10,000 x 0.05= $500.

You identify a share with great potential upside after researching and monitoring.
Share X is price at $10.30 ($10,300) a lot and have a spread of 0.3 to 0.55 ($300-550)

I believe its 'cheap now' and I make a purchase on margin. ( making payment after 5 working day) the next day it drop to $9800. ( becaase other feels it should be cheaper )

Wat do you do?

The above trade itself have a few fundemental mistake.
a. If knowing the stop lost limit at 8%. I wold only need to sell at $9480 ( Rounded to the nearest 10s)

It has exceed my personal stop loss limit of 5% of $500.

b. Knowing that the spread on an intraday can go between 0.1 ot 0.55. The max loss of $550 has also
exceeded my personal risk margin of 5%.

c. Will be tempted to cough up another $300 to purchase the share at $10,300. In the hope to sell later at a higher price. Freezing our captial and preventing future trades.

To sum this up. before we make any purchase, we have to identify stocks with daily spread that don't exceed our highest risk amount of 5% , $500.

Even though the potential upside is $500, so is the down side. Instead of looking at stock of this spread. We look for stocks that move between 0.1 to 0.3 or 0.05 to 0.1 which every that suits you more. ( Industry sector, company reports appealing ..etc..etc.. ) To prevent being prematurely kick out of the market.

With the watch list created, we start monitoring.

Step 5: Armed with daily news and Technical analysis ( Support and resistance line ) of the stock graph. We wait for a time to entry, exit.

Buying only near support and exiting near resistance. As market is irrational more often then usual. News and global happening can easily tip the techincal aspect.

Step 6: How much to buy is next in line. Share Y cost $.1.95 My captial is $10,000. so it will be $10,000 / $1950 =  5 lots ( Rd to nearest 1000s)

But nope its not that simple. There's 1 more step.  Theres a stop lost of 8% we mention earlier. $1.95 x 0.08 =  $0.156

Exit price of the share would be $1.79. Taking $1.95 minus the 8% loss.

With an inital capital risk of $500 divided by $0156 we get to pruchase about $3205 share. which Rd to nearest 1000s would be 3 lots.

So with  an Captial of $10,000 of a risk torelance of $500. I can purchase 3 lots of Share Y at $1.95 with an Exit price of $1.79 should it move against me.  Using $5850 of my total captial and maximum lost of $480 when sold at $1.79.

The above 6 step are a general guild to make stock buy / sell a tiny bit managable. Each has its own preference, thus if theres step 7, 8 or 9 that you think should be included.

Do drop me a message at the Shout-out box or email me as I too am still learing.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Spending a windfall

A few days ago, a buddy of mine ask what would should he do if he won the Big Sweep aka Lottery in other countries.

The jackpot price is 2.2 mil and this is how I would use the money.

1. Spend the .2 mil $200k. It can buy pretty much alot of little wants in life.
2. Invest .5 mil into the stock market. ( Equity, unit trust, commodities )
3. Save up 1mil in a time deposit a/c
4. Set up a trust fund with the remaining .5mil for a good course. ( Fund the poor education, SME startup grants..etc.) The trust fund must be self substain and growing faster then the financing of the trust mission.)



Well, that if I have a windfall coming soon.

Life shouldn't change much, I would continue to do what i am doing.

A thought cross my mind as I wrote this. How would one define luxury life style? As each to its own. This is my analogy, While i'm showing at home. I off the tap when i need to soap or shampoo. When i'm on holiday, I enjoy myself in running shower to reading a book in tub fill with sented oil. That's a luxury to me. (Contentment is each to its own)

What is your luxury? How would you spend your windfall?

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

New Reads - Why we want you to be rich

This is my latest reads, its a book co-written by Donald J. Trump and Robert T. Kiyosaki.
 
2 Men who fame and wealth has reach us to a certain extend - Globally.

Donald being the biggest real estate developer and the Robert who started of the Rich Dad Poor 
Dad books.

With such big names in this book Why We Want You to be Rich: Two Men - One Message, most people would be interested to take a read. This book in my view would be classify under 'why classification'

Why do people want to be rich, why we should be rich rather then How to get rich. This book is mainly written in 1st Person context. Its give me the feeling of reading a part of this 2 great man biography. Though they view mainly involve america as the discussion. there are interest view and pointers where they share which to each its own might be useful.

The book shares insight of who they are and what made them how they are. Robert contributes his success with relation to the leadership and military training he got when he sign on as a marine nad later on what the oil industry has show him.

Where as for Donald, he share that his dad was the best role model in his life, where hardwork, honesty and preseverence seen and learn from his dad still drives him in his business of real estate and making him successful till this day.

Overall, its a good book for light reading and soul searching as every chapter they pose a question back on the topic they have discuss. making you do some thinking. ( if you want to get the best out of the book)

Some quotes that I felt was enlightening is that Insanity referes to doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different result.

If we are unhappy with our current situation in life now, we got to charge some where some how, a small step is what it take. Thought moves us into action and thus yield result.

If theres something in life now that you don like, you can change it! Nothing is easy, but who wants nothing?

Official Site.

All the best in 2008 for the world and everyone out there.

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