Crazy Racer is another Chinese comedy. The story is about a stupid bike racer who was set up by some bad guys and lost his racing career, and then the story develops about his stupid life after that. It has some underground society elements, too.
This movie, in terms of language use, reflects what is happening in people's daily life in mainland China. Black humour type of dialogues. Using noble words for total non-noble meanings.
The story is a bit messy and without a very obvious theme.
I didn't finish watching the entire movie, as I didn't want to torture myself :)
My rating: 2.5/5
Yawn....
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Safe Strategies for Financial Freedom
Title: Safe Strategies for Financial Freedom
Authors: Van K Tharp, D R Barton Jr, Steve Sjuggerud
Publisher: McGraw-Hill 2004
This is a book published back in 2004, teaching people how to get to financial freedom through some simple strategies, reveal the true face of mutual funds, and most important, how people should take FULL responsibilities for their own doing.
The book first introduces to you the financial freedom number. This number tells you how far away you are from financial freedom.
Financial freedom number is calculated as: your monthly passive income - your monthly expenses.
For example, if you have a passive income of $250 a month, be it interest from your savings account, or renting out of your spare room; and you have a monthly expenses of $2500, including your mortgage, insurance, kid's education, etc, then your financial freedom number is 250 - 2500 = -2250. What it means is that you need to get another $2250 a month passive income to become financially free!
Then the books continues to teach you how you should cut down your expenses and debt to immediately improve your financial freedom number.
The book dedicates its Part II & Part III on strategies that you can employ to increase your wealth. Many strategies may not actually apply in Singapore, as the law is different, the economic conditions are different. However, you can still get an idea of what you can do to achieve higher revenue.
The authors advocates a 15-year cycle theory. It says that markets go in 15-year big cycles. The current cycle is bear market cycle, and it started back in year 2000. This bear market is expected to end in 2015-2020. For stocks to be considered to be of great value, Dow Jones has to go down to 2700 points, S & P to 186 points, to achieve a P/E ratio of 7.
Next, the book introduces the concept of expectancy and position sizing, which are, in my opinion, very important in risk control.
The book further goes into the psychology side of investing, the key message is everybody must be responsible for his/her own actions. If you think you are a victim of other's doing, then you will never ever get out of the trap.
The book concludes with the emphasis on action! Nothing is going to happen if you don't act!
This is a very good book if you are serious to gain financial freedom. Highly recommended.
Authors: Van K Tharp, D R Barton Jr, Steve Sjuggerud
Publisher: McGraw-Hill 2004
This is a book published back in 2004, teaching people how to get to financial freedom through some simple strategies, reveal the true face of mutual funds, and most important, how people should take FULL responsibilities for their own doing.
The book first introduces to you the financial freedom number. This number tells you how far away you are from financial freedom.
Financial freedom number is calculated as: your monthly passive income - your monthly expenses.
For example, if you have a passive income of $250 a month, be it interest from your savings account, or renting out of your spare room; and you have a monthly expenses of $2500, including your mortgage, insurance, kid's education, etc, then your financial freedom number is 250 - 2500 = -2250. What it means is that you need to get another $2250 a month passive income to become financially free!
Then the books continues to teach you how you should cut down your expenses and debt to immediately improve your financial freedom number.
The book dedicates its Part II & Part III on strategies that you can employ to increase your wealth. Many strategies may not actually apply in Singapore, as the law is different, the economic conditions are different. However, you can still get an idea of what you can do to achieve higher revenue.
The authors advocates a 15-year cycle theory. It says that markets go in 15-year big cycles. The current cycle is bear market cycle, and it started back in year 2000. This bear market is expected to end in 2015-2020. For stocks to be considered to be of great value, Dow Jones has to go down to 2700 points, S & P to 186 points, to achieve a P/E ratio of 7.
Next, the book introduces the concept of expectancy and position sizing, which are, in my opinion, very important in risk control.
The book further goes into the psychology side of investing, the key message is everybody must be responsible for his/her own actions. If you think you are a victim of other's doing, then you will never ever get out of the trap.
The book concludes with the emphasis on action! Nothing is going to happen if you don't act!
This is a very good book if you are serious to gain financial freedom. Highly recommended.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Build Your Own Fixed Income Fund
It is very sad to read in the news people lost their life-time savings to the Lehman brother mini bonds. Those investors are not even greedy, what they asked for was only 5-8% return per annum, or even just enough if they can beat the fixed deposit rate.
And the 'professionals' convinced people that as an individual, they will never be able to have the time and knowledge to manage their own money. Money has to be turned to the 'professionals' so that the 'professionals' can have a high salary, fat bonuses, and at the same time, lose YOUR money.
Why don't people just ditch those scumbags and build their own fund? It is not difficult to build your own fixed income fund, and even less difficult to beat the fixed deposit rate, as some of the funds benchmarked against.
Let's say you have S$100,000 in capital to build your own fixed income fund, what you can do is:
1. Get a Fairprice Plus credit card issued by OCBC. It comes with a savings account that lets you do all your bankings through ATM or internet (no over the counter service though). The savings accounts offers 0.5% p. a. interest for accounts of less than S$50,000; 1% p. a. interest for account of S$50,000 and above. What is the fixed deposit rates now? Don't think it is more than 1%. See, you can easily beat the fund managers.
2. To diversify your risk, you should buy some Singapore government treasury bills. You can make such purchases at the banks. Just tell them you want to buy Singapore government treasury bills, nothing else. For sure they will try to convince you to buy something else that gives them higher commission. Treasury bills are short term instruments that varies from 3-6 months normally. The return is quite low, but at least your money is 'safe', as long as Singapore government does not go bankrupt.
3. You should have some substantial portion of your S$100,000 invested in 1 & 2. After that, you should look for something that will give you a bit higher returns. One option is to buy the preference shares from all the 3 big local banks.
OCBC offers 4.5% pa & 5.1% pa preference shares, UOB offers 5.05% pa preference shares, DBS offers 6% pa (up to 2011) preference shares. You can purchase those shares in the open market as like any other shares. However, you should be reminded that preference share prices will go up and go down in value, and when they go down, it can drop quite a lot. For example, OCBC 4.5% shares has gone down from around S$104.00/share to the current price of ~S$80.00 a share. You must be prepared to stomach the capital loss, and have the confidence that the local banks won't go bankrupt!
4. Then you may allocate about 5% of your total investment capital into some high yielding stocks.
With the above, you can easily construct your own fixed income fund, and easily beat the performance of many 'professional' fund managers. Some claim the fund under their management JUST dropped 20%, better than STI's performance. And the investment return of <1% performance by those so-called 'professionals' is really a joke.
Disclaimer: The above is my personal opinion only, no liabilities in whatsoever form are assumed or born by the auther. Invest on your own risk!
And the 'professionals' convinced people that as an individual, they will never be able to have the time and knowledge to manage their own money. Money has to be turned to the 'professionals' so that the 'professionals' can have a high salary, fat bonuses, and at the same time, lose YOUR money.
Why don't people just ditch those scumbags and build their own fund? It is not difficult to build your own fixed income fund, and even less difficult to beat the fixed deposit rate, as some of the funds benchmarked against.
Let's say you have S$100,000 in capital to build your own fixed income fund, what you can do is:
1. Get a Fairprice Plus credit card issued by OCBC. It comes with a savings account that lets you do all your bankings through ATM or internet (no over the counter service though). The savings accounts offers 0.5% p. a. interest for accounts of less than S$50,000; 1% p. a. interest for account of S$50,000 and above. What is the fixed deposit rates now? Don't think it is more than 1%. See, you can easily beat the fund managers.
2. To diversify your risk, you should buy some Singapore government treasury bills. You can make such purchases at the banks. Just tell them you want to buy Singapore government treasury bills, nothing else. For sure they will try to convince you to buy something else that gives them higher commission. Treasury bills are short term instruments that varies from 3-6 months normally. The return is quite low, but at least your money is 'safe', as long as Singapore government does not go bankrupt.
3. You should have some substantial portion of your S$100,000 invested in 1 & 2. After that, you should look for something that will give you a bit higher returns. One option is to buy the preference shares from all the 3 big local banks.
OCBC offers 4.5% pa & 5.1% pa preference shares, UOB offers 5.05% pa preference shares, DBS offers 6% pa (up to 2011) preference shares. You can purchase those shares in the open market as like any other shares. However, you should be reminded that preference share prices will go up and go down in value, and when they go down, it can drop quite a lot. For example, OCBC 4.5% shares has gone down from around S$104.00/share to the current price of ~S$80.00 a share. You must be prepared to stomach the capital loss, and have the confidence that the local banks won't go bankrupt!
4. Then you may allocate about 5% of your total investment capital into some high yielding stocks.
With the above, you can easily construct your own fixed income fund, and easily beat the performance of many 'professional' fund managers. Some claim the fund under their management JUST dropped 20%, better than STI's performance. And the investment return of <1% performance by those so-called 'professionals' is really a joke.
Disclaimer: The above is my personal opinion only, no liabilities in whatsoever form are assumed or born by the auther. Invest on your own risk!
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Looking for TFCD Models
TFCD stands for Time for CD. Basically it means the photographer and the model will dedicate some time for a shoot. At the end, both the photographer and the model will get some nice photos for their personal keeps, or portfolio, or whatever.
I see TFCD as a win-win deal for both parties. It is in particular useful for model wannabe to build up their portfolio without spending too much money. A properly done model portfolio may cost quite a couple of hundreds dollars even here in Singapore.
For the photographer, it is good opportunity to try out new techniques, new ideas, even a new genre of photography, a new style.
And here I am looking for TFCD models. Gendre does not matter, guys or girls, both are welcome. If you are a couple, boyfriend/girlfriend, or soon-to-be-wedded, you are even more welcome.
I see TFCD as a win-win deal for both parties. It is in particular useful for model wannabe to build up their portfolio without spending too much money. A properly done model portfolio may cost quite a couple of hundreds dollars even here in Singapore.
For the photographer, it is good opportunity to try out new techniques, new ideas, even a new genre of photography, a new style.
And here I am looking for TFCD models. Gendre does not matter, guys or girls, both are welcome. If you are a couple, boyfriend/girlfriend, or soon-to-be-wedded, you are even more welcome.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Microstock: Stolen Photo
I chanced upon a web forum and to my surprise, I found a photo of mine is there. The photo is stolen from Fotolia.com.
How do I know it? The Fotolia watermarks are still on the photo, all over it.
Sigh....
What to do?
Intelligent property is really hard to protect...
How do I know it? The Fotolia watermarks are still on the photo, all over it.
Sigh....
What to do?
Intelligent property is really hard to protect...
Sunday, March 8, 2009
JB Wedding Fair Show
Went over to JB City Square to watch the 'Love Desire - Wedding Fair' bridal show. The 8 biggest bridal shops in Johor each designed three sets of bridal gowns, night gowns for the show today.
I think bridal shows should be the most enjoyable event for people in love. Girls like to wear beautiful clothes, guys like to watch beautiful girls. Bridal shows have both. Girls will focus on the gowns, guys will focus on the models.
JB, the third largest city of Malaysia, is still not an international city, the quality of the design I think is just so-so. All those paraded gowns are not too bad, but they don't look unique, stylish, nor do they make people feel dreamy, fairy-tale like. Somehow it has a bit of kampong feel :P
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Interview with Dr. Van Tharp
This is an interview of Dr. Van Tharp back in 2006 by stocktickr.com.
In this interview, Dr. Van Tharp briefly mentioned about money management or position sizing, which is the key to successful stock trading. Another key point he mentioned is about a trading system, which is a set of rules to define entry, exit and sizing.
The interview is old, but the concepts Dr. Van Tharp talked about is applicable basically to all market conditions, be it bear or bull.
You can find the interview here.
It is a must read if you want to be successful in stock trading, or trading in general.
In this interview, Dr. Van Tharp briefly mentioned about money management or position sizing, which is the key to successful stock trading. Another key point he mentioned is about a trading system, which is a set of rules to define entry, exit and sizing.
The interview is old, but the concepts Dr. Van Tharp talked about is applicable basically to all market conditions, be it bear or bull.
You can find the interview here.
It is a must read if you want to be successful in stock trading, or trading in general.
What Type of Trader Are You?
Found an interesting test by Van Tharp Institute. I supposed it is founded or funded by another legendary stock trader Dr. Van Tharp.
You can find the test here. It is interesting and you should give it a try. It tries to analyze what kind of trader you are, what are your good points and what are your potential pitfalls. It is not only useful for you as a stock trader, but also in other aspects of your life.
Good things must share :)
You can find the test here. It is interesting and you should give it a try. It tries to analyze what kind of trader you are, what are your good points and what are your potential pitfalls. It is not only useful for you as a stock trader, but also in other aspects of your life.
Good things must share :)
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