Success Doesn't Come Overnight

Another great Olympic event passed us by and i couldn't help but truly admire the host (China) for putting up such a great show and grandeur in her opening and closing ceremonies. Against all expectations and burden, the Chinese won the most number of gold medals and finally topping the list of excellence for the very first time! I would like to congratulate these athletes for their success in gaining the fame and rewards. It's definitely not an easy feat, considering the amount of pressure and expectations placed on their shoulders....

Of course, there is no way we can forget the spectacular and unbelievable performances from Michael Phelps for being the King of the pool and Usain Bolt for being the fastest man on earth with their multiple world records achievements!

Success doesn't come over night, as these athletes were put under the most immense, rigorous and systematic training available, immense focus and mental training, hard work and a never-say-die attitude. Also, many of them trained since they were at a very young tender age. Some of the Chinese athletes (such as the gymnasts) were so young that they were rumoured to be under-age! Four years ago at Athens, there were already scripts written over the wall on the emergence of these Chinese athletes, as they grabbed the second spot (overall medals rank) behind the Americans. So it is in a way not surprising that the Chinese finally did it in home soil, with home advantage and crowd support.

The success of sports athletes mimics the success that people achieve in their ordinary lives, be it at personal or business level. Success requires lots of focus, perseverance, risk taking, action-minded and the continuous pursuance of self-improvement for greater achievement and success. Starting from scratch and achieve greater heights as we move on from one goal to another. The notion of giving up is simply not an option for successful people!

We need to keep reminding ourselves that success is a journey, not an overnight motion. There are therefore many positives that we can emulate from these successful sportsmen and athletes towards success!

Why A Second Opinion Is Always Worthy

For literally 5 days before last Thursday, I was in a confused state! Not that i was confused about my life but my physical well-being. I was literally suffering from a fluctuating body temperature (from cold to high temperature), and suffered immensely from body aches and headaches. I was wondering what was wrong with me! When rashes grew over my upper body, i realized that i needed an immediate medical advice and my mind started to grow suspicious of the possibility of a denggi fever infection! So i visited a nearby hospital and conducted a blood test. The reply from the doctor for that night did not sound very convincing, but the conclusion matched my suspicion....the tests suggested denggi fever "positive"!

Ironically, the doctor also told me that there would not be any medical remedy available, but largely depends on individual's antibody. While only a small number of cases for denggi fever patient (something like 3% in this country) is fatal, it did worry me as much as i had to make a decision whether to admit into hospital for closer supervision. Financially it was the least concern as i would have it covered under my insurance hospitalization protection scheme but what i was more concerned was the duration of the admission and how I would "entertain" myself from the extreme boredom!

So i decided to hold back the admission and resorted to some age old natural remedy (which i found through internet research and reinforced through talking to some friends) by drinking lots of fluid (and 100 plus!) and some raw juices from mature papaya leaves. My condition, however, did not improve later that night, so after some deliberation with my wife, i decided to go for a second medical test at another hospital to seek confirmation. Bizarrely, the doctor's assessment was very much different from the first, but much to my delight! So it wasn't denggi fever, apparently!

The next day my condition improved and my illness had gradually eased off, much to my pleasant surprise! Perhaps the natural remedy might have helped the course of recovery? Truly, i am not sure, but I am certainly delighted to be back in action in good state!

Often this is very true in life.....Do not be afraid to seek a second opinion when in doubt!

Malaysia: Pre-Budget Rally On the Cards?

Aug 29th is the day Malaysia's Government announces the 2009 budget for key Government's spending and measures to boost the economy. As always, the outcome will have either direct or indirect impact on Malaysia corporate business and the general public.

"Traditionally", Malaysia's stock market tend to react positively by gaining some form of rallies the days or weeks leading to the event, as investors start placing their "bets" on who are likely to be beneficiaries from the speculated budget measures.

So are we going to see the same thing happening this time around?

Well, to start off with, there seems to be one too many critical issues looming over every Malaysian's mind....be it from global credit crunch and financial crisis, high crude oil price, inflation, weakening economy to political uncertainties!

Earlier, the market appeared to have provided some degree of encouraging uplift, when KLCI rallied 60 points (5%) between 21st to 31st July! Unfortunately, the market came tumbling down thereafter, no thanks to the weakening sentiment and severe correction in commodity prices, particularly crude palm oil, as global crude oil prices adjusted downward!

In my opinion, the rally is probably over, if there was even one to start off with! More like dead cat bounced, rather than a rally!

Technically, KLCI charts seem to be weakening too. As it is, the downward trend has no sign of reversal yet but more likely to weaken further.

Interestingly, according to a report by CIMB Investment Research, Malaysia's stock market could be further de-rated going forward, as the level of foreign shareholdings in our local companies is still relatively at a high level of 22%, from a high of 24% as at end 2007. Given the recent exodus of foreign funds, i am actually quite surprised to see that the foreign shareholding level is still so substantial, and is only a relatively small reduction from the high point of 24%! Moreover, KLCI is still trading at a higher PE than the average market PE of Hong Kong, Thailand and Indonesia!

That says a lot....there could be still plenty of room to fall, should our political scenario and economy turn out worse than expected!

Another rally before budget announcement? Don't count on it!

How To Stay On Top Of Your Mutual Fund Investment

Let's face it, most people out there have some form of mutual fund (unit trust) investment, whether present or past. It's also fair to assume that if you have a personal insurance protection, chances are your financial planner or insurance agent might have also sold you some form of mutual funds in the past. Many insurance policy these days are also attached with an investment linked policy, which allows policy holders to choose their choice of funds.

As per any form of investments, one should always monitor the performance periodically to make sure that your funds are performing up to expectation, and the fund continues to be invested in its original objectives and allocation. At times, reallocation of funds may be necessary to counter the cyclical trends, under-performance, etc.

In reality, sadly, many people simply leave their funds aside the moment they signed the dotted lines, and HOPE FOR THE BEST! For the "lucky" ones, their Financial Advisor may update them periodically of the funds' performances. However in most cases, they will never hear from their good old Financial Advisors any more, other than the time when the advisors "want" more money!

With the advancement of software technology and the internet, it is now very easy to track and monitor your mutual funds performance, all at one glance! I call this the "Mutual Funds In A Box"!

Introducing Morningstar. It is the most comprehensive database of mutual funds covering all major countries including US, UK, Asia Pacific and Malaysia. Besides offering up-to-date information such as fund objective, price, asset allocation, and performance on all mutual funds funds, the website also offers insightful analysis, unbiased fund ratings, and sophisticated analytical tools to help both individual and professional investors make more intelligent investment decisions.


When you are at the site, make sure you sign up as a member and it's absolutely free! Add a portfolio and assign the individual mutual funds that you have purchased. You may enter the date of purchase, amount and the unit price. With the click of a button, the system will automatically update the latest performances of all your individual funds, including market price, year-to-date and past year's performance, latest analyst rating and their respective asset allocation. Above all, you can also monitor all your trust funds COMBINED and assess your portfolio weightage for each trust fund and even individual assets!

In a nutshell, you are now able to track and monitor all your global trust funds investments by the simplest of clicks and hassle free! I strongly recommend you to check this out now! To choose different countries, simply click on the specific country located at the bottom of the website. For US residents, you may visit this link to take you there directly instead.

Recession: It's Time To Count The Goose!

It's confirmed. Denmark has become the first developed country and the first in Europe to officially classified as undergoing recession, after two successive quarters of negative GDP growth. Denmark's economy has shranked by 0.2 percent in the 4th quarter of 2007 and by 0.6 percent in the 1st quarter of 2008. With inflation being at 18-year high, the situation does not seem to be improving.

Some economists projected that Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy as being countries where recession is most likely next.

In Britain, house prices have declined for eight consecutive months, with the expectation that this slump will spread throughout the economy. It appears that house prices had declined more than at any time since 1992!

Despite all the problems in US, its GDP growth is still hanging on by a thread as it reported 1.9% growth in the second quarter, following the 0.9% growth in the 1st quarter.

What about Asia and the Pacific rim? While it does not look likely for Asian countries to head into recession any time soon as economic growth is still strong albeit signs of slowing, with both China and India in the fore front, the same cannot be said about New Zealand. New Zealand's economy shrank 0.3% in the 1st quarter of 2008 and is likely to shrink again in the 2nd quarter. The drought that happened earlier in the year appeared to have cause major damages to the economy, to the extent of possibly knocking 1% off the GDP.

Well, my dear sister live in Hamilton, New Zealand, and she works in a bank. Perhaps she could give me a better reflection of the real situation there....

D End of Commodity Boom?

The year of 2006 and 2007 had seen a dramatic boom in all commodity led prices, led by no other than the dramatic surge in crude oil prices. The boom had led to many investors and commodity producers benefiting immensely from it but to many others (general businesses and ordinary folks) out there, it has caused severe hardship and pain in the pockets as soaring price increases in almost everything from petrol, food, transportation to costs of material!

Such high prices are definitely not sustainable in the long term. It seems the biggest culprit is the crude oil. Surely there must be a limit before the whole world chokes! the As such there were plenty of screams and shouts for the crude oil pricing to be regulated to prevent excess speculation (if such is the case).

Past few weeks seem to offer some ray of light at the end of tunnel, as crude oil prices corrected about 18% from a high of USD147. Correspondingly, global commodity prices have also dipped recently. The key question in everyone's mind next is whether such fall is genuine or just a temporary correction?

According to Credit Suisse's research, oil could fall as low as USD84 per barrel, assuming that demand is fully beaten down. This is based on an analysis of historical elasticity data and global GDP growth, where it found that at USD130 per barrel, global oil demand growth is almost zero, given global GDP growth forecast of 3.7%.

However, many other analysts have a different opinion, such as Goldman Sachs's recent prediction of USD200 per barrel by end of 2008.

On the other hand, just how big an impact speculators have had on prices still remain to be seen. For the matter, US regulators have initiated an investigation into possible rigging of oil futures market, with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission committed to ensuring the market is free from "manipulation and abuse". However, how exactly this is going to be done and time line to legislation also remain unclear.

Besides, the growing demand from global investment fund managers buying into commodity markets is believed to be another contributor to the rise of commodity prices. After all, these fund managers will have to continuously look for the next best "safe heaven" to protect their funds, so commodity could not be overlooked.

Last but not least, a weakening USD is believed to also contribute to the rise of oil prices. So unless USD can stabilize against other major currencies, it is likely going to be a roller coaster ride going forward.

To sum it up, the direction of crude oil and commodity prices are still anybody's guess for now. Truly, there are no "experts" in prediction until the actual event unfolds....so be prepared for a roller coaster ride!