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Europe's unemployment rate increased once more -- now at 12.2 percent.  This is the highest level since data collection on European unemployment began in 1995.  Expect new records ahead. Too bad if you are young and live in Europe.  The unemployment rate is above 25 percent for those under age 25 almost everywhere in Europe and is well above 40 percent in places like Spain and Italy (lets not talk about Greece...their data, at this point, is probably suspect). Meanwhile, the IMF has noticed that taxpayer bailouts mainly enrich hedge funds.  Why?  Because after sovereign debt collapses in price, hedge funds come in and buy it for 20 cents on the dollar and then sit back to wait for the bailout.  So, who wins.  The average taxpayer simply transfers large amounts of private wealth into the coffers of rich hedge fund tycoons.  Great policy! It is now dawning on the IMF that restructuring sovereign debt (meaning a controlled bankruptcy) is a far better...

Chinese food giant Shuanhui  announced the purchase of Smithfield Foods this week.  This is a salient example of a process that has been underway for many years. If one country has a 40 percent savings rate and another country has a zero percent savings rate, the country with the larger savings rate will, in time, buy all of the assets of the country with a zero savings rate.  That process is underway. The US has had no net savings for several decades.  The reason for the absence of savings is twofold: 1) the private sector doesn't save because most Americans see no need; after all, the government guarantees income security and health care into old age (social security, medicare, medicaid); why bother to save (the Obama administration's recent suggestion to begin taxing IRA's provides some additional reasons for Americans to avoid saving); 2) the government sector is a big, big dissaver (that's what fiscal deficits are all about). But America has investment spending....

Would you cut loss? Would you cost averaging? Or, would you accumulate at current level? These are a few questions from Gold investors since March 2013. What a difficult questions to answer... Here is our view on gold prices currently: Our answer is to cost averaging or accumulate now, and hold it at least until September 2013. Why? Let's read on... Lately, there is some good signs which favors gold prices in the short term: Federal Reserve chairman signaled records stimulus will continue until economy improves. Physical gold demand has surged after mid-April drops, especially from Asian consumers and central banks. US debt ceiling issue will be discussed again in September 2013, in which congressman will most likely to increase again, thus, printing more money. If you're a technical guy, then let's look at the chart above. A ' Double Bottom ' pattern was formed and gold prices may rebound very soon. It will be a gain of almost 8% if it surges towards 1,500 level....

New SPACs - Terragali & Australaysia; Goldis-IGB; Excessive directors' compensation. http://www.bfm.my/sm-salvatore-dali-malaysiafinance-spacs-overpaid-directors.html http://www.bfm.my/snm-show.html

We can't deny that everyone of us can't runaway from financial matters, thus, planning it wisely would put you on a better path to achieve financial goals as desired. Does this called "financial planning"? Hmmm...  Many people think that financial planning is for high-income earner and the rich. But is this true? If not, what is it actually? Generally, financial planning is a journey to achieve financial goals set with a comprehensive and systematic step-by-step process . It involves taking a broad view of one's financial affairs covering many areas of wealth management. What's Included in Financial Planning? Cash Flow management: assessing your current financial net worth budgeting debts eliminations building savings Insurance planning ensuring that our assets and family are well protected by having adequate insurance coverage Investment planning this is the wealth accumulation step, whereby investing a portion of your savings with the aim of getting a higher...

When you speak off the cuff, silly sounding things can pop out. Thats why I am so reluctantly to speak quickly over the radio, and I need pauses so that i don't say things such as those said by Paul Tudor Jones. For a billionaire hedge fund manager who carefully manages his public image, Paul Tudor Jones had a minor crisis on his hands.  Mr. Jones, a billionaire and philanthropist of legendary stature in the minds of many Wall Street traders, was forced on Thursday to explain what he meant in remarks that surfaced in a video published by The Washington Post. The video, depicting a University of Virginia symposium in April, shows Mr. Jones trying to explain why there is a scarcity of female traders. “As soon as that baby’s lips touch that girl’s bosom, forget it,” Mr. Jones, who has three daughters, says in the video. “Every single investment idea, every desire to understand what’s going to make this go up or go down, is going to be overwhelmed by the most beautiful experience, whic...

Everyone has seen some Charlie Chaplin movies, they were great and still are. That alone would have suffice in leaving a wonderful legacy of a life well lived. Not many has even heard of him speak, but if you watch his only snippet from The Great Dictator, where he spoke in his movie for the first and only time, ever ... you know he has an even greater soul. While disguised as part of a movie script, its blatantly obvious that he chose that one instance, that one platform to voice his important empathetic view - funny how much of that speech is still so relevant for so many people in so many places, ours included. Good day to you, Sir Charlie Chaplin .... Another example of his great talent, he composed the music to Smile ... Michael Jackson's favourite song of all time. Charlie Chaplin, a man so devoted to make us all laugh, must have known what hurt is to come up with these two important contributions during his life on earth.

http://www.bfm.my/snm-show.html Penang second link, stb2, tambun, E&O, thheavy vs cliq

This is an exceptional piece of performance art. In fact, it is so much more than just exhibiting the powers of concentration. It is art definitely, loaded with meanings and inflections. The inter-connectedness of everything in life, its delicate balance ... seemingly unimportant (feather) yet it holds everything together. Its beautiful, moving and thought provoking.

There is a chain email spreading about some EPF rules, that makes members worry such as below: If ONE of your nominees in the EPF nominees list dies, automatically the whole arrangement (EPF Nominees list) is VOID . Meaning if, you only put in ONE name & unfortunately he/she dies before you? Automatically EPF will channel your EPF money to trustee of AMANAH RAYA upon your death. Upon surrender to trustee of AMANAH RAYA, your children will have to battle the money through 3 channels; Majlis Agama Pejabat Tanah Mahkamah Is it TRUE ??? According to EPF, if a member has more than one nominee, and one of the nominees dies during the member’s lifetime, ONLY the portion that was bequeathed to the deceased nominee will be invalid . Should the member later dies without updating his nomination, the other nominees will receive their portion accordingly. Only the portion that was bequeathed to the deceased nominee will be subject to procedures under ‘EPF savings without nom...

For the past 100 years, small investors and lower income Americans have been able to invest in public securities and make huge gains.  No one with a diversified portfolio of American stocks today has a loss.  More remarkable, anyone who has held on for twenty years or more has huge, huge gains.  And this same statement is true for nearly all twenty year periods since the 1930s (eighty years ago). The success of the public markets has provided a way for folks without access to financial acumen to take on capital risk and be successful.  You would think such markets would be applauded. Nope. Here comes the left.  First Sarbanes-Oxley was passed to make sure that small companies faces huge hurdles in taking their firms public.  Then along came Dodd-Frank, a creature of the Obama Congress, that continued the process of crushing public companies with mounds of mind-boggling regulations. The final coup d'etat is now underway in the JP Morgan struggle.  If "s...

The tax laws and IRS enforcement efforts are guaranteed to result in political favoritism on a grand scale.  Why?  Because they are complicated and ambiguous. The American people do not understand the tax laws in their own country.  One suspects that tax specialists don't understand these laws either.  That leaves a lot of latitude to regulators.  They can pick and choose, as we now know that they did in recent years. Every so-called tax reform simply puts more complicated things into the tax laws.   The income tax needs to be abolished.  There is no generally agreed way to define income (that's the main reason why tax laws are so complex).  Even value-added tax concepts suffer from problems of definition. Better to go to a uniform national sales tax.  That could be easily understood by all Americans.  The only way a national sales tax could become problematic is if there were exceptions (for food, medicine, etc.).  There shoul...

Now we get an idea of whats been driving up the shares of Instacom.  The Company also released its first quarter results last Tuesday with revenue of RM30.2m and PAT of RM6.8m. Annualising its PAT would yield a projected year end profits of RM27.2m.  At last Friday's close of 39.5c, that's a PE of 10 times, which for a growth stock in an exciting rapidly growing and constantly transforming telecommunications industry is fairly reasonable. Some may argue its still cheap as PE of 15 to 18 times is normally par for course for the Telco industry across the region. That would translate in to a price range of 58c to 68c.  This has not even factored in the earnings contribution from the RM205m as highlighted in the STAR or EDGE today yet. Potentially Instacom can be a GEM as a valued investment stock. You do the calculations and derive your own conclusion based on your risk averse outlook and your balanced portfolio considerations.  If you assume that it yields just 15% net...

With market continuously rotating between "risk-off" and "risk-on", an absolute return mandate with the adoption of a dynamic asset allocation approach would be a good vehicle to ride out the volatility. With the fixed income market having outperformed over the last 5 years, there is a high possibility that good quality equities - those with earnings growth and clarity supporting healthy dividend payouts would find favour. This is a wholesale fund which aims to achieve medium to long term (3 - 7 years) capital appreciation through investments in equity and equity related securities of companies, and exchange traded funds with the potential to deliver total return in excess of the fund's benchmark return ( 8% growth per annum). Investment Strategy Asia Pacific region (excluding Japan) will the focus of this fund, either through equity or equity related or exchange traded funds. The manager views the region as a vibrant economic growth region supported by facto...

According to President Obama, we need more government.to provide 'fairness' for the American middle class.  The latest series of scandals -- Benghazi, the AP snooping situations, and the IRS targeting of conservative groups, should serve to show why government is not likely to be the solution to the problem of getting the economy going again. Government scandals are not new and are certainly not limited to the Democrats.  Republicans are just as willing to bend government to their will as the Democrats.  That's why government is not the proper place to put our trust.  Our trust should belong in the free market, not in the bureaucrat, who may have another agenda. Regulators can have a will of their own and it is very hard for the average citizen or company to fight them, especially when the regulators are willing to bend the law. Free markets don't have political biases.  Free markets are all about individuals trying to make a better life for themselves and their...

Finally, somebody has decided to remake my all time favourite TV series, the Japanese romantic comedy 101 Proposal. You will cry buckets and laugh like a lunatic if you have watched it before. The remake is a China production with Lin Chiling, whom I have never thought to be much of a talent, but did well. The always funny and self deprecating Bo Huang. To consolidate a TV series into a movie is never an easy task, but its pretty good.  If you have a few hours to spend, go watch the entire 12 episodes on You Tube. I have linked the first episode at the bottom (yes, got English subtitles). The original 101st Marriage Proposal is a "Beauty and the Beast" story starring Takeda Tetsuya (Virgin Road, 3 nen B gumi Kinpachi Sensei) as a down-on-his-luck man who has gone through 99 omiai (arranged dates with the intention of marriage if the date goes well). Not particularly smart, nor handsome, nor rich, he is a man who cannot lie and of course, has a heart of pure gold. On the 100th...

Those who invest in the US stock market have nothing to complain about.   Stocks are on a tear in 2013 and have produced returns north of 8 percent annually over the past 100 years.  What else does that well? It has been almost impossible to avoid a lush retirement if one simply salted away money into an index fund regularly over the past 40 years. So why do you continue to hear that Wall Street cannot be trusted and why do Congress and the Administration continue to try to crush Wall Street under a sea of litigation, regulation, and hyperbole.? Will we really be better off without Wall Street?  The average American has had the rare ability to simply plump his money down into an index fund and retire in splendor ($ 2,000 salted away in an IRA annually produced over $ 2 million in 40 years).  I guess this kind of independence is too much for politicians to bear. No one who has ever purchased an index fund at any time in history and still owns it today has a loss....

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http://www.bfm.my/snm-show.html Trading tips in a bull market.

The company was listed via a RTO last year and had stayed relatively quiet for some time. What was interesting was that the company's share price started edging up even before the recent elections was over. To do that, I think the buyers must be confident of the prospects for the company. It has continued to move upwards and appears to be consolidating its gains for the past couple of days. Last night,  Instacom Group Berhad (IGB)’s financial performance continued where it left off from the last quarter to record continued strong growth during the first quarter of 2013. In an announcement to Bursa Malaysia this evening, IGB said that, for the current financial quarter ended 31 March 2013, the Group recorded revenue of RM30.210 million and profit before tax of RM6.828 million. Against the previous corresponding period, these numbers represent significant increases of RM29.350 million and RM9.895 million, respectively. IGB Chief Executive Officer Anne Kung described the Q1 financi...

Like any other country, buying a house and taking a  home loan  / mortgage in Malaysia involve legal  fees & charges  - which many people fail to take into consideration especially when they’re buying a property for the very first time. So to all Malaysians buying your dream houses right now, allow iMoney to show you ALL the fees and charges involved when you buy a house or apply for a home loan.

The market has been trying to fill the gap to its recent high. Local investors are putting their money to work. The prevailing themes are still oil and gas and Iskandar as expected. However we cannot be buying each and every share that moves. Here are a few for your consideration. Nobody should be bitching about the price chart trend, of course its up already. No point looking at laggards, not their time yet plus the market has not reached a level whereby we should be looking at laggards yet. Hiap Teck - Good volume formation. Wah Seong - This one got some legs even though the spike has been significant. Instead of looking at the beneficiaries of marginal oil fields contracts, one should really look at pipe coating specialist such as Wah Seong, under the radar for too long. Disclaimer: The content on this site is provided as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. All site content, shall not be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security or ...

Tan Sri Khalid may not be as charismatic as many other seasoned politicians, his contribution is to run Selangor state coffers in a most prudent way. There are many things a MB cannot do if they are under the purview of the Federal government - e.g. the Police on crime rates, tax rates for various things ... I do think he should come down harder on a lot of shenanigans still in the local councils, city councils, etc...

Shareholders will vote soon.  Right.  Wrong.  Shareholders typically have no idea that they are shareholders.  Shareholders' agents -- pension funds, endowments, foundations, money managers -- these folks vote the shares, acting as agents for shareholders. What do these agents think?  They think that capitalism is fundamentally flawed and that corporations spend too much time seeking profit opportunities.  Instead, public companies should be more concerned with 'activism.' How does this help the ultimate shareholders?  It makes them poorer.  Retirement income is lowered and assets are frivolously wasted by the so-called agents. But, what do the agents care.  It doesn't affect them in the slightest.  In the name of corporate governance reform, these 'agents' are trying to impose an outside (of the company) Chairman of the Board for Citigroup, replacing Jamie Dimon and pushing Dimon to a subsidiary role.  This would recreate the corpo...

Eric Cantor has mostly good ideas, but his latest effort at appearing 'kindler and gentler' is a good example of modern Republican policy initiatives at their worst. Fearing the appearance of always saying no, Republicans like Cantor look for ways to push 'feel good' concepts to compete with Democrat 'feel good' concepts.  Cantor's bill to provide for time off instead of cash for overtime pay is a good example.  What Cantor should be doing is trying to repeal the overtime laws, not make them even worse. Why is the government defining overtime?  Why isn't that something that should be worked out between employer and employee?  Why presume that one size fits all?  Arranging overtime should be strictly a discussion between employer and employee.  Government bureaucrats should take a hike. By introducing legislation like this, Cantor joins a long list of Republicans that seem willing to outdo their Democratic brethren in pushing the government into more nook...

Ferguson first few years were dicey, much like the first few years experienced by the last 5 Liverpool managers. In actual fact, he was almost booted but turned a corner and has not looked back since then. Continuity is so important and valued in being a football manager, something the modern game can no longer afford, or rather the owners cannot afford. Show me the results within 2-3 seasons or you are out. Molding a team requires time and in Ferguson's case his strategy was most prominent in the way he used the youth system, making it a celebrated channel for bringing up local talents. In the present days of money buying talent strategy, Manchester United is Manchester United because we can proudly claim a large contingent of home grown talents and still a significant portion of players from the UK, something A LOT of teams cannot claim. At one stage, I though Liverpool was going to change name to Liverpool-Herzagovina. The New Guy The bookmakers is giving it to David Moyes,...

Its a new investment platform following the stop-start-maybe-cautious few months leading up to the elections. As mentioned during the S&M show, there are three tiers in the market, one is the blue blue chips, the second are the stocks that will benefit with the surrounding and prevailing market themes and the third are  the fresh names coming up as they may benefit from new projects and investments by states and federal government. MRCB - Going places, after years of being the neglected child of a large family, this kid is on the way up. EPF's Sungai Buloh project could involve MRCB in a major way. WCT - Astute operator, like the way they think in hiving off part of the business to do value add. Will be a better and bigger player to watch. MUHIBBAH - Despite the enormous near limit up surge a couple of months back, this company has more than turned a corner. Many funds are busy accumulating. INSTACOM - Probably the best backend telco infrastructure player. Tons of work still ne...

WAS GE13 FREE AND FAIR? May 8th, 2013 by admin Categories:  Democracy ,  Democracy ,  Opinion ,  Publications No Responses Click here to download IDEAS was accredited by the Election Commission of Malaysia (EC) to observe the recently concluded 13th General Elections. Our mandate was to observe, record, analyse and report events leading up to GE13, and subsequently recommend ways to improve any weaknesses found. We benchmarked our observation against the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s Declaration on Criteria for Free and Fair Elections. We deployed 325 observers to 99 parliamentary constituencies in Peninsula Malaysia and 6 overseas polling centres. Generally, we found that EC successfully ensured the overall process between nomination day and election day proceeded smoothly without any major glitches. Complaints have been filed about the possibility of phantom voters and the failure of the indelible ink to work as it...

This week's topics: equity strategy after election, first tier, second tier and even third tier stocks http://www.bfm.my/snm-show.html

Can everyone agree that politicians are servants for the people, elected by the people ... can all parties agree on that point? OK, let's move on ... so if there is a WAVE, be it Chinese, rural, Indian, Iban, retards, gays, mixed parentage, single mums ... any kind of WAVE la ... that voted against your PARTY ...  WHY DO YOU AS A LEADER/SERVANT/PARTY FOR THE PEOPLE ... IMMEDIATELY QUESTION THE LOYALTY, QUESTION THE DECISION, CLAIMS THAT THE PEOPLE PART OF THE WAVE WERE UNGRATEFUL??? If your party/leader/members were really servants for the people .... the first thing that should come to your mind is ..  WHERE DID WE GO WRONG!!! ... and not point fingers at your citizens!!! When you accuse, it shows where your heart, motivations and intentions are ... Why don't you be a servant of the people as all politicians should be, and ask the party themselves "DI MANA KAH KITA DAH MENGECEWAKAN RAKYAT ... menjadikan keadaan begini .... kenapa ada sekelompok rakyat yang berfikir demik...

The chart above is why so many questions have risen .... Bridget Welsh also has her view on the situation below. Disturbing questions surrounding GE13 polling By  Bridget Welsh  | 12:05PM May 7, 2013 Malaysiakini GE13 SPECIAL The GE13 results are in and the BN has managed to hold only power, winning by a 22-seat majority. This result is the worst performance for BN in Malaysia’s history. For the first time, the incumbent government has lost the popular vote nationally (in 2008, it was only on the peninsula). The BN coalition has still managed to hold onto power. This piece, in a series analysing the election results, looks at the concerns raised regarding the electoral process and the potential impact these issues may have had on the final results. In analysing the fairness of any polls, one asks whether the irregularities in the process could have affected the final outcome. Were the problems enough to change which coalition would have formed government? These issues will be ...