1view 09 04 02

I have been away mostly today and I have to admit although I do expect bullish but I didn't expect it this strong. Today's market performance is the first time shacking my confidence that market will drop to much worse during mid year.

The drop of gold price actually confirm stock up trend so although it will eventually come down but the up trend will last at least some more days.

I may profit take some of my speculative stocks tomorrow or early next week, keep my long stocks and continue to accumulate more bullets for later this year.

I get all these from stock.malpf.com, you may view there in real time too.

1view 2009 04 01

Yesterday market was brought up by China but the global up trend ended when it reached USA. So today KLSE is most likely to open high close low.

However, there is a 30% chance KLSE can have a break from global trend today and trend higher anyhow.

Book Review : Top Money Tips - by KC Lau

One of the biggest achievements of this blog is to receive an invitation from KC Lau to review his book released late last year. The sense of being noticed is quite ... rewarding indeed.

I highlighted before the most interesting point in the book is How To Get Your First Car For FREE ! Most people like it a lot but soon there are also a few other not so positive comments about this particular tip. Which is rather important actually because it brings out TWO very important fundamental in personal finance planning - "its all about what you think" and "Personal Finance is boring".

If you think a tip is interesting, then most probably it will be useful to you.

If you think its a lousy tip, then most probably it will bring you nothing.

You can buy the book in most national book stores like Borders, MPH, Popular etc. I had documented my first hand experience with MPH. Very soon, the books were sold out and went into subsequent prints.

Most reviewers have already listed down the content outline of the book so I wouldn't repeat that.

What I would discuss is Why do you want to buy physical book ? Especially when there are alternatives like eBook and Blog on Internet for FREE ? Other than reasons of branding and that you are a fan of KC Lau then ofcourse you would buy his products to know him and his ideas better. There is still a very important factor that we buy books because of the information in it. Which may raise doubts in value for money comparing to other FREE sources.

1. Physical books are tax deductable up to MYR 1,000. Sometimes after I read a book, I resell it out getting back half the price. So I am claiming $2X from my income tax while actually paying out $X only. ( Sometimes I resell at higher price and earn a profit there too )
2. I like the convinience that I can pick up any book when I go to toilet, waiting for lover to finish shopping, queueing in hospital etc. By the time my smallest NetBook boot up and connect to Internet, I already finished reading half chapter in the book. When my turn is up, I can just flip the book and go immediately. Even if I put my notebook to standby mode for that extra split seconds only, the nurse, lover usually will change their mood from normal to complaint mode - "we thought you are waiting for us, not us waiting for you !"
3. Be it with Google or Yahoo, sometimes I find the info I want, sometimes I don't. Sometimes the info I found was there but quickly disappear the next time I look for it. Sometimes I remembered putting a bookmark but just couldn't seem to find it. Very often I am directed to pay for something anyway. With a book, I always know where to find the info once I get in touch with it, and I can start stop at any part of the book the way I like it. Its always there when I want to refer it ...

So fundamentally

1. The information on physical book is usually different than those available FREEly on Internet. Quite frequently information printed on book is more reliable too, proof read by proffesionals.
2. Even if the information is the same, book better organizes the info in a pre-determine way. The format could be better or worse but its consistency on where info is, ease us looking for it now and later.

Now back to the book "Top Money Tips for zzzzns".

What first attracted me is the reflection of this book on the author. Honestly till today I do not know who KC Lau is and has no personal relationship whatsover. But I can sense that the intention of the author of this book is PURELY wanting to share all he knows. Suddenly what he knows and what the book says become less important. It is very hard to find a person who are willingly share all he knows in personal finance world today, not to mention for the good for the community. ( rather than like what most of us do - keeps complaining only ).

I waited long enough to write this review just to make sure what I wanted to share was not already shared by other reviewers. And I hope some of you who has read other reviews can comment on this.

Frequestly after I read a book, I do not remember what the book says. But I can firmly share what I get out of it.

1. I pay more attention to car insurance, saving there could be significant enough as time goes
2. I make more money from Internet, perhaps thru some of the links the book suggested ...
3. I came up with the idea to resell the books I have read and no longer need to keep
4. I reminded myself not to be too self center in finance matters as many other approaches are possible too
5. ...

Would I buy this book ? Well yes and for the first reason I mentioned as my appreciation to someone who is so dedicated to share in personal finance matters.

Should you buy this book ? Well, if you agree with my reasoning why buying physical book is still a good thing then yes you should.

Would I recommend this book ? Now that is a question required scale answer. From 0 to 10 where 0 is Strongly NO and 10 is Strongly recommended, I would give this book a 7 - also a heavenly number :)

Where does the other 3 go ? Hmm ...

1. The writting skill can be more balance. Some chapters are exceptionally shorter ...
2. A small part of the book has too many numbers even though that was meant to be a quick mental exercise.
3. I personally could not fully agree with certain part of insurance concepts ...

It is also from the 1) and 2) that I got the impression on Author's sincerity. As for number 3), most of my insurance concepts may not be suitable for today's general public yet. Especially if you are not that well verse in insurance industry yet, then this book's explaination on insurance is much more suitable for you. You will have to understand the basics rule of thumbs first and then only come to me for some potential myth or paradox and fun discussion. Else that may lead to more damage and destruction.

Lastly, for people who read this review until here. You must be a very patient person. If you haven't bought this book yet and feel like getting one now, then I will add another reason to it both to thanks for your patient and see if my review is effective or not. For the next 5 books people buy through this article, they can get this book at MYR 21 only !! Instead of the normal price at MYR 29.90

Click here to buy "Top Money Tips For zzzzn" for RM 21 ONLY !!

Thank you to those who have taken above offers, surprisingly quite a few buyers actually didn't even realize the existence of malpf blog at all.  Seems like the 'cheap' price is more an attractive point than the review writen here.

I hope this does not violate any regulation ...

Buy Warren Buffect for MYR 100 !

For the first time in zzzz, AmInvestment Bank Zero Strikes on Berkshire Hathaway allow investors to gain exposure to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Class B shares for as little as RM100 minimum investment. AmInvestment Bank Zero Strikes are a special kind of warrant listed on Bursa zzzz, and give investors an alternative to investing in shares, Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) or unit trusts.

OFFER PERIOD – 12 March 2009 to 10 April 2009

Full Info here

I would think if it is buy-sell-able from bursa zzzz, you could get this through other broker too but I haven't checked yet ...

Maybank : Premier Capital Income True Saver

full plan details at maybank2u site

This seems like the plan that break one of the rule of thumbs I have been sharing all along

All kind of guarantee plan will not have interest higher than FD rate

Lets take a quick look on what it offers

So basically if you put in $80,000 you will get $100,000 insurance coverage.  Assuming this insurane coverage would cost you $340, then effectively this plan is giving you a guarantee compound rate of 3.87%

Higher Than today's FD at 2.7%

If you don't really need the insurance or you don't want to consider that.  Then your effective rate is 3.44% return.

So the next time an insurance agent is selling you guarantee return plan, make sure you compare with this plan.

Even though this plan does BREAK my 1st rule of thumb but it didn't break my 2nd one.

I did say if there is a plan that can offer higher than FD rate, it will be closed down by Bank Negara very soon.  Indeed Maybank knows this very well so they say this is a LIMITED OFFER only and it will be closed down after 10 April !

If you read the detail page, it also say Fund Size 150 million.  So effectively this is really NOT an insurance plan.  This is a Mutual Fund comes with combined insurance coverage.

Another derived message you can get out of this plan is that the largest bank in zzzz is telling you that they think your mutual fund can easily give you a guarantee return of 3.8% in 8 years time.

Which is kind of a no brainer because 8 years from now, the stock market will most probably peak at its next bull run.

Just in case you did miss the 10 April deadline, don't worry, this kind of plan is always available at

http://safepay.com.my/ins101.asp

only without the word "guarantee".

Get Cheapest Brokerage Fee here !

Coincident or not, soon after I wrote about brokerage fee and minimum trading size Jupiter sent me an email stating if I can introduce more people to join their lowest brokerage fee stock investment account, they will be paying me RM 30 for every successful applicant who make at least 1 trade within 30 days.

These are some of the rules they share to me:

1.  This offer is valid from 5 Jan to 31 March 2009

2.  You must turn up personally in Jupiter office to sign the application form

3.  All I need is your Name, Email Address and Handphone number

If you need money badly then let me know how much you want to share out of those reward.  But bear in mind that I don't really receive the money.  They will just credit the money into my account in Jupiter, not into my bank. 

Otherwise, I will use these money to fund this blog.

FREE GIFT : Suggest a new URL for this blog !

I have been writting this blog for a few months now.  I think this blog has enough content in it to deserve a URL at its own.  So whoever read this please suggest a URL name by leaving a comment.  If I pick your URL I will be sending you a book "Top Money Tips for zzzzn" for FREE if your receiving address is in zzzz, else I will be sharing some of the great ebooks I have with you.  If you already have kclau's book, then I will try my best to come up with another great book for you.  You can leave as many comments as you want.  Some reasoning with your suggested URL is greatly appreciate too !

These are what I have done trying to find a good URL but without success yet.

forexguidehowto.com - too long, first time visitors have to type too long. typo etc.

then I tried some myPF.com mtPF.com myMoney etc but all these domains are no longer available.  To see if your suggested domain is still available, you can use whois.ws

then I was hoping to try with some branding like meshio.com, so I was thinking to start with some pronounciation that will not be ambigous.  So I listed down all the possible pronounciation and found out that most of them would still lead to miss-intrepretation like B is like P, D is like T.  Very soon, I was left with only C, F, H and Y.  So add 5 vowels to these 4 letters I have 20 options.  However, quite a lot of these 20s are also ambigous like YE is like YI, YU is like U etc.  So the best matches I can come up with this exercise is haha.com, fafi.com alike.  Most of them are also not available and doesn't really sound good anyway.

So now you can see that I really need your help, its not just a year end give away thing ... please please please ask your friends to come suggest too !

I have tried my best to provide useful content for the past few months, I hope it has been benefitial to some of you.

2008 was an interesting year for me considering the downfall and how I dealt with it ... Merry Christmas to you all and may 2009 be a better year for us all !

Traffic of this blog is shown in below graph : top 90 visitors / day, average 38, recently drops to 20s due to my trips away.

It will need a permanent URL before bringing it to its next height.  I am counting on you ....

just in case above FREE gift does not excite you, there are a few hundred stuff that I trade ... you may also pick from that list once I select your suggestion.  

http://saltlamp2u.com : 

http://klsmihosting.com/baocabin/catalog2.htm : etc.

Book : Get Your FIRST car FREE !!

I mentioned before the biggest personal finance challenge in zzzz is to buy car due to its rediculous high taxation (read this old blog here).

However recently I received a book from my sifu's sifu titled "TOP Money TIPS for zzzzns".

( read how happy I was in my personal blog here )

Written by KC Lau, one of the pioneers in zzzz Personal Finance Blogging world !!

... guess what !

This books shows you HOW you can get your FIRST car FOR FREE !!!

It is totally mind blowing !

How could I have NOT thought of it myself !!  I regret so much that by now I already have had own 3 cars.

Why didn't I read this book earlier !  Argh !!!!

Don't make the same mistake I did.  You should go get this book now !  ( Click here to read more about it and BUY IT ! )

One more thing, this FREE CAR tip is only 3 pages out of the whole 208 pages !!  Imagine all the other tips that can help you Save More, Make More and Protect your Money !