Monday, June 11, 2007
Foreign Stock Call Warrants - SINGTEL & HSBC
You should noticed there’re four more Call Warrant issued by CIMB Investment Bank for two foreign-listed shares namely Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SIN:Z74) and HSBC Holdings PLC (HKG: 0005). The stock-code for Singapore Telecommunications Call Warrants will be known as SINGTEL-C1 and SINGTEL-C2 while HSBC Holdings will be known as HSBC-C1 and HSBC-C2 respectively.
Singtel-C1 would have exercise price of RM7.80 while HSBC-C1’s conversion price would be $65.60. The issued price for both Singtel-C1 and HSBC-C1 is RM 0.63 with expiry period of 7 (seven) months. Below are the Call Warrant's issue details:
- 50,000,000 European Style non-collateralised cash-settled Call Warrants over ordinary shares of Singapore Telecommunications Limited ("SINGTEL-C1"). Exercise / Conversion Ratio - 2 Call-Warrants : 1 Singtel Share
- 100,000,000 European Style non-collateralised cash-settled Call Warrants over ordinary shares of HSBC Holdings PLC ("HSBC-C1"). Exercise / Conversion Ratio - 10 Call-Warrants : 1 HSBC Share
- 25,000,000 European Style non-collateralised cash-settled zero strike Call Warrants over ordinary shares of Singapore Telecommunications Limited ("SINGTEL-C2"). Exercise / Conversion Ratio - 1 Call-Warrants : 1 Singtel Share
- 10,000,000 European Style non-collateralised cash-settled zero strike Call Warrants over ordinary shares of HSBC Holdings PLC ("HSBC-C2"). Exercise / Conversion Ratio - 1 Call-Warrants : 1 HSBC Share
Now, there’s difference between European-Style Warrant and American-Style Warrant.For option traders trading the instrument in the U.S. stock market, just interchange the word “Warrant” with “Option”, it’s the same. A European-Style Warrant or Option can only be exercised on the expiry-date whereas an American-Style allows you to exercise at any time up to and including the expiry-date.
Since Securities Commission amended the SC Guidelines in October 2006 to allow issuers to issue structured warrants on foreign-listed shares and indices, local issuers such as CIMB (Commerce International Merchant Bankers), an investment bank of Bumiputra-Commerce Holdings Berhad (KLSE: COMMERZ, stock-code 1023), has taken the opportunity to make money by doing so. At the same time, this also allows Malaysian investors to gain exposure of foreign markets without having to actually open overseas trading accounts.
Before you jump into the foreign-listed Call-Warrant, you should know that investing in these warrants do not entitle you the rights as a normal shareholders (can’t vote), not to mention the risk associated with the fluctuations in the price of the underlying shares itself and the short life-span. Unlike warrants, call warrants are issued by third parties such as CIMB or OSK Investment Bank (I prefer to call them market makers) based on existing stock shares. So your risk is closely tied to these investment banks and the time remaining to the expiration. If these investment banks go bust, there goes your money.
Therefore, they do not increase the issued capital or dilute the earnings of the company as a warrant do. You buy Call Warrant(s) to hedge your position (but most speculators or gamblers will have their own creativity plan for it).
There’re two factors which will enable you to make money if you plan to play with this new stock. First if the foreign share price of Singtel or HSBC goes up, then the call-warrants will be in-the-money (a term which I hijacked from option trading). Second, if the foreign currency (Singapore or HongKong dollar) appreciate against Malaysian Ringgit then you’re in luck because the value of the Call-Warrant will have higher value. Don’t you wish CIMB issue the Put-Warrant as well so that investors can make money on either direction of the share’s trend?
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Saturday, June 09, 2007
How to Get Higher Stock Price Offer from MAXIS
Stocks Recoup Some Losses After Selloff
After briefly dipping into negative territory, stocks gained steam Friday as yields on the 10-year Treasury note backed off five-year highs of 5.25 percent. As stocks closed Friday, the yield on the benchmark note hovered around 5.11 percent. Yields, which move in the opposite direction of bond prices, jumped during the week after investors grew less optimistic that the Federal Reserve would lower short-term interest rates.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Widespread Accounting Crisis – Government Equally Responsible
Chairman Adam Che Harun could not immediately be reached for comment. Co-founder George Yeo Wee Siong (a Singaporean) who has resigned as a director, declined when he was asked to attend the group's board meeting to clarify possible fictitious transactions.
“Megan said "These investigations have proven to be conclusive and indicate the deliberate falsification of the company's performance by overstating inventory values. The extent of the falsification is deemed to be material. There could yet be more unpleasant financial surprises"
Megan Media, a Malaysian maker of recordable discs, was listed on the Bursa Malaysia second board in August 2000. In 2004, Megan Media bought Singapore-based MJC (S) Pte Ltd, which was also founded by Yeo and his brother Wee Kon, for RM97.2mil. MJC is a floppy disk manufacturing company.
The findings were made by investigative accountants Ferrier Hodgson, who had been appointed by creditor banks. Ferrier Hodgson's initial findings showed MTSB (Memory Tech Sdn Bhd) which is a unit of Megan Media Holdings appeared to have financed the payment of fictitious trading creditors through borrowings and recycled the cash through other entities to appear that repayments were being made by fictitious trading debtors. It said all trading creditors were paid but the payments were actually made to other parties, a move to siphon out the cashfrom MTSB.
TIPS for Stock Market – Free-Up Shares Float
“Deborah Yang, the executive director of MSCI Barra said “Free float is a key issue for Malaysia. It's difficult for global investors to come in to a market with very little free float. Malaysia's free float, or shares outstanding that are available for trading, has remained roughly the same over the last10 years, at between 42 and 49 per cent, whereas it is over 50 per cent in other regional markets like Singapore"
“Asia-Pacific FTSE managing director Paul Hoff said“Government should look towards selling down more of its stakes in listed companies to improve free float and liquidity. Malaysia government must also work towards building a bigger and better market as there is expected to be major growth in pension funds here.”
“Richard Zhang, a senior director of business development at Standard & Poor's said “Liquidity is something that market participants look at very closely. The market (here) is not active enough”
You can argue till the cows come home that most of the low floating shares are of national interest but that doesn’t justify why you want to float the shares at the first place, not to mention that Singapore could do so. Wouldn’t it be better for the government to take private all those sensitive and “national interest” listed companies such as Malaysia Airline System (KLSE: MAS, stock-code 3786), Proton Holdings Bhd (KLSE: PROTON, stock-code 5304) or even PLUS Expressway Berhad (KLSE: PLUS, stock-code 5052).
Since most of these companies are “making money” *evil grin*, privatization will ensure the government can milk all the profits year-in-year-out. Learn from Ananda Krishnan, will you?Market volatility due to sufficient shares float is one of the ingredients for investors to make money.
Continue Blogging with Protection from Spy Sweeper
And with the birth of internet, we’ve new problem in the form of spyware. Even though StockTube is currently hosted under Google’s Blogger which is free, I still rely on my reliable companion Fujitsu notebook to blog. I need to connect to internet to do my research and analysis on stocks investing, option trading and other methods of making money online. Hey, it’s not everyday you’ll have the opportunity to long or short a stock simply because investing or trading depends on so many factors before the planets are aligned for you to go in and make the kill. So, the free time is best used to do some reading and sometimes downloading of freeware or shareware. That’s when the problem arises.
Most of the time spyware comes attached with freeware or any programs which you downloaded. How do you know your computer have spyware infection? For me, the worst period was when my internet access was extremely slow to the point as if I was using dial-up at 9.6 bps. Normally I’ll keep a DOS session at the back which keeps on pinging one of the sample website and when the packets returned are taking ages, I know something is not right. Also when my browser tells me there’re high numbers of pop-up ads being trapped, I know the spyware have invaded my notebook again.
You can actually download a free copy for your own evaluation not to mention the latest version (version 5.3) supports Windows Vista with a simple user interface and have won several awards. There’re other products such as Spy Sweeper with Antivirus, Child Safe and Window Washer. Child Safe would be ideal to keep your kids from surfing porno-sites while Window Washer enhance the performance of your notebook by cleaning un-necessary files and any internet tracks which might be harmful. Nevertheless I hope Webroot Software could reduce the price so that more people out there could afford to protect their invaluable asset.
Prison-Break Paris Hilton Ordered Back to Court
The celebrity inmate was sent home from the Los Angeles County jail's Lynwood lockup shortly after 2 a.m. in a stunning reduction to her original 45-day sentence. She had reported to jail Sunday night after attending the MTV Movie Awards in a strapless designer dress.
Paris Hilton's release from jail may be short lived after all. Hours after she was sent home under house arrest Thursday for an undisclosed medical condition, the judge who put her in jail for violating her reckless-driving probation ordered her into court to decide if she should go back behind bars. Hilton must report to court at 9 a.m. Friday, Superior Court spokesman Allan Parachini told The Associated Press.Hilton's path to jail began Sept. 7, when she failed a sobriety test after police saw her weaving down a Hollywood street in her Mercedes-Benz on what she said was a late-night run to a hamburger stand. She pleaded no contest to reckless driving and was sentenced to 36 months' probation, alcohol education and $1,500 in fines. In the months that followed she was stopped twice by officers who discovered her driving on a suspended license. The second stop landed her in Sauer's courtroom, where he sentenced her to jail.
As word spread earlier Thursday that the 26-year-old poster child for bad celebrity behavior was back home, radio helicopter pilots who normally report on traffic conditions were dispatched to hover over her house and describe it to morning commuters. Paparazzi photographers on the ground quickly assembled outside its gates. Wow, why can't Malaysia premier Badawi's sudden announcement of getting married again command such a buzz? This is something which Malaysian should learn from the developed country.
Shortly before noon, Hilton issued a statement through her attorney. "I want to thank the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and staff of the Century Regional Detention Center for treating me fairly and professionally," she said. "I am going to serve the remaining 40 days of my sentence. I have learned a great deal from this ordeal and hope that others have learned from my mistakes."
“"She would have gotten out early if she was plain Jane," said Leonard Levine, who has handled numerous probation violation cases. He noted that overcrowding in the Los Angeles County jail system has led to thousands of nonviolent offenders serving only 10 percent of their sentences. "She did as much time as a normal person would have done."
Levine said that with rewards being offered for pictures of Hilton in custody, jail officials would have had to monitor the cell phone cameras of every employee. Rene Seidel of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services said he had "never heard of" an inmate being released from jail for a medical condition. Inmates with a cold are sent to a jail clinic, he said, and the seriously ill go to the jail ward of the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.
There're More Software Tools for Small Business
For example if you’re required to send some important materials of which the contents need to be protected to a certain stage, then you might want to consider Adobe Acrobat Professional which create, control, and deliver more secure, high-quality Adobe PDF documents. As for spreadsheet, you might not have heard of Excel Everywhere, Excel-to-MSSQL and so on. In terms of financial software, there’s Budget Forecaster or Personal Portfolio Manager. All these software might not ring a bell mainly because most of these are being designed for small businesses which require a small footprint.
Business Software Reviews who is sponsoring StockTube for a review provides small business software to improve productivity, finance, business management software, scheduling, construction estimating, project management, PDF document conversion and others. It even hasStock Analysis software within it’s inventories. In a nutshell AllBusinessTools provides add-onto the basic spreadsheet and word-processing which you already have installed inside your personal computer.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Annual Meeting 2007
This is something which I should have published 3 weeks ago but somehow I missed it. How on earth can I missed such an important event, he’s one of my investing idols and probably the only greatest investor this earth can ever produce for centuries to come. My only excuse for giving this event a slip would be because his stock is too expensive for me to buy considering it’s worth US$109,055.00 per share (as of June-6, 2007 closing). I’m talking about Warren Buffett and his baby Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A, stock) or course. And guess what, he’s yet to find the CIO (chief investment officer) to take care of his treasure should he no longer able to run the show. So drop him your resume should you think you’re qualified.
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PROTON Saga Ending - VW as New Boss with 51%
If this piece of news from EdgeDaily is true, then the saga of the Malaysian carmaker Proton Holdings Bhd (KLSE: PROTON, stock-code 5304) which has been bleeding with losses willcomes to an end. It was reported that Germany's Volkswagen (FRA : VOW) waslikely to take a 51 percent stake in a new company into which would be injected Proton's key motor assets, such as manufacturing, research and development, and engineering.
Loss-making, state-controlled Proton would hold the remaining 49 percent and continue to keep ownership of distribution arm Proton Edar. Malaysian conglomerate Sime Darby Berhad (SIME: stock-code 4197) could take over a 43 percent stake in Proton held by state investment arm Khazanah.
Details are expected to be finalised at a meeting in New York being held between representatives of Khazanah, Sime Darby, Volkswagen and the office of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Currently key Malaysians involved in the talks are in New York as part of a roadshow organised by a Malaysian stockbroker for U.S. investors. Stock price of Proton surged11% to RM 6.50 per share from the previous day’s closing of RM 5.85 per share as of 3:40pm Malaysia Time today.
However don’t count your chickens before they hatch since there’ve been so many flip flops as to the development on the rescue plan for Proton. Even if the news is true, that doesn’t mean the Proton status quo will change overnight. You still need time to monitor how well would the partnership be considering that one of the possibility measures to be taken would involves cost-cutting – lay-offs. Also the working culture in Proton could give Volkswagen more surprises than it expect. For all you know VW might walk off again, as I don’t think VW will starts pouring money into the ailing Proton immediately for they’re much smarter than that. In the meantime, why don’t youinvest your money into other stocks while waiting for this to-be-chicken to hatch?
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Generous BCHB to Act but Not For Money
It was only less than a week ago when StockTube blogged on Southern Bank Overstated but It’s OK with COMMERZ which quoted BCHB as saying “PricewaterhouseCoopers discovered “inappropriate accounting'' for some transactions at Southern Bank for 2005 … Auditors has amended the accounts of Bumiputra-Commerce as of June 30, 2006, and no further corrections are required” when it responded to stock exchange.
So, what’s the justification for the latest move? According to the smart BCHB, this is due to the fact that PricewaterhouseCoopers has only highlighted “inappropriate accounting” treatment,not fraud. As such, the view is that the primary burden of accountability rests with the auditors. It is also understood that BCHB does not expect any material gain from taking any such action, as the bank has never relied on SBB's 2005 accounts to price an offer it launched on SBB. To add more flowerish language, BCHB specified that it is pursuing this as a matter of principle and in the interest of helping to improve the country's accounting standards, which is the key to any well-functioning capital market. Aren’t you touched by such a noble measure? At least I am.This is probably the best corporate step ever taken in Malaysia financial market. Not to mention the generousity of BCHB for paying more to take over (hostile) Southern Bank back then. When you purchased a company especially a financial institution, you take assets’ value into consideration because there’s value associated with it. Same thing goes to liabilities and that’s why you’ve to present your balance sheet in your annual report to the authorities and the public to gauge your performance and financial strength. So, logically any Tom, Dick and StockTube will know that BCHB has actually overpay RM160 million (US$47 million) in the acquisition.
Unless BCHB chief executive officer Nazir Razak admits he just plucked the figure from the sky in his rush to buy over Southern Bank. The bad-decision made involved the shareholders’ money as well since the overstated RM160 million needs to be record (or hide) somewhere within the accounting sheets. No? Then I presume the RM160 million will just be erased permanently and disappear into the thin air and hopefully all the shareholders or investors will forget about the whole thing. Furthermore, it’s just US$47 million, a very small amount compare to the potential market capitalization losses should this issue be persuit further.
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Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Would ASTRO Stock Perform Better with Games?
So, when Astro All Asia Network Plc (KLSE: ASTRO, stock-code 5076) announced today that it has selected OpenTV Corp. (Nasdaq: OPTV, stock) as the solution provider for PlayJam Games over the monopolize direct-to-home satellite television, it raised my eyebrow. Astro's new channel, branded Astro Games PlayJam, will be the only games channel available on Astro with this offering. Five new games have been launched which you can subscribe on the basis of pay-per-day. The games launched will be representing a mix of casual, arcade, puzzle, and card games - with future plans to launch two new games per month and also a leaderboard.
Since Astro is the only big boy who monopoly Malaysia’s satellite TV, I’m not going to talk much about the potential of revenue from games offering. As long as Astro could provide a competitive rates and good execution, I can see this new channel might take off handsomely. Let’s look at OpenTV instead, shall we?OpenTV Corp. is a provider of software solutions for digital and interactive television. The Company’s software enables cable, satellite, telecommunications, and digital terrestrial operators, referred to as network operators. It sells its software solutions principally to network operators and manufacturers of digital set-top boxes and also sells related software solutions to broadcasters, programmers and advertisers.
OpenTV has a market capitalization of about $320 million with sales registering $103.4 million over the last 12-months. The gross margin is good at a 53.34%. But its’ income for the last 12-months is in red with minus $10.8 million due mainly to the fact that it’s net profit margin is minus 10.48%.The most recent quarterly earnings report was significantly lower than analysts' consensus forecast and the the price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple is a negative number. No wonder the last stock price was $2.31 per share on the Nasdaq stock market. I just hope this guy will not goes bust.
Above are some of the games developed by OpenTV that you can click and play. Tell me how addicted you are – the more you like it the more you should think about investing Astro stock. *the game should opens in a new window*
Wedding Bell for Malaysia PM Badawi Again
Jeanne, who is the ex-wife of Endon's brother, was born in Kuala Lumpur on July 29 1953 and is the eldest of four siblings. She was educated at Sekolah Menengah Assunta and has wide experience in administration and hotel management and has worked as supervisor of the official residence of the deputy prime minister and manager of the Seri Perdana Complex. Jeanne has two daughters, Nadiah and Nadene.
Well, “Congratulation” to both the to-be groom and bride. It was only about 3 months ago when the premier brushed off the speculation that he hadgotten married. He was reported to be in jovial mood when asked about the gossip on the internet, so now you know why he was in such a mood huh? It was because he hasn’t yet but deep inside he has already made the necessary arrangement for the big-day – so the gossip was only half-right by then.
So I guess it’s true that one cannot perform without a woman *grin*. Nevertheless, it’s the hope of the whole nation to have a more “responsive” and “responsible” premier who can actually put the people’s priority on top in the country’s policies and day-to-day administration, not that he has done anything that the people can be proud of so far. It’s yet to be seen the influence of the soon-to-be first-lady on the premier. Do you think former premier Mahathir Mohamed who has been criticizing Badawi will attend the wedding ceremony? Maybe he’s going to put in another stunt using health as the reason to skip it, maybe not.
Getting Ready to Take Profit on GUESS Stock
For the quarter ended May 5, net income grew to $35.5 million, or 38 cents per share, from $20.7 million, or 23 cents per share in the prior year quarter – easily beats Thomson Financial expected earnings (by a wide margin) of 28 cents per share. Revenue jumped 42 percent to $378 million from $265.7 million in the first quarter of 2007. Analysts predicted revenue of $330.6 million for the quarter.
Of course the good news that all the stock investors who have the faith in this stock and waiting for were the announcement from Guess Inc that raised its full-year 2008 forecast. For the full 2008 fiscal year, Guess said it will now earn between $1.75 per share and $1.80 per share.Previously, the company had said it would earn between $1.65 per share and $1.70 per share (Analysts expect earnings per share of $1.71). If only the same excitement could happens elsewhere such as Malaysia Stock Market.)
Guess shares climbed $2.88, or 6.07 percent, to $50.30 in electronic after-hours trading. During regular trading hours, the shares rose 17 cents to close at $47.42. So I guess I should get myself ready and prepared emotionally to take profit after the opening bell (I could get greedy sometime). You can read below article when I made a long on this stock.Other Articles That May Interest You ...
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Inflation Risks Remains - Bernanke
“Bernanke said in remarks prepared for delivery to a monetary policy conference in Cape Town, South Africa - "Although core inflation seems likely to moderate gradually over time, the risks to this forecast remain to the upside ... The adjustment in the housing sector is still ongoing, and the slowdown in residential construction now appears likely to remain a drag on economic growth for somewhat longer than previously expected."
The text of his speech was made available in Washington. Bernanke delivered his remarks by satellite. Weakness in the housing sector is likely to restrain economic growth for longer than expected, Bernanke said.
Core inflation is "somewhat elevated" but ebbing, Bernanke said, noting that while oil and gas prices have risen, energy costs overall are still lower than at peak levels in 2006. In the meantime, the rate of increase in housing costs, which had contributed to a rise in core inflation, seems likely to slow, although the timing of that deceleration is uncertain, Bernanke said. However, the tight labor market has the potential to contribute to price pressures, the U.S. central bank chairman said.
"The continuing high rate of resource utilization suggests that the level of final demand may still be high relative to the underlying productive capacity of the economy," Bernanke said.
AtList Provides Central Online Directories
Local business directory together with insurance and education directories are amongst the offerings from atList. Based on some researches, even though Internet has entered the second phase in the name of Web 2.0, there’re still businesses which simply do not have their own web-sites. You can’t blame them especially if these business owners are more on SME (small and medium enterprises) and chances are they would just walk away thinking it’s too much of a work to maintain their websites. So, the nearest alternative for these small businesses are to have their company listed in the directory service provider. AtList who is sponsoring this post is providing just that requirement, and it’s free.
The design of the website is quite plain, so I’m surprise to check that there’re six to seven figures of businesses being listed. The shopping and services has more than a million listings while finance and government organizations boast six-figure listings. The main differentiator is in the functionality whereby the consumers can actually write review on how that particular listed company is doing, hence providing two ways of communication between business owners and consumers. However, I hope atList probably can do something about the site's design to make it more attractive.
Black Monday for China Stocks – A Real Correction?
At last, China stock markets show some signs of healthy correction (or does it?) when the stocks tumbled on Monday registering one of the biggest sell-offs in years after the government’s move last week to impose a higher tax on stock trades. Since China government announced last Wednesday that it would triple the stock-trading stamp tax, to 0.3 percent from 0.1 percent, stocks have fallen by a total of about 15 percent in the four sessions.
On Monday, the Shanghai Stock Exchange index plunged 330.34 points, to close at 3,670.40. The other major index, for the Shenzhen exchange, fell 7.9 percent, to 1,039.90. Monday’s drop of 8.3 percent in the benchmark index has raised the fear of a wave of panic selling in China’s financial markets after an extraordinary bull run in which share prices have climbed by more than 300 percent in the last two years.
The sell-off continued Tuesday (June-5, 2007) morning when the Shanghai at one point drops to more than 6 percent but has since recovered into green territory. Frank Song, director of the Center for China Financial Research at the University of Hong Kong said “This is somewhat expected … Last week’s policy change is a strong signal that the government will no longer tolerate this rising bubble.”
Many experts have been warning that stock prices are rising much too fast and that stock valuations are far above historical or global norms but many individual investors have been betting on the market’s reaching ever new highs because of an influx of newly-opened stock accounts - as many as 400,000 on a single day. Also a lot of Chinese believe that the government would not do anything drastic to shake up the stock market before 2008.
Sensing uneasiness amongst investors with the plunge, Chinese financial newspapers has started the calling on investors to act calmly in the wake of the decision. But the Chinese who 
have just found this new money-printing machine are not acting rationally when there’re reports of hackers hacking into several government Web sites, including a finance ministry site and brought it down with the obvious intention of showing their anger online.
Can you imagine what type of other “vandalism” that the millions of investors (or rather gamblers) would do should the stock markets decide to call it quit and start to perform a major correction? From the above scenario, it seems the government has an uphill task in educating investors the basic 101 investing – whatever goes up must comes down and vice versa. So, be real scare when the actual consolidation occurs.
# TIP: If you're a smart Chinese investor, start lock-profit now, at least 50% of your portfolios.
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GUESS is One of Stocks to WatchOut
Guess?, Inc. (NYSE: GES, stock) has confirmed to announce its’ earning tomorrow, Tuesday June-5,2007, after market close. Guess? designs, markets, distributes and licenses a lifestyle collection of casual apparel and accessories for men, women and children. Its apparel is marketed under trademarks, including GUESS, GUESS?, GUESS U.S.A., GUESS Jeans, GUESS? and Triangle Design, Question Mark and Triangle Design, BRAND G, a stylized G, GUESS Kids, Baby GUESS and MARCIANO.
Rating Indicators for GES:
Wall Street consensus : 0.28- StockScouter rating : 6 / 10
- Whisper Number for this stock : 0.28
- Schaeffer rating for this stock : 7 / 10
- Power Rating : 4 / 10
- Insider Trading (last 52 weeks) : ($207.65M)
- Zacks Analysts Rating: Moderate Buy
- Option Trading: Sept 2007 45 Call
- Implied Volatility (IV) for July 2007 $45.0 Strike : 42.83%
Sales, Income & Growth - For the past 12-months, GUESS registered $1.19 Billion sales versus the industry’s $3.04 Billion. Income amounted to $123.17 Million against the industry’s $203.81 Million. While GUESS 12-months sales growth is at 26.60%, the income growth is in the region of 109.40% (the same industry sector sales growth is at 10.80% and income growth of 19.70%).
Profitability & Financial Health – For the past 12-months, net profit margin is in the region of 10.4%. GUESS has a debt/equity ratio of 0.12 compare to industry’s ratio of 1.33.
Stock Resistance & Support Level – The resistance is at 45.79 (52-week high) while the first level support is at 40.95 (50-day moving average).
Risks – The price-to-earnings multiple, 34.10 is higher than the average industry level. Two or more executives, board directors or major shareholders - including one high-level executive: sold a large number of shares recently. The Implied Volatility is rather high.
Last week, strong profit report from apparel retailers Coldwater Creek Inc. which reported first-quarter earnings that beat analyst expectations, helped by a good reception to its spring merchandise gives the much needed hint on how the overall sector will performs. Traditionally Guess has been consistently beats earning by quite a huge margin and gapped up almost immediately thereafter.
Seven Summits Strategic Investments releases its Stocks to Watch Guidewhich amongst others listed Guess Inc. as one of the shorlisted candidates. Seven Summits Investment Research is an independent investment research group, which focuses on the U.S. equities and options markets.
If Bernanke doesn't rattle any nerves, the stock market could well continue moving up and driving higher the riskier segments of the market - he will speaks Tuesday at the International Monetary Conference and is expected to be typically hawkish on inflation. The typically hawkish Richmond Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Lacker speaks on inflation on Wednesday morning, and St. Louis Fed President Thomas Hoenig speaks later that afternoon.
On Wednesday, the government will offer its revised estimate of first-quarter productivity, while Thursday's schedule includes data on consumer credit and wholesale inventories. Friday will bring the figures on the April trade deficit, which is expected to show a decline to $63 billion from $63.9 billion in March.
So, should Guess maintains its’ earning record, the stock might just continue the uptrend currently charted on the board. However please note that the multiple is quite high and couple with the high volatility, you might want to trade the option with sufficient time-value should you choose to do so.
TheNewsRoom Video Monetization Program
The News Room who is sponsoring this post is another provider which has the similar concept in monetizing video contents leveraging on its’ massive inventory of videos benefiting both advertisers and publishers. While YouTube has courted numerous lawsuits on copyright, TheNewsRoom is said to provide access to hundreds of thousands of fully licensed news stories that can be published, or 'mashed', on your site or blog. Their contents are mainly from content provider such as Associated Press (AP), Reuters and Agence-France-Press (AFP).
TheNewsRoom’s video contents are categorized into multiple segments such as politics, business, sports, entertainment, science, health and others. Recognizing the influence of bloggers and sites out there, TheNewsRoom is actually sharing the advertising’s revenue with publishers by enables publishers to make money by embedding their chosen videos into their site(s). This way, the content would be highly targeted, the main reason why Google’s Adsense program is so highly successful. Publishers stand to make money which starts from $1 up to $4 per thousand impression (CPM).
What a publisher needs to do is click on the “Mash” button next to the news to be published and a code will be provided to be embedded into the blog or site. At this moment the supported platforms are Typepad, Movable Type, Blogger’s blogspot, WordPress, WordPad, eBlogger, Wiki, Multiply and Xanga. Payment-type at this moment is confined to check and it was reported that the next roadmap would be PayPal. Payments are made on a monthly basis, provided you have accumulated a balance of $50.00 or more.
However, after browsing through its’ news inventories, I noticed that the content for business category and stocks market are rather out-dated (the latest being June-1 when in fact today is already June-4). Content for nation especially for U.S. is up to date nevertheless. Browsers supported at Internet Explorer 6.0 and FireFox 1.5 with Flash 9.0 to play the content.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Stocks and Economy Stability – 3 Main Factors
The other school of thought is mainly consists of non-Chinese outside of China’s perimeter (this includes certain Hongkies) who think otherwise. This second group of investors had their fingers burnt before and generally have experienced the economic bubble-burst or at least recession once in their lifetime. So, they know the pain when they lost everything almost overnight due to over-exposure. Ask any Hongkies on the street if they’re affected by 1997 Asia Crisis and chances are they would tell you they’ll remember that year for the rest of their life. Although HongKong has one of the highest foreign reserves amongst Asia countries, the reserves were not the magic bullet when recession hits. Economically it’s wise to let the market force takes it’s course rather than pumping the reserves trying to stabilize the waves of destruction.Spin the globe to a small country located north of Singapore called Malaysia. This is probably one of the most gifted countries in the world as far as natural resources are concern. Enough of how tins, rubbers, palm oils and now petroleum enrich the small population of less than 30 millions in Malaysia. A fast comparison between Malaysia and Singapore will tells you the main disease which is pushing Singapore forward but pulling Malaysia backward. It boils down to the government’s efficiency in administrating the countries. There’re basically three main global and internal events which can cause another economy uncertainty to Malaysia:
- U.S. economy – Malaysia reported today its’ export missed forecast as overseas demand for electronics decline for a third straight month. Overseas sales increased 0.9 percent versus expectation of 4.1 percent gain. Malaysia which depends on U.S. (largest export market) for the electronic goods is affected by the super-power’s slowing growth. Exports of electrical and electronics goods fell 11 percent to 19.6 billion ringgit in April but this sector constitute 42 percent of Malaysia’s export. Meanwhile, sales of crude oil fell 19 percent to 2.19 billion ringgit. Should U.S. economy continue to slow or stagnant, Malaysia’s export figure might be the biggest headache for the government. Since you can’t control import figure much, you can only enhance export for a better surplus. How you make full use of the surplus is another issue, so wise-government spending is crucial to balance the overall prosperity of the country.
- China’s factor – As much as I hate China’s economy bubble to burst, it’s always wise to prepare for the worst. The way speculators or rather gamblers buying and pushing the stocks skyrocket are something which gives you the indicator how the bubble is building now. The bubble is definitely there, it’s a matter of how fast the air is being pumped into the balloon and how strong can the balloon takes the incoming air pressure before it burst. This China government will not simply take the action of raising lending interest rate by 0.18 percentage point to 6.57 percent without a strong reason. And the domino-effect of a burst thereafter is something which the government itself wouldn’t dare to imagine.
- Accounting irregularities – the recent Transmile Group Berhad (KLSE:TRANMIL, stock-code 7000) and to a certain stage Bumiputra-Commerce Holdings Berhad (KLSE: COMMERZ, stock-code 1023) accounting irregularities could have a prolong effect to investors confidence if it’s not being handled with care and transparent as being voiced out by various parties. Any sign seen as cover-up could be concluded as more irregularities are being swept under the carpet. The last thing the government would like to see is the pull-put by this last-batch of investors who have just begun to have a little confidence on the current administration.
While there’re more factors affecting a country’s economic stability, at this moment the above three would be the most crucial pillars for a volatile country such as Malaysia which chose to put herself in such scenario rather than climbs the value-chain to reduce the dependencies.
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Make Free UK Local Calls from Abroad
The attraction starts with the promotion of which you can make unlimited U.K. plus free international calls for starting from a fixed 5.99 pounds per month. My eyes were zoomed into the V-Phone which Vonage claims to be the smallest 
phone ever created. And soon I found out why – the smallest phone is actually the size of a thumb-drive which comes preloaded with Vonage Talk software so you don’t have to do any installation. You just need to simply plug the phone into your USB port and you’ve just created yourself a landline phone. Then plugs the earphone into the earpiece plug-in and you’re ready to make some serious calls. The V-phone comes with 256 MB memory for minimal storage.
It makes sense when you’re abroad because it’s cheaper than hotel or mobile calls and if you plan to make local calls (assuming you registered in U.K.) it’s absolutely free. There’s a Vonage community forum which shares almost about anything about the solution including the performance of Vonage stock. But I guess other VoIP provider such as Skype will give Vonage a run for their money if the basic functionality of making an international call is the only requirement. However if you’re looking for other features such as 3-way calling, virtual phone number and voicemail etc, Vonage might still be the choice.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Payment via PayPal - YAHOO YPN to Goes Global
One of the success factors which make Google’s Adsense the most profitable cash-cow program ever created in the
online advertisement industry is the sophisticated-algorithm which has high relevance to the publishers’ content. High relevancy of ads to the content will translate into high click-through rates which in turn make more money for both publishers and advertisers – a win-win business situation. It was estimated that Google's ability to draw more advertisers and show the right ads to searchers lets it earn about 40 percent more from every search than Yahoo does.If the news of Yahoo last week is anything to goes by, publishers could be having more fun when the actual objective (if there’s any) of Yahoo is made known later. Yahoo! Publisher Network announced last week that its’ existing publishers now have the option to be paid via PayPal, rather than by check or by electronic funds transfer. Not only that, existing publishers who opt forpayment via PayPal will enjoy a reduced payment threshold, from $100 to just $50. This will definitely score a point compare to the minimum payout of $100 from Google’s Adsense, not to mention Adsense still doesn’t recognize PayPal after numerous requests from publishers.
More importantly, does Yahoo plan to go global finally? One cannot deny the fact that global advertisers and publishers both contribute to Google’s coffer. Yahoo has been confined within its’ own boundary of U.S. soils, a not so smart business decision considering that cyberspace is already the ultimate market-place for the remaining time to comes – regardless you like it or not. I believe if Yahoo indeed has the plan to open up its’ door to everyone world-wide, it will not only benefits it’s existing shareholders but all the publishers and stock investors who are looking to invest in another Google-equivalent candidate.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Southern Bank Overstated but It’s OK with COMMERZ
Bloomberg reported that and audit on Southern Bank reveals an overstated in 2005 assets by RM160 million (US$47 million) when the Chinese-based bank was forced to be sold to Bumiputra-Commerce Holdings Berhad (KLSE: COMMERZ, stock-code 1023). PricewaterhouseCoopers discovered “inappropriate accounting'' for some transactions at Southern Bank for 2005, including how some derivatives were valued.
Auditors amended the accounts of Bumiputra-Commerce as of June 30, 2006, and no further corrections are required, Bumiputra-Commerce said in a statement to the Malaysian stock exchange today.
Isn’t it puzzling how the overstatement could be amended and the case considered closed? Is there any difference in the case of Transmile Group Berhad (KLSE: TRANMIL, stock-code 7000) where the revenue was overstated compare to this Southern Bank case? While Transmile concerns revenue, Southern Bank is in the assets. Does this mean revenues are more critical than assets? So Chief executive officer Datuk Nazir Razak (the brother of current deputy Premier Najib Razak) is OK with the overstated assets reported by Southern Bank before the purchase? Wow, I haven’t met such a generous person in my life. Doesn’t that mean Bumiputra-Commerce has over-pay Southern Bank? But on the other note, maybe the deal was still attractive even with the overstated assets since it was taken over hostility.
But I guess this is the best solution (no further corrections are required) when the former boss of Southern Bank can walk away happily (or does he?) with the money while Nazir can prevent another episode such as Transmile where the stock-slide could wipe out possibly billions of dollars in capitalization depreciation.
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Encyclocentral with Informative Articles
As such the Encyclocentral posses the same characteristic of which it has over 9000 original, informative and authoritative articles all written by experts in their various fields. It has multiple categories such as Music & Movies which have some short writeup on hot movies such as Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Spiderman, Terminator and so on. Other categories include computers and internet, legal, gadgets, food and drink and business and finance.
Out of curiosity, I tried to do a search for “Stocks Investing” and found one article titled Zecco. It was interesting to know that Zecco actually stands for Zero Cost Commission and Zecco actually refers to Zecco Trading, a division of Equinox Securities, which is a member of the NASD and SIPC, and also a fully disclosed broker and dealer. Headquartered in Ontario, California, Zecco claims that you can trade in stocks, options, bonds, and mutual funds at one place. Zecco allows a person to make up to 10 trades per day, and a maximum of 40 trades per month at no cost, after which small amount will be charged per stock trading. Upon further checking, Zecco actually made money from online advertisements and interests from margin accounts. Such are the different ways to make money out there in the cyberspace.
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PROTON Fails to Beg VW - Expect More Failures
Second Finance Minister Mohamed Yakcop said the following “Even though Volkswagen is no longer interested, we have to look for other”. Nor Mohamed declined to say whom the government was talking to, but added that it had to move fast to find a partner for state-controlled Proton Holdings Bhd (KLSE: PROTON, stock-code 5304). Asked if a decision on Proton's partner could be made within the next three months, he said, "Certainly." If you believe his statement again, I wouldn’t know what to say. I wouldn’t be surprise if Proton is actually NOT talking to anyone at this moment.
Malaysia's government, which controls Proton through a 43 percent stake held by state investment arm Khazanah Nasional Bhd., has been searching for a partner for the carmaker since an alliance with Mitsubishi Motors Corp. ended in 2004. Abdullah had said earlier that Malaysia would talk to US motor firm General Motors if talks with Volkswagen were to fall through.Now, it seems the only candidate left for Proton is General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM, stock) who earlier rumored (Business Times) to be willing to fork out as much as 10 ringgit (US$2.85) for each Proton share earlier in January 2007. Of course you have to take such news with a pinch of salt as nobody in their right minds would be idiot enough to buy such a company, not that Malaysia’s market is huge. The people who arranged for the news to be out to the public already made tons of money when the stock price was bid-up then (by speculators). I’ve written too many articles on this bleeding company that I’m getting sick and tired with the same losses reported and the same excuses given by the top government officers in turnaround the company.
# TIP: Avoid this stock at all cost unless you prepare to take the beat. The stock is supported at current price mainly due to Khazanah Nasional’s majority stake.
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Listen to StockTube Make Money Tip via Podcasting
Podcasting according to Wikipedia.com is; “the distribution of audio or video files, such as radio programs or music videos, over the internet using either RSS or Atom syndication for listening on mobile devices and personal computers.”
In short Podcasting is the broadcasting of audio after it had been translated from text (within the blogs or websites) to the audiences. It works just like the radio concept. If you switch on the radio you’ll hear your favorite DJ’s sweat voice on the air, when in actual fact the DJ was probably reading from the prepared script or some other written materials.
So, if you’re too lazy to do the reading of what has been posted on the blog, I’ve prepare the Podcasting option so that you can listen to it. At the end of every article or post, you’ll notice the “Listen Online” link just like below:
If you click of it, it’ll open another small window and start streaming the audio before you can listen to it online. As an example you can click on below to listen to the whole content of this new post.
Because Podcasting relies on the RSS or Atom syndication, you would be only be able to listen to whatever posts which are being fed into RSS and that means the latest 25 posts. The sole purpose of RSS is to deliver the latest articles to readers, so from the logical note it doesn’t make sense to have feeds on archive or older posts. But I do hope that the limitation could be extended. In the meantime, try it out and enjoy the fun of Podcasting. And don’t forget to let me know if you like this new feature by putting down your comment.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Make Money and Run – GOOGLE Can be Skinned Again
This position was actually opened on Apr-19, 2007 just before the earning announcement. To refresh my readers, I long the position with GOOG June $470 Call Option after my analysis here at YAHOO's Loss is GOOGLE's Gain -Time to Make Money. And it sure did beat earning and reward me with a whopping $19 per share gap the next day. I’ve blogged earlier that I did not plan to close the position even though it was in profitable position as I need to see if it actually can establish a new $482 support level (read it here at MoneyMaking Machine GOOGLE - Did You Make the Money). Most importantly I wanted to see if it can break the $500 level.
If you look at the chart, the stock did hovering at the support of $475 for a couple of days before it dived to level below it. It continues downwards and tested the second support of $461 before it re-surfaces for oxygen. Once it came out from the under-water and traded above $475, I know I’ve to get ready to take my money and run when the opportunity comes. And it did come – partly helped by the news of the resignation of the technology chief of Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO, stock) yesterday. Since Google is a very expensive stock, I couldn’t afford to buy option with very high time-value. Hence, I guess this would be my best opportunity (no more greed this time) to ring the register.
Nevertheless, I’m pessimistic that Google can stay above $500 per share for long. So, shall Ishort this guy since the resistance of $505 is very strong? You make your own decision and research before jumping into the boat. There’re many ways to skin a cat – Google is a good example of a stock which has volatility for you to make money in whatever way you like, and I’m using just the simple Support-Resistance technical analysis.
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Transmile in RED But The Story Has Not Ended
The auditor found that in the financial year ended December 31, 2006, invoices were issued and recorded for purported services to 20 companies totalling US$ 98 million dollars (RM 333 million). The auditors also found invoices issued for purported services to 19 companies totalling 197 million ringgit in the 2005 financial year. The findings may result in Transmile having to re-state its 2006 and 2005 earnings if full provisions have to be made. According to the unaudited results for 2006 released to Bursa Malaysia on Feb 15, Transmile reported an 80% surge in revenue to RM989.2mil from RM550mil a year earlier. Net profit more than doubled to RM157.5mil against RM74.8mil in 2005.
The findings may result in Transmile having to re-state its 2006 and 2005 earnings if full provisions have to be made. If the overstating figures were to be taken into consideration, Transmile's 2006 pretax profit of 207 million ringgit could be reduced to a loss of 126 million, while the 2005 pretax profit of 120 million could be cut to a 77 million ringgit loss. Besides Kuok, Transmile's shareholders include JP Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS, stock), the Singapore government and national postal company Pos Malaysia & Services Holdings (KLSE: POSHLDG, stock-code 4634).
Transmile said it had formed an executive committee (exco) which assumed authority of the chief executive officer, Gan Boon Aun, "arising from governance issues relating to the release of the announcement on the unaudited consolidated results for the financial year ended December 31, 2006." The exco chaired by Kuok Khoon Ho also comprises two other board members - Tan Sri A. Razak Ramli and Datuk Abu Hairaira Abu Yazid. The three exco members are non-executive directors.
“These findings are the first instalment of an ongoing special audit and updates of any further material findings will be made as they become available,” Transmile chairman Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik said in the statement. Ling was the former president of MCA, one of the component parties of the current ruling government. So, I guess he “doesn’t” know anything about this accounting problem and as innocent as you and me.
While the “raid” by the Securities Commission (SC) should be commended, the job is not done yet. You can read nevertheless how SC comes out today to claim victory by stating it will not let up on efforts to ensure that the market is rid of all forms of irregularities and corporate misconduct, and that high standards of corporate governance and investor protection prevail. If this is another empty promise, please do not overdo it, not that I’ve already pass a guilty judgement on the SC. Will anyone be charged for this case? Inflating 30% more in profit is not something which can be taken lightly as the whole country’s equity market could be taken down as well.
On the other hand, will the shareholders see stern actions to be taken against NasionCom Holdings (KLSE: NSCOM, stock-code 0073) culprits, former Managing Director Chee Kok Wing, Director Tan Teck Hong, former Director Shamsul Khalid Ismail, shareholder Mah Soon Chai who inflate the revenue figure? If found guilty, would they be put behind bars or will they be given the option to happily pay the fines?
What about Deloitte KassimChan as the reporting accountant together with stockbroking firm Hwang DBS Securities Berhad in the restructuring of Ocean Capital Bhd and Pasaraya Hiong Kong? Shareholders might not trust the Managing Director of a listed company but most of them trust independent accountants because they’re supposed to be independent as far as dollars and cents are concern. So it’s everyone’s hope the SC will not start celebrating but continue with the roles and tasks that it’s suppose to carry to protect the smaller shareholders.
# TIP: Though Transmile might not be the ENRON but let the stock price settle to where it should be before buying in stages. I do not believe Transmile will collapse just because of this irregularity, but the same cannot be said for Nasioncom.
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Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Will TIFFANY Stock as Shines as The Jewelry?
Fragrance products are sold under the trademarks, such as TIFFANY, PURE TIFFANY and TIFFANY FOR MEN. Tiffany also sells other brands of timepieces and tableware in its United States stores.
Rating Indicators for TIF:
Wall Street consensus : 0.35- StockScouter rating : 8 / 10
- Whisper Number for this stock : 0.34
- Schaeffer rating for this stock : 6 / 10
- Power Rating : 7 / 10
- Insider Trading (last 52 weeks) : ($22.20 M)
- Zacks Analysts Rating: Moderate Buy
- Option Trading: Nov 2007 50.00 Call
- Implied Volatility (IV) for Jul 2007 $50.00 Strike : 26.99%
Sales, Income & Growth - For the past 12-months, Tiffany registered $2.65 Billion in sales versus the industry’s $2.76 Billion. Income amounted to $253.93 Million against the industry’s $220.03 Million. While Tiffany’s 12-months sales growth is at N/A the income growth is in negative0.30% (the same industry sector sales growth is at N/A and income growth of 1.90%).
Profitability & Financial Health – For the past 12-months, net profit margin is in the region of 9.6%. Tiffany has a debt/equity ratio of 0.29 compare to industry’s ratio of 0.27.
Stock Resistance & Support Level – The resistance is at 53.70 (52-week high) while the first level support is at 48.45 (50-day moving average)
Risks – The ratio of Tiffany's price-to-earnings multiple (28.50) is rather high and above the average of all stocks within the same sector.
Jewelry retailer Tiffany & Co. said on Tuesday it would open a new men's boutique in Japan later this year -- the first of its kind that will sell jewelry and accessories made exclusively for men. "Tiffany & Co. The Men's Store" will open in the men's building of Isetan Department Store in the busy commercial district of Shinjuku in Tokyo.
Set to open in early September, the store will sell merchandise designed specially for men such as watches and jewelry designed by luminaries like Frank Gehry, Jean Schlumberger and Elsa Peretti, the company said. Tiffany already sells men's jewelry and accessories in its other stores, and through its Web site. Currently, there are no plans to open similar stores in Tiffany's U.S. and European markets, though the company sees potential in the idea.
What attracts me to this stock is the almost 45 degrees uptrend – though there were past quarters where it didn’t beat earning, the trend was intact and has been consistent for more than a year. Last week however, HSBC Global Research analyst said the stock has limited room for growth in the near term and trimmed the stock to “Neutral” from “Overweight”. The stock is up 22 percent since the end of February, when billionaire investor Nelson Peltz disclosed he owns about 5.4 percent of Tiffany. Peltz, who has investments in Heinz, Wendy's and Triarc Companies, is an activist shareholder known for agitating management for change. So you can’t blame the analysts for being extra cautious.
Interesting enough, the same HSBC analyst raised his price target for Tiffany by $3 to $55 per share. The analyst also forecast Tiffany will beat the earning by a penny and sales at $598 million, which is below the average analyst estimate of $607.6 million. If the stock plunges tomorrow by big gap, it will reverse the current trend and a Put option might be the magic bullet to make more money while I’m still holding the Call option which has great amount of time-value. Alternatively I can convert my Call option to a spread.
Zoellick - The World Bank New Captain
Zoellick, 53, would succeed Paul Wolfowitz, who is stepping down June 30 after findings by a special bank panel that he broke bank rules when he arranged a hefty compensation package in 2005 for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, a bank employee. The controversy led to calls for Wolfowitz to resign from the poverty-fighting institution.
A seasoned veteran of politics both inside the Beltway and on the international stage, Zoellick is known for pulling facts and figures off the top of his head. He also has a reputation for being a demanding boss. Zoellick announced last June that he was leaving his post as deputy secretary of state to join the Wall Street firm of Goldman Sachs and work to develop investment markets around the world.Zoellick could build upon strong relations he has developed worldwide as deputy secretary and U.S. Trade Representative. He was involved in peace talks in Sudan and as USTR he played a key role in negotiations to bring China into the World Trade Organization. He forged free trade deals between the United States and other countries, including Singapore, Chile, Australia and Morocco.
Lina Joy Losses Appeal – More to Come?
Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim and Federal Court judge Justice Alauddin Mohd Sheriff delivered the majority decision dismissing her appeal. Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Justice Richard Malanjum dissented. Lina Joy, 42, who was born to a Malay Muslim couple, became a Christian when she was 26. The sales assistant has taken her case all the way to the Federal Court because unless the government recognizes her conversion, she cannot get married under civil law. As long as the word “Islam” remains on her identity card, Lina cannot marry her Christian boyfriend, a cook, under the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976.
While Lina managed – the second time around – to get the National Registration Department to change her name from Azlina Jailani in 1999, accepting that she had renounced Islam, it refused to remove the word “Islam” from her MyKad.In 2001, she took her case against the NRD director-general, the Government and the Federal Territory Religious Council to the High Court. She lost – Justice Faiza Tamby Chik held that Malays could not renounce Islam because a Malay was defined in the Constitution as “a person who professes the religion of Islam,” adding it was the syariah court that had the jurisdiction in matters related to apostasy.
Back in Dec 2005, a controversy was triggered following the death of Mount Everest climber Sergeant M. Moorthy alias Muhammad Abdullah. His widow, S. Kaliammal, and the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Council were embroiled in a legal tussle over the right to bury him when it was discovered that he had converted to Islam the previous year. His widow, however, sought a declaration in the civil court that Moorthy lived a Hindu life.
On Dec 28, 2005, the High Court ruled that it would not disturb the declaration that Moorthy was a Muslim because the latter was under the purview of the Syariah Court system and he was eventually buried according to Muslim rites. I’m just wondering if Moorthy would be involved in such a tussle if he’s not a Mount Everest hero.
Check for Your Unclaimed Money Online
It’s just amazing what internet can do for you nowadays – from speedy information to the ability to talk, chat, instant messaging and conducting e-commerce within a split of a second. Indeed you should be thankful for being alive to experience the power of internet. Basically you can survive solely on the net, not that I want to constraints myself within the four walls of my house. I can do most of my billing, stocks investing, option trading, making money online, e-transaction and others with my great and reliable Fujitsu notebook – everything under the air-conditioned room.
Now you can even check if you’ve unclaimed cash you didn’t know exists at the first place. It is estimated that 9 out of 10 Americans have cash that sits idling without being claimed. So, if you suspect you might have unclaimed money, how do you go about it? One of the 
service provider iscashunclaimed which claims to have one of the largest databases or unclaimed money in the world. It was estimated that millions of people actually didn’t know there’re unclaimed money under their name of which they didn’t know about it.
Basically these unclaimed monies are in the form of forgotten savings and checking accounts, un-cashed checks, dividends, wages, utility refunds, insurances claims and others. To me, I think forgotten savings and un-cashed checks could constitute the majority of it, at least for me. I used to have “kids saving” which I still have not cash out yet and with all the interest accumulated all these years, the figure could be mind-boggling. Also every now and then I received some checks for dividends declared for my stocks. Not that I’m cash-rich but sometimes I just misplaced and forgotten about it in days to come. I believe you face the same problem as well. Cases where people moved to another place without properly update their latest addresses also complicated the matter.
So, cashunclaimed who is sponsoring this post actually allows you to check if you’ve some money stuck somewhere else without you realizing it. I’ve checked mine but unfortunately there’s none. I tried to play around with the database, and guess what, Bill Gates has $9,809.62 unclaimed cash but I guess he would probably make more than that rather than wasting his time claiming for it. George Bush has $3,662.27, Britney Spears has $992.56, Michael Jackson has $32,695.08, Paris Hilton has $263.10 unclaimed cash while Warren Buffett has none.
Once you found out that you can lay your hand to your new found fortune you need to pay a small amount of fee to access the detail information of the name, phone number and location of the institution(s) holding the money as well as the instructions you will need to claim the found money.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Could FTC Stop GOOGLE from Being Too Big and Arrogant?
The inquiry which started last week would be conducted by Federal Trade Commission (FTC) instead of the normal Justice Department. It was reported that FTC will decide within days if the case would be escalated into the second stage known as “second request” for information – a stage which means the seriousness of the antitrust issue is higher than the initial inquiry.
Electronic Privacy Information Center together with Center for Digital Democracy and the United States Public Interest Research Group have formally filed a request for FTC to investigate the privacy implications, claiming that Google collects the search histories of its users, while DoubleClick tracks what Web sites people visit.
“The merger, if allowed, would “give one company access to more information about the Internet activities of consumers than any other company in the world.”
However, from the legal perspective,privacy is not an antitrust issue and regulators will most likely weigh the likely impact on competition and struggle with tricky technical matters like defining the relevant market to measure. As expected, Google said it was confident that the deal would withstand scrutiny.
For once, I agreed and would like to see Google being stopped from being the unstoppable giant who has already shown arrogance after cornering the online search and advertising market. As much as I like to put the blame on the incompetency of Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO, stock) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT, stock) search engine, something has to be done to stop Google from continues to grow with its’ super-deep pocket. Even though Google has made me some good money in the past, but the internet are slowly and surely being munched by it and most likely at the current moment my personal data as well as yours could be archive already within Google’s database and this is simply unacceptable.
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Monday, May 28, 2007
Which Stocks to Invest - GENTING OR Public Bank?
Now, having suggested that you can invest your new found windfall inGenting Berhad (KLSE: GENTING, stock-code 3182) doesn’t mean that you cannot look at other stocks which you think would generate better return for you. I used the word “think” because even after you did a comprehensive research and analysis, your portfolio is stillsubject to external factors. You don’t think your stock will goes up in one direction only, do you? If China economy suddenly decided to make a major correction, you don’t think your stocks are in-vulnerable, do you? So, please don’t take the ten alternatives as the holy-bible – you should have your own investment strategy and stocks preference.And so I received multiple mails concerning Genting stocks, one of my readers asked me if Public Bank Berhad (KLSE: PBBANK, stock-code 1295) or Berjaya Sports Toto Berhad (KLSE:BJTOTO, stock-code 1562) could be a better alternatives to Genting reasoning that the dividend of Genting is rather pathetic. Well, the reader is right if you’re looking from the dividend point of view. In fact there’re tons of other stocks which can give you greater dividend compare to Genting, such as Nestle (KLSE: NESTLE, stock-code 4707), Guiness Anchor (KLSE: GUINESS, stock-code 3255) and other consumer-based listed companies. These companies are almost recession-proof, mind you, simply because its’ business can be projected and hence the profit-loss are within their control.
Having said so, I do not have problem if anyone prefers to buy Public Bank. As a matter of fact Teh Hong Piow is probably one of the most admired captain in the corporate world, I blogged about him in Teh Hong Piow - Malaysian's Warren Buffettback in March. Imagine a 1,000 Public Bank shares in 1967 would now be owner of 129,720 Public Bank shares worth a whopping RM1.16mil. Together with RM 391,000 paid out in gross dividends, Teh said the net worth of the 1,000 shares would be RM1.55mil, which represented a compounded annual return of 20% for each of the 39 years.However there’re certain facts about Public Bank which made me abit nervous. Amongst others is the lack of succession plan for Public Bank. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A,stock) is worth US$ 109,320.00 per share today mainly because investors are willing to pay premium for the captain. While Public Bank is currently being administered by Tay Ah Lek (of course Teh Hong Piow still overseas the group), Genting has a successful transition in the form of Lim Kok Thay. In terms of expansion both companies recognized the need to expand out of the soil of Malaysia. Genting has been doing great in both UK and Singapore while Public Bank has branches in Hong Kong and getting ready to pounce on China once the foreign banking liberalization starts.
If you’re looking at how the dividend pay-outs look like for both companies, the chart has the data(from the year 2000) which shows how Public Bank shareholders were rewarded with special dividends since 2005. Prior to that the dividend pay-out for both are almost the same but when you take the appreciation of stock-price into consideration, Genting is obviously the winner with a whopping 200% gain versus Public Bank 50%. I do not have the data of stock-split for the time period (let me know if you have and would like to share with the rest of the readers) although I can get it through the tedious way.Market talk has it that Teh Hong Piow might call it a day and potentially sell the group soon. But this is a giant that has great value and any buyer would have to prepare to pay high premium for it. The chances of him selling it to existing local banking institution might not be there at this moment but it could spring a surprise by acquiring instead of selling. Also it might opened up for foreigners to acquire it should the price be right (could that be the reason why the stock price has risen steadily recently?) – at least that’s the best thing the Malaysian-Buffett can do before his retirement. Nevertheless from the impact-analysis, I would still prefer Genting but the timing and price has to be right.
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Sunday, May 27, 2007
StockTube Weekend Update - Buy Me Latte or Beer
I’ve taken some time during the weekend to evaluate my blog design and positioning to make it better (of course you can chip in some suggestions if you want) from the eyes of my readers. Due to the fact that I’m running this blog on Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG, stock) Blogger platform I’m at their mercy as far as functionality and features are concern. Those of you who’re running your blog under the same provider as mine should understand what I’m talking about. I’ve the plan to get my own domain and host it on some hosting service provider but then I’ll need to start all over again with PageRank of zero.
Another problem with blogger who has been using Blogger is the fact that should you decide to migrate to new Blogger’s layout which enable you to have “Page Element” so that you can inject some feeds into it, you would most probably loose most of the customization that you’ve done all this while. Even if you know html, chances are you wouldn’t be able to get the exact look of what you’re having now on classic template unless of course you’ve not done any major cosmetic facelift to your initial ugly-looking template.
I still don’t understand why the biggest search giant Google couldn’t at least recruit some good designer to come out with nice and cool looking template the same way WordPress did. If you look around, most of those fascinating webpage designs are from WordPress, not to say the quantity of these quality templates out-sized Bloggers’. Conclusion – Blogger’s template simply sucks. Come to think of it, if you’re good in programming you might be able to make good money by converting those WordPress templates to be compatible with Blogger’s and sell it for some bucks. I’m sure the free hosting provided by Blogger together with cool themes from WordPress would swing most of bloggers back to Google.
Anyway, you should have noticed that I’ve renovated the right-side navigation column here to make it wider to accommodate more widgets or stuff like that. If you’re using 800px width blog just like me (for the sole reason of accommodating readers who are still using such screen resolution) you would face the same space constraints issue should you decide to opt for 3-columns design.
You’ll also notice I’ve put bookmark and RSS feed buttons to facilitate readers to use it. But the most important feature is that you can now buy me Coffee Latte by clicking on the small mug under every post (can you see it?) if you’ve enjoyed reading my posts. Supposing you’ve read all my posts or articles and think I should deserve more, you can choose to buy me beer by clicking on the beer glass located at right-side of this blog. And I promise I won’t make a single complaint about it. Best still, you can of course choose to buy me both – Coffee and Beer.
Having done so, please “Stumble” me and add this blog to your Technorati Favorites. And if you want to have fun and tag your location from wherever you’re currently is, you can join my Frappr community (located at the bottom of this blog) – would love to see if you’re from Mars.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Conduct More Raid On Company with Accounting Irregularity
The cargo firm told the Malaysian bourse on May 7 that the audit could not be finalised due to the absence of "relevant supporting documentation from the management on certain transactions." The transactions concerned its trade receivables and related sales, and additions to its property, plant and equipment assets. The company also appointed a risk management firm to conduct a special audit and said it it would try to finalise its financial statements for its annual shareholders meeting in the second half of June.You Can Promote Your Blog The Conventional Way
It’s weekend, so allow me to talk about something else besides stocks and making money online. Besides hobby, do you know that since the creation of stickers, this medium has been used as one of the most marketing tools in our life? You can see fanatic soccer fans proudly display their teams’ sticker throughtout their car’s windscreen and as a matter of fact, anywhere they can find the place. Multinational companies depend heavily on stickers to promote their products – a very obvious example would be when you visit or watching Formula-1 race event.
If you’re really crazy about stickers, you can actually custom-made so that you are the only one has the design.Customizedstickers.com is one of the companies which provide such service – from bumper, window to your own customization stickers. They provide free design with unlimited colors, some company charge you by the number of color you require. Their custom stickers are printed on premium-grade while vinyl stock for added strength and durability. On top of that it’s being treated withUV-resistant varnish to protect the stickers from fading. I’m sure you didn’t realize such a simple stickers would have such a complicated process, do you?
Alternatively if you want to submit your own artwork, you can do so. If you happen to be in NewYork, you’ll noticed lots of stickers being sticked onto taxis and so on for the sole purpose of promotion. Even in Malaysia you can see how JobStreet advertise their service and website on taxis. Hey, you can even customize some stickers with your own blog information and promote it this way. I’m sure in no time the traffic to you site will increase many fold.
Friday, May 25, 2007
TOP 10 Things You Can Do With RM15,600
Supposing you’re holding Maxis Communications Berhad (KLSE: MAXIS, stock-code 5051) share now and has been cursing Ananda Krishnan for the low offer price for his ambitious privatization plan. Since then you’ve been dreaming It's RM15.60 for Your MAXIS Shares - Would You Sell? You couldn’t make a decision but in actual fact you do not have much choice going by the paper as you’re being forced to let go of you baby regardless you like it or not. So, just let it go and move on with your life (most long-term investors are so attached with their shares) – there’re always a better trade tomorrow.
Judging from the numbers it seems Genting’s UK casino arm, Stanley Leisure and Maxims Casino Club has become an entity which is getting more and more important in terms of revenue contribution. Genting Berhad, the only sole casino operator in Malaysia has indeed made the right decision to diversify specifically to United Kingdom and recently won the project in Singapore.Genting’s UK casino operation contributed close to RM 400 million to the groups’ chest. However the good number registered overall was partly due to one-off gains from disposals of existing Resorts World Bhd shares after the conversion of exchangeable notes into Resorts shares.
Fundamentally, Genting has consistently registers an uptrend in terms of EPS from RM1.32 in 2004 to RM2.12 in 2006. The same trend applies to Sales Growth. Income Growth and ROE however has been on a stagnant note since 2005. The excitement is definitely in the Singapore’s Sentosa Project which it won recently and is expected to contribute enormously to its bottom line.Technically, the support is at RM 7.80 and should this level be breached, the next support would be RM 6.40. At this moment the MACD is still weak and has not trigger and “Buy” signal yet.So, what are you going to do with your $15,600 (assuming you’re holding 1,000 shares of Maxis) once you dispose it to Ananda Krishnan?
- You can buy double the shares of Genting – meaning if you’re holding 1,000 shares of Maxis now, you can buy 2,000 Genting shares (assuming you’re buying at RM 7.80). This is made possible and afffordable after the recent Genting stock-split of one 50-sen share into five 10-sen shares. It depends on the Genting stock price by the time you receive your hard-cash, of course.
You can buy Genting shares in stages (e.g. 4 stages of 500 shares each or even 10 stages of 200 shares each) to get the best average stock price.- You can wait (and hope) for Genting to continue to slide below RM 7.80 and buy at the second support of RM 6.40 (hey, anything is possible).
- You can be adventurous and consider other Telcolisted companies such as Green Packet Berhad (KLSE: GPACKET, stock-code 0082) or DIGI.com Berhad (DIGI: stock-code 6947) but please do you research and homework first. I’m not asking you to jump in blindly, in fact it’s the most dangerous thing to do and take my blog’s suggestion as the ultimate bible.
- You can keep the money in the bank, earning the pathetic interest and wait for the stock market to make major correction due to external factors (China’s factor) before you pounce on other cheap offers.
- You can divert your intention to investing property because you’re sick and tired of Malaysia stock market.
- You can learn the interesting alternative of trading option or even investing U.S. stocks which has higher volatility, transparency and flexibility. You can even get to trade at an attractive commission-charged of below $1.00 per contract.
- You can learn how to trade forex (foreign exchange) since Malaysia Currency Continues to Strengthen. Heck, for all you know, you might have the potential to become George Soros.
- You can use the money to renovate your house in order to brag that you’re wealthy.
- You can use the money as the down payment to get a new car.
You can do 1,001 things with that kind of cash but you better plan in advance with your hard-earned “wind-fall”. With the privatization fever at top speed, you might hit the jackpot againshould Genting decide to join in the bandwagon. So, what would you do with the cash? Appreciate if you can share it here.
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Make More Money with PayPerPost DIRECT
What does this PPP-Direct do is it allows you to take offers directly from any advertiser visiting your site, meaning you can negotiate with the advertisers on either terms of the content and the price. Before this, some nasty and stingy advertisers want you to write 300 words of review for a mere $5. Worst still they want you to enclose multiple links and images – you can see all these requests idling untouch by most publishers, including me.
What you need to do is to place the badge specified (though I hopePayPerPost can get their design team to come out with more attractive badges and colors option) into your blog so that anyone who’s interested in getting your service will click on the badge and be presented with a form to create the opportunity just for you alone. PPP in turns will get 10% to help you facilitate the transaction. Wow, this is where PPP is really serious in helping you make money bloggingbecause ReviewMe is charging a whopping 50% markup fees. Indirectly you would have problem getting good money from ReviewMe – those who really made the kill are those A-list bloggers who have tons of traffic.
Just think it this way – supposingly I’ve two badges on my blog, both worth $100 per review. Come an advertiser who’s interested with my writing style and click on badge-A for my service – I’ll get $50 while the badge-A provider gets the remaining $50. Compare that with PPP who’s taking only $10 (10% fees) and the whole $100 goes to my own pocket. Why should I get less money for the same job well-done?
On of the setup though, especially for blogger using Google’s Blogger platform, the limitationappears when you happily try to install the badge - you actually need to upgrade your classic template to their latest layout because it’s using “Page Element” to inject the code into your template. But the problem with the latest layout is that it’s so inflexible to manipulate the contents of your template. How I wish PPP has another way for bloggers who are using the old fashion template to participate. Anyway, I'm trying to see if I can migrate sooner than later as this program is absolutly gorgeous.
p.s. if you have not sign for the PPP program what are you waiting for? Learn it here atPayPerPost
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Two Major GOOGLE News in One Day
Feedburner was founded back in 2003 and mainly funded by Portage Ventures which chipped in $1 million in 2004 and another $9 million from Mobius Venture Capital and Union Square Ventures in late 2006. Not bad for a 10 times profit within such a short-time period.
The second major news would be more of an internal announcement whereby Google has started to move into making money with YouTube of which was bought at $1.65 billion recently. Google Adsense publishers should have received email from Adsense Team that some selective publishers have been selected to pilot test streaming video ads in their online video content. With this pilot, publishers control when the ads play in their videos and choose which videos get the ads.
Most people prefer to click on video rather than reading text if given both options. In summary, I can only say Google’s stocks will continue to soar as the revenue will simply going to beat analysts’ estimate again. Watch out when the video advertisement goes in full-swing and may the force be with you.
A Review of Zac Johnson
To my readers who have been constantly following up with my blog, they know the main content of StockTube. I’ve not done any poll to get info (I’ll do that soon) but I’m pretty sure most of them are investors who are crazy about stocks market while the remaining are looking for ways to make money in other ways such as the simple method of making pocket money with PayPerPost. Since I started blogging from October 2006, I’ve never stop contributing posts to StockTube and has since clocked more than 400 posts translating into more than 1 (one) post perday. In short I’m addicted to this type of new hobby – could someone please stop me!
However, I would like to stress that StockTube is a site on making money specifically in stocks investing and option trading but I’ve also expand my blogging topics horizon to include making money online and any other interesting topics which I believe are beneficial to my readers. Hey, I don’t talk, sleep and dream about stocks only – I still have other interest which I share with my community of friends and, readers here of course.
I was surprised when a young guy by the name of Zac Johnson ordered up a ReviewMe to provide a review of his blog. Not that he share the great interest in stocks investing (his only stocks investing post was his testing investment by following Jim Cramer’s Action Alert Plus but interesting enough he's making good money) but my bet was he noticed that my blog’s topic covers other money making alternatives as well. Since his blog is about Make Money with Super Affiliate Zac Johnson I strongly believe he’s looking for more than that – he’s looking at networking based on his profile. Funny that not many people realizes that the survival of blogs and any businesses actually depend heavily on networking.
His blog is a relatively young blog (3 months old) with normal looking interface as far as the design is concern but it’s simple enough to navigate and this is one of the success factors in most of the website out there. Probably the main attraction in his branding is the image of him with the crown together with some dollar notes in his hand. It might not be a super-duper brand which can translate his blog into a multi-million site such as CNN but first-time readers will definitely remember him for that.
He claimed that he made over $100,000 in sales from Amazon’s associate program and made 5-15% out of it. I’m not surprise if it’s true (although I believe his readers wouldn’t mind him disclosing more of his checks) because back then not many people know the potential of making money online. Internet was relatively new and I believe when Zac made his small fortune, Google wasn’t borned yet. Based on the ratio of his limited posts againsts topics on affiliate programs I believe Zac is a good marketer who knows what he’s talking – he might not be a great writer though (not that I’m better than him).
I’m not going to debate and argue whether he’s fit to use the title “Super Affiliate”as it depends on who you are to judge him. If you’ve making 6-figures per month consistenly from your affiliate programs, you might brush Zac off as another young chap trying to brag. On the other hand if you’ve been trying to make money for years with affiliate programs but still ended up with 2 or 3 figures, you might take Zac as your idol. Nevertheless I hope Zac could write more on the affiliate programs together with the money he made to shut some of the readers up. Get real, there’re thousands of affiliate programs out there, not to mention some scam-programs. As long as you can guide your readers to make legitimate big money, you’re super affiliate guru.
Having said that Zac might want to makes the RSS feed button smaller. Everyone knows what that orange button is so there’s no real need to promote that, not that you can monetize great money out of it. And I sincerely hope he can write more so that his readers can benefit from his experience in affiliate programs. Along the way I’m sure he would have tested tons of affiliate programs and if only he can tell his side of the story on bad and scam programs, it would benefit most of his readers. Also if Zac is serious about making money investing stocks, then Booyah to him and he's most welcome to visit StockTube more often *grin*.
Proton Continues to Bleed But PM's Taking It Easy
However the Second Finance Minister Nor Yakcop stressed that the government needs more time to solve the issue. He further added that the goveenment will not bail-out the ailing Proton, not that the government has huge excessive money to do so. But if you read how Wealthy Malaysia Spending Like There's No Tomorrow, you would imagine the government should have the means to rescue it unless it doesn’t wish to do so or there’re just a couple of notes left in the chest.
So far in order to maintain its existence, Proton has encouraged some dealers to close down their business by offering some amount of compensation. Edge Daily reported that Proton plans to cut the number of dealers by 20 percent by the end of June. Bloomberg reported that Malaysian car dealers has a mind-boggling inventory of over 600,000 unsold used cars worth more than 12 billion ringgit (USD$3.5 billion). A fast solution could be selling it at half price or export it to African countries – at least you can recover some of the capital. In the world of stocks investing, this is known as “cut-loss”whereby you do not wish to drown further together with the Titanic.Meanwhile, Malaysian vehicle sales continue to fell for a 15h straight month in April as the falling value of used cars and stricter financing made it harder for buyers to purchase new ones. Already there’re reports of cash-flow issue which is slowly but surely eating up Proton’s reserve.Proton’s reserve of RM 3 billion has declined to the current RM 0.5 billion currently.
Pride is only applicable for capable and quality company and management. You can’t have and show your pride at the negotiation table when you’re actually begging for the other party to help you get out of the wood both technically and manageability. You definitely can’t demand your rescuer to inject funds to help clear your mess. But most importantly you can’t demand to sit on thecaptain’s seat as if you’ve the skillsets to turnaround the company when in fact you’ve screwed up big time once the little protection hurdle is lifted slightly. There’s nothing wrong by re-structure the company and do what you’ve been doing best all this time – be a assembler, just likePerodua. If you don’t have the capability in management, design and architecture leave it to people who have the skills.
Learn how Japanese put down their pride in getting Brazilian Carlos Ghosn to turnaround Nissan Motors. Badawi definitely is in the comfortable position to take the quantum leap to cut the losses; it’s not his pet-project anyway. But based on the slow pace he’s taking, he could be buying times and waiting for the general election to be over before announcing his decision. Furthermore he stillneeds those votes to continue walk the corridor of power.
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Wednesday, May 23, 2007
New Cost for Malaysia Formula-1
Now, what on earth is happening to the Malaysia minister and top officials? After my recent post on Malaysia Can Prosper by Copying Singapore, guess what, the Sports Minister Azalina Othman and former premier Mahathir’s son Mokhzani Mahathir actually read StockTube’s blog and implement the simple methodology to prosper. I knew from the start that most of the ministers didn’t mean what they said when they announced and urged the public not to read blogs from the internet because it is fulls of lies. One of them even suggested that in order to control these bands of mischievous bloggers (who happened to tell the truth) all of them have to be registered the same way pre-paid mobile users were forced to in order to wipe out loan-sharks. But of course Jeff Ooi has the video to show how 
“untung” (profitable) the business of loan-shark and their new creativity marketing plan now.
So based on StockTube’s advice, the Sports Minister has finally succumb to the fact that it’s not a bad idea to copy the direction of Singapore when the tiny dot announced Formula-1 is Coming to Singaporeand most probably the event will be held at night. Keep on dreaming StockTube, if not because of the pressure from Formula-1 for Malaysia to conduct the race at night after 2010, the minister could still be singing on how Malaysia has the luxury (and pride) to hold the grand event at daytime while Singapore at night.
However this might present a good opportunity for “contractors” who will do the work of installing the “right” kind of light for the night-race. This is what she has to say:
“Staging an F1 race is an expensive affair for the government ... We have to see how well we can benefit from the event and what kind of development it can bring to motorsport in the count … Ultimately our dream is to see more Malaysian F1 drivers in Formula One racing
Well, if the race has been profitable since day one there should be nothing to worry about. Furthermore it can generate tourists’ revenue right? Unless my conclusion is wrong as far as revenue generation is concern. How much would the new lighting system costs?
Will Oil Refineries Spared This Year?
According to NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) chief Conrad Lautenbacher -
“We are right now in ... a period of more active hurricane seasons … It just takes one hurricane to make it a bad year for everyone here … An average Atlantic hurricane season brings 11 tropical storms, of which six reach hurricane wind speed of 74 mph (119 kph), including two major hurricanes
LA NINA THREAT
Weather forecaster AccuWeather has predicted 13 or 14 tropical storms or hurricanes would form in the Atlantic this year and six or seven could hit the United States, with the Gulf Coast and Gulf of Mexico oil installations at high risk. The Colorado State University team under forecast pioneer William Gray predicted 17 storms, of which nine would become hurricanes.La Nina, which means "little girl" in Spanish, is an abnormal cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. El Nino, or "little boy," has the opposite effect.
Gerry Bell, a top NOAA forecaster, said while it was not possible to predict how many hurricanes might make landfall in the United States this year, similar seasons have seen between two and four storms hit the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
In the devastating 2005 Atlantic hurricane season a record four major hurricanes hit the United States, including Katrina, which devastated New Orleans, killed 1,300 people and caused $80 billion in damage. The 2005 season generated 28 tropical storms, of which 15 became hurricanes. The storms also slammed U.S. offshore oil and natural gas platforms and shut coastal refineries, sending fuel prices to then-record highs.
The multi-billion question remains – will there be a hurricane this year? If there’s will it hit the oil refineries zone?
Place Your Free Classifieds on The Net
Now with the emergence of internet, I hardly see the existence of yellowpages. Most of the business owners placed their classified advertisement on the net – and they pay good money for it to catch the so-called million of eye-balls. ItsMyMarket is another example of online yellowpages, the only difference is it consists of free classifieds advertisement. Meaning if you want to get rid of your furniture or animals (your puppy which forever answer nature’s call on your bedsheet perhaps) you get head straight to it and tell how much you want to sell. Based on the same demand and supply concept, you can place a classified advertisement to tell the whole world that you’re looking for a puppy which knows the exact time to fill you sofa-set with – you know what it is. In addition you can place classified ads for property, cars, boats or even jobs. The site also provides a dating service, blogs, photo competitions as well as some local activities such as gardening and health & beauty. Though it’s a relatively new site but it’s well designed with simplicity in place. It’s using Google Map for user to scroll though the cities around the globe. So, if you want to promote your blog about investing stocks, trading option or forex, you might want to leverage on this free classifieds. *sponsored*
City With the Most Expensive Rental
An executive three-bedroom apartment in Hong Kong costs more than $8,500 a month to rent, according to the survey by human resources consultancy ECA International, based in the United Kingdom. Rents for typical expatriate apartments in Hong Kong rose an average 10 percent last year and 15 percent in 2005, thanks to the Chinese territory's robust economic growth, said Lee Quane, general manager of ECA International Hong Kong.
As comparison, Tokyo rents for expatriates averaged $7,358 while in New York, they were $7,249. Moscow was ranked fourth most expensive at $6,526, followed by Seoul, London, Mumbai and Shanghai, the survey found. The Venezuelan capital of Caracas was ranked ninth as expatriates there need to live in high-security compounds for safety reasons while Paris was 10th.A Pink Smile Credit Card with Cashback
If you’re living in a city with high crime-rate such as where I’m staying now, it’s always advisable not to carry too much cash with you. So you’re left with the option of getting a credit card for“convenience” sake. Credit cards nowadays are quite sophisticated and have more value-add mainly due to competition. Take for example Smile credit cards which offers classic credit card with cashback plan. It somehow works like your membership card with some supermarket where you can collect points of which you can redeem it for gifts. The only difference here is Smile credit card will reward you with 0.5% cashbackon every penny you spend besides zero annual fee. You’ll also get 46 days interest free if you settle your balance in full. The gold card on the other hand is charging a lower rate. With such a good offer, no wonder Smile's credit card has been voted 'best credit card' four years on the trot at the Guardian Consumer Finance Awards 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. So if you’re in U.K. or happen to be transferred to the country by your company, you might want to try this card instead of using “hometown” credit card as the exchange rate might be eating up your pocket. *sponsored*
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Time to Make Money Investing Energy Stocks
Traders are also worried about gasoline supplies heading into the peak Northern Hemispheresummer driving season which kicks off this weekend in the U.S. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported last week that domestic gasoline inventories - while increasing to 195.2 million barrels for the week ended May 12 - are still well below the average for this time of year.
One of the most important factors affecting the price of oil is weather. When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf of Mexico Coast back in 2005, the price hit the record of $70 per barrel before surged to $78 level in July 2006 on worries of another bad storm season. Of course it didn’t materialize and the price tumbled to $60 per barrel thereafter.How can you make money out of current volatility in enery price? You’re playing against the human’s emotion, not that I like to have another hurricane to strike and damage those poor people’s property and lives. As long as the uncertainty of another thunderstorm and hurricane is on the air, people’s perception would be the fuel price will surge. Professional investors will just hedge whatever price the market has to offer out of fear that another Katrina will hit again.
The U.S. weather forecast is reporting thatdangerous thunderstorms are possible Wednesday afternoon and evening across parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa as a potent storm system drifts through the northern Plains. Deep moisture surging up from the Gulf of Mexico will fuel the thunderstorms, while a strong jet stream moving overhead will energize the thunderstorms, leading to damaging wind gusts and hail.So which energy stocks to place your bet? Here’re some of my favorites:
- Transocean Inc. (NYSE: RIG, stock) - primary business is to contract these drilling rigs, related equipment and work crews primarily on a day-rate basis to drill oil and gas wells - specializes in sectors of the offshore drilling business with a focus on deepwater and harsh environment drilling services.
- Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE : VLO, quote) - owns and operates 18 refineries located in the United States, Canada and Aruba that produce refined products, such as reformulated gasoline (RFG), gasoline meeting the specifications of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), CARB diesel fuel, low-sulfur diesel fuel and oxygenates (liquid hydrocarbon compounds containing oxygen).
# TIP: Wednesday will be the announcement date for the U.S. oil investories data. The data could either help the oil stocks to spike or the other way round.
Free Advice to Avoid Top 10 Money Mistakes
Realizing the importance of getting all those moms and young professionals out there to be financial savvy, Elizabeth Potts Weinstein is sponsoring StockTube to spread the news that she’s giving her expert advice free-of-charge in her Special Report, How to Avoid the Top 10 Money Mistakes at www.TheWealthSpa.com. She’s also generous enough to give away free subscription to her weekly eZine, Prosper!, which gives simple tips to makeover your money. Well, I like to learn because life is a journey and who doesn’t like free stuff? Being typical human being I am; I wouldn’t mind listen to some wise advice since it’s free anyway.
Did Bumiputra-Commerce Over-Paid for Southern Bank?
The probe, which comes almost nine months after it took over Southern, will determine if the accounts provide a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Southern Bank group, Bumiputra-Commerce said in a statement on Monday. It was reported that the PwC was hired about four months ago. Stock price of Bumiputra-Commerce fell on the report, 
dropping 2.5 percent to 11.60 ringgit as investors, burnt in recent weeks by news of financial irregularities in other listed companies, dumped shares of the state-controlled lender.
"The exercise currently undertaken by PwC is to establish whether Southern's 2005 financial statements show a true and fair view of its state of affairs as at that date in light of the findings from our subsequent due diligence review and completion audit" – said Bumiputra-Commerce. Well, since you're so eager to take over the bank, you've to pay hefty premium for it, don't you think so? Or maybe Nazir realized he made a mistake and the new debts do not justify the acquisition?
Could this spell another episode of accounting irregularities? Maybe Nazir thought he has over-paid for the hostile takeover of Southern Bank and now is using accounting irregularities to seek“justice”. Wouldn’t it be nice to see the face of this young billionaire should there be irregularities? I’m sure the stocks will be dumped further. Or it could just be a plot to push down the price of Bumiputra-Commerce so that someone can scoop the stocks at a much lower price before declaring the accounting-data is crystal clean. By doing so, the price will recovers and the traders (insider?) will make handsome gains. Hey, don’t forget the general election is around the corner and lots of money is needed for the campaign.
# TIP: Do not pick-up Bumiputra-Commerce shares yet.
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