Ichi the Killer

Harassment forces Arab women to cover up

2009-12-16T11:55:00.004+08:00

Published Dec 15 2009

The sexual harassment of women in the streets, schools and work places of the Arab World is driving them to cover up and confine themselves to their homes, said activists at the first-ever regional conference addressing the once taboo topic.

Activists from 17 countries across the region met in Cairo for a two-day conference ending Monday and concluded that harassment was unchecked across the region because laws don't punish it, women don't report it and the authorities ignore it.

The harassment, including groping and verbal abuse, appears to be designed to drive women out of public spaces and seems to happen regardless of what they are wearing, they said.

Amal Madbouli, who wears the conservative face veil or niqab, told AP that despite her dress, she is harassed and described how a man came after her in the streets of her neighborhood.

"He hissed at me and kept asking me if I wanted to go with him to a quieter area, and to give him my phone number," said Madbouli, a mother of two.

"This is a national security issue. I am a mother, and I want to be reassured when my daughters go out on the streets."

This file photo shows an Egyptian girl in Cairo wearing a hijab, right, which covers the hair but leaves the face uncovered, as others in the background wear the niqab
Statistics on harassment in the region have until recently been nonexistent, but a series of studies presented at the conference hinted at the widespread nature of the problem.

As many as 90 percent of Yemeni women say they have been harassed, while in Egypt, out of a sample of 1,000, 83 percent reported being verbally or physically abused.

A study in Lebanon reported that more than 30 percent of women said they had been harassed there.

"We are facing a phenomena that is limiting women's right to move ... and is threatening women's participation in all walks of life," said Nehad Abul Komsan, an Egyptian activist who organized the event with funding from the U.N. and the Swedish development agency.

Open discussion of the harassment issue first emerged in Egypt three years ago, after blogs gave broad publicity to amateur videos showing men assaulting women in downtown Cairo during a major Muslim holiday.

The public outcry sparked an unprecedented public acknowledgment of the problem and drove the Egyptian government to consider two draft bills addressing sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment, including verbal and physical assault, has been specifically criminalized in only half a dozen Arab countries. Most of the 22 Arab states only outlaw overtly violent acts like rape, according to a study by Abul Komsan.

Participants at the conference said men are threatened by an increasingly active female labour force, with conservatives laying the blame for harassment on women's dress and behavior.

In Syria, men from traditional homes go shopping in the market place instead of female family members to spare them harassment, said Sherifa Zuhur, a Lebanese-American academic at the conference.

Abul Komsan described how one of the victims of harassment she interviewed told her she had taken on the full-face veil to stave off the hassle.

"She told me 'I have put on the niqab. By God, what more can I do so they leave me alone,"' she said, quoting the woman.

Some even said they were reconsidering going to work or school because of the constant harassment in the streets and on public transpiration.

But even in Yemen, where nearly all women are covered from head to toe, activist Amal Basha said 90 percent of women in a published study she conducted reported harassment, specifically pinching.

"The religious leaders are always blaming the women, making them live in a constant state of fear because out there, someone is following them," she said.

If a harassment case is reported in Yemen, Basha added, traditional leaders interfere to cover it up, remove the evidence or terrorize the victim.

In Saudi Arabia, another country where women cover themselves completely and are nearly totally segregated from men in public life, women report harassment as well, according to Saudi activist Majid al-Eissa.

His organization, the National Family Safety Programme, has been helping draft a law criminalizing violence against women in the conservative kingdom, where flirting can often cross the line into outright assault.

Discussion of the law begins Tuesday.

"It will take time especially in this part of the world to absorb the gender mixture and the role each gender can play in society," he said.

"We are coping with changes (of modern life), except in our minds."
- AP

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Have not updated for a long time. Below are last few transactions.

Latest purchases:

OPCOM: +6,000 (0.72) ... Total 24,200

Latest disposals:

SEG: -5,000 (0.925) ... Balance 5,000

MUHIBAH: -5,000 (1.15) ... Balance 21,000

KFIMA: -10,000 (0.795) ... Balance 0

CAROTEC-OR: -5,000 (0.05) ... Balance 0

CAP stance on minimum price for cigarettes

2009-10-30T16:35:00.026+08:00

The President of Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) has lauded the Government’s move to impose a minimum price on cigarettes but hopes it would be higher -- about RM30 per pack -- to seriously deter people from smoking. (See Star article below).

Such a statement shows that this so-called President is really a mediocre, simple-minded fellow. To me, his statement lacks logic. Indeed it shows he is not really interested in the welfare of smokers at all. Under the pretense of helping smokers quit, he is instead just showing his utter prejudice and intolerance towards smokers.

If he is so concerned about other people's health, why does he not apply the same stupid logic to other things? Has he seen the statistics for deaths from road accidents? From heart disease? From high cholesterol and blocked arteries? I think these are all much higher than smoking-related deaths.

I'm no doctor. But I have read that smoking contributes no more than 20% to deaths resulting from heart disease. And heart disease is the most common cause of illness related deaths. What contributes the other 80%? Some other factors are high levels of LDL (bad cholesterol), high blood pressure, obesity and sedentary lifestyle.

So following this stupid logic, CAP should call on prices of fatty foods to be increased 300% at least. Same thing for sugar. Minimum charge for one packet of santan-packed nasi lemak with chicken rendang should be RM30 too. One 2-piece KFC meal should not be cheaper than RM30. One cup of regular Coke (approx. 9 tablespoons of sugar) should be at least RM15. Satay RM5 per stick. Want peanut sauce, RM20 per plate. Chendol, ais kacang RM25 per bowl. Why let overweight people die unnecessarily? We must be fair to fat or unhealthy people too.

However, the best thing to do would be to increase the price of cars and motorbikes by 300-500%. Make the cheapest crappy Kancil cost at least RM120,000. Want a BMW 320i? Pay lah RM1million at least. Make a taxi ride from SS2 Old Town kopitiam to Damansara Uptown cost at least RM75. Masuk saja meter show RM30 minimum. Go to KL minimum charge RM150. Now, we're talking. Bus ride minimum RM25 per ticket for maximum 5 stops.

Then use all the additional money made by the government to produce and sell bicycles for RM50 each. Everyone would have to start walking or cycling everywhere. Not only would we reduce the number of road deaths, everyone would become way fitter too, leading to less deaths from heart disease. Presto! Kill two birds with one stone. Actually, three. Because air pollution from vehicle emissions would be cut drastically as well. Why never propose this? Never thought of it? Well, what excuse does he have now?

It is always easy to pick on others when it doesn’t affect yourself. That’s why so many non-smokers support such silly ideas. Once at a kenduri, I walked away from the table to have a cigarette. When I returned, this fat makcik, in between stuffing her face with food, started lecturing me and her two small children about smoking. I looked at her and her two chubby kids and thought it is not natural for a human being to look like Jabba the Hutt. In fact, I thought she probably would die from a heart attack before me.

In my personal opinion, people like this CAP fella are really insensitive, prejudiced people. They do not think about the effects on the poor. There are many smokers in the lower income group. For some, having a smoke once in a while is a welcome relief from the daily grind. It is respite from the harshness of life. You think they are stupid? That they do not know it is bad for their health? Maybe they have sacrificed many other things and pursuits just to put aside a little money for their children's education, for their family's future. And such idiots with their holier-than-thou attitude want to take away their last form of enjoyment? What if they cannot quit and keep smoking anyway? RM30 a pack, 1 pack a day... RM210 a week, RM840 a month. You can say bye-bye maybe to the children's education fund, maybe the book the daughter wanted to read, the shoes the son needed for football. Maybe the parent will steal or cheat, just to continue smoking. Who will be responsible for what happens? The CAP President?

His intentions may be good. Even that I doubt, but still it may be good. But the method is totally wrong. Unfortunately, intentions do not equate to results. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No matter how good your intentions, if you plant a cactus seed, it will not grow to be a rosebush.

Latest purchase:

KPS: +5,000 (1.83) ... Total 5,000 (first toe in, about time to add now).

/ichithekiller

Original aricle link: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/10/30/nation/20091030153241&sec=nation

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Published: Friday October 30, 2009 MYT 3:29:00 PM
CAP wants higher price for ciggies, RM30 for pack of 20
By ANDREA FILMER

andrea@thestar.com.my

GEORGE TOWN: The Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) has lauded the Government’s move to impose a minimum price on cigarettes but hopes it would be higher -- about RM30 per pack -- to seriously deter people from smoking.

CAP president S.M. Mohamed Idris said a proposed price of RM6.20 for a pack of 20 cigarettes was “disappointingly low” and the Government needed to severely stem the sale of cheaper brands in the market for the move to have any effect.

“While CAP lauds the move mooted by Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai to set a minimum price for cigarettes effective from Jan 1 2010, it is disappointing to note that the price fixed is so low that it would be a futile move,” Mohamed Idris said in a press conference on Friday.

Liow had announced on Wednesday that a minimum price for packs of cigarettes would be implemented from next year in an effort to check the availability of cheaper cigarettes in the market.

Mohamed Idris suggested that a pack of 20 should be priced closer to RM30 to make an impact.

“The price of premier brand cigarettes here are significantly cheaper than those in other countries.

“For example, premier packs of 20s in Singapore are priced between RM27 to RM80 (S$11 to S$32.80),” he said.

Mohamed Idris said premium cigarettes sold in Malaysia for about RM9.30 per pack of 20 while cheaper brands were widely available from RM2.20 to RM2.50.

“In a recent survey carried out by CAP, we found that the sale of so-called ‘value brand’ cigarettes, which are actually cheap cigarette brands, have increased.

“Various brands, some of which are sold duty free in Langkawi, are easily available in places that sell cigarettes and most of these do not even carry a picture warning (of the effects of smoking) on the box,” he added.

Mohamed Idris also called for a quick halt of the sale of packs containing fewer than 20 cigarettes, as well as the sale of loose cigarettes.

“To better enforce this, a licensing system that limits the number and location of outlets allowed to sell tobacco products should be introduced, with licences that are subjected to yearly renewal.

“It is difficult to ban cigarettes altogether, but serious deterrents need to be introduced to stop people from getting cigarettes so easily,” he said, renewing CAP’s call to raise the minimum legal age of purchase of tobacco products from 18 to 21 to match the legal voting age.

Butterfly Lovers

2009-09-10T17:38:00.000+08:00

Let's see western ballet beat this ...

PAS FOR ALL?

2009-08-26T16:00:00.008+08:00

KENYATAAN MEDIA
24hb Ogos 2009

DEWAN PEMUDA PAS PUSAT
PARTI ISLAM Se MALAYSIA (PAS)
BANTAH KONSERT MICHAEL LEARNS TO ROCK - ETERNITY TOUR 2009: LIVE IN MALAYSIA PADA 5 SEPTEMBER INI, DI ARENA OF STARS, GENTING HIGHLANDS.

Dewan Pemuda PAS Pusat mengutuk sekeras–kerasnya tindakan jemaah menteri meluluskan konsert Michael Learns to Rock - eternity tour 2009 : live in malaysia yang bakal berlangsung di Arena of Stars, Genting Highlands pada 5 september 2009 ini.

Konsert ini adalah suatu penghinaan besar kepada negara Malaysia dan umat Islam yang sedang menyambut bulan Ramadhan al Mubarak kini.

Dewan Pemuda PAS Pusat sekali lagi mengutuk sekeras-kerasnya jemaah menteri yang membuat keputusan ini. Dimana ia adalah suatu tindakan yang kurang ajar dan penghinaan besar terhadap ummat Islam di Malaysia.

Ini menunjukkan tidak ada sedikit pun rasa hormat dan sensitiviti kerajaan UMNO/BN terhadap perasaan majoriti umat Islam dan warga pribumi di negara ini. Tarikh 05 September 2009 adalah suasana penting bagi negara ini khasnya ummat Islam yang sedang menyambut bulan ramadhan.

Pertama, ummat Islam sedang menghadapi bulan ibadah yang penuh kemuliaan dan keberkatan. Sepatutnya ia tidak dicemari oleh konsert seperti ini yang membawa masuk sekumpulan artis luar negara yang tentunya tidak mempunyai langsung sensitiviti terhadap masyarakat tempatan. Pastinya konsert ini akan membawa ummat leka dan lalai malah merosakkan moral dan akhlak mereka.

Kedua, berhadapan pula dengan ulangtahun kemerdekaan negara pada 31 Ogos. Lazimnya pihak kerajaan menganjurkan majlis tahlil di seluruh negara dan forum untuk motivasi rakyat khasnya anak–anak muda supaya mewarisi semangat patriotisme. Konsert seperti ini sekali lagi tidak akan membantu motivasi rakyat untuk menjadi rakyat yang baik, bermoral dan berdaya saing, sebaliknya hanya melemahkan moral dan mental mereka sekaligus mengheret mereka tenggelam dibawah gelora nafsu.

Dewan Pemuda PAS Pusat mempersoalkan tindakan Kerajaan UMNO/BN, di mana pemimpin-pemimpin UMNO yang kononnya hendak memperjuangkan nasib umat Islam dan kaum Melayu di negara ini. Khasnya, di mana peranan dan keperihatinan Pemuda UMNO terhadap isu ini, sedangkan ini juga adalah satu penghinaan besar terhadap agama Islam.

Dewan Pemuda PAS Pusat tegas menyatakan sikap, bahawa konsert seperti ini mesti dibatalkan segera dan ini adalah amaran keras kepada pihak penganjur agar tidak mencabar sensitiviti ummat Islam. Andai mereka tidak peduli amaran ini, Dewan Pemuda PAS Pusat tidak teragak–agak akan mengerahkan seluruh pemuda Islam agar turun membantah Konsert tersebut daripada terus berlangsung.

Di sini, kami Pemuda PAS mencabar Pemuda UMNO untuk sama-sama membantah penganjuran konsert maksiat ini.

Dewan Pemuda PAS Pusat juga menyeru dan mengajak NGO-NGO Islam seperti GPMS, PPIM, PEKIDA, ABIM, JIM, TERAS dan GAMIS turut bersama-sama membantah konsert tersebut. Ini bukan untuk kepentingan politik tetapi melibatkan maruah dan harga diri ummat Islam. Jika begini terus menerus sikap kerajaan UMNO/BN, mereka bukan sahaja jauh dari rahmat dan berkat Ilahi tetapi InsyaAllah akan terus dibuang dan dihumban oleh rakyat yang semakin hari semakin jelak dan muak dengan sikap berpura–pura Islam mereka.

Dewan Pemuda PAS Pusat juga turut menggesa agar majlis fatwa dan para mufti menunjuk sikap dan menyuarakan bantahan mereka terhadap kerajaan Pusat yang membenarkan penganjuran pesta maksiat ini agar mereka tidak hanya responsif terhadap isu seperti kenyataan di manipulasi pihak media terhadap YAB Dato Tuan Guru Nik Aziz tempuh hari, tetapi diharap turut menunjuk peranan majlis fatwa itu sendiri bagi membersihkan bumi Malaysia ini dari maksiat dan mungkar tajaan kerajaan UMNO/BN.

USTAZ NASRUDIN HASSAN TANTAWI
Dewan Pemuda PAS Pusat (DPPP)

Link: http://pemuda.pas.org.my/v2/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=820:bantah-konsert-michael-learns-to-rock-eternity-tour-2009-live-in-malaysia-pada-5-september-ini-di-arena-of-stars-genting-highlands&catid=15:kenyataan-media&Itemid=41

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1. The above is the official media statement by Pemuda PAS, signed off by its new head. There is a lot of mention of menghina negara Malaysia dan umat Islam, mencabar sensitiviti, etc. but no explanation whatsoever as to how a concert by a group which largely sings love songs, to be held in a closed venue way up in Genting Highlands manages to achieve all that.

2. It is alright if they issue a statement to discourage Muslims from attending, but to call for a straight out ban and threaten to disrupt it? Since when did people like this Nasrudin speak for all of us? Who appointed him as our moral guardian? At least have the decency to offer some logical arguments to support your points rather than just spewing forth baseless rhetoric suited only for low-IQ people like yourself.

3. In Selangor, Hassan Ali is on a crusade against alcohol. PAS is saying others should not be worried and should not object as the new measures he is trying to implement only apply to Muslims. All right-thinking moderate Malaysians (especially those who have been vocally supporting PAS of late) should ask themselves, how far a step is it from something which only applies to Muslims to something which eventually mencabar sensitiviti somebody or other?

4. Prominent bloggers like RPK (Raja Petra) and Haris Ibrahim have been telling the previously skeptical public to give PAS a chance, since they would never control enough seats to call the shots in the event PR does form the Federal Government. Undoubtedly, this has led to a rather prominent increase in support for PAS across the board. They now owe it to the same people they so handily convinced earlier to ask, in the event PR did win the next GE, would PR risk losing their hold on power or just give in to whatever PAS demands for political expediency? This question should be asked now rather than later, before it's too late.

5. Since Pemuda PAS likes to cabar people so much, let's cabar them to come out and block the right of free Malaysians to attend this concert. Yes, come in the thousands or even better, tens of thousands ... we want to see just how many of you narrow-minded people there are out there. Now I finally get what "PAS FOR ALL" means ... it means PAS PUNYA POLICY FOR ALL ... and don't you dare complain, lest you pijak on my sensitivities.

Latest disposal:

TOMYPAK: -4,900 (1.38) ... Balance 5,000

/ichithekiller

Latest Update

2009-07-29T11:38:00.004+08:00

Have not updated for a while ... not really comfortable with rising market, which is kind of against personal expectations. Still, no point arguing with it. Better to trade cautiously and avoid chasing those which have run far ahead. At this point, slow gain but lower downside is better than fast gain accompanied by risk of substantial loss.

TOMYPAK has doubled recently, I still have no idea why, but thanks anyway... net asset per share is > RM1.50 (if I remember correctly based on the last quarterly disclosure), so at the 50c-60c it was prior to this move it was seriously undervalued... might still have some way to go. Coming down on miniscule volume today. Pity I sold half my position when the crisis hit, but who would've known anyway.

All recent buys below, no sells:

Latest purchases:

APB: +8,000 (0.91) ... Total 30,000

OPCOM: +18,200 (Avg 0.707) ... Total 18,200

KFIMA: +10,000 (0.62) ... Total 10,000

Was waiting and hoping to pick up more KFIMA below 60c but doesn't look like that'll happen now. Will likely not chase.

/ichithekiller

The next revolution

2009-07-10T16:45:00.008+08:00

Another interesting article from Xie Guozhong...

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Andy Xie: The next revolution

Another information revolution is unfolding. Possibly in two to three years how we access and use information will change fundamentally, which would affect the IT industry dramatically as well as the broad economy. PC still dominates information storage and processing at present. The new world is likely to shift data processing and storage to the net. New mobile technologies will allow users to remain online anytime and anywhere. All knowledge will become available instantaneously. There will be no distinctions in processing voice, video or text data. The advances in mobile phone technology are making this always-on world possible.

The speculation about arrival of this new world has been around for a long time. It is one of the competing visions on the future. In my recent visit to Taiwan I visited several major IT companies and realized how soon this world was coming and how it was impacting Taiwan’s IT businesses. One of the major implications is that PC will lose its importance in the IT world. It has far reaching consequences for East Asian economies that have invested heavily in PC related manufacturing activities.

Taiwan’s economy has benefited heavily from three factors in the past two decades: (1) China’s opening made cheap labor available to its manufacturers, (2) outsourcing trend due to the rise of big-box retailers in the US created a big market for its manufacturers, and (3) the rapid growth of the PC industry gave its tech companies room to grow fast. Taiwan’s strength in taking advantage of the three was its factory management expertise and its extensive connections in China and the US. In particular, Taiwan has assumed an important role in the PC supply chain. From components, assembly and even branding Taiwan’s PC industry has risen to global prominence. It is now a sun-setting industry.

In the new paradigm the most important function for a consumer device is connectivity and interactivity. It makes PC just one of the numerous existing and future devices. PC has two distinct disadvantages in competing against other products. First, Microsoft and Intel charge high prices for their proprietary products essential to a PC. The so-called WinTel standard served to increase competition in downstream industries. It led to declining PC prices and rising sales. However, WinTel’s monopoly charges limit how far PC prices. Also, as a PC was designed to be a self-containing device, it is loaded with expensive functions that are not valuable in a web-based world. In summary, a PC is no longer the best value for money in a web-based world.

The PC industry is already suffering from the market evolution. The DRAM industry is experiencing terrible hemorrhaging. When DRAM demand was strong, so many DRAM factories were set up, especially in East Asia. It appears that most won’t survive. One industry veteran in Taiwan told me that only three would survive. The notebook industry that has seen rapid growth in the past decade seems destined for stagnation or even declining. In a stagnant industry profit margin shrinks to the thinnest possible level.

Taiwan is suffering a terrible recession now. Its GDP shrank by over 10% in the first quarter from one year ago. The trade collapse due to the global economic collapse is the main reason. The structural changes like in the PC industry would hold Taiwan’s economy back even when the global economy recovers. In addition, the OEM trend has saturated. It will pressure profit margins on most Taiwanese factories in Mainland China. As far as I can tell, only a few Taiwanese businesses in the smartphone industry are prospering. Even there, lack of key intellectual properties relating to 3G and 4G standards could limit their prospects.

Taiwan’s economy is likely to stagnate for a long time to come. The structural problems will hold back its exports. The profitability of its export factories in the mainland will shrink. Even though some Taiwanese businesses are succeeding in China’s domestic demand, they are too small to lift Taiwan’s economy alone. Taiwan’s household wealth level is still high, which could support its consumption for the foreseeable future. But this is a stagnation story. Taiwan hasn’t really grown much in the past decade. Its living standard is stuck around $15 thousand per capita. It seems that Taiwan’s living standard will remain so for the next decade.

The same forces will also limit China’s rebound in exports. Most Taiwanese factories are in the Mainland. In addition, numerous local businesses are either suppliers to Taiwanese businesses or competing against them for export markets. Half of China’s exports are IT related products. As China is a factory for the world, what’s at stake is the relative value of hardware vs. software or service. It seems that the importance of hardware in the new world is declining. Many products that are still considered hi-tech are commoditized and losing growth. I am deeply concerned that China’s policies are still geared towards promoting such industries. Some local governments are throwing billions of dollars at attracting such commodity industries. The money may be bringing in sunset industries with few benefits for economic development.

Network contractors like China’s Huawai and ZTE are winners in this revolution. Mobile connectivity is the most important factor in contributing to the rise of this new world. The demand for networking equipment will be strong in the next few years. Network operators need to spend heavily to upgrade their networks to compete for consumers.

Even software companies may not win in this world. As the connectivity is anytime, anywhere and network is the computer, consumers can rent software on the net for temporary use and won’t have to buy it for installation on a personal or company computer. This will increase the competition among software producers as it decreases their market power from the lock-in effect. When software is no longer a fixed cost, users have more incentive to switch. Software production has a high profit margin so far precisely for this reason. In the emerging new world software producers may see their profit margins declining to the average among all industries.

Microsoft and Oracle, for example, command massive market capitalization in stock market. But they are hardly the most innovative or best quality companies. Their consumers usually complain about their products. Still they have been earning high profit margins. The reason is that their consumers have sunk huge fixed costs into their products and have low incentives to switch. The new world puts their business model into doubt. I suspect that their market capitalization will decline dramatically over the next five years.

In theory the biggest winners are the network providers like mobile phone operators. They have the best chance to control users. But, they will also have a hard time. The differences among voice, video and text services will vanish. Service providers maximize their profit margins through price discrimination against high value customers. For example, even though Chinese mobile phone operators have vast numbers of customers, a relatively small number of customers, mainly those that use their services for business purpose, contribute to most of their profits. The merging of voice, video and text will make such discrimination impossible. The service providers can only collect a simple rental fee from their customers.

The content providers should be big winners in the net world with a bigger market and less marketing cost. But they are already losing big and could lose more in the always-on world. The problem is that the existing content providers don’t know how to sell their products. Technology companies like Google have taken advantage of that and collect advertizing dollars by locating the content for its users through their search service. In the end, as content providers are starved of money, they will exit the business. The destruction of the content providers is already unfolding. Newspaper companies are struggling around the world. The always-on world will accelerate the process. Newspaper production will probably vanish in its current form.

Magazines and books could also vanish in their paper forms in the foreseeable future. Electronic paper technologies are sufficiently developed that electronic paper works as well as printed paper. They can’t change to electronic publishing easily. Books and magazines exist because the fixed cost for printing is high. They generate economies of scale in disseminating information. In the electronic paper information can be transmitted at zero cost. The justification for information aggregation with large fixed costs isn’t there. In the future people won’t get their information from fixed cost operators like newspapers, magazines and book publishers.

Of course, the above story implies that the demand for paper will collapse in the future. Paper and pulp production requires massive fixed costs. The existing capacity is probably more than enough for the foreseeable future. It would be hard to justify any new investment in this business.

One big positive of the always-on world is that it makes all the knowledge in the world available to everyone anytime. Not everyone will know how to use this advantage. Enough people will. The world will change for that. For example, education can be carried out outside of schools. Education is the biggest government monopoly allover the world. It works due to the economies of scale from the government imposing uniform standards that offset the inherent inefficiency from government control.

Healthcare is another big business to be affected by the revolution. Healthcare accounts for over one tenth of GDP. Its impact is hard to quantify. Its size and the difficulties in quantifying its effectiveness reflect information asymmetry between doctors and patients. Developed countries protect patients by giving them legal rights for ex-post legal actions against healthcare providers. That in turn causes the healthcare providers to overkill in treatment to avoid bad legal consequences. The always-on world will dramatically decrease the information asymmetry between patients and doctors. This allows people to obtain information instantaneously to verify healthcare professionals’ opinions and prescriptions. It improves the market efficiency in two ways. Patients have less need to sue doctors ex post. It decreases healthcare insurance cost and the amount of care. Hence, it reduces the need for doctors to overprescribe medicine or procedures.

This flattening of the knowledge world has profound implications for how societies will be organized and governed. Human societies are governed by elite who control information and are capable of processing it. Inflation collection, processing, and dissemination are always costly. The existence of elite reflects the need for economies of scale in handling information, which gives advantages and privileges to those who happen to handle information. This advantage often turns hereditary and leads to the formation of a permanent ruling class. The declining cost of obtaining information has already led to dramatic social changes in the past century. The final collapse of information cost to zero will accelerate the trend.

How the information revolution is destroying businesses is a classic example of Schumpeterian creative destruction. The new technology renders a significant share of the economy obsolete. Even though the technology improves efficiency overall, the unemployment that results from business destruction could keep the economy weak for an extended period of time. However, it would be wrong for governments to stop the technology. Overtime market will find alternative uses for the unemployed workers. For owners of the obsolete businesses this is an unmitigated disaster. Their capital stock would have only scrap value.

As old businesses are destroyed, new ones will emerge. The internet isn’t just a tool. It has become a world of its own. When human beings have enough food and shelter, all other activities are entertainment or earning money for buying entertainment. The cheapest entertainment is for people to amuse each other. This may be happening. YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc., are mainly platforms for people to entertain each other. One can work hard to earn enough money for buying a Mercedes car. Driving it would give one certain satisfaction. Or one could spend time on the net getting entertained for free. Hence, there is no need to work hard anymore. I suspect that in the always-on world internet will decrease rather than increase productivity in traditional sense. But, people may get more satisfaction out of it.

Original link: http://www.realizechina.com/archives/241

/ichithekiller

Latest Update

2009-06-29T13:09:00.006+08:00

1. Last week's mid-week purchase below. Rallied slightly after entry to day high of 1.82, but seemed to falter after that. Today still weak, currently down 3c to 1.75, but volume is almost non-existent at a mere 10,900 shares traded.

2. Overall (+)factors favouring purchase include i) steel price and demand recovery ii) local stimulus packages rollout picking up pace.

3. Overall (-)factors include i) global market correction ii) global economy not really recovering as expected iii) what local stimulus packages?? where??

4. Got to watch this one a bit.

Latest purchase:

SSTEEL: +10,000 (1.68) ... Total 12,000 (The other 2,000 are leftovers bought yonks ago at 1.09).

More bearish views from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard below, largely reinforcing Andy Xie's negative views on the recent surge in commodities prices and Chinese bank lending. Give it some thought...

China's banks are an accident waiting to happen to every one of us
Fitch Ratings has been warning for some time that China's lenders are wading into dangerous water

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Published: 5:38PM BST 28 Jun 2009

China's banks are veering out of control. The half-reformed economy of the People's Republic cannot absorb the $1,000bn (£600bn) blitz of new lending issued since December. Money is leaking instead into Shanghai's stock casino, or being used to keep bankrupt builders on life support. It is doing very little to help lift the world economy out of slump.

Fitch Ratings has been warning for some time that China's lenders are wading into dangerous waters, but its latest report is even grimmer than bears had suspected. "With much of the world immersed in crisis, China appears to be one of the few countries where the financial system continues to function largely without a glitch, but Fitch is growing increasingly wary," it said. "Future losses on stimulus could turn out to be larger than expected, and it is unclear what share the central and/or local governments ultimately will be willing or able to bear."

Note the phrase "able to bear". Fitch's "macro-prudential risk" indicator for China threatens to jump from category 1 (safe) to category 3 (Iceland, et al). This is a surprise to me but Michael Pettis from Beijing University says China's public debt may be as high as 50pc-70pc of GDP when "correctly counted". The regime is so hellbent on meeting its growth target of 8pc that it has given banks an implicit guarantee for what Fitch calls a "massive lending spree". Bank exposure to corporate debt has reached $4,200bn. It is rising at a 30pc rate, even as profits contract at a 35pc rate.

Fitch traces the 2009 bubble to the central bank's decision to cut interest on reserves to 0.72pc. Bankers responded to this "margin squeeze" by ramping up the volume of lending instead. Over half the new debt is short-term. Roll-over risk is rocketing. China's monetary stimulus since November is arguably more extreme than the post-Lehman printing of the US Federal Reserve, though less obvious to the untrained eye.

Under the Taylor Rule, US policy remains tight (for the US). China's policy is loose (for China). New loans doubled in May from a year earlier, almost entirely to companies. China's Banking Regulatory Commission fired a warning shot last week. "The top priority at the moment is to stop explosive lending. Banks should carefully monitor the process of credit approval and allocation, and make sure that loans flow into the real economy," it said. Unfortunately, 40pc of the "real economy" consists of exports, mostly to the US and Europe, the consequence of a mercantilist export model that has crashed and burned. Chinese exports were down 26pc in May.

World trade may be stabilizing at last after contracting at faster rate than during the early Great Depression. But it will not rebound fast in a world where the US savings rate has risen to a 15-year high of 6.9pc. A trade policy based on the assumption that debtors in the Anglosphere and Europe's Club Med can ruin themselves for ever is absurd.

Andy Xie, a Sino-bear and commentator for Caijing, said Western analysts are in for a rude shock if they think that China's surging demand for raw materials implies genuine recovery. Commodity speculators have been using cheap credit to play the arbitrage spread between futures and spot on the oil markets. They have even found ways to trade lumber to iron ore by sheer scale of leverage. "They've made everything open to speculation," he said. Mr Xie thinks the spring recovery is an inventory spike, to be followed a double-dip downturn into next year as stimulus wears off.

Reformers know what must be done to boost consumption. China needs a welfare revolution. But creating a social security net takes time, and right now Beijing is facing a social crisis as 20m jobless workers retreat to the rural hinterland. So the regime is resorting to hazardous methods to keep excess factories humming: issuing a "Buy China" decree: using a plethora of export subsidies; holding down the price of coke, bauxite, zinc and other resources to lower production costs (prompting a complaint from America and Europe); and suppressing the yuan, again.

Protectionism is a risky game for a country that lives off global trade and runs a surplus near 10pc of GDP. Mr Pettis said he fears China is nearing its "Smoot-Hawley moment", repeating the US tariff blunder of 1930 that brought the world crashing down on Washington's head. Two facts stand out about China's green shoots. While the Shanghai composite index is up 70pc since November, Chinese imports are down 25pc from a year ago. China is still draining real stimulus from the global economy.

If the world's biggest surplus state ($400bn) is too structurally deformed to help offset the demand shock as Western debtors retrench, we are trapped in a long deflation slump.

Article link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/5675198/Chinas-banks-are-an-accident-waiting-to-happen-to-every-one-of-us.html

/ichithekiller

Latest Update

2009-06-17T19:10:00.002+08:00

Yesterday's transaction:

Latest disposal:

RCECAP: -10,000 (0.65) ... Balance 20,000

Still trying to collect more of the other counter (regular chatters here will know which one I'm referring to). Looking to hit more each time it dips below support. Seems to be holding strong though... Will post up after I have collected my fill.

Meantime, am on toes looking out for more warning signs the market is finally turning over. Will not go big into other counters until that has come and run its course.

/ichithekiller

在岩石和硬地之间

2009-06-09T13:05:00.004+08:00

I always listen carefully to what Andy Xie has to say. You can believe in him, or not, it's up to you. But do yourself a favour, at least have a read and take note of what's being said, so that if things really start to look like they're going south, you have this at the back of your mind when decision time comes (all emphasis are mine).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Between a rock and a hard place
Andy Xie/ June 6, 2009

The combination of growth optimism and inflation fear is catapulting asset markets in the past few weeks. The two should drive markets in different directions. The inflation fear should limit room for stimulus and cause stock markets to retreat. But, the people behind the two concerns are separate. They go their own ways and pump up what they believe in. Stocks and commodities are already behaving like during the giddy days in 2007.

Regardless of what investors or speculators say to justify their punting, the real driving force is the return of animal spirit. After living in fear for over a year, they just couldn’t sit around anymore and decided to inch back. The resulting market appreciation emboldened more people. All sorts of theories began to surface to justify the market trend. As the rising trend has been around for three months globally and seven months in China, the most timid couldn’t take it anymore and are jumping in now in droves. When the least informed and most credulous are in the market, it usually marks market peaking. If the economy rises and grows income, it would produce more funds to fuel the market. But the global economy is stuck in years of slow growth. Strong economic growth won’t follow the current bout of stock market surge. This is a bear market rally. The people that are jumping in now will lose big.

In the past three weeks, the dollar has dived, oil and treasury yield have surged. These price movements exhibit typical symptoms of inflation fear. The inflation fear is complicating policymaking around the world. The US, in particular, could be bottled in. Fiscal stimulus by the Federal Government and liquidity pumping by the Federal Reserve are the twin instruments for propping up the bursting US economy. The fiscal deficit could top $2 trillion (15% of GDP) in 2009. It would add one third to the total stock of the federal government debt outstanding. Such massive supply of federal debt papers needs a buoyant treasury to absorb. If the treasury market is a bear market, the absorption becomes a huge problem.

The US Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, is visiting China. One of his purposes for the trip is to persuade China to buy more treasuries. According to an estimate in a Brookings paper China owns $1.7 trillion of US treasuries and GSE papers (about 15% of the total stock). If China stops buying, it could plunge the US treasury market into deep bear territory. While China not buying will certainly make the treasury market worse, China buying can’t prop up the market.

In the past few years the purchases by foreign central banks have dominated the demand for US treasuries. Central banks have been buying because their currencies are linked to the dollar. Hence, such demand is not price sensitive. The amount of demand is proportional to the US current account deficit that determines the amount of dollars that foreign central banks have. The bigger the US current account deficit, the greater the demand for the US treasuries. This is why the treasury yield was trending down during the bulging US current account deficit period between 2001-08.

This dynamic in the US treasury market is changed by the bursting of the US credit-cum-property bubble. It is decreasing US consumption and the US current account deficit. The US current account deficit in 2009 is probably under $400 billion, halved from the peak. That means that foreign central banks have much less money to buy, while the supply is surging. It means that foreign central banks no longer determine the treasury pricing. American institutions and families are now the marginal buyers. This switch of who determine prices is shifting the treasury yield up greatly,

The 10 year treasury yield historically averages about 6% with inflation of about 3.5% and real yield of 2.5%. They reflect the preferences of marginal buyers in the US. Foreign central banks have pushed down the yield requirement massively over the past seven years. If the marginal buyers become American again, as I believe, treasury yields will surge much more from the current level. Inflation in future will average more than 3.5%, I believe. Some policy thinkers in the US believe that the Fed should target inflation rate between 5-6%. The treasury yield could rise to 7.5-8.5% from the current level of 3.5%.

The massive supply of the US treasuries would only worsen the market. The Federal Reserve has been trying to prop up the treasury market by buying over $300 billion. Its purchase has backfired. Treasury investors are terrified of the inflation implication of the Fed action. It is equivalent to monetizing national debt. As the Federal deficit will remain sky high for years to come, the monetization could become much larger, which might lead to hyperinflation. This is why the treasury yield has surged so much in the past three weeks.

One possible response is to finance the US budget deficit with short-term financing. As the Fed controls the short-term interest rate, such a strategy can avoid the pain of paying high interest rate by the Federal government. But, this strategy could crash the dollar.

The dollar index-DXY has dropped 10% from the peak in March, even though the US trade deficit has declined substantially. It reflects the market’s expectation that the Fed’s monetary policy will lead to inflation and dollar crash. The cause of dollar weakness is the outflow of US money, in my view. It is the primarily cause of the surge in emerging markets and commodities. Most US analysts think that the dollar weakness is due to foreigners buying less of it. This is probably incorrect.

The dollar weakness can limit the Fed’s policy. It heightens the risk of inflation; weak dollar imports inflation and, more importantly, increases inflation expectation, which can be self-fulfilling in today’s environment. The Fed has released and committed $12 trillion (83% of GDP) in bailing out the financial system. This massive overhang of money supply would cause hyperinflation if it is not withdrawn in time. So far the market still gives the Fed benefit of the doubt that it would withdraw the money. The dollar weakness reflects that the market is wavering in its confidence in the Fed. If the wavering continues, it could lead to dollar collapse and make inflation self-fulfilling. The Fed may have to make changes in its stance, even token gestures, to assure the market that it won’t let so much money out there. For example, signaling rate hikes would soothe the market. But, the economy is still in terrible shape: the unemployment rate is already at 9% and may surpass 10% this year. Any suggestion of hiking interest rate would dampen growth expectation. The Fed is caught in a rock and a hard place.

Oil price has doubled from the March low, even though the global demand continues to decline. The driving force again is the inflation and weak dollar expectation. As the US-based funds flee, some of it has flowed into oil ETFs. Its impact was initially on futures price, causing huge gap between cash and futures prices. The gap increased inventory demand as investors tried to profit from the gap. Rising inventory demand has caused the spot price to reach parity with futures price. Rising oil price causes inflation and depresses growth. It is a stagflation factor. If the Fed doesn’t rein in the weak dollar expectation, stagflation will arrive sooner than I expected.

Stagflation in the 1970s spawned the development of rational expectation theory in economics. Monetary stimulus works by fooling people into believing the value of money while the central bank is cheapening it. This perception gap stimulates the economy by fooling people into demanding more money than they should. Rational expectation theory clarified the underpinning for the Keynesian liquidity theory. However, as they say, people can’t be fooled three times. As central banks tried to use stimulus to solve structural problems in the 70s, their stimulus didn’t work. As they tried again and again, people saw through it and began to behave accordingly, which translated monetary stimulus straight into inflation without stimulating economic growth.

Rational expectation theory discredited Keynesian theory and laid the foundation for Paul Volker’s tough love policy that jagged up interest rate massively to trigger a recession. The recession convinced people that the central bank was serious about cooling inflation and adjusted their behavior accordingly. Inflation expectation dropped sharply afterwards. The credibility that Paul Volker brought to the Fed was exploited by Greenspan who kept pumping money to solve economic problems. As I have argued before, special factors made Greenspan’s approach effective at the same. Its byproduct was asset bubbles. As environment has changed, rational expectation theory will again exert force on monetary policy impact.

The movements in the treasury yield, oil and dollar show the return of rational expectation. Policymakers have to take actions to dent the speed of its returning. Otherwise, the stimulus will lose traction everywhere and the global economy will slump. I expect at least the US policymakers to make gestures to assuage the market’s concerns about the rampant fiscal and monetary expansion. The noise would be to emphasize the ‘temporary’ nature of the stimulus. The market will probably be fooled again. It will wake up fully only in 2010. The US has no way out other than printing money. As a rational country it will do what it has to do regardless of its rhetoric. This is why I expect a second dip for the global economy in 2010.

While inflation expectation is causing part of the investor community to act, the rest are betting on strong economic recovery to come. Massive amounts of money have flowed into emerging markets, making it look like a runway train. Many bystanders can’t take it anymore and are jumping in. Markets, after trending up for three months, are gapping up. Unfortunately for the last-minute bulls the current market movements suggest peaking. If you buy now, you have 90% chance of losing money when you try to get out.

Contrary to all the noises in the market, there are no signs of a significant economic recovery. The so-called green shoots in the global economy are mostly due to inventory cycle. Stimulus might juice up growth a bit in the second half of 2009. Nothing, however, suggests a lasting recovery. Markets are trading on imagination.

The return of funds flow into property is even more ridiculous. A property burst usually lasts for more than three years. The current burst is bigger than usual. The property market is likely to remain in bear territory for much longer. The bulls are talking about inflation as the bullish factor for property. Unfortunately, property price has risen already and needs to come down even as CPI rises for the two to reach parity.

While rational expectation is returning to part of the investment community, most are still trapped in institutional weaknesses that make them behave irrationally. The Greenspan era has nurtured a vast financial sector. All the people in the business need something to do. Since they invest with other people’s money, they are biased towards bullish sentiment. Otherwise, if they say it’s all bad, their investors will take back the money, and they will lose their jobs. Governments know that and create noises to give them excuses to be bullish.

This institutional weakness has been a catastrophe for people who trust investment professionals. In the past two decades, equity investors have done worse than owning bonds in the US market, lost big in Japan and emerging markets in general. It is astonishing to see how a value-destroying industry has lasted for so long. The bigger irony is that the people in this industry have been 2-3 times as well paid as in other industries. The key to its survival is volatility. As markets collapse and surge, it creates the possibilities for getting rich quickly. Unfortunately, most people don’t get out when markets are high like now. They only go through the ride.

Indeed, most people who invest in stock market get poorer. Look at Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Even though their per capita incomes have risen enormously in the past three decades, the investors in their stock markets have lost money. Economic growth is a necessary but not sufficient condition for investors to make money in stock market. Most countries, unfortunately, don’t possess the conditions for stock markets to reflect economic growth. The key is good corporate governance. It requires the rule of law and good morality. Neither is apparent in most markets.

It is a widely accepted notion that long term investors in stock market make money. Actually, it’s not true. Most companies don’t last for more than twenty years. How could long term investment make money for you? The bankruptcy of General Motors should remind people how ridiculous this notion is. General Motors was a symbol of the US economy. It is a century old company but has succumbed to bankruptcy. In the long run all companies go bankrupt.

Property on surface is better than stock market. It is something physical that investors can touch. However, it doesn’t hold much value in the long run either. Look at Japan. Its property price is lower than three decades ago. The US property price will likely bottom lower than twenty years ago adjusting for inflation.

China’s property market holds even less value in the long run. Chinese properties are sitting on land leased for seventy years for residential properties and fifty years for commercial properties. Their residual values are zero at the end. The hope for perpetual appreciation is a joke. If you accept zero value at the end of seventy years, the property value should only be the usage value during these seventy years. The usage value is fully reflected in rental yield. The current rental yield is half of mortgage interest rate. How could properties not be overvalued? The bulls want buyers to ignore rental yield and focus on appreciation. But, appreciation in the long run isn’t possible. Depreciation is, as the end value is zero.

The world is setting up for a big crash again. After the last bubble burst, governments around the world have not been focusing on reforms and are trying to pump a new bubble to solve the existing problems. Before inflation appears this strategy is working. As inflation expectation rises, its effectiveness is threatened. When inflation happens in 2010, another crash will become inevitable.

If you are a speculator and have confidence that you would get out before it crashes, then this is your market. If you think this market is for real, you are making a mistake and should get out as soon as possible. If you have lost money last three times you entered the market, you should stay away from this one as far as you can.

Original link: http://xieguozhongblog.blog.hexun.com/33647112_d.html

Latest update

2009-05-22T15:19:00.003+08:00

1. Despite still bleak export numbers, increasing unemployment, rising government debt, drastically lower corporate earnings and higher NPL's and loan defaults, markets the world over seemed to keep rising on a wave of enthusiasm.

2. Many well-known analysts are now saying the worst is probably over. Tan Teng Boo of icapital.biz even proclaimed that the start of a massive new bull run had begun. It is hard to think counter to such knowledgeable opinions. But I cannot see much reason for optimism at this moment, not while the figures coming in still look so bad. And not while the world's debt problems are not only not being solved, but being compounded by government action.

3. The last few days has seen some up-down activity on Bursa and abroad. On days when the CI surged ahead, the effect was generally not felt across the board, with recent market leaders failing to make new highs or closing in the red. Largely, the CI was helped along by rising plantation stocks. Overall resistance seems to be building though.

4. Have not updated last two transactions, they are as follows:

Latest disposals:

RCECAP: -20,000 (0.46) ... Balance 30,000

MUHIBAH: -4,000 (1.23) ... Balance 26,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (27 April 2009)

2009-04-27T20:34:00.003+08:00

1. I was initially hesitant to sell down partially after the recent sharp market run up, although was looking at some pretty good percentage gains on recent purchases.

2. The general consensus was also that the market was overbought and due for a correction.

3. Even though I personally felt that there weren't sufficient concrete reasons to justify such a sharp market rise, I felt I could ride through any short-term correction. Generally, I don't like to do short-term trades.

4. This is because I totally suck at market timing and so prefer to hold long-term if I have managed to pick up something I like at a cheap price, as I have no confidence I will be able to make more by getting back in again at the right time.

5. However, the current swine/pig/bird/human flu outbreak has really spooked me. The rate it has spread and the number of deaths in Mexico (reportedly >100 so far) shows it is not something to simply brush aside. The scariest part is that is has shown amazing ability to jump from human-to-human (unlike the HN51 bird flu virus which required contact with infected birds).

6. The last time something global like that happened was the SARS scare. I can still remember how it brought global travel and hospitality industries to a halt seemingly overnight. Businesses suffered as people stayed at home and some offices and factories were closed. Eventually stock and property markets were all badly hit (HK being one good example).

7. So while I was initially willing to hang on to recent acquisitions for the whole nine yards, the entire scenario has changed now. You don't wanna screw around with an epidemic scare. As such, I have decided to take profit on some of my MUHIBAH. Although the price was not great (compared to the recent high of 1.30), it's probably better to be safe than sorry.

Latest disposal:

MUHIBAH: -10,000 (1.138) ... Balance 30,000

/ichithekiller

Bye-Bye AIG

2009-03-26T18:16:00.012+08:00

1. Many people have bought into AIG, thinking that there is no way it will be allowed to fail after the Lehman fiasco. The rationale is, as long as it doesnt sink and disappear, over a period of a few years, it's stock price will definitely recover and provide thousand percent gains.

2. While this line of thinking has its merits, it is prudent to think through why the US government won't let AIG die. The main reason, to me, is the counter-party risk it poses and potential systemic fallout its failure would cause. Therefore, the concern is its potential effect on other commercial and investment banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, mutual funds, institutions, etc both in and outside of the US.

3. The interests of AIG's current stockholders are, however, a different matter.

4. Theoretically, it would seem that while AIG might not be allowed to fail, there is a possibility that it might be nationalised. Under such a scenario, current stockholders would see their holdings wiped out.

5. There are not a few Malaysian investors who have seen their holdings in Bursa Malaysia-listed companies going to zero or being seriously decimated from 150-to-1 (or such) capital reduction exercises and/or delistings. A nationalisation of AIG would have the same effect on its current shareholders.

6. This post is not meant to sound alarmist, but merely to highlight possibilities so that we can all make our own personal assessments.

7. Any ailing company undertaking a comprehensive and far-reaching restructuring exercise to rehabilitate itself needs to retain its best brains to lead the effort, ie. people who are familiar with and have intimate knowledge of its operations.

8. As AIG tries its best to unravel its burden of toxic assets and swaps and what-not, and packaging attractive divisions for sale, all with the noble intention of maximising recovery, it can least afford to lose the very people charged with spearheading this effort. Let's not forget that this business is very much a human capital business where expertise and experience are the main assets.

9. Besides, people with intimate knowledge of these assets and their true worth would be very attractive to asset vultures or even the very same companies sitting on the other side as AIG's counter-parties. This could only lead to AIG's bargaining position being severely compromised, ie. lower asset values fetched and lower recoveries.

10. The US government has currently gone into overdrive in showing its anger and disgust at any form of "goodwill" being shown to AIG and in punishing heavily "those responsible" for bringing such troubles to the innocent American public. (Including a hastily put together 90% tax on bonuses??).

11. Although this is normal coming from politicians, it looks to me like it's not such a wise thing to do if they want AIG to recover quickly. Check out the open letter below written by a real AIG Financial Products division employee to the CEO.

-------------------------------------------
Dear A.I.G., I quit

By Jake DeSantis
Published: March 25, 2009

The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group's financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G.

Dear Mr. Liddy,

It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter. Before describing the details of my decision, I want to offer some context:

I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.

After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.

I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

You and I have never met or spoken to each other, so I'd like to tell you about myself. I was raised by schoolteachers working multiple jobs in a world of closing steel mills. My hard work earned me acceptance to M.I.T., and the institute's generous financial aid enabled me to attend. I had fulfilled my American dream.

I started at this company in 1998 as an equity trader, became the head of equity and commodity trading and, a couple of years before A.I.G.'s meltdown last September, was named the head of business development for commodities. Over this period the equity and commodity units were consistently profitable — in most years generating net profits of well over $100 million. Most recently, during the dismantling of A.I.G.-F.P., I was an integral player in the pending sale of its well-regarded commodity index business to UBS. As you know, business unit sales like this are crucial to A.I.G.'s effort to repay the American taxpayer.

The profitability of the businesses with which I was associated clearly supported my compensation. I never received any pay resulting from the credit default swaps that are now losing so much money. I did, however, like many others here, lose a significant portion of my life savings in the form of deferred compensation invested in the capital of A.I.G.-F.P. because of those losses. In this way I have personally suffered from this controversial activity — directly as well as indirectly with the rest of the taxpayers.

Rest of article here: (http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/25/opinion/eddesantis.php?page=1)

/ichithekiller

Anomaly

2009-03-26T13:00:00.007+08:00

1. This is the headline of an article in Star Biz today: "Oil prices fade as storage levels hit 16-year high". (Link: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/3/26/business/20090326075337&sec=business).

2. Upon checking, I found that oil prices were still firmly above the $51 level. This is another sentence from said article: "Oil tumbled as low as $51.86 early in the day as Japan reported February exports plunged an unprecedented 49.4 percent".

3. Another drop in exports of 49.4% ... this looks really scary after a 52.9% fall earlier in January (Source: IHT).

4. The article goes on: "(Crude) Stockpiles are now at their highest level since July 23, 1993."

5. Considering the alarm all the above news should have caused, it is amazing that crude is still firmly above $50. In fact it has been steadily climbing ever since plunging from more than $140 to $30+.

6. So what can we make of this?

7. Many people think we are still a long way from the bottom (whether economic, stock market, Malaysian, regional or global). In fact, many are dead sure there will be another round of tsunami proportion bad news and price corrections.

8. Yet others are confident the markets made their respective bottoms in Oct-Nov 2008.

9. I don't know which camp is right. I only know the legendary "PermaBear" Jeremy Grantham said "beware of falling prey to the 'terminal paralysis' that often sets in after a financial crisis".

10. He also said "If stocks are attractive and you don’t buy and they run away, you don’t just look like an idiot, you are an idiot”.

11. Given the dismal returns from our FD's and the levels to which some attractive stocks (which should survive this crisis) have fallen, it would seem foolhardy not to follow at least some of his advice.

Latest purchases: (all additions to existing held counters):

MUHIBAH: +20,000 (0.73) ... Total 40,000

RCECAP: +40,000 (0.36) ... Total 50,000

/ichithekiller

Diversion

2009-02-05T04:18:00.012+08:00

1. With all the excitement currently going on in Perak, the attention seems to have shifted away from stock market for the time being. In fact, I haven't even been doing any price monitoring since the CNY holidays started.

2. Right now, PR and its supporters are all waiting with bated breath, fearing that HRH the Sultan of Perak will not grant MB Nizar's request for a dissolution of the State Assembly.

3. In my honest unlearned opinion, it is a foregone conclusion that the MB's request for a dissolution will be granted, unless there are MORE crossovers to BN apart from the current 3 + 1 prodigal son. Why?

4. Because as the Ruler, HRH will want minimal disruptions to the day-to-day governing of his beloved State. Every change of government entails its own teething problems, which wastes precious time, such as when PR first took over from BN after March '08.

5. If the government were to change again now in less than 12 months, there are bound to be significant disruptions happening once again. One can bet that all the current state executive councillors would be given the boot and replaced, except maybe those who recently switched their allegiance. Most of the current plans would be thrown out the window and replaced with new plans. This is besides the point that MB Nizar seems to be proving himself to be quite popular.

6. Of course, just the above are not good enough reasons for HRH to maintain the status quo. But how many more disruptions would be acceptable? If HRH consented to this change (again), what guarantee could HRH have that this would be the last time, at least until the next GE?

7. To answer this question, we have to look at the individuals triggering this round of change. Of the four, 2 are currently facing corruption charges. This means that if they are convicted, they would have to vacate their seats. What is DPM going to tell HRH when he meets him tomorrow? Don't worry, I will make sure they are found not guilty? Of course not.

8. With these 2 on shaky ground as it is, another 1 is someone who seems to have no sense of conviction, no steadfastedness of purpose. One minute he leaves his party, spouting disparaging cirticisms, the next minute he is going back because he "has to make sacrifices". I am not kidding, these are his exact words. Making a sacrifice means doing something you are deeply against for the greater good. A closer analysis of his words, as HRH would certainly carry out, would indicate that he is really opposed to rejoining BN, but has no other choice due to his desire to first serve the needs of the rakyat.

9. If that is the case and he is truly acting against his inner will and desire, how then can HRH be confident that he will not change his mind again in the near future?

10. So out of the 4, it's 3 strikes so far ... with one more to go. I will reserve comment on the last one 'cos I really don't know what to say.

11. But, with 3 out of 4 in the shaky zone, it certainly looks unlikely that HRH will want to risk another debacle in the near future.

13. What more, if tens and hundreds of millions can be spent on "development" for each by-election, why not bring in a billion by calling for fresh state-wide elections? Surely this would be magnificient for Perak in such trying economic times?

12. That's why I think, if there are no additional crossovers happening after this, the State Assembly will be dissolved soon. Let's see if I'm right.

/ichithekiller

Jigsaw Puzzle

2008-12-11T03:49:00.014+08:00

1. When trying to decide a good time to start buying stocks again, it is useful to think of it as one big jigsaw puzzle. As each piece falls into place, the picture becomes clearer and clearer.

2. When all the pieces are finally together, then the time should be just about right. Of course, the market may discount ahead of actual economic conditions and come off the bottom before the whole picture emerges, but I'm always told it's better to be a bit late after a major bottom than being way too early, before the actual bottom.

3. Everyone knows the US and European economies will be screwed big-time this round. However, there was still uncertainty as to the extent that China and petrodollar rich countries like the UAE and Russia would be affected. Some harboured hopes that these places would not be too badly hit fundamentally and would be able to lead a quick recovery out of the woods (together with others like India and Brazil).

4. Well, we know now that Russia is also screwed, with its foreign reserves depleting fast in its attempts to defend the rouble and its highly inefficient, oligarch-dominated economy falling apart due to the steep plunge in energy and natural resource prices.

5. Meanwhile in Dubai, ships are forming lines on the horizon, laden with cement, sand, steel and other building materials that no one wants any more. Property prices have plunged 25-50% with further drops expected ahead. Many "investors" holding on to as many as 4 to 5 "investment" properties they thought could be flipped for a quick buck (a strategy which worked very well in the recent past) are now finding that all the suckers "out there" have suddenly upped and gone "donno where" without so much as a polite goodbye.

6. Meanwhile back in the US, I have been wondering for a while how come no debt-financed private equity deals linked to prominent names have fallen apart so far, due to the double whammy of almost non-existent credit markets (for refinancing and working capital) and the actual impact of an economic slowdown on operating cashflows. Many were financed based on "sunny skies" projections, with little leeway for underperformance and definitely none for a downturn of this magnitude. Well, this piece seems to be falling into place as well now, with the latest news about the legendary Sam Zell's Tribune and Cerberus Capital's GMAC disintegrating perhaps leading the way.

7. So what about China? Well, sorry folks... looks like China's heading down the same sorry alley as well, going by the article below.

9. So there we have it... all the little pieces are finally fitting in to form the overall horrifying picture and complete the global rout. As this happens, perhaps the markets will stop with the recent rallies (or some say, technical rebounds), accept that the whole global economy is really, irretrievably screwed and act accordingly. What would be good now would be one more nice drop below the October levels, for us patient fellas to finally get on board or up our ante. Just hope there'll be no more unanticipated pieces after that.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

China trade figures plunge in November

Exports shrink for the first time since 2001 and is down by 2.2% from a year earlier. Imports are down by 17.9%. The declines underscore the rapidly worsening conditions in China's economy.

By Don Lee 8:29 AM PST, December 10, 2008

Reporting from Shanghai -- China's trading activity collapsed last month, as exports shrank for the first time in more than seven years and imports plunged, the government reported today.The 2.2% year-over-year decline in November exports contrasted with a 19.2% increase in October, underscoring the rapidly deteriorating conditions in China's economy.

The falloff in exports was the first since June 2001 and worse than analysts had expected. It cast further doubts on whether China's economy could grow at a pace that would create enough jobs at home or provide a significant boost to a slumping global economy."It basically reflects what you're seeing on the ground -- factories are closing," said Andy Xie, an independent economist in Shanghai."It's very grim," he added. "You can bet the next few months are going to be worse."

The nation's imports sank 17.9% in November from a year earlier, something being painfully felt in places such as Australia, Chile and parts of the U.S. that supply copper and other raw materials to China, the world's manufacturing hub. The sharp drop in imports, partly reflecting the decline in commodity prices, boosted China's monthly trade surplus to about $40 billion, a record high. That could add to trade tensions between China and its major partners, the U.S. and Europe.

The latest report was hardly news to cheer about in Beijing.The plunge in imports indicates weakening domestic demand. And the sharp pullback in export orders from around the world has dealt a blow to China's industrial base and wiped out countless jobs, triggering labor unrest that poses a severe test to the Communist Party leadership."

On the one hand, government doesn't want exports to drop dramatically and hurt social stability," said Zhang Bin, a deputy director of international finance at the Institute of World Economics and Politics, a government think tank in Beijing. "

But on the other hand, it is necessary for China to have a structural adjustment and industry upgrade . . . to decrease some exports and transfer resources from the manufacturing industry to the service industry." Zhang says he thinks the central government's recently announced $586-billion economic stimulus package, consisting mainly of infrastructure projects, will be enough to sustain adequate growth.

The government, though, is expected to continue loosening lending policies and pushing through measures to bolster the sagging property market and help export businesses. November's trade report was released as top leaders in Beijing, concluding an annual economic planning meeting, pledged to maintain a "stable, healthy growth" next year by boosting domestic demand and restructuring the economy, according to the official New China News Agency.

But Chinese leaders are facing powerful global head winds. Chinese exports to the U.S. had been slipping for some months, but more recently, Europe, Japan and the Asia-Pacific region also have cut back on orders. Chinese-made steel products, electrical machinery, electronics and light manufacturing, such as apparel, all saw a sharp decline last month, analysts said. "Demand is simply disappearing," said Tao Wang, a UBS Securities economist in Beijing, in a research report.

Among the hardest hit has been China's shipbuilding industry, which has been reeling from cancellations. That in turn has spilled into many of the industry's suppliers, such as Dalian Lushun Xinfei Ship Machinery Co. in northeastern China. "Many of the small manufacturers in our area are half-dead," said Li Jiyou, the company's general manager. He said that his company would be lucky to break even this year, and that he feared what lay ahead.

"The aftershocks [of the global credit crisis] haven't yet spread completely to our industry. Next year is going to be a big challenge for us." In November, China's exports to the U.S. dropped 6.1% from a year earlier. With American consumers continuing to cut back in the face of severe job losses, the decline for many Chinese manufacturers is likely to accelerate. Los Angeles-based Wessco International is forecasting a 10% to 20% decline next year in the volume of toiletry kits, stationery, bags and other products that it makes largely in China for airlines, hotels and cruise lines, said Petros Sakkis, Wessco's manager based in Hangzhou.

Less than a year ago, American companies sourcing from China were fretting about an appreciating Chinese currency, soaring raw material costs and pressure from local governments that only seemed to want high-end manufacturing. But all that's eased since the global financial crisis took hold and spread to China." China needs us again," Sakkis said.

Article link: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-trade11-2008dec11,0,2515641.story

/ichithekiller

Oh ma ma ...

2008-11-21T15:37:00.007+08:00

1. If people think the previous Bush-Gore court case over the US presidency was a big issue, there could be another 10,000 megaton bomb coming, this one much bigger than that previous debacle.

2. There are now a series of lawsuits being filed all over the US challenging Obama's right to be the US President if he cannot prove conclusively that he is a natural born US citizen.

3. Just imagine what would happen if he were stopped from ascending to the US presidency. The psychological impact alone would cause much instability, something the US does not need at a time like this when it's economy seems to be unravelling faster by the day.

4. Add to that his legions of fans and supporters who have been so hyped-up by the triumph of good over evil his election win signified for them and you could be forgiven for thinking that the country would quickly descend into a state of anarchy. Think the Rodney King issue was big? When that happens, guess where the Dow will end up? What about our Bursa? Still unaffected....?

5. Strangely, the mainstream media seem to be playing down this controversy. However, some less well-known media have been bringing it up. Here's an excerpt, followed by some links below:

"According to the United States Constitution, only a natural-born American citizen is eligible for the office of the presidency. Questions and rumors about President-elect Obama's birthplace and legal citizenship gained steam in the weeks leading up to the election, and continue to fly as Obama refuses to release his original birth certificate and medical records to the media."

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/nov/08111903.html

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/oct/08102712.html

http://www.gaywired.com/Article.cfm?Section=66&ID=20943

6. Ha ha ... I know the last one is a gay site, but I just stumbled on it while looking for more info, OK? I have no idea as to the accuracy of these reports, since major news sites like CNN, NY Times all seem to have nothing on it. Perhaps it's true certain interest groups who control global finance and media also put the man where he is ... how else did he manage to raise an astounding $750mil for his election campaign?

/ichithekiller

Sign of things to come...?

2008-11-20T01:05:00.003+08:00

Obama: Yes we can ... Celente: No we can't

19 November, 2008

Barack Obama was elected President on a slogan "Yes We Can," and a promise of sweeping "change." But the slogan is an empty one and the promise has already been broken, asserts Gerald Celente, Trends Research Institute Director. Obama's win was an unquestionable victory for racial justice; it proved the color barrier could be breached. However, under the new administration the promised "change" will be minimal. And, as usual, the citizenry will play no role in shaping government policy.

The Slogan

Obama's "Yes We Can," mantra captivated much of America and mesmerized the Obama faithful into believing that "we" means them. "This is demonstrably wishful thinking," says Mr. Celente. "'We' is not them. The people have no say. Obama has already tipped his hand. Even before the election, he was instrumental in pushing through the $700 billion bailout despite the opposition of some 80 percent of the "We's.'" Opposition to the bailout ran as much as 500 to one among those who personally contacted their representatives. Overwhelming hostility for the bailout had no effect upon candidate Obama. If this is a precedent, it means that President Obama can be relied upon to pay only lip service to the populace while doing real service to the special interests who financed his way to the top.

The Promise

"As for 'change,' President elect Obama has already reneged on his solemn pledge to rid the Capitol of cronies and insiders; to bring in fresh faces and new ideas," said Celente. Long before the Election Day ballots had been cast, candidate Obama had picked Rahm Emanuel and John Podesta for the crucial positions of Chief of Staff and transition leader, respectively. Both are quintessential cronies, pedigreed insiders. It would be difficult to find two individuals who better represent the breed. Known among the Beltway crowd as Rahmbo for his ruthless political tactics, foul mouth and abrasive manner, Congressman Rahm Emanuel served in the Clinton White House as a top strategist, is currently chair of the Democratic Caucus and fourth ranking in the House leadership.

John Podesta served as Bill Clinton's chief of staff. His lobbying firm, ranked the third most powerful by the Washingtonian, counts among its clients the oil-giant BP, defense industry corporations Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, biotech firms Genentech and Amgen, Swiss pharmaceutical corporation Novartis, and Wal-Mart. Pursuing the same path to grapple with the "greatest economic challenge of our lifetime," Obama sought advice from top ranking public and private sector experts also with strong Clinton Clan ties, i.e., insiders and cronies. Chief among them: were former Clinton Treasury Secretaries Larry Summers and Robert Rubin, both instrumental in creating legislation that dismantled Depression era banking and trading safeguards (Glass-Steagall Act) designed to constrain the power of Wall Street and put limits on the excesses of bankers and brokers. The new laws, (more accurately, the absence of law) crafted and promoted by Summers and Rubin among others, signed by Bill Clinton and rigorously enforced by George W. Bush led directly to the "greatest economic challenge of our lifetime." This is the financial/economic debacle that currently engulfs the entire planet, and from which there is no conceivable or foreseeable escape, at least not in the short or mid-term future.

"Going to Summers, Rubin, Reich, Tyson, Volker and the rest of them to fix the economy is like fighting the War on Crime by bringing in Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Seagal, and Machine Gun Kelly," said Celente. "'Yes, we can,' sounds good but it is a delusion, 'No, we can't.' Nobody can, given the current socio-political and philosophical make-up of the nation. And, unfortunately, Obama's promise of 'change' is already revealed as a fraud," he concluded. "That won't change either."

Gerald Celente
Founder/Director,
The Trends Research InstitutePublisher,
The Trends Journal

Article link: http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/4457/49/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpts from another article:

Obama to usher in major shift in trade policy
By JIM ABRAMS 19 November, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — The election of Barack Obama has delivered a decisive victory to "fair traders," mainly Democrats and their allies who for years have contended that the free-trade policies of past administrations were recipes for American job losses and environmental degradation.

.... He has promised a tougher stance against China, telling the National Council of Textile Organizations, "I will use all diplomatic means at my disposal" to induce China to change its foreign exchange and export policies, which have led to huge trade imbalances.

.... "Obama has made it clear he understands the benefits of trade," Griswold said, "but he has made it even more clear he will not cross important constituencies in his party, such as organized labor."

Article link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gJUy2QNCPnj1yjLw1mdqbzBfbITQD94HSKA00

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

If there's one thing that will drive the global economy into widespread depression now, it's increased protectionism. Emerging economies like China are expected to suffer some degree of slowdown, but still remain the best bet to pull the world economy out of its current funk, while the US and Europe slowly rebuild (if they do the right things). Putting protectionist fences up everywhere will certainly ensure everyone goes down together in flames. But then again, maybe that's the plan...

/ichithekiller

Barack Obama wins 44th US Presidency

2008-11-05T13:32:00.002+08:00

Victory speech below ...

Meanwhile, we can still continue to "debate" over who's fit (or not fit, for whatever reason) to lead our esteemed state development corporations, that have performed so admirably all along and produced such fantastic results, which have spearheaded state development and the welfare of the rakyat...

/ichithekiller

Don't be stupid & shipping stocks

2008-10-22T19:36:00.004+08:00

1. This post is a bit late, but it seems the US Government has finally come full circle to include the buying of stakes in US financial institutions as part of the rescue package. Originally Treasury Secretary Paulson said the $700bil would only be for buying troubled loans but following the UK's direct bank recap actions, the US has no choice but to follow suit.

2. Actually this is a much better measure than just buying problem NPL's from banks. Since the core problem is under-capitalisation of banks (and perhaps the whole US economy), leading to a loss of confidence in the entire banking system, it is only logical that one needs to shore up their capital bases. In effect, this two-prong approach is a mirror of what Malaysia Boleh did with Danaharta buying up NPLs (at discounted prices) to free up bank balance sheets and Danamodal coming in to recapitalise those that needed it.

3. It is rumoured that between US$250-500 bil will be used to take up stakes in a whole range of financial institutions. At the back end, the US is looking towards China and SWFs from rich countries like the Gulf states and Singapore to take up hundreds of billions more in US treasury notes to fund this programme. In the recent past, China and the SWF's were not allowed to take up controlling stakes or even have any board representation in US companies and banks in which they invested billions to rescue (contrast this to the US stance during the Asian financial crisis).

4. Even a proposal to buy some US ports by Dubai investors met severe political resistance and was eventually shelved. This time, the US will probably expect the same lopsided arrangement, but China and the SWFs should not be stupid. Yes, it is in their interest to assist the US economy (due to the ridiculous amount of USD-denominated foreign reserves they are holding) but they should not let the US take them for a bloody ride again. This time, if the US wants the dosh, insist that they swap their money or treasury notes for direct equity stakes in US institutions. If the situation or valuations warrant it, even controlling stakes should be demanded. After all, this is only in line with the free market system that they have been championing all along.

5. Regarding shipping, up until the early part of this year, I used to receive several offers a week for vessels from ship brokers. These were offers to BUY all types of vessels, from tugboats to barges to bulk carriers to service vessels, etc. It truly seemed like the whole world was looking for vessels and there was a serious global shortage.

6. However, over the last 3 months, the number of brokers offering to SELL vessels has been increasing at an amazing rate, to the point now where I can say I do not receive a single offer to buy anymore. That it has now tipped to a global oversupply situation can be clearly seen in the way the BDI has really tanked recently, although it started tanking quite a while ago. The alarming part is over the last 4-5 days, I have been receiving notices of AUCTIONS. Yes, not even offers to sell, but auctions now.

7. Another bit of news I received was that India's (and Bangladesh on a smaller scale) until recently booming ship demolition industry has now ground to a screeching halt, due to inability of yard operators to secure financing to buy old ships. Besides the commodity bust and lower freight volumes due to economic slowdown, this could be another reason why shipping rates have tanked due to oversupply of vessels... vessels that were meant for the demo yard are now being put to use longer. Some shipowners also changed their minds about selling as the current bottom-scraping charter rates have resulted in prices and values of vessels sinking like rocks to the bottom of the sea. It also does not help that scrap rates have dropped 30-40% from their recent peak. In the end, it becomes a vicious cycle. So, to those holding shipping stocks, better be on your toes.

/ichithekiller

DJIA 777-point drop

2008-09-30T18:19:00.002+08:00

Note to self:

1. Proposed US $700bil bailout plan rejected in current form yesterday.

2. DJIA fell 777.68 points (-6.98%).

3. HANG SENG low -6% but recovered to close +135.53 points (+0.76%). Previous close: 17,880.68 ... Day low/high: 16, 799.29 / 18,016.21.

4. BURSA briefly swung to green, subsequently closed slightly down (-1.04 points... insignificant).

5. Continuing weakness in steel and coke prices noted, especially China.

/ichithekiller

China retail sector still OK?

2008-09-25T12:45:00.010+08:00

Many think the so-called bursting of China's stock and property market bubbles, together with high inflation, will kill or would have killed its retail sector. Well, take a look at the article below:

China's retail sales up 23.2% in August

2008-09-12

BEIJING, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- Domestic retail sales kept the growing momentum in previous months and registered an increase of 23.2 percent in August, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday.

The growth rate was 6.2 percentage points higher than the same period last year and 0.1 percentage points lower than the previous month. The August retail sales totaled 876.8 billion yuan (128.9 billion U.S. dollars).

The retail sales kept growing despite the drop in consumer price index (CPI), which reflected a strong consumption in domestic market, said Zhang Liqun, a researcher with the Development and Research Center of the State Council.

It brings China's retail sales of consumer goods in the first eight months of this year to 6,843.9 billion yuan, up 21.9 percent, compared with a 15.7 growth recorded during the same period last year.

The drive behind the retail sales is the government policies inpast years to increase income and promote domestic demand, said Zhang. But whether the trend would continue is yet uncertain.

Negative factors might dampen sales, which included reduced employment and income caused by bad enterprise performance, and weaker consumer confidence caused by economic slowdown. Urban consumption jumped 23.9 percent year on year to 601.5 billion yuan, while rural residents spent 275.3 billion yuan, up 21.8 percent.

Whole sale and retail sales hit 736.1 billion yuan, up 23.2 percent, while hotel and catering industry reported 124.5 yuan, up26.3 percent. Retail sales in other industries reached 16.2 billion yuan, up 2.6 percent.

Automobile sales grew by 19 percent, while oil and related products jumped 49.4 percent.

(Source: Chinaview)

-----------------------------------

Still don't believe? Think the figures were boosted by inflation effects? Think again....

CPI drops to lowest in 14 months

BEIJING, Sept. 11 -- Inflation eased to its lowest level in August since June last year, giving the government more policy leeway to prevent an economic slowdown. The consumer price index (CPI), the main gauge of inflation, rose 4.9 percent year-on-year, compared to 6.3 percent in July, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said yesterday. The CPI has been sliding since May, but still many economists were caught by surprise by last month's drop because they had forecast it to be above 5 percent. The month-on-month fall was only 0.1 percent. But last month's producer price index (PPI), a gauge of factory gate inflation, rose a record 10.1 percent year-on-year, after jumping 10 percent in July.

Nevertheless, the low CPI figure gives the government "more policy room to sustain growth," Citigroup economist Ken Peng said. He suggested the authorities consider further policy changes favoring growth, which could shift to full gear next month. Economic growth has been slowing since the second quarter of last year, when the government adopted monetary and credit measures to rein in inflation and prevent the economy from overheating further. Yet economists began warning of a recession since the beginning of this year, especially because the country's export sector, a key growth engine, started losing steam on weaker foreign demand.

The government responded it would strive to maintain a stable economic growth this year, leading to speculation that it would soon ease the tightening measures. But any step to stimulate the economy, such as lower interest rates or faster loan growth, risks spurring demand and stoking inflation again. "Unless there's an abrupt slowdown, there's no need for a major change in the marco-control measures," said Lian Ping, an economist with the Bank of Communications. "The current 10 percent GDP growth is largely seen as acceptable."

The CPI rise is likely to stabilize around 5 percent during the rest of the year, he said, because food prices may continue to drop. Inflation fell last month mainly because of a drop in food prices, which make up one-third of the inflation basket. Food prices slid 0.4 percent from July. A falling inflation rate gives the government a good chance to lift its price control on products such as fuel, water, and electricity further, Lehman Brothers economist Sun Mingchun said.

In the past year, policymakers have managed to freeze the prices of public utilities, and fuel and power tariff. They introduced temporary price curbs on some other goods, too, to rein in inflation. Yet soaring labor and raw material costs, reflected in the rising PPI figure, have eaten into the profit of local enterprises because price control and fierce competition prevented them from passing the inflationary pressure on to consumers. Such price liberalization could make the CPI rise again in the next few months, Sun said. "But if implemented in a gradual and orderly way, inflation should remain below 6 percent year-on-year during the rest of the year."

(Source: China Daily)
------------------------------------------

Still, reported corporate profits will be hit in the short-term. Why? Partly due to production curbs during the Games, partly due to post-Olympics slowing down of Govt spending, partly due to the US slowdown. But many choose to ignore that during the bull market phase, as much as 30%-40% of corporate profits being reported were derived from "investments" in other Chinese listed companies. So, it was a pretty nice merry-go-round while it lasted. Maybe the recent stamp duty and bank reserve cuts will start the ball rolling again, as the last few days' strong rebound might indicate. Nevertheless, the point is that through all the recent turmoil, retail sales remained strong... or was it purely an Olympics effect?

/ichithekiller

Beginning of the end for USD?

2008-09-23T12:57:00.004+08:00

Many people have been predicting the demise of the USD for a long time. In fact, many were convinced it was already underway, until the recent slight rebound following the correction in commodities markets. Most believe without the support of big-scale US debt buyers like China and the Gulf states, the USD would have been kaput a long time ago. Question was, how long would these people keep buying something that had every reason to decline over the long run, with no sign of improvement, especially in terms of the country's budget deficits?

See the article below, Bush had to call Hu Jintao to reassure him about the situation. How often does the bloody leader of one of the most hypocritical countries in the world call someone else to explain something?

Hu, Bush talk on financial crisis
(09-22 12:12)
Chinese President Hu Jintao and US President George W Bush spoke by telephone about the financial crisis engulfing Wall Street, China News Service reported.

The state-run news agency said the two leaders spoke at Bush's request.

Hu expressed hope that US government efforts would succeed in stabilising the US financial system, which he said would be in the interests of both the United States and China.

China Investment Corp, the country's US$200 billion (HK$1.56 trillion) sovereign wealth fund, is in talks to increase its stake in Morgan Stanley.

REUTERS

---------------------

Anyway, with the announcement of the latest trillion dollar bailouts on Wall Street, it looks like it's the final straw. Remember when the US lectured Asian countries during the Asian financial crisis about the evils of bailouts and the need to raise interest rates to killer levels, so as to allow creative destruction to work its necessary magic on a ruptured economy? Guess they lost their own study notes.

Anyway, China's state-linked papers don't talk without the tacit approval of the central government. With this, it looks like the first shots are being fired. If China starts diversifying out of the USD in a big way, the USD is screwed. If the US retaliates and gets into a trade war with China, it's still screwed. Either way, there's no reason to hold any USD or USD-denominated assets (including those pegged to the USD) for now...

China paper urges new currency order after "financial tsunami"
Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:45am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - Threatened by a "financial tsunami," the world must consider building a financial order no longer dependent on the United States, a leading Chinese state newspaper said on Wednesday.

The commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily said the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (LEH.P: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) "may augur an even larger impending global 'financial tsunami'."

The People's Daily is the official newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party, and the overseas edition is a smaller circulation offshoot of the main paper.

Its pronouncements do not necessarily directly reflect leadership views, but this commentary by a professor at Shanghai's Tongji University suggested considerable official alarm at the strains buckling world financial markets.

China's central bank earlier this week cut its lending rate for the first time in six years, a move analysts said was aimed at bolstering the economy and the battered stock market.

"The eruption of the U.S. sub-prime crisis has exposed massive loopholes in the United States' financial oversight and supervision," writes the commentator, Shi Jianxun.

"The world urgently needs to create a diversified currency and financial system and fair and just financial order that is not dependent on the United States."

But Vice Premier Wang Qishan, on a visit to the United States, told U.S. trade officials in a meeting on Tuesday that China and the United States needed to maintain close economic ties with global markets going through such turbulence.

"The Chinese government is well aware of the fact that the United States, which is the world's largest developed country, and China, which is the world's largest developing country, should have constructive and cooperative economic and trade relations," he said.

China is a major buyer of U.S. Treasury bonds, and through its sovereign wealth fund it has taken stakes in two large U.S. financial institutions.

In July 2005, China revalued the yuan and freed it from a dollar peg to float within managed bands. But the yuan and China's trade remains tightly linked to the fortunes of the dollar.

The commentary suggested China must brace for grave economic fallout and look to alternatives, saying the crisis brings to mind the Great Depression of the 1930s.

"Lehman Brothers announced bankruptcy will not only have a domino effect on the global financial world, it will bring a shock to the world economy," the front-page comment stated.

(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Ken Wills)

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSPEK4365020080917?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

/ichithekiller

Don't Force People To Apologise Lah...

2008-09-08T18:40:00.005+08:00

What is all this about forcing people to apologise lah? If demand disciplinary action I understand, but forcing someone to apologise for something is kinda meaningless. Even if the person apologises, it would not be sincere, so what's the point? Might as well just make your conclusions and act accordingly in future. Anyway, look at the clip above from 2:00 onwards... he seems so indignant and sincere, I'm sure he has been "framed". Here's a joke that comes to mind (slightly modified).

One day, a white man walked up to a Red Indian...

Red Indian: How!

White Man: *Piak!* (Slaps the Red Indian)

Red Indian: Ouch! Why did you slap me??!

White Man: When did I slap you?

Red Indian: You just did! What're you, some crazy white supremacist? I demand that you apologise immediately!

White Man: You're the crazy one! I was merely hitting a mosquito on your face, you ungrateful £%@*!

Red Indian: Huh?

White Man: Yes, I resent your accusations. I demand that you apologise instead to me, my family, my friends, my dog, my cat, my great-grandmother, all white men and every God-fearing Christian in the land!

Red Indian: ???!

Anyway, with this kind of drama going on everyday, no wonder the market doesn't seem to be going anywhere but down.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (15 August 2008)

2008-08-15T20:15:00.002+08:00

Updating collection over last few days... BANENG released a pretty disappointing announcement that it was acquiring an O&G services firm. Disappointing in the sense that it's a pretty small company. Not exactly what I was waiting for. Of course, this could be the first step to acquire a licensed co first, before announcing some contracts... selling pressure seems to have wound down after this initial disappointment.

Latest purchases:

BANENG: +10,000 (0.525), +10,000 (0.515) ... Total 50,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (30 July 2008)

2008-07-30T18:23:00.003+08:00

Was hoping BANENG would retrace to 65c level, but with the huge jump in the Dow last night, seemed like no chance of that happening. Upon opening, it went to a high of 73c and didn't look like there was a chance of it dropping below the 72.0 - 72.5 range. Luckily I didn't rush in though, cos profit-taking (according to Half Bull) later saw it drop to the 69.5 level before closing at 70c. Anyway, I got hit for another 20k at 70.5c ... not sure whether anymore below that, as my broker has not contacted me yet, will only know tomorrow. If short-term weakness brings it down to 65c then could be a chance to round up position to total 50k. Seems like there is persistent buying supporting this counter, but don't think I've got the guts to play too big with it.

Latest purchase:

BANENG: +20,000 (0.705) ... Total (30,000)

/ichithekiller

Taking a gamble...

2008-07-29T18:14:00.009+08:00

Yes, the title of this post is taking a gamble. That means what I'm talking about below is not considered "investment grade" from a fundamental standpoint and I'm definitely not recommending a buy. In short, I'm just bored and decided to take a punt on a stock that has been acting a bit strange lately, going counter to the overall market trend. From a recent bottom near 30c BANENG has more than doubled in price, hitting a high of 82.5 on 23rd July...before correcting slightly and then moving again.

At the same time, it has also announced that it is exploring options in the Oil & Gas sector. Most of us would know this is the best goreng theme and ordinarily I would also pooh-pooh this kind of "announcement". But the price-volume action doesn't look like it's game over yet. The other thing is it recently sold off its loss-making fabric division. In the notes to its quarterly announcement, it said this subsidiary contributed to RM12 million of losses in the financial year to 31st December, 2007. If BANENG was operating at around breakeven or a slight loss before this disposal (the total year 2007 loss is further affected by a RM3.2 mil one-off loss on disposal), it should by right have no problem recording a profit of at least RM8mil after this disposal, assuming all other things remain equal (a somewhat big if). Note though, that the 2008 Q1 profit doesn't really reflect a big jump in profits, so it's all pretty mysterious. Anyway, following this simple analysis through, based on a tiny share base of 60m, a profit of RM8mil would translate to an EPS of 13.3c ... at 70c it would mean a prospective PE of 5.25 times, before the effects of any supposedly new O&G ventures.

Therefore, with this possible earnings turnaround as a "cushion" I'm thinking it's probably worth a gamble ... just for fun... and just in case the O&G hype turns out to be real. Couldn't pick up much though... seemed to be consistent buying support throughout the day at 69c level. Considering the weak overall sentiment, was hoping it might slip to around 65c ... but no dice. Let's see if got opportunity to pick up cheaper over the next few days.... stocks tend to dive right after I put a foot in due to impatience and boredom.

Latest purchase:

BANENG +10,000 (0.69) ... Total 10,000

/ichithekiller

Which part of the cycle are we in now?

2008-07-22T13:07:00.001+08:00

Think the Unthinkable

“The terrible, cold, cruel part is Wall Street. Rivers of gold flow there from all over the earth, and death comes with it. There, as nowhere else, you feel a total absence of the spirit: herds of men who cannot count past three, herds more who cannot get past six, scorn for pure science and demoniacal respect for the present. And the terrible thing is that the crowd that fills the streets believes that the world will always be the same and that it is their duty to keep that huge machine running, day and night, forever. This is what comes of a Protestant morality that I, as a (thank God) typical Spaniard, found unnerving.” –Federico Garcia Lorca.

In every kind of disaster, writes Amanda Ripley in her excellent and moving study of disaster psychology (“The Unthinkable: who survives when disaster strikes – and why”, Random House Books 2008), we start in roughly the same place and go through three phases. The first phase is denial. According to a 2005 National Institute of Standards and Technology study drawn from interviews with nearly nine hundred survivors of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre, the average survivor waited six minutes before heading downstairs. One survivor commented, “The building started to sway and everything started shaking. I knew there was something wrong. I ran to my desk and made a couple of phone calls. I dialled about five times trying to reach my [spouse]. I also called my sisters to find out more information.” Despite the physical evidence of smoke and the smell of jet fuel, about one thousand individuals took the time to shut down their computers. Once through the initial shock of the denial phase, we pass into deliberation (“We know something is terribly wrong, but we don’t know what to do about it. How do we decide ?”). Our processes of thought and perception are altered. Eventually we reach the third phase of the survival arc: the decisive moment; “We’ve accepted that we are in danger; we’ve deliberated our options. Now we take action.”
It might appear tasteless to compare the collapse of financial markets with real human disaster. It isn’t meant to be. Happily and hopefully, most of us will never experience the latter, so the threat of financial loss (delivered, or potential) will be more than enough to suffice.

That stock market price action has been so consistently dreadful with such little evidence of a sustainable floor despite flurries of ostensibly positive news (Santander / Alliance & Leicester; some form of formal pastoral care for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) could be interpreted as a sign that many investors remain trapped at the “denial” stage of this particular market disaster. Or perhaps many investors, institutional and individual alike, are now mulling their deliberative options. And some, presumably, have already reached the decisive phase, and already pulled the plug on much of their market exposure and initiated the dash for cash. This may or may not prove to be the prudent strategy; only time will tell. It certainly seems to show the merit in the advice that if you’re going to panic, panic early. We would merely hazard the following suggestion: the current market environment is flushing out those investors (supposedly “professional” and individual) who are congenitally unsuited to be making substantial portfolio allocations to the equity markets. The fiendish difficulty for those who decide to be out of the market entirely will be when to decide to get back in.

Classic Buffettology advises us to get greedy when others are fearful. This would ordinarily be sound advice, if somewhat difficult psychologically to execute. But if that blanket exhortation proves to be deficient or at least premature this time around, it will be because the nature of the problems facing financial markets, central banks and commercial banks is off the charts. It feels difficult because many of us have never been here before: only part-way through the historic bust of an extraordinary credit boom, only part-way through a property market correction that could yet last for months if not years, and only part-way through probably the gravest systemic crisis facing the banking system since the 1970s, if not indeed the 1930s. What accelerates and amplifies the downwave in stock markets is the state of our brave and newly inter-connected world where all investors are effectively neurons firing in a vast collective brain. And the global investment brain has suffered a stroke, an ischemic shock triggered by a sudden catastrophic lack of confidence mixed with heady deleveraging.

Citigroup’s Patrick Perret-Green takes up where John Kay of The Financial Times left off some weeks ago, in comparing the evolution of current market sentiment to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ “Five Stages of Grief”. The suggestion back in May that it might be time to buy because bankers had “moved on” from denial through to a state of general depression we now know to have been somewhat premature. Here is how Patrick now takes us through the grief arc:

Denial - Credit markets have entered ludicrous levels.
Anger – Why have I lost so much money ? It’s not fair !
Bargaining – Cut rates. Give us liquidity. Give us capital.
Depression – We’re all doomed.
Acceptance – We can’t fight it. Let’s make the best of what we can and prepare.

He suggests, like John Kay did in May, that we are currently in the depression stage. “For doom-mongerers like me this is an event to be welcomed. When the masses, and particularly the popular media, wake up to things it often means that things are close to reaching overshoot territory. This doesn’t mean that things are set to rebound dramatically, far from it. But the pace of decline may ease significantly.. What’s happening to Fannie and Freddie is, perversely, a healthy development. The GSE [Government Sponsored Enterprise] debate has gone on for many years and for far too long there has been a woeful lack of political willpower to address their hybrid status and the explosion of their balance sheets. Only now.. are actions of a far-reaching nature being taken.. More broadly the GSE issue has rammed home the force of our long-term argument that the credit crunch will only be resolved through widespread public sector involvement. As with Scandinavia and Japan in the nineties and noughties, and for that matter the US in the eighties, the problem is too big for the private sector to fix. That means that, thankfully, we are now tentatively beginning to enter Stage 5 – Acceptance.”

Patrick believes, as I do, that the logical outcome from this is higher Treasury yields, notwithstanding the interest rate cuts that the monetary authorities would like to throw at the banking system but from which they are prevented by frustratingly high inflation. All things being equal, then, perhaps the real danger to come is not just lower equity markets (future market direction ? How long is a piece of string ?) but lower government bond markets too. Yes, the economic slowdown and the long-awaited oil price correction would conceivably suppress inflation. But somebody is going to have to pay for all these financial sector bailouts, and while it is gratifying to see Spanish banks stepping up to the plate, it is taxpayers who are ultimately going to get profoundly stuffed (plus ça change..) before this crisis is through. Given the complex and highly opaque outcomes that overhang so many asset classes, has there ever been a better time to be highly diversified by investment instrument, with a reduced dependency on both equity and bond markets, and with an overriding focus on absolute return ? Or to return to the theme with which we began this week: regardless of whether financial market conditions might deteriorate markedly further from admittedly distressed levels, equating, in other words, to potential “money disaster”, do you have a plan ?

http://thepriceofeverything.typepad.com/the_price_of_everything/2008/07/think-the-unthi.html

/ichithekiller

See? Don't panic lah...

2008-07-18T11:27:00.014+08:00

Put on some cool shades if you can't take the heat...

www.dita.com

Investors breathe life into Freddie, Fannie

Shares of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae surge as investors begin to bet that the futures for the two companies aren't as dire as first thought.

By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: July 17, 2008: 4:50 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Reports of the deaths of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae may have been greatly exaggerated. Shares of the battered mortgage giants soared Thursday. Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) surged 22% and Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) jumped 18%. Also on Thursday, Fitch Ratings affirmed 'AAA' long-term issuer default ratings for Fannie and Freddie. But Fitch also chopped Fannie's preferred stock rating and put Freddie on watch for possible downgrade.

The stock surge follows comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday, who told the House Financial Services Committee that the mortgage companies are "in no danger in failing" because they are "adequately capitalized." Also on Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission took action to limit short-selling of the two firms and 17 other firms unless traders could prove that they had actually borrowed the stocks.

Fannie and Freddie stocks went into a tailspin last week. Shares continued to decline earlier this week even after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson requested Sunday that Congress remove the credit limits on the amount that Fannie and Freddie can borrow from the Treasury Department. Without counting today's gains, Fannie's stock has plunged 77% so far this year, and Freddie has fallen 80%. Together, these firms back or own some $5 trillion worth of housing debt, or about the half the national market.

Beyond Fannie and Freddie, the battered banking industry also did well on Thursday. JPMorgan (JPM, Fortune 500) jumped 13.5% after reporting a plunge in profit that nonetheless beat analysts' expectations. Shares of regional bank PNC (PNC, Fortune 500) also reported a better-than-expected profit and its stock rose 13.5%. This news followed a more upbeat earnings report from Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) on Wednesday. The stocks of Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), Merrill Lynch (MER, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) also climbed Thursday. Merrill shares then traded lower after the market closing when it reported a nearly $5 billion quarterly loss that surpassed even the worst estimates.

"What has happened is that hysteria has blanked out all rational thought concerning the banking industry," said Richard Bove, analyst for Ladenburg Thalmann, explaining why the stocks have so dramatically in earlier sessions. "The pendulum is never in the middle," added Bove. "It's always at one or the other extreme." Bove does not own banking stocks and his firm does not conduct investment banking business with them.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/17/news/economy/fannie_freddie/index.htm?postversion=2008071716

Samsengs all ...

2008-07-15T15:24:00.006+08:00

I just saw a video clip of the incident involving the rock band "Carburetor Dung", which happened during the recent PROTES rally at Kelana Jaya. What I saw on the video was absolutely appalling. I'm not talking about what the lead singer did, there will be endless arguments about whether what he did was correct in the circumstances... but surely even if one does not agree, there are better ways to take the matter up with the organisers, instead of turning immediately to violence, aggression and lawlessness??! From several reports and articles online, it seems these hooligans were PAS Youth people, who were fuming that such performances were insulting, were not part of Asian culture and set a bad example to young children. This same bunch cited the same reasons to recently object to performances by Ella and Mas Idayu at some football match.

If that's so.. can I ask is shouting "PUKIMAK! PUKIMAK!" at the top of your voice a good example to children?! Is beating up people you don't agree with part of Asian culture? What about throwing bottles without thinking whether someone innocent could get hurt? Or brandishing sticks while shouting threats, hitting the railings and acting as if the devil has possessed you?

C'mon the guy just showed a bit of his boxers, what he was saying while doing that was not aimed at the crowd, but at the subject matter of the song. Even if one doesn't agree, this is not the right way. It's not like he was raping your grandmother. These are the same bunch of monkeys who are always clamouring about freedom of expression anyway...

I have not seen any official statement from any of the PR parties or leaders condemning this kind of violence (if there is and I've missed it, please let me know). The police should take action against those who assaulted the band members. Above all, PR diehards need to be careful who their leaders and MPs "pakat" with. PR leaders and supporters should always be held to the same high standards of conduct they demand from the BN. Otherwise, if we're not careful, the people may just be walking into a different kind of nightmare.

For some background, check out the articles and links below:

Nothing to apologise, says punk rock band

UPDATED
By Wan Hamidi Hamid and Shannon Teoh

KUALA LUMPUR, July 8 — For Malaysia's seminal punk rock band Carburetor Dung, the ruckus during its performance at the anti-fuel price increase rally in Kelana Jaya, Petaling Jaya yesterday was just a misunderstanding.
Band leader Joe Kidd explained that there was no need for them to apologise over the song "Mari Nyanyi Menjilat" or lead singer Alak pulling down his jeans to show off his boxer shorts to the mainly Malay audience at the Kelana Jaya Stadium.
"The song which is well known among our fans is about anti-corruption. It has nothing to do with the current political issue such as the allegation of sodomy against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
"We've always played that song without any incidents. I guess to people who've never seen us, it's a culture shock for them. But for us, we've been writing and performing anti-establishment songs for many years," he told The Malaysian Insider.
Arguably the first punk rock band in the country, Carburetor Dung was formed in 1991. The 43-year-old Joe Kidd is also regarded as a veteran of the alternative music scene in Malaysia, paving the way for hundreds of young bands to emerge a decade later.
Writing in the band's website yesterday, he explained: "Some reports I saw also misquoted the title as 'Liwat' instead of 'Jilat', so if some bloggers made the mistake, I'm sure a lot of the people in the stadium misunderstood too. So many took umbrage lah, thinking that we were making fun of Anwar. Actually I even explained to the crowd the gist of the song before we played it."
The band's bass player Fendi said that the singer would explain every song before blasting into their three-chord frenzy.
"I guess it is up to the political parties and their supporters to think about the whole issue. If freedom of expression is on the agenda, if the parties are supposed to be different from that of the ruling coalition, they have to decide the future of freedom," he said.
PKR Youth's Balik Pulau MP Yusmadi Yusoff defended the band's right to freedom of expression, saying that from this the organisers — Coalition Against Inflation (Protes) — could learn how to prepare their events with more coherence.
"There is no standard form of expression for everyone. But the organisers need a coherent strategy to have an effective campaign. We must encourage a conducive environment for all stakeholders, and for an underground band, perhaps we should have agreed on a song or songs that most resonated with our agenda," he said.
PAS Youth chief Salahuddin Ayub, however, said it would be unfair to lay all the blame solely on Protes, noting that activist Hishamuddin Rais who had engaged performers for the event had taken responsibility for the mishap.
"Everyone has a right to freedom of expression but we still need to look at the sensitivities of people. As we can all agree, the singer pulling down his pants was an embarrassing event," he said.
Yusmadi stressed that in the end everyone came back to hear Pakatan supremo Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim speak, showing that there was common ground for all. "I guess we learnt that as a society, we still need to learn how to negotiate our plurality."
Selangor Menteri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim yesterday remarked that it was all done in the spirit of the "protest event. So while we protested fuel prices, members of the audience were also protesting against the behaviour of the band."
Meanwhile, the band will continue to play whenever and wherever it is needed, without having to compromise its stance, Fendi added. For example, crowd favourites like "Oppression" and "Boo Hoo Clapping Song" offer their take on social issues such as political hypocrisy and lack of freedom in the country.
Carburetor Dung has been involved in social causes over the years, working with Food Not Bombs which helps to feed the homeless in the city and performing at the annual Press Freedom Day concert.

http://themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/headlines/42-lead-stories/1510-nothing-to-apologise-says-punk-rock-band
-----------------------------------------
And this is from Joe Kidd:

http://ricecooker.kerbau.com/2008/07/05/sunday-6th-july-2008-penghimpunan-aman-sejuta-rakyat/

guys, kami semua OK (Alak ada benjol sikit kat dahi). kami perlu berterima kasih pada pemuda-pemuda AMK (Angkatan Pemuda Keadilan - t-shirt biru) yang rata-rata marah tapi masih cuba sedaya-upaya menyelamatkan kami dari segerombolan pemuda-pemuda berbaju merah yang memang ready to rip us apart. With the help of AMK, we all managed to sneak out of the stadium (separately) after about 20 minutes being under siege.
The problem here is our song “Mari Nyanyi Menjilat”. Macam biasa, Alak did his exposing his underwear thing and of course dalam situasi panas tentang “liwat-meliwat” sekarang, aku rasa that gesture was misunderstood by the people there.
Some reports I saw also misquoted the title as “Liwat” instead of “Jilat”, so if some bloggers made the mistake, I’m sure a lot of the people in the stadium misunderstood too. So many took umbrage lah, thinking that we were making fun of Anwar. Actually I even explained to the crowd the gist of the song before we played it.
The thing is aku rasa Alak was in his “auto-pilot” mode. We have been playing that song for a long time and to a lot of people for years already and Alak have always been doing that to heighten the “satire”. The kids in the scene would get the joke all the time but we can’t expect the same from the public. That’s our mistake.
Anyways, apart from the guys in AMK, we also must thank Tom (Skitzofrenia) who shielded Alak from a lot blows, and in the process also got some benjol-benjol. Much thanks to Mad Yus (Apparatus), Poodien, Mirdza (Relationsheep), Black and many more who were there and helped out.

--------------------

/ichithekiller

Don't Panic Lah....

2008-07-10T11:27:00.002+08:00

Interesting.....

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't fret about Fannie and Freddie!
How fragile is this market? A report about a potential accounting change jolted stocks even though oil was lower and the dollar was higher.

By Paul R. La Monica, CNNMoney.com editor at large
Last Updated: July 8, 2008: 11:09 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Wall Street needs a glass of milk, some cookies and a hug.
Monday's activity on Wall Street was a classic case of what happens when fear takes over and otherwise rational people panic. Just look at the chart of the Dow to the right.

In the early part of yesterday's trading, stocks were up because investors were finally starting to see some encouraging news on the inflation front. The dollar had gained ground against the euro and the price of crude oil dipped below $140 a barrel. The weak dollar has been cited as a key reason why the price of oil, food and other commodities have surged lately.

But then Lehman Brothers shook the market. Ironically, Monday's financial follies had nothing to do with fears about an imminent collapse of the troubled investment bank. Instead, a widely respected analyst at the firm, Bruce Harting, issued a report about mortgage financing giants Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) and Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500), suggesting that there was a chance the two would have to raise an additional $75 billion in capital in the event of an accounting rule change.

As news of this report circulated around trading desks, it caused an abrupt end to Monday's rally. The Dow, up as much as 110 points in the morning, plunged in the mid-afternoon. At one point, the Dow was down nearly 168 points before going on to recover some of its losses and finish the day about 57 points in the red. "It's hard to read the mind of investors on a day-to-day basis,"said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer with Harris Private Bank in Chicago. "So whether the market selloff was justified or not, clearly the $75 billion number got the headlines and investors really honed in on it."

But the strangest thing about yesterday's sudden change of heart on Wall Street is that as scary as some of the Fannie and Freddie headlines were, if anyone bothered to read the Lehman report in its entirety, they would have noticed that Harting went out of his way to point out that the doomsday scenario he described would probably not come to fruition. He wrote that the ramifications of the pending rule change would be "so contrary to all other current capital ratios and policy initiatives that we cannot imagine such an outcome occurring," and added later on his note that an "onerous increase in capital requirements is unlikely" for Fannie and Freddie.
Simply put, this report didn't seem to have enough meat in it to justify the broad market selloff that took place.

It's just another example of how bearish market sentiment is these days. Some investors are looking for any excuse to sell - and they found it with the Lehman note. "The reaction to the report shows you how vulnerable the market is. In the note, he didn't list it as an absolute that Fannie and Freddie would have to raise $75 billion. He actually said it was a small possibility," said Quincy Krosby, chief investment strategist with The Hartford.."This is an indication of investors selling now and asking questions later."

Now don't get me wrong. As I pointed out in yesterday's column, there are plenty of reasons for investors to be nervous. Earnings for the second quarter, especially in the financial sector, are likely to be abysmal. And I'm certainly not suggesting that now is a time to load up on Fannie and Freddie. Both of those government sponsored enterprises are expected to report losses in the second quarter. Clearly, there will be more pain ahead for financial firms. "Unfortunately, this whole notion that the worst of the credit crunch is over remains to be seen. We can't say we're out of the woods," Ablin said.

But as bleak as the outlook may be for financial stocks, investors would be unwise to completely ignore the impact that falling oil prices and a stronger dollar could have on the markets and economy. Krosby said high oil prices are finally beginning to take their toll on markets outside the U.S., which should lead to lower demand for oil and, with it, a further decline in oil prices.

"What is unfolding is an acceptance in the market that there is a global economic slowdown," Krosby said. "A pullback in energy prices should segue into a positive for the U.S. equity market and economy since consumers will have less of a tax on them." Krosby added that if oil prices continue to retreat, large institutional investors that had been betting on energy stocks and commodities will need to put their money elsewhere, and that some beaten down sectors like consumer stocks may wind up benefiting. So while investors should certainly take concerns about Fannie and Freddie seriously, they shouldn't forget that there's more to the market than mortgages.

EOD Update (5 June 2008) Who Owns You?

2008-06-05T19:59:00.003+08:00

Talking to who...?

Petrol price upped by around 40% last night, to RM2.70 per litre, with possibility of further increases. We are supposed to be moving towards global "market prices". CI dropped 29.56 points in response. Updating yesterday's disposals below.

Latest disposals:

ANCOM-WA: -10,000 (0.015) ... Balance 0 (Stupid me. Luckily sold others earlier, end result: overall around breakeven with a lot of wasted time and energy).

KMLOONG-WA: -2,000 (2.65) ... Balance 4,000

/ichithekiller

HUAAN

2008-05-23T11:06:00.003+08:00

Won't talk too much about this, except to say that it's actually an interesting counter in a pretty good sector, in the right country. At the right price at the right time, it would be a good long-term buy. For those who bought it recently thinking it would give direct exposure to the Chinese steel sector (from the earlier announced acquisition of a stake in a Chinese steel company), note that this new investment has apparently been deferred. Reasons given were:

1. Caution in view of US downturn.

2. Unfavourable time to go to banks for financing for a deal like this.

Note that the deal has been deferred, not terminated, so it could still happen ... later. As for now, the link to the Chinese steel sector will still be an indirect one, ie. through its metallurgical coke product. Also good to note, the Chinese themselves are being cautious despite their still white-hot economy and construction sector. Hmmm .....

/ichithekiller

Adding to TA-WB

2008-05-15T17:54:00.004+08:00

TA seems to be coming out of a third correction base with the last high at 1.25. It looks like the low of 0.975 on 10 March, 2008 was the point at which the downtrend was broken and reversed into an uptrend. I know nuts about technical analysis but this is what I can see from the chart. If the trend continues, the next move up should see it crossing 1.25 this time.

With a conversion price of 1.00, TA-WB looks like a reasonable bet to achieve a decent rate of return over a shorter term. This is of course backed by the so-called safety net that TA is one of the largest owners of undeveloped land within the KLCC vicinity. Any resumption of the property boom will impact this area the most. The recently announced record price of RM2,000 per sq ft for bare land paid by YTL offers some indication that values are still intact in this sub-sector. On top of that, the confidence of several developers of high-end condos in the area who are selling on a "By Special Invitation Only" basis at super-high prices only seems to support this view.

Some may be uncomfortable that the -WB expires in June 2009. However, my take is that at current prices of the mother and warrant, the premium is not high, given that the exercise price is already in the money. All in, I'm taking the view that it's a calculated risk worth taking and have added some more to yesterday's initial purchase...

Latest purchases:

TA-WB: +20,000 (0.30) ... Total 50,000

BCTTECH: +10,000 (0.17) ... Total 37,000

/ichithekiller

Mid-Day Update (15 May 2008)

2008-05-15T14:06:00.004+08:00

SSTEEL closed up another 56c at 3.76 (day high 3.78) on 13 May. This was the biggest 1-day gain in an 8-day streak. Sold a few quite early at 3.36 and 3.34. Yesterday, other steel stocks joined in the sector rally, while SSTEEL moved to a high of 3.96 before closing up only 4c at 3.80. Today (as of now) it's down 16c to 3.64... most other steel counters correcting as well.

Latest purchase:

TA-WB: +30,000 (0.295) ... Total 30,000

Latest disposal:

SSTEEL: -1,000 (3.34), -2,000 (3.36) ... Balance 2,000

/ichithekiller

NATBIO Update

2008-04-29T18:00:00.006+08:00

NATBIO released 4th qtr and full year till Feb 2008 results today. Extracts and quick analysis:

4th qtr PAT: $11mil 2007/08 PAT: $39.9mil
Cash & FD: $69mil
(1) Cash & FD per share: $0.23
(2) Net cash (-LT & ST borrowings): $52.4mil
(3) Net cash per share: $0.175
(4) Closing price (29 April '08): $o.815

2007/08 EPS: $0.133 per share
Mkt px adjusted for (1) and (3): $0.585 --- $0.64
2007/08 trailing PE adj for (1) and (3): 4.39x --- 4.81x
2007/08 trailing PE (no cash adj): 6.12x

High level of earnings maintained steadily over last few quarters, with slight improvement even. This comes in face of mounting competition and considerable money spent on advertising & promotions (ie. high A&P expenses). Trying to grow exports aggressively (8 countries now, compared to 2 before. Gunning for another 3 this year). Major shareholders and directors buying shares aggressively end-2007 at much higher prices. Seem to have stopped as stock price keeps sliding no matter how good the earnings. However, don't see any selling either. Maybe just as puzzled as I am as to why market consistently gives it such a low valuation.

Ok, try to sort it through. Biggest challenge is undoubtedly competition. Flood of copycat products in the market now, from Old Town to Nescafe 3-in-1, to Aik Cheong to whatever Ah Kow & Ah Mau brand. Crunch is, how much longer can NATBIO keep spending and spending on A&P, especially compared to big boys like Nestle? Will have to bet on exports growing strongly, along with new choco and cereal products launched. Honestly, their canned energy drink tastes like s**t to me. Should put more R&D into it. Of $40mil of IPO proceeds meant for A&P, only $9.35mil used so far, so $30.6mil left... looks like can still tahan for a few more years.

End of the day, PE of 4.4 to 4.8x after adjusting for cash seems damn cheap. Ignore cash and PE rises to a still cheap 6.1x .... worth holding lah. Just declared 4c div, amounting to 4.9% yield based on today's close. Maybe PE low for a reason I don't know? Maybe lor...

/ichithekiller

US Tax Rebates Ahead of Schedule

2008-04-25T11:34:00.002+08:00

Interesting article this.... (excerpts). Link to full article below.

Tax rebates to start arriving Monday
Treasury Department says it will deposit the first 800,000 rebates - five days earlier than expected - in effort to boost economy.

By Catherine Clifford, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: April 24, 2008: 5:53 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The federal government, eager to boost the flagging economy, will start distributing special tax rebates on Monday - five days earlier than expected, the Treasury Department said Thursday.

The department had said last month that it would begin giving rebates on May 2.
Instead, 800,000 tax filers daily will get rebates on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. No rebates will be distributed on Thursday, and 5 million payments will be made on Friday.

Overall, the Treasury will distribute more than $110 billion to 130 million taxpayers by July and hopes to get the first $50 billion out by the end of May, DeSouza said.....

Link: http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/24/pf/taxes/Stimulus_checks/index.htm?postversion=2008042417

Hmmmm ......

EOD Update (28 March 2008)

2008-03-28T18:22:00.003+08:00

Note to self:

Counter / Recent high / Recent low / Today's high / % Gain from recent low

SCOMIEN: 3.27 (adj)/ 0.88 / 1.34 / 52.3%

MUHIBAH: 4.22 (adj) / 2.04 / 2.92 / 43.0%

BSTEAD: 7.25 / 4.24 / 5.10 / 20.3%

PARKSON: 10.10 / 5.05 / 6.30 / 24.8%

DGATE: 0.685 (adj) / 0.39 / 0.505 / 29.5%

LIONDIV: 2.50 (adj-excl 1st day post-split) / 0.995 / 1.29 / 29.6%

RAMUNIA: 1.95 / 1.20 / 1.43 / 19.2%

UEMWRLD: 4.54 / 2.55 / 3.42 / 34.1%

WCT: 4.98 (adj)/ 2.97 / 3.82 / 28.6%

Hmmm .....

Latest disposal:

UEMWRLD: -2,000 (3.22) ... Balance 0.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (10 March 2008)

2008-03-06T17:52:00.009+08:00

Talking to who?

BN lost 2/3rd Parliamentary majority in latest 12th General Elections, plus 5 state legislatures. CI closed -123.11 to 1,173.22 (day low 1,157.47) today. Many govt or politically linked counters down substantially, with some hitting limit down. Trading on Bursa halted for 1hour after skids triggered.

PARKSON day low: 5.80, closed 6.05, -60c. RAMUNIA day low: 1.23, closed 1.26, -27c. No trades today.

Trades on 6 March, 2008
Latest purchase :

APB: +2,000 (1.12), +5,000 (1.13) ... Total 22,000

Latest disposal:

SUPERMX: -4,000 (1.65), -35 (1.30) ... Balance 0 (Should have dumped the whole lot earlier with the others, so much lower now).

/ichithekiller

What's up with the new Digital Economy?

2008-02-14T13:48:00.003+08:00

Check out the short video below:

Throughout the entire video, she doesn't say or do a single thing, except to flash a "V" sign towards the end. But get a load of these statistics. This video has been:

1. Played 2,329,525 times till now.
2. Commented on 14,420 times.
3. Favourited 2,499 times.
4. Rated 10,121 times.

The average rating it received was a lowly 2/5 ... yet if you check out other videos by this girl, they show similarly mind-boggling statistics. Just imagine what kinda online marketing machine she has the potential to be man. Someone's gotta tell me what's going on ...

Anyway, Bursa market direction still seems pretty uncertain, not gonna stick my neck out and try to give any predictions. Just wait and see for the moment.

Latest disposal:

FABER: -10,000 (1.22) ... Balance 0 (As usual, I made sure I sold at the low, right before a rebound)

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (9 January 2008)

2008-01-09T18:30:00.000+08:00

First update for 2008! Since we are in the midst of election fever, thought I'd share a video so that everyone can listen and get fired up for our own coming General Election... go through the whole speech, it's definitely worth a listen.

Plantation stocks have been moving strong lately. Looks like the building materials, property and construction stocks are trying to do the same. Here are my yet unreported trades since the last update....

Latest purchases:

RAMUNIA: +8,000 (1.12), +2,000 (1.03) ... Total 10,000

DGATE: +4,000 (0.585), + 4,300 (0.565) ... Total 54,300

LIONDIV: +2,000 (1.72), +2,000 (1.87) ... Total 26,000

Latest disposal:

NATBIO: -6,000 (0.99) ... Balance 19,000 (Getting a bit impatient, earnings keep growing, directors keep buying ... but stock price going nowhere)

SUPERMX: -3,500 (2.19) ... Balance 4,035 (Got this from the SPOLYMR share swap)

Market looks OK, plan to hold on to most core positions.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (19 November, 2007)

2007-11-19T19:25:00.000+08:00

Song: 四季 (Si Ji) By: 黄丽玲 (Huang Li Ling)

And the award for Best Actor in a Drama Series goes to ........ <drum roll> .....

Morten Lundal!

You've gotta give it to this guy, man ... (for those who're not familiar with this name, he's the CEO of DIGI). Admittedly he's merely the CEO and not the major shareholder, but after DIGI got shafted with the sickly sweet deal it inked with TIMECOM, granting it the privilege of paying around 10x what TIMECOM and others originally paid, to use its 3G licence, I could not find a single photo in the press where the guy wasn't positively beaming from ear to ear! Kudos... Well, yet another ailing GLC problem resolved, this should go really well with the foreign fund community who have been harping on about the supposedly slow pace of GLC turnarounds in the country.

Latest purchases:

DGATE: +5,000 (0.605) ... Total 46,000

HSPLANT: +1,500 (2.65-IPO Price) ... Total 1,500 (Applied for more but this was what they gave me as an existing shareholder of HAPSENG)

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (7 November 2007)

2007-11-07T18:44:00.000+08:00

Song: 试探 (Shi Tan) By: 戴佩妮 (Dai Pei Ni)

ICAP up another 11c to close at 2.43 ... probably driven by recent surge in PIE. PETGAS also surged 50c today, if I remember correctly this is also one of ICAP's core holdings. Looks like TTB is on a roll lately... thanks Sifu Tan! Last few days' transactions:

Latest purchases:

APB: +2,000 (1.73) ... Total 15,000

DGATE: +5,000 (0.615) ... Total 41,000 (after 2-for-2 Bonus Issue, total increased to 36,000 before this purchase).

Latest disposal:

MAEMODE: -3,000 (1.59) ... Balance 0

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (30 October 2007)

2007-10-30T18:01:00.000+08:00

Song: 再一次拥有 (Zai Yi Ci Yong You) By: 龚诗嘉 (Gong Shi Jia, Kaira)

Haven't been updating for a while ... all together now. In the meantime, LIONDIV and ACB/PARKSON exercise has been completed. MUHIBAH's 1-for-4 Bonus Issue and 1-to-2 share split also completed today. My 8,000 shares just turned into 20,000 shares after this exercise.

NATBIO just reported a pretty impressive quarterly net profit of RM10.65 mil, compared to last quarter's RM7.36 mil. The share price had been slowly sliding, making me suspect if there was some trouble coming, but this doesn't explain it at all. They also launched a new chocolate drink with a pretty big advertising blitz, which I think the incremental earnings from this might not be fully factored in yet into the just-reported quarter.

Latest purchases:

LIONDIV: +10,000 (2.21), +5,000 (1.78), +5,000 (1.62) ... Total 22,000

NATBIO: +5,000 (1.21), +5,000 (1.20) ... Total 25,000 (show some faith lah...)

Latest disposals:

UEMWRLD: -2,000 (4.24), -2,000 (4.16) ... Balance 2,000

FOCUS-WA: -16,100 (0.15) ... Balance 0

SDRED: -5,000 (0.99) ... Balance 0

NAMFATT: -5,000 (0.685) ... Balance 5,000

LBALUM: -5,000 (0.56), -3,000 (0.545) ... Balance 0

MAEMODE: -5,000 (1.42) ... Balance 3,000

TIMWELL-OR: -6,000 (0.25) ... Balance 0 (Got up late and missed letting go at 50c and up. Bloody thing decided to move today... what to do, at least still got the mothers bought previously)

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (1 Oct 2007)

2007-10-01T19:33:00.000+08:00

Song: 记得 (Ji De) By: 张惠妹/阿妹 (Zhang Hui Mei a.k.a A-Mei)

Haven't really made many trades recently, just waiting to see if market volatility will die down a bit, while slowly setting aside more cash. Unfortunately, many "value" counters which appeared after the recent correction have already rebounded substantially, so, bad luck ....

LIONDIV rose another 50c to hit a new record high of 12.10 today. ACB has now changed its name to PARKSON to reflect its core operations post-exercise with LIONDIV. PARKSON tried rallying again today in tandem with LIONDIV but closed up 3c only at 2.20 after hitting a day high of 2.25 earlier.

Today was also a historic day of sorts for ICAP which crossed the 2.00 mark for the first time and closed at 2.02 (day high 2.04). This steady, quiet counter has appreciated more than 100% from the first time I picked it up on the day of its listing. Up till now I have not sold a single unit of it, despite all the intermittent market corrections and numerous people asking why I didn't sell it just before these major corrections. Looks like my faith in it is being rewarded. If things continue to look OK, I intend to keep all of it for 5 years or even more.....

RCECAP has been recovering nicely and now all my buys in it are back in the black. Looks like there's still sufficient upside to warrant hanging on to it.

Latest disposal:

NATBIO: -5,000 (1.30) ... Balance 15,000 (Missed the chance to cash out at a profit, doesn't seem very active now. Ah, might as well have more cash ready for a switch).

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (7 Sept 2007)

2007-09-07T20:26:00.000+08:00

SCOMIEN gave back 13c today after the last 2 days' 40c+ move. MUHIBAH continued to consolidate, adding a mere 5c to 9.15, after touching an intraday high of 9.40. After MUHIBAH's 1.05 single day move just the other day, it was LIONDIV's turn to add on 1.05 today to close at its intraday high of 10.80. Hope it won't have to undergo too big a correction like MUHIBAH now. ACB followed suit to add on 13c to 2.03, although it hit 2.08 before the close. YLI was another strong mover today, tacking on 34c to close at 3.64 (day high 3.68).

No trades today.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (6 Sept 2007)

2007-09-06T18:16:00.000+08:00

Song: 街角的祝福 (Jie Jiao De Zhu Fu) By: 戴佩妮 (Dai Pei Ni, Penny)

MUHIBAH has so far recovered quite nicely, reaching an intraday high of 10.20 but then weakening again slightly in the last 2 days. Not sure about market direction, but with so many attractive stocks around, will want to be ready for another selldown if it comes... cash is always king in times of panic.

Latest purchase:

RCECAP: +5,000 (0.925) ... Total 10,000

Latest disposals:

LBALUM: -7,000 (0.545), -3,000 (0.54) ... Balance 8,000 (After 2-for-1 Bonus Issue)

TEKALA: -8,000 (1.09) ... Balance 15,000 (so much lower than where it went after buy-in, but what to do ...)

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (30 August 2007)

2007-08-30T18:12:00.000+08:00

Song: 必杀技 (Bi Sha Ji ) By: 古巨基 (Leo Ku)

LIONDIV closed up 50c at 10.00 today, a new record high, after hitting an impressive day high of 10.30. MUHIBAH rose another 70c to close at 8.90, still some way from its previous high of 10.70 hit on 26th July, 2007. Perhaps it was boosted a bit today by this bullish article in The Star's business section, entitled "Foreigners keen to buy Muhibbah’s businesses":

http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/8/30/business/18733019&sec=business

Update of last few days' activities below. After a period of adding more and more counters to my portfolio, I am basically trying to reorganise it to focus on a smaller number of counters now. Especially in view of the many bargains produced by the recent market rout, there is added incentive to be more focused on selected "strong" picks.

Latest disposals:

PWORTH: -7,000 (1.04) ... Balance 0

TOMYPAK: -10,000 (0.57), -100 (0.59) ... Balance 9,900

MAEMODE: -3,000 (1.33), -4,000 (1.32) ... Balance 8,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (24 August 2007)

2007-08-24T18:35:00.000+08:00

Song: 最爱你的时候 (Zui Ai Ni De Shi Hou) By: 周传雄 a.k.a. 小刚 (Zhou Chuan Xiong/Xiao Gang)

MYCOM, OLYMPIA and their warrants made surprising moves today, despite the overall drop in the CI. MYCOM ended up 19c to 1.21 (day high 1.26, up 24c), while OLYMPIA ended up 11.5c to 0.72 (day high 0.74). Their warrants put on 25.3% and 26.3% daily gains respectively. MYCOM was covered recently by Jomaropol over at HotStocks. You can check it out here:

http://www.hotstocks.com.my/post.php?counter=mycom&tag=pt200708201433104439

I don't know if Joma and some of the fellas over at HotStocks have the Midas Touch or what, but many counters covered by them seem to spring into action shortly after. Whatever it is, I have to thank him for talking about MYCOM. Did I mention he also talked about FOCUS, which incidentally I also have? ke ke ..... check it out here:

http://www.hotstocks.com.my/post.php?counter=focus&tag=pt200708101241175164

Latest purchase:

BCTTECH: +10,000 (0.71), +5,000 (0.70) ... Total 27,000

/ichithekiller

Mid-Day Update (20 August 2007)

2007-08-20T15:48:00.000+08:00

Song: 千里之外 (Qian Li Zhi Wai) By: 易桀齐 (Yi Jie Qi)

Was away, so missed all the exciting action again last Thursday evening and whole of Friday. Apparently the CI was down around 60pts at one point but rebounded strongly to close down only 16 pts or so. Many counters were down big but also followed the strong CI rebound to close way off day lows, with some even closing in the green. So looks like I missed some good opportunities again, but who knows, if I'd been around I may not have had the kahunas to step in in the midst of the so-called "bloodbath" ... or maybe prices will suffer further rounds of selling, so that what in hindsight now looks like extremely cheap levels last Friday at its lowest points, may actually go even lower in the near future. Updating recent transactions all together:

Latest purchases:

APB: +3,000 @ 1.68 ... Total 13,000

MUHIBAH: +1,000 @ 6.70 ... Total 8,000

EBWORX: +10,000 @ 0.41 ... Total 10,000 (Back in for 2nd round after complete earlier exit with good profits)

Note: US Fed last Friday cut its short-term discount rate by 50 bp, instead of a Fed funds rate cut. Dow rallied strongly to close up 233.3 pts.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (13 August 2007)

2007-08-13T18:21:00.000+08:00

Song: 最熟悉的陌生人 (Zui Shu Xi De Mo Sheng Ren) By: 萧亚轩 (Xiao Ya Xuan, Elva)

Decided it was a good point and time to increase my stake slightly in APB today. However, did not want to increase total exposure (and number of stocks in portfolio), so had to make a tough decision to cut something out. In the end, I decided to cut out my CYMAO at a small profit. Acquired in end-June/early-July 2006 at 1.04 and 1.05, this counter subsequently went as high as 1.89 on 20th Nov 2006. This translated to a gain of 80% in 4 1/2 months, but I did not take any profits. It subsequently corrected to 1.59 before touching 1.88 again on 24th Jan 2007. This was my second chance to at least take some profits (I know what they say about a stock failing to make a new high and forming a double top), but again I did not sell even some to lock in some profits.

Partly due to the global correction starting end-Feb 2007 (started by steep China sell-off), it went as low as 1.29 before rebounding back up to 1.78 on 3rd May 2007. The next day, 4th May, it touched 1.78 again before failing to break through and closing flat at 1.76. On 7th May (the next trading day), it closed a further 6c down at 1.70, fully retracing and going below the 3rd May bull bar which formed the recent high. Did I see this and sell out the whole thing now? Nope.

In hindsight of course, all this seems crystal clear now, but at that time I must have been either too lazy or too dumb to see the signs. I had built up a portfolio of timber-related stocks and was so confident with the sector fundamentals going forward that I didn't bother to review individual stocks regularly. The rest of the story is downhill all the way, resulting in me throwing out the whole thing at 1.20 today (a mere 14.8% return over 13 months, at least it's much higher than FD rates, but that's no excuse).

It might probably rebound now from this level. If it does, then serves me right for mucking around with the market. This also shows that even if you're lucky enough to buy correctly most of the time, you still need to know how to sell right too, otherwise at the end of the day, you're still a schmuck.

Latest purchase:

APB: +5,000 (1.91) ... Total 10,000

Latest disposal:

CYMAO: -8,000 (1.20) ... Balance 0

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (10 August 2007)

2007-08-10T18:41:00.000+08:00

Song: 转眼之间 (Zhuan Yan Zhi Jian) By: 萧亚轩 (Xiao Ya Xuan, Elva)

Big down day for the Dow last night, closed down 387 pts or 2.83% ... Some stocks I've been eyeing are coming close to my target prices. Just one more down day in the US should do it ... just oooone more mid-size one though, don't wanna overdo it to the point of no return.

Latest purchase:

WILLOW: +10,000 (0.31) ... Total 30,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (9 August 2007)

2007-08-09T18:03:00.000+08:00

Song: 全世界只有我爱你 (Quan Shi Jie Zhi You Wo Ai Ni) By: 刘嘉亮 (Liu Jia Liang)

Updating last few day's transactions in one go. Please note most transactions were done by "remote control" without access to any trading screen and do not signify that I think the overall market or relevant stocks have bottomed.

Latest purchases:

HAPSENG: +2,000 (3.00) ... Total 5,000

RCECAP: +5,000 (0.87) ... Total 5,000

MYCOM: +5,000 (1.07) ... Total 13,000

MUHIBAH: +2,000 (7.80) ... Total 7,000

OILCORP: +2,000 (1.53) ... Total 10,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (1 August 2007)

2007-08-01T16:56:00.000+08:00

Song: 爱过就足够 (Ai Guo Jiu Zu Gou) By: 刘嘉亮 (Liu Jia Liang)

Latest purchases:

LINGUI: +2,000 (2.90) ... Total 7,000

SCOMIEN: +1,600 (2.70)... Total 10,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (30 July 2007)

2007-07-30T18:23:00.000+08:00

Okay, this woman used to be a "hot chick" in her heydays. In fact, some "uncles" I know still think she's the hottest thing around. Her recent concerts here in Genting and Bukit Jalil were sold-out events. Here's the original, all-time classic "Golden Voice"....

Song: 不了情 & 新不了情 (Bu Liao Qing & Xin Bu Liao Qing) By: 蔡琴 (Cai Qin)

Market seems to be taking last week's huge Dow losses lightly. Let's see what happens tonight first though, before calling the all-clear....

Latest purchase:

WILLOW: +20,000 (0.355) ... Total 20,000

Latest disposal:

TIMECOM: -5,000 (1.38) ... Balance 0

/ichithekiller

Mid-Day Update (25 July 2007)

2007-07-25T13:04:00.000+08:00

Song: 问自己 (Wen Zi Ji) By: 萧亚轩 (Xiao Ya Xuan, Elva)

Have not been updating for a while, all in one go now... not many trades really.

Latest purchase:

GADANG: +6,300 (1.12), +3,700 (1.15) ... Total (10,000)

Latest disposal:

ROHAS: -6,000 (1.78) ... Balance 0 (Was too lazy and missed the GO deadline, now get 2c less and have to pay brokerage some more...)

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (13 July 2007)

2007-07-13T18:14:00.000+08:00

Two versions of the same song ... no prizes for guessing which one's the original. But guess which one's more entertaining?

Song: 童话 (Tong Hua) Song by: 光良 (Guang Liang) Alternate version by: 后舍男生 (Hou She Nan Sheng, a pair of Chinese students who have somehow shot to fame)

Nothing much happened for me today, despite the strong overnight Dow performance and today's 18.7 pt rise in the CI. Decided to add a little to my FOCUS position which has amazingly come back from the dead and is even showing a modest profit now, post-bonus issue.

Latest purchase:

FOCUS: +8,000 (0.41) ... Total 26,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (12 July 2007)

2007-07-12T18:55:00.000+08:00

请大家在线观看...

Now playing: 有没有一首歌会让你想起我 (You Mei You Yi Shou Ge Hui Rang Ni Xiang Qi Wo) By: 周传雄 aka. 小刚 (Zhou Chuan Xiong aka. Xiao Gang)

CI softened towards later part of day. SCOMIEN was up another 30c to 3.32 before closing up only 10c to 3.12, MUHIBAH was up another 25c to 8.60,before closing up only 5c to 8.40 .... WEIDA finally broke the 1.10 barrier but couldn't sustain, closing 3c up at 1.08 (day high 1.13).

NATBIO finally rebounded, rising from a day low of 1.77 to close up 9c at 1.88 (day high). GPACKET rose 24c to 4.52 but that's nothing, since it has been quite volatile lately and has slipped quite a lot in the last few days.

No trades today.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (11 July 2007)

2007-07-11T18:02:00.000+08:00

Since we seem to be in consolidation mode, here's the real 英雄 to help everyone take their minds off stocks for a while and relax. <[Ichi: music video changed subsequently]>

Now playing: 不能说的秘密 (Bu Neng Shuo De Mi Mi) By: 周杰伦 (Zhou Jie Lun, Jay)

SCOMIEN closed up another 17c at 3.02 (day high 3.16, up 31c). MUHIBAH added another 15c to 8.35. MYCOM/OLYMPIA quartet continued to weaken.

Been increasing too many counters recently, decided to cut back by taking some profits on PWORTH and cutting loss on roughly half my TIME position.

Latest disposals:

PWORTH: -5,000 (1.18) ... Balance 7,000

TIME: -7,000 (0.745) ... Balance 8,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (10 July 2007)

2007-07-10T19:22:00.000+08:00

SCOMIEN rose another 32c to 2.85 (day high 2.90). Volume done still relatively small, around 0.88% of its issued share capital, so still looks stable. In my limited sphere of knowledge, there could be two likely reasons for the strong recent surge, both arising from its acquisition of MTrans, a rail transport specialist. No. 1 could be related to the Penang Monorail, where it is part of a consortium with MRCB bidding for the project. As for No.2, could it be linked to the article in The Star yesterday about the bullet-train to Singapore being in final stages of evaluation by the EPU? Not sure if SCOMIEN is involved in this project at this stage.

I'm now holding a bunch of timber-related stocks, including LINGUI, EKSONS, CYMAO, TEKALA, PWORTH and TIMWELL... waiting for a strong timber play to return, based on several factors I believe in (I also have some LIONFIB left over, but it has already sold its timber concession and returned RM2.00 cash per share to me). Today PWORTH finally made a strong breakout, rising by 26.5c to close at 1.19 (day high 1.21). Could this be the start of the timber play I've been waiting for? Looking at the big boys' (like Ta Ann, WTK) action today, doesn't seem like it. But timber "goreng" favourite JAVA showed some promise today, going against the overall relatively negative market sentiment to close up 9c at 2.89.

No trades today.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (9 July 2007)

2007-07-09T19:02:00.000+08:00

MUHIBAH announced a new contract today, the RM1.1 bil SKVE. It closed up an astounding RM1.15 at RM8.15 today (day high 8.20). Actually it's a pity this announcement came out at this time. I was actually hoping for it to dip to 6.50 in anticipation of something else (entirely unrelated). What to do ....

MYCOM rose 13c to close at 1.53, while its -WA added 4.5c to 0.825. I am now firmly back in the black with this counter.

More importantly (since I have a bigger exposure) OLYMPIA continued to show a resurgence by tacking on 7c to close at 0.935 (day high) while it's -WA added 3.5c to 0.44 (also day high). Slow and steady, but the mother share is now within striking range of my cost.... while the -WA is firmly back in the black again.

SCOMIEN moved another 9c to close at 2.53 (day high 2.56)... This is the 2nd time it knocked its head on 2.56, let's see if it can continue ahead to break this barrier tomorrow....

BCTTECH finally seems to be coming out of its consolidation range. A friend told me he read some other blogs whacking this stock (got tech expert some more, so be warned)... but I continue to like it. May even add a bit more since my earlier cost was between 0.72 to 0.82, I have a bit of a buffer now.

MAHSING last date for lodgment of bonus shares was today (sorry Half Bull, I thought it was over and done with and told you so earlier today. I was wrong). It suddenly spiked up 25c on heavy volume to close at 2.40. This is very near the 1-for-5 pre-bonus price level of around 2.50 ... so it seems I am getting more bonus shares for almost free. I don't really get what's driving this, but thanks anyway to Dato' Leong.

BREM-WA went to 0.63 but closed only 2c up at 0.565. The mother was up 14c but closed only 2c up at 1.57 .... accumulation or distribution? Master JL, your views please.

NATBIO, TEKALA and OGAWA still hibernating... wonder when they're gonna wake up? Or went into coma already? HAPSENG .... I don't even want to talk about it anymore.

No trades today.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (6 July 2007)

2007-07-06T19:42:00.000+08:00

HAPSENG took me on another terror ride today, hitting a high of 3.56 (up 28c) on volume before going down and up again to close only 8c up at 3.36. MYCOM / OLYMPIA and warrants started to show some promise again before giving everything back, although MYCOM-WA did gain 4c on the close.

GPACKET hit 4.86 (up 10c) before closing 18c DOWN at 4.58, that's another swing of 28c. All in all, not a terribly pleasant day. One bright spot was BREM-WA which put on another 7.5c to 0.545.

Latest disposal:

TAMCORP: -2,000 (1.18), -3,000 (1.19) ... Balance 0 (That's the end of my TAMCORP campaign ... nice)

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (5 July 2007)

2007-07-05T18:38:00.000+08:00

Went on a few roller-coaster rides today. HAPSENG which I bought at 3.18 yesterday closed yesterday at 3.10 after hitting 3.22 earlier. This morning it hit 3.22 on high volume before dropping all the way to 3.04, then rising to close at 3.28 again. Phew! Wonder what's happening....

SCOMIEN was up another 9c this morning to 2.56 before slipping all the way to close 4c DOWN at 2.43.

After yesterday's heroic run to 4.60 before slipping to close at 4.34, UEMWRLD fell another 16c to close at 4.16 today. That's a difference of 44c in slightly more than a day.

On a more positive note, my decision to stick to MYCOM / OLYMPIA and their warrants seems to be looking brighter. MYCOM closed 11c up at 1.41 (day high 1.44), so am back in the black on this one. MYCOM-WA put on 9.5c to close at 0.74, just a shade below my cost of 0.755.

However, my far bigger position is in OLYMPIA. Although today it rose 4.5c to close at 0.87 (day high 0.88) it's still some way below my average cost of 1.025. The warrant moved a mere 2.5c to close at 0.405, but I'm a bit better off here since I purchased some warrants near the 0.20 level much earlier (5,000 sold already at 0.475). If only I had been a bit more patient before going in in size for these two and their warrants, I would be in a far better position now. Still, at least it looks like the correction is over and done with.

Latest purchase:

APB: +5,000 (1.99) ... Total 5,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (4 July 2007)

2007-07-04T18:54:00.000+08:00

SCOMIEN up another 18c to 2.47 (day high 2.51), after brief pause. YLI moving again, up 18c to 3.30 (day high 3.36). NATBIO, TEKALA & YINSON resting .... I hope.

Got headfaked by HAPSENG today, went as high as 3.24 but last hour or so dropped all the way t0 3.04 before closing at 3.10. Still, today's average around 3.17, with majority trades done at 3.14 / 3.16 and above.

Initiated starting position in OGAWA, another consumer stock which I think has a pretty good name in the market.

Finally managed to pick up another 10k in the unreported counter.

Latest purchases:

HAPSENG: +3,000 (3.18) ... Total 3,000

OGAWA: +8,000 (1.06) ... Total 8,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (3 July 2007)

2007-07-03T18:58:00.000+08:00

As reported in Cbox, purchased 10,000 YINSON on 29 June, 2007 (last Friday) at 1.11 .... today saw the announcement on proposed transfer to Main Board and 1 for 2 Bonus Issue. Talk about lucky breaks. Had actually been waiting to try to accumulate closer to 90-92c, but it suddenly started surging last Friday, so decided to jump in with a small position in case it continued running.

As the saying goes, rezeki jangan ditolak, especially rezeki that suddenly comes so fast, so have decided to take some profit today at 1.40. It went even higher to close up 30c at 1.47 today.

After a short correction, TAMCORP moved to hit a new high of 1.16 today, before closing up 11c at 1.15. FABER also put on 14c to close at 1.55, TEBRAU +17c to 1.70, but UEMWRLD was my best, spiking 32c to close at 4.24 (day high 4.26).

Latest purchase (29 June 2007):

YINSON: +10,000 (1.11) ... Total 10,000 (see part disposal below)

Latest disposal:

YINSON: -3,000 (1.40) ... Balance 7,000 (Good 26% gain over 2 trading days)

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (28 June 2007)

2007-06-28T19:23:00.000+08:00

TEKALA seems to have finished consolidating and is now starting its next move. After bottoming at 1.32 yesterday, today it closed up 6c at 1.40, just within striking distance of the high last achieved on 28 March 2005 (1.46 adjusted, 1.54 non-adjusted).

NATBIO continued its move today, closing up another 13c at 1.93 (day high 1.94). I was expecting a short correction after so many up days, what with the current overall bearish trend, but there seems to be some very motivated buyers. Furthermore, it closed very near its day high which is usually a good sign.

SCOMIEN was the real surprise today, closing up 43c at 2.27 (day high 2.30), after a brief 2 days' rest. This stock has been moving up and down with little volume and even after such a big move, I would say the volume is still not substantial. What this shows to me is the somewhat amazing lack of sellers even at significantly higher price levels. Think I can hold on to it for a while.

Oh yeah, just in case there are some IT-illiterate idiots who don't know how to "search blog" but insist on going around making insinuations about others (don't get me wrong, that's what makes these people idiots, not just because they're IT-illiterate) here's a link to when I first posted my purchases of SCOMIEN in August and Sept, 2006:

http://ichithekiller.blogspot.com/search?q=scomien ...... Happy?

Latest disposal:

ENGTEX: -5,000 (1.58) ... Balance 0

(As explained in the Cbox on Monday when I sold, this stock went as low as 1.27 after I bought at 1.57 during the steel price increase announcement. After that it rebounded as high as 1.69 but started correcting again. Given that I hadn't originally bought it at a solid base (was driven more by the steel price increase rumour), I didn't want to risk it turning into a losing position again, given current bearish sentiments. Let's see how low it goes this current consolidation. In the meantime, I've held on to my additional purchase of HIAPTEK and it's now again gone below my 2nd purchase price of 2.11. Eh, hold on ... looks like it closed back at 2.11 today).

P.S. after a few days of pain, my OLYMPIA & OLYMPIA-WA seem to be finding some firmer ground. Hope a sharp reversal is on the horizon.

EOD Update (22 June 2007)

2007-06-22T18:18:00.000+08:00

After MYCOM announced its JV with WestCity to develop a piece of land in Mont Kiara, the share took a pretty steep tumble. Today it continued to fall but bounced off 1.28. Olympia, which I think was to a certain extent affected by Mycom's fall, has also been correcting in the last two days. During the later part of today, I think I saw support coming in for both counters and their warrants (could be just my imagination). I sold some OLYMPIA-WA the other day (reported in Cbox), but this afternoon decided it was worth a punt to get back in. However, I've learnt my lesson from the last run-up when the mother share went up far more than the -wa, so this time I'm concentrating more on the mother. Admittedly, I'm taking a risk by adding at higher prices in higher volumes, but I think it's worth taking.

I'm also trying to build up a sizeable position in another counter which is very, very thinly traded. Am declaring upfront again that I will not be disclosing trades in this counter, same as for EBWORX previously. For those who think EBWORX is speculative, to me this counter is even more speculative.

Meanwhile SCOMIEN has been moving quite nicely these 2 days without many people noticing, I think. Have been waiting for this for a while once they announced the acquisition of MTrans.

Latest purchases:

OLYMPIA: +25,000 (1.02), +10,000 (1.03), +5,000 (1.04) ... Total 40,000

OLYMPIA-WA: +10,000 (0.465) ... Total 20,000 (see disposal below for end balance)

MYCOM: +8,000 (1.34) ... Total 8,000

MYCOM-WA: +5,000 (0.755) ... Total 5,000

Latest disposal:

OLYMPIA-WA: -5,000 (0.475) ... Balance 15,000

/ichithekiller

Forget about TA or FA

2007-06-19T19:06:00.000+08:00

I've been "watching" this dude who writes for The Star Business for quite a long while. You all know who right? This guy by the name of Jose Barrock. Okay, I'm assuming he's a real person who actually exists and not just some pen-name cooked up by someone hiding behind. For those who are not familiar with this "writer", just keep an eye on what he writes everyday in the Star. You will see that, with an amazing level of frequency, he often comes out with breaking news which inevitably lead to pretty good price moves in the stock he has written about on the day the "news" is published. I mean a really amazing level of frequency. And I mean some pretty significant price moves. Just take this piece yesterday about Ranhill.

http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/6/18/business/20070618082346&sec=business

The thing hit limit up before it was suspended. Of course the company itself quickly came out to deny it that very same afternoon. So, where did this "writer" get the info from? Apparently, it was from his "sources", probably the same ones who gave him all the other breaking news in the past (which incidentally, mostly ended up being denied by the companies involved).

So what sh*ts me is this. How is it that this joe has managed to snag on to the greatest money-making scheme around and is getting away with it? Forget about all the different arguments and viewpoints being thrown around by people debating this issue, such as:

1. Nobody is forcing you to believe him and to buy the stock.

2. If you are a serious investor, you should do your own homework first before buying into the stock, after determining that it's a good investment.

3. It's your own fault if you're stupid enough to invest based on rumours and hearsay.

Blah blah blah ..... all the above (and other similar) arguments basically miss the whole point. I personally would never buy anything that has run up based on what this fella has written.

The point is, despite how smart you and I are, there will be people who buy based on what they read in the financial news. The point is, despite what the smart alecky investment experts who express comments like those above say, prices do move ... significantly ....with attendant volume spikes. The point is, from these observations we can safely surmise that someone (or some people) is/are making a helluva lot of dough off this hokey scam (you make your own conclusion who). The point IS and I repeat .... how in the world did this joe manage to latch on to the greatest money-making scheme around AND is getting away with it? What I want to know is, "Is it perfectly legal to run this kinda hokey scam"?

So what ACTUALLY is my point, you say? I don't know ... maybe I'm just jealous.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (14 June 2007)

2007-06-14T18:37:00.000+08:00

Saw this article in The Star today:

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/6/14/nation/18022987&sec=nation

This follows another similar incident which was reported just yesterday (the perpetrators chased a couple down and rammed their car). I don't know if it's just me but I see reports of such crimes, including robberies, snatch thefts, slashings, etc. in the papers almost every day or two and a significant number of them seem to be happening in Johor (as did these 2 cases in the last 2 days). Yeah, that's the state with the CM who refuted Pak Lah's suggestion of a "no passport" easy access policy between Singapore and the IDR. Who also refuted the need for a Bangsa Malaysia amidst Pak Lah's calls for unity. Who also rejected the notion of meritocracy as not being suitable for our society. With all these violent crimes going on in his own backyard on a daily basis, you'd think he had more pressing things to think about than going around and "lawan tauke". You'd think he would be constantly breathing down the police's necks, demanding for them to do something about the situation, to protect his people. But nope ... nothing. At least not that I can see. So what gives? Meritocracy not suitable for what reason again?

The IDR is a massive undertaking which will require a lot of effort and various factors coming together at the right time to make it a success. How will incidents like these give foreign investors the confidence and sense of security to invest in Johor, to work in Johor and to bring their families to reside there? What kind of country have we become where people can just go around hunting other people down in their cars while carrying parangs? Can nothing be done? Is the situation really that hopeless? Where can the poor innocent victims turn to when nobody seems to care anymore and such things happen on such a regular basis? What more can they do really, when justice never seems to be served and villians often seem to just get away scot-free? Today, there was another Star article stating a multi-agency crackdown on Xenon lights. Sure, Xenon lights may be a hazard, but is it really more important than tackling the crime issue? Shouldn't resources be used for more pressing issues first? I give my thanks that something like that didn't happen to anyone close to me (touch wood). I really wouldn't know what to do. Perhaps I would take out RM100,00/= and put out a contract on the buggers' heads. Would that be a sufficient sum? What else could one do?

Latest purchases:

NATBIO: +10,000 (1.51) ... Total 20,000

Latest disposals:

TAMCORP: -10,000 (0.92), -5,000 (0.95) ... Balance 5,000 (Looks like it's still holding there)

/ichithekiller

p.s. OLYMPIA-WA surged 16.5c (+52%) today to close at 0.48. This means I'm up 131% in 3 weeks. Unfortunately I had only accumulated 10,000 units, intending to scale in as usual. So 131% gain equals a mere RM2,725 profit. This is one of the disadvantages of scaling in cos' sometimes it doesn't give one a chance to add on at the right point. Thinking back, I should have scaled in at RM5,000 per pop instead of 10,000 lots, for such a low-priced warrant.

EOD Update (7 June 2007)

2007-06-07T19:21:00.000+08:00

Selamat Pengantin Baru Pak Lah...! Quite a lot of counters moved upward today, despite the CI going slightly south. TAMCORP has been moving steadily for a while now, with the pace picking up recently. Today it underwent a reversal after hitting a high of 98.5c ... closing up 1c only at 92c. Candlestick chartists have a name for this kind of pattern, though I don't know what it's called, I know they think it signifies a top has formed. Let's see if it pans out that way, this will be an interesting observation. Anyway, I have been disposing slowly with only half my original position left. With an average cost of 30c, I think I can afford to give it a bit of latitude, though I'm certainly not gonna argue with the TA experts out there. Maybe I should unload a bit more and just hold 1/3 of my original position for the time being.

NATBIO has come down to my original cost again, after a sudden surge to 1.66 last week. I consider this (rightly or wrongly) to be an accumulation pattern and will be looking to increase my position if overall conditions are right.

Meanwhile, TEKALA is continuing its move. Today, it surged to add on 18c to close at 1.25 (day high 1.29, +22c), strongly surpassing the April 2007 high of 1.18 and December 2005 high of 1.25. Perhaps it was due to the bullish article which appeared in StarBiz today. You can check out this article here: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/6/7/business/17941473&sec=business

Latest purchases:

LINGUI: +1,000 (2.99), +1,000 (2.97) ... Total 5,000

NATBIO: +10,000 (1.55) ... Total 10,000

Latest disposals:

ANCOM-WA: -10,000 (0.195) ... Balance 10,000 (was forced to sell to protect profit, subsequently rebounded, today closed at 0.285)

TAMCORP: -5,000 (0.735), -5,000 (0.80), -5,000 (0.885), -5,000 (0.95) ... Balance 20,000

MUHIBAH: -1,000 (6.80) ... Balance 5,000

/ichithekiller

Tai Chi Master

2007-05-23T13:18:00.000+08:00

Wikipedia.org describes Tai Chi Chuan or Taijiquan as an internal Chinese martial art often practiced with the aim of promoting health and longevity. The Mandarin term "taijiquan" literally translates as "supreme ultimate boxing" or "boundless fist". Tai chi training involves learning solo routines, known as forms (套路 taolu), two person routines known as "pushing hands" (推手 tui shou), as well as martial applications of the postures of the form.

Some call it a form of moving meditation, as focusing the mind solely on the movements of the form purportedly helps to bring about a state of mental calm and clarity. The physical techniques of tai chi chuan are described in the tai chi classics (a set of writings by traditional masters) as being characterized by the use of leverage through the joints based on coordination in relaxation, rather than muscular tension, in order to neutralize or initiate attacks.

The philosophy of the style is that if one uses hardness to resist violent force, then both sides are certain to be injured at least to some degree. Such injury, according to tai chi theory, is a natural consequence of meeting brute force with brute force. The collision of two like forces, yang with yang, is known as "double-weighted" in tai chi terminology. Instead, students are taught not to directly fight or resist an incoming force, but to meet it in softness and "stick" to it, following its motion while remaining in physical contact until the incoming force of attack exhausts itself or can be safely redirected, the result of meeting yang with yin. Done correctly, achieving this yin/yang or yang/yin balance in combat (and, by extension, other areas of one's life) is known as being "single-weighted" and is a primary goal of tai chi chuan training. Lao Tzu provided the archetype for this in the Tao Te Ching when he wrote, "The soft and the pliable will defeat the hard and strong."

For those who haven't seen people practising the "pushing hands" style of Tai Chi, it's basically two people facing each other and going through what looks like a series of hand pushing, locking, blocking and "tangkis menangkis" exercises. Perhaps the pictures below will help illustrate.

Anyway, that is the original meaning and short description of Tai Chi Chuan or Taijiquan. In Malaysia, however (not sure about other Asian countries as well), apart from the above we have an alternative meaning for Tai Chi. If someone says you are a classic Tai Chi Master, do not feel flattered and thank the fella, especially if it's your Boss or colleague saying it to you. Why? Because it means that you are very clever at pushing aside jobs and responsibilities and basically avoiding being accountable for anything at all, even if that something falls directly under your area of responsibility or supervision. A true alternative Tai Chi Master is able to avoid and push aside all manner of dirt and recriminations thrown at him/her and make it stick onto others, so that he/she comes out smelling like roses.

A note of caution though, even the best alternative Tai Chi Masters eventually get "found out" for the lying, weaseling low-lifes they are. When that happens, the more stubborn ones will try to cling on for as long as they can (for whatever reason). However, more often than not, eventually they will meet their deserved fate in the end with an ignominious exit. On the other hand, the more expert ones who have been practising their brand of Tai Chi for decades very quickly see the writing on the wall and leave the scene quietly (or they move on to practise their art somewhere else). The trick, of course, lies in learning to very quickly see the writing on the wall when it starts to appear. At the end of the day, if you consider yourself to be an "expert" alternative Tai Chi Master, the relevant question to constantly ask yourself is "Will I heed the writing on the wall when the time comes?"

/ichithekiller

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

May 22, 2007 21:49 PM

Stop The 'Finger-pointing' - Abdullah
From Leslean Arshad

TOKYO, May 22 (Bernama) -- The Public Works Department (PWD) is responsible for maintenance of government buildings and there should be no "finger-pointing" whenever a defect occurs, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said today. The Prime Minister said he had told Works Minister Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu that matters pertaining to maintenance of government buildings was under the PWD's jurisdiction and accusations as to who was responsible must stop as it would only lead to embarrassment.

Instead, he wanted the authorities responsible to carry out the entrusted tasks, he said. "I've told Samy Vellu that the PWD was responsible for matters related to maintenance, don't quarrel among yourselves, it's embarrassing." It's alright if you want to talk it over and carry out the repairs jointly ...what's the point of quarrelling with each other to the extent of the people knowing. If there's something wrong, talk to each other, cooperate and do it quietly...what's the point of quarrelling in the newspapers, one says they're responsible, the other says it's your problem," he said when commenting on the issue of maintaining government buildings and the leaking roof in Parliament."

Already people are unhappy with what has happened, who is to take responsibility and who is responsible have also become a public issue, two agencies quarrelling...this is not good," he said. Abdullah said the authorities concerned must have the sense of responsibility to do what they are supposed to do. "Whoever is responsible must have the sense of responsibility to make sure what it was responsible to do. It takes action, it carries out its responsibility," he said. He said the scope of duties and responsibilities have been clearly spelled out and they should not wait to be told on what to do." For example, if you've been appointed as a cook... why wait before starting to cook," he said.

Abdullah said that allotting adequate allocations for maintenance was not a waste or a burden as it was a money-saving measure as more money would have to be spent if a building was damaged or defective." Maybe the building needs to be replaced with a new one. So the expenses incurred will be more than the allocations set aside for maintenance," he said.

Abdullah said he was impressed with the maintenance culture of the Japanese people who are known for their efficient maintenance practices, cleanliness, public courtesy and high civic-consciousness. He believed that the 14,000 Malaysians, who have studied in Japan, would have been "influenced" to emulate the noble cultures of the Japanese in their daily lives. The prime minister also marvelled at the creativity of the Japanese who could commercialise materials that were often discarded in Malaysia.

- BERNAMA (NewsLink: http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news.php?id=263487)

Latest Update (22 May, 2007)

2007-05-22T17:36:00.000+08:00

Haven't been updating for a while. Partly busy, partly lazy, partly distracted, partly lost focus ...

Anyway, saw a news article on the net the other day. But before I go into that, I would like to relate my first car-buying experience. Just after graduation and starting work many moons ago, I went into one of the many car dealerships in the country selling a particular "marque". Though you couldn't possibly call it anyone's "dream car of a lifetime", still, I was reasonably excited to be finally getting my own car and it was relatively cheaper compared to many other makes in the market at that time. Anyway, I'm sure I'm not the only one who experienced the following, since many of my friends went through the same enriching experience:

1. You could practically stand in the middle of the showroom from morning until close and no salesperson would give a shit about you unless you went out of your way to get his/her attention. Forget about being asked to please have a seat and would'cha like a cuppa tea?

2. Want a test drive? Go borrow your friend's auntie's one. Sorry, takde test unit lah...

3. What's that? You nak blue colour? Aiyo, no guarantee lah ... terpulang lah, tengok apa keluar factory. If not you waiting list lah ... Hah? Waiting list how long ah....? Tak pasti lah ... maybe 9 months, maybe 1 year. I rekomen you jangan pilih colour lah... memang semua colour pun OK punya.

4. All accessories were standard issue. Despite what the nicely printed glossy brochures said, you couldn't choose what rubbish accessory you wanted and which you didn't want. It would be too much trouble to "tailor-make" each car for each customer. If you couldn't accept that, waiting list lagi lah. So, no choice but to pay more for silly automatice rear sunscreens, etc.

5. Bank loan kita boleh arrange, you jangan pakai bank sendiri. Kalau kita buat semua one-shot lagi senang, lagi cepat, OK? Rate dia tak lari punya, no problem ... (want to earn commission, cakap commission lah).

6. Ditto for car insurance.

After agreeing to no specific colour, no test drive, all "optional" accessories, no own bank loan, no own insurance .... I still waited around 10-11 months for the bloody thing to arrive. So there, back to the news article I read the other day. Apparently, Proton is planning to ask the Govt for money, supposedly to compensate many of its dealers for having to close down due to poor sales volumes.

I'm sure there were a few "nice" dealers around at the time, but to the rest, I would like to point out an old saying which, roughly translated, goes ... "Good fortune goes in turns", meaning some days you win, some days I win, sometimes you do well, then it's my turn next. But the underlying moral is that when you're up and ahead, don't become big-headed 'cos soon the good fortune will do an uppity-up on you and go somewhere else ('cos it's only fair, morons). In the meantime, while fortune still favours you, be nice to everyone 'cos you'll need all the goodwill you've saved for when it's gone. So now the question is "why in the world should the Govt (and ultimately us taxpayers) pay to compensate a bunch of fellas who treated customers like shit when the good times were rolling"? You go into business at your own risk, now that it's gone to the pots it's "Boo hoo! Help us out...?". What kinda logic is that? What kinda business is that? 'Cos I'd sure like a piece of it then....

It's not like they were busy giving back a cut of their profits to society when the dough was rolling in, so now that it's bustville, why should they be compensated for anything? I just hope those buggers don't get a single sen in compensation ...

Latest purchases:

HIAPTEK: +5,000 (2.11) ... Total 10,000 (got suckered into adding at a higher price when first heard about the steel price ceiling increase, thought I was sooooo smart).

ENGTEX: +5,000 (1.57) ... Total 5,000 (same as above).

TIME: +5,000 (0.785), +5,000 (0.82), +5,000 (0.825) ... Total 15,000

LINGUI: +3,000 (3.10) ... Total 3,000

OLYMPIA-WA: +5,000 (0.205), +5,000 (0.21) ... Total 10,000

Latest disposals:

NYLEX: -12,000 (1.47), -6,000 (1.45) ... Balance 0 (Still made a decent profit, though it hit 2.10 just recently. Latest qtrly report not so encouraging, no choice but to sell first and see later 'cos it kept slipping)

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (12 April, 2007)

2007-04-12T18:10:00.000+08:00

Busy, busy, busy ... updating past few days transactions all in one go ...

Latest purchases:

SDRED: +5,000 (0.78) ... Total 5,000

WEIDA: +10,000 (Avg 0.7275) ... Total 10,000

KASSETS-WA: +9,000 (Avg: 0.7625) ... Total 9,000

KMLOONG-WA: +6,000 (Avg: 1.00) ... Total 6,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (3 April)

2007-04-03T18:27:00.000+08:00

After holding for more than a year and riding the roller-coaster with my SAPCRES-WA, I finally disposed of it at slightly above break-even (0.365) during the last steep correction on 27th Feb. Today, it rose 71.95% in one day to close at 0.705 ... @*$&#£ .... $*&@@#!!

On a lighter note, YLI today finally made a move to close 30c up at 2.52 ... it had been inching up slowly from around 1.80+ before this. In the pipes sector, I think YLI is a laggard compared to HIAPTEK which has appreciated quite significantly since I bought both of them at almost the same time.

Finally unloaded all my EBWORX today ... let the last 150,000 go at prices ranging between 0.56 to 0.575 ... At an average cost of 0.295, I'm pretty happy how this turned out, but regret not having been able to accumulate more (only got 1/3 of my original target) although I even took the measure of not naming it here. With my kind of luck, it'll probably hit 0.80 tomorrow though....

Latest purchase:

TEKALA: +5,000 (0.95) ... Total 23,000 (I made an error in my records, after adding another 5k this time, I actually only have 23,000 in total and not 25,000)

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (28 March 2007)

2007-03-29T12:13:00.000+08:00

Sold yesterday and reported in Cbox, but didn't have time to update till now. Cash pile building up again. Am waiting for further weakness to pick up targetted stocks.

Latest disposal:

ASIATIC: -1,000 (5.15) ... Balance 0 (my last remaining lot in this counter, been a good nine months)

/ichithekiller

Mid-Day Update (28 March 2007)

2007-03-28T14:12:00.000+08:00

Unloaded a bit more UEMWRLD .... overall market looks a bit iffy. TEBRAU and MUHIBAH significantly off highs, with MUHIBAH hitting 5.25 this morning before weakening to 4.98 now, but still UP 28c.

Latest disposal:

UEMWRLD: -2,000 (4.20) ... Balance 6,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (26 March 2007)

2007-03-26T17:55:00.000+08:00

UEMWRLD already surpassed its recent high last week. Today's morning session showed some weakness when it fell from 4.36 (Previous close: 4.24) to a low of 4.16 before climbing back up again to a day high of 4.40 and finally dropping back to close at 4.22. This counter has been very volatile of late, even on an intra-day basis and a lot of money can be made if one is an astute timer. However, that's not me though... unfortunately. Anyway, decided to sell some when it started dipping down the 2nd time today, but only managed to do 1,000 units. Longer-term trend still looks good though...

MAHSING pleasantly surprised with a 24c move today to exactly reach its recent high. Am expecting more upside from this counter.

Latest disposal:

UEMWRLD: -1,000 (4.36) ... Balance 8,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (19 March, 2007)

2007-03-19T17:34:00.000+08:00

Have been having some problems lately with the blog and cbox. Or it could just be my internet connection and me not having time to try and sort it out. Did some trades recently, updating all in one go here.

Latest purchases:

TIMWELL: +4,000 (1.32) ... Total 18,000

GEFUNG: +5,000 (1.46) ... Total 5,000

Latest disposals:

GPACKET: -3,000 (5.00) ... Balance 3,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (9th March 2007)

2007-03-09T18:25:00.000+08:00

Nothing much happening for me... taking the chance to increase stake in what I consider to be a laggard timber-related counter. Latest quarter report further confirms earnings recovery on the back of higher sellling prices. With more than RM75 mil cash in the bank and zero debt, I figure downside risk should be limited.

Latest purchase:

TEKALA: +7,000 (0.985) ... Total 20,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (8 March, 2007)

2007-03-08T17:40:00.000+08:00

This one is just too attractive for me to ignore. Pity I wasn't around 2 days ago when it was even lower. I had 12,000 in hand before today's purchase at an average cost of 0.99. It hit a peak of 2.10 on 14th Feb, 2007 before the dastardly thing happened worldwide and dropped it to a low of 1.33. Since I hadn't sold a single share before the drop, I thought I might as well try to capitalise on this now as an opportunity to scale up my position size a bit. Hope I'm not getting in on a technical rebound... doesn't look like it though ....

Latest purchase:

NYLEX: +6,000 (1.50) ... Total 18,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (28 February 2007)

2007-02-28T19:06:00.000+08:00

Looks like there's still considerable strength in our Bursa Malaysia. Too busy today to watch anything or capitalise on any intraday action. Let's see how the US performs tonight.

Latest purchase:

TEKALA: +5,000 (0.985) ... Total 13,000

Latest disposal:

UEMWRLD: -2,000 (3.54) ... Balance 9,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (27 Feb 2007)

2007-02-27T18:48:00.000+08:00

Rising crude, US real estate bust and rising mortgage defaults, resignation of HSBC's US chief, Iran nuclear ambitions, Yen spike, reversal of global carry trade, Greenspan's comments about a possible "recession", inflation fears ... more and more dark clouds just seem to be forming over the last few days. Today Shanghai went pop with a 8.84% index decline, while the KLCI dropped almost 36pts at the close (-2.81%). At one point the CI was down more than 50pts.

As a result, I took major hits on UEMWRLD, UEMBLDR, TEBRAU and LIONDIV, amongst others (albeit out of profits). May 2006 saw a major global correction from which Bursa Malaysia did not escape. In the end, emerging markets fell more steeply than the US but turned around strongly following a sharp US recovery. This time, with all those dark clouds hanging overhead, we'll have to see if the US market manages to hold its ground and lead us out of the woods again. Some prudence would be wise, though.

Latest disposals:

LIONDIV: -2,000 (6.60) ... Balance 2,000

MUHIBAH: -2,000 (4.18) ... Balance 6,000

SAPCRES-WA: -5,000 (0.365), -5,000 (0.365) ... Balance 0

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (21 Feb 2007)

2007-02-21T20:10:00.000+08:00

Quite a few good movers in my portfolio today. Just to highlight a few, LIONDIV added 50c to 7.30 (High 7.45), OILCORP added 31c to 1.45, MUHIBAH +20c to 3.70, NAMFATT +19c to 0.945, UEMWRLD +18c to 4.18 (High 4.28) and PWORTH +11c to 1.15.

BREM-WA continued to tack on another 10.5c to to 0.625 (High 0.65), while GPACKET added another 10c to close at 5.70 after touching 5.80 earlier in the day. Even my SAPCRES-WA put on another 7c to 0.48, while TEBRAU added another 11c to 1.04. ROHAS looks like it has finally broken out today, rising 12c to close at 1.70 (High 1.75).... hope this move continues.

On the other hand, MTOUCHE lost 12c to 3.24 after its latest quarterly earnings came out considerably lower than the same quarter last year. I'm still holding on at the moment, but expect to have to take a bit of pain on this in the immediate term.

Amongst the timber stocks, I think TEKALA remains the sole super laggard. After scaling in at 1.04 earlier, I've watched it slowly inch up a few sen a day, closing up another 2c at 1.11 today. For a debt-free, cash rich company like it is, in the right sector, I think it's worth a punt. With some luck, it might start to pick up the pace soon.

No trades today.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (16 February 2007)

2007-02-16T18:00:00.000+08:00

Nothing much to update, holiday mood already ... TAMCORP momentum seems to be taking a break ... but BREM-WA made another 7c move up to close at 0.52. GPACKET and LIONDIV also steadily up...

祝大家新年快乐 ... 万事如意 .... 心想事成!

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (14 February 2007)

2007-02-14T20:46:00.000+08:00

What a day.... UEMWRLD was up 76c to 4.24 at one point before coming down to close up 48c at 3.96.

MAHSING put on a hefty 54c to close at 5.00, GPACKET hit 5.40 before coming down to close up 15c only at 5.25, TEBRAU up 19c to 0.905, Nylex up another 12c to 1.98 and Tamcorp finally breaking out of its rut to move 8c up to 0.575 .... this is the Tamcorp break I've been patiently waiting for, hope it's the real move this time.

No trades today.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (13 February 2007)

2007-02-13T19:26:00.000+08:00

Market started off shaky today but the recovery in the 2nd half was pretty impressive, with many counters across the board climbing back from their day lows and ending up substantially. Among my counters, the best performer today was IJM-WB which was up 42c at one point before closing up 36c at 4.08. UEMWRLD also advanced strongly to close up 36c at 3.48. ASIATIC was up 45c at one point, but closed up only 18c at 4.88. However, it's worth noting that there was a big buyer-seller spread and it could easily have finished up 28c instead.

Other notables were: NYLEX +15c (1.86) and EKSONS +11c (1.90).

I've noticed that BREM-WA seems to be flashing some pretty good signals lately. Since I picked up slightly > 20,000 units a while ago at between 0.265 / 0.270, it hasn't really caught my attention to warrant closer monitoring, but all that changed last Friday with what looked like a mini-breakout, followed by another good move yesterday. This morning, from a high of 0.485, it dropped to a low of 0.425 before coming back pretty well to close only 1c down for the day at 0.46. I'm no chartist or technical analysis expert, but I'll say it looks pretty good at the moment.

Meanwhile, TOMYPAK has finally moved out of the 0.695/0.700 range to close 3.5c up at 0.73.

Latest disposal:

IJM-WB: -1,000 (4.12) ... Balance 1,000 (I don't want to even think how much more I would have made if I had held my original 45,000-share position in this until now... *sheesh* ... now, THAT would have been a niiiiicccce CNY ang pow)

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (8 Feb 2007)

2007-02-08T19:42:00.000+08:00

Our CI managed to move up slightly again today. As for my portfolio, UEMWRLD and FABER were the major movers, both putting on close to 30c. For FABER, this can be considered the first real breakout day, but for UEMWRLD ... I just wonder at its relentless pace. I suppose this is normal for a genuine bull run. MUHIBAH also continued its recent move by putting on another 20c today.

Many people are now wondering just how long the good times can roll on like that. Most people I know are skeptical, but you can't argue with the market and it serves no purpose. Many who have been sitting patiently since 900 and waiting for a major correction are either pulling their hair out or are slowly pulling the trigger now. Just a quick trade here and there ... before long the positions build up and we all know how that ends when the major correction really comes.

Not that I'm saying no one should buy anything now though, generally things still look ok, but caution is required. A lot of people diligently monitor the US and Shanghai markets for signs of weakness, but I think they're missing something else. The Vietnam index has been on a multi-year bull run. Last year, its main index was up 144% and to date I think its up another 30% or so. Many pundits agree its being held up by irrational exuberance, a lot of free cash from a booming economy and an inexperienced retail public which has just discovered a fun new way to make easy money. I'm told a host of stocks have increased ten-fold in price.

All these could mean a major market bust somewhere down the line. There's nothing like a catastrophic emerging market bust to remind foreign institutions about the dangers which come with investing in this part of the world. We've all seen what even a policy change in Thailand did to Asian stocks recently. So, better keep an eye on the party over there...

No trades today. Oh yeah, some people have been asking me how come I trade so infrequently even though the market is so hot. I think when they just look at my recent posts, they've somehow forgotten that I have a portfolio which has been built over a pretty long time (this is probably partly my fault, since I do not post up my portfolio). So, by just looking at my recent purchases, they think I only have a few stocks in hand, which is not the case. It's just that I did a lot of my buying earlier. At the moment, I'm pretty happy just riding my portfolio, with some tweaks here and there.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (6 Feb 2007)

2007-02-06T19:38:00.000+08:00

我的华语虽然不好(其实可以算很差)但是我对英语已经很闷了... 所以从今以后我有时候会用华语写我的updates ... 如果有什么写错的希望大家会多多指教.

今天我买了8 张 Tekala ... 原因是我认为关于材木的公司应该会一直报好的成绩. 这个股我跟了差不多长的时间, 现在该是好时候买入.

最新的选购:

Tekala: +8,000 (1.04) ... Total 8,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (5 Feb 2007)

2007-02-05T21:39:00.000+08:00

Was hoping to wait for a lower price to increase my position in NOTION, but a somewhat bullish article on it came out in Star Biz today... pushing it up to 0.52. Was so afraid it would run that the moment it came down a bit, I took in another slice. In the end, it went even lower for the day to 0.495, ending up only +1.5c at 0.50 ... s'okay though ...

UEMWRLD continued to move pretty strongly (up 28c), with UEMBLDR following half-heartedly. MAHSING also proving a steady performer recently, up another 14c today (at one point up 24c).

Latest purchase:

NOTION: +5,000 (0.505) ... Total 10,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (31 January, 2007)

2007-01-31T19:42:00.000+08:00

CI +7.93, but 571 Losers against 312 Gainers. GPACKET seems to be picking up steam after recent slide and consolidation, hitting a day high of 4.94 before closing up 28c at 4.90. UMW also moving strongly, adding 60c to 8.95.

Latest purchase:

TOMYPAK: +5,000 (0.695) ... Total 20,000 (manufacturing costs should have declined of late due to lower cost of materials)

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (25 January 2007)

2007-01-25T19:33:00.000+08:00

UEMWRLD moved strongly today, at one point hitting 2.30 (up 33c) before settling a bit to close at 2.26 (up 29c). Strangely UEMBLDR did not really follow this strong move, as these two normally move in tandem.

LBALUM retreated further today to close 7c down at 1.03. At this point, I'm not worried and don't see any reason to be.

MAEMODE and its -WA continued their recent uptrend with good moves today, with the -WA outperforming the mother share (up 20% or 9c to 0.54).

No trades today.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (23 January, 2007)

2007-01-23T18:54:00.000+08:00

Take a look at this ... ain't it a pretty sight? Have a good think about this and then decide whether we can or have what it takes to continue to buck the trend...

Index

Straits Times: -12.30 / 3,132.90
KLSE Composite: +11.27 / 1,169.12
Nikkei 225: -15.61 / 17,408.57
Hang Seng: -2.52 / 20,769.70
Thailand SET: -6.03 / 649.09
Dow Jones: -88.37 / 12,477.16
Nasdaq: -20.24 / 2,431.07
S&P 500: -7.55 / 1,422.95

Back on our Bursa, timber still looks OK to me. Some steel-related counters went through horrid reversals today from their day highs, for eg. KINSTEL, KINSTEL-WA ... could be a warning sign. Better be careful.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (16 January 2007)

2007-01-16T16:47:00.000+08:00

Sold IJM-WB 1,000 today @ 3.50 .... Balance 2,000 .... gotta rush off.

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (12 January 2007)

2007-01-12T19:02:00.000+08:00

First post for 2007! Haven't posted anything for a while partly due to hols and partly due to the worldwide internet problems arising from the Taiwan earthquake. Anyway, my earlier "gut feel" after the short December 2006 correction that several factors had lined up for at least a mini-bull run seems to be holding true for now, despite numerous doom & gloom opinions coming from many fronts. Not sure how long it'll last though ... doesn't matter much to me anyway. Either way presents opportunities to buy or sell different counters.

After a short correction, Nylex made a strong upward move today to re-test its recent high of 1.52, managing to close at 1.51 today, up 12c. If conditions remain right going into next Monday, I rather think it could easily move past 1.52 on to the next level.

IJM-WB made another fantastic move today, hitting a day high of 3.26 from its last close of 2.79. It ended the day at 3.14 (up 35c still). There could still be some upside as the mother share moved up 55c today to 8.25, which is still below several analysts' stated fair values, I've been told.

Latest purchase:

NOTION: +5,000 (0.53) ... Total 5,000

Latest disposal:

IJM-WB: -2,000 (3.18) ... Balance 3,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (19 December 2006)

2006-12-19T21:40:00.000+08:00

Huge drop in many counters today, caused by imposition of capital controls on short-term fund movements in Thailand. CI managed to recover slightly to close 21.24 pts down. Continued to throw out counters which breached my trailing stops or cut loss points, but several actually rebounded and ended the day higher than or near my sells. What to do .... at least I had the chance to redirect to other more attractive stocks at more solid bases.

Latest purchases:

GPACKET: +1,000 (3.94) ... Total 6,000 (was queuing all the way down but only managed to pick this up)

MAHSING: +1,000 (3.20) ... Total 3,000 (same thing, no point rushing in to buy)

Latest disposals:

UEMWRLD: -3,000 (1.68) ... Balance 11,000

AMMB: -3,000 (2.95) ... Balance 0

AMMB-WB: -3,000 (0.945) ... Balance 0

MRCB: -5,000 (0.895) ... Balance 0

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (14 December, 2006)

2006-12-14T21:24:00.000+08:00

Selling pressure seems to be easing off a few of my counters.... a few more ended up today.

Latest disposal:

METPLEX: -79,000 (0.025) ... Balance 100,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (13 December, 2006)

2006-12-13T19:06:00.000+08:00

Selling pressure continues but seems to be easing off... maybe just a reprieve.

Latest purchase:

LBALUM: +1,000 (0.825) .... Total 9,000

Latest disposals:

IPOWER: -8,000 (1.04) ... Balance 0

IJM-WB: -3,000 (2.18) ... Balance 5,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (12 December 2006)

2006-12-12T21:41:00.000+08:00

Quite severe correction today with CI down 13.3 points and 826 losers vs 132 gainers. METPLEX was hit with a delisting notice for failing to submit a viable restructuring plan and promptly dropped 33.3% to close at 3c (at one point down > 40%). I started accumulating some METPLEX as a "side bet" prior to starting this blog, so not sure if I previously reported the buys here, but since I'm reporting all trades now (except one), I will include it here. This demonstrates the danger of "playing with fire", but I was fully prepared to face the risks. Now that a delisting notice has been served, I've no choice but to cut down on it.

Also continuing to cut down some other positions, in case the current correction turns out to be more severe than I expect. Basically, I will do whatever possible to protect current profits and to avoid winning positions turning into losers. If the market bounces sharply, then too bad ... I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Latest disposals:

METPLEX: -100,000 (0.03) ... Balance 179,000

NAMFATT: -5,000 @ 0.45 ... Balance 10,000

JAKS: -10,000 @ 0.47 ... Balance 0

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (6 December, 2006)

2006-12-06T18:28:00.000+08:00

Market seemed to be going up nicely when Iris took a tumble and washed its effect over other stocks (again!). Anyway, I've decided to unload some ACB as it has already gone past my original target and I needed the funds for something else. LBALUM dropped quite significantly today, on higher than normal volume. Thought I did well by managing to pick up some additional shares, but it proceeded to go even lower (slightly). Will have to keep an eye on it.

Latest purchase:

LBALUM: +3,000 (0.845) ... Total 8,000

Latest disposal:

ACB: -4,000 (1.09) ... Balance 5,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (1 December 2006)

2006-12-01T18:33:00.000+08:00

Other GLCs like TIMECOM, FABER, UEMWRLD & UEMBLDR starting to show some life again.

Latest disposal:

IJM-WB: -2,000 (2.28) ... Balance 8,000

/ichithekiller

EOD Update (30 November 2006)

2006-11-30T21:55:00.000+08:00

Pretty good day. LIONDIV up 65c after the recent disastrous 2-day drop from 6.60 to 5.80... IJM-WB and AMMB / AMMB-WB continue strong moves after recent correction. IJM-WB up 20c to close at 2.19, AMMB up 30c to close at 3.36 and AMMB-WB up 18c to close at 1.31. MUHIBAH also up 19c to close at day high of 2.54 .... K&N Kenanga has just reiterated a Buy call on MUHIBAH today, so may have a positive effect tomorrow.

Latest disposals:

MRCB: -5,000 (0.95) ... Balance 5,000

IJM-WB: -2,000 (2.17) ... Balance 10,000

/ichithekiller