Why Indonesia is identified as N-11 and G-20?

I read this from personal finance magazine and I think it is worth to share it here about Indonesia facts and figures. This probably explains why Indonesia is being selected as part of the N-11 and G-20?

In case you do not know, N-11 stands for Next Eleven are eleven countries (i.e. Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey, and Vietnam) that are being selected by Goldman Sachs investment bank as having a high potential of becoming the world’s largest economies in 21st century. See N-11 in Wikipedia.

Similar to N-11, G-20 stands for group of 20 countries which represent the 80% of the world economy and is believed will be replacing the G8 – Group of Eight major economy countries (i.e. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States). See G-20 and G8 in Wikipedia.

Please don’t feel sad if your country is not being selected (e.g Malaysia). :D


Indonesia Facts and Figures

Indicators	2005 (%)	2006 (%)	2007 (%)	2008 (%)	2009 (%)	2010 (%)
Economic growth	5.70	5.50	6.30	6.20	4.50	6.10
Inflation	17.10	6.60	6.70	11.10	2.78	6.96
Exchange rate (IDR/USD)	9,713	9,050	9,130	9,691	9,400	8,991
Unemployment Rate	11.2	10.3	9.1	8.3	8.4	7.14
Poverty rate	16.0	17.80	16.60	15.40	14.15	12.13

Source: Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, Indonesia, and Central Bureau of Statistics
 
The only one key highlight here in my opinion (although the magazine highlight a lot of them) is the Indonesia Economy growth is not affected by the global recession of 2008/2009. If you look at the GDP growth rate in Malaysia, we were having recession during that time. From this perspective, Indonesia is pretty strong.

However, if you look the Indonesian unit trusts in Malaysia, not all of them are making money except for PB Indonesia Balanced and Public Indonesia Select funds from public mutual.

Pure Indonesian Funds	6 months return (%)	1 Year Return ended in Dec 9, 2011 (%)
MAAKL Indonesia Equity	-5.93	-7.70
OSK-UOB Indonesia Equity Growth	-3.04	N/A
PB Indonesia Balanced	3.17	8.91
Public Indonesia Select	2.75	7.96
PRIndonesia Equity	-5.72	N/A

Source: Personal Money (February Edition)

This probably tells you that you should buy from the largest unit trust company in Malaysia or it is too early to tell anything now since unit trust is merely for long term investment. I used to have the Public Indonesia Select fund but I have already sold most of them as the return is not as good as the rest. Perhaps I should invest again in this fund?

My take whether we should invest in Indonesia? Yes, let's go for it. Investing in unit trust is a good start. What is your take?

How to Deal with Anonymous Call Smartly?

I”m not sure why lately I have been receiving so many anonymous calls either there are from banks, internet providers, or others. They usually call you to sell their promotions and most of the time is “FREE”! :) But the strange thing is most of these offers or promotions are not mentioned in their official website according to those who call me. Huh? Oh yes, they usually say this only for phone call promotion and you’re one being selected.


How to deal with anonymous call smartly?

That depends on whether you’re single and available or not? Yes, you do not hear wrongly. When you’re single, you want to meet people as many as possible and you do not want to miss a single chance to miss your future wife. Sorry, I’m talking from a male perspective because >90% of such call is coming from a pretty voice lady. :D Okay, so how should you deal with such call?

These are the few options you can choose:


Option 1: For Male and Single :)

Anonymous call: This is calling from XXXX. We would like to offer you XXXX and it is free. Blah, blah, blah… not sure why they’re very good in taking and usually they talk for quite some time…

You: Yes, I’m interest but can we meet to talk about this in detail? It it is very hard for me to understand what your’re talking without talking to your face to face. Also, can I have your h/p number as well just in case I do not see you so that I can call you?

Your objective here is to meet. That’s it and drive the conversation to meet her no matter what she talks. If she doesn’t want to or imply not to, just say “Bye Bye” to her and “Sorry I can’t understand this without talking to the person 1:1”.  This option is not for everyone especially you’re female. But if you’re male and single, are you sure you do not want to go for option 1? lol!!!

Option 2: For Interested People

If you are interested in the promotion or the offer, you still want to meet them but make sure you meet them in their office. For example, if bank calls you, make an appointment with them in bank and just remember do not make an appointment outside of the bank.

What if this offer or promotion only for phone call? You have 2 options. First option is to reject, the second option is continue to analyse this person. But go for this option only if you think you’re smart. What you need to do is to “Wait and See” what information that he/she is trying to get from you and try to minimize providing your information to him/her.

These are few things to consider when they start asking information from you:

• Are those information relevant? Assuming if they ask about your credit card number, what they need this information for since the offer is free? You can ask them and listen to their respond whether is reasonable. 

• Don’t they already have such information? Think of this way, why the bank wants to ask for your credit card number since they already have it? You can just tell them, you already have it. :)

• Verify them by asking them few questions about your personal. What is my I/C number? What is my email address? Ask few more if possible. If they don’t know, just challenge them. They should already know such information.

Option 3: For Not Interested People

I’m usually this type of people but I’m little bit polite at first (usually) because I do not reject them directly. I still want to know what they offer also and to verify them at the same time. This is how I usually go:

Me: Can you please send me the information to my email? I will get in touch with you if I”m really interested. 

Anonymous call: Sorry, I don’t have your email. Can you give me your email?

Me: You should already have my email.

Anonymous call: I don’t have.

Me: Then, you will have to figure out that yourself.

Most of my accounts are linked to my email but if they don’t have it, then it is something wrong already. Don’t you think so? If they really do not have my email,  I think that is the problem that they need to figure out.


Which option do you choose usually?

I tried option 1 before when I was young. lol!  Unfortunately in practical, they don’t want to meet you! :D So I don’t get any chances to meet those  cute voice pretty girls.

For option 2, I tried that before too but it ends up they can’t explain why they need such irrelevant information from me. It was like about few years ago.

For option 3, I tried a lot these days because the anonymous calls are really a lot. So far, I only received 1 email out of don’t know how many calls and it turned out is the valid one. Later, I met the banker in bank to understand their products more and it turned out is a pretty lady. Not bad huh? But at the end, I still do not buy from them.

Any experience that you would like to share?
  
P/S: I talked about this because I have a friend’s family member getting cheated by this type of anonymous call. What surprises me is the banks also do that. I think banks should stop calling people to promote their products because many cannot tell whether they’re real and this also creates scam opportunity! Don't you guys think so?

Welcome to 2012, What Are Your Resolutions?

Time flies and it has been quite some time I has not blogged about new year post since 2009. I think I should do this now because 2012 could be the last year that I can do this. Who knows the doomsday is true? I don’t want to miss the chance. :) D

You can also read my previous new year post (if you curious in my past):

• 2008 Accomplishments and What is Next?
• 2006 and 2007 Greatest Accomplishments

Top 5 Accomplishments in the Past

• Exceeded my career growth goal. Annual increment way beyond 7% annually and get promoted within 3 years to next level. Sounds good huh? But still, I”m not sure if this is a good thing because this makes me stuck even harder!

• Health has been improving. Good cholesterol (HDL) has been increasing to the normal range and no longer have high uric acid. Sounds good but still having a lot of bad cholesterol and triglycerides that out of the normal range. The fatty liver has not been fixed. Overall, I still rated myself in bad condition.

• Investment return is around 6% but good news is earn a lot of extra money from company stock options (way beyond 7%). Use the money from stock options to buy a landed property in Penang. This is something good to be an employee.

• Finished settle my housing loan in 5 years. Suppose to be a good news because free from debt. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen because just kick off another loan account for the new house in Penang. Debt like never ending but I hope this is a good debt!

• Part time blogging gains few more readerships especially for my financial and software blogs. The traffic has been increasing (i.e. ~15%) slowly as compared to last year. The rest of my blogs are as usual, not much increasing traffic due to low quantity of content.

Top 5 Resolutions in 2012

Improve Heath

Sounds simple huh? It is not that simple because every year I have this resolution. These are the few things that I have been doing in the past 2 months and I should continue to do that:

1. Reduce meal by > 50% and eat very less meat and sugar.  
2. Exercise everyday for 1 hour

Measure of success is to fix my medical report. I should do the check up every 3 months.

Stock Investment

Study and become familiar with technical analysis. Select few companies and perform both fundamental and technical analysis on them and blog about it.

Measure of success is to have ROI > 14%.

Migration to Australia

Study and research the pros and cons of migrating to Australia. Apply for PR when the possibility to get is higher than 80%. Also, look at what are the skills that I need to acquire so that I can get a job there (assuming if I decide to migrate there). Unless there is an semi-conductor field there (but unlikely), then I will have less worry. Things still at the early stage at this point in time anyway.

Measure of success is to apply migration to Australia by end of 2012.

Setup Travel Blog

Since my life partner has been traveling to so many places, she is asking my help to setup a blog for her. I think that is a good idea too. Anyway this shouldn’t be very hard but I think the hardest part is more on the content. I will leave that to her and hopefully she is not just saying for fun. We will see…

Measure of success is to post 12 posts by end of Dec. This is the goal I set to her. lol! :)

Stretch goal: Become iOS Developer

Not sure if this is realistic or not because I have been wanting to do this for quite sometime. The thing is I need to get the Mac book air to do this which I have been unwilling to invest in the past. Also, time is another factor. That’s why I put this as a stretch goal in 2012.

Measure of success is to develop one application for iPad or iPhone by end of 2012 and get approved in “App Store”.


What are your 2012 resolutions?

Have you set your goals or resolutions yet for 2012? If you’re blogger, you may paste your link here so I will take a look at that as well. Setting goals needs to be S.M.A.R.T if you do not aware of this. The hardest part for me for setting goals is “achievable” because I usually do not accomplish all the goals I set. However, I think that’s the right way too because you do not want to achieve 100% of your goals. This basically means your goals are not challenging enough.


Please set your goals if you haven't do it. You may have different goals. For example. goals for your personal, goals for your business and goals as a employee of a company.

Wish you guys all the best and Happy New Year 2012!!

Using Price per Earning (P/E) Ratio to Analyse Stock

Price per earning or P/E ratio is another useful financial indicator that you can use to analyse your stocks.  It basically tells how many years it takes for you to earn back one share price that you buy. 2 assumptions are being made here for simplification:

• You do not sell your stock
• The stock dividend equals to the earning per share. 

For example, company A has the share price of $10 and the earning per share is $2 per year, you will need 5 years to earn back $10.  However B has the share price of $20 with the same earning per share (i.e. $2), you will need 10 years to earn back the $20. This tells you in fact company B is over-priced and company A is under-valued. In short, the lower the P/E ratio value, the better. The P/E ratio formula is:

P/E Ratio = Share Price / Earning Per Share (EPS)

Note 1: For more information on EPS, you can read my previous post: Using EPS to Analyse Stock


The earning per share should be based on yearly and NOT quarterly.  Another important thing about this EPS is, it is better to use the latest EPS rather than the one you get in the annual report unless you really don’t have a choice or you simply lazy. The technical term for this is called “Trailing Twelve Months” or TTM which means the most recently past 12 months.


Where to get P/E ratio data?

If you do not want to calculate yourself and would like to get the latest information about P/E ratio, you can just search for P/E ratio (TTM). Usually when you see P/E ratio without mentioning the “TTM”, it means the EPS is based on the last fiscal year. For example when I look at my stock trading online account on a particular stocks, the P/E ratio information doesn’t have the TTM. This means the P/E ratio is based on the last fiscal year. In short:

P/E Ratio = Current Share Price / EPS based on the last fiscal year (e.g. as stated in annual report)

P/E Ratio (TTM) = Current Share Price / EPS based on the most recently past 12 months (e.g. latest last 4 quarter)

Airasia Bhd. vs MAS Bhd. (Case Study)

The first this is to get the P/E ratio(TTM) for both Airasia Bhd. and MAS Bhd. However, you will notice that there is no P/E ratio(TTM) for MAS. This is because MAS is making lost in the past quarters. In other word, the EPS (TTM) for MAS is negative. In this case, you cannot compare the P/E ratio between these 2 companies.

• P/E ratio (TTM) for AiraSia = 13.60
• P/E ratio (TTM) for MAS = N/A

So let’s look at without the TTM which is based on the last year 2010 EPS data. You will get the following:

• P/E Ratio for Airasia Bhd =  9.56 (Under-valued)
• P/E Ratio for Mas Bhd = 18.67 (Over-priced)

Even if we use the last year EPS data to compare this 2 companies, the P/E ratio tells that Airasia is under-valued as compared to MAS and MAS is over-priced as compared to Airasia. Given that EPS analysis for these 2 companies and also based on the poor performance of MAS (i.e. making lost in the past few quarters), there is no reason to buy MAS stock.


Conclusion

Earning per share tells you the company performance but we need to study their track record by looking at the past years and look at the EPS growth instead. After that, you can perform use the price per earning ratio or P/E ratio to compare companies that are in the same industry. The lowest P/E ratio basically means it is under-valued and ot is good to buy. If both EPS and P/E ratio analysis show positive for that particular stock (e.g. in this case is Airasia), that means based on the fundamental analysis, we should buy that share
.
The challenging part is if you get good EPS but bad P/E ratio and not both. Which one has the higher weightage? I will probably wait until the stock price goes down first since the EPS is still good. If EPS is bad, I probably won’t got for this stock at all. Does this make sense?

P/S: I’m still learning but I find this EPS and P/E ratio analysis are pretty awesome but require some amount of works before you decide to buy the share. I welcome you to share your investing experience here especially you are the fundamental investor. Other than EPS and P/E ratio, what else do you look at?

Remember to Pay Your Land Tax (Cukai Tanah)

In case you do not know, you need to pay the land tax (cukai tanah) once a year for all the properties that you own in Malaysia. However in some cases,  the land office doesn’t have the address information about you so they won’t send you any statement reminder.

This is especially true if you buy your new house or new property from the developer. By right, the developer should instruct the land office to change the address to your new house but this doesn’t happen to all the cases. So they can’t send you the statement as a reminder. You will have to update the address by your own at land office.

Anyway I checked with the land officer(for Kedah only), they told me even though they have the address, they won’t send out the statement as well. The homeowner needs to come the land office to pay for their land tax. Huh, what a crap? You will get the penalty too if you don’t pay and they also won’t send you any penalty statement as well. What a crap?

Assuming if you take the loan for 30 years, your land tax fee is RM80 and the penalty is RM20 yearly. So for 30 years, you will owe the land office RM3000. You will need to pay this when you want to settle your loan with the bank or else the bank will not release your house title to you. You also need to pay this this one shot if you want to sell your house.

This happened to me this year when I wanted to settle my loan but luckily it was only for 4 years so I did not need to pay a lot. Assuming for those who do not know about this, they will have to pay large amount of money including the penalty fees. Why we need to waste such money right?


Few Tips:

• Make sure you pay your land tax (cukai tanah) every year if you own any properties. If you do not get any statement or make any payment for your land tax (cukai tax) before, I think it is better for you to check it out at the land office.

• For strata buildings, you have 2 titles (i.e. Master title and Strata title). You have 2 payments to made. The first payment is land tax / quit rent (cukai tanah) for master title. The second payment is door tax (cukai pintu) for the Strata title. See note (1) below.

Note (1) : Master title refers to the land where the building the land is shared between the unit owners. The Strata title however belongs to the individual unit owner which refers to the door tax (cukai pintu) of which payment is not shared.


Hope this is something useful to share. I'm not sure what "Cukai Pintu" should be called in English, so I just call it "Door Tax" but it sounds funny. Please check your land tax (cukai tanah) payment with the land office if you haven’t paid a single cent before and the worst thing is you need to remind yourself to do such payment every year!

Also, this probably most applicable for those who has landed property because usually for Strata property, everything will be taken care by your property management and they will request you to pay for it.

Personal Finance: Tips for Those with Bad Credit

In order to achieve financial success, everyone needs to start by building good credit. The best way to insure that you have good credit is to make good financial decisions and build good credit from the beginning, but sometimes, situations arise that make a bad credit score unavoidable. For those who have bad credit, starting to improve your financial situation may seem like a daunting task, but you need to realize that your credit goals are achievable.

Follow a Budget

This is probably the most basic tip to help anyone get ahold of their financial situation, but it is also the most curtail. In order to build a better credit score, you need to pay all of your bills on time and in full. The only way you can do that and still be able to save money and feed your family is by following a strict budget. You need to break any bad habits you may have, such as spending more than you earn or living on credit cards, in order to move forward, and you can only do this if you make the daily decision to stick to your budget. You need to find every possible way you can save money each month, even if that means saving $.25 with a coupon at the grocery store. Every little bit will add up to a lot of savings in the end. It may not be easy or fun, but it is the only way you can get your finances under control.


Pay Cash

If you find that you are overspending or that you have made a habit of not following your credit card purchases, use cash for all of your purchases instead. Most people find it much harder to part with their money when they physically see it leaving their hands, and when you always pay with cash, you will be more likely to avoid buying something you can’t afford. Set aside money every month for your savings and to pay all of your bills, and then keep enough cash on hand to cover your budgeted amount for other items (groceries, entertainment, etc.).


Keep Track of Your Credit Report

No one else is going to check your credit report for you, unless they are checking it when you apply for a loan, an apartment, or even a job. It is up to you to know exactly what others will see when they review your credit report, and do everything you can to make sure that that information is up to date and accurate. You can get a free copy of your credit reports every year, so you should have no excuse as to why you can’t check your credit. When you get your credit report, you will need to find the negative items, find out why they are negative, and fix the problem before more of these items show up. Most negative items on your credit report should be removed after seven years (ten years if you file for bankruptcy). If there is outdated or false information, you have the right to notify the credit bureaus and request that they fix the mistake.


Seek Outside Help

If you have tried everything imaginable and still can’t seem to get your finances under control, it may be time to seek help from a professional. There are many credit counselors who would be willing to help you find a way to get out of debt. It may take some time and money, but you will feel much better when you know that you are debt free. Make sure you find the best counselor for you, and be aware of scams and untrustworthy people who will try to prey on those with bad credit and debt.


This is a guest post by Amanda Clark who is an author who writes guest posts on the topics of business, marketing, credit cards, and personal finance. 

Forgotten Wealth Formula - Have You?

It is very funny that I read back my very old post: Health and Wealth and I basically mentioned that although many people aware of the importance of the health, it is still always being forgotten especially in long run. The funny part is this applies to me as well until I did my blood test lately.

I did my full medical body check up 3 years ago, that indicated my cholesterol level (HDL, LDL and Triglycerides) are beyond the range and also had a fatty liver – specifically my SGOT-AST, SGPT-ALT and GGT levels are beyond the range as well. So from that time onwards, I was very concern on health. I controlled my diet very closely and did exercise (twice a week) for maybe for about a year. After that, I think I made an assumption that my health problem was fixed without any further blood test. So 2 years later, which is today – I do my blood test again and the results are similar with like before. So the problem was not really fixed at all and I’m back to square one! :( Here is my my screw up result:

Well, this tells one very important thing. You need to do regular blood test to remind yourself the importance of health especially if your blood test result is not good and you can’t make assumption. If your blood test result is good, it is recommended to do a blood test once a year and do not exceed 2 years. So now, I’m back to the cycle 3 years ago but the difference that I plan to made this time is I will do the blood test every 6 months to monitor my progress until normal. Hopefully everything is fine. So, wish me luck! By the way before I forget, I think this is the forgotten wealth formula:

Wealth = Money + Health +  Relationship

What do you think? However, my previous very old post again on definition of wealth did not include health and relationship (happiness). Somehow I defined wealth is to measure how far you are from financial independence or financial freedom in time unit.  That probably covers only 1/3 of the equations. I used to think of health to be added into wealth formula but I think “relationship” should be included as well because it affects your happiness. Imagine if you have money and health but you screw up your relationship with others, this may not be what you’re looking for.

P/S: Okay, I'm going to swim now. People say I scare of death after getting my blood test result but anyway this is more on improving my own health. :) Let's share your thought on this on topic. What is your definition of wealth?