Amanah Saham 1 Malaysia (AS1M) - Higher Declared Dividend in 2011

The last dividend declaration for PNB's Unit Trusts  for 2011 is AS1M. This is the second year the fund has come into existence since its launching in August 2009 by our Prime Minister. The first year's (2010) dividend was nothing to shout about at 6.38 sen per unit. Many investors were kind of disappointed as they thought being the latest, it would give a 7 sen per unit or more like the previous funds such as ASM. The Sime Darby's cost overruns and a negative hit on its shares in middle of last year was blamed for the lacklustre performance of the fund.

The Chairman (L) and CEO (R) of PNB at AS1M's 2011 dividend declaration on 22 Sept 2011

This year, the second dividend has been declared at 6.50sen per unit , an increase of 0.12. A slight increase given the current market turmoil. Well, it is more than three times the bank rate so it is no wonder that the fund has been fully subscribed by the non-Bumiputra (Chinese).  Allocation for other ethnic groups are still available.  According to PNB, as at 20 September 2011, 5.49bilion units of the fund are being held by  270,598 investors.

AS1M transactions are currently suspended from 21 September to 2 October and you can update your book on 3 October 2011 as the dividend is automatically credited there.

It is comforting to get the dividend during this current market's poorest performance, reminiscent of the 2008 financial meltdown.  I was thinking of parking my AS1M's dividend in another unit trust which is variably-priced and that is set for a better dividend yield but am worried that after its dividend, to be declared in January 2012, the unit price would plunge as to wipe off all of my gain ! So I had better be on the defensive by keeping it in AS1M till such a time when the market  returns on the road to recovery.

It is wise to stick to capital preservation during stock market's unusual down-trend.

The fun has virtually gone out of the equity market right now and I have stopped looking at my portfolios' dwindling values. Let me just be happy with my AS1M dividend for the time being and dream a little......

Diamond-studded Kitty ring  at USD4,250.... for decor only :)

Stock Market Shaking, Oil and Gas Stocks Tumbling.

There is a sense of loss as I look, transfixed  at my rapidly tumbling portfolios. My oil and gas counters have all taken a hit. Apparently the managers of foreign funds have again decided it is not worth putting their money in Asian stocks due to an anticipated poor demand from America and Europe affecting our exports. So they take flight to other so-called safer haven.

 My Pchem ,at an all time high of 7.50 about three months back has collapsed at 5.68 this morning. My Dialog is at an all time low now at 1.97 after a high of 2.70 and I bought them at 2.19 and so is my Kencana bought at 2.93 and now a measly 2.53 and as luck would have it I did not buy Armada whose IPO I failed to get. Thanks goodness!

Remember Armada was listed on 27 July 2011, hardly two months have passed, and open at 3.65 and has gone up to 4.50 and look at today, the price has tumbled down to 3.45! Shall I buy now? Or should I wait for it to fall further nearer to its IPO price of 3.03? Honestly, nobody could tell whether this declining trend will continue or stop. Everyone appears jittery. One day up, the  next day down and now, down and down.

Armada  is falling down,falling down.....

The European Union's dallying on robust debt restructuring solution for Greece's potential default and the American's job problems have all affected worldwide investors' confidence. The IMF (International Monetary Fund) has warned that time is getting short as stock markets around the world are reacting negatively to current economic outlook and recession fear. 

The present market uncertainty is extremely bad for investors. For people like me who have the tendency to buy and hold,despite many pundits' advice against it, we are at the losing end as our shares depreciate greatly in value, reminiscent of the fall in October 2008, precipitating a GFC (global financial crisis).

Things have to move on nevertheless.We have yet to reach the trough.

I am eyeing Armada after selling off my CMMT today at 1.32 and which I bought  at 1.04 last year. I am afraid to wait as I did with Dialog as the recession is looming if the Feds and the European Big Guns are not doing anything to shore up markets' confidence . Like it or not, our market is affected by their actions and manipulations.

I feel sorry for the politically-embattled Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany as her people, the German taxpayers, are getting fed-up of aiding Greece which doesn't seem capable of putting her financial position back on track. And the Feds might have to come up with yet another quantitative easing 3 ( printing new money guys!) to help those banks to lend money for businesses in US. If they do then we will see some market recovery  here in Asia including Malaysia. 

Rather convoluted I must say this globalisation thing!

Fungal infection - How does it look like on your back?

An obese 52 year old single mother has been my patient for a couple of years. She comes regularly for a follow-up of her hypertension ( high blood pressure). Her condition is under control with her present medication.  And she is not a diabetic.

On one or two occasions she complained of itchiness on her arms. Upon examination, I diagnosed it as a fungal infection (tinea corporis) and prescribed her an anti-fungal regimen and after some weeks the lesions had cleared.

Last week she came for her review and at the same time she said she had been coughing for the last two weeks or so and had difficulty breathing when her coughs were bad. As per my practice, I wanted to listen to (auscultate) her chest. Whilst most local primary care doctors would just put their stethoscope on the back with the clothes on, my medical trainers had always insisted that we asked the patient to lift up their clothes and examine it that way. Observe the chest movement of the right and left side before auscultation.And that is what I always practice.

I auscultated the lung from the back and found that the lady had an abnormal breath sounds on her left lung and diagnosed it as bronchitis.

But there was something else I observed on her upper back. It was a large area of fungal infection which looked migratory and active in the lower middle of her back with visible scratch marks around it. I asked her whether she knew about this or has she got any itchiness over this area. She replied yes, and she had been asking her only child, a son to apply some kind of an over-the-counter cream on it. I asked her whether she knew what the area looked like and of course she did not know because it was on her back. Her son just described it but she really could not visualise it. As it is very itchy she even had some kind of heat treatment on the back to relieve it.

Migrating fungal infection on the back

I asked her permission to take a photograph of the lesions and show it to her. She was surprised to see the picture. The skin infection is fungal and she needed the right cream to treat it. I have a feeling she had been applying a steroid cream which temporarily relieved her itchiness but actually made the infection worse through extension as the fungus thrives on steroid!

Her problem is further compounded by her heavy attire and tight hair scarf (hijab) which is relatively inappropriate in our hot weather. The excessive sweating promotes fungal growth. I advised her to use cotton material and not to cover her head at home and maybe use the normal scarf for the time being while her back condition is being treated.

So concerned was she about her modesty that she had never admitted her skin problem on her back. Moreover she thought it was simple itchiness as she could not see it. Inappropriate therapy had worsened the condition and her heavy clothing did not help at all.

I am prescribing her a local anti-fungal regimen failing which I might have to resort to an oral therapy. Had I not asked her to lift up her blouse for her chest examination, I would not have seen this treatable skin disease. Left untreated the disease would eventually burn itself out but in the meantime she could get other skin infection due to the constant scratchings and the discomfort of itchiness could disturb her sleep and affect her quality of life.

Chronic Cough - the Magic of a Correct Diagnosis

A 21 year old female office worker came in yesterday morning complaining of cough for the last six weeks. She had been to see a doctor who gave her a week's prescription of an antibiotic which she said she took once daily (1000mg) but she did not know the name when asked. She was also given a cough syrup and a decongestant which she also religiously took but her coughs persisted.

She was getting desperate as she coughed so much at work in an air conditioned office.  And she admitted that her coughs were worse at night and had disturbed her sleep and made her irritable. She looked miserable and she was also extremely worried about getting PTB.

As per our clinic protocol  for coughs lasting more than three weeks, I did a screening for PTB (pulmonary tuberculosis) consisting of a chest xray, sputum for AFB (acid fast bacilli) for three morning consecutively. I also took her blood for  FBC ( full blood count) and an ESR (erythrocytes sedimentation rate), a non-specific indicator of increased inflammatory activity in her body.

But most important I asked about her medical and family history. Yes, the father had PTB a long time ago but has been treated. Yes, her younger brother suffered from asthma but has more or less recovered over the years . No, she has never had asthma but she offered the information that when she coughed so bad she could hear a gritty sound in her chest. And currently she is all congested and her nose is all blocked.

I examined her chest and found it to be clear of any abnormal sounds. Her chest Xray was also normal apart from a mild congestion on her right lower lobe. Her FBC showed an allergic picture with an elevated neutrophils and ESR was mildly elevated as expected in an inflammatory condition but not too high as seen in chronic conditions such as PTB or connective tissue diseases like SLE (systemic lupus erythematosis)

There are other causes of chronic cough such as post-nasal drip and GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) but the history pointed to more of a recent irritant causing increased secretions and bronchospasm giving rise to incessant coughing. I surmised that her problem started with an upper respiratory tract infection likely to be viral and this was not properly managed as she was later put on (likely) a broad spectrum antibiotic and long term anti-tussive and anti-congestant that somehow  served to irritate her bronchiolar linings causing bronchospsm, increased secretions and narrowing of her airways. The narrowed airways prevented normal clearance of the accumulating secretions.

What she needed was a bronchodilator to reduce the spasm and clear her airways. That was what I gave her. Before she left my clinic yesterday I asked her to return the next morning and show me the antibiotic which was prescribed to her for my information as I wouldn't want to give the same one in case she needed it.

Early this morning she turned up with a piece of paper on which she wrote the name of the antibiotic which she got via phone from the private clinic. Unfortunately it was some garbled word which didn't look at all like any antibiotic that I knew of despite looking up in the internet! Anyway that information was no longer important to me.

What is important to me is the smiling and happy woman I see today. She says she no longer has any cough. She slept well last night after taking two oral doses of the medication I gave her. She couldn't even cough out any sputum this morning for the AFB test as her chest and throat have miraculously cleared overnight. She said her friends also commented that she no longer coughed irritably.

When she got up from the chair to leave she bent forward, extended both her hands and cupped my right hand tightly to thank me and said that she'd never been so relieved in weeks.

I am very pleased with  her fast response to the medication  and this is the kind of cases which gives me a deep  professional satisfaction.

It's sexually transmitted and It's gonorrhea!

A 45 year old lady has been coming to the clinic with the complaint of recurrent foul-smelling vaginal discharge since a year ago and was seen by various doctors who treated her for vaginal candidiasis (fungal infection). She was quite distressed by the time I saw her as the condition never seemed to go away. She admitted going to both government and private doctors and found no relief despite being given antibiotics as well.

I decided to engage her by asking about her family life including her sexual history. Yes, she is married with four children and now working as a housekeeping staff in one of the local hotels and no, the husband is most of the time outstation and comes home only every now and then and that rings a bell for me. I decided to take a high vaginal swab and test for sexually-transmitted disease (STD) organisms like gonorrhea, chlamydia and trichomoniasis and there the result before me " intracellular diplococci, morphologically similar to Neisseria gonorrhea", there you are, the source of her malady. She was promptly given an intramuscular injection of an antibiotic most suitable to treat the disease.

I informed her to tell her husband to come to the clinic for a similar treatment as required under infectious disease protocol. She told me her husband was still outstation and she appeared reluctant to come with him for an STD counselling. Anyway, I advised her to get her husband treated as some gonorrhea cases in men have no symptoms. I also carefully suggested to her that this kind of condition normally thrives in cases of having multiple sex partners so it is wise to avoid such a situation. As a health personnel, we have to educate our patient on the nature of the disease and its transmission.

Usually in a busy practice local doctors  would hardly ask patients for a sensitive history, preferring to shoot in the dark by treating the commonest condition in a woman with vaginal discharge that is candidiasis, a fungal infection. The tragedy is  when every time she comes in she sees a different doctor and so the history of treatment is not really scrutinised. Often the same therapy is repeated as in this poor woman's case.

Today she comes for review six week-post treatment and reported that her condition has cleared for the first time in months! A disease needs to be correctly diagnosed and given the right treatment to be cured. I am relieved for her.

Averaging Up or Down- My Experience

As I was reading an article on this topic by one of my favourite bloggers,Musicwhiz, I was reminded of  my own experience in dwelling on such activities or shall I call it "plunging" into them?

It was in early 2007, nearly a year before the global financial crisis. I met with an accident and had to stay home for almost a month. As I sat in front of my computer with my left leg in a plaster cast, I noticed that the market was in an unusual vibrant mode, call it a bullish trend if you like. I had much earlier bought some "Renong" shares which was later converted to UEMworld and the unit cost then was 1.25. This counter suddenly became active and as it was going up, I kept buying without really understanding the principle of averaging up, mind you. Had I known the risk I would have been in fear and more careful.

My effort was well rewarded though, as by the time I sold off all of my UEMworld shares at 4.40, I had made a small fortune all in a matter of eight weeks or so. I was extremely pleased with myself and that rather massive gain was used to buy other shares and make up my variety of portfolios. Well, it was a success story, one based on instinct rather than a careful study of the fundamentals of the company. Certainly not to be emulated by anyone worth his salt. Average up and gain?

Then in the first quarter of 2010, as I was looking at the trend of the various sectors in the market, I noticed that the technology sector was doing relatively well in rotational plays. The new kid on the block, JCY whose IPO was at 1.60 had even gone up to 1.98. Then suddenly JCY, along with the other technology stock prices like Notion, started to fall. Mindful of the possible opportunity to buy low,  I went headlong into the market and bought JCY shares at 1.52, well it was below the IPO price wasn't it? Then it fell again and I kept buying  till I realised that I was putting my money into a bottomless pit  and ceased averaging down forthwith.

The Greek sovereign debt woes and worries on its contagion effect as well as the fall in demand for hard disks had battered down the technology stocks and I came by the news rather late. I lost a substantial sum of my hard earned money on this stock when my broker advised me to dispose all of it early this year at 0.58 sen. Luckily I followed his advice as a few weeks later it still continued to fall and now I think it is at 0.40 sen. Certainly nothing to be celebrated. Average down and lose!

I used the proceed to buy the Pchem IPO in trading and service sector and as luck would have it I was successful and able to compensate for the loss when this newly acquired stock went up by RM2.00!

In my little experience ,averaging up in a bullish market proved to be lucky and lucrative despite the apparent risk and my averaging down, while seemingly clever, in a volatile market still in the shadow of the recent GFC (global financial crisis) was disastrous. And my final disposal of the technology stock at a great loss was a fortunate decision as it went down still lower and would have suffered greater losses had I held on to those shares. And my good luck with Pchem had single handedly turned around my financial status.

There was an interesting comment which pointed out that if you keep averaging up, you are a masochistic (pain-loving) and if you do the same by averaging down you are a hedonistic (pleasure-seeking). Tell you what, when I was performing those two actions I hardly thought of the pain or pleasure.... I was just having fun with Mr Market!