The FIFA World Cup 2010 - Now for the Semi-Finals

I have watched three quarter-finals, Brazil-Netherlands, Germany-Argentina and Paraguay-Spain with Netherlands, Germany and Spain going into the semi-finals and I predict Netherlands would make the fourth team into this stage.

Last night on 3 July 2010, my team Argentina was badly thrashed by 4 to nil by the Germans. Yes, Argentina has many brilliant players like Brazil but they tend to depend on individual players. Germany has relatively young team with full of energy and enthusiasm and great teamwork. They are admirable.

Earlier on I have said that I would support the underdogs but unfortunately they have all packed up their bags and gone home. Though I am sad at the way Ghana was dealt by Uruguay. That handball by Uruguayan striker, Suarez in front of the goal mouth, was really not in the spirit of the sport. I would call it downright cheating! Ghana was worthy of going into the quarterfinal and to be denied in such a manner was painful for the African fans. Suarez was red carded for his action and cannot play in the quarter-final match with the Dutch. For me he deserved to be banned from the game altogether. Apparently he celebrated his action by saying that now the "hand of God" belonged to him! Wouldn't like to see the like of him in the World Cup ever again,

 

Suarez's deliberate handball prevented Ghana's goal

The Brazil- Netherlands game was exciting with Robinho scoring a quick goal  at 10th minute after the start of the game, however the Dutch team came back to score two goals  to win. The Dutch hold the record of being unbeaten throughout all their matches. If they won the World Cup, they would be the  true champion.

     Netherlands in orange, scoring against Brazil

 Argentina lost by 4 to  Germany with a relatively young team with great team work. German's midfield is formidable. I noticed that Germany has players from other ethnic groups like Ozeil (Turkish descent), Boateing from Ghana and Khadeira of Tunisia descent. Argentina are all of the same ethnic group- just an observation.

What makes soccer a great game to watch is the team work they display and the strategy adopted by the coaches at different stages of the game like who they replaced whether a striker or a defender or a midfielder to add strength to the team and spur the game. Scheweinsteiger created beautiful chances for his teammates like  Muller to score. The fastest goal scored in world cup at three minutes into the game was just fantastic and could have disoriented the Argentinian defenders! Another world cup talk that I came across was the advantage Germany had over other competitors in using the new ball, the Jabulani, six months before the competition. Well, the talk would not have surfaced had Germany been eliminated earlier.

                                                     Bastian  Scheweinsteiger, German midfielder - Man of the Match

Nevertheless, it was both exciting and entertaining to watch the young German players working hard to deny Argentina's Lionel Messi's chances of showing his brilliance in goal scoring.  Though I was praying hard for Messi to score. I felt sad for Messi who apparently broke down crying in the dressing room post match. Gosh! Such is the effect of the World Cup. Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel was there to cheer her brilliant team! Now that is a people leader. She might just win the elections based on this German euphoria.

The Paraguay versus Spain quarterfinal was also worth watching. There was plenty of excitement with penalty aplenty and heroic saves by the goalkeepers of both nations. The Paraguayans were playing quite well almost denying Spain, one of Europe's soccer giants, its entry into the semi-final. Spain won one nil through their awesome striker, David Villa.

     David Villa celebrating his sole goal for Spain and into the semi-final

The semifinals are up next and I have to stop searching for my favourite teams and just enjoy the game, shouting for the better team to win. I hope they will play fairly so that the deserving team will hold the coveted cup. I must admit that I have seen  quite a number of unsportsmanlike behaviours such as stepping on opponent's ankle (Felipo Melo of Brazil - sent off the field) and that Nigerian player who kicked the butt of his fallen rival and he was also dismissed. And of course the well publicized altercation between Anelka and his coach! That was shameful and the  French team was the laughing stock of the world for refusing to train after that... talk about spitting into the air skyward! And to me , Suarez's deliberate handball took the cake.

All the best to all the semifinalists. May the best team win. Best in all respects, skills. strategy and conducts.

 

For the final I think it would be between Germany and the Netherlands, looks like it is going to be a  European affair after all.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup: In Search of my Favourite Team

Since the start of the 2010 world cup in South Africa, I have been watching the group games especially those televised by Astro at 7pm and 10pm Malaysian time. The only 2.30am game that I watched full time was on Saturday morning 12 June between England and Algeria. As Malaysia is not a world cup material yet, we Malaysians are forced to support any team we like, sounds pathetic but that is how life is at the moment.

                                  Football stadium at Durban, South Africa

Being in the Asian continent, firstly, I would support the Asian teams such as Japan, South Korea, DPR Korea, Australia and New Zealand.  I failed to watch the early games when these teams played as I was in the capital staying in a hotel which did not subscribe to the particular Astro channel! But I heard DPR Korea scored one goal against the mighty Brazil though they lost, it was quite an achievement. Then I read that Australia was defeated by four goals in their opening match then  I watched the disastrous loss by DPR Korea to Portugal last night , a historic seven to nil , what a trashing! Earlier, South Korea had lost to Argentina by four goals

 

South Korea's defender Lee Jung-Soo (R) celebrates with South Korea's midfielder Kim Jung-Woo after scoring the opening goal against Greece during the Group B first round 2010 World Cup football match South Korea vs. Greece on June 12, 2010 at the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium in Port Elizabeth. Getty Images / CARL DE SOUZA

I am not confident that any of the Asian team will reach the final though I would be most happy to be proved wrong. Of course I wish the world would see more of the Asian teams playing beautiful tactical games in the future so that we, as a continent, would get the recognition we deserve and stand tall in the international football community.

For other individual games, I usually support the underdogs  like I supported Algeria against England. I found it detestable for England's player Wayne Rooney to talk down on Algeria before the game. It ended up they only managed a scoreless draw. And England is now struggling to secure a place in the last 16 at knock-out stage.

My second line of support goes to the African continent represented by the host country, South Africa, Cameroon, Nigeria, Cote D'IVoire and Ghana. But unfortunately, they are not doing as well, Cameroon being the first to be eliminated in the group game. And where the name Didier Drogba, the Cote D'Ivoire striker , is synonymous with the best of African football.

My third choice is the eastern European teams of Slovenia, Slovakia and  Serbia which defeated Germany by one goal. They are not doing too badly considering that they are new to the world cup as independent nations and a country like Slovenia has less population than Malaysia!

Fourth is the South American teams represented by Brazil, Argentina, Honduras, Chile, Mexico,Paraguay and Uruguay. My what a team Argentina is! I like their fast pace and accurate passing and ball dribbling and tight control. They might just be my favourite team though a bit too early to confirm as I only watched them play once.

                           The Brazil players have booked their place in the last 16: Courtesy FIFA

I only supported USA team against England as I believed there would be more tickets sold to the Americans when USA advanced in the competition. More fans mean more money for FIFA to develop world football and promote world peace. In fact, it is the fans which make each world cup memorable and fascinating.

The last I would support is the Western European teams of Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, England, France, Denmark, Netherlands and Switzerland. This is because these countries have been known to be good all these years winning world cup many times. This situation is made possible by the many lucrative competitions that they have and the attraction of wealthy private clubs such as Real Madrid, InterMilan, Barcelona, Ajax, Galatasaray and Juventus. And those in England FA Cup, the like of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal, truly, the opportunity list is endless.  Indeed these people dream and grow up in football environment. They are screened for their talent and fans come in droves to watch them. They command a full capacity stadium and market their tournaments to the global audience.  Sponsorships are also abundant. In Malaysia you only see such a capacity crowd when pop singers have their concerts!

Turning back to the world cup, my favourite team would come from other continents except Western Europe. As the Europeans are commercial icons though they represent their respective countries. Just look at the behaviour of the French team in the Anelka's fiasco with the coach!  My favourite team players  must be elegant, motivated, strong, respectful of their coach, skilful, fair, not overly physical and would not play act to fool the referee . They are fast, attacking with tight defence and  not given to time wasting to delay their opponents. They control the ball (jambulani) well, display accurate passing and possess great team work, in short, they are world-class and I am an incorrigible idealist!

So I am still actually looking for my favourite team to scream my heart out to, to pray for every goal attempt they make and to rejoice with them in their winning and to feel anguish when they lose. All these kinds of emotion are healthy to be expressed during this world cup mania.


                                                                      Portugal team rejoicing after beating
                                                                     DPR Korea 7-0 in group game: Courtesy FIFA                                                                             

                                           Blowing a vuvuzela :)  courtesy Anne-Catrin


Meanwhile I must get that made- in -China plastic vuvuzela to blow and compete with the annoying background sound of the stadium when my favourite team plays and....... irritate my soccer-mad spouse.

Stock market ... Trend reading by the unsavvy investor

I have been looking for a pattern in our local stock market for high volume activities. I noticed that in early part of the year especially before the Chinese New Year, volumes would go up and prices would also rise in tandem. Then come the first quarter results of companies and some other economic indicators and depending on the leads, the volumes or price will either slump or surge briefly in March and April, then the various companies will be declaring their dividends. Some fundamentally strong companies will still retain good prices despite the dividends payment.

The stock market will then take a breather and you will find that, apart from a surge here and there, it remains lethargic and now with the World Cup going on, the market will continue to be rather lacklustre. I have not visited the market since my portfolios took a deep plunge due to the Greek debt woes. The uncertainties retard market momentum. And so you read bad news today and the next some good news so the market goes "yo yo".

The US Federal Reserve Governor Ben Benarke did give an assurance a couple of weeks ago that the American economy had somewhat strengthened and so the "double dip recession" might not materialise and this has given some cheers to wary investors. Before that the DJI  index went down below 10,000 sending shivers to the investing community.

I have tried to read those technical charts to be more "scientific" but really those are merely  illustrations of "herd behaviour" of investors and they may not necessarily be indicative of wealth generation to the individual investor unless he/she knows when to leap in or ride off. Timing the market is never easy. I tried a few times, I can tell you that I sometimes gain and sometimes lose.  But if you are persistent and persevere and are not in a hurry to create instant wealth, you will actually generally gain when  you monitor the market behaviour long enough and have latest knowledge on the target companies and those financial news that matter.

Let us keep investing and contribute to the economy.

SIME slumps and PNB bumps

I was actully debating on selling off the rest of my SIME shares acquired during the financial meltdown in 2008, the week before the announcement on its financial losses of nearly 1bil due to its projects' cost overruns in Bakun and Qatar . The share trading was suspended on Thursday 13 May as I was wondering what had happened and later realised that it could be due to the negative news on its financial performance.  I was a bit late as the stock started to slump.

I was quite happy to receive SIME dividend last week only to face with the decline in my share values. But for the life of me, what I do not understand is why it takes so long to find out about this massive overrun? Has someone been hiding it all this while?  Surely the regular financial meeting and the risk department inputs could have detected this debacle earlier and limit the losses. And  wither the auditors?

It is easy to just remove the CEO but what about the officers who are directly looking after those projects? And what has the board been doing before this? As one of the many share holders I am terribly disappointed with the apparent weak governance of this GLC which is overseeing the wealth of the country. It is as if they just got up one morning and found that their money was gone. Where is the monitoring mechanism which is so critical in any organisation or has complacency set in especially if one is on the job for a very long time?

The government has to balance experience and performance in any individual it appoints to head its revenue-generating companies that is why in some cases a person stays too long at the top for his experience and when this happens, there would be a give and take, and give-me- more- time kind of  attitude. What is more disturbing is when they start recruiting only members of their families to the jobs and not the best talent. Well it is happening in one of the largest GLCs and let us hope the people concerned are aware of what they are doing and be responsible for any misfortune befallen them due to this "pally-pally" attitude.

For us the investors who have not gone out on this cost overrun issue, we hope that better corporate governance be practised and that officers be made more forthcoming in their reporting of problems to the management and more transparency between the management and board of directors. Quite often management tends to be rather hostile against their respective  board as they think the board is interfering with their day to day operations. So the tendency is to keep wrongdoings under wrap till they are too big to handle and too late to remedy.

The decline in SIME share value does not seem to be that worrying though I lost quite a substantial amount on paper so far today. I hope the strong fundamentals will keep this stock well afloat. And yet one of the strongest fundamentals is good governance and this must be maintained at all times. I will have to leave SIME  at some point but I do not want to do so now when it is being battered like this.

I am, at this time, thinking of PNB which is the main shareholder of SIME, I hope the dividend of PNB unit trusts' investors would not be affected too badly. ASD, ASM and AS1M's dividends will be declared in June to September and many are expecting a good income. I am also a PNB unit trusts' investor so looks like a double jeopardy for me.

The Greek Financial Crisis... It is all greek to me till now.

When I see the value of my portfolios drastically going up and down and actually more going down these past days, I knew something is happening in the wide world. We are all connected financially. Whatever happens in countries with strong economic group power, we will definitely be affected. My overall market gain was wiped off by almost 90% early this week before the EU announced its multi-billion Euro bailout package for Greece.

Now why a country like Greece is going on the brink of bankruptcy? I believe bankrupt means you cannot pay your debts. I fail to understand why you borrow so much in the first place if you cannot repay in the second place? Usually when one borrows money one will have a plan about repayment based on one's income unless one is suddenly incapacitated due to disease or accidents. When we borrow, doesn't it mean that we have to monitor our spending and perhaps find ways to generate more income to sustain ourselves?

Through my readings I found out that the previous Greek governments have been borrowing a lot and spent so much to pander to their voters. The public spending was bloated and tax evasion was rampant as a result they have built up massive budget deficit. Their expenditure is more than their income and they continued to borrow as if there is no end to the money flowing in. So when the time comes for them to repay those creditors, they suddenly find their coffers are empty.

The credit rating companies like Standard and Poor and Moody in April 2010, downgraded Greek government  bonds to junk and from there the creditors pull a stop and foreign investors start to shy away from investing in the country. No money, no services. And more importantly the feared "contagion effect" that will cause a financial tsunami in countries with similar large-deficit problems, what is grouped as the PIIGS ( Portugal,Italy,Ireland,Greek and Spain). The investors will also turn away from these countries and the Euro will fall. Imports from countries like the USA will be more expensive and recession will set in. USA which is trying to recover from the financial meltdown in 2008 will be affected as well.

So to avoid a similar domino effect following one of America's great investment banks, the Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy in 2008, the EU led by the thrifty Germany has decided to lend billions of Euro to Greece to pay for their debts at the same time to put in place austerity measures to prop up the economy. Some measures are so austere that some Greeks rebelled, rioted and burned their banks. Why is it  always the man on the street that has to suffer? The German tax-payers/voters are also unhappy why they have to fork out their hard-earned money to help the spendthrift Greek who they reckon will default on the loan anyway.

The Greek problem has been succinctly put as due to "Irresponsible borrowings from irresponsible lenders for an irresponsible lifestyle". They spend today as if there is no tomorrow. And what humiliation when one has to depend on the handout of one's neighbours to survive? This is also a good lesson for individuals to heed.

In the meantime investors' confidence is shaky and very much dependent on short-term news, activities and development. One day I see my gain  shoots up only to fall the next. You cannot create sustainable wealth in this volatile environment.

And how I wish the political leaders would be more responsible in managing their countries and stamp out those corrupt practices which lead to unfair wealth distribution and injustice. Malaysian politicians please note because we can still afford to spend like nobody's business now as the oil is still flowing but please do not stretch it!

The oil will stop and it is a question of when not if.

Skin allergy and the offending agent (allergen)

A few weeks ago I stayed at a relative's house when one evening her elder boy of seven complained of generalised itchiness over his extremities and trunk with face-sparing. I took one look and diagnosed it as an allergic reaction. So we looked at what kind of food/medication he had been taking. The mother attributed the rashes to heat as the weather had been  unusually warm with hardly any rain. I did ask weather the mother had used a different clothes detergent but did not get a specific answer. Anyway we applied calamine cream over his body for relief.

The following evening he suffered the same problem and again we applied the cream. I then went off to stay in my new house the following evening when my relative rang up and told me her 17-month old baby was also  experiencing the same rashes and was extremely  irritable. I asked her to take off his pampers and see whether the part of the body was also affected, if not then it has to be the clothes detergent then she finally admitted that she had just changed the brand of her detergent. Yes, the area covered by pampers was unaffected. I told her to use clothings not washed by the new detergent and see how things were.

In fact my relative, out of fear had gone to see a doctor who diagnosed the condition as some kind of viral infection! The good doctor was going to give medication and an injection when I told my relative to hold on and use only calamine lotion and monitor her child's condition.

She rummaged through her cupboard for clothings not washed by the new detergent and put on her kids and within 48 hours the rashes subsided. So as his elder brother's rashes. The little boy was once again his normal self who usually  responded to a question of "Are you okay?" with the letter "K".

It is only a conjecture but I feel that clothes washed in  an automatic machine somehow are not well-rinsed as a result traces of detergent still stick to the fabrics and this chemical get into contact with the skin of susceptible individuals and cause what we call "type IV delayed  hypersensitivity reaction" causing the itchy rashes. To cure it just get rid of the offending agent.

A good clinical history will preclude the use of unnecessary medications and possible adverse reactions.

PRTASCO- Invest and Make Money

I have some cash coming my way following the conclusion of a successful contract. I was debating where to put it so as to make it work for me. It is no use putting in the bank due to the low interest rate. After some calculation I found that if I were to put it in Amanah Saham 1 Malaysia (AS1M), the dividend would not be as much as the calculation will be proportionate to the period the money stays in the fund despite the expected rate of seven percent.

I was scouting for a good and consistent dividend-paying company in the stock market. There are quite a number but many whose share unit price is relatively high. For example TM and AEON is such a company but their price is more than RM3 so if I were to park 30,000 units in TM   I have to fork out more than RM90,000.00 just to get RM3,900 (before tax) at a dividend rate of 13 sen. For AEON it is much higher as the share price is above RM5.

After some research I decided to invest in a construction company, PRTASCO whose dividend's history looks impressive and the share price then was only RM1.03. So acquiring 30,000 units was fine at RM30,900 (exclusive of market fees). And right on the dot, the company announced a 5 sen dividend to be paid in early June. This is not bad getting RM1,500 within three months while you sleep.

If you look at it,  the current dividend yield of PRTASCO at 4.7% is slightly better than TM at 3.75%.  This is a risky way of multiplying your money though . What if the share price suddenly plunged? Dare not think of it.... it's just like what happens if a gargantuan  meteorite hits earth tomorrow?...

To make me sleep much better and to balance my risk appetite, I have already parked some of my savings in Amanah Saham 1 Malaysia (AS1M) whose unit price is RM1, for five months till the dividend is declared in September. The price is fixed so I am not worried about market volatility. Moreover the dividend yield is expected to be high so why hesitate?