Lunar Eclipse - A Celestial Wonder

I am always intrigued with the universe. I never cease to wonder those heavenly bodies and planets  floating beautifully and orbiting obediently around their respective stars. I am awestruck with celestial events now correctly predicted by  astronomers. The time, the location and the event are calculated to the nearest second! Simply amazing,  making me more grateful for each day of my life as these bodies are disciplined to sustain life on this earth. Any deviation in this orderly movement would spell disaster to life on our planet. Looks like Nature (God) is really looking after us, one of the creatures eking out a living in this world.

Lunar Eclipse in Progress as seen in this combination of images  -AFP

These pictures by Associate Press (AP) and Agence French Press (AFP) are priceless for those of us who want to record this rare event and yet do not have the state of the art photographic paraphernalia.

Lunar eclipse seen over Canberra - AP

Event seen over Switzerland -AP

A double exposure picture shows the moon and the monument of The Savior of The World in San Salvador during the 2010 total lunar eclipse- AFP

The phenomenon which occurs once in 400 hundred years was observed by thousands on 21 December 2010. It was the lunar eclipse which came into being when the three bodies in the galaxy aligned. Yes, the sun, the earth and the moon positioned in a line to give us the spectacular sight and to remind us that we are but one of those celestial bodies moving perpetually in space as  predictable as days alternating with  nights.

During a total lunar eclipse the Earth casts on the full moon, blocking the sun's rays. Some indirect sunlight still pierces through to give the moon its red hue. Wonderful and yet rather eerie. 

It is indeed a grand event which will only return in the year 2410, in about 12 generations from now!

Merry Christmas 2010

JOY TO THE WORLD

I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. As we celebrate Christmas in peace in Malaysia let us not forget those battling with extremely cold weather and missing celebrating Christmas with their loved ones due to delays in their flights home and those in areas of conflicts.

May people have the freedom to practice their faith wherever they are.

Pchem's fizzling debut

Pchem's listing today has been anticipated with bated breath  as it has been touted as  the largest IPO currently in South East Asia. Of course another stronger and more personal reason for my bated breath is the fact that my IPO application was successful, yes, the whole lot of it!

Despite the positive write-up on the listing and the main point it being supported by the Malaysian petroleum giant, Petronas, I have some misgivings about its short-term potential unlike MHB which achieved a much larger premium on its first day of listing. Pchem's opening price was 5.71, at 10% premium but by 10am it was already going downhill as more shares were being offloaded as predicted by some analysts. A couple of blogs I visited were not really upbeat about the stock and it was reported that the IPO was oversubscribed by 21 times but its first day performance shows otherwise.

A few factors could have contributed to this early waning sentiment. Firstly the general Asian markets today are down according to WSJ, the market players in America are in holiday mood as they just celebrated their Thanksgiving on  Thursday 25 Nov , the flaring-up of the Korean conflict as well as the plan by China to cool down its hot economy, all appear to have brought  dark cloud over the stock's performance. Say what you like, just like feelgood sentiment, the depressing atmosphere could also be as  infectious resulting in the stock being undervalued albeit the fundamentals are sound.

At the time of writing the price is 5.38 which is below its fair value at 5.60. So folks my Pchem IPO application is successful but looks like I have to wait out for at least one year to reap its benefit? And wait for all those high-spending and near bankrupt European countries to recover once their people learn to generate honest income instead of just spending other peoples' money.

Of course I am not going to wait for one whole year if let's say the stock manages to whet some foreign fund managers' appetite in the days ahead, who knows.

I am still smarting over my failure to grab some MHB's stock but in this game luck does play a role. I can see my friends' faces smirking away.... Hey guys, I am still going for those other forthcoming Petronas related IPOs and then have fun blabbering away like I am doing now.

Foreign currency cash leftover - the pitfall of keeping them

I went to London in March this year (2010) before the change of the UK government. Somehow I was comfortable having plenty of cash than relying on credit card for my financial transactions so I bought quite a lot of sterling at the then exchange rate of about RM5.3 to 5.4 to GBP1 before my departure.

As it was, I was using more of my credit card than the cash in hand so when I returned home I still had plenty of cash in sterling. As my luck would have it, by that time, the exchange rate had fallen to 4.7, no thanks to the high-deficit labour government then and talks of general election in June. So I was saddled with all this cash and would lose had I exchanged them back to Malaysian Ringgit. What was I to do?

Some well meaning friends have asked me to keep them till the exchange rate has gone up but till when? I even met a British engineer on the plane who suggested that I keep them and he was sure the rate would skyrocket in 2012, the year of the Olympics in UK. There would be a lot of interest in things British during the year and many visitors would come and the economy would swell so pound would soar... so sweet of him. Come to think of it, I should have made arrangement with him to get his Ringgit for my Sterling on his way out of Malaysia! But I was thinking of the profit I would make in 2012! ( Though in I was quite mindful of the prediction of the end of the world in December 2012... oh what the heck?).

Last week I needed to liquidate the Sterling as an additional fund to apply for the Pchem IPO. I reckoned  the price upon listing, if I were successful in the application, would somehow make up for the current loss due to lower exchange rate. So I made my way to the money-changers, surveying each one of them, looking for the best rate ( yes even the rate differs by a few sen between money changers, in case you all didn't know). If you changed a substantial amount, a few sen can buy you a meal at Starbucks!

I had all my Sterling in bundles of GBP20 so each bundle of 10 notes made up GBP200. I had stacks of them as a relative had also asked me to exchange for her as well. The lady at the counter used the machine to count them then she went through the notes one by one. I was wondering why she would do that. Then I saw her take out a few from each bundle and later came the shock.... " These old GBP20 notes are no longer accepted by us because there is a directive from the banks a few months ago. You can only change this in UK, the Bank of England" (equivalent to our Bank Negara I supposed). Oh no! When will I  plan to visit London again... not in 2012 certainly as I dislike crowds.

I was rather unhappy with Great Britain for changing their currency notes and actually more with myself for keeping this cash so long. It is not like travellers' cheques. I remember some years ago I misplaced  unused Thomas Cook Travellers' cheques bought at the exchanged rate of RM3 point something, and when I finally found them the rate had gone up to RM7 so I made a lot of profit when I returned them to the bank which issued the cheques! But this time my luck ran out with hard cash.

                          Old GBP20 notes no longer accepted by most local money changers

Not giving up, though my relative said she would go to London early 2011 , I went to another money-changer and meekly asked him whether he would take the old GBP20 notes. He took a look at me then offered at RM3.50 but I said that was too low, what about RM4 as the current exchange rate is RM4.97 and I believe is still going up due to the tight monetary policies of the new British Conservative government. He relented and there I disposed of my old 20 pound sterling notes at a great loss. At least the man accepted to buy them from me. Other money changers just flatly refused.

                                                       This is the new note for GBP20

So the moral of the story, do not try to capitalise on predicted profit when you are holding foreign currency cash as the respective country  can just change the policy on the circulation of their notes and you would be stuck with worthless papers unless you return to that country and visit their central bank.

This reminds me of my sudden discovery of RM1000 note while cleaning the house one day. I remember my husband used to like having them as he had less "weight" to carry. Well after Bank Negara declared that the note was no longer legal tender in Malaysia, he had them all banked in except this particular misplaced one. I found out I could not use it so I went to Bank Negara where I had to fill out a form and told them how I came about the note and where I found it, some time later they gave me 10 RM100 notes... well worth the effort so I understand the Sterling old note fiasco I am facing.

When you travel just change enough to buy small things and for transportation. The rest you can use a credit card.  I did that when I travelled to Bali once but unfortunately many of the shops in Tanah Lot where they sold beautiful handicrafts etc did not accept credit cards!! Till now I regret as I had really wanted to buy a few expensive and exquisite items there but unable to as I had very little  Rupiah and a "worthless" credit card.

Incidentally I still have some GBP50 notes and I asked the money changer whether there was any directive regarding them and he replied in the negative or not yet..... so I would wait a little longer till the exchange rate climbs up to past RM5.00?.... there you are I  still like taking risks.

IPOs through electronic share application (ESA).. my misadventure.

As I have been preparing since July 2010 to apply for the well touted Petronas IPOs first of which is MMHE now referred to as MHB in October, I cleared my loss-making plantation counters and put all the proceeds into my regular bank account getting ready to perform the application through ESA facility at my bank. You see though I have an account with CIMB, the bulk of my income is channelled to HSBC which does not have an online share purchase facility. So I depend on ESA.

As soon as the IPO application opened on 6 October, I diligently went to my bank and applied. My mistake was I did not really check properly the slip coming out from ATM machine. All I saw that a record of the amount commensurate with the offer price of 3.60 was printed. When I checked online my networth two days later, I noticed that the amount had not been subtracted from my bank account. I made another mistake of emailing my query on this to my banker instead of texting her. She failed to reply my question and I went off yet another trip with my husband. The offer period ended on 15 October and some days later my relative informed me that her IPO share application through Maybank facility had been 60% successful and when I checked with MIH then I knew my application has never been received.

I went to my bank after my trip on the following Monday only to find out that on my slip, though the amount paid for the number of shares had been printed, the bottom line showed the word "NULL" which I failed to notice as it was in the evening when I performed the transaction. My bank account was healthy, no problem with it and I have never changed my account number, now what was blinking wrong? And I was riled up. The banker was as bewildered till she rang up her Headquarters.... now have I changed my ATM card? As apparently the card is linked to your CDS account. If you changed to a new card due to loss etc, you need to re register and link the new ATM card to the CDS account again!

Now, it has been a long time since I used my ATM card to perform ESA. The last one was AirAsia.... in 2007? Yes I misplaced my ATM card since then and had got a new one.... there, that was the reason for my failure to capitalise on MHB IPO... what a blunder. My relative made a cool 6000.00 and I made air! And as if it was not enough upset for us, my husband also performed an ESA when he was in the capital city and he inadvertently used his credit card which is not linked to his CDS account so he also missed being balloted for the shares. So we looked at each other and just shook our heads...

So ESA is not without its pitfalls. The system is dumb as it does not automatically  link the CDS account to the new ATM card and bank account instead it uses a third party way of doing thing much to the distress of the unfortunate investors like us. The bank also fails to establish an SOP to deal with this situation so that their customers do not suffer from this kind of loss through no fault of their own.


Alternatively just transfer your money to CIMB or Maybank whenever you want to perform this application as they have an online facility to do this. I am disappointed with my bank. I find it hard to "divorce" it as I have been with the bank for many years.... talking about being sentimental.

I re registered my ATM card on the same day and it is valid only after three days. I applied for Petronas Chemical IPO on 01 Nov and this time it was  successful as immediately I saw the amount was taken from my account. So here we go, Pchem is going to be listed tentatively on 26 November 2010 ... I need all the luck in the world!

Malaysian Market Surge - FBM KLCI has surpassed 1500!

I  have been following the index the last six months or so and made notes of its rise from 1200 to its current high at 1519. Of course if you followed closely the plantation sector has gradually woken up after being dormant for over two harrowing years for me. As I was looking forward to applying for Petronas IPOs, I cleared three of my plantation counters at great losses, Kwantas at 1.58 (now 1.98), MHC at 1.20 (now 1.78) and Swkplnt at 2.15 (now at 2.50). That was when the index was revolving around 1260. Just as well I keep my Thplnt and Unico as the prices are crawling up due to rising palm oil prices due to increasing  global demand.

The finance stocks have steadily gone up as blue chips like Maybank and CIMB are being snapped up like hot cakes (by foreign fund managers?). Other index-linked stocks such as Axiata and Maxis are holding up though the latter appears to be lethargic since its IPO launching but has managed to give comfortable dividends so far that I find attractive. My TM stock has also recovered from its post-capital 98% repayment days. In fact almost all my stocks, many not index-linked are rising, even my PICORP! I was having a regretful time with PICORP as it was hovering around 0.22 for a long blinking time. I bought this penny stock because of a relative who persuaded me to acquire it at 0.41. Currently it has gone up to 0.33 and am waiting to dispose of it when the calculation is right as I have a ridiculously substantial number! Looks like it has caught once again the investors' radar. Time for me to get off this roller coaster.

On a positive note, I am glad I keep some SIME shares despite friends' advise to dispose of it when it tumbled a few months ago. The reason I kept the shares actually to enable me to express my dissatisfaction by voting in the upcoming AGM. It is just a drop in the ocean  though as the major share holders such as PNB would still have the last say. Anyway now SIME has gone up past 9.00... luckyme!

My construction stocks have also up trended. MRCB has finally surpassed 2.00 and HSL is coming up very fast and am hoping for it to catch up with the former. I made a mistake of buying MMCCORP at 3.23 when it was trying to buy up PLUS, had only I known that its fair value is only 3.07! Fortunately I did not buy a large number. I re bought UEMLAND  at 2.29 after disposing it at 1.70 just before the Dubai Debacle. Honestly I did not know about its proposed buy-up of SUNRISE. The two stocks are rising as a result.

The worrying thing about this index reaching such a high level is its sustainability and would it herald  the need to leave the market while it is still euphoric? Does the low greenbacks have anything to do with the confidence in our market? What about the impression by some analysts that there appear to be a disconnect between the market and the prevalent global macroeconomic data? Are the foreign fund being parked in our so-called emerging market to extract maximum returns? If only we know the nature of this herd mentality which can be both exciting and frightening and certainly not for the faint hearted and risk-averse. This high index level is, by the way, reminiscent of the time before the crash in October 2008. Whatever it is I am sticking to my bluechips come what may.

It is  mood-elevating  that FBM KLCI has gone past 1500 as it brings back the market vibrancy but as investors we must not only know when to go in but also when to get out! I find the latter rather difficult as greed sometimes know no bounds.

Amanah Saham 1 Malaysia's declared lower -than - expected dividend

When I received the news of the declared dividend on 23 Sept 2010, I was relaxing on the Royal Caribbean Cruise to Venice from the Greek's island of Corfu. I decided to check on my email from the ship's 24-hr online center after a hectic stop at our last port of call. I was a little disappointed at the declared rate of 6.38% as I had expected it to be 7.0%. But if you look at the other declared dividends of PNB unit trusts like ASM, ASW and ASD  at 6.35 you would notice that AS1M's is just a wee bit higher by 0.03!

It does look like PNB is no longer able to give "special" dividends like it used to give to its  latest products like on previous occasions such as ASM (amanah saham Malaysia) and ASW ( amanah saham wawasan) prior to 2008. The SIME Darby's debacle publicized early this year could have contributed to this lower than expected declared dividend coupled with the prevailing global financial uncertainties.

At its height in January 2010, SIME stock was trading at 9.11 and it tumbled precipitously down to 7.20 at one stage due to investors' crisis of confidence following the news of the company's billion dollar loss. It didn't recover till late August following the new CEO's restructuring announcement. PNB's interest in SIME is quite substantial. So you do face risk even in unit trusts such as this, the only comforting fact is that your capital is protected unlike the variably-priced mutual funds.

But folks, ASIM's dividend is still the highest declared by PNB so far this year. And as I was hoping for that "whopping" dividend, I was encouraged to add more money  progressively into the fund as a result I received more than the amount had I otherwise stopped at my initial investment in September 2009 when the fund was first launched by the PM.

Look at this way, AS1M is just one of the PNB's stable of financial products that gives you an opportunity to earn more than your savings in the banks. Due to my bad experience with mutual funds, I would still put some of my investing money in PNB's unit trusts. Moreover the varying period of dividends' declaration of the respective trusts ensures a steady  income throughout the year.

Personally I would have made more money from my investment in AS1M had I not reduced it by buying a technology stock (JCY) 10 days before it tumbled pathetically! Some times it is hard to reign in your risk appetite.

Welcome then to the exciting world of wealth creation.