Malaysian prodigy Sufiah Yusof became a prostitute. Sufiah Yusof menjadi pelacur.
Do you still remember when a while back, our nation was put in awe with the news of Sufiah Yusof, a child prodigy, being accepted into one of world’s most prestigious university, Oxford, when she was only 13? Ever wondered what happened to her?
Well, after years of tormented life under her dad’s guardian (so it seems), and a failed marriage, she now calls herself Shilpa Lee and work as a £130-an-hour prostitute in Manchester.
Here are a couple of news articles:
From winning a place at Oxford, to running away to become a waitress at an internet cafe, to tying the knots at a young age, to becoming a £130-an-hour prostitute.
What a transformation huh?
From genius to hooker.
Also, consider this little fact. Her dad, Farooq, was also jailed recently. For what you ask? Well, for molesting two 15-year-old girls when he was tutoring them for maths!
Filed under Current Affairs | Comments (14)Is it prudent to PAY YOUR BILLS now or near the due date?
Here’s a question for you.
When you get your bills, what do you do? Do you:
- Pay them off immediately
- Pay a few days later
- Pay them off close to the due date
- Pay them way past the due dates
- What? Bills? Should I pay them at all? :P
Obviously options 4 and 5 should not be contemplated at all.
As for me, I have opted for option number 3.
Why Nadlique? Shouldn’t we pay our bills ASAP?
Well, here’s my rationale.
Filed under Personal Finance | Comments (11)CFD Trading: What can be traded with CFD
The best thing about CFD is that there are a wide range of products that can be traded from one single account. No more having different accounts for stock trading, FOREX trading, futures trading, international stock trading, and etc.
Here are some of the products that I’m able to trade on my trading platform:
- Domestic Shares
- International Shares
- FOREX (Spot and Futures)
- Metals (e.g. Gold, Silver)
- Energies (e.g. Crude Oil)
- Other Commodities (e.g. Coffee, Pot Belly, Orange Juice)
- Money Market Products (e.g. Interest rate products, Bonds)
- Stock Indices (Dow Jones, FTSE 100, S&P ASX200)
- Binary
- Options
Of course, I do not trade every single one of the above mentioned instruments but I still think that CFD is a wonder of the world.
Also, bear in mind that different CFD providers offer different products but usually, the basics are the same.
Filed under CFD Trading/Share Trading | Comments (8)The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
Title: The Richest Man in Babylon
Author: George S. Clason
ISBN: 0-451-20536-7
Number of pages: approximately 144 pages
This is another book that I’d categorise as a must-read. Even though the book was written a long time ago, started in 1926 as a series of informational pamphlets, the principles are useful and applicable today nonetheless.
Bear in mind though that the way this book is written, it may present as quite hard to understand due to the use of classic English (to a certain extent).
The author talks about a number of timeless principles on how to get rich through stories and parables of the ancient Babylon. Many of the ideas presented are amazingly simple, yet most of us are not aware of them, thus sealing our fate to be cursed with a financial disaster.
Filed under Book Reviews | Comment (0)Who’s richer? Siapa lagi kaya? Part 1
Here’s something to think about.
Consider this:
You own a one-billion-dollar asset, fully financed by the bank. i.e. you took a loan of $1 billion, thus owing $1 billion.
The homeless person you usually see on the streets has no assets at all and has no debts.
Assume also that other things remain constant (ceteris paribus).
Now, the question is, who’s richer?
Filed under Rationale of Investing | Comments (14)Barisan Kabinet 2008 (Cabinet Ministers 2008) - Malaysia -
PERDANA MENTERI
Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
TIMBALAN PERDANA MENTERI
Datuk Seri Mohd. Najib Tun Abdul Razak
JABATAN PERDANA MENTERI
Menteri
Tan Sri Bernard Giluk Dompok
Datuk Seri Mohamad Nazri Abdul Aziz
Datuk Dr. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi
Datuk Zaid Ibrahim
Datuk Amirsham A. Aziz
Timbalan Menteri
Datuk Mohd. Johari Baharom
Datuk Dr. Masitah Ibrahim
Datuk Hassan Malik
S.K. Devamany
KEMENTERIAN KEWANGAN
Menteri
Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop
Timbalan Menteri
Datuk Ahmad Husni Mohamad Hanazlah
Datuk Kong Cho Ha
Back to Basics: Alternative Investment Asset Classes
A couple of days ago, we had a look at the 4 general investment asset classes.
Today, I shall list out a few others of what I’d like to call as the Alternative Investment Asset Classes.
They are:
Venture Capital
Venture capital is the act of investing in new businesses. The field of venture capital can be very lucrative, providing above average returns, due to the high-risk nature of it. However, the risk of going bust is also quite high.
Basically, what happens is that you, as an investor, provides money to startup firms/companies with long-term growth potential.
Examples: Investing in a new Nasi Lemak business, investing in Nadlique’s Blog :P
Private Equity
A private equity is basically a syndicate (not the bad kind of course) where funds are raised and used to develop new products or technology, expand working capital, make acquisitions and takeovers, or to build up a company’s balance sheet.
You need to have a heck load of money to be involved in private equity, thus it is usually not available to the average individual investor.
Art
Filed under Investment Knowledge | Comments (2)There are many things that can be categorised as arts such as paintings, sculptures, and printmaking. These are usually long-term investments whereby capital gains are most likely to be produced.
Examples: Picasso paintings, Van Gogh paintings, Nadlique’s paintings here and here (anybody interested in buying my paintings? Hehe).
The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach
Title: The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich
Author: David Bach
ISBN: 978-0-141-01992-5
Number of pages: approximately 195 pages
The Automatic Millionaire is an easy-to-read book written by David Bach. The book is actually catered for UK and US readers but principles laid out in the book can in fact be copied and adjusted in accordance to your own circumstances.
The book is basically about how you can just dump the usual “budget-adherence” strategy and adopt a strategy that is much easier to follow instead, to achieve financial freedom.
What strategy is it? Well, make everything AUTOMATIC. For example, making contributions to your “nest egg” automatic by implementing Standing Instuctions (SI) on your salary account.
Filed under Book Reviews | Comments (2)Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager
Title: Market Wizards
Author: Jack D. Schwager
ISBN: 13 978-0-88-730610-5
Number of pages: approximately 500 pages
For those aspiring traders, just-starting-out traders, or professionals, this publication is an absolute must! If you have not read this book yet, then hold the thought of assigning the TRADER credentials by your name. Yup folks, the book is that amazing. Not to mention important.
The book compiles a number of interviews between the author, Jack Schwager with various traders.
Here are a few traders that you’ll be reading about:
- Michael Marcus, who turned $30,000 into $80 million
- Paul Tudor Jones, whose funds have registered triple-digit gains five years straight
- Ed Seykota who realized an amazing 250,000 percent return on his accounts over sixteen years
- and lots more..
Back to Basics: Paying Mortgage MONTHLY Vs. Paying Mortgage FORTNIGHTLY
Previously in the “Back to Basics” series, I wrote about:
- Back to Basics: Recovering from Negative Returns
- Back to Basics: Asset, Liability, Equity
- Back to Basics: Investment Asset Classes
Today let’s look at the difference between paying off your mortgage monthly versus paying off your mortgage fortnightly.
This concept can also work in the receiving money context (i.e. when you receive rental payments as a property investor, salary, and etc.). Read on and you’ll understand.
First question. Do you think that there’s any difference at all between paying once a month and paying every two weeks? There is a difference. A huge difference actually. Changing your payment method to the fortnightly basis payment method can pretty much change your life.
This little “strategy” is something that is often overlooked by many. It is in fact a proven method to reduce your mortgage faster by cheating yourself without feeling much pain in the pockets. Of course, this depends on the individuals as well. If the person is still very much unable to control his/her financial situation (i.e. struggling with having to set aside money for savings and investments), then there’s no point also.
Anyway, back to the discussion. Say your mortgage repayments every single month is $100.
If you pay the repayments once a month, by the end of the year, the total sum for 12 payments is $1,200, am I right?
However, if you adopt the pay-every-fortnight method, that means, instead of paying $100 per month, you are now paying $50 for every two weeks.
What’s the difference you ask?
Ok, how many months are there in a year? 12.
How many fortnights are there in a year? 26.
Filed under Investment Knowledge | Comments (6)Back to Basics: Investment Asset Classes
Previously in the Back to Basics series, I have written about:
Today, we shall be perusing at what’s out there and what’s available for us to invest in.
Generally, there are four major asset classes available.
They are:
- Equity
- Cash/Money Market Securities
- Fixed Interest Securities
- Property
Here are some explanations and examples of the above-mentioned asset classes:
EQUITY MARKET
In the most simplistic sense, equity is another name for stocks or shares.
Examples that come under this category are:
- Malaysian stocks
- Australian company stocks
- Unit trust funds/managed funds/mutual funds
- Foreign stocks
CASH/MONEY MARKET
Filed under Investment Knowledge | Comments (4)The money market forms a part of the debt market. Generally, securities traded in the money market have maturity periods of less than 12 months. Maturity basically means, your positions will be exited within the time frame.
Examples:
- Bills of Exchange
- Bank Bills
- Treasury Bills
- Promissory Notes
- Certificates of Deposit
- Treasury Notes
- Unit trust fund or mutual funds dealing with money markets
Fund Managers make a lot of mistakes too!
I’m reading this book entitled Taming the Bear by Christopher Tate. Nope, it’s not a book about how to tame bears! It’s a book about trading and how to profit from down trending markets. I haven’t finished it yet but I thought I just had to share this little information with you.
One of the reasons why we invest through unit trust funds is because of the purported professional fund managers right? Well, note this info that I got from the book.
There’s this table in the book that tracks the performance of mutual funds in the United States of America for the period of 1956 to 1988. The table basically analyses the cash-to-asset ratio of the funds, and uses this findings as an indicator to determine whether the fund is bullish or bearish. During those 32 years, they got it right only 4 times.
Interesting huh?
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Public Asia Ittikal Fund not Syariah Compliant?
I’ve been meaning to blog about this topic for quite sometime now.
While I was in Malaysia, I received Public Asia Ittikal Fund’s (PAIF) annual report for the financial period from 2nd of August 2006 to 31st October 2007.
In the “notes to financial statements” section, they listed out pretty much all of the companies that they are holding in their portfolio.
One company caught my attention. ABC Learning Centre, an Australian company.
According to ABC Learning Centre’s financials, I noticed that their total debt divided by market capitalisation is somewhat in the vicinity of more than 50%.
Filed under Unit Trusts (ASB, Public Mutual and others) | Comments (7)Azali Azlan breaks SPM record with 20 1As and 1 2A
So, SPM results were released yesterday. Lots of tears of joy and despair. Lots of cries of happiness and pain.
But I’m sure Azali Azlan was screaming with joy. Why shouldn’t he. He attained 20 1As and 1 2A, thus breaking the record of previous year’s Nur Amalina Che Bakri (17 1As). What’s next Azali? Are you going to write a motivational book too? Will you be endorsing NST and Astro as well? Anyway, what ever happened to Amalina? Anybody knows?
Here’s something interesting. He said in an interview that his sister is one of his inspirations. He said his sister is currently studying medicine in University College Cork in Ireland. What’s so interesting about that? Well, the way he said it, it sounds like “University of Cock“. Hahaha. Scroll down and listen to it yourself ;)
I don’t know what Cork means to them but I do know what it means in Bahasa Malaysia. It’s gabus.
So, University College Cork = Kolej Universiti Gabus. Can you imagine getting a scroll saying Nadlique Abdullah, graduan Kolej Universiti Gabus tahun 2009. Hehe.
There’s another one. Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.
Flinders = serpihan-serpihan kecil.
Flinders University = Universiti Serpihan-serpihan Kecil.
Now, back to the story :)
My goodness, 21 As???? You have got to be joking me. Haha. whatever it is, congratulations to him. You did a bloody good job mate. You’re one of a kind.
Filed under Current Affairs | Comments (12)KLSE falls and trading halted: Bursa KL merudum jatuh dan digantung!
So, the trading halt on Bursa Saham Kuala Lumpur (BSKL) or Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) has been lifted and we are back trading again. The Composite Index is recorded an increase of 30.29 points or 2.58% as of 10.20 am Malaysian time just now. That’s a minuscule if you compare it with yesterday. Our market plunged a little over 130 points or more than 10% before being put on a trading halt at 2.58 pm.
Well, to be honest, that was to be expected. I’m sure a lot of people can only guess how the stock market was going to react to the Pilihan Raya Umum ke-12 results. It is usually an understood and well-accepted phenomenom that the market will rally up to the election and then cool off a little bit after. However, to be honest, due to the bear market that has unfolded globally and the huge volatility that struck our local market, we actually didn’t see much of a rally at all.
Whatever it is, I’m sure a lot of people were not expecting the market to free fall by that much yesterday!
I did expect the market to fall handsomely on Monday but I also was not expecting 10%.
Why did it happen? There are a lot of theories out there and here’s mine. The big fall was due to the opposition getting their so-called political tsunami and the denial of Barisan Nasional (BN) from their two third majority target.
Logic behind this could be:
Well, investors had felt safe and comfortable investing in our market before the election because they were satisfied with the policies (I’m using this term loosely here) carried out by the BN government. They were confident that BN is invincible. After BN was denied the two third majority and the opposition managed to invade the parliament and BN’s territory, investors started to get nervous, afraid that some of the policies will get questioned and kicked out of the door. Bear in mind that the opposition (or Barisan Rakyat) is a force to be reckoned with now. Putting myself in an investor’s size-10 shoes, I myself would feel nervous. Some investors might think that policies that induces economic growth (and inflation for that matter) will be scrapped and some of the policies (like the Negara Kebajikan policy) of the Barisan Rakyat adopted instead. Please please please, I’m not implying that one is better than the other. I’m just merely talking from an investor’s perspective.
Anyway, what did the investors do? Dump the stocks. When the big guns started dumping the stocks (which pushes the market down), the small fish will follow suit as well. Not to mention the margin calls and triggered stop losses that further drives down the market.
Call it panic selling if you may.
So, that’s my theory.
I’m sure my unit trust investment got hammered yesterday as well. Hard times folks. Hard times indeed.
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