The stock market took another tumble despite the latest bank rescue plan announced by the UK government, and a coordinated 0.5% interest rate cut across the world, involving Americas, UK and European Union. Never have I seen these countries working together at the same time. Just goes on to tell you the scale of the financial problem we are now facing. Property bubble, subprime problem, inflation, bank liquidity problem, now leading to increasing unemployment. The economy is definitely heading for the worse. Has it turned the corner? Apparently not yet, as goverments are still coming up with rescue packages to try and help various sectors - property, bank, insurer, manufacturing etc.
Few days ago I thought the banking sector might have already reached the bottom. We started moving into the stock market, acquiring bank shares. That was before the US finally approved the $700 billion rescue plan to buy up toxic debts. Yet that did little to stabilise the market. Today’s announcement from the UK to part-nationalise banks I feel is welcoming, as it should help strengthen the banks, bring some sanity back to how bank should be remunerated, and get the bank to operate more sensibly. Unfortunately, investors are still uncertain and the stock market continue to slide.
To be honest, I still feel the banking shares are unbelievably low. If people have cash to spare, it is at this kind of turmoil that you start investing in the stock market, to maximise the return on the meagre sum of money we have got. Often people will question about the timing. Yes, we don’t know how low the market can go, and people always want to catch the absolute bottom. But can we always get the “best” deal?
I have never been more interested in the financial state of the world than in the past few weeks. These are worrying times, the stock market is in free fall and nobody has any trust in banks anymore. 1 year ago, a bank collapsing would be rather unthinkable, but nothing surprises anyone anymore.
I am actually not overly concerned with the state of economy save for the fact that I am unable to change job due to recruitment freeze by many companies. Other than being bored in the office because nothing much is happening, my life has been pretty much unaffected. However, I have been saying that I’ll probably be made redundant sooner or later with the rate it is going, or rather NOT going. Nevertheless, it is not necessary a bad thing. Perhaps I would then have every good reason to do whatever I want to do. Yes, no doubt finance would be stretch but after all, money does not exist. I am starting to buy into this idea that money is all about confidence, without it, it is worthless. Recent events have shown us that this is more true than ever.
My sympathy to those who have lost their jobs. But hopefully we’ll see light at the end of the tunnel.
The other day I was looking around on the LOVEFiLM website to see what DVD I can rent. I was amazed to see that quite a number of the British also found Stephen Chow’s movies very entertaining. It is quite fun reading reviews from people who don’t actually know Cantonese yet can “fully” appreciate his movies. This is my favourite scene in Shaolin Soccer.
I still can’t stop laughing everytime I watch this Pure genius. In fact I started watching his old TVB series back in the 80’s, which I haven’t the priviledge to watch all the episodes due to tight parenting back then, when I was still a school boy. 孖仔孖心肝 is one I’ve been watching at the moment on tudou.com. Stephen Chow is just incredibly funny, even though that was him 20 years ago!
Got myself a new laptop few days ago. HP Pavillion DV6920 with blu-ray drive. Am so far very pleased with it, apart from Windows Vista which is still a let down despite having little expectation after reading rave of poor reviews about the OS. I’m still in the process of getting used to the keyboard, particularly the right-shift-key.
Just tried the blu-ray drive, playing a blu-ray DVD, “Spiderwick Chronicles”, displayed on my HDTV, via HDMI connection. Such refined resolution, and no more blockiness even when watching from close distance. Gosh, I am so going to rent only Blu-ray DVDs from LOVEFiLM from now on
Initially it was Raja Petra, a blogger, who got detained by the draconian ISA this evening. Now a journalist and a politician are also detained. What kind of madness is this! Is the current administration trying to intimidate the opposition coalition, and to scare MPs from the ruling coalition from trying to cross-over to the opposition coalition! What a dire attempt to try and stay in power. What is even more ridiculous is in fact they have sent 49 MPs to Taiwan, on a study tour, in an attempt to stop the opposition from potentially seizing control of the government through the cross-over, as repeatedly taunted by the opposition leader Anwar for some months now to happen on the 16th September. Looking at all the sagas that are unfolding in Malaysia, I cannot help but to hope that the opposition coalition can really take control of the country from the 16th September onwards. There is no guarantee that the opposition will do better, but I really cannot see how they can do much worse than the current administration! Come on you people who are on the study tours in Taiwan!
October 8, 2008 
Posted in Investment, Money matters, Wisdom 
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Pure genius. In fact I started watching his old TVB series back in the 80’s, which I haven’t the priviledge to watch all the episodes due to tight parenting back then, when I was still a school boy. 
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