The implication of US Fed interest hike

The background of the news is US Federal Reserve announced an increased of federal interest rate of a quarter percent point (0.25%) and will increase it gradually in the next two years last Wednesday (20151216). The main reason behind the hike is the US Central Bank is feeling confident that the US economy has recovered from the past economy crisis and the unemployment rate has been halved from its peak since 2008/2009. Also, this is one of the efforts that the US government trying to cool down the economy heat and stabilize the inflation rate.

For more information of the news, the following link is one of the news I read to get a glimpse of the topic and if you find it is not enough, simply Google related key words and you will be fed with tons of news.

CNN Money

After getting the basic idea of what is going on, let's discuss the potential implications of this hike in general.

1. Pressure on countries who have USD-denominated debt.
Imagine countries who have large debts and the repayment is in USD, how much extra money do they need to fork out just to pay for the interest? A 0.25% may seems little at the moment. But as the interest rate increases gradually, the financial pressure it will put on those countries will be a great deal.

2.  Cheaper property owing to fast selling?
As the interest rate hiked up, property investors will need to take out more money for loan repayment. Some investors may need to sell some of their properties in order to cope with the hiked interest.

3. More investors leaning to buy bonds.
Higher interest rate meaning better return of investment in bond market. Bond is an alternate investment means which provides a steady return to people with lower risk appetite.

4. Will money flow back to US?
As US introduced higher interest rate, global investors may pull their money out from other countries and invest in US market to get better investment return.

Actually, the implications listed above will have direct impact on US themselves. Unfortunately, I have not found information to show what are the direct effects on Malaysia in near future. I will follow up on this event and update the post as and when I have more info.

The bottom line
As a major economy body in the current world, every decision made by the US will have a global impact and understanding the trend will surely help one to make better decision in investment.

Here is another link that provide a good insight of the event. The news is broken into questions-and-answers form and it will be an easy read for everyone.

Financial Times

My background and thoughts on stock trading

I have just started to do self-learning on stock trading recently. Like everyone else, I wish to earn extra bucks from whichever possible means as long as I do not break any law. At this point, I choose stock trading as my platform because it is something can be self-learned and once it is learned, the knowledge is applicable to a wide range of areas.

Wanting to learn stock trading is not something that strikes me out of sudden. My eldest sister has had encouraged me to learn stock trading few years ago, when I was still a university student. However, I wasn't serious back then because it was too much of effort to do the work. I was pretty lay back back then (although I am very lay back) and didn't take my sister's advice seriously. After some years, I have gradually picked up the momentum to learn this skill and now I have made this as my long-term commitment which I want to be excel in. This self-learning commitment is also another reason why I have started this blog, to record my learning path to become a better self.

Now, back to the main topic of this post. Before we start trading, there are things that we will need to do before making any decision - stock selection a.k.a homework. It is always nice to have someone come to you and tell you what to buy, when to buy, buy at which price, wait for how long, and then sell at which price. This would be the ideal situation. However, not everybody has that kind of connection or person in the social circle. The hard truth is one must make the effort to do the homework before coming to a decision. If you solely depend on the "tips" of somebody, you are not an investor, you are just a gambler. By making your own decision, you will get more satisfaction in the activity regardless of the outcome. Of course, nobody likes failure. If you fail, do a analysis and learn from the experience; if you succeed, it will be sweetest experience that you will want to share with everybody.

The following are some materials, sites, blogs and videos that I have come across to do the self-learning. The list will be expanded or reduced from time to time.

1. Investopedia - This website provides a lot of technical terms explanation and tutorials for newbie like me. If you are completely new to any kind of investment, this website is a good start.
2. MSN Money - I use this site to get information about certain stock. The company financial status, chart, etc. There are lots websites can give you the similar information, such as Yahoo Finance, Google Finance, etc . I am just familiar with MSN Money at the moment.
3. YouTube channel - Some netizens are being very generous in sharing their knowledge and newbie like me should take some time to watch the materials that they have prepared. Of course, do not forget to subscribe to their channel and give them a like to show your support. By doing so, they are motivated to create more informative videos to leechers like me. Please click on the following link to visit one my of subscribed channels that have benefited me greatly.
4. i3 Investor - It is a investing forum where lots netizens gather everyday to comment on the stock of their choice. I choose this forum as one of my learning platform because from here I get to know what are the public opinions of a certain stock. However, we should understand that those are their personal opinions and we should not follow the comments blindly. We must learn to do our own analysis and decision based on our best judgement.
5. Google - Do I need to say much? When you have any question, Google it, or any search engine that you like.

The bottom line

Investment of any kind is an interesting topic to discuss and it is a life-long learning process. It is never too early or too late for anyone to learn it. In my opinion, even pro traders should be learning and improving themselves on a daily basis. Lastly, knowing what you do before doing any kind of investment is crucial in order to protect your hard-earned money. Otherwise, you are merely a gambler.

My experience as Uber driver

I started my Uber experience on 7-Dec-2015 (Monday), exactly a week before I wrote this post, and I would like to share the experience of being one.

After attending a compulsory briefing at Damansara Glomac, I decided to pick up my first ever Uber passenger. I was nervous at first but at the same time excited by the thought of inviting a total stranger to travel with me. After putting myself "online", I got a request as I was driving from Damansara Glomac heading to Mid Valley direction.

The first request gave me a thrill, to be frank, but it didn't end well. The pick-up location was set somewhere near Sime Darby Convention Centre. As I was about to reach the pick-up destination, the passenger canceled the request. I got upset and to make thing worst, I was not compensated for the effort to travel there. I realized this in a hard way since I wasn't paying much attention during the briefing. After the unpleasant experience, I carried on and picked up two passengers before I called it a day.

To share the rest of my experience of being a week-old Uber driver, the feeling wasn't really good in general. In spite of having had pleasant conversation with some passengers, sometimes I had to pump up the volume of the radio to make myself ignore the awkward silence in the car. Another unpleasant experience would be the inconvenience it has caused me. Before I participated the Uber briefing, I was under the impression that it is a ride sharing application, which mean I could pick-up and drop-off a passenger whenever I want to travel from point A to point B. But in fact, it wasn't the case. Most of the time, as I was traveling to point B, a request would come in and I had to send the passenger to point C. After dropping off the passenger to point C, I would have to go offline to avoid passenger. Of course, I could have reject the ride request but it would affect my rating.

In term of the reward, I did have high expectation on this part at first but I can't really complain since I have just doing it part-time. I have made a total of 10 trips in 7 days and the reward could only compensate me with (about) 6 venti size Starbucks iced latte. Despite the reward could cover my expenses on petrol but I am not sure if it worth the money that I have to spend on my car maintenance.

I have talked to another Uber partner in the middle of the past week and that person seems to be enjoying himself. He owns a business and does Uber during his free time for several months. Since a business owner is willing to spend his leisure time to do Uber, I assume his is getting lucrative reward from Uber. During our conversation, he shared his interesting experiences to me. He has met fighting foreign couple, upset young lady and insensitive foreign tourist. He could have shared more stories to me if we had more time that time. Although he has met people of different walks of life, people in different mood swing when they ride in his car, he still enjoy it and like to share the experiences to his friends.

The bottom line. If you have extra free time to spend, Uber could be an interesting method to kill some time while getting some reward. However, I do not know how it will be like doing Uber full-time. I am looking forward to meet more people and share the experience to me. Also, for those who decides to join and become a Uber or Grabcar partner, please be careful. As Malaysian taxi drivers are not happy with the fact that their business are affected, becoming a Uber or Grabcar partner should be laid low profile in order to avoid unnecessary trouble. Also, I have read news about local authorities have tolled 70+ partners' cars. So, if anyone decides to become partner, please do it at your own risk at the moment and have the companies' emergency contacts at your finger tip.

A commitment that I have promised myself

After reading an article about being a matured man, the message of the article hit me like a truck and it drove me to start a new blog for myself. Below is a snapshot of the article and I will post the link at the end of this entry. The article was written in Mandarin so I'm sorry for those who couldn't understand Mandarin. Please utilize Google Translate on this part (I just tried it but it didn't really make sense).

Basically, the message is trying to bring up a man, in his twenties, should have reading and writing habits. Intelligent men read while wise men write. By putting your learning into words it helps to develop your way of thinking. It helps to make you think more critically before you put them into words. 

I do agree with the message that the author was trying to deliver and hence I am challenging myself to read more and then put my newly-learned knowledge into words. I have thought of some topics that I would like to focus on and committed to output at least one entry each week. The topics are:

• Investment related - I have just started self-learning on stock investing. I am planning to output my learning summary from time to time which gives me a sense of purpose to keep doing what I need to do.
• Current event - Malaysian's news can be ridiculous and funny some time. I even had had headache after reading certain ministers' comment on certain events. So, I need a channel to let some steam out.
• Random topic - Anything I think worth sharing. After all, once starting this blog, I am planning to do this long term and it is a diary which I can refer back as I age.

As promised, if you are interested to read the full text of the snapshot, the link is as below.

男人二十岁后应该学会的习惯

PS: Please pardon me if you find grammar mistakes in my English entry. I won't mind if you can point out my mistakes.

Cheers!