All that glitters might be gold

Sometime back on the 4^th October, I went to a seminar conducted by POEMS on ETFs and gold. Back then, it was chaos in the financial markets. Lehman Brothers just filed for bankruptcy protection, Merrill Lynch jus sold herself to BOA for 50billion, AIG managed to stay afloat with a 85billion dollars lifeline from the Feds and there was trouble trying to pass the 700billion bailout plan.

 

During the seminar, there were doubts about the 700billion bailout plan.

Will it be too late?

How will the 700billion dollars of taxpayers’ money be used?

Will it be sufficient to even buy up the toxic debts from the banks’ balance sheet?

Even so, what will be the consequences of the 700billion dollars on the world’s biggest economy?

Further inflation?

 

Given all these uncertainty and volatility in the financial markets, equities were not as attractive as before. That brought us to the topic of the seminar, the investment case for gold as a financial asset. The speaker for the seminar was Albert Cheng from World Gold Council, his explanation on gold was succinct and informative, and I learnt more about gold than I ever did for the last 22 years of my life.

 

Basically, gold can be used as insurance in your portfolio due to its minimal correlation will the volatility in the financial markets and inflationary pressures. The next function of gold is liquid asset in your portfolio, when times are bad and equities have taken a beating, gold would probably increase in value and can be liquidated for cash when you are hard-pressed for cash.

 

As gold price is also affected by the underlying supply and demand, the rising of the emerging economies and the significance of gold in their culture will invariably increase the world’s demand of gold. At this point, Albert flashed a few slides which showed the breakdown of gold supply and demand; a striking point to note was that a huge percentage of gold supply came from new gold which is decreasing. The reason being high exploration and production costs and that even capital exploitation will take 6-7 years. Albert went on to explain the technicalities and difficulties of the process.

 

 Lastly, Alfred explained how gold was available for investment via ETF in the secondary market, whereby 10 shares of gold EFT approximately 80USD will get you an equivalent of 1 ounce of allocated gold stored in London. That will save you the hassle as compared to buying jewelries which command the craftsman premium and GST, or buying the physical bar from bank which will incur delivery charges and GST.

 

On the whole, it is was a very informative seminar whereby we not only get to listen with the speakers but also interact with them; not to mention the scrumptious refreshment they provide. If POEM is going to conduct such interesting seminars during the subsequent Saturdays, I do not mind making this a permanent activity for my Saturdays.

More application goodness!

This is one of the lost post dated sometime in early september which i had recently fished out on my thumb drive but it has a few bit of useful information so i decided to publish it after all.

After getting my new MSI Wind from the Comex’08, I found couple of useful applications while browsing through Cnet. They are Desktop ICalender and Personal Finances; a planner and personal finance manager.

Desktop iCalender application will appear at the top right hand corner of the screen in three windows. The first window functions as a calendar which display the days in the month; dates with events would be highlighted. The second window functions as an event calendar, event entry with date, time and activities can be added. The third window is the to-do list; it allows you to input tasks that you might plan to do in future. Overall, the interface is quite sleek and the application is easy to master.

The personal finance is an excellent program to manage your personal finance. You can create account for expenses and income like a credit card account, a cash account or a bank account. After that, you can create categories to group your entries; like a bills account to group up your utility and phone bills. Entries are classified as, income, expenses or transfers. Overall, the interface is very pleasant and the application is surprisingly easy to master.

Both applications are really fantastic and good news is that the trial period is unlimited!

*UPDATE: MSI Wind is fantastic and totally changed my laptop experience compared to my previous acer laptop. Wind is lighter at 1.2kg, sleeker design, wireless and bluetooth connectivity is excellent and not to mention it can start pretty fast! Excellent for any salesman who does not have myopia!

It is who that really matters, really matters.

This was the second time attending Mdm Goh Ai Yat’s seminar, the first one was money management. This time round she will be touching on networking- I would believe it’s a crucial soft skill especially in the sales line. I do understand a fair bit about networking as I am currently a real estate agent but I would like to understand the nature of networking from a person in another industry. That might perhaps shed some light on better methods which might benefit my business.

 

She started off by telling us, based on her corporate experiences that generic and technical skills are expected of a manager. However, as a manager is promoted into senior positions, they are actually remunerated based on their generic skills such as networking rather than technical skills. This made a lot of sense to me as Singapore churns out lots of technically-qualified graduates annually and the generic skills that one brings into the job will be their selling point. Rather, it will be their value perceived by the firm that sets them apart from the mediocrity.

 

Ai Yat also defined networking as an active and systematic process of building, managing and using relationship. It makes the most out of current connections, creates and facilitates new connections, building up social capital in the process. The basic key to do business or ask for a favour would be relationship, and it has to be done professionally

Now comes the big question, is networking an unethical activity then?

Personally, I think networking is a very beautiful thing if done professionally. It is of a symbiotic nature in which different individuals can pool their talents to assist each other. There is an implicit understanding that one who wants to tap on the network must have something to offer in the first place. I emphasize it has to be done professionally, show appreciation for the assistance rendered by offering a fee or treating the other party to a meal. Do not take advantage of the other party as it would be an insult to one’s intelligence if you think the party cannot see through the ruse. Know the rule of the game and play by it, you will then be respected and can make full use of the possibilities offered.

 

We were split into new groups courtesy of Ai Yat and encouraged to introduce ourselves and share with one another our opinions on networking among the new group. My pure male group consists of Alvin, Frank, Nguyen, Mario and Kelvin-we have 4 different nationalities and people from the real estate industry to retail industry with this very group! Later, there was a short game similar to bingo in which we had to find individuals with similar activities or preferences as indicate by the worksheet. I managed to complete the game and was given a gift for doing so, we were then given time to network with our groups.  After the break, Ai Yat then helpfully provided us the a system to start, maintain and utilize our unique network. It was pretty similar to the one I had worked out for my business but the crux was the discipline to maintain the system as crisis will strike when you least expected. That being said, I do not think it would be good if I reveal the specifics about this session.

 

Lastly, she offered us some golden tips on networking and resources for us to buff up our networking skills. Some of which are derived from the emotional bank concept by Stephen Covey, movie titled Pay it forward and more…

It was a very light-hearted session which allowed me to make new acquaintances, learn some new perspectives and reinforce my beliefs. On the whole, it was worth every single cent of my fee. You can go check out her available courses if you are interested in them.