meek-investor

I think we have found the way to destroy Al Qaeda, or for that matter, any terrorist organisation. Don't send the Navy Seals or the National Security Guard or Special Forces. Send in Ramamritham instead ! This post has no place in what is ostensibly a business blog, but this writer could not miss the opportunity to ridicule Ramamritham anywhere and everywhere. So , with apologies , here's the story. When the French forces recently retook much of Mali from terrorists, the press who followed them found a detailed letter and a number of documents in a building which was a base or Al Qaeda. The letter was to a thug and hoodlum called Moktar Belmoktar. It throws light on how Ramamritham has wormed his way even into Al Qaeda. The letter was a "warning letter" to the said terrorist castigating him for not filing expense statements !!! It also was expressing displeasure at his skipping meetings which he was to attend !! He was also castigated for pricing below Head Office in

SPH is one of my anchoring stocks in my stock portfolio.  The company just announced plan to list a real estate investment trust in July.  The REIT will buy Paragon and the Clementi Mall located in a western suburb for $3.07 billion.  Seletar Mall probably will get on the REIT in 2014 after completion. SPH has been generous with dividend payouts over the years, and hopefully this will also be true for this SPH REIT.  I think I will need to build up my war chest for July action. Although I am a bit disappointed that existing shareholders of SPH are not given any free shares of the new REIT, a one-time dividend payment of 18 cents a share eases some disappointment. An article about the coming REIT: --> Singapore Press plans to raise $540m in retail REIT IPO Monday, 27 May 2013 © 2013 - The Edge Singapore

TOPICS THIS WEEK: Risk, Experimentation and Change Part of running a business and being an entrepreneur is trying new things. We're all about connecting with our community on this podcast. We think the most successful businesses are the ones that engage well with their target market. They build communities. In this week's episode, we talk about changing the podcast to allow us to engage better and more directly with our listeners. In fact, we're thinking about how you can participate in the actual recording of the podcast. One way of doing that is using Google+. Our conversation leads us to discuss how audiences and companies find each other and how they build relationships. Rather than trying to please everyone all of the time, the better strategy is to please a smaller subset of people who really get your business. That involves taking a leap of faith. Risk is part of finding your true audience. The video Links to people and things we mention Chris Brogan New rallying po

I found some old documents in the back of the drawer and learnt that my father had ventured into the uncharted territory - stocks, in 1961. He had invested into a gold mine preference shares scheme.  Unfortunately, that was an expensive and painful lesson as he was scammed by a friend of the boss. Sometime in 1961, the boss's friend visited his factory and sweet-talked the workers into investing into a gold mine in Mersing, Johore.  The workers were told that the gold mine had huge deposit of gold and the owner of the gold mine was looking for investment money in order to start extracting gold from the mine.  After the gold mine started operation, the owner would list his gold mine on the stock exchange.  The workers who invested into the preference shares would exchange into the shares cheaply.  The company (gold mine) would also pay huge dividends every year. My father's pay was $50 a month back in 1961.  The investment amount of $250 was five month's pay.  A lot of worke

The Business knows that you are excited about this.   In preparation, we think it is absolutely in order that you all tune your internet radios to WFMU and shake your butt off or laugh your face off, depending on what they are serving up at the moment.    This week, The Business welcomes Ken Freedman. Ken Freedman and his only friend Andy Breckman are the hosts of Seven Second Delay on WFMU, the legendary freeform radio station in Jersey City, New Jersey. For the past twenty years, they've picked a "radio stunt" each week, then tried to execute it in just one hour of live airtime. They've chain-translated a Village Voice S&M personal add through 15 languages, then back into English, written the ultimate New York Times "Metropolitan Diary" column entry, then gotten it published, and failed more times than they can count. Every other week, they bring their special potion of anti-comedy trainwrecks to the UCB Theatre.   When they're not on-air, Freedma

In the good old days, this was an easy cliche. Tax evasion (breaking the law) was a crime. Tax avoidance (minimising paying the tax within the law) was something you were duty bound to do. Whether you are an individual, company, whatever. Period. Now it isn't so clear cut an answer.  And that says something about our times. Witness the case of Apple . It does aggressive tax planning (all within the law). It has a big subsidiary in Ireland and has done a deal with the government there for a low tax rate. It does not bring overseas profits into the US, because it is double taxed then; so it leaves all its overseas profits overseas. All very legitimate. And yet there has been a huge outcry and a Congressional hearing where Apple is accused of not paying "its fair share of taxes". Similar accusations are levied on Amazon, Google and Starbucks in the UK and indeed in many other countries. Nowhere are the authorities claiming they broke the law. They are just angry that these c

TOPICS THIS WEEK: Storytelling, SOBCon, Social Media Camp, Customer Experience, Customer Clarity What is your customer's experience? Jane attended the recent SOBCon event in Chicago. This year's theme was exactly that and she reports back on some of the things she learned and taught about customer experience. You'll also be introduced to LegoMan. Jane was also a speaker at Social Media Camp, Canada's biggest social media conference. You'll hear how she hosted a Google+ hangout with participants from around the world. Jane even made the evening news in Canada. Links to people and things we mention SOBCon Social Media Camp Phil Sorrell's Social Hiking Podcast David Bailey - An Englishman in the Balkans Maaike van Dijk - Bokkers/Comma-M  (Dutch) April Ennis Marti Konstant Greg McQueen Chris Brogan New rallying point You are a big part of the story of this podcast. We'd like you to be an even bigger part of it. To help with that, and to help us have discussions

1. If we need the money next year, it should be in Cash. Well, we do not want our down payment for our house or other important commitment to evaporate or stuck in the stock market, in the event of a crash.  We need to find a high interest fixed deposit for temporary storage for that money. 2. If we need the money in the next one to five years, or are approaching retirement; it should be in relatively safe investments. Whether we need to pay for the kid's university fees or the retirement income that we need for the not so distant future, we need to reduce exposure to stocks and invest into safer investments, such as treasury bills, fixed deposits,  government or corporate bonds.  Here, T-bills have the lowest yield, while corporate bonds have the highest yield.  However, the returns and risks also go hand in hand, and corporate bonds correspondingly have the highest risk. If possible, it is better to invest into individual bonds rather than bond funds.  The advantage of individual

THESE GUYS.   Our guests this week are two genuine articles.    It’s Cory Loykasek and Donnie Divanian!  Cory Loykasek is an SF based stand-up comedian using laid back rants to take a high-brow look at low-brow issues.  He is a regular on the For The People Comedy Tour and in 2012 performed in SF Sketchfest, Bridgetown Comedy Festival, and Outside Lands.   Is Cory Funny?  A lot of cool people think so.  This one guy, Derrick, he was the JV quarterback at his division III high school, went to prom and everything, thinks Cory is ‘pretty fucking good.” Donnie Divanian will beat you at tennis and then make you laugh like he didn’t just beat you at tennis. He has performed in SF Sketchfest and the SF Fringe Festival (receiving a best of the Fringe award). He is also in the comedy group We Are Nudes. In 2010 they appeared in the NY times. Your regulars will be there mmmboping as well, Nato “Issac” Green, Sean “Taylor” Keane and Bucky “Zac” Sinister.    Bring your $5 and get there early caus

Yeah Yeah, I am that sort of a nerd. While much of India is agog with the spot fixing scandal that broke yesterday, this blogger ruminates on the economics of it. Yes, he is a weirdo ! Having got that out of the way, a few words on the scandal, for the 3 million non Indian readers this blog gets :)  There is a nonsensical game (anybody who suggests the word cricket in this connection will be personally bashed up by me) in which there is a cash machine called the Indian Premier League. Yesterday three players were caught, allegedly  hand in glove with bookies, manipulating results. That's all you really need to know. What is baffling me is the economics of it. There are all sorts of reports, but I think it is safe to say that at least Rs 20 lakhs (some $40,000) was allegedly paid to the players to give away a minimum number of runs in an over. Let us say, for this to be profitable to the crooks who are betting on it, they must wager at least an equivalent amount at odds of say 5:1,

If you have been following the news in the US, you might have noticed an almighty hullabaloo over the the IRS (their tax man) having targeted Tea Party and Conservative groups. Much hot air and righteous indignation is being spouted and Obama has fired the IRS chief yesterday. Almost everybody on earth loves to bash the taxman (rightfully so !) and this is all good fun. Except that I believe that in this case the bashing is wrong. Or at least much exaggerated. What happened is this. The IRS admits that it subjected groups which bore the name tea party, or patriot to extra scrutiny. The fact that such groups are exclusively Republican and that the President is a Democrat seems to indicate political targeting. That is, of course, against the law. Hence all this noise. But why did the IRS do this - after all, they are not fools. If you try and answer this question, a different picture emerges. The problem all started with, in my view,  the appalling judgement by the US Supreme Court in th

Heard about this new promotion from Singapura Finance for children below age of 15: Open a Singapura Blue Sky Junior Savers Account  between 30 March 2013 and 30 June 2013 with a minimum amount of $500 and get a coin bank and instant cash credit of $30. However, the $30 cash credit is fixed, even if you deposit more than $500. That's an instant return of 6% for your kid.  But you must maintain the account for minimum 12 months. Beside the instant interest, the account is paying 0.375% interest p.a., with interest crediting into the account every month.  Assuming that your kid is keeping the $530 for one year, it will generate $1.99 interest for the year.  This will give a net interest of 6.398% p.a. for your initial deposit of $500.  Effectively this is the highest return that we can get from bank saving accounts nowadays. This is a good starting bank account for children.  Parents could deposit children's "angpow" (red packet) money into this account.  Children als

We got our bindles tied to our sticks and we are ready for some rail splitting action!  This week’s guests are finer than a pot of Mulligan stew served by a hot lil bo-ette biscuit shooter. We are tickled to welcome Jeff Seal, Crowned the Hobo Clown King in '86, '87 and '89.  He is an accomplished comic and clown, and a real delight.   We are also pleased to have the ferociously funny Casey Ley! Casey's comedy has been seen in festivals such as SFSketchfest, Bridgetown Comedy Festival in Portland, OR and the Moontower Comedy Festival in Austin, TX. He is the host and creator of the popular monthly stand-up show "This Feels Wrong" and a weekly comedy game show called "Mayhem Trivia." He's been featured on NPR and was voted the Bay Area's best comic by readers of SF Weekly in 2012 Also, a San Francisco favorite who has appeared on Last Comic Standing, The Late Late Show and in SF Sketchfest, Michael Meehan! Michael is a self-taught comic,

I have some odd lots in my stock portfolio. Some are created by my mistake.  I participated in the scrip dividend scheme for SP Ausnet.  Scrip dividend scheme is intended to give shareholders a choice to convert their entitled dividend payout to more shares in the company.  The subscription price of the scrip dividend scheme is normally given at a slight discount from the market price, in order to make it more attractive for shareholders to subscribe to the scheme.  Moreover,   shareholders do not need to pay any brokerage/transaction fees to convert the dividends into shares.  So, through my mistake in joining the scrip dividend scheme for SP Ausnet, I have some odd lots in this counter.  I think it would be much better for me to take the cash dividend, rather then figuring out how to sell away the odd lots when I want to sell the counter. Some odd lots are not created by choice. 1. When SingTel shares IPO in the market, in order to give all IPO subscribers a chance to own the sh