Below are some of the funds that I monitored using fundprice.com.my. The Far-East /Middle East related funds really took a hit. It was one of the high performers together with China as they are considered as "Emerging Markets". Some of the funds lose like 2-3 cents in just a few weeks. Ouch..

Funds are slow to move up, it just took a little sneeze from Dubai to spark the rapid downtrend. Nevertheless, for long term, mutual funds will inevitably outperform fixed deposit rates. Provided of course, dollar-averaging is done diligently and with the utmost discipline.

Commodities related funds also took a rapid hit. T_T

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I just checked my credit card account number and to my delight the refund from AirAsia has been credited in !! :P

See post below.

http://knowthymoney.blogspot.com/2009/11/airasia-1million-free-seats-promotion.html

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Nowadays , learning Forex is hot and profitable training seminar subject matter. It is considered to be very very quick way to earn money due to its usually short term holding strategies. You literally buy/sell within a few minutes apart. That the selling point. Furthermore, high leverage is also a attractive feature to do forex trading.

I guess it is greed/fear that drives the market and people to part with their money in the attempt to get rich in the shortest time possible. It may look rosy during the seminar presentation, but true skeptics must always remember that in the stock market there surely a winner and a loser, unless you are owning stocks for the long term where you probably lose opportunity costs or the when the company bankrupts.

So beware folks, if people say trading forex is as simple as 1,2,3.

Nothing is easy in this world. Everything requires effort and knowledge !! :P

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It been a lazy month, with "social obligations" abundant. Too many activities planned out and no much mood to do some real work. There is a lot of sales around. Stock market is very calm this month except for the Dubai World incident. It looks like going to be so going forward 2010.

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State run company Dubai World is in deep trouble with debts amounting to USD26 Billion!! The bubble has now officially pop in Dubai.

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Dubai World began talks with banks to restructure $26 billion of debt, including $3.5 billion owed by property unit Nakheel, and said the remainder of its liabilities are on “a stable financial footing.”

Debt from subsidiaries including Infinity World Holding, Istithmar World and Ports & Free Zone World will be excluded from the negotiations, Dubai World, one of the emirate’s three main state-related holding companies, said in a statement. The cost to protect Dubai debt against default fell to the lowest since Nov. 25. Dubai’s main equity index dropped 6.6 percent.

Dubai is seeking to delay payments on less than half its $59 billion of liabilities, easing the potential damage to banks recovering from $1.7 trillion of losses and writedowns from the global crisis. Shares worldwide recovered some of the losses suffered since Dubai announced it would seek a “standstill” agreement on all of Dubai World’s debt as the Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 600gained 1.2 percent and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index showed the first back-to-back gains in two weeks.

“Now that they’re saying $26 billion, it reduces some of the panic that built up in the last few days,” said Nick Chamie, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in Toronto. “This is positive. The market was feeding on its own concern and there were talks of $60 billion debt that would need to be restructured.”

Dubai’s ruler and United Arab Emirates Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum said the world misunderstood the government’s intention when it said state-run holding company Dubai World would renegotiate debt repayments, according to Al Arabiya television today.

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I was shocked to know that after checking with the EPF branch, i have not yet added any nominee aka benefactor for my EPF savings. Why do you need a nominee in your EPF account?

The reason is that in case you quack, the money will be channeled without question to your loved ones that you have nominated. If not, it will be damn hard to get your money even if you crawl out from the graveyard!! The monies will be put under the supervision of a government body and your family will likely need to fight out in court or suffer lengthy procedure bureaucracy to get the money back.

So what are you all waiting for? Go to your nearest EPF branch and check out your nominee and info. Please bring a few copies of your Identity Card, IC for any EPF business transaction.

Additional info, I just found out that i am not a "Malaysian" in EPF's database...sigh...

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I just completed my virgin marathon run. :)

I did not thought that I would do it in the first place as I do not regularly trained for long distance runs due to my busy work schedule. Nevertheless, it is a enriching experience where the end result is that I can barely walk properly after the event. "The soul is willing but the body is weak" rings truth. My feet & legs were so heavy and numb from pain that standing still is so much painful than continuing to walk in small steps.

I decided to start a side project with a friend of mine. We still figuring out the biz model that we will want to employ for our project. There is a lot of things to learn!!

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