Observations at the Mall

Yes, I was sitting down on one of the benches facing the pay-out counters of Jaya Jusco at the One-Utama. This is the hot thoroughfare where people passed you by. You can observe them.

Then there are the others you exchanged kind words with.

First, there was this large Pakistani-looking chap with his son. The son was playing with a Transformer figurine that could changed into a vehicle, an autobot. He was imaginative, playing with the toy and moving its limbs while making child-like utterances. He then passed on the toy to me asking me to convert it into a vehicle. Obviously I failed as I am no good in these things. When his mother came, they told me they are off to see the show.

Next was a bunch of Filipino ladies sitting on the next bench. They spoke halting Englih with a Pinoy twang. One of them looks pretty. I do not know whether they were maids because they are pretty young and do look fetching. Then after meeting one of their friends, they left for the food-court.

Sitting quietly besides me was an old lady, perhaps in her mid seventies. She had a walking stick. Soon, she was joined by her husband, pushing a shopping cart with their weekly needs. He sat on the shoulder of the bench. I made way for him to sit but smilingly he declined, saying that they must be on their way. As they got up to go, I noticed both of them were having difficulty in walking, likely suffering from arthritis or gout.

Then there was this grandfather playing with his grandson. The boy was running ahead of him and Grandpa has a red balloon in his hand. I thought this made a pretty picture and amusingly too as if Grandpa was playing and not the boy!

I watched all kinds of people passed me by. Some were really well dressed. Great hair, make-up, nice dress and in stilettos! The others were mostly bland, youths in sneakers, sandles and mules. The office girls were in the usual office black. In my mind, I told myself, people do not really dress up in Malaysia. Most look like the average girl-next-door. Some of them dress real sloppy too. Sakit mata!

Yes, there was a cute scout girl and another lady in low heels. One of her legs was bandaged tightly about her ankle but she walked alright. And oh yes, there were a couple of girls with great legs. Long legs with their feet in attractive heels. A couple of covered-up Middle-east ladies was also seen shopping and so were some Caucasians.

Some of the shopping carts were really full. Strangely, in these so-called lean times, people can still splurge!

Great country,Malaysia.

Impossible to Give it a Facelift!

Proton cars are apparently known for their substandard quality control.

Till today, one of my back doors do not close properly though there is a nice "OK" approval decal on the side window screen.

If your car was built in the year 2000 and before, apparently there was a botched up work on the steel used to make the car. The anti-rust was so badly done that most of these cars yuo see on the roads are pocked mark with rusted roles on all the doors, bonnet and roofs!

And so I decided to get rid of the pock-marked bonnet and do some spot welding on the doors. The quotation came back.

To get an original Proton bonnet and do the spot welding, I would have to fork out RM2,600. The Taiwan alternative with spot welding cost RM2,450, a mere RM150 lower.

Since the car is hardly worth RM10K, adding RM3k on to give it a face lift is certainly fool-hardy.

Best option-let is rot and then touched it up occasionally and perhaps do a more extensive job before selling it.

Finally Got Promoted!

I wished to congratulate my sister who just got promoted after donkey years of dedicated service to the department.

We always thought it would be sooner than later.

Looks likes it is later but congratulations all the same.

Here's champagne for you! God Bless and good cheer!

Mall Days

Two mall days.

One day to lose my keys and the second day, attempting to retrieve them.

I stopped at a couple of places at One-Utama on Day 1. Two concourse seats,eating at McDonald's,seating at a Nyonya restaurant, a cinema seat in Hall 6 in the Tanjong Golden Village cineplex and a seat near the Shoe Section in Jaya Jusco.

Went on key hunt on Day 2. I asked at all the Customer Services Desk at these places and came to nought.

Looks like I may have to make key duplicates.

Is Berjaya Sports Toto (BST) a Good Buy at RM5?

The Bursa was down for the last four days.

As I mentioned in an earlier posting,the contrarian players were nibbling about.

So I bought myself some BST at RM5.05. As the market was good this morning, it went up by 2 bits to RM5.15.

Now, let us discuss about BS. Is it a good buy at RM5?

The lowest of the year was RM4.04 and the highest was RM5.35. Before the recent special dividend announcements(both dividend and share dividend in specie), BST was floating about the RM4.68 price. Given today's price at RM5.10,this would mean an investor would have profited RM400 on paper not counting trading charges.

Let us build up a scenario when BST goes ex sometime in mid July. Let us assume that BST maintains the RM5 price cum dividends.

The dividend payout of RM300 will have to be off-set when BST goes ex on 13 July. That would mean the price would naturally be adjusted downward to RM4.70.

Then there is the share dividend distribution in specie. It is one share for every 14 held. At 1000 shares,this would work out to 71 shares. At an adjusted price of RM4.70, it will fetch a value of RM333 to the investor.

Since there is no additional shares on the market via this way of distribution,there will be no dilution in theory.

Again, as we all know, many will sell the new shares for a quick profit and this might destabilize prices for a while. However, the good news is that BST, depleted of its Treasury shares, may just end up in the market buying off these loose holders to bring back the price back to even keel at about RM4.70.

Final analysis:

Initial outlay : RM5,000
Returns by end of July: RM4,700 + RM300 + RM333 = RM5,333
We then minus RM100 as brokerage charges
Therefore returns is RM233

Benchmarked against the 2.5 % bank interest for fixed deposits, which will come to a return of RM10.70 per month,an investment return of RM233 in BST (for only a month) is far more superior than putting it in the bank!

Investing in BST is akin to theoretically putting money in the bank at 55% interest rate or a pro-rated monthly return 4.58%.

So English did not really help!

What a revelation!

That the teaching of maths and science in English the last six years has not improved the performance of students in those subjects must be the unkindest cut of all.

This was the Minister of Education's admission in Parliament today. How sad!“There have been changes but the difference is nominal,” he said, citing a two to three per cent change since the policy was implemented in 2003.

Blame the politicians, blame the educationists and even the teachers. They are just scapegoats for poor implementation.

Many in the Ministry of Education may have benefited from the perks of overseas trips as well as short training stints abroad. However, the quality of their teaching method may be suspect.

So what's new?

Poor Global Economic Indicators

While regional markets break from a streak of bad days and rose, Bursa traded further into negative territory dropping below the purported 1050 support level. Sentiments was weak and volume was medium.

Bursa's recent clampdown on stocks deemed to have been manipulated continue to have negative impact as 2nd liners and liquid stocks with recent sharp spike. These traded lower on heavy selling.

May be this is the type of day to go bargain hunting for good stocks. The contrarian players, I am sure, are out nibbling here and there.

Apart from prices running ahead of fundamentals that caused the recent sell-down, bearish news that the global recession will be deeper than previously fore-casted also played its role.

The World Bank said the world economy will contract 2.9 percent in 2009 versus an earlier forecast of a 1.7 percent decline and growth of 2 percent in 2010 versus a 2.3 percent prediction previously.

Meanwhile, in Taiwan the jobless rate rose to a record in May after new graduates failed to find jobs as companies tightened hiring because of a slump in global demand. The seasonally adjusted rate increased to 5.84 percent from 5.77 percent in
April.

On the other hand, Japanese business confidence improved for the first time in three quarters and demand for services rose. Sentiment among large manufacturers increased to minus 13.2 points compared with a record low of minus 66 three months ago.

So while the World Bank seems to project better figures for Malaysia, it has given the potential importers of Malaysian goods the low down.

Would that mean they will have also to re-adjust Malaysian expected growth rates down again?