Gold's Bull: Reality or Myth?

Someone I know told me yesterday how one of her colleague laugh at her when she told her that gold price has risen around 30 percent a year. Now from my understanding this is a misinformation and strangely many people is still not aware of profit potential from gold, or silver, or palladium for that matter. Ladies and gentlemen, for the last 10 years, gold has not risen 30 percent every year. In fact, gold has risen around 400 percent in the last ten years or 40 percent per year! Wow. Is this real? If you look at the chart below, you can see the price of gold ten years ago at around USD280 and the latest price today hovering at almost USD1,400. 

Not only that, lately, it's been super rise for gold, up 55 percent since April 2009, and in recent weeks, it rose as high as 17 percent a week! I'm not sure if ASB, property, stocks, mutual trust or bond can give you that much.

So, you see, to those people who laugh when we suggest to them to invest in gold, especially in times of economic uncertainty, well, let them be. Time will tell, and I'm quite sure, after the stock, property, bond and monetary market bubble burst, gold and silver will be the only asset that is still standing.

Gold Member

Recently, a friend of mine introduced me to the idea of gold as an investment. I must confess, prior to that, I never would have thought of gold as an income generating asset. Yes, I know it is desirable, and people from all sorts of life have sought it as a measure of wealth since thousand of years ago. Well, I gave it some thought and after that I did some research on the subject matter, and I'm really impressed by what I read. 

Gold is not only used as a jewelery, it can also be traded like a commodity, and before the introduction of paper money (or FIAT money) gold is used as a currency and most importantly gold acts as a store of value, like a hedge fund against inflation, or like an insurance policy that can help you in the event of paper money collapsing or severe economic depression. It is widely predicted that when the stock market, mutual funds, bonds, forex market or even  property markets fails, it is always towards gold that people sought refuge to. Hence, gold's value as an investment and asset is very important. Some analyst suggest we save 10 - 15 percent of our income in gold, well I say we must at least save 25 percent of our income in gold, or silver for that matter because of its versatility and stability.

Gold's bull run started in 2001 and since then, the price of gold has quadrupled to almost USD1350 today. I can't remember any other types of investment that gives that much return. But, as in any other types of investment, gold has its shortfall as well. In short term, gold is exposed to market volatility like any other commodity. It can go up and down, so those who seek to make short term gain usually fails to do so without proper guidance, knowledge and experience. However, in medium and long term return, nothing beats gold, period.

For those who want to invest in physical gold,  the principle that should be used is Buy-Hold-Sell routine, it is as simple as that. The first part is straight forward. You buy gold. Usually in the form of gold coin, or gold bar. There are many types and brands of gold coins and bars out there. The second part however, requires you to plan ahead. In order to plan, you must set a target for yourself. At what price level you are willing to let go of your gold. Then you can calculate roughly how much profit you can make. The third part comes easily once you set your target of gold price appreciation, all you have to do is sit back, and wait for the price of gold met your target, and you can sell your gold afterwords. It is that simple.

 

It's Time To Relocate - Says A Self Help Guru ...

For some season, I will be relocated maybe starting next month or so. Meaning, I'm moving. If there is one thing that is very tiring for me in  this planet, it would be packing and unpacking, especially if the things that need packing is from as large as a 2 door fridge to tens of boxes of shirts and clothes. That and also the time that it took to  do all those makes moving / transferring (pick your word) such a hassle. I think people around the world would regard this issue the same. If I do a quick check on the internet, Googling 'moving house' or 'moving out' return roughly about half a million results.

I thought about doing garage sale / yard sale (as usual, pick your word), but you see, the value of all those junk stored in my house are either have no value at all or just not the type you would expect people would buy even if there is a 99% discount on the tag. Further, I think this type of sale is not THE type of sale us Malaysians use to experience. This is simply not our culture. We generally prefer new and shiny products bought preferably in air conditioned branded store instead avoid used, old and dusty junk from someone we barely know. So, doing sale is certainly out of the question.

So, it looks like I still have to pack all of our things / belongings / junks (you know the drill). There are a few self help guru out there teaching various topics about moving such as how to pack it properly, what is the recommended checklist and even this one site recommending what to do from as far as week 8 to the D Day! Hey, that is a comprehensive one. There is even  this one guy giving 101 moving tips. Hello, do you think I have time to read all that? But you see, the problem with all this self help guru is that, no matter what they are recommending, when reading this type stuff, at the back of our mind, we must make sure that we are aware of our own situation, it's probably not the same and among the 101 tips that was included, maybe one or two can be carried out but the rest, well is just not suitable, at least for me that is. 

Looking at it from different angle, that is the beauty of this age. You can learn everything and buy anything from the internet. Anything that cross your mind, anything, if you try to Google it, chances are, someone has already written something about it. As of now, the net has trillions of pages, stored in millions of servers, read by billions of people. Now we can be someone who had just heard about something today and become an expert about it tomorrow. People can't live by without internet anymore. With the explosion of social media economy right now, it is set to change (if not already) and  expand social interaction to a whole new level. It is the same with the way we read, it is slowly changing how we read, for example, more and more people are buying and reading ebooks. I admit, here in our country, it still has limited penetration, meaning, it still has not threaten the paper based book industry, (and I don't think it will ever do) but the demand is there, the players still are looking and building their niche and there are this whole audience and potential to tap to.

And all this mumbling makes me think. Instead of other people giving tips on how to do this and that and selling ebooks, telling and teaching people on how to improve your life et cetera, maybe I could jump on the bandwagon and sell an ebook myself. I could write down my incoherent mumblings, make people buy it and make millions out of it. How's that sound for a retirement fund?

   

Target, Target, Target ...

Lately I came to realized how much I have taken for granted the importance of setting a goal and more importantly, doing what it takes to achieve the goal. You know, setting ourselves a target like we used to when we were in school or university. Like setting a deadline for completing a assignment or setting how many books we would read in a year. I kinda missed that part of  my life.  The last time I set something for myself to achieve was ages ago, I even can't remember when,  it is that long.

In life, we usually set a target for almost everything. In our work life, our organization  usually set a target in a Pelan Strategik or whatever it is called, then this plan is broken into the long term, medium term and short term target. Then we take the portion of the short, medium and long term plan that relates to us and start doing tasks that hopefully will achieve the goals set.  Similarly, our personal life also require a target. Something clear, specific and achievable. It also should be time bound to make it easier to keep track. After that can we start doing whatever activities or tasks that collectively will achieve that. Be it collecting stamps or just winning the hardest level on that Star Craft 2 game. But people often forget, on a spiritual level, we also must set a target for ourselves. It is a major mistake if we failed to do so. For Muslims, the target is very clear and very specific. But sadly, the effort poured into achieving it sadly lacking, and that includes me. For the effort should be the same if not more towards achieving spiritual goal compared to what we devote towards achieving those first two aspects of life, and not less.  

Nonetheless, the inner satisfaction of achieving something, sometimes just can't be described by words alone. A sense of achievement that can only be felt after clearing that obstacle, or challenge, or hurdle, be it big or small. It's will also led to personal discovery, discovering what our self is worth, what our strength and weaknesses are, what is our limit and capability, what we are made of, knowing ourselves. It all makes it worthwhile. But the most important thing is that, by knowing ourselves, we a step closer towards knowing our Creator...

Wassalam...

Selamat menjalani ibadah puasa di bulan Ramadan yang mulia ini ....

Green Contribution.

Lately almost every car manufacturer jump on the green bandwagon. What I mean by green is, green technology that is. The most popular route is producing hybrid car, by adding electric motor to the conventional petrol combustion engine, manufacturers claim that is can seriously reduce consumer's fuel bill plus reducing our overall carbon footprint. Case in point is Honda Insight and Toyota Prius. Others take the diesel route, claiming that diesel is the more practical solution because of the ready made infrastructure. Those makes from Germany especially Mercedez, BMW and Volkswagen have already showcased their respective vehicles using the latest super efficient diesel engine. There are also others who championed electric vehicle, a car that totally depend on electric and not depend on fossil fuels to run. Even supercar manufacturer like Porsche are planning to release their very own EV.

But you see, the reality in Malaysia is, the prices of those cars here is quite out of reach of us, mere mortals. The average Joe like me just does not have the fund to do our part in reducing pollution. Nevertheless, what we can start to do is drive smart so that at least we can lessen our carbon footprint by reducing our fuel usage. In our situation right now, that's the least we can do ...