Permata yang dicari

Ya Allah,
Jika dia benar untukku
Dekatkanlah hatinya dengan hatiku
Jika dia bukan milikku
Damaikanlah hatiku
Dengan ketentuan Mu...

picnic!

Last weekend I had lots of fun, alhamdulillah. Started out morning jog with my jogging partner. Then, I persuaded my family to picnic at the city's reservoir. Since the last kite flying attempt with the AJ girls, I've been itching to fly kite again. My dad taught me the right way to fly. Now I'm certified, you can date me for kite flying (apa kata mentel partner?) I think my dad is cool...he could bring the kite up in a minute. It takes skill laaaa. See, there were two mats who attempted to fly their kites for 3 hours or so but never succeeded (that is from the time we reached to the time we were packing up). It was so funny looking at them running around in circles. In the end, they got tired and sat in the middle of the field, kites in their hands, sad and dejected. Kesiannn...

briefly general

First day of school made me semangat to type this entry hahah! It may follow through or not. Well, just for me to recap and those interested to read on.

Investment is a current commitment of funds for a period of time in order to derive returns or future payments that will compensate for time, expected rate of inflation and uncertainty of future flow of funds. Individuals invest to earn returns from savings due to their deferred consumption. In other words, they opt to trade off present consumption for a larger future consumption. Returns represents compensation or an increase in wealth from holding a security over a given period of time. Returns come in the form of dividend income or capital gains derived from a change in the price of the security. Proper evaluation of different assets that we wish to include in our investment portfolio would mean that we have to accurately compare their historical rates of return. However, we need to note that the historical price of a stock does not provide an accurate projection of its future price. It is used in a way as a benchmark to compare different assets to make general estimations of their relative performance. Appropriate benchmarking is important to reflect an individual's risk class. If an investor is risk averse and opt to invest in government bonds, studying the STI index as a benchmark would be inappropriate. A measure of the historical rates of return is the Holding Period Return (HPR). HPR is the ending value of the investment over the beginning value of the investment. Assuming a $200 investment at the beginning of the year which was raised to $220 at the end of the year, the HPR will be 1.1 (ie. > 1). HPR > 1 means there is a positive change in wealth. Accordingly, HPR < 1 means there is a negative change in wealth and HPR = 1 means there is no change in wealth. Although HPR can be < 1, it can never be negative as a $200 investment can only be reduced to $0, meaning total loss in investment cannot exceed $200 if that is the amount of funds we pumped into the investment. A better measure of historical rates of return however would be the Holding Period Yield. HPY = HPR - 1. Suppose you have a set of annual rates of return (HPRs or HPYs) for an investment, we can measure the mean annual return arithmetically or geometrically. Geometric Mean Return (GM) is always superior to Arithmetic Mean Return (AM) because GM compound interest earned throughout the year unlike AM which calculate only the simple interest. As such, AM is always biased upwards. It is best used as an expected value for an individual year, while GM is the best measure of an asset's long term performance. What is important to note here as an investor is not to be easily fooled by statistics and numbers. For instance, say Company A's funds lost 90% during a year and rose by 92% the next year. Arithmetically, the company's funds increased by 1% on average over the two years. However, say if you invest $1000 at the beginning of the first year. By the end of the second year, your investment would have actually fall to $192 instead of rising. Just some little but very important things to be wary of when considering investments in the future. (:

just some

I've been listing a lot these days and it somehow works in managing my stress once accomplished. I think I shall stick to it for a long time running I hope. Organizers never stick with me after a couple of months, else it never did past half the year. I hope it does too this time.

Kem Kembara 2009 was a nice close to my holidays. Ubin was trying yet striving on makes it all the worth. Not just fun but did some endurance and reflective thinking. My younger brother tagged along. Though he may be irritating at times, he brought a different kind of joy to me (and the rest of the group I hope).

all that i cherish

I had another eventful and HAPPENING new year's celebration with the ain and fanah. Simpang! "terima kasih aje ke? $1.80 eh!"

Well, happiness and tribulations of 2008...hopes and dreams of 2009...all are pretty better left unsaid (:

Happy 2009!