Investment Grading

Recently, many people would came across with the headliners in the news that state, S&P downgraded XXX country to AA grading or BB grading etc. I guess many people do not understand what it really mean.

I did a search and found the following:

‘AAA’—Extremely strong capacity to meet financial commitments. Highest Rating.
‘AA’—Very strong capacity to meet financial commitments.
‘A’—Strong capacity to meet financial commitments, but somewhat susceptible to adverse economic conditions and changes in circumstances.
‘BBB’—Adequate capacity to meet financial commitments, but more subject to adverse economic conditions.
‘BBB-‘—Considered lowest investment grade by market participants.
‘BB+’—Considered highest speculative grade by market participants.
‘BB’—Less vulnerable in the near-term but faces major ongoing uncertainties to adverse business, financial and economic conditions.
‘B’—More vulnerable to adverse business, financial and economic conditions but currently has the capacity to meet financial commitments.
‘CCC’—Currently vulnerable and dependent on favorable business, financial and economic conditions to meet financial commitments.
‘CC’—Currently highly vulnerable.
‘C’—Currently highly vulnerable obligations and other defined circumstances.
‘D’—Payment default on financial commitments.

Hope that the information will be useful when you read financial news in future. 

Vacation Leave - 3 dec to 17 dec

Dear readers,

I be going overseas for splurging trip :)

Any recommended, must visit place in Taiwan?

See you in few weeks time.

Repenting or?

Are you repenting?

OR?

Money, Time, Freedom, Health

Money, Time, Freedom, Health

The items above are interrelated.

When you are young, you have health, limited or lots of freedom (depends on parents), no money (sometimes parents give you lots of money to replace their time with you, thus depends on parents too).

When you just started work, you wish to have more money so that you can have the freedom to do what you want, generally you have good health. Thus you work very hard for money and have to sacrifice health and time.

When you start to grows older and older, you will have more and more money, but your health starts to deteriorate. In addition, in general, the higher the earned income you got as an employee, the greater the responsbility you have and the less time you have.

By the time, you earned a lot and retired, you may not have good health to enjoy the lots of money in your bank. One day, just leave with regrets in life - why didn't you spend more time with families as well as do more things you like, instead spend too much time to pursue money?

Life is ironic, isn't it?

The moral of the story is: Strike a balance so that you will not regret when you die in future.

Kungfu panda inner strength revealed !

http://singaporeanstocksinvestor.blogspot.com/2011/09/120k-annual-passive-income-from-s-reits.html

I guess his internal strength is level 7-8, assuming level 10 is ??? (this exclude 50% cash that he has). Guess how much ??? is.

I target to hit level 3-4 in few years time!!! Good luck to me!

What is your inner strength?

Pls see previous post.

http://opposethetrend.blogspot.com/2011/08/kungfu-andor-inner-strength.html

Dream!

When I was in secondary, I started to dream of this and this:

I saw other people have it, thus I also want it - My older brother and sister and other friends own the thing in first picture. (wait did I say owned it? Technically it should be own it with loans.)

When I first graduated from university, I still dream of the above. I want to work hard to earn and own it.

I saw many of my friends own the thing in the first picture. But what puzzle me is how did they manage to own it? where did they get so much $$$ to buy it in the first place? (At time time, I was noob. I did not know that they owned it with debt that kills a large portion of their pay.)  Nevertheless, that time I was jealous and hope that one day I can own it too!

However, around 2 years ago till today. I did not dream of above anymore even though my friends now own more than the first picture, they own the thing in the picture below and they complain to me that it eats up all of their cpf and their take home pay. Some even told me that they scare of losing job and have to work hard to secure their jobs for 30 years or even longer. But is there really job security nowaday?

Today, I only own the thing below with little debts. (maybe 1/3 or 1/4 of what their owed banks for the above nice thing.)

Look old and sluggish right?

I may seems to be cheapo to my friends, but....

I know that half of my monthly cpf can cover the monthly installment. (for your info, my pay is not high. In fact much lower than peers.) Although I don't have the so called luxury, but I am happy and content because I know that I can clear the above debts in at most 10 years using both mine and my wife's cpf if I want to or I can clear it immediately with all the cash and cpf both of us have currently. In addition, I do not need to be a slave to my job but I still want a job because i need $$$ to play with Mr Markets for the rest of my life :)

I forgot to mention. For my transport, I have this:

By the way, do you know what is BMW?

In future, I will aim for the second picture which I posted earlier but not for my stay :)
So ultimately, one day I will own something which my friend owned when they first grad but at much later date.

 __________________________________________________________________________

End of story. So what is the moral of the story? I can think of a few. Please feel free to add on.

1. Be content with what you have
2. Plan your finance well. Others may looks glamorous in front of you, but you don't know what happen at the end of month when the bills are in. A debt free person is a happy person. A galmorous person may not be
3. Delay gratification helps
4. Have a dream
5. Know the difference between wants and needs
6. Live within your means

how much money do XXX really owe? anyone can guess what is XXX?

Current Debt Held by the Public Intragovernmental Holdings Total Public Debt Outstanding 06/28/2011 9,731,228,079,037.89 4,613,217,240,768.50 14,344,445,319,806.39

Change of job

I just changed my job and will be starting work on 20th June. Technicially I am unemployed for this week.

I will need time to adapt and get used to my new life and as well exploring further opportunities in increasing my earning power.

In addition, I need to find out what is the purpose in life. 

Thus may not be updating my site often.

Maybe this is quarterlife crisis similar to midlife crisis of AK.

lol