Happy Holidays .....

Amazing Factoids That Should Make Us Think & Wonder

Guns N' Roses ... and ... Bunyi Gitar

Possibly Malaysia's best guitar player, and a friend of mine, Roger Wang, somehow managed to cajoled Guns N' Roses' lead guitarist, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal to jam alongside him ... and jamming Bunyi Gitar no less.

p/s look at the two, .... long hair is not necessary to be a rocker!!! LOL!!!

Recorded on 4 November 2013 at JKKN Auditorium, Kota Kinabalu.

Good & Bad Habits

OK, this is an OK visual presentation by a Kathryn Davis, who works on Phd programs recruitment. Most of the stuff are closer to the truth. But there is one glaring bad use of statistics and data. Can you spot it ... my answer at the bottom. 



Have you spotted it? Here is a compilation on things which supposedly differentiate great entrepreneurs, great thinkers, great performers, great inventors ... Now, first of all, she assumes that SEX has something to do with it all, or that early loss of virginity has anything to correlate to intelligence, drive, analytical skills, etc...

She puts that category as "Self Discipline", there is a FUCKING BIG DIFFERENCE between not wanting to lose your virginity till its an appropriate person/time AND cannot even give away your virginity for free even if you wanted to = both have the same result.

So, the undergrads at Princeton, MIT and Harvard have a higher ratio of virgins. That may have very little to do with "self-discipline". They may be already very nerdy, LACK SOCIAL SKILLS (watch The Big Bang Theory), ... may have committed a lot of money by their folks/companies/study loans, so no fuck ups, so no time for anything else but books.

Plus, staying a virgin may have a lot more to do with a person's religiosity/beliefs rather than self-discipline. Its like trying to figure out how many Jewish undergrads eat pork, and link that to brilliance.

So, be careful with statistics and data, you can use it so wrongly or rightly to support your point of views.

Hottest Real Estate Globally In 2013

Are real estate prices a reflection of their domestic economy, or QE, or QE indirectly owing to depressed interest rates, or  a surge in domestic liquidity for lack of assets to invest in??? Or all of the above. Bubbles everywhere.

The London-based real estate consultancy Knight Frank has released the latest reading of its Global House Price Index, showing that residential prices are now 4% higher than their previous peak in 2008 and 12.7% higher than their 2009 low.

“The index’s strong performance has been assisted not just by headline grabbing price rises in Dubai, China and Hong Kong, but also in a number of emerging markets.Taiwan, Indonesia, Turkey and Brazil recorded price growth of 15.4%, 13.5%, 12.5% and 11.9% respectively in the year to September,” according to the report. One country showing surprising strength is Ireland, which recorded three-month prices increases of 4%, when less than two years ago the country was still seeing price declines of 5% or more per quarter.

So what are the other hottest housing markets around? Here are the Top Ten:

Rank	Country	12-month Change in Real Estate Prices
1	Dubai, UAE	28.50%
2	China	21.60%
3	Hong Kong	16.10%
4	Taiwan	15.40%
5	Indonesia	13.50%
6	Turkey	12.50%
7	Brazil	11.90%
8	Colombia	11.80%
9	Germany	11.20%
10	United States	11.20%

Read more: The 10 Hottest Real Estate Markets Around the World | TIME.com http://business.time.com/2013/12/16/the-10-hottest-real-estate-markets-around-the-world/#ixzz2nhl5FJFe

S&M Show Podcast

NOT THE LEX COLUMN - FOCAL & ICAP

Discussed the recent "vents" by Remisiers Association; Looked at Focal's amazing share price run up; the hard to swallow discount of iCap.

http://www.bfm.my/sm-salvatore-dali-malaysiafinance-not-lex-column-focal-icap-20131211.html

http://www.bfm.my/podcast.html?category=&keyword=&program=15478&industry=&subject=&media=


SONG PICK:  Strawberry Letter 23 by Brothers Johnson ... the album went platinum largely thanks to the producer Quincy Jones, when funk meets r&b meets disco.

Asset Class Returns As At 30 November 2013

A significant shift in money flows saw smart money leaving REITs, in anticipation of higher rates sooner than later thus making these almost fixed rates REITs less attractive in the near future. Where did the funds flowed to? Surprisingly, equities. Which is to say, while smart capital sees higher interest in the near future, they also see good corporate profits outlook and/or a more robust economic recovery, esp in the USA.

The negative skew for November’s returns overall kept last month’s advance for the Global Market Index (GMI) to a tepid 0.8%. The numbers still look encouraging on a year-to-date basis, however. Indeed, GMI is higher through the first 11 months of 2013 by a strong 12.9%, thanks in no small part to soaring stock markets in the developed world. The MSCI EAFE’s total return so far this year is an impressive 21% while the Russell 3000 in the US is ahead by more than 30%. If you exclude those two pieces of the global asset pie, the performance numbers for global multi-asset class strategies are considerably weaker. 

Genius is a bull market, as the saying goes. For 2013, we might add that brilliant investing is also about two seemingly innocuous decisions about asset allocation.