3 Methods to Evaluate Market Price of Goods and Services

The determination of the competitive market price of Goods and Services is vital for us to optimize our hard earned money. In this post, I summary three different methods that we can use to evaluate market prices of Goods and Services.

1. Survey

Survey may be the most common method we use to evaluate the price of goods and services.

To implement survey properly, we need to gather sufficient information that come from different independent reliable resources. Otherwise, we may be misled by the bias information that we have eventually.

Claim Application for Car Accidant: Etiqa Insurance Review

Having a car or vehicle insurance is compulsory for us to renew road tax annually and bring our vehicle on road. This requirement is essential to provide certain "protection" for all road users.

Recently, an unfortunate event occurred in my life - my car "accidentally kissed" other car. In this post, I am going to summarize my experience of making a claim from my insurer (i.e. Etiqa).

1. Calm down

When unfortunate event has happened, the first step is to be calm down, and do not try to blame other. Then, please check whether anyone has been injured. If it is serious, then call for medicate assistance from nearest hospital.

Share Buy-Back Authority: A Review

Annually, listed companies need to seek their shareholders' agreement to renew their authority to buy-back their shares from the market. This authority can be considered as an additional option for the company to use its surplus financial resources.

 

All things contain both positive and negative effects. Thus, in this post, I am going to summarise the advantages and disadvantages of this financial tool in the following aspects.

Trump - Think like a billionaire: A Summary & Insight

Donald John Trump, Sr. (born June 14, 1946) is an American business magnate, investor, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. (source: wiki)

 

After taking a couple of hours enjoying this great sharing written by Donald John Trump, I do find lots of interesting insights shared by the Author. In this post, I summary few of them as a record for me to refresh my memory about the sharing.

 

The Lessons I have Learnt from Stock Market Investment: Review, Revise, Forward Looking

Any new counter or short-listed or good company for investment? This is probably the most annoying question I have been asked frequently. This is because I do have more than 20 short-listed companies in my watch list. Quite often, when I have shared my positive opinion about few of them with my friends, immediately, they are going to put lots of their capital on one or two of the mentioned. Luckily, so far, they did earn quite lots of money from the 'tips'. However, during this bull market, I really do not dare to share my points of view with them anymore for three reasons.

Four Basic Ways to Earn Money

In order to survive in this world, we need to earn sufficient money that can support our daily basis. Money or cash or asset is a tool that stores or accumulates the value that we have created to other. In other words, the more value we have created, the more money we will earn. In this post, I would like to present four basic ways to create money (value).

1. Use the basic function of our body

-We can use our body energy to help other to move things from one place to another.
-We can use our eyes to help other to take care their goods or assets.
-We can use our appearance to help other to promote their goods or services.

This kind of way to earn money is mainly using our body function.

One Extremely Difficult Condition When Making Decision in Stock Investment - Buy or Sell

For most people, stock market investment is probably the easiest investment to be involved. All you need to do is to decide what business should be invested or divested with just as low as few dollar charges per transaction.

Since there is no free lunch in this world, I would like to discuss the difficulty behind the decision making in stock market investment.

Star Publications (Star, 6084): Mini Review 2014

After sharing my first insight about Star Publications (Star, 6084) more than 14 months, Star Publications, fundamentally, appears to be the same. Since the market price has reached its another historical low (from my last review of RM2.60 to RM2.10++) , I decided to spend some time to take a look at Star Publications, again.

Business Prospect

In terms of its business prospect, the group aims to offer better advertising platforms to extend their reach to wider audiences via the Print, Digital, Broadcasting and Television channels. Basically, I really do not think there will be many new audiences from any these channels, except the Digital.

Particularly, most of us have changed the ways of our living - Google, Surfing, Youtube, Facebook etc. In near future, maybe, we will be more smartphone-oriented - Whatsapp, Line, etc.

Notion VTec Berhad (0083) - Review & Insight 2014

I must admit that I made a huge mistake when I invested NOTION VTEC BERHAD, Notion (0083), at the time Notion was around RM0.67. I thought it was quite good price for me to invest in Notion (0083) due to its profitability based on past performance and good performance in its Q3 and adjusted results in Q4. Nonetheless, the ignorant of the potential negative sides of Notion caused me made this bad decision. The following content is my review and insight about Notion (0083).

Free Financial Education by BNM in Malaysia

I always tell my friends that good stuff is seldom popular as paid one. Indeed, especially those provided and subsidised by government. The main reason could be that nobody is responsible to share good yet free stuff with you. Paid stuff, on the other hand, is financially motivated and highly promoted in the market.
 

Luckily, our Bank Negara (BNM) actively promote "free-of-charge" basic financial education to public. Thus, it will be a good idea to acquire these basic financial knowledge first before considering or participating other financial education.

 

In the following content, I am going to concisely introduce some "free-of-charge" financial services that you may consider to improve your financial intelligent.

Recurrent Related Party Transactions (RRPT): A Review

Typically, most companies involve some amount of Recurrent Related Party Transactions (RRPT) for their day-to-day operations, mainly, for the purchases of raw materials and supplies. Generally, listed companies will seek their shareholders' approval for their RRPT for the following rationale and benefits. 

Cut Your Home Loan 50% Time and 50% Interest

Last week, I unintentionally went and listened a public talk in a local bookstore about a Plan that could help us save 50% loan interest. Well, my first thought was - this Plan must be a scam! Because banking industry is very competitive. Thus, I decided to spend a couple of minutes to investigate the PLAN via listening the 'shows' .

A Costly Basic Knowledge   

After the speaker introduced lots of unrelated 'knowledge' such BLR, interest, debt, small story, out-of-debt, into-debt and bla bla bla, finally, I figured out that the Plan really works! However, I really cannot see any point to subscribe their service. This is because I really do not think that a basic knowledge about housing loan should cost us few thousand dollars (maybe even more). Therefore, I hope my sharing in this post can save your precious time and hard-earned money. 

Annual Report Vs Annual Audited Report in Bursa Malaysia: 1st Step for Evaluation

I still remember when I was just getting started investing in Stock Market in Bursa Malaysia, I read a couple of books about how to evaluate a company or business. The most important thing is to ensure the financial report that used for evaluation is audited. Thus, I was quite frustrated when I found difficulty to find an Annual Audited Report of some companies in Bursa Malaysia.

 

After struggling few days, finally, I realised that, in Bursa Malaysia, all the financial statements or reports in annual report have been audited. Consequently, some companies only publish annual report in Bursa Malaysia.

Free Lunch in Stock Investment: Tips or Experience Sharings

Very often, we receive tips from 'guru', 'insiders', or 'expert' about:

- which counters will be the next winner,

- which counters are good for investment now,

- which counters can be invested for long term, and so on.

 

However, what have bothered me is - are these  'guru', 'insiders', or 'expert' sincerely to help other people to earn money in stock market? This is because it is quite rare (impossible) for a person to be too free to help other to earn money. 

One Common Misunderstanding in Value Investing: Patience for Buy

Patience is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances (ref. Wiki). In stock market investment, there are two very difficult circumstances that investors need to endure - Bull Market and Bear Market. In this article, I am going talk a little bit about Patience in Stock Market investment. Particularly, I would like to share my insight about the role of Patience in both Bear and Bull Market.

 

Bear Market

Situation:

• During Bear Market, market is full of bad news. The trend of market price goes downward in a long period of time. Most investors lose their faith in market.   

Good Patience

• I think we should be very patient to wait for very attractive deals for long term investment during Bear Market. After 'estimating' the bottom line of each good business, any deal with more than 50% discount is already a very good investment for me.
  

Stock Investment is a Ponzi Scheme: Insight

"Stock investment" is a Ponzi Scheme? Personally, I think it is true. Specifically, we should admit that stock investment can be 'legally' used to implement Ponzi Scheme. In order to avoid to be a victim of Ponzi Scheme, there are two red flags that we should pay attention to.

 

All about the Future

Future is unknown and uncertain. If you find a particular stock (or business) have many "too good to be true" stories about the company's future prospect without any tangible evidence, then you may need to take a long breath and rationally analyse those stories in different perspectives.

 

Particularly, it is extremely dangarous when the main 'evidence' to support the stories is merely from the belief of people - fear and greed.

 

How to Estimate the Intrinsic Value of a Company / Business - Part 1

Motivation

The motivation of estimating the intrinsic value of a company or business is to provide a benchmark and reliable information for us to make a better investing decision (Buy or Sell or Hold). 

 

Example of valuation

The reliable information that we are going to compute is the intrinsic value of the company or business. This is slightly similar to a situation for us to figure out whether the price of "Nasi Lemak" is reasonable, cheap or expensive.

 

That is, we need to quantitatively and qualitatively compare the price of a "Nasi Lemak" with others, and also other related products such as "Nasi Goreng", "Mee Goreng", and "Fast food".

 

In other words, the more information we have, the better the estimation we will make, and also the more complex the estimation is.

 

Are You Willing to Give Up High-Paying Job and Follow your Passion?

Last couple of days, after my friend told me about he had accepted a low paying job because the job scope is what he is really interested in. His salary is suddenly reduced at least 33% due to this decision. Surprisingly, without any hesitating, I spontaneously fully support his decision. After re-thinking about this 'brave' decision his made, I found out that I have changed quite significantly in terms of my mind set. This is because if the same situation occurred in the last 5 years, I believe that I was going to 'consult' he to re-think the decision. Thus, I decide to record this case in my blog to remind myself that I am not a slave to money.