2. Will President Trump be convicted of impeachment?
Saturday, February 13, 2021
Wisdom of the Crowd - New Issues
2. Will President Trump be convicted of impeachment?
Vote in
WOTC - Will covid virus remain a problem?
Wisdom of the Crowd: 57% of the respondents expect the covid virus to remain a big problem for several years ahead.
Why China nationals choose to work in Singapore
Singapore received many workers from China during the past two decades. The conventional wisdom is that Singapore offered better job opportunities and pay to these worker, compared to China.
Lately, I observed the prosperity and the job opportunities that are available in the cities in China. These opportunities are as good or better than those available in Singapore,
Why do these workers choose to work in Singapore, when they have the opportunities in China?
I think that I have the answer. This is my guess.
Friday, February 12, 2021
WOTC - Will America regain the respect of the world?
Wisdom of the Crowd: 45% of the respondents expect America to regain the respect of the world under President Biden.
Thursday, February 11, 2021
Wisdom of the Crowd - New Issues
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https://tklcloud.com/Crowd2/vote.aspx
WOTC - Restrictions during CNY
Wisdom of the Crowd: 50% of the respondents agree with the restrictions imposed during Chinese New Year.
Quora: How does someone who is Chinese become anti-China?
Reply by David Yin
There was a popular joke on China's social media about 5–6 years ago.
A guy gave up his promising job in China and sold his place in Beijing in the early 1990s for 20–30 grand USD and went to the states and became illegal immigrant there. It made sense back then, most ppl were making less than $60–100 a month in China. So he worked his ass off and saved every penny he could. And since he was illegal he couldn't leave the US the whole time. One day his account reached $1 million which is not too bad in the US. He decided it's time to go home and enjoy life, he is a millionaire now!
After he arrived he decide to buy a place for his retirement. So he went to an realtor's office and saw his old place for sale. Listing price was over 1 million USD. And found out his old colleagues are making over 60k USD a year now and looking forward to 2k USD per month pension. This number is 5–6 years old, today you will need to double the housing price.
This was told as a joke but very much to be true. Many people made that choice.
If you are that person and realise you wasted your whole life, the best part of your life for absolutely nothing, no life, away from family, nothing. How are you going to react on it? Quietly accepting it? Or denial? Everything you see is fake, China is not rising but will collapse soon?
Believing China will crash will give meaning back to the guy’s life. This is just one scenerio. For some people they have to be anti-China to live with the choices they made.
Size of investment
Some people followed my experience in investing in the stock market. However, they do not have a large amount to invest. They asked if they can still follow my approach.
Here is my answer:
Pick the growth stocks
I share my experience and strategy in picking the growth stocks. I have made over $200,000 USD in investing in these growth stocks over the past two months. I have sold off most of the holdings and realized my profit.
Wednesday, February 10, 2021
My investment in Baidu (BIDU) stock
I bought 100 shares of Baidu a month ago at an average cost of $245 USD. Baidu is an internet search engine that earns revenue from advertisements. It is also described as the "Google of China".
The stock hit a high of $250 three years ago, but dropped to $100 after its advertisement revenue fell.
I took an interest in the stock when I learned that they are strong in technology and has developed a self driving software for taxis, which were being tested in several cities in China. They have many business revenue sources.
I watched a few videos that analyse the business and financials of this stock. Here is one of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO3txXy33hU
The stock has moved up strongly over the past few weeks. It is currently at $314 pre-market. This gave me a gain of ($314-$245) X 400 = $27,600 USD.
WOTC - Covid vaccine
Wisdom of the Crowd: 57% of the respondents will take the covid vaccine as soon as it is available.
https://tklcloud.com/Crowd2/chart3.aspx?id=2201
Tuesday, February 09, 2021
Use of Medisave for hearing aid
Dr L, who is now 75 years old, wanted to use his Medisave to pay for hearing aids.
His request was rejected by CPF and Ministry of Health. The reason was that the Medisave is to be kept for medical expenses during his old age.
Dr. L said that he is a government pensioner and his life time medical expenses are paid by the government. He hardly use his Medisave savings. It has remained intact over the years.
As his is already 75, how much longer can be expect to live? He has approached his MP on this matter, but the MP is not able to get the CPF and MOH to be flexible.
We have a rigid and ridiculous system. Nobody wants to recognize a problem. they do not care about the reality of Dr. L's situation. They wanted to stick to the rules that do not apply to Dr. L.
When will some senior people, including the minister, step forward and recognize that the rule should be changed.
An example of a change is to allow the CPF member above (say) 65 years to withdraw a certain sum each year for any medical expenses that they find to be necessary. This may fall outside the current rigid rules.
Reduce the support measures
The government is expected to reduce the support measures in the next budget. This is a reasonable step, as the government cannot continue to spend large sums of money to support the loss of income caused by the economic restrictions to fight the pandemic.
However, it does not get rid of the reality that many people have suffered a large drop of income and it will take a long time to recover. The reduction of the support measures will cause financial hardship to many people.
I suggest that the government takes the following steps to address this situation:
* Allow people who have suffered a loss of income to make a withdrawal from their CPF savings of up to $1,000 a month. As this is a withdrawal of their savings, it will not cause a financial loss to the government.
* For people who do not have sufficient CPF savings for withdrawals, the government can allow them to take out the money on a loan provided by the government. The loan has to be repaid from future earnings.
* Reduce the restrictions and allow people to resume their livelihood. Although there is a risk of the spread of infection, the risk is probably low in Singapore due to our warm climate.
I hope that the government ministers will realize the difficult situation faced by many ordinary people and consider my suggestions.
Prepare for the stock market correction
Several prominent analysts are predicting a correction in the stock market within the next few months. Here is my approach towards dealing with this situation.
Tested positive several days after completing quarantine
Recently, there were two cases of people who were tested positive several days after they had completed their 14 day quarantine on returning to Singapore.
I give my interpretation of what happened to these cases.
Review the approach to stop the spread
Our current approach is to use safe entry, trace together and temperature taking for visits to all retail outlets and entry at workplaces. Many of these places have to be manned by workers who enforce the regulation.
I suggest a new approach which I believe is more effective and saves on manpower cost.
1. Have self service kiosks for temperate taking and safe entry recording. They can be placed at many locations with high traffic - train stations, bus interchanges, retail malls and food courts.
2. Have prominent signs to remind people to have safe entry recording and temperature taking a few times each day. If any person has a fever, advise that person to go to a covid testing center to take a covid test for free.
3. Set up testing centers at many convenient places that the public can find easily, e.g. a nearby community center. These centers will provide a free covid test to a person with a fever or other symptoms of covid and can also be used for testing of front line workers. However, a separate priority queue should be arranged for people who have symptoms.
We should make it convenient, easy and free for people with symptoms to be tested for free. This will encourage more people with symptoms to be tested. As these infected people have a higher risk of spreading the infection, we need to give more focus and special attention to these high risk cases.
Quora: Why is China offering the vaccine to other countries?
Quora: Why is China offering COVID-19 vaccines to Pakistan, Nepal, Indonesia and other countries when more than 1 billion Chinese people themselves haven't been vaccinated against COVID-19?
Answered by Carl Johnson, an American who has lived and worked in Mainland China since 2011.
I can only guess at an answer but here it goes. Wealthier nations are bidding up the proices of vaccines putting them out of reach for poorer nations. Perhaps China is taking the approach of providing vaccines to the ones most in need first.
China does not have a large problem with the virus now. They have managed to keep the number of infected low so perhaps they are prioritizing where the supply goes. Just a guess.
I can tell you that if I needed to travel for business, a vaccine is available for me in China. I can have HR schedule a vaccine for me if I wanted. Bt I am in no hurry and have no need to travel. My feeling is that my risk of infection is very very low in this area so why take it?
For the idiot who thinks that China is selling it so that it can be tested on poor nations he obviously is not aware that the vaccines have already gone through all trial stages. This is yet another example of how many people can hold opposing thoughts in their heads. On the one hand they believe the Chinese government does not care about its people, (You know, organ harvesting and other BS) but then they offer up these kinds of theories that the government tests the vaccine on other nations because,,,,,,,,,,, they don’t want to hurt their own people? Which is it?
They don’t care about people or they do care about the people? Cant have it both ways. Flawed logic! For that matter why create a vaccine at all if they dont care about people?
Analysis of SingTel, China Mobile, AT&T
I made a simple analysis of three telcos - SingTel, China Mobile, AT&T.
CPF Dependent Protection Scheme
According to this webpage, CPF has appointed Great Eastern Life to be the sole insurer for the CPF Dependent Protection Scheme. An enhanced DPS scheme will take effect from 1 April 2021.
The coverage has increased from $46,000 to $70,000. The premium has reduced considerably. For a person 34 and below, the premium is $18 for a coverage of $70,000. A similar coverage from a private insurance company would probably cost $40 to $70 a year.
More details can be found in this webpage:
The DPS coverage is not compulsory. A person can opt out of this plan if they wish to. However, in view of the low coverage, it is better for a person to stay covered under this plan.
More details can be found here.
WOTC - Reaction of US over Taiwan issue
Wisdom of the Crowd: 72% of the participants expect that the US will take a soft line against China over the Taiwan issue.
Monday, February 08, 2021
Renewing a Singtel Business broadband contract
I received an email from SingTel to renew my contact.
It provided a link for me to go to renew the contract.
The experience was terrible. I wasted half an hour and am not able to renew the contract.
The website did not work.
The email did not provide the renewal date, nor the terms of my current contract. I am not able to access the information.
I created a video to show this terrible experience.
My experience with SingTel is quite typical of my experience with most websites of Singapore companies and government agencies. They are poorly designed. They make life very difficult for the users.
I have just sent an email to MyRepublic to ask them to quote for moving to their broadband service.
WOTC - Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus plan
Wisdom of the Crowd: 90% of the respondents said that Biden's $1.9 trillion plan will be approved by Congress but may be reduced somewhat.
My trading experience with US Hot Stocks (Sep - Feb 2021)
I share my trading experience with US hot stocks for the past six months.
The profit on TSLA is for the past six months, and exclude the profit made before Sep 2020.
I was pleasantly surprised at the huge profits made on NNDM, BNGO, TSLA and GEVO totalling USD 211,857.
I have sold all my holdings in these stocks. I will buy them when it falls 20% from the current prices.
I selected the shares of these stocks based on the YouTube videos put up by the YouTubers. They explain the business models of these companies and the financial figures. I watched a few videos from several YouTubers and chose those that I was convinced with.
I also set a target price that I consider to be too high. At these prices, I exited my holdings.
To know more, you can attend this talk
Sunday, February 07, 2021
SGX has failed
The trading volume in SGX is dismal, compared to the exchanges in HK and America.
What is the reason for this failure, in spite of the efforts by the Singapore authorities to build Singapore as a financial hub?
Compare lockdown measures in UK and Singapore
The UK has a death rate of 1,646 per million population. They implemented the following lockdown measures:
https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-52530518
Singapore has a death rate of 27 per million population. We implemented the following lockdown rules (it is called circuit breaker in Singapore)
https://www.gov.sg/article/moving-into-phase-3-of-re-opening-on-28-dec-2020
I find it quite difficult to read the rules in Singapore. It is not written in simple language. It is quite confusing.
Our risk is 60 times lower than the UK. I can understand why the UK needs to be very strict. But I wonder why does Singapore behave like we are in a disaster zone?
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