New Terms For The 2008 Market

CEO --Chief Embezzlement Officer.

CFO-- Corporate Fraud Officer.

BULL MARKET -- A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.

BEAR MARKET -- A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry.

VALUE INVESTING -- The art of buying low and selling lower.

P/E RATIO -- The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.

BROKER -- What my broker has made me.

STANDARD & POOR -- Your life in a nutshell.

STOCK ANALYST -- Idiot who just downgraded your stock.

STOCK SPLIT -- When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.

FINANCIAL PLANNER -- A guy whose phone has been disconnected.

MARKET CORRECTION -- The day after you buy stocks.

CASH FLOW -- The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.

YAHOO -- What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.

WINDOWS -- What you jump out of when you're the sucker who bought Yahoo @ $240 per share.

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR -- Past year investor who's now locked up in a nuthouse.

PROFIT -- An archaic word no longer in use.

Look Out Point At Hulu Langat

I have always heard about this place at Hulu Langat which has a fantastic Kuala Lumpur view. Some said its at Ampang while others said its at Cheras. For me it seems more like nearer to Cheras, maybe because I exit from the Cheras (Pandan Indah) of MRR2.

Its not that difficult to go:-

1) Direct from MRR2 (if you come from Ampang, go towards the Cheras direction) and exit at the Pandan Indah Interchange Junction. Please take note its "after" the Pandan Indah flyover junction.

2) After turn left from MRR2, go all the way straight and pass by Steven Corner too. Along the way you will see the first Esso on your left. Before you reach Esso the road is a bit up hill and you have to turn right "immediately" at the Esso traffic light junction. We missed this junction at the first attempt. To be save you can keep to the right or U-turn if you missed the junction.

3) Go straight you will pass by a Mc Donald on your right. Go all the way straight and take note on your left there is a Putri Park Plaza. Turn left immediately after Putri Park Plaza. If you really miss this turning, you will see Petronas on your right.

4) After the Putri Park Plaza turning, go straight until the second traffic light and turn right at here.

5) Go all the way straight you will see the "Menara Tinjau (Look Out Point)" sign board. You need to drive about 3 km on a dark and winding road before you read the look out point. Although this road is dark, you will see many other cars along it. So you can rest assure that its pretty safe.

6) The Look Out Point is just on your right. You can decide to park road side (free) and wait up. I haven't try this before but I believe its a decent 15minutes walk to the restaurant. However if you going there for a date, perhaps you shall drive up there by paying RM2 for the parking.

REFER TO BELOW'S MAP FOR CLEARER PICTURE OF HOW TO GO HULU LANGAT

There are 3 restaurants there:

1) Look Out Point Restaurant

2) Gasoline

3) Bread And Olive Restaurant

I only manage to try Look Out Point Restaurant. Despite going on holiday season (which I will easily think most people are in home town instead of KL), its quite packed. I think the seats are abit too close to each other. However I guess everyone is just trying to get the best of view. Of course we got one of the best seats - the corner sits which has the best KL view. This restaurant opens in late morning until 1am (or 2am of many customers). To my suprise, the foods are quite reasonable. Chicken or lamp chop around RM13-RM20 only. Considering this type of environment, I would think the price is infact very affordable. For me, I ordered a giant size water melon juice. By the way the sizzing chicken chop that I ordered is quite nice too and infact most popular. This restaurant has the best view of all.

Under Look Out Point Restaurant is Gasoline. Gasoline is a franchise restaurant with other branches at Sungai Wang, Times Square and Sunway Plaza. They serve variesties of food ranging from Western, Chinese and Malay food. The food should be slightly cheaper than Look Out Point Restaurant. However the view is not as good. To be frank, I think gasoline tastes so so only.

Finally is Bread And Olive Restaurant. This restaurant is quite empty. View is also not as good that's why there are not many people there. From the setup I think the price will be slightly expensive.

I seriously recommend everyone to go this place. From view, weather and food, they are all fantastic.

Standard Chartered Bank Has No Standard (Part 2)

Today between 11am to 1130am, I got a very interesting call from Standard Chartered Bank. Few months back I had applied a KLIBOR mortgage product from Standard Chartered Bank and very dissatisfied with their service and product. Thus I wrote an article about my dissatisfaction. Today their manager (I can't remember from what department) called me and below are partial of our conservation which I find it very unpleasent:-

In order to protect the name of the manager, I used Ms T as the manager's name.

Ms T: You are not satisfied with our rate, service or time taken to process your application?
Me: I’m not satisfied with everything that you have mentioned.

My thoughts:-
If she really keen and sincere to solve this problem, she won’t ask this question at the first place. The issue that I dissatisfied is stated clearly in my previous post. This shows that she has no courtesy to understand my problem before calling me. Perhaps she might call me with anger and frustration.

Me: I think your bank takes too long to process my application. I can’t remember correct its either 3 months or 1 month to process it, whatever is that it is still very long to process….. (Without waiting for me to finish my sentence)
Ms T: Please be careful with what you write (or say), your application only took 1 month to process. Not 3 months.

My thoughts:-
Her intonation is like trying to threaten me. Stressing that the application “only” took 1 month doesn’t highlight the service efficiency.

Ms T: Didn’t the agent tell you that the mortgage rate (for the KLIBOR product) might not be KLIBOR + 1% ?
Me: Nope, the agent agree in principle that the rate will be KLIBOR + 1%
Ms T: ~!#$%^&*()_+ our bank structure is bla bla bla…. this agent is not our bank staff, they have given you wrong information.

My thoughts:-
How can a bank authorize agents to sell for them and trying to position that they are not responsible for the misleading information given?

Ms T: Can you remove the article from your website?
Me: No, but I might update what happened today (I’m referring to this conversation)
Ms T: Then please update in your website (that we called)

My thoughts:-
She did apologise a bit here and these however the whole conversation is basically with the motive to convince me that they are not all wrong and only want me to remove the article. Also indirectly pressure me to write something good about them

If she calls again, I will forward my complain to other departments in SCB that she’s trying to harass me.