Saturday, July 14, 2012

INVESTMENT IN TURBULENT TIMES
(SJ Securities and European Credit Investment Bank Limited)
Bilik Kinabalu - Menara Hap Seng, Jalan P. Ramlee, Kuala Lumpur

- Quickie from Nik Zafri. Please sign up/'like' the 'Knowledge Management (FB) for more information.





Mr. Darren Tan, International Consultant on Precious Metal, Founder iBiz, 2010 recipient of Successful Entrepreneur (Platinum Catgory) & 2011 SME1 Asia Award (Emerging Award) representing European Credit Investment Bank Ltd.

Topic : Investing in Gold and Silver - also touching on investing opportunities - FOREX, Derivatives, Bonds, Futures etc. besides than latest outlook on Sub Prime Mortgage Crisis and Eurozone Crisis

This workshop is part of the Security Commission program to educate the public especially investors




Mr. Peter Lim, Dep. MD of SJ Securities - a very experienced and qualified investment guru
Topic : Investment in the Stock Market also touching on opportunities, capital and economics





My questions to the speakers are :

a) If the influx of foreign currency is too much to any country, is it good to consider pegging - as the pegged regime did provide a strong foundation for accumulating and improving the level of international reserve and balance of trade.

Mr. Peter Lim commented that it is possible to have some form of capital control measures if there is proof of too much influx.




My next question :

b) Why do world stock markets react and behave eratically towards Federal Reserve news, policy even rumours to hike interest rates?

Mr. Peter Lim (assisted by Darren Tan later) said that stock prices and even equity prices respond as they do to monetary policy or interest rates hike are really intriguing. Sometimes monetary policy affects stock values through its effects on real interest rates, expected future dividends, or expected future stock returns. It has something to do with relatively transitory movements in real interest rates induced by surprise policy actions. Mr. Peter Lim also said the scenario is related to inverse 'effects' usually providing the opposite performance to their benchmark.

(But he also stressed that I shouldn't be listening rumours too much)

c) The rest are questions during 'breaks' briefly about FOREX and painting 'rosy pictures' in the company stocks including opportunities of emerging markets. I really like the way Mr. Darren Tan said about how we do not want to loose and only targetting profit. I later told one of the investors that there is no business or accounting without Profit & Loss. There is no such thing as we give assurance to people that we're going to make lots and lots of profit with a warranty of no loss. The same goes to property/REIT, Forex, Stock Market, Gold, Silver etc. It's the balance between up-to-date information (the right source), right timing and the right stocks.

The best part is the conclusion - both Mr. Peter Lim and Darren splendidly prove one important point - you can still make money during 'ups' and 'downs' if you know how to.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012



NEW PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD BANK

Dr. Jim Yong Kim is the 12th president of the World Bank Group. He is chairman of the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors and president of a group of five interrelated organizations:

* The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)

* International Development Association (IDA)

* International Finance Corporation (IFC)

* Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA)

* International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

(ICSID operates as a secretariat whose secretary-general is selected by its governing Administrative Council every six years. The World Bank Group president is chairman of the Administrative Council.)

The Executive Vice Presidents of IFC and MIGA report to the President of the World Bank Group.

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Jim Yong Kim, M.D., Ph.D., became the 12th President of the World Bank Group on July 1, 2012.

A physician and anthropologist, Dr. Kim has dedicated himself to international development for more than two decades, helping to improve the lives of under-served populations worldwide. Dr. Kim comes to the Bank after serving as President of Dartmouth College, a pre-eminent center of higher education that consistently ranks among the top academic institutions in the United States. Dr. Kim is a co-founder of Partners In Health (PIH) and a former director of the HIV/AIDS Department at the World Health Organization (WHO).

As President of Dartmouth – an institution that comprises a liberal arts college and professional schools of medicine, engineering and business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences, a staff and faculty of 3,300, and a budget of $700 million – Dr. Kim earned praise for reducing a financial deficit without cutting any academic programs. Dr. Kim also founded the Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science, a multidisciplinary institute dedicated to developing new models of health care delivery and achieving better health outcomes at lower costs.

Before assuming the Dartmouth presidency, Dr. Kim held professorships and chaired departments at Harvard Medical School, the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston. He also served as director of Harvard’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights.

In 1987, Dr. Kim co-founded Partners In Health, a Boston-based non-profit organization now working in poor communities on 4 continents. Challenging previous conventional wisdom that drug-resistant tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS could not be treated in developing countries, PIH successfully tackled these diseases by integrating large-scale treatment programs into community-based primary care.

As Director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS Department, Dr. Kim led the ‘3 by 5’ initiative, the first-ever global goal for AIDS treatment, which sought to treat 3 million new HIV/AIDS patients in developing countries with antiretroviral drugs by 2005. Launched in September 2003, the ambitious program ultimately reached its goal by 2007.

Dr. Kim’s work has earned him wide recognition. He was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship (2003), was named one of America’s “25 Best Leaders” by U.S. News & World Report (2005), and was selected as one of TIME magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” (2006).

Born in 1959 in Seoul, South Korea, Dr. Kim moved with his family to the United States at the age of five and grew up in Muscatine, Iowa. Dr. Kim graduated with an A.B. magna cum laude from Brown University in 1982. He earned an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1991 and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard University in 1993.

He is married to Dr. Younsook Lim, a pediatrician. The couple has two young sons.

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New World Bank president pledges support for poor

Associated Press, Washington | World | Tue, July 03 2012, 7:57 AM

Korean-American Jim Yong Kim has begun his new job as president of the World Bank, promising to immediately focus on helping poor countries navigate a fragile global economy.

Kim tells reporters the 187-nation development agency is in a strong financial position to help poor countries respond to slowing growth and uncertainty from the debt crisis in Europe.

Kim was a surprise nominee of President Barack Obama. He succeeds Robert Zoellick.

Barack Obama (R) makes a point about Dartmouth College president Jim Yong Kim (L) as he introduces him as his nominee to be the next president of the World Bank, during an announcement in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, March 23, 2012. (Pic : Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)

Developing nations waged an unsuccessful challenge to Kim, a physician and pioneer in treating HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in the developing world. They think the U.S. should not automatically get to decide who leads the organization.

Kim says he will discuss with the board issues raised by developing countries about the institution's structure.

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"We recognize that for the first time in the history of the World Bank there was an open process for the selection of the President that involved a debate on the priorities and the future of the institution.Future selection processes must build on this process, but must be transparent and truly merit-based." (G24 Group/Communique)