Sharing my Income and Expenditure 2012 Spreadsheet

Since some people have been asking for it, and I have time now to do it, I've uploaded the spreadsheet I use to keep track of my expenses.

Cleaned it up a bit and took out all of my own data.

Download it here: https://rapidshare.com/files/3464923592/Income_and_Expenditures_2012__Shared_Copy_.xlsx

Now my aunt has no excuse to not know how much she spends on Haagen Daaz each month.

The categories under the expenses reflects the categories used for the Malaysian Household Income and Expenditure Survey. I wanted to compare myself to what Malaysians in general spend on. You can check out the report at your local libraries. If I have the time, I'll scan the relevant pages.

Oh, if there's any improvement I can make, feel free to suggest.

A Merry Bumi Christmas

Spent Christmas with a uni buddy of mine, his Swedish wife and a few others making a gingerbread house. The gingerbread house is from Ikea, naturally.


And since Malaysian politics were the topic of the evening, we decided to make the gingerbread house a little more Malaysian.


There was one part where the wife hurt her finger on the melted sugar, so the joke went "the non-bumis suffered to build this house, now the bumis will feast!"

Tripping Down the Lane

I don't know why I've been missing someone rather badly recently. Can't think straight anymore. Bleh. Not as if she's still thinking of me, anyway.


Well, if you're reading this: I miss you, doll.

A Bersih Saturday walk-about: Part 2 of 4

Took a while for me to update.

A Bersih Saturday walk-about: Part 2 of 4

Continued from Part 1

“Dan sebab Maybank pun warna kuning, HIDUP MAYBANK!”

“HIDUP MAYBANK!”

“lol”

Along our walk to Pasar Seni, we chatted. I found that my UK friend - let’s call him Nazri - whom I first met while we were with a student society there is now a lawyer.

“Lawyers from the Bar Council are out in force today,” he said. They’re easily identified by their white shirts and black coats. Nazri wore a gray T-shirt. “Too stifling,” he said, making reference to the afternoon heat and possibly to the reserve he would’ve been expected to conduct himself with.

The Bar Council had always had a strong presence in the Malaysian civil society and that day was no different. 150 of its members had pledged themselves to bail out whoever got arrested. Members of SUHAKAM were also present donning bright yellow vests and keeping an eye out for human rights abuses.

Very few vehicles were on the road and most of the shops were shuttered. The sun, however, was shining brilliantly.

Our conversation turned to old friends.

“Marcus would’ve loved this,” I said, making reference to a late mutual friend.

Marcus Ng was my senior at Essex University. He was one of those Malaysians who had real passion for Malaysia and the Malaysian civil society. While I take a more cynical view of politics and especially of politicians, Marcus truly embraced the spirit of political change. Everyone knew Marcus.

A soft-spoken revolutionaire, he passed on far too young at 25. Many people turned up at his funeral. Among his friends at Essex, the impact was deeply felt.

“Yes. Yes, he would’ve,” Nazri replied solemnly.

Nazri and I didn’t need to walk very far. We saw a large group moving from Puduraya, past Nando’s and into Chinatown. The frontline marched at a quick pace in locked arms, ten men abreast, chanting “Bersih, bersih!”. Thousands trailed behind them.

“Jom, come along!” said Nazri as we stepped into the mass.

Before going any future, we need to talk about colours.

It wasn’t a totally gormless decision for me to wear red that day; since Bersih was supposed to be peaceful by nature and the Patriots were less likely to experience issues with the police due to their alignment with the government-of-the-day, wearing red was a safe choice. Besides, I like red.

Very few individuals were actually wearing the yellow Bersih shirts - the ones who brought them held them aloft. The crowd was good-natured, but quite boisterous.

The chants were quite political, despite the non-political nature of the rally demands themselves. Quite understandable, given the participation of many pro-Opposition and Pakatan Rakyat supporters. Nazri shouted along with the non-political chants, but kept still on the anti-Government ones. I felt that he was not very pleased with the misappropriation of the event. I marched along silently.

We marched along the street up into Chinatown. The crowd stopped as we were turning into the road leading up to Stadium Merdeka. A news helicopter circled overhead and a rather brave photographer climbed a shop roof and stood over the ledge for what I would believe to be a very good picture of the crowd.

The road was blocked, there wasn't a way through. The afternoon sun was beginning to heat up but cooler heads held sway despite the minor stand-off. After a few minutes of mulling about, the crowd turned back and marched back to the Maybank building, where people were beginning to gather.

I couldn't make out who was speaking on the steps, but the fellow was announcing that some of the Opposition leaders has been detained. He spoke further on political issues but I lost interest in what was said; I was more interested in the crowd around me.

In front of me was a rather plump Chinese lady taking pictures, with a yellow headband around her forehead. To my right was an Indian fellow chatting with and asking a middle-aged Malay man where can he buy a yellow Bersih shirt. The crowd would part to allow cars to pass, and cheered as the cars honked in support. I would like to think that free from politics, Malaysians have no problems with each other. Certainly, it was a rose-tinted view that overlooks the fundamental differences and grassroot frictions that kept the race-based political parties in business, but the thought was heartwarming.

There was a tiny commotion as another crowd approached the assemble. Some whispered that it was PERKASA, the right-wing pro-Malay NGO. The tension dispersed once it was clear that it was the DAP, the left-wing Opposition party. PAS with their women garbed in headscarves joined them a little later.

I looked around and saw that Nazri was nowhere in sight. Since there was nothing for it, I headed up the hill to the side of the Maybank building to get a better view of the crowd. People, tired from the walk, were sitting on the steps and at the top of the hill around 20 men were holding their Zohor prayers.

There was a commotion on the streets below me. I turned around.

The crowd in front of Maybank retreated to the left of my vision, leaving a wide gap between itself and what I assumed to be the police to the right beyond what I could see. The crowd then slowed. Some of the men rallied and turned back towards the right; the rest followed, kicking up a racket.

They were charging the police line.

Above the tumultuous roar, I heard faint pops from the right. The crowd stopped a second time, and was routed. They scrambled up the stairs, clambering hands over feet. A thick column of smoke rolled in. My throat itched. My eyes watered.

The police had shot us with tear gas.

Harimau Malaya!

Come on, Malaysia!

A Day in the Life of a Finance Salaryman

A Day in the Life of a Finance Salaryman

On some days, I really wish I was in some other industry.

6.30 am - Wake up in a litany of mumbles and groans. After dressing up, take a cab to the train station and then an LRT ride.

8.00 am - Grab breakfast at the café. If workmates are at a table, stop by.

8.30 am - Work starts. Schedule meetings, international benchmarking, call people, do graphs for PowerPoint slides, presentations, analysis etc.

10.20 am - Receive e-mail requiring urgent response. Drop everything else to rush this.

11.00 am - Take a minute to check on prices of stocks in personal portfolio. Get a minor boost to work performance when stocks go up.

1.00 pm - Lunchtime. Usually it’s a take-away sandwich if busy, the equivalent of chap fan if not. If truly stressed, head out for a burger and ice cream.

1.30 pm - Back at desk. Check out Malaysian Insider or stock prices again. Tidy up table.

2.00 pm - Lunchtime over. Find out that previous scheduled meetings were superseded by another more important meeting. Have to send out more e-mails and reschedule everyone’s times.

2.55 pm - Supervisor asks for obscure documents from a long-forgotten project.

3.00 pm - Meet outside party. If it’s a high-level meeting and I’m the lowest-ranking fellow there, have to listen intently jotting down the minutes. Detailed minutes will take half a day to finish.

5.30 pm - Contractual clock-out time, but no one goes back at this time. Working spirit usually evaporates at this point. Restart work on whatever it was I was doing this morning before all these ad-hocs came in.

7.00 pm - Consider going back. Pack up, grab something to eat and head on home.

8.40 pm - Reach home. Turn on Lowyat.net and put in stock instructions for tomorrow (I don’t trade during working hours – work ethic etc.)

11.00 pm - Work until sleepy. Cry self to sleep over having a foreveralone life

Article: Wall Street, companies brace for the worst: a US default

In a weeks' time, the world is going to find out whether the US is going to default on its debts - possibly resulting in one of the most seismic shifts in the financial future of the world.

While sovereign default are not uncommon - Russia had defaulted last decade, causing an economic depression then - the US is a whole different kettle of fish. Few companies hold Russian bonds and roubles; a majority of companies as well as states hold USD and US treasury papers. What was previously seen as a stable bedrock of the financial world is now fast becoming a quicksand.

And as the article mentions, even if the US Gov decides to raise the ceiling, they still face the possibility of a downgrade.

May we live in less interesting times.



Wall Street, companies brace for the worst: a US default

NEW YORK, July 23 — American businesses, from Wall Street banks to major industrial corporations, are preparing contingency plans for a pair of once-unthinkable events: the United States defaulting on its debt and the loss of the nation’s top AAA credit rating.

While most bankers, investors and executives still cannot imagine that politicians in Washington could be reckless enough to let the government run out of money to pay its bills on August 2, they can’t guarantee that the game of chicken that has been played in recent weeks won’t go awfully wrong.

Lawmakers and President Barack Obama need to agree to raise the current US$14.3 trillion (RM42.5 trillion) legal borrowing limit by that date to avert a default but the decision is being held hostage to arguments between Republicans and Democrats about how to cut the US budget deficit.

And yesterday evening, the prospects of an agreement suddenly dimmed when top US Republican, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, broke off talks with Obama, saying they had become futile because the US President was demanding an increase in taxes.

It all means that just as companies once formulated expensive backup Y2K plans just in case computer systems couldn’t recognise the date January 1, 2000, investors are devising ways to cope with financial markets pandemonium if the worst happens and the government of the world’s biggest economy runs out of cash.

Ringing in their ears are dire warnings from the guardians of the nation’s financial well-being — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said only last week that a default would be “calamitous.”

In some cases, bankers are delaying their summer holidays, while companies are making sure they have plenty of access to cash, and investors are being told to hedge their portfolios, with gold one favoured asset for that.

“We’ve to some degree taken on a defensive posture. We are now at 10 per cent cash with so much uncertainty. In April, we were at two per cent,” said Keith Wirtz, chief investment officer at Fifth Third Asset Management, with US$18 billion in assets.

At Morgan Stanley in New York it is all hands on deck at a time when many traders might otherwise be expected to be off to the beaches and the lavish mansions of The Hamptons, a very short helicopter ride from the city.

“I can tell you that we don’t have any empty seats on the floor,” said Jim Caron, global head of interest rate strategy at Morgan Stanley in New York.

“That will absolutely be the case the week of August 2nd,” he added. “Even with summer, no one is out of here at 4:30.”

Many are dogged by flashbacks to the financial chaos in September 2008 after the Lehman Brothers collapse, and the failure of lawmakers to pass legislation to authorise a US$700 billion government bailout of the banks, which sent markets into a tailspin.

General Electric, which was hit badly by those events, has boosted its cash holdings and cut its long-term debt in the past three years to put it in a better position to withstand such events.

The largest US conglomerate now holds US$91 billion in cash on its books and has US$40 billion in short-term debt, compared with the US$16 billion in cash and US$90 billion in short-term debt it had three years ago.

“The main thing that we’ve done and it’s not specifically for the discussion going on in the US about raising the debt ceiling or the European issue, is we just have dramatically increased our liquidity,” said Chief Financial Officer Keith Sherin, in an interview.

“It’s part of our stress test that we do with our team and our regulatory and board members to be able to operate the company in the event of a significant external disruption.”

Industrial equipment giant Caterpillar Inc is more worried about the impact on the confidence of its customers of Washington’s debt and deficit arguments as it is about its own resilience, according to its Chief Financial Officer Ed Rapp.

He said the company has very diversified funding sources and strong cash flow. “I think we’re in a good position in the event you get some disruption for a period of time.”

For investors it is all about hedging risk to a greater extent than normal, which means assets that will retain their value if the dollar, US stocks and US government bonds head south.

John Taylor, chief executive officer of the US$8-billion currency hedge fund FX Concepts, said he believes gold, which is close to a record having surged over US$1,600 an ounce yesterday, will trade higher for another two to three months.

DOWNGRADE

The second previously implausible event — a one-notch downgrade in the US government’s credit rating — is quite possible even if the ceiling is raised in the next 11 days.

At least some of the biggest fund managers can’t say they weren’t warned.

This week, the head of Standard & Poor’s sovereign ratings group, John Chambers, has gone on a so-called roadshow, meeting with major money managers and pension funds including California State Teachers’ Retirement System in California, to discuss the agency’s ratings outlook on the United States. CalSTRS holds US$7.87 billion in US Treasuries as of June 20.

“I left the meeting thinking, ‘Yes, we will be downgraded,’” a fixed-income portfolio manager at a major investment firm in one of the meetings told Reuters on Thursday. “I think S&P is just trying to front-run and get us prepared.”

The Obama administration has grown increasingly frustrated with S&P, accusing it of changing the goalposts in its downgrade warnings. In telephone calls to top S&P officials, the Obama administration has asked why the ratings agency keeps shortening its timeframe for long-term deficit reduction, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

S&P says the criticism is “erroneous."

INSURANCE

Treasury traders are trying to set themselves up to guard against heavy losses in the event of a spike in yields that could — in some views — follow a US downgrade. They’re also positioning themselves to make a little money if the US does default and other investors call in insurance protection against their US bonds.

In the repo market, a place where investment banks and companies can get overnight cash loans in exchange for Treasury bills used as collateral, traders were awaiting word from securities exchanges, including CME Group, the largest US futures exchange operator, and ICE US Trust, on possible cuts to the value of Treasury securities used as repo collateral.

None of the exchanges that handle repo trades have detailed their plans yet, but Jim Binder, a spokesman for OCC, the sole clearinghouse for US stock options said his organisation was waiting to see how the market reacted to a downgrade.

“Until we start to see that actual volatility, it’s still an academic exercise, not a jump into action,” he said.

Bernanke and New York Fed President William Dudley met yesterday with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to discuss the implications if the debt ceiling is not raised.

On Wednesday, top Fed policymaker Charles Plosser said that the central bank is actively preparing for the possibility of a default.

The president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank said the US central bank has for the past few months been working closely with Treasury, ironing out what to do if the world’s biggest economy runs out of cash.

“We are in contingency planning mode,” Plosser told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. “We are all engaged. ... It’s a very active process,” he said in the most extensive comments yet on preparations for a default from a US official.

Plosser said there were very difficult questions to grapple with. For example, the Fed lends to banks at the discount window against good collateral. But what happens if US Treasuries no longer fit that bill?

“Do we treat them as if they didn’t default, in which case we would be saying we are pretending it never happened? Or do we treat them as if they defaulted and don’t lend against them?” Plosser said. “Those are more policy questions.”

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the Treasury market’s main trade group, is helping securities’ firms’ back offices tweak their systems to prepare for possible missed interest payments on Treasuries or a debt downgrade.

“We are working with our members, particularly on the operations side but in other areas as well, to identify any areas that may benefit from revised conventions/practice recommendations under various scenarios, but, there has been no great plan in place as this was never envisioned,” said Rob Toomey, a managing director at SIFMA and the organization’s associate general counsel.

Some market participants can hardly contemplate what a default would be like. One trader at a primary dealer said: “outright default would be Armageddon. It would fundamentally alter the landscape globally.”

He said the New York Fed had not reached out to his firm to make contingency plans.

“I think that is a very difficult conversation to have and you’re probably not going to get a wide range of opinion on that,” he said.

The market’s favored index of fear, the CBOE Volatility Index .VIX, has been at a subdued level, though after Friday’s breakdown that might not continue.

It’s just above 17, which is in line with its recent range. If it rises above 20 and approaches 30, it would suggest investors were getting sufficiently nervous about market gyrations to take out more protection against losses.

“Right now there’s just a minimal chance of there being no deal, but never say never,” said Dan McMahon, director of equity trading at Raymond James in New York, who was speaking before the Boehner announcement.

“If there was a default, good lord, we’d fall 5 to 10 per cent right off the bat,” he said of major stock indices. “It would be like October 1987, but it really doesn’t even warrant talking about right now.” — Reuters

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/wall-street-companies-brace-for-the-worst-a-us-default/