Archive for November, 2009
Cash Is King
Cash is the King
by: Kendrick Chua, the Wealth Warrior
We all have heard this statement; more so when the market started going south last year. Investors were cashing in at any level desperately wanting to salvage whatever value there is. If that’s Lehman Brothers, forget about it! After all, cash itself proved more valuable than the shares of the stocks. (even the stock certificate may even be more valuable than the stock itself).
And so cash was hailed as the king…yet again. This investment achieved such status when all other asset classes failed.
How do we define cash? Cash includes all the coins and bills you have in possession including money you hid under the mattress when you feared the bank-runs last year. Cash also includes all money in your savings and checking account as well as placements in short term time deposits. In short, it is money that will not decline in value given a normal market condition (inflation risk excluded).
So what are the advantages of holding cash? Cash provides:
Tags: cash, investment strategy
Super Single Moms
Super Single Moms
by: Kendrick Chua, the Wealth Warrior
Single moms are definitely of different breed. The strength and resilience in being both a father and mother to their children is something that has continued to amaze others, myself included. Faced with motivations that are larger than their life, they find themselves digging to where others have never dug before.
Single moms provide more than just inspirational stories. As a matter of fact, they have the most well-thought and executed financial plan that I have ever witness prompting me to believe that all of us can learn more than just a thing or two from them.
Tags: Budgeting, financial planning, Insurance
Medical and Hospitalization Insurance
Medical and Hospitalization Insurance
I have been wanting to write about this topic since March of this year and harp about the importance of having a medical insurance in the form of Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). Back then, my dad suffered a mild stroke that had him confined to the hospital for a week-three nights in the ICU and the rest, in a private room.
He was on his sixth year with Caritas Manila and has accumulated his benefits over the years. The total hospital costs reached more than a hundred thousand and we paid only a fraction of that. The rest is courtesy of his HMO. Prior to that, he was also able to use it (unfortunately) because of kidney stones. Back then, we didn’t pay a single cent since the total bill fell within his hospitalization limit.
Eight months later, I found myself selecting the room I’ll be staying for the rest of MY confinement. I was afflicted with dengue and unfortunately for me, I just had to have myself admitted for monitoring of my platelets (blood tests were done every six hours).
Tags: HMO, medical insurance
Gold: the ultimate hedge?
Gold: the ultimate hedge?
As of this writing, the gold is trading at $1,058 dollars per ounce, not far from its historic highs of $1,064 dollars. Gold has had its share of the spot light when it breached the $ 1,000.00 level. Analysts are already split in whether it is the ceiling or the start of a new floor.
Although people are still very much speculative about gold as an investment, it won’t hurt to allocate a small portion of the portfolio into this precious metal. Hey, the world’s third largest economy, China doesn’t even have more than 5% of its reserve in gold! As I have read in my favorite investment newsletter, the Daily Wealth, “At $1,000 gold, to push China’s gold holdings to 5% of reserves would take $55.3 billion; to 10% would cost $144.4 billion; to be the world’s top gold dog would run $227.6 billion.”
China’s total reserve: $2.3 trillion dollars. Let me spell that just so we’re clear about it-T -R-I-L-L-I-O-N. Go figure!
Tags: commodities, gold
