Auspicious dates for ground-breaking of new building construction in 2014

Here is the list of auspicious dates in year 2014 for ground-breaking ceremony (动土) of new building construction. It is produced based on the Chinese almanac Tong Shu. (Click the image to enlarge)

Bear in mind that although the Tong Shu is a compilation of Chinese astrology and calendaring studies gathering wisdom of thousands of years, we should use it wisely and rationally, but not be too superstitious on it.

You might probably be interested to also find out the auspicious dates in 2014 for:

• Wedding / Marriage
• Marriage proposal / engagement
• Renovation
• Moving to new house/office
• Housewarming / Open house / Party / Gathering
• Business opening
• Signing contract / register for marriage / receive baptism
• Start new job / assignment
• Baby first haircut (Mundan)
• Getting baby / conception planning / Caesarian delivery

You might probably be interested to also find out for:

• Inauspicious dates to avoid for wedding/marriage in 2014
• Auspicious dates for wedding/marriage in 2015
• Inauspicious dates to avoid for wedding/marriage in 2015

The historical relationship between FIFA World Cup and stock market performance

The 2014 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament will take place in Brazil from 12 June until 13 July 2014. Have you wonder what will be its immediate impact to the stock market before, during, and after the tournament?

Based on historical charts of Dow Jones and KLCI from 1990 until today, I have summarized the stock market performance in US and Malaysia during the years with FIFA World Cup, for the short period of early May to end July. The FIFA World Cup normally held in summer of northern hemisphere (around June) and last for about a month.

Here is the summarized chart (click to enlarge):

Based on historical stock market performance, in the US market, there is equal chance to be sideline (yellow box), trending up (green box), or trending down (red box) before and during the FIFA World Cup tournament. After the tournament, it is very likely to go down. Historically from 1990-2010, only 2006 US market goes up after the tournament.

For the Malaysian stock market, it has high chance of going down before the tournament, sideline during the tournament, and going up after the tournament.

These are the considerations during the FIFA time which might affect the stock market performance:

• Retail participants in stock market might allocate their time and money to football gambling, therefore temporary gone out of the stock market.
• In Malaysia, as FIFA held in western host country happens at mid-night, the market participants who watch the matches during mid-night might be sleeping during market opening time, or not having enough concentration to the market.
• The FIFA news will overwhelm other news, including industry and business news.

So, what will happen to the stock market this year around FIFA time? Let's wait and see.

Pro features in Timely Alarm Clock App for Android set free by Google after they acquired Bitspin

It is officially announced that Google has recently acquired Bitspin, the small Switzerland company founded by some ETH Zurich's computer science graduates.

Source: http://www.bitspin.ch/google

Bitspin produces the famous beautiful Android app called Timely Alarm Clock, which has accumulated more than 1 million downloads within a year.

Timely is available for free in Google Play store, and now its in-app purchase features are also made free. Good news to all that haven't purchased the in-app features, and bad news for those who already spent some money on the app.