Applying for ETA online to travel to Australia

I am going to travel to Australia, and I need a visa to enter into the continent. The fastest and easiest way is to apply for an Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) online.

The ETA provides authorization for visitors holding a valid passport from Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Brunei, Japan, Korea, USA or Canada to travel to and enter Australia.

The ETA is valid for 1 year from the date of application, or until the expiry date of your passport, whichever earlier. With an ETA, you will be able to have multiple entries to Australia until its expiry date. for each entry, you can stay in Australia for a period of up to 3 months.

The service charge to apply for an Australia ETA is AUD$20 payable online with credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Diners Club, or JCB) when making the application. If your ETA is rejected for any reason, this service charge is non-refundable.

You need to be located outside Australia when making an ETA application. You need to provide your personal detail, contact detail and an email address to receive the letter of confirmation. If you are travelling with your family members staying in the same house, you might find it a bit cumbersome as you need to apply ETA for each of them, and need to repeatedly enter the same contact information (address, phone numbers, etc.)  during each of the ETA applications.

I received the email confirmation almost instantly after making the online credit card payment.

For each of the ETA applications, you will be given a reference number, enabling you to check for the ETA status and expiry date in the same website.

Click here to go to the Australia ETA application and checking website.

Conditions apply to the Australia ETA:

• Working is not allowed.
• Taking short term study course is allowed, but you must not study for more than 3 months.
• You must be free from tuberculosis.
• You must not have any criminal convictions.

Ten questions you should ask during a job interview

The following is an inspiring list of 10 questions that job interviewee should ask during the interview session.

1. How will this position change after I’ve been here a while?
2. If this is not a new position where has the prior person gone? Did they get promoted or leave? How stable is the group that I am being hired for?
3. How will you use my skills if the activity I am being hired for is stalled or something unexpected arises?
4. What is the career path for this position? — to jobs with more responsibility? Management posts? Positions that require specific technical expertise?
5. What is the project/product road-map for the next one to three years?
6. What kind of training and support for ongoing education does the organization offer?
7. Is there an open door policy to communicate with upper management levels within he organization?
8. How will my role contribute to the overall mission of the company?
9. What outcomes will you use to measure those contributions? What metrics will be in place to measure personal and team performance?
10. Will I have opportunities to work directly with the line organization outside of my group?

Source: the blog of Janco Associates.

Index call warrants and put warrants listed in Bursa Malaysia

The stock market has gone volatile recently. During a volatile market, sometimes it could be a better option to trade on index warrant, which is a structured warrant that is issued by warrant issuer (such as CIMB, Maybank, RHB, Ambank, Kenanga, Macquarie, etc.) over an underlying stock market index, such as the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBMKLCI, 富时大马指数), Hong Kong Hang Seng Index (HSI, 恒生指数), etc.

There are 2 kinds of index warrants listed in Bursa Malaysia. If you feel bullish on the market, you can look into the call warrants, and if you feel bearish on the market, you can
 on the other hand look into the put warrants.

Each of the index warrants has the following information:

• Expiry date: You can buy and sell the warrant in the market until its expiry date. Upon expiry, the warrant issuer will pay you money if your cash settlement amount is positive. Else, you will get nothing and your money invested in the warrant will be burnt.
• Exercise level (a.k.a. strike level): the index points to exercise the warrant. For call warrant, the lower the better. For put warrant, the higher the better.
• Exercise ratio: this is the leverage element of the warrant. It is the amount of warrants required to exercise one underlying index.
• Settlement level: the index points on the settlement day.

The cash settlement amount (CSA) is calculated based on the formula below:

where FX Rate is the forex exchange rate to convert overseas index warrant settlement value to RM.

The current index warrants listed in Bursa Malaysia is as below:

It seems like FBMKLCI-HB deserves some attention. You will break even if bought it at RM0.145 and KLCI drops to 1753.50.

Disclaimer: This article is intended for sharing of point of view only. It is not an advice or recommendation to buy or sell any of the mentioned stock counters. You should do your own homework before trading in Bursa Malaysia.