Impact of Malaysia GST to Investors

Malaysia is expected to implement Goods and Services Tax (GST) on 1 April 2015 at the initial rate of 6%. The cost of a lot of things will be affected, including investment vehicles and products.

I believe nowadays everybody deals with banks. How the GST will impact our deposit, interest, loan, credit card, bank charges, etc.? Refer to the table below.

The next of our concerns is our investment in the local stock market and unit trust funds. The brokerage and clearing fee will be affected, but not the stamp duty. The impact on unit trust funds is more severe, so your fund manager has to work much more harder to bring you a good profit after minus all the charges and fees and now the additional GST imposed.

How about insurance policies? Your premium paid to life and education policies will not be imposed with GST, but it seems that most if not all other insurance policies are affected. Note that general insurance products including car insurance, house/fire insurance, accident insurance, etc. will be affected too.

For those who invest in precious metals (gold, silver), jewellery, collectibles, etc., if you trade with the physical product, you are affected.

If you trade with a gold/silver investment account with a bank without touching on the physical product, you are probably not affected.

A 6% GST of PAMP Suisse 100g gold bar selling at RM14,000 will be RM840, quite a big sum.

Sending my kid to learn WeiQi (Go) at N-World Go Academy

WeiQi (a.k.a. Go, 围棋) is a kind of strategic chess game originated from ancient China.

I just found out that there is a WeiQi academy for kids called N-World, operated by a small team of young people. They have classroom in Setapak and Puchong.

They offered a trial class, and my son seems to like it. Therefore, we signed him up for the WeiQi lesson, which we believe will provide good training to his brain as well as personality.

If you are also interested in N-World Go Academy, here is their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/NworldGo.

The worst reason in the world to buy anything is just because someone else did

How many times you can find yourself buying something as a result of just following the crowd or because someone else did?

It could be a hand phone, a gadget, a book, a music album, a drink, a food, a car, a property, or even an investment instrument (stock counter, futures, forex, mutual fund, etc.).

Why is it being the worst reason in the world to just follow someone else to buy something? Well, the keyword in the sentence is "just".

It is really a bad idea to blindly follow other people, particularly in buying, without your own reason(s) to do so.

Always remember the saying: one man's food is someone else's poison.

So, do not simply buy a stock just because Warren Buffett bought it. You need to find several other reasons to convince yourself before making the order.

Do not simply buy a property just because people around you have bought theirs. You need to assess your own financial situation, your gut feeling about the property, your planning, your willingness to manage it, etc.

Do not simply buy certain brand of smartphone just because people around you are using that phone. Have you find out the pros and cons of the phone? Have you find out the features and map them to your own need? Have you compare it with some other alternatives?

A lot of time, if we chose that worst reason in the world to buy something, we might end up buying the wrong thing, or buying the unnecessary, or even buying a nightmare. This is particularly true in the investment world.