The mooncake economy

Mooncake (月饼) is a very special product. This round shape Chinese pastry only appears during the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节), which falls on the 15th day of the 8th month of every lunar year. It will appear in the market about 2 months before the Mid-Autumn Festival, and will disappear after that.

When the time arrives, you will see its advertisement and promotion all over the media, be it radio, television, newspaper, magazine, flyers, ... Special booths will be setup in shopping complex to sell this product. The market is dominated by restaurants and baker houses, with involvement of some other smaller players. Brand names such as Oversea Restaurant (海外天), Kam Lun Tai Restaurant (锦伦泰 ), Jade Pot Tea House (玉壶轩), Tong Kee Brothers Confectionery (棠记兄弟), The Baker’s Cottage (麦可思 ), Hei Yue Tong (喜月堂), Lavender (紫馨), Foh San Restaurant (富山), Six Happiness Restaurant (六福), Tai Thong Restaurant (大同)... are easily tied up with mooncake. Nowadays even Purple Cane (紫藤), Lo Hong Ka (老行家), Baskin Robbins, Haagen Dazs also joint in the mooncake market warfare, and yet to mention those high-class restaurant in hotels such as Shangri-La, Equatorial, Ritz-Calton, Concorde, Hilton, Dynasty, Park Royal, Renaissance, etc.

Mooncake has a very short shelf life and need to be consumed within 1-2 weeks. Frankly speaking, it is not a healthy food as well, as it comes with high sugar, high cholesterol and high calorie. You might wonder why there are so many players so keen in this festive product? It is simply because the profit margin is very high. They can easily make at least 400% profit by selling mooncake within that 1 month period, which the net profit figure is probably equivalent to their one year normal restaurant business.

Mooncake is expensive. The normal one can easily cost above RM10 per cake. Its price is determined by factors such as taste, ingredient, packaging, and brand name. Normally the Chinese people buy mooncake as gift to friends, co-workers, relatives, neighbours, business partners during this Mid-Autumn Festival, more than buying for own consumption. The product has been so closely related to the season until nowadays Mid-Autumn Festival is also known as Mooncake Festival too.

The mooncake economy is an interesting business model which shows high risk (short period, short shelf life), high return (more than 400% profit). Perhaps for the businessmen, this product is even better than the Chinese mandarin sold during Chinese New Year.

About car engine oil

Whenever we bring our car to workshop for periodic maintenance service, the engine oil will be changed. Here are some of the essential knowledge about car engine oil that is practical to be known by every car owner.

The main function of the engine oil is to lubricate the piston movement, reduce direct contact between moving parts in the engine, and hence decrease the friction, wear & tear and heat produced. Some of its other functions are to clean up the engine, prevent oxidation and corrosion, etc.

There are 3 types of car engine oil available in the market:

• Mineral oil: is the natural oil refined from petroleum. It needs to be changed every 5,000km.
  
• Full-synthetic oil: is artificially synthesized (man-made) and consist of chemical compounds which were not originally present in natural petroleum. It has higher viscosity index than mineral oil, more expensive to produce and hence has a higher price tag too. It provides good protection to engine, able to enhances engine performance and power, and can help in fuel economy savings. It needs to be changed every 10,000km.
  
• Semi-synthetic oil (synthetic formulation / synthetic blends): blends of mineral oil with no more than 30% of synthetic oil, to get some of the benefit from synthetic oil with a lower price tag. It provides better engine protection than mineral oil and performs better in reducing wear and tear. It needs to be changed every 7,500km.

The kinematic viscosity of car engine oil is graded with the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) gradings. The kinematic viscosity is measured at a reference temperature of 100°C. The higher the viscosity, the higher the SAE grade number is.

Nowadays a multi-grade SAE designation is normally used, which carries 2 numbers separated by a "W" in between. For example, here are the SAE gradings of engine oil used by the Toyota service centres in Malaysia:

• Full-synthetic: 5W-40
• Synthetic formulation: 10W-40
• Premium mineral: 15W-50

The letter "W" denotes "Winter". The number before "W" indicates its cold crank performance. Lower number indicates the oil can be pumped by your engine even at a lower temperature. A 0W oil is well tested at -35°C, a 5W at -30°C, a 10W is tested at -25°C and a 15W is tested at -15°C. The number after "W" is the kinematic viscosity of the oil at high temperature. Oil with lower viscosity number is thiner.

It is advisable that you use the engine oil with the SAE rating as recommended by the car manufacturer. You can find this information in the car manual.

Bear in mind that the SAE grading does not state the quality of the oil. The quality of oil is determined by its API (American Petroleum Institute) rating.

For petrol engine using spark-plug ignition, the API listings start with letter "S" (meaning Service category), and for diesel engine using compression ignition, the API listings start with letter "C" (meaning Commercial category). Higher alphabet position of the 2nd letter denotes a better quality. For example, the SM rating has a better quality than SL. CJ-4 is better than CI-4.

Currently Toyota service centres in Malaysia use SM grade full synthetic oil, and SL grade for both synthetic formulation and premium mineral oil. Their diesel engine oil is CF grade.

Bursa Malaysia to introduce new trading system soon

You might be awared from your remisier or securities firm about the news that Bursa Malaysia is going to deploy a new trading system called Bursa Trade Securities (BTS) soon, which is being developed with US-based Atos Euronext Market Solutions Ltd. This move is said to enhance the current equities and derivatives system to become a modern trading infrastructure.

The new system features a real-time matching compared to the current 10 second matching. It will has transparent pre-opening price, the best price limits info will be extended from the current 3 prices to 5. The closing price will also change from the current "last done price" to a "natural closing price".

This trading system upgrade will also initiate an upgrade to most of the online trading facilities provided by the securities firms, which require an upgrade to newer version of Java Runtime Environment (JRE).

You can click here to learn more about the new BTS system.