DianaTan.net

During Chinese New Year, the Chinese will bring out their gold jewellery from the bank to wear them on this festive occasion. They will be busy visiting friends and families and give out red packets of money or ‘ang pows’ to children or unmarried youths. If you have the spare cash to invest, it is a good idea to buy gold bullion to hedge against inflation. And recently, it was in the news that both China and India invested billions in tons of Gold instead of the USA greenback which keeps falling since some time ago. You will never go wrong when you invest in gold and my local Public bank account allows clients to open a GSA or Gold Savings Account to trade in gold bars by the weight.

Public-listed companies will be required to provide an e-dividend payment system to shareholders by the third quarter of next year. Investors will be given a one-year grace period to provide their bank account number to Bursa Malaysia Depository to enable the dividend payments to be credited directly into their bank accounts. It plans to undertake a series of investors’ awareness programmes to familiarise investors with the benefits of e-dividends.

Stockbroking companies, meanwhile, will by mid-2010 be required to provide e-share payment options for clients to receive and make payments on their share transactions. This way, payments will be credited into bank accounts more quickly and efficiently compared with cheques.

The e-dividends and e-share payment are an intergral part of the initiative to move towards a paperless environment and promote usage of electronic payments in the capital market. These new measures were recently announced by our Prime Minister in the 2010 Budget.

With the paperless share transaction to be put in place next year, I guess those who are IT savvy may start to invest in the stock market and I hope there will be a convenient way to check the share movement online real time. You can also invest online through Public Bank and Maybank internet banking of the banks’ shares from their individual web sites. I have yet to try out this method as I only go for safe money instruments like Fixed Deposits and Government Bonds. But if you have excess money to invest and put away for a few years, then you might consider the above methods to invest online. What do you think?

In the last 10 years, gold has been increasing in price steadily and will continue to increase. Therefore if you have extra cash to invest, it is good to buy gold and keep it. In the 1970s, a gram of gold only cost $20; while the current price has gone up to $127 per gram! During very long period of mankind’s history gold was, actually, “money” – a measure of value for other goods. Now when somebody talks about reasons for buying gold, he or she usually means gold’s unique ability to save money, and as a rule such words as ‘inflation’ and ‘portofolio diversification’ are pronounced. When we speak ‘investment’ we mean something that can bring us profit. It’s really tricky question whether is possible to make a fortune on gold. The gold price is typically not very volatile, that makes it difficult to earn money on price fluctuation. It’s a very trait that makes gold convenient for saving money but not convenient for making profit. The average investor traditionally uses gold just as a ‘safe haven’.

Some authors argue about influence of inflation on the gold prices: “The main attraction for investors is that gold is seen as the ultimate hedge against inflation. While the pound or dollar may lose their value, depending on the fortunes of the economy, gold historically goes up in value when inflation gathers pace. That is because everyone from market traders to high-powered investors would prefer to be paid in gold when cash starts to lose its worth.” Others just states some facts about the gold rush: “We have seen people in Europe buying gold in quantities that are more typical of the Middle East and Asia. There has been a tremendous amount of activity in countries such as Germany and Switzerland, with people buying coins and 1kg bars, very often just to take home and hide.”