Educational Blogs That Are Worth My (And Most Probably Your) Time

Image Credit: research.soe.purdue.edu

There are billions of blogs out there, and to differentiate from the crowd, we have to really provide good useful educational content that readers are seeking.

Yep, sometimes all readers want are just some plain good O fashioned blogs with no fluff solid content. I like to think I’m moving towards that direction. At least that is my aim, which is to offer some value back to the readers here who take the time to drop by (THANK YOU!).

I’ve looked around and found some blogs that are definitely worth taking a peek. As usual, since this site is mainly about Business, Finance and Internet Marketing, I shall keep my recommendations confined to within these few areas. They may not be the best known blogs out there for now but the quality that is present in all of them merits a mention.

Finance and Investment

• FortuneWatch

A nice place to read and learn about financial literacy, from debt management to investment. Very honest take on finance with a touch of humour. I like it. My kind of site.

If There Is One Thing You Should Do Today, It Is BACKUP!

Yes, you heard me right. This is a serious matter. If you have not back up your work or data for some time, or god forbid, not at all, please do it NOW!

I’m a firm believer in the importance of backing up. Why? Cos’ past experiences tell me so!

I actually have friends who tell me that they don’t bother backing up. Their rationale, or should I say, excuse, is that they won’t be so unlucky to meet with a database or computer failure. One even told me that he don’t believe in backing up! Yikes!

Let me tell you flat out, in all honesty, if you are one of those that have never ever back up your stuffs before, you are an ACCIDENT waiting to happen. When the fateful day comes, you will be crying, swearing and cursing that you are so unlucky. Sorry, but you cannot blame anyone but yourself. So don’t take any chances. Buy a portable hard disk to back up your work or stand the risk of losing everything!

Let me recount some of my experiences with you to highlight the importance of backing up.

Random Finance Tips #1

I’ve been wanting to have a section which will go something like ‘Finance Tip of the Day’ or ‘Finance Tip of the Week’, but as each title implies an action that will be carried out on an consistent basis (everyday or everyweek), which is one that I cannot guarantee, I decided a ‘Random Finance Tips’ would be suffice.

So welcome to the inaugural edition!

The first tip in this series is

“Don’t spend more than you can earn.“

Yes I can probably hear a few people going, “yeah but this is common sense!”

Precisely! It is common sense but yet many people continue to commit this same mistake.

In fact, if your spending is almost equivalent to your income, you are already standing dangerously at the edge. Needless to say, once your spending exceed what you earn, your financial picture is definitely not going to look pretty.

If you are one of those that spend much more than you earn, you probably need to take a look hard look at yourself and ask some questions:

1. Are these spendings just needs or wants?

2. Are they absolutely necessary?

Tips On How You Can Harness The Massive Power Of Social Media

As we step into the era of Web 2.0, we can observe the new social media phenomenon taking the Internet world by storm. There is an unprecedented amount of interaction between users and websites like never before. Social networking sites like MySpace and video sharing sites such as Youtube are already household names. One word – HOT!

So hot you can probably fry an egg with it!

Social Media is an incredibly powerful platform to drive traffic, engage in some serious marketing and create publicity. Speaking about creating publicity, some people gain unwanted notoriety by posting up some ‘naughty’ content to places like Youtube. But hey! Lets not go there. Anyway, if you are in a business, this is a platform you should definitely be looking to leverage on.

Why do I say so? Allow me to give you an example. A Malaysian singer, Karen Kong, set up a Friendster webpage to market her new song, Cinta Hello Kitty, and within a short period of time, got thousands of hits on her webpage, elevating her exposure to heights which I suspect she never imagined.

Some market rules to look out for

I wrote this in a forum about two years ago. While searching for inspiration on what to write today, I thought I will just reproduce the whole piece for your reading pleasure. Do note, I’m an advocate of marrying both fundamental and technical aspect of investing together, but what I’m going to highlight here are rules from a technical perspective. So here goes:

The market is quite an unforgiving yet fascinating and challenging place. It rewards handsomely when one is right, and dishes out stern punishments when one is careless and underestimates it. Quite like the principal in school ain’t it?

It can be indeed a humbling experience. Don’t despair if you make mistakes and make losses. No one can make money all the time. Not even Warren Buffett if that is a consolation.

Taking this into perspective, even institutional fund managers, floor traders and professionals make mistakes too. You are not alone in this challenge. Important thing is to not focus on how much you make, but rather on how much you don’t lose. Capital preservation should be your no. 1 priority. After all, you need to make 100% just to break even from a 50% loss.

Crazy day at the Market! You want some?

One of the most interesting and fascinating part of investment to me is standing at the sidelines to observe just how irrational investors and market as a whole can be.

Sometimes, at the lure of fast gains, they can get sucked into a trading frenzy, only to have the whole action dying down just as fast. I never fail to be amazed at such cases of mad crowd behavior.

One instance that reminds me of a crazy day in the market, will have to be the first day China Aviation Oil (CAO) re-opened for trading after a long suspension. For those unfamiliar with the Singapore market, CAO is a Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) listed company based in Beijing, that supplies jet fuel.

It got it’s ass busted for illegal insider trading and crimes linking to risky oil derivatives speculation which resulted in massive losses of US500 million! To cut the long story short, the director, once hailed as a high flyer in the industry, was sent packing to jail, while the company went through a long painful restructuring process, which also saw the two knights in shining armour, Temasek Holdings (the investment arm of the Singapore government) and British Petroleum (BP) coming to it’s rescue.