"Some Important Things To Note"Posted by Roger Keays, 14 January 2012, 12:20 PM From the UBank Term Deposit terms and conditions: There are some important things to note when you request a withdrawal or reduce your UBank Term Deposit account balance prior to maturity: Ha ha. As if a bank is ever going to let you off. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Investing In Index FundsPosted by Roger Keays, 21 November 2011, 10:03 AM After calculating my returns on ten years of investing in more or less whatever sounded good I realized that I really needed to learn something about investing. So I read and read and read everything I could find about investment (not really everything - there is a whole aisle dedicated to investment at the university library). The idea of Value Investing grabbed me most. It's the method made popular by the world's most famous investor, Warren Buffett. The idea is simple. Buy good companies at good prices. So first I went about finding good companies. To me these are those with
I spent months going through the market meticulously reading annual reports and calculating fair prices for the companies that met my criteria. Then I bought shares in those whose prices gave me the biggest margin of safety. Now, two years down the track I'm excited to bring you the results. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Term Deposit ScamPosted by Roger Keays, 27 September 2011, 1:42 PM I thought I was pretty cool when I set up my term deposit with a 6% interest rate. With such low risk 6% is not a bad figure for doing absolutely nothing. I figured I had the best bank in the world. Reliable, honest and with great products. Not like those big bullies with all their fine print, hidden fees and dodgy products. But now I want to move my money into more fertile pastures. My deposit has matured and is already half way through another 6 month term. So I contacted the bank to see how much interest I would get if I closed that term early. I rang them twice to confirm and the figure they gave me each time was actually just more than half the total interest at maturity. This seemed like a good deal, so I asked them to close the account. Oops. Epic fail. It seems even the bank staff where duped by their own wordiness. The figures they gave me still needed to be minced, diced and broiled to come up with the real total of ... practically zero. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Running To Stand StillPosted by Roger Keays, 19 September 2011, 5:06 PM In the rainforest in Brazil there is a tribe called the piraha whose language does not have a future tense. Why? Because they don't need it. They don't have to think about the future. They get up, fish, eat, play, talk and that's their life. Their technology extends mostly to rafts and spears. Meanwhile, in the industrialised world mass production is delivering food, goods and energy at an alarming rate. Hungry? Where do you go? Normally the fridge, but in the worst case scenario you might have to skate, cycle or (God forbid) drive to the supermarket. Our machines are selflessly harvesting the land, drilling the ocean and crisscrossing the skies just so we can snack on corn chips while we watch cats doing backflips on YouTube. So why are so many of us running to stand still? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Managed Funds Hidden FeesPosted by Roger Keays, 22 July 2011, 5:36 AM Have a read of this from a Colonial First State PDS and let me know if you can make head or tail of it. The PDS lists two figures for their funds: Management Fees (1.4%) and Management Costs (1.5%). The terms ‘management costs’ and ‘management fees’ mean different things. Management costs include management fees, estimated performance fees (if applicable), investment expenses and custody fees. Management costs are deducted from the performance of the fund (ie they are not charged directly to your account). They do not include contribution fees, transaction costs or additional service fees. The management costs for each fund are either an estimate or based on current financial information. They are expressed as a percentage of each fund’s net assets and, together with any applicable transaction costs, are outlined in the table above. Management fees are the fees payable under the Constitution for the management of each fund. Management fees are calculated from gross assets of the fund. For details of the maximum management fees allowed under the Constitution, see table above. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
How To Sell Toys In JanuaryPosted by Roger Keays, 23 June 2011, 3:16 PM Excerpt from Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion They start prior to Christmas with attractive TV ads for certain special toys. The kids, naturally, want what they see and extract Christmas promises for these items from their parents. Now here’s where the genius of the companies’ plan comes in: They undersupply the stores with the toys they’ve gotten the parents to promise. Most parents find those things sold out and are forced to substitute other toys of equal value. The toy manufacturers, of course, make a point of supplying the stores with plenty of these substitutes. Then, after Christmas, the companies start running the ads again for the other, special toys. That juices up the kids to want those toys more than ever. They go running to their parents whining, ‘You promised, you promised,’ and the adults go trudging off to the store to live up dutifully to their words. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Viva Prepaid Internet TrapPosted by Roger Keays, 17 June 2011, 9:54 AM Phone companies never cease to amaze me with the number of ways they come up with to get your cash. I'm happy to pay for phone and Internet, but I don't like being slapped by their sneaky tricks. Here is the latest one I've come across. Viva Bolivia has pre paid 3G Internet at reasonable rates, but only if you buy in a bundle. So check this out:
You need to buy 2 recharge cards to purchase a bundle and once your data quota is used, Viva silently start charging your remaining credit at 40 times the bundled rate. Sneaky bastards. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Review of Australian Merchant AccountsPosted by Roger Keays, 17 February 2010, 3:56 PM Having a good merchant facility goes a long way to simplifying the accounting for your business. Here are some quotes I got from several Australian banks when I set up the merchant account for Sunburnt Web Solutions. They are separated into two types of accounts: gateway accounts, which can be linked directly to your website so all payments can be made automatically, and MOTO (Mail-Order, Telephone-Order) accounts, which let you login to the bank's website to process credit card payments manually. The quotes I was given were based on volumes of 50 transactions / month with an average transaction amount of $100. You should definitely check with the banks for the latest prices. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Returns on InvestmentPosted by Roger Keays, 11 July 2009, 8:29 AM The market statistics here are from the All Ords Accumulation Index or the All Ords, where I couldn't find the AOAI return. The figures vary from different sources, so I wouldn't exactly reference them or anything. My returns are calculated including imputation credits (which increases the figures), and treating reinvested dividends as part of the contributed capital (which decreases the figures). CPI figures come from the ABS website.
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Une Autre PerspectivePosted by Roger Keays, 15 June 2009, 1:35 AM Actuellement, je cherche nouvelles occasions d'investissement. J'ai aussi viens de finir lire un livre sur Warren Buffet et sa approche d'investissement. Une chose qu'il dit souvent est "investissez dans les affaires que vous aimeriez posséder". Je sais, bon sens. Mais après j'ai regardé de près mes investissements, j'ai pris conscience qu'ils ne sont pas vraiment ce type de affaires que je voudrais posséder moi-même. Alors, quel type d'affaire voudrais-je posséder? Je préfère surtout les affaires avec peu d'employés et grande marges. Voila une comparaison de plusieurs entreprises et leurs importance et marges. Les différences entré ces statistiques sont très évidente.
* US Dollars | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mes AchatsPosted by Roger Keays, 19 May 2009, 1:53 AM Coles, mon local grand magasin, sont maintenant en ligne à http://www.colesonline.com.au. Je ne pense pas que je vais acheter en ligne à ce moment, mais c'est encore très pratique parce qu'on peux voir toutes les prix. Et aussi, on peux voir les unit prix par 100g ou 100mL. C'est intéressent comparer les produits comme ça. Pour votre commodité (et à cause je suis un peu frugal) j'ai fait une liste de prix de les choses que j'achète :) J'ai choisi le moins cher produit pour chaque cas. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finally, An Understanding Of ValuePosted by Roger Keays, 8 December 2008, 2:57 AM For several years, a concrete understanding of the concept of value has been eluding me. It all began when I was developing the object model for Sunburnt Accounting which was to support multiple currencies. I didn't want to simply translate every transaction involving foreign currencies into a global base currency because this didn't seem to model the real world. If I exchange one sheep for two pigs, who cares about the price of sheep or pigs in Australian Dollars or Mexican Pesos or toothpicks? My sheep is worth two pigs. This is okay until it comes to reporting. For example, your balance sheet shows what you are 'worth'. You could continue without a base currency and say your net worth is two pigs, $100, 20000 pesos and 4 broken toothpicks, but the question remains - what is this worth? You might even decide to convert it all to AUD and declare the total value to be $300, but what is that worth? In Australia in 2008 it's worth about a iPhone, but for rural Vietnamese it could be worth food for a family for several months. |
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