Thursday, December 1, 2016

November updates

So what has Unintelligent Nerd been up to? I'm pretty much occupied with my new job and school. School work is tough. Considering my background, I think I got more than I bargained for by signing up for the 1-year programme in engineering school. For the first couple of weeks, the terms used by the lecturer flew past my head. My understanding has gotten a bit better since then, but there is still much work to be done. I'm done with 3 tests and am left with 2 more next week before the term closes for a much needed break.

The following are some updates in my life:

Work
I'm settling in nicely at my new job. The colleagues are great and we gel well. The only grouse I have is that my commute time has increased to a whooping 3 hours 20 minutes journey each day (1 hour 40 mins to and fro).

Formal Education
One of the goals which I have set for myself in life is to try to achieve a perfect GPA. It is possible to achieve such a goal for these 1-year programmes; there are fewer modules so there is lesser chance to screw things up.

I failed to achieve my goal in the previous 1-year programme I took. This current 1-year programme starts with a blank slate. If I don't screw things up, I could reasonably achieve my goal. However, I'm getting cold feet because it's engineering we are talking about here.......

Informal Education
At the same time, I'm taking a Coursera course on Micro-economics. I find that reading up on the level 1 CFA syllabus without receiving any feedback on my progress/understanding is a sub-optimal strategy to take. With Coursera, at least I'll be able to gauge my understanding of the concepts (in this case, econs) through their built-in quizzes.

Book Reading
Personal development from book reading is put on hold. I think I'm quite distracted lately. I've been reading multiple books halfway. Either I lost interest or do not have sufficient cognitive resources available to digest the materials.

Personal Finance
I have opened a CIMB FastSaver account and have designated it to receive my monthly salary from my employer. Sure, I could get more than 1% interest, but considering all the hoops I have to jump through, the no-frills FastSaver account is more suitable for me.

I have been eyeing some counters on NYSE and Bursa Malaysia. In fact, I have opened a US trading/settlement account with Standard Chartered to trade in the former market. I have just placed an order on a particular US counter and hope the price would fall enough for my order to be filled. The counters I'm eyeing have dropped substantially, though I'm expecting them to drop more. As such, my entry position is but a nibble. If they fall more, I have multiple tranches of cash prepared to average down hard. If it goes up, just sit back and collect the dividends.

I'm still exploring what brokerages could be used to to trade in Bursa Malaysia securities. It does not make sense for me to nibble if custodian fees wipe out my dividends totally.

Recent Transactions
I initiated a new position in Mapletree Industrial Trust in two tranches in November when the price dipped. It is a counter which I have been eyeing for quite some time.

I added to my silver holdings as well.

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