During the peak of the crude oil bubble, the Government increased the retail petrol price from RM1.92 per liter to RM2.70 per liter. This led to a huge uproar from the consumers. As a result, the Government came up with a cash fuel rebate plan for motorists. This plan would last for one year.

I have recently renewed my road tax and collected my fuel rebate. I welcome this additional money. The purpose of this rebate was to help cushion the financial impact of rising petrol costs. But now petrol price has come down to RM1.90 per liter. So, I will just put this money into my bank, or invest it into the stock market.

I did something today that normally a sane person would not do. I gave a loan to a stranger. It’s not a huge amount, but the amount is not small either. Equivalent to a month of salary for alot of people.

I first came across this person about 6 months ago via the internet chatroom MIRC. She got into trouble with some loan sharks after her boyfriend defaulted on the loan and disappeared. She was seeking for financial help. At that time, I resisted helping her.

Today, I met her again on the MIRC. She’s still seeking financial assistance but at a much lesser amount. After much persuasion, I decided to help her. I helped her because I was in heavy debt before and it was a horrible experience. This girl is still a student and I wanted her to be able to concentrate on her studies without worrying about the loan sharks harassing her.

Time will tell if I had made a good decision, or not.

Next week is the Chinese Lunar New Year. And I could not feel any festive atmosphere around me. Except for the beautiful decorations at the shopping malls, there isn’t much happening around me to indicate the Chinese New Year is coming. Consumer sentiment is way low. I can feel it in my bones.

In previous years, I could see people carrying cases of Mandarin oranges. Many businesses would buy these oranges, and also hampers, to be given away to their clients. This usually happens two weeks before up until Chinese New Year. I could barely see this happening this year.

Many businesses have cut down on spending. This year, none of my company’s suppliers printed any 2009 calendars.

My parents came back from shopping to buy groceries for donating to orphanage. We did this during the Chinese New Year last year, and we want to do it again this year. My parents were surprised with how expensive the groceries have become. People are finding it more difficult to stretch their budget.

The Chinese New Year is one of those times when businesses would spend, and consumers would buy. If this period is already difficult, I cannot imagine how much worse it will become after the Chinese New Year.

As for myself, every year, I would buy new clothes for Chinese New Year. But this year, I may only buy a new T-shirt.

This is the funniest story related to the global financial crisis that I have ever read. Here are some links to this story.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/249406,porn-industry-seeks-government-stimulus-as-economy-slows-sex-drive.html
http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_11400986
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28549145/

Enjoy the extract below

Extract:
Los Angeles - Banks get it. So do automakers. So why shouldn’t the ailing US porn industry also get a government bailout?That’s the reasoning behind an unprecedented request from infamous pornographers Joe Francis and Larry Flynt, who according to celebrity website TMZ.com are heading to Washington to ask Congress for a 5- billion-dollar bailout.

Francis, creator of the notorious Girls Gone Wild video series, and Larry Flynt, legendary founder of porn mag Hustler, claim that porn movie sales went flaccid last year, plunging 22 per cent amid the limp economy.

“With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind,” Flynt is quoted as saying on TMZ. “It’s time for Congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America.”

TMZ quoted Francis as saying: “Congress seems willing to help shore up our nation’s most important businesses; we feel we deserve the same consideration.”

The duo are adamant that the industry will have the staying power to survive - thanks largely to surging web site traffic. But nothing less than the country’s health and future demographics are at stake, they claim.

“People are too depressed to be sexually active,” Flynt said. “This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such, but they cannot do without sex.”

First trading day of the year and I’ve already screwed up myself. Today the stock market rallied up 2%. This is the strongest rally I have seen since I started buying stock. I was caught up in the excitement and this led me to make several decisions I should not have made.

1. Stock A had announced a dividend last month and I had bought Stock A to get the dividend. Upon the ex-dividend date, price dropped. This is normal. But the price dropped by more than the dividend and I knew that the price will come back up to a normal level. I had waited 7 days since the ex-dividend date. However, the market rallied and I was seeing a lot of stocks moving up in price. All except Stock A. I wanted to be part of the rally too. Against my better judgment, I sold Stock A at the Year Low price. In doing so, the losses had eaten into the dividend I have.

2. After I sold Stock A, market was already up more than 1%. I did not dare to buy into stocks that have already risen between 5% to 10%. Instead, I looked for stocks that have not budged from yesterday’s closing price. I assumed that when the market rallies like this, then stocks across the board will move up as well. I found one I liked, Stock B, and I bought it straight away. Why did I like Stock B? Because based on fundamentals, this business has good profit margin and the dividend yield is high. However, this stock is not one of those that attract active trading. I watched the counter for 1 hour and the price didn’t budge. Trading volume was thin. I was even more desperate to profit from today’s rally because time was running out. I sold Stock B at a loss.

3. I scanned my watchlist and found a stock that has fallen from the day’s high. This stock, Stock C, had strong buying pressure in the morning trading session and had pushed the price up by 20% and has since fallen back to 10%. I assumed that the sudden interest in Stock C is due to the interest from Fund Managers. These Fund Managers have been missing since the last week of last year and I thought they had come back. More importantly, it seemed to me they were buying up this stock. I bought Stock C immediately. I was right, there was strong buying interest, but the price didn’t budge either because the selling pressure was even higher. The price couldn’t move up and again, I sold all my shares.

4. Until now, I have bought and sold 3 stocks, all at a loss. I was disappointed with myself. I cursed myself and blamed it on my bad luck and impatience. I watched the other stocks that have risen between 5% to 10% continue rising to between 10% to 30%. Maybe I should have bought these stocks in the first place since the momentum appears to be there. I bought Stock D, a oil and gas counter. But I bought it at the day’s high and at almost the end of the trading session.

I hope come Monday, the market will rally like today and I could off load Stock D to recover some of my losses.

The important lessons I have learned.

1. Never assume or think that I am ahead of the market. Nor should I assume or think that I know which stocks will rise and fall.

2. Never put all my money into one or two stocks. If I had extra money, I wouldn’t have needed to sell Stock A in the first place at a loss to participate in the market rally.

3. Buy the stock. Don’t look at the market or the price. Just switch off and wait for the dividend. The more attention I pay to the market, the more inclined I am to trade, and the more likely I will make foolish decisions.