It baffles me. The US unemployment rate hits 10.2%, worse than the expected 9.9%. And guess what? The stock markets around the world rally for the second day in a row. What is going on? Has the investor gone mad?

The people have to realize that, more and more consumers are becoming jobless. Consumer spending will reduce. Corporate revenue will reduce. And so will earnings, unless these corporates initiate another round of layoff to save on administration expenses.

Can someone enlighten me as to why the stock markets are rallying in the face of this worse than expected unemployment news?

The introduction in the Budget 2010 of RM50 service fee and RM25 service fee on principal and supplementary credit card holders have attracted strong criticisms from many parties. However, the Government has no plans to revise this proposal.

Previously, a person earning less than RM24,000 will not pay tax after deducting for his personal relief, EPF relief and the RM350 rebate for persons whose taxable income is less than RM35,000.

To apply for a credit card in Malaysia, the requirement is that the person must have a minimum gross salary of RM18,000 a year. Therefore, a principal card holder having an income of RM18,000 will have to pay a RM50 service fee starting from 1st Jan 2010. The Government has found a way to tax those in the income bracket between RM18,000 to RM24,000.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. With the introduction of GST in the near future, the poor and the middle income group will have to pay even more tax.

The Budget 2010 that was unveiled last Friday impacts me more than previous years Budgets. Here’s a summary of proposals that will impact me

The Good:

1. Increase personal tax relief from RM8,000 to RM9,000.
2. Increase EPF relief from RM6,000 to RM7,000.
3. Broadband relief of RM500.

I am in the 19% tax bracket. These additional reliefs will save me RM475 in taxes.

The Bad:

1. Service fee imposed on credit cards and charge cards. RM50 for principal cards and RM25 for supplementary cards.

I have 6 principal credit cards. I’m going to keep only 2 cards and terminate the rest. This means I still have to pay RM100 service fee.

Potentially Good:

1. The reintroduction of RPGT 5% beginning Jan 1st, 2010 irrespective of holding period. This will create an urgency for the sellers to sell their properties by end of this year. And since I am in the market looking for a property, I might come across a bargain.

Potentially Bad:

1. The Government proposed to use MyKad for petrol transactions to ensure that only the poor gets to buy subsidised petrol. Nobody knows yet how this will be implemented. I may have to buy unsubsidised petrol next year.

Common Stocks And Uncommon Profits by Philip A. Fisher is one of those good books but difficult to comprehend. It is good because Philip imparts his more than half a decade of experience investing in stocks to the readers. It is difficult to comprehend because the way the book is written …. is not like a conversational piece whereby the author is talking to the reader.

Philip highlighted the areas an investor should research into when choosing which stocks or companies to invest into. He goes on to describe how he went about researching these companies. Unfortunately, some of these techniques which he call “scuttlebutts” is difficult to apply by the layman investor.

Philip also described and explained what are the characteristics he look for in a stock or company to qualify as a “outstanding investment”.

A good thing I like about this book is that the reader is not bombarded with too many graphs and statistics.

Pros: The “scuttlebutts”, how to spot an outstanding investment.

Cons: Boring at times. Not easy to comprehend.

I had totally forgotten about a payment due on my credit card. I only found out about the late charge of RM5 when I logon to my account to check my statement.

I promptly made my payment by cash the next day, and called the customer service to have my late charge waived. I was glad to see the late charge waived two days later.

What I was worried most wasn’t the RM5 late fee, but the thought of having this late payment being recorded in my CCRIS report. The CCRIS stands for Central Credit Reference Information System is a database system containing credit information of borrowers in Malaysia.

When people apply for loans, the lenders will check the applicant’s credit history by referring to CCRIS. And a black mark in the applicant’s credit history could result in the loan application being rejected. Because I am planning to buy a property and apply for mortgage, I was very worried that this late payment will be recorded in my credit history.

I was given the “Debt Collection” department phone number of my credit card issuer to check if this will be recorded in my CCRIS. Fortunately, and I was surprised to learn, that late payments will only appear in a person’s CCRIS report if they are at least one month old. So, I was given the assurance that my late payment of a few days will not appear in my credit history. Thank God!

I was glad to see the late charge being reversed two days later.