Finances In April 2007

It’s been some time since I last reported on my finances, how my funds are doing and how much income I’m getting. Well… my mutual funds have pretty much gone back to the pre-correction levels, so it’s pretty good that I’m still having a little bit of profits, somewhere within the region of 3-4%. It’s quite troublesome to give off the exact figures, but I’m still holding onto the same funds and here’s the list.

Fidelity Latin America USD
Henderson European Property Securities
HSBC AM Chinese Growth
UOBAM United Asian Growth Opportunities
DBS Shenton Thrift
Aberdeen Thailand Equity
Fidelity Korea USD

It’s very likely that I won’t be making any changes to the funds that I chose, because I think that all funds are about the same. By that, I mean that if you picked funds that target the same geographic region, it’s likely that their performance will be around the same, with maybe a few percentage points in difference. I’m not saying that a few percent is not a big difference, but rather I can’t see how to pick winning mutual funds. Historical figures�do not seem to be a good gauge when it comes to mutual funds and I can’t read minds. Picking future top performing funds�is like telling me to pick a winning lottery number, so my criteria when choosing these funds is very simple and not worth discussing.

My funds aside… my main income comes from my full time job, giving me quite a nice salary, comparable to that of a university graduate in the lower end. Taking into account that I’m working flexible hours, I think I’m pretty well-paid, but I’ll be quitting after my holidays nonetheless. I believe that after my holidays, I can make�profits of�$500�on a monthly basis through the internet. It’s still a big step away from my long-term goal, but the first few hundreds is always the hardest. After that, it’s all about replicating the efforts.

I’m pretty excited over what I can possibly achieve during these holidays. For now, I shouldn’t be thinking about all this and concentrate on my examinations. However, I don’t really have the mood to study at all, especially after I failed my quiz the first time since I started my�university life. In fact, I never failed any quizzes in poly also, so it’s quite saddening and demoralizing. It’s also especially challenging since I’m taking statistics and econs, which I have no prior experience with, compared to my classmates who have prior exposure in junior colleges.

To comfort myself, I came up with this logic “When everything seems to go against me, God is just giving me a chance to challenge myself.” I’m still pretty optimistic with life overall, but I do have my fair share of troubles. However,�most of them are stupid little things which I shouldn’t get troubled over and expend mental energy on. I’m still just a human and there are times when I can’t help but think of things I shouldn’t think about. I think these are energy leechers and I should get them out of my mind asap, or I can’t concentrate on anything.

Finished with my words, now maybe you should wish me good luck for the exams, I do need quite a bit of luck and motivation in this coming exam.