GE14 was a big step forward; vital in reinstating belief in the rakyat that our votes mattered, that our voices could make a difference and in our abilities to make an impact.
However while the battle for GE14 is over, the Battle for Malaysia isn’t.
In fact it’ll never be.
Like everything else in life, It is and always will be an ongoing battle. And we just gotta Keep Moving Forward.
A constant and perpetual series of ups, downs, corrections and over-corrections, that hopefully form a desirable trend line — desirable being a subjective matter which we’ll get into another time. #KMF
Yes, EPF has indeed seen its investment value in these 10 public-listed companies (PLCs) drop 12% or RM6.09 billion in a month.
While this sounds disconcerting, it is very important to note the scope of this loss.
EPF has RM814.38 billion worth of investment assets, so that means that this RM6.09 billion loss equates to 0.737% of the assets.
RM4.5 billion of this market cap loss came from 5 firms – Maybank, Axiata, CIMB, TM and TNB, all of whom are strong & profitable.
Investment value is revised and updated regularly to match market pricing.
However that said, these firms have seen these stock price points before, TNB back in October 2017, Axiata in February 2017, CIMB and Maybank in December 2017. However for Telekom it’s not the same case, they haven’t seen this stock price point since early 2011.
This is the nature of the stock market, or anything for that matter. The market corrects or reacts to significant events, and GE14 was a significant event and we’re still seeing the effects #PostGE14.
Before this, these firms didn’t have to worry much about politics, they benefitted from, let’s call it, political stability and certainty, for decades which is no longer the case.
Eventually the market will get used to pricing this in.
But anyway, I’m sure for most of these firms this just a market over-correction, it happens, and that they will be back in time, particularly the utilities and banks.
As for the others, particularly the construction ones, I’m not sure. Depends how much they depended on politics & cronyism to get their business, and now whether they can adapt.
Did you know that eventhough Snap co-founders, Even Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, only own 22% of the company, they hold 88% of the voting rights? Wait what?! How you ask? Well welcome to the Dual-Class Share Club.
What the heck are Dual-Class Shares you ask? Well simply put, dual class shares, are well, 2 classes of stock. One class for the… normal investors and one class of special stock, with more voting power, for “special investors”, normally the founders and top management.
Almost all new tech listings utilise this structure as it allows the founder(s) to maintain control without having to hold equity that would normally be needed to have that control, which allows them to raise more money to expand, without ceding control. Needless to say this is a very founder-friendly form of public listing.
Take Mark Zuckerberg (@Zuck) for example. He holds less than 1% of publicly traded stock but has 60% of its voting rights, which then explains his ability to make massive decisions, like buying WhatsApp for $22 billion, with little consultation with other stakeholders.
Once upon a time dual-class shares were used mostly by family-owned firms, like Ford and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, and media companies but starting with Google in 2004, this method of listing was then quickly adopted by a new age of tech companies.
So as more and more tech listing take place in ‘Founder Friendly’ environments, more and more stock exchanges are becoming ‘Founder Friendly’ in an attempt to lure over these large, or soon to be large, tech companies, from Alibaba to Facebook. Particularly Asian exchanges that have lost out to the west in recent times as Chinese tech firms, like Alibaba, opt to list in the U.S. instead of anywhere in Asia.
While this is definitely good for founders, what about companies or investors? Well we’ll discuss that the next time.
In case you haven’t already heard, last week Intel filled us in on some pretty bad news, security flaws in billions of their chips across the industry.
Yea, billions.
Now that isn’t my personal interest here, companies are responding to the problem and patches are either being built or have been released.
What could be more interesting than a massive systemic security flaw? How about the CEO of Intel dumping $39 million dollars worth of stock and options BEFORE telling the world about this, little problem.
Needless to say this has raised a few questions and not too mention his confidence in the company going forward.
CEO Brian Krzanich reportedly sold as much as he could at the end of November, and now holds the minimum amount required by a CEO of Intel.
Intel is telling us that the stock sale is unrelated to knowledge of the security flaw, insisting that it was in fact a pre-arranged plan with an automated sale schedule and that that sounds kind of reasonable, UNTIL you realise that he made these pre-arranged plans only at the end of October. The minimum time needed for such a plan, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY he sold about 10 times the dollar value of stock and options he normally does, retaining the bare minimum instead of the approximate 500,000 shares he usually does.
At this point it doesn’t look like the SEC is going to look into this with Brian having covered his bases with all the beautiful technical loopholes at his disposal.
Like a captain jumping off a sinking ship before everyone else even knows there’s a hole in the goddamn boat, it’s definitely quite the bastard move.
That said though, for a reported net gain of $24-25 million dollars, any of us MIGHT have done the same, especially knowing the possible incoming risk to value of said stock and options.
This quote, though not 100% sound, is something that I believe to be true and actionable.
In line with #Covey’s first habit, #Proactivity, these words from Collins’ illustrate that our lives are our responsibilities, that we are accountable for them.
Yes shit happens, I know, but how we react & deal with that is on us. And though unfair, there really is no use in bitching forever or blaming the world, without acting. That won’t help us move forward.
What we can do is learn as much as we can and Keep Moving Forward, to try again & try better, to use alternative routes & methods or even revaluate goals & expectations.
Whatever it is, the worse thing we can do to ourselves is to blame the world & our conditions & leave it at that.
Now I don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking time to recover & deal with an event; scream, cry, pound on a punching bag or talk it out, express & deal with those emotions and feelings, and then Keep Moving Forward.
Now nothing last forever so repeat when needed.
Every few weeks I stumble, some stumbles harder than others but after some time of being upset & down, I learn as much as I can about this fall, and start taking steps to pick myself up (and if you need help doing it, ask for it, I know I have on plenty of occasions) and get back to business, whatever that may be currently.
A landmark ruling by EU’s top court recently has effectively classified Uber as a transport service and as such it should be regulated like other taxi operators.
Uber has always argued that it is simply a digital app, an intermediary between drivers and customers and thus should fall under lighter EU rules for online services.
Well that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. At least, not in Europe.
Catch the episode on Anchor or check out your local Podcast app for ARKAY Radio 📻
This stems from a 2014 complaint by the professional taxi drivers’ association in Barcelona that alleged unfair competition from Uber’s non-professional drivers in Spain and also charged Uber with “misleading practices.” Following this latest court ruling, Uber said that nothing will change as it already operates under the transportation law in the EU – – – and in fact thinks that — “it is appropriate to regulate services such as Uber and so we will continue the dialogue with cities across Europe.” This landmark ruling could have a systemic effect to the digital and tech scene as a whole and make it much harder for start-ups to argue that they are simply a button on a smartphone and – – therefore not accountable to their workers and clients.
This underscores the dilemma that governments face when considering disruptive technology companies from Airbnb to Facebook:
should these companies be free to innovate and reshape the rules? Or be forced to conform with the rules that restrict their more traditional competitors.
Uber has been great since it came onto the scene in 2011 and it has transformed and distrupted the taxi industry
However as it did so, it also picked up a series of complaints, scandals and lawsuits.
This brings to mind Mark Zuckerberg’s old adage “Move fast and Break things” where new tech companies and startups emphasized building and growing fast as opposed to worrying about potential fallouts and repercussions
This ruling comes at a critical time for Uber, in light of the potential, and complex, deal with the SoftBank-led consortium.
Uber’s existing shareholders must decide by Thursday, December 28th, 12pm PT, whether to sell their shares to SoftBank for just about 33 dollars per share, a 30% discount to Uber’s latest valuation, or whether to wait until at least 2019 for an initial public offering.
At least 14% of shares must be sold to SoftBank for the deal to close.
In light of my recent post about passion, coupled with the writing of my resume cover letter and subsequent discussions and insights thereafter, a question arose.
Could it be that my passion, lies in the act of storytelling?
Over the years I’ve noticed myself being drawn to and appreciating great storytellers, whether they’re stand up comics, vloggers, filmmakers, public speakers and so on.
So is that the common denominator that lies beneath the media experiments I’ve undertaken, whether text, pictures, audio or video?
Is it the also then the common denominator of projects I see myself wanting to explore when I look forward?
Do I continue to see myself telling stories, irrespective of the medium?
Yes. Yes I Do.
I want to tell stories.
No, not simply my own, but also stories I’m drawn to, empathise with or simply enjoy.
“Passion is not a job, a sport, or a hobby. It is the full force of your attention and energy that you give to whatever is right in front of you. And if you’re too busy looking for this passion, you could miss opportunities that change your life. You could also miss out on a great love. Because that’s what happens when you have tunnel vision, trying to find the one.” Terri Trespicio
I really enjoyed this talk, and while it may not speak to everyone, it definitely did so with me, and I’m sure it will for many others. This is not some war cry to throw passion under the bus, but to recongnise that not everyone has or needs one, and that you’re not ‘Lesser’ for it. They key is in knowing who you are, and that can take some time.
For a long time i didn’t want to acknowledge this, but I just don’t have a passion, and that’s ok. I don’t need it to be good at something, nor does it mean that I’m without ambition.
I’ve had various interests over the years, I’ve experimented with different subjects in uni, part-timed at a cafe, interned with the finance & management side of the same cafe later; i tried out blogging, then Instagram and later vlogging.
And while nothing really stuck, I enjoyed the ventures and learned a helluva lot from each phase.
But no, I’ve never been passionate about any of them, sure I was really interest and curious, and i wanted to learn from those interests, but i didn’t want them to be the rest of my life.
I consider life to be a series of experiments, if there’s something that interests me, I’ll find a way to do it. Some experiments work out, and some don’t; some scale & grow into something else, and some just die never to see the light of day again.
No, I don’t have a passion, but that doesn’t mean I’m not ambitious, capable or driven, it just means that i may need some time or help with direction, but once I get out of my own head and pick a direction, I will get on with it and I will excel.
This is not a dig at passion or the people who have it. It’s wonderful if you have a passion, I’m happy for you, maybe even a little jealous, but for the others out there like me who don’t, like Terri says, stop searching for your passion and do.
Maybe our passion lies in the actual journey, with the the learning, experimentation & growth. Maybe.
Whatever it is, it’s time that i pick a direction and Keep Moving Forward #KMF
Look at this dumbass, smiling like an idiot, does he not realise what he’s just been through? Dumbass baby 😂
It’s crazy really, that I don’t remember a time that set the base tone for the rest of my life, but then again, do I actually wanna remember any of it?
Nope, pretty sure I don’t haha.
It’s interesting to think about it though, how something that I have no memory of, has played such a large role for me, essentially establishing the foundation for the rest of my life.
It’s interesting to think about what-if I never had AVSD & Co, would I be the same person I am today? Probably not, but the question is how much would I and this alternate, Earth-2, version of me differ?
Would it just be me without the insecurities that stemmed from my health? Would I have been this “strong” anyway, or was that something that was built because of the hurdles I’ve faced?
Not everyone deals with the same issues in the same way, so, I guess the question is, was I born with this innate ‘fight’ to not go quietly into the night, or was it nurtured into me by life and my personal hurdles?
Well the answer is, very anticlimactically, we’ll never really know haha.
That said, it’s the line of inquisition that is more interesting to me, not the answers so much.
The extraction of lessons & thoughts that I find valuable, in that they, how do I explain it, helps me with perspective, to understand myself a little better, if that makes sense.
I have a slight feeling that today’s ramble is a little on the… random & ‘Possibly Doesn’t Make Sense’ side of things.
Rambler’s Block maybe? Haha.
Anyway that’s it with this Series of photos, not sure what’s next, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see haha.
Feeling VERY self-conscious about this post, not sure whether to post it or not. I’m worried about how it’ll come off… then again I post for myself, this being a platform for my thoughts & all…
Screw it, enough self-doubt, let’s get started.
AVSD: Atrioventricular Septal Defect possibly courtesy of Holt Syndrome.
In my case the AVSD entailed a hole in the septal wall between the ventricles of my heart alongside damaged valves that were leaking and an SA Node (natural pacemaker) that wasn’t working as well as it should have been, although I’m not entirely sure if that’s part of the AVSD, Holt Syndrome or something else.
Thankfully the surgery, at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, patched up the hole & reduced the valve leakage, drastically improving my quality of life going forward. The dysfunctional SA Node was left as is and only addressed in December 2005, when it was necessary, with a pacemaker. That’s when I became a self-declared cyborg haha 😂
I keep this photo close, to not only remind me how lucky I am but how far I’ve come.
Life could’ve been much, much worse.
What if I couldn’t get the surgery?
What if we didn’t get the help & support we did?
What if my AVSD was worse?
Some of the questions I think about, but don’t want to answer. Simply asking them seems to be enough to make the point.
To be grateful for my life as is, yes it could’ve been much better, but it also could’ve been much worse.
Plus I like who I am, for the most part anyway haha, and I wouldn’t be who I am without all the… hurdles. AVSD, fibromyalgia & all.
Sure it can get tiring, frustrating & infuriating, but that’s when I take a step back, remind myself that life isn’t a sprint but a marathon & when I’m ready, get back to it (more on this another time).
And that concludes today’s Journal a.k.a. piece of rambling,
In case you haven’t already heard, last week Intel filled us in on some pretty bad news, security flaws in billions of their chips across the industry.
A landmark ruling by EU’s top court recently has effectively classified Uber as a transport service and as such it should be regulated like other taxi operators.
arkaysthoughts 