Few weeks ago, I had an interesting meeting with someone who some weeks earlier saw me reading a Robert Kiyosaki’s book and introduced himself. He is very keen in following Robert’s teachings and is in the process of setting up a business.
As for me, I am still new to Robert’s teachings. At the current stage, I am checking out paper assets for a number of reasons. Some of the attractive features are liquidity and accessibility.
When changing nappy, I normally stand slightly on Nathan’s side rather than directly behind him. The reason is to avoid little suprises, especially with baby boy. I always know that one day this precaution would turn out to be helpful.
Today, while I was changing his dirty nappy and wiping him, he suddenly pooed again. He spattered brown liquid on the floor upto one metre away…quite a powerful force. I managed to escape because I was standing at 45 degree between his side and behind.
One important lesson with taking care of a baby is body posture. This is because of sustained spine position (e.g. bending) for several minutes. I sometimes feel lower back ache when changing nappy, bathing (which involves constant forward bending), helping holding the baby for breastfeeding.
I have to do spine stretching several times a day. Well…during these two weeks, I put efforts on most muscle groups and often walk around. But during normal work, I spend most time sitting in front of the computer. Perhaps, I should get a rowing machine to exercise various muscle groups and also the lower back.
Our baby boy, Nathaniel Philip Thie, was born this Monday, 21st August 2006, at 3:15PM. His weight was 3.46 kg and length was 51.5cm. He came out a week earlier than the due date but he is well and healthy.
Juni has done so much hard and excellent work in delivering Nathan. There was much anxiety as the water broke on Sunday morning at 5AM. The contraction did not start until later in the evening. During the day, we had a stroll around the block and tried several positions to induce the labour. At midnight, the contraction became more regular and started the second phase of labour. Juni tried to avoid epidural. Pethedine was very helpful to ease the pain but unfortunately only in the middle phase. So she had to endure many hours of pain while I continuously massaged her lower back.
Fifteen hours later, Nathan finally made his entrance into the world. The doctor used a suction pump as Juni became too tired after one hour of pushing and a long labour. So his head was a bit “out-of-shape” for few hours but it has subsided. I witnessed the entire delivery process. That was my first time seeing so much blood but I could handle it. Definitely not for the faint-hearted.
Thank God that the delivery went well. Juni is recovering but the recovery is rather slow as expected normally. Thank God that no bacterial infection was detected in Nathan so far which was a concern since he did not come out within 24 hours after the water broke. Right now he has a bit of jaundice so he tries to get as much feeds as possible and also good natural light.
Juni and Nathan should be home by this Friday.
Banks don’t normally lend money for stock investment. The only exception is for leveraging capital in managed funds. It is understandable since there is no security for the banks to gain if the money is gone. In the case of homeloan, the property becomes the security for the banks.
Recently I stumbled across Protected Portfolio Loan (PPL) a product from the Commonwealth bank (CBA). The bank lends 100% capital to invest in stock and also provides protection to the stock price. If the stock price drops below the initial price at the loan maturity, the investors can sell the stock at the initial price to the bank. This is exercising a Put Option on the stock. At a first glance, this is an excellent starting point for anyone who wants to start investing. However, with many banks, there is always a conception that there is a catch behind any seemingly good deals.
Well, according to the PDS, the loan has a very high interest rate since it also covers the cost for the Put Option. The interest rate varies from 12% to 18% depending on the loan duration. The PDS is one year old. This means that the interest rate would have gone up by at least 0.5% now following the increase in interest rate by the RBA. Based on the examples provided in the PDS, it is expected that the dividends from the stock are unlikely to cover the loan interest. Hence, investors expect to receive negative returns. The profit then only comes from the capital gain if the stock price is higher than the initial price when the loan matures.