Trading volume was disappointing as it only increased slightly in this last week when the market rallies after the rebound. The average daily trading volume last week was 750 million shares and the previous week’s average was 662 million. Average daily trading volume below 1billion shares are considered weak. The market was slightly bullish because of positive leads locally and internationally. Locally, industrial production and export numbers were growing on-month and jobless rate fell. World Bank confidence about having a positive GDP in year 2010 and increasing foreign participation in the local equity market boost confidence further.

Internationally, governments in developed nations are confident that the global economy is improving and Australia is the first G-20 nation to raise key interest rates since the start of the global financial crisis more than a year ago as the government believes that the emergency low rates are no longer needed. In the world’s largest economy, manufacturing increases and jobless claim declines.

Daily FBMKLCI Chart

The US Dollar continues to slide against major currencies, continuing its down trend. This again has pressured prices of commodities to increase. Price of Gold in COMEX continues to make historical highs and is currently at US$1,050 an ounce, increasing 5% in a month. Crude Oil in NYMEX continues to stay around US$70 a barrel. Rubber futures in TOCOM slightly rose month-to­-month but it jumps about 6% last week to JPY$214.80 a kg. However, Crude Palm Oil futures in Europe Store Exchange declined from EUR 2,200 per metric ton a month ago to EUR 2,030.

The FBMKLCI is well supported by the short term trend. The benchmark index continues to stay above the short to long term 30 to 90-day moving averages despite several pullbacks from the uptrend that started in April. A major correction is yet to be seen in this 6 months bullish trend. Momentum indicators are about to turn bullish again after mixed signals in the past few weeks.

The RSI and Momentum indicators are starting to move away from the middle level and the MACD indicator is about to cross above its trigger line or 9-day moving average. ADX indicator has just started to increase again, showing good strength in momentum last week.

The Bollinger Bands started to expand again with the FBMKLCI penetrating the top bands after testing the middle band two weeks ago. The same situation (the expansion) happened exactly a month ago and the FBMKLCI made new highs for the year. Therefore, we may expect the same to happen again and this time the projection is 1,280 points before it finds the next resistance. The average daily trading range is the same as the previous week.

Price Map - Direction Forecast

The immediate support and resistance levels are still at 1,196 points and 1,230 points respectively. The FBMKLCI is currently testing this resistance level for the second time in a month. The market is set to test newer highs because of the strong bullish reversal and breakout. The next resistance level is between 1,280 and 1,300 points. However, if the market fails to make new highs and the FBMKLI falls below the 1,196 points support level, then the next support level it is going to test is at 1,150 points.

Looking ahead, the leading Ichimoku Cloud indicator continues to contract last week and this indicates that the support for the uptrend is getting thinner. Being a leading technical indicator, a major trend reversal is not expected until the cloud bands cross. Therefore, there is still a chance for the market to maintain its uptrend at least for another month.

The market sentiment is still bullish and the FBMKLCI is expected to rise in the short term to the next resistance level between 1,280 and 1,300 points. This is only valid if the benchmark index stays above the immediate 1,196 points support level. In the longer term, a major correction is expected to take place once the index moves into the next resistance level. My price map/direction forecast chart for FBMKLCI remains the same as last month.

Therefore, current opportunity is only good for short term traders who trades short term profits because the market is expected to test new highs but with a limited upside. However, accumulating shares for the long term (3 to 5 years) may be too risky at current levels as prices are way above the long term average. Opportunity for long term accumulation only exists when the market pulls back to its long term average or below it (a 200-day moving average can be used as a benchmark).

So, longer term investors have to patiently wait for a major correction to happen. My longer term

forecast (1 year) for the FBMKLCI when it goes into a major correction is still at 900 points and therefore accumulating shares when the index moves to this level or slightly above provide a better low risk opportunity for longer term investors.

Malaysia Export and Imports Chart

We previously warned that whilst there will be some sporadic spurts of stronger exports, they may not signal a meaningful recovery yet. Our view is that exports may not recover to levels seen in mid-2008 for another 2-3 years. For example, there are several good company like FOONG LI TRADING – premier supplier of good quality sawn timber, timber products, plywood products, doors & window frame, beadings, moulding.

The YoY fall in Aug-09 exports computed continued to be led by a collapse of manufactured goods exports, weakness in commodity prices and a lower volume of commodity exports.

US workers facing record periods of unemployment, negative personal income growth in 4 of the last 6 quarters, and a sharp fall in wealth, will cut spending on the so many discretionary spending items that have formed the core of Asian exports, cannot anchor a global recovery. Restocking by businesses and

public sector spending can only provide a temporary bounce in output that must be rejoined by a consumer spending revival. A revival with conviction of investment spending by businesses is also out of the picture at this juncture with low capacity utilization globally at this juncture.

Weakening of exports accelerated in major markets. ASEAN exports accounting for 25.7% of total, fell a steeper 24.4%YoY (Jul-09: -20.1%YoY) on lower exports of electronics products, refined petroleum products and transport equipment.

Asia Export Growth League Table

Exports to China rose +0.9% YoY (Jul-09: -16.9% MoM), the first increase YoY in 10 months on gains in exports of electronics and crude oil. Exports to China were also 10.3% higher MoM. The positive YoY growth was due to a lower statistical base in Aug-08, the month when severe drops in exports to China began to be recorded in 2008. Exports to the US dropped (-26.7% YoY vs -29.0%YoY in Jul-09), also falling 7.8%MoM on lower electronics exports. The pace of drop in exports to Japan slowed (-25.0% YoY in Aug-09 vs -32.7% YoY in Jul-09) on gains in LNG and crude oil exports. The pace of drop for exports to the EU at -25.9% YoY was however, steeper compared to Jul-09′s -23.9%YoY due to palm oil as well as chemicals and chemical products exports letting up as the recession in major Euro zone economies particularly Germany.

Exports of Electronics were a shade lower MoM at RM20.57b in Aug-09 after rising for the 6th month in a row to RM20.63b in Jul-09 from RM18.6b in Jun-09 and constituted 43% (Jul-09: 42.2%) of exports although still down -13.1%YoY vs -15.6% YoY in Jul-09. Palm Oil exports making up 6.2% of exports (Jul-09: 8.1%) were down a sharper -35.3%YoY (Jun-09: -33.5% YoY) after a major MoM drop. Oil and Gas exports making up 12.5% of exports (Jun-1 09: 12.0%) fell 50% YoY, still amongst the most affected of export categories.

Chemicals and Chemical Products which contributed 6.1% of exports (Jul-09: 6.2%) fell -19.0%YoY (Jul-09: -26.3% YoY). Machinery and Appliances which made up 3.1% of exports (Jul-09: 3.6%) fell at a faster clip of -12.3%YoY (Jul-09: 10.2%YoY) and Timber Products adding up to 2.6% of exports(Jul-09:2.6%) fell

15.1%YoY(Jun-09:-16.0% YoY).

Imports at RM38.26b (Ju-09: RM40.98b) dropped by 6.6%MoM and were sharply off by 18.6%YoY (Jul-09: -16.0%YoY). Jan-09′s -30.4%YoY remains the fastest pace of annual contractions ever on record. Imports of intermediate goods made up 69.4% (Jul-09: 68.7%) of imports, and its fall on a percentage change YoY basis dampens somewhat hopes of a strong recovery, thus continuing the strong trend in preceding months that reflect the recovery in imports of raw material needs for goods to be processed for re-export. On the other hand, capital goods imported amounted to 14.3% (Jun-09: 14.8%) of imports, reflecting weaker capacity-boosting investment plans by domestic corporations that support future growth. Consumption goods made up 7.1% of imports (Jul-09: 7.2%), reflecting lower consumer spending. Consumption accounted for 65.3% of Malaysia’s real GDP in 2Q-09.

The Trade Surplus expanded again to RM9.58b (Jul-09: RM7.8b), a 22.2% jump MoM despite the MoM drop in exports. The widening of the trade gap left Aug-09′s surplus at exactly the mean YTD monthly surplus of RM9.58b. whilst it is still sharply off a peak at RM15.5b achieved in Jun-08 it is a healthy level. Whilst the trade balance dropped in Jul-09, it was read as a sign of some strength rather than weakness.

The Aug-09 data thankfully continues to hint at a V-shaped rebound after the exports slump hit a trough (see charts below). The current scenario does not yet rule out an L-shaped recovery for Malaysia although the possibility of a W-shaped recovery or a double-dip recession in the West appears small. The anchor for Malaysia’s export recovery appears to be China, but the sustainability of this source of exports recovery is thought unreliable whilst it is rising under conditions of a massive stimulus. The global economic turmoil may continue to drive further deterioration in the domestic environment.

Domestic sources of demand remain the key and steady implementation of the Stimulus Spending package is key. Our chief worry is the possibility the economy will fail to respond in a sustained manner and dismal private sector growth is observed way past the phase of aggressive public sector stimulus spending at a time when US consumers appear to be veering towards permanent frugality and Asian consumers are not ready to fill the void.

This is an opportune time for business owners to seriously consider investing in commercial properties, most notably shop houses, office lots and factories, as a means of expanding their operations, utilizing surplus funds or simply to diversify their investment portfolios. Investment in private real estate such as houses for rent may also help positively diversify investment portfolios.

Commercial properties are a good buy at this juncture because business owners can capitalize on the significant drop in mortgage rates which was preceded by some national bank’s cutting of the overnight policy rate to an all-time low of 2% per- annum in February 2009. Borrowers will be able to enjoy the prevailing low rates and save substantially on interest payments by leveraging on the low mortgage rates and lock in at this level for the tenure of their loan.

For risk conscious investors, current alternative investment instruments may prove to be beyond their risk profile in this bearish environment. To mitigate risk, investors should balance their portfolio with a selection of differing investments. As such, some banker and investor believe that commercial properties offer a more stable rental yield. As the latest property induces have shown, demand for commercial spaces has remained relatively constant and unabated compared to other investment vehicles. Properties continue to be excellent assets to hedge against inflation when prices start to rise on the heels of an economic rebound.

While it is ideal for investors to buy at the right time, the right place, and at the right price, most of the time it is all about striking a balance. An estimated 3 million square feet of office space as well as another 3 million square feet of retail space will be added to the Kuala Lumpur landscape this year as a result of launches from the past couple of years. Investors will have ample opportunity to select from diverse locations and types of spaces, and also reap the benefit of numerous freebies offered by developers ranging from free legal costs to discounts in prices. They will also be privy to an array of financing schemes.

Business Mortgage One Account (BMOA) is specifically designed for SMEs and business owners who in the course of their operations will have periods of surplus funds. The BMOA provides a very smart solution for business owners to enjoy savings by using cash in their current account to shorten their loan principal amount, with the added benefit of redrawing with no penalties charges from their surplus payments.

In situations where the SME wishes to ensure his funds are fully optimized for the operating cycle of his business, our SMI One Account is the perfect business mortgage solution because he gets the best of both worlds — funds in his operating account can generate interest credits for the benefit of his business mortgage outstanding.

While we are mindful that property purchases are long-term investments and being fixed assets, are not as liquid as investments in equity; the return on property investment may not be lower than equity investments.

Reviewing all the elements of the Madoff scandal would require lengthy discussion and may be rather sophisticated for some. However, it makes sense for us to at least know what Ponzi schemes are all about.

“Ponzi” scheme can be summed up as a scheme designed to convince investors to put their money in a fraudulent investment that the schemer eventually runs off with. People often get duped into investing because they are promised a rate of return that is above those they would normally expect with a legitimate investment, and trust the person behind the scheme without much thought. Plenty can be said about Ponzi schemes that have prevailed in the US over the years, but looking at the Malaysian context, we too need to keep a watchful eye on potential “Ponzi” schemes lurking among us.

If any of the following explanations or promises sound familiar to you, then, it is very likely that you have had a brush with scams:

For every investment that you make, you will receive a high return, for instance, 20-30% per month, every month.

1. You are not shown the so-called quality product you are allegedly selling, but you will get paid for every person you recruit or sign up.

1. You are told that the offer is for a limited time and that you MUST invest today.

1. You are told to send some money to foreign banks in foreign currency to claim a prize but you do not remember entering any contest or lucky draws.

1. You receive unsolicited phone calls offering investment opportunities and you have no idea how the company has obtained your phone number.

1. You are offered an investment product that guarantees large profits with no risk.

1. You are asked to invest in an investment scheme but the address and contact information of the investment company offering you big money is located in a foreign bank where you cannot verify its physical location and cannot find information about the company’s license.

1. You are approached by someone who claims to be an agent for foreign trading houses (e.g: based in Macau, Bahamas,  British Virgin islands etc) to trade in foreign indices (e.g. Hang Selig index), commodities (e.g. coffee) or forex (e.g. USS, Yen etc) but you need to deposit some money as a “margin” in some sign currency before a trade can be executed.

If you are face with any of the above situation, keep the following points in mind so as to avoid being swindled :

Protection #1:

Avoid any investment guarantees regular or large profits. Be extremely wary of companies that guarantee large profits or promise high return over a short period of time. You must remember that every investment involves risks and you must have often heard:  “high risk, high return!” Be extra careful, especially if the investment is posed to give you high returns with minimal or no risk.

Protection #2:

Be wary of plans that focus on paying you to recruit others-stead of paying you to sell products and services. Key words that should caution you are “down-line” or “pyramid”.

Protection #3:

Never sign up for an opportunity in a high-pressured situation, as “you have a limited time to join and buy now or miss out”. Remember, if it is a legitimate business, it will still be around tomorrow, next week, next month or next year.

Protection #4:

It is unlikely for you to win a prize or big money if you have not entered into any contest or lottery. It is also highly unlikely for legitimate contests to ask you for money in advance to claim your prize. If you receive a call that says you have won a prize and you need to send some money to a foreign country in order to claim it, just hang up. It is not worth your time and effort to entertain such calls.

Protection #5:

Be skeptical about unsolicited phone calls regarding investments from foreign salespersons or companies in which you are unfamiliar with. The caller may say that he/she is a stock broking company’s representative or an investment adviser from abroad. If this happens, ask for his/her company’s details.

Request for the name of the foreign regulator that governs his/her company; check the foreign regulator’s website for the list of licensed or registered persons. Must always check the credentials of the persons you are dealing with, with the relevant authority before parting with your money.

Protection #6:

Be sure you get the company’s performance track record. Also ask for written information on the investment product and the business, as well as the risks involved the investment. Read the company’s prospectus and annual report thoroughly before investing.

Protection #7:

Do not provide any financial or personal information before you establish that the company is legitimate. Do not be afraid to ask questions; the more you ask the better! Always demand an explanation for something you do not understand. If in doubt, do not invest. Make sure you obtain solid information about the investment, the company and the salespersons/agents.

Protection #8:

Always check against the regulator’s website, for example, the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) website (www.sc.com.my) for information on investor’s alerts, or the list of licensed intermediary companies etc before investing.

Finally, equip yourself with financial and investment knowledge so that you are protected from investment scams. Always remember, “Not all that glitters is gold!”

What came as a surprise was the speed that the estate administration process kicked into motion. Here is the brief timeline: MJ passed away on 25 June and the first series of court hearings began four days later. On 1 July, MJ’s Will dated 7 July 2002 was filed with Los Angeles County Superior Court, which became a public document and almost instantly became of public interest. All these took place even before the memorial arrangements were finalized.

In summary, MJ, in his five-paged Will appointed three of his close aides to be his executors; his mother to be the first named guardian and failing which his close friend, singer Diana Ross, would be the substitute guardian. The Will also make mention of a living trust which he created prior to the Will which is known as Michael Jackson Family Trust (“MJFT”) whereby his mother, children and certain charities are the named beneficiaries. Pursuant to the Will, the executors will ultimately “shepherd” all the assets in the estate into. The MJFT, which details are of course, key private and confidential inheritance taxes are still in many countries and this often is the paramount reason why people consider creating trust(s) in addition to a Will.

For MJ’s case, his estate would be looking at Federal Inheritance Tax that could possibly be as high as 45% in addition to the probate fees (to be based on the gross value of the estate) which is value of the estate) which is also applicable in the state of California. Fortunately, neither of such taxes is applicable in Malaysia.

It seems that MJ was well advised in terms of his estate affairs. However many are skeptical of his actual net worth bearing in mind he has been entangled with numerous lawsuits in the past which was later settled out of court with massive sums being paid out as settlement. At the time of his death, it was reported that he has an existing USD300 million loan with Barclays Bank. No doubt, many observers belief that he may be heavily in debt but he certainly is not broke. It is estimated that his interests in Sony / ATV alone is worth approximately USD 1 billion on top of royalties which will be channeled into his estate or trust (which is yet to be determined) is also extremely significant.

The executors would now have to determine what are the assets belonging to the estate. There could be a possibility that the aforementioned valuable assets might have been settled into or assigned to the MJFT which means that there is a possibility that the estate’s assets are significantly less as compared to the existing debts in such circumstance. If the estate has insufficient assets to settle all the debts, the estate would be technically insolvent. In all likelihood when this happens, the creditors would embark on a hunting spree to claw back as many assets as possible. This would possibly include tracing the assets that was previously settled or assigned into the MJFT and if this materializes, the assets held by the MJFT may be vulnerable.

Translating the above into Malaysian context, the fundamental principles of estate planning are very much similar. Generally, a Will is where a testator bequeaths his/her assets to the selected beneficiaries, appoints guardian(s) for his/her minor children and appoints person(s) whom he/she trusts to be the executor(s) of the estate. The testator may also make provisions for testamentary trust(s) if certain assets are to be held on trust for a period of time, in accordance to the testator’s instructions. However, one need to be mindful that all debts and liabilities would have to be settled by the estate before any bequeaths can be fulfilled. In addition, a Will also becomes a public document the moment it is filed in the court for the application of probate. Therefore, if there are certain assets, which are to, given to selected individuals who details are to remain private, living trusts would be the available option to establish such arrangements.

Root beer is a beverage made from a combination of vanilla, cherry tree bark, licorice root, sarsaparilla root, sassafras root bark, nutmeg, anise, and molasses among other things. Each root beer has a unique recipe. Root beer constitutes about three percent of the American soft drink market. Many local brands of root beer exist and home-made root beer is made from concentrate or (rarely) from roots.

In fact, even prior to this period, root beer was served, and it was then called ‘Black Cow Mountain’ inspired by a moonlit view of Colorado’s Cow Mountain with snow on top. Kids later shortened the drink’s name to Black Cow. For those not on a diet, recipes add chocolate syrup, whipped cream and a cherry on top. But for those on a diet, ice cream can be partially replaced by skim milk and root beer with diet root beer. Root beer itself has a history that relates to the ancient practice of brewing native plants (twigs, bark, roots) as healing herbal teas.

However, that fateful drink put a delighted smile on Allen’s customers’ face and put him into business. But Allen’s drink or mix was unique – blended from the juices of 14 herbs, spices, barks and berries – and it proved very popular with the thirsty public and in 1922, Allen started a number of outlets to sell it. With the success of his first root beer stand in place called Lodi, Allen soon opened up a second stand in nearby Sacramento. It was there that what is thought to be United States‘ first ‘drive-in’ featuring ‘tray-boys’ for curb side service opened up.

Later, Allen teamed up with Frank Wright, one of his employees, and the name A & W was born. New items were added to the menu and A&W became well. Known as a fast food restaurant offering good food at low prices, and served up fast. Before long, the chain restaurant had spread out beyond the boundaries of California and soon, there wasn’t a state in America where you couldn’t find an A&W restaurant. It had become part of the American way of life.

In 1924, Allen bought Wright’s share of the business to actively pursue a franchise sales program. He had the name, A&W Root Beer and the A&W logo legally trademarked with the U.S. Patent. By 1933, the creamy beverage was such a success that Allen had over 170 franchised outlets operating in different places. To ensure uniform quality for the namesake beverage, Allen sold A&W Root Beer to concentrate exclusively to each franchise operator. His profits were derived from the sale of the concentrate and a nominal license fee.

During World War II no new restaurants were opened. Despite governmental sugar rationing (this affected supplies of bottler’s sugar, a necessary ingredient of root beer) and employee shortages (also a result of the war) most A&W units remained successful. After the war the number of A&W restaurants tripled as loans were available for private enterprise to flourish.

In 1950, with over 450 A&W’s operating nationwide, founder Roy Allen retired and sold the business to an aggressive Nebraskan named Gene Hurtz who formed the A&W Root Beer Company. The post war era – the rapidly recovering economy and popularity of the automobile provided the right environment for Hurtz’s company to prosper. Drive-in was becoming increasingly popular and A&W had the privilege of being one of the few nationally established drive-in restaurant chains. By 1960 the number of A&W’s had swelled to over 2000.

The popularity of A&W soon spread to other parts of the world and Asians had their first taste of it in 1963 when Malaysia opened its first outlet at Batu Road (now known as Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman) where it still does brisk business today. In Malaysia, there are more than 26 A&W restaurants and the company has plans to open more. The opening of new stories not only brings the great taste to more Malaysians but also provides employment as well as management opportunities to people. In fact, A&W has become a household name among Malaysians and its menu offers a wide variety of items to suit every member of the family, including the refreshing A&W Root Beer, the ever popular Coney Dog, Waffle, Curly Fries, Onion Ring and Mozza Burger which are unique products of A&W.

It was the first food chain to be opened in Malaysia. It has also gained a mention in the Malaysian Book of Record to that effect. A&W (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd was awarded the “Golden Mug Award” in recognition of its achievement for being the best managed franchisee in the world in 1996.The award was presented by A&W International President/CEO in Las Vegas, USA.

America loved the taste of A&W Root Beer. So, in 1971, United Brands formed a wholly-owned subsidiary, A&W Beverages, Inc., for the purpose of making A&W Root Beer available on the grocery shelf. First introduced in Arizona and California, the cans and bottles of A&W Root Beer was an instant success. Retailers nationwide were soon carrying the product.

Several ownership changes took place during the sixties and seventies. In 1971, United Brands formed a wholly owned subsidiary, A&W Distributing Co., for the purpose of making A&W Root Beer available on the grocery shelf. In 1974, A&W sugar-free was born along with “The Great Root Bear,” a mascot that served as a goodwill ambassador for the brand. Though the purchases and mergers plagued the expansion efforts of A&W restaurants, the root beer remained the category leader.

In October 1993, the A&W brands, excluding the restaurants, became part of Cadbury Beverages Inc. Today, the A&W brands continue under the ownership of Plano, Texas-based Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc., the largest non-cola soft drink enterprise in North America and the largest subsidiary of London-based Cadbury Schweppes plc.

Much has changed since Roy Allen first sold root beer from his roadside stand on that hot summer day in 1919. Yet, the one thing that hasn’t changed in 85 years is that people over the world love the rich, smooth, thick-headed taste of A&W Root Beer. Clearly, A&W Root Beer has stood the test of time. And, all the credit for that goes to the genius of Roy Allen.

Died    : April 5, 1992 (aged 74)in Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S.

Occupation      : Former Chairman, Wal-Mart

Net worth        : US$58.6 bn (1992 Forbes 400), $128.0 billion (2008), according to Wealthy historical figures 2008.

When a person from Berryville, Arkansas, began opening discount stores outside towns where Sam Walton ran variety stories, he saw what was coming. So, on July 2,1962, at age 44, he opened his first Wal-Mart store, in Rogers, Arkansas. Discounting had hit America in a big way.

Once committed to discounting, Walton began a fight that lasted for the rest of his life. That is to drive costs out of the merchandising system wherever they lay – in the stores, in the manufacturer’s profit margins and with the middleman – all with a view to reducing the prices down, down, and down. Using that formula, which reduced the prices drastically, Wal-Mart sales grew at a relentless pace. Walton hit the road to open stores wherever he saw opportunity. In fact, he would see the layout of the places in his low-flying airplane. When he found the right place in intersections he would touch down, buy a piece of farmland and order up another Wal-Mart store.

As the chain began to take off, Walton made major adjustments to manage the growth. Meanwhile, as early as 1966, when he had 20 stores, he attended the IBM Computer School in order to hire the smartest guy in the class who would computerize his operations. He understood the need for computerizing his merchandise control. Today, Wal-Mart’s computer database is second only to the Pentagon’s in capacity, and though he is rarely remembered that way, Walton may have been the first true information-age CEO.

To his great delight, Walton spent much of his career largely unnoticed by the public or the press. In fact, hardly anyone had ever heard of him when, in 1985, Forbes magazine determined that his 39 per cent ownership of Rd Mart’s stock made him the richest man in America. After that, the first wave 01 attention focused on Walton as a famous retailer. His extraordinary charisma had motivated hundreds of thousands of employees to believe in what Wal-Mart could accomplish, and many of them had traded the company’s stock to wealth. It was truly the American Dream.

Sam Walton was born on March 29,1918 to Thomas Gibson and Nancy Lee Walton near Kingfisher, Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, they owned and lived on a farm until 1923.The Walton family then decided that the farm was not profitable enough to raise a family on. So, Sam and James (Sam’s younger brother born in 1921) had decided they would go back to being a Farm Loan Appraisers. Once this job started the Walton family moved out of Oklahoma and moved from town to town in Missouri. This would traumatize most children but for the Walton boys, it was no big deal. This could be seen when Sam was in 8th grade at Shelbina he became the youngest boy in the state’s history to become an Eagle Scout and this was only a stepping stone to his journey of accomplishments.

As Sam Walton grew up he was always an ambitious boy. He had to help support his family, along with his father and brother because money was lacking due to the depression. Sam’s job was to milk the family cow, bottle the milk, and then deliver the surplus to customers. He would go off to deliver newspapers afterwards. When he graduated from high school he was voted the “Most Versatile Boy” in his class. During this time it would have been easy for Sam to just give up on school and go to work full time. Seeing how his family was struggling to make ends meet, he decided he was going to stay in school and attend the University of Missouri.

As Sam grew up and anyone could see how determined he was to succeed and as time passed he went from being a poor town boy to the richest man in the world. Sam Walton had instituted 10 rules for success, and the 10th rule explains how he achieved all this. It says, “Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody is doing it one way, there is a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly the opposite direction.”

Watson did force a lot of people to change the way they made a living. His use of informational technology to cut costs quickly traveled to all kinds of companies; and his pioneering retailing concepts paved the way for a new breed of  “category killer” retailers like Barnes & Nobles.(Category killer is a term used in marketing to describe a product that has a distinct competitive advantage that competing firms find it almost impossible to operate profitably in that industry.) This wave of low- overhead selling continues to accelerate. The Internet, in fact, is its latest addition. One can only wonder what a young cyber Sam would set out to accomplish if he were just getting started now.

The company went public (1970), and thanks to a unique decentralized and Sam’s charismatic leadership and celebrated hands-on management style, it grew faster in the 1980s. In 1991 Wal-Mart became the nation’s largest retailer with 1700 stores, and he was reported by distribution system Forbes to be the richest man in the country. He was president and chief executive officer until 1988 and chairman until his death. The family business empire included Arkansas and Oklahoma banks and newspapers. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom shortly before his death in 1992. In 1999 Wal-Mart took over the ASDA group (the second largest super market chain) in the UK.

A successful scholarship at the California Institute of Technology was followed by a Masters from Stanford University and a stint at Apple Computer. It was while he was there that Sabeer Bhatia found something that would sooner than later transform his life and revolutionize the world of internet: The Hotmail had arrived!

Frustrated by a corporate e-mail system which did not allow them to communicate privately, Bhatia and his college friend and colleague Jack Smith hit upon the idea of a simple, free and secure way of talking on the net. They called it Hotmail.

Before Hotmail was launched, Bhatia worked for Apple Computer, and then a start­up company, FirePower Systems. Jack Smith, his founding partner at Hotmail, was his colleague and buddy at the two firms.

The idea for a free email company did not come out of the blue, Bhatia explained. For over a year Smith and Bhatia toyed with the idea of a Web based database server and tried to interest venture capitalists in their first venture, JavaSoft. However, realizing that the response was lukewarm, Bhatia and Smith were looking for another idea when they hit upon a Web based email server rather than a database server.

Sabeer was only 27 when he decided he was not going to work for others. He said he was making ‘money‘ when he worked for others, but he wanted to make much more than that by working for himself. He was also aware of the advice someone gave him that the biggest risk in life was not to take a risk at all.

He feared that had he continued working for others, he might not have had the guts to start something of his own. So, with Jack Smith, he decided to chase what many people in the Silicon Valley thought was a crazy idea, a free email service.

Together, the two men raised about $300,000 for their venture. While soon other free email services jumped in, Hotmail remained at the top because it was markedly different from competitors. One didn’t need to download software and install it in the computer to access the email.

It was so revolutionary that in less than two years of founding it, Bill Gates, who’s Microsoft, had its own email service, and wanted to buy Hotmail. The prudent Sabers, who had as a school boy sold sandwiches to make pocket money, took his time on the initial $160 million offer and then closed the deal at a cool $400 million.

Selling his company to Microsoft was yet another gamble for Bhatia. And, getting out of Microsoft and planning yet another venture is another daring step. While it took America Online over six years to build up its customer base, Hotmail grabbed over 11 million subscribers in just two years. “Our strength was we solved the problem that other companies created,” he had said in an earlier interview.”We did not restrict people to access their email from just the computer on which the software was installed.”

“And because we were not restrictive, there was global access for Hotmail account holders. They could do it as easily in India as here in California or any other country in the world.” Even in the digital age, someone had commented, the American Dream lives on.

Sabeer Bhatia’s innovation brought an unshakable belief in the transforming power of technology in his home country, India. No wonder, then, that 30 per cent of the software engineers in US corporations hail from India. The Times of India daily recently named him as one of the Indians of the Century, a honor which, he shares with the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Mohammad All Jinnah and Sunil Gavaskar, the famous cricketer of yesteryears.

He was raised a Hindu and in a way he was one, but he does not believe blindly in destiny. He tries to make his own destiny.”In the long run, it boils down to a simple fact,” he says, “How much of faith does one have in oneself.”

With his Ferraris and an apartment overlooking San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, Sabeer Bhatia had it all. Work hard; play hard seemed to be his motto. 18-hour days in the office were complemented by a frantic social life: he told one newspaper,” from 6 p.m. Friday until Sunday, I’ll be partying in New York.”

“I don’t want to be branded Mr. Hotmail for the rest of my life”, he said recently and there is no doubt that his dynamic blend of East and West will make itself known again sooner or later.

He was chosen for the ‘Entrepreneur of the year’ award (1977) by the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and named to the “Elite 100″, the Upside magazine’s list of top trendsetters in the New Economy. He was also the recipient ofthe”TR100″award, presented by MIT to 100 young innovators who are expected to have the greatest impact on technology in the next few years, and selected by the San Jose Mercury News and POV magazine as one of the ten most successful entrepreneurs of 1998.

Alma Mater     : London School of Economics

Occupation      : Entrepreneur

Net Worth       : GBP £1.29 billion

Stelios is the man who introduced low-cost flying in Britain, and today he is a big guy with a personal fortune of $650 million. But he drives to his favorite casino in Monte Carlo in a tiny, orange (his favorite color) Smart car. He does not gamble, at least not in the casino.

Stelios single-handedly built the easy Jet, the orange-liveried airline from scratch and took on the mighty British airways head on. It might have seemed a surprise move, but the seed for starting a budget airline had germinated much earlier. When Stelios was a student he went to a conference where billionaire Branson was speaking, told him his easy Jet idea and asked him to back him.

Branson was wary not only of budget airlines, but he did not like Stelios’ plan to build a base at Luton, a small town in England located 50km north of central London. Branson said no.

In 1995 Stelios launched easy Jet on his own, from Luton, using two rented 737s with the reservations number in orange on the side, crew in orange sweatshirts, and £29 one-way fares to Glasgow. He advertised as ‘fly to Scotland for the price of a pair of jeans. Cynics thought it vulgar and said no one would fly from Luton. They were wrong. Vulgar orange, along with the brand name and prices that so undercut British Airways’ three-figure fares, proved alluring even to business travelers.

The young Stelios traveled in the mid-eighties to London to study at the London School of Economics. After obtaining a masters at the London Business School in 1988, he returned to Greece to join his father’s shipping empire and the opportunity for a life of opulence and hedonism. (“hedonism” subscribes to a theory that pleasure is the highest good, or whatever causes pleasure is right.)

But two events in the early nineties changed his life. In April 1991 when he is in aged 22, was the chief executive of his father’s business, their tanker, Haven, New up off Genoa, killing five crew members and disgorging up to 50,000 tons of (oil into the sea – arguably the Mediterranean’s worst-ever ecological disaster.

The Haven disaster shaped his attitude to safety, influencing him to buy brand new Boeings as soon as he could after setting up his airline. One of his favorite mottoes is still : “if you think safety is expensive, try an accident.”

Then, in 1992, with the events of the Haven disaster still making headlines in Italian media, Stelios began to wean himself from his father’s business. He set ill his own shipping company, Stelmar Tankers. However, there was a big reluctance from his father to let Stelios go his own way. They clashed over business style, Stelios saying things like “we need computers” and his father “sticking to a very traditional style.” It marked the beginning of his flight from the gilded cage, as he has described it. He was still maintaining good relationships with his father and consulted him on important issues. He finally persuaded his father to lend him 5 million and in 1995 came to London to start easy Jet. Today, easy Jet is flying to 44 European destinations, and carries eight million people annually.

He is known as a “serial entrepreneur”, who likes to create businesses, not manage them. He would like to build the business, but does not want to deal will, stockbrokers, market analysts and the administration of it all.

For instance, in 2003, he launched easyCinema in London. It is called the world’s first no-frills cinema. Seats are booked online or by phone. The earlier you book the less you pay. From their own computers, customers print a barcode which they scan at the turnstiles to get into the theatre. There are computers in the cinema itself so that customers can book online while they are there. So there is no need for box office. Another advantage is that the movie-goers can bring their own popcorn and other eatables that are much cheaper than the prices charged by regular cinemas, and movie tickets cost only 20 dollar each.

After turning various industries upside down by launching the likes of easy Jet, easy Car and easyCinema, the Stelios’s easyGroup has now set its sights on one of the missing links in its travel to Entertainment Empire, that is accommodation. With easy affordable prices, the scheme called, easy Dorm was launched in London last year, (New York and Paris could be next, according to USA Today).

EasyDorm will concentrate on providing accommodation only, and will not offer a restaurant or other services. Bedding and toiletries will be available for purchase for those customers who do not bring their own. Rooms will consist of pre-fabricated fiberglass units (nothing to break, no dirt accumulation), and come with a shower unit, a lavatory and floor mattresses inspired by Japanese style bedding. An extra charge applies for those who choose not to clean their own room. These budget hotels would cost only $5 a night.

Stelios visits Athens to see his aging mother and sick father frequently. After all, he has to prove to his proud father that he made $1.6 billion out of the $ 5m his father gave his son, albeit reluctantly, years ago.

Died    : December 31, 1993 (aged 79) in Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S.

Spouse(s)         :  Olive Cawley

Children          :  Thomas John Watson III, Jeanette Watson, Olive F. Watson, Lucinda Watson, Susan Watson, Helen Watson

Occupation      :  Business.

In 1943, 29-year-old Watson Jr. and his father were once walking around their headquarters when they found an engineer who had hooked an IBM tabulator up to an electronic gizmo the size of a footlocker. He was making payroll calculations in one-tenth the time it usually took. Thomas Watson Jr told his father, “We should put this thing on the market! Even if we only sell eight or 10, we will be able to advertise the fact that we have the world’s first commercial electronic calculator. But 10 years later he saw things differently, and IBM had launched the Model 650 Magnetic Drum Calculator. Today, with over 330,000 employees worldwide and revenues of $96 billion (figures from 2004), IBM is the largest information technology company in the world.

In 1954, the Model 650 used a magnetic drum 4 inches by 16 inches, and it could perform addition or subtraction functions in 1.6 milliseconds, multiplication in about 13 milliseconds, and division in about 17 milliseconds. IBM sometimes refers to the 650 as its first computer. Perhaps it is more accurate to call it IBM’s first commercial business computer (since the 701, also from IBM, was intended for scientific use) and the first computer to make a meaningful profit. The Model 650 became the leading commercial computer of the 1950s, leading IBM out of the desert of punch cards and into the promised land of electronic computing systems. But Watson Sr. would not live to see computers become the mainstay of his corporation; he was dying. In May 1956, at the age of 82, he retired, putting one son, Thomas Watson Jr., at the helm of IBM.

The man who built IBM into a computer giant was worried at the notion of filling his father’s shoes. But worry was a relentless motivator! Though Junior Watson joined the firm in 1937, he served in the US Air Force in the Second World War. Watson suffered bouts of depression and once burst into tears over the thought when his formidable father wanted him to join IBM and run the already famous company.”I cannot do it,” he wailed to his mother.

Thomas Watson Jr. spent his youth convinced that he had something inside. An always failing student,”Terrible Tommy;’ as he was called then, vented his frustration by playing pranks on other students and opposing the author.

In fact, he went through three schools to complete high school, and graduate, I from Brown University just because the dean was reported to be very sympathies towards him. The young playboy rated the pleasures of drinking and dancing) above those of learning.

He devoted more time to indulging his passions for flying airplanes by day and partying by night than to calling on clients of IBM. Even so, Watson filled his plan, sales quota for 1940 on the first day of that year, not because he was a talented salesman but the company faked the accounts to make him look good!

Yet 26 years later, Watson not only succeeded his father but also eventually surpassed him. IBM is now synonymous with computers, even though the company did not invent the device that would change our life, nor had it shipped a single computer before Thomas Jr. took over. How did this transformation take place? How come a man who once cried that he could not run the company, steered the same through the most successful history of computer sales in America?

World War II liberated Tom Watson Jr. from his bad habits. His success in promoting the use of flight simulators earned him a job as aide and pilot for Major General Follett Bradley, the Army Air Forces’ inspector general. Watson flew throughout Asia, Africa and the Pacific, displaying steel nerves and shrewd foresight and planning skills. He was set to fly for United Air Lines after the war when a chance conversation with Bradley changed hip course. Informed of Watson’s job plans, the general said,” Really? I always thought you’d go back and run the IBM Company. “A stunned Watson asked Bradley if he really thought he would do the job (running the IBM) well. The general replied, “Of course.” The business magnate in him was ignited by Bradley.

When he took over IBM from his father, he was convinced that the company should enter the computer market. When his father took charge of the company, it dominated the market for punch-card tabulators – forerunners of computers that performed such tasks as running payrolls and collating census data. Thomas Jr. quickly realized that its future lay in computers, not a 19th century information technology like tabulators. Even the first vacuum-tube machines could calculate 10 times as fast as IBM’s tabulators.

Watson Jr. who became president of IBM in 1952 never gave up. He recruited experts who could think ahead. Watson, who once shared his father’s volcanic temper, was now a changed person, because he feared of falling behind in the fast-changing industry. Funnily enough, he often told his employees, “the higher the monkey climbs, the more he shows his ass.”

With IBM clearly on top in the early ’60s, Watson took one of the biggest gambles in corporate history. He proposed spending more than $5 billion – about three times IBM’s revenues at the time – to develop a new line of computers that would make the company’s existing machines obsolete. The goal was to replace specialized units with a family of compatible computers that could fill every data- processing need. Customers could start with small computers and move up as their demands increased, taking their old software along with them. It was called the System/360, after the 360 degrees in a circle.

The strategy was on the verge of failure when software problems created delivery delays. Panic raced through IBM’s top echelons as rivals closed in. A desperate Watson ousted his younger brother Dick as head of engineering and manufacturing for the System/360 project. Ultimately, System/360, which revolutionized the industry, proved to be wildly successful. Its highly successful launch in 1964 was called by Fortune Magazine as ‘IBM’s $5billion Gamble.’ Following its success, IBM’s base of installed computers jumped from 11,000 in early 1964 to 35,000 in 1970, and its revenues more than doubled, to $7.5 billion. At the same time, IBM’s market value soared from about $14 billion to more than $36 billion.

A heart attack forced Watson to retire at age 57 in 1971, leaving him plenty of time for such adventures as flying across Siberia that he had made during the war. A lifelong Democrat (his father had been a Franklin Roosevelt confidant), Watson served for two years as Jimmy Carter’s ambassador to Moscow.

But perhaps his proudest achievement was to emerge from the shadow of a legendary, relentlessly demanding father. In his first five years as chairman, the younger Watson observed the anniversary of his father’s death in 1956 with a ritual. He quietly took stock of what IBM had accomplished since his father died, and then said to his wife, “That’s another year I’ve made it in his absence.“

As it continues to notch up 52-week highs, investors finally recognize this as a growth stock. We have revised our price target to 60 cent, continuing to recommend a BUY.

Seasonally, the Apr-08 quarter is the weakest quarter in a year. Yet, revenues grew 28.7%YoY and were also up 3.9% QoQ on seasonally low sales volume. The reason is that sales in the Feb-Apr 08 months last year were affected by inflation taking a severe toll on consumer spending; hence 4Q-08 sales formed a low base for comparison. Operating profits rose 76.1% YoY and 10.3% QoQ. Operating profit margins improved sharply to record levels at 19.7% compared to 14.4% in 4Q-08, a weak quarter. NTPM’s raising of product prices by 15% in Jul-09 to offset rising costs proved fortuitous as material costs subsequently fell. Net rose a strong 76.2% YoY and also 22.1% QoQ.

Operating profit margins improved from a year ago due to recycled newsprint prices continuing to fall from depressed levels in preceding quarters. But a continuing fall in subsequent FY10 quarters is not imputed in our forward forecasts.

Higher working capital requirements in inventory costs and receivables boosted net gearing, which rose from 0.15x in Apr-08 to 0.158x in Apr-09 but this has eased from 0.20X in Jan-0-9 and is manageable.

FYE Apr010, sales are forecast to continue to climb at 11.9%, driven by the full year effect of the price increase and a marginal 4% volume gain. NTPM’s dividend yield is sustainable at 5.5% after the 4-for-5 bonus issue.

Recommendation

We have raised our forecast for FY EApr010 earnings to RM51.7m, also representing

+11.9% growth. Valuation remains undemanding at 8.7X PER. The share’s defensive quality comes from its retention of an astonishing stranglehold on the facial tissue market in the country with 70% market share, and the low price stature of the product. The share price has risen 70.4% in the YTD period, but the promised yield is still at least 5.5%, at our recommended threshold yield for income stocks, giving an anticipated 12-month total return of 28%.BUY.

Price of commodities pulled back after rallying making new highs this year amid concerns about global demand which seems to hit a snag as inflation rises. The price of Crude oil closes below US$60 per barrel after staying above US$70 for a few weeks early June.

The price of Crude Palm Oil in the futures market fell 25% in a month from RM2,700.00  to RM2,000 per metric ton. Price of Gold fell as well from US$980 per ounce to USS910.

To add salt the wound in the market sentiment, the increasing H1N1 flu outbreak has become a great cause of concern if companies have to slow down production if employees are being infected. The market finally fell on-month after increasing for three consecutive months. The KLCI closed at 1,067.76 points on the 10th of July, 15.21 points or 1.4% lower than the previous month. The KLCI traded relatively more volatile in a trading range between 1,028.14  and  1,095.91 points last month.

Trading volume was relatively lower. Daily average trading volume fell from 2 billion shares to 1 billion shares on-month. This reflects the weak market sentiment.

As compared to other Asian markets, the Malaysian market is still one of the most defensive market, and notice that the western markets are the weakest performers even for the past 6 months.

The uptrend is still intact as the KLCI is still above the mid and long term 60-and 90-day moving average. The KLCI has tested the short term 30-day average twice and is now below this average market momentum is much weaker as compared to last month. The KLCI is only 7.7 percent above the long term 90 day moving, average (90-SMA) which is currently at 990 points. The difference in the previous month is 11%.

The momentum of the current up trend is getting weaker. The bears have started to take some grip in the market. Momentum indicators like the 14-day

RSI, 14-day Momentum and MACD have heels making new lows since last month. The indicator values are currently near the middle mark whirls separates the bulls and bears dominance. It has been favoring the bulls since end of March this year. The leading Ichimoku Cloud indicator has started to contract as well which means that the uptrend support is getting weaker, but does not sign a major bearish reversal yet at least for the next one month.

The Bollinger Bands which were expanding has also started to contract and this simply means that the KLCI is trading near its 20-day average. The mid­term swing of the Barros Swing indicator shows a lower swing high. The swings were higher since March. The weekly Average True Range (ATR) indicator has also declined almost half on-month. All these volatility indicators are suggesting a weaker momentum.

Conclusion

There were some weak technical indications last month that urges investors and trades to trade cautiously and in the past few weeks, the technical indicators have started to show stronger signs of the market getting more bearish.

Last month, I mentioned that the market may test the next resistance at 1,160 points but with heavy resistance and the KLCI did find strong resistance at 1,095 points. The probability of the KLCI testing the next resistance level has become thin. We may see a start of a bearish trend, as long as the KLCI remains below the 1,160 resistance level.

Expecting the KLCI to go into one more bear rally to complete the price cycle in the 3. or 4′ quarter and we already in the third. The forecast for KLCI is 700 points and is only valid IF the KLCI stays below 1.160 points. I have written my analysis about the price cycle in my previous two articles. Stay out of the market and if you have large positions, liquidate some of them and get them back when price gets lower.

Occupation      : Co-founder and CEO, Oracle Corporation

Salary              : $500.0 million USD (2008)

Net Worth       : Below $22.5 billion USD (2009)

Spouse(s)         : Adda Quinn (m. 1967–1974), Nancy Wheeler Jenkins (m. 1977–1978), Barbara Boothe (m. 1983–1986), Melanie Craft (m. 2003–present)

Oracle Corporation, one of the major companies developing database management systems (DBMS), tools for database development and enterprise resource planning software from 1977 and has offices in more than 145 countries around the world. As of 2005, it employs more than 50,000 persons worldwide. An oracle database, strictly speaking, consists of a collection of data managed by an Oracle database management system. The distinction between the managed data (the database) and the software which manages the data relies, in Oracle’s marketing literature, on the capitalization of the world database. Oracle Corporation produces and markets the DBMS, which many database applications use extensively on many popular computing platforms.

Larry Ellison was born in Bronx, New York. At nine months, he contracted pneumonia, and his unmarried 19 year-old mother gave him to her great aunt and uncle to raise the child. He was raised in a two-bed room apartment, and until he was twelve years old he did not know that he was adopted. As a boy, Larry Ellison showed an independent, rebellious attitude and often clashed with his adoptive father. He showed a strong aptitude for math and science, and was named student of the year at the University of Illinois. But during the final exams in his second year, Ellison’s adoptive mother died, and he dropped out of school. However, he enrolled at the University of Chicago the following year, dropped out again after the first semester. His father was now convinced that Ellison would never make anything of himself. But Ellison was very fond of and had learned the basics of computer programming in Chicago and took his skill with him to California, having just enough money for fast food.

For the next eight years, he bounced from job to job. When he was working as a programmer for a company called Ampex, he built a large database for the CIA with a code name, Oracle. (Generally, Oracle means a person considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic vision). In 1977, Ellison and his former supervisor from Ampex, Robert Miner, founded Software Development Labs, and created a database program compatible with both mainframe and desktop computer systems. Their first customers were Wright Patterson Air Force Base and the CIA. In 1980, Oracle had only eight employees, and revenues were less than $1 million, but the following year, IBM (International Business Machines Corporation is the largest information technology company with a continuous success dating back to 1911) itself adopted Oracle’s SQL (Structured Query Language) for its mainframe systems and for the next seven years, Oracle’s sales doubled every year. The million dollar company was becoming a billion dollar company.

Oracle went public in 1986, raising $31.5 million with its initial public offering, but the firm’s zealous young staff for the rapidly expanding firm habitually overstated revenues, and in 1990 the company posted its first losses. Oracle’s market capitalization fell by 80 percent and the company appeared to be on the verge of bankruptcy. Ellison bit the bullet and replaced much of the original senior staff with more experienced managers. For the first time, he delegated the management side of the business to professionals, and channeled his own energies into product development. The newest version of the database program was a solid success and in only two years the company’s stock had regained much of its previous value.

Oracle’s fortunes continued to rise throughout the 1990s. America’s banks, airlines, automobile companies and retail giants all depend on Oracle’s database programs. Oracle has benefited hugely from the growth of electronic commerce; its net profits increased by 76 percent in a single quarter of the year 2000. As the stocks of other high tech companies fluctuated wildly, Oracle held its value, and its largest shareholder, Ellison, had come very close to a long-cherished goal: surpassing Microsoft’s Bill Gates to become the richest man in the world.

Larry Ellison is far from the run-of-the-mill businessman. Oracle today is the world’s leading supplier of software for information management and the world’s second largest independent software company, boasting revenues of more than $9.7 billion. Ellison is also known as the Other Software Billionaire.

Ellison is a living proof that business is not something learned through academic books, but rather an innate gift. A college dropout, Ellison is renowned for his impeccable business sense, drive and ambition. It is no surprise that in order to achieve Ellison’s success, one must take huge risks and learn from mistakes made along the way. Ellison also demanded at least 100 percent growth in sales of his company’s software, a near impossible feat for a company that already boasts $100 to $500 million in sales. Although Ellison’s high demands led to a highly stressful work environment, it also led to high productivity and Oracle’s present success.

Oracle underwent some changes before becoming the multibillion-dollar corporation it is today. When first founded by Ellison, it was known as Software Development Laboratories and then reincarnated into Relational Technologies until it finally took on the name it is known as today; Oracle, Larry Ellison presently sits on the board of Apple Computer (a company he once dreamed of taking over) and the many honors and awards he received include Entrepreneur of the Year from the Harvard School of Business.

Being a billionaire, Ellison is also believed to be quite a multi-faceted character: playboy, world champion sailboat racer, sports nut, jet pilot, ruthless businessman, marketing genius, and avant-garde thinker. We weren’t kidding when we said he is no ordinary businessman.

Died     : April 7, 1947 (aged 83) in Fair Lane, Dearborn, Michigan, U.S.

Occupation      : Business, Engineering

Net Worth       : above $188.1 billion, according to Wealthy historical figures 2008, based on information from Forbes – February 2008.

Religious         : Protestant Episcopal

Spouse(s)         : Clara Jane Bryant

Children          : Edsel Ford

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do. And, before everything else, getting toady is the secret of success. Driven by a vision of a new technology, rejecting Formal education, and instead trusting in his native brilliance, he built an empire that made him a folk hero of sorts. A popular symbol of the new era that his ingenuity had helped creates Henry Ford to revere more than Bill Gates.

Henry Ford was born in July 30, 1863 in Wayne County, Michigan. He was the son of Irish immigrants, William and Mary Ford, who had settled on a farm in Dearborn. In addition to helping his father with the harvest, Ford also attended school in a one-room schoolhouse. However, Ford disliked both school and farm life, and at age 16, he walked to Detroit in search of employment.

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability. So, Ford was employed as an apprentice in a machine shop, where he learned about the internal combustion engine. After several years of learning his trade, Ford returned to the family farm and worked part-time for the Westinghouse Engine Company. Ford set up a small machine shop on the farm and began tinkering with engines and machines.

During this time, Ford fell in love with Clara Bryant, whom he married in 1888. Several years later in 1891, Ford and his wife moved back to Detroit when Ford was made chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. (Edison became close friend with Henry Ford and the two often vacationed together mid had adjoining winter homes in Florida.) The position required Ford to be on- tall 24 hours a day, but the irregular hours allowed him time to experiment. This event signified a conscious decision on Ford’s part to dedicate his life to industrial pursuits. His promotion to Chief Engineer in 1893 gave him enough time and money to devote attention to his personal experiments on internal combustion engines.

Ford knew a business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. These experiments culminated in 1896 with the completion of own self-propelled vehicle, the Quadricycle. The Quadricycle had four wire wheels that looked like heavy bicycle wheels, was steered with a tiller like a boat, and had only two forward speeds with no reverse.

Henry Ford realized his dream of producing an automobile that was reasonably priced, reliable, and efficient with the introduction of the Model T in 1908. This vehicle initiated a new era in personal transportation. It was easy to operate, maintain, and handle on rough roads, and it immediately became a huge success initially it took 14 hours to assemble a Model T car. By improving his mass production methods, Ford reduced this to 1 hour 33 minutes. This lowered the, overall cost of each car and enabled Ford to undercut the price of other cars in the market.

Between 1908 and 1916 the selling price of the Model T fell from $1,000 to $360.Through it all, the key to Ford’s success, was his right understanding that the health of his company rested on  consumers spending, not saving, their money. “Buy a Ford and Spend the Difference!” was the slogan Ford himself penned to sell the Model T.

In 1913, Ford began using standardized interchangeable parts and assembly line techniques in his plant. Although Ford neither originated nor was the first to employ such practices, he was chiefly responsible for their general adoption and for the consequent great expansion of American industry and the raising of the American standard of living. The introduction of the moving assembly line revolutionized automobile production by significantly reducing assembly time per vehicle, thus lowering costs. Ford’s production of Model Is made his company the largest automobile manufacturer in the world. Over the next 19 years, Ford built 15,000,000 automobiles with the Model “T” engine, the longest run of any single model apart from the Volkswagen Beetle.

During the next several years, Ford continued to fine-tune his passenger vehicles; In addition, he built racing cars and even drove them himself. However, Ford’s successes were not without problems. Soon after the incorporation of the Ford Motor Company, Ford was threatened by the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers. Ford often said that when everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. After years of legal battles, Ford won his case in 1911, which made it possible for more people to become automobile manufacturers.

Ford was able to market the Model T to the general public because of his advanced production technology. As a result, more automobiles were made available at a lower cost. Ford also instituted the $5.00 a day minimum wage, which he claimed increased productivity. The quote that “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success,” is attributed to Ford.

He handed over the presidency to his grandson, Henry Ford II. Ford died at his home on April 7, 1947. Although Ford was not the first to build a self-propelled vehicle with a gasoline engine, he was, however, one of several automotive pioneers who helped his country become a nation of motorists. Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

Height : 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)

Weight: 185 lb (84 kg; 13.2 st)

Nationality      : United States Residence Windermere, Florida

Spouse             : Elin Nordegren

Children          : Sam Alexis (2007) & Charlie Axel (2009)

Eldrick “Tiger” Woods is considered one of the greatest golfers of all time. In 2005, at the age of 29, he reached the milestones of ten professional major gold championships, placing him third on the all time list behind Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen. On December 30, 2004, when he celebrated his 28t” birthday, he had accumulated 40 million dollars in his nine-year PGA career.

By comparison, Jack Nicklaus, also known as “The golden bear” and a major force in professional golf from the 1960s to the mid 1990s, won only 5.7 million dollars.

The PGA Championship is an annual golf tournament, conducted by the Professional Golf Association of America as part of the PGA tour. The PGA Championships is one of the four Major Championships in men’s golf, and it is the golf season’s final major, being played in August.

Tiger Woods was born on December 30,1975 in Cypress, California. His father, Earl Woods, is a Vietnam War veteran of mixed African American and Native American ancestry. He is now chairman of his son’s charitable Tiger Woods Foundation. Woods’ mother Kultida Woods is originally from Thailand, and has mixed Thai and Chinese ancestry. He was given the nickname Tiger at birth after a Vietnamese war comrade of his father’s and became generally known by that name. By the time he was achieving national prominence in amateur gold, he was always called Tiger Woods.

Woods was a child prodigy who began to play golf at a very young age. While still a small child, he demonstrated his golf skills in a television appearance with Mike Douglas, an American entertainer. He took an interest in golf, at age of six months, watching as his father hit golf balls into a net and imitating his swing. He shot 48 for nine holes at age 3 and was featured in Gold Digest at age 5. He won the Optimist International Junior tournament six times at ages 8, 9, 12, 13, 14 and 15.

In 1984, when he was only eight years, he won the 9-10 year-old boys’ event at the Junior Wolf Golf. He went on to win the U.S. Junior amateur title in 1991, 1992 and 1993. He remains the youngest ever winner and the only multiple winner.

He followed this with three consecutive U.S. Amateur win in 1994. It was the year he graduated high school and became the youngest man ever to win that event. Hi His five USGA championships before age 20 qualify him for consideration as the greatest golfer of all time under age 20.

He attended Stanford University and won one NCAA individual championship, Woods decided to leave Stanford after two years because he believed he was ready to succeed as a professional, and became one in 1996, playing his first found of professional golf at the Greater Milwaukee Open (GMO). He won two events in the three months of the 1996 season that he played as professional. I hi following April he won The Masters by a record margin of 12 shots, and he has been by far the highest profile golfer in the world since then. (The Masters is one of four major championships in men’s golf and the first to take place each pm Unlike the other major championships, the Masters is held every year at the same location, Augusta National Golf Club, a private golf club in Georgia, USA.)

In 1997, Woods went to number one in the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time. Despite suggestions that the other players would only be competing for second place from now on, Woods’ form began to fade in the second half of 1997, and in 1998 he only won once on the PGA Tour. At this time he was working on modifications to his swing to adapt to the maturation of his physique. He won seven out of eleven major championships starting with the 1999 PGA championships and finishing with 2002 United States Open.

His 2001 Masters win marked the only time anyone had ever won four consecutive majors, a feat which became known as the Tiger Slam. He broke Old Tom Morris’ record for the largest victory margin ever in a major championship, which had stood since 1862, with his 15-shot win in the 2000 U.S. Open. His dominance was such that Woods won 52 percent of all the prize money he could have won. He won 81.7 percent more than the runner-up, the highest margin since Byron Nelson in 1945 (87.2 percent) and Hogan in 1946 (85 percent). He was the first to have as many as eight PGA TOUR victories in one year since Johnny Miller won eight in 1974.

Tiger always believed that he was the toughest golf player mentally.”A great way to improve your feel is to putt with your eyes closed. After each putt, (to hit a golf ball with a light stroke) try to guess how far the ball rolled. This is the best drill for distance control I know of,” he said. His mother said, Tiger would not be so good if he did not have the fire. I think I gave him the fire.”

Woods skills may have been encouraged by his golf-enthusiast father, but he believes much comes from his Thai side.”Buddhism has been a major role in my life,” he told journalists.”It has given me inner peace and calmness. I owe that to my mom.” What does being half-Thai means to him? “It means a lot, it is the other half of me,” he says. So, if you want to achieve fame in any game, you should always let the fire of ambition burn in you like Tiger Woods did.

Died    : December 15, 1966 (aged 65) in Burbank, California, U.S.

Occupation      : Film producer, Co-founder of The Walt Disney Company, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions

Spouse(s)         : Lillian Bounds (1925-1966)

Walt Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, and animator. One of the most well-known motion picture producers in the world, Disney was also the cartoon artist of comic books and newspaper-comic strips, the creator of an American-based theme park called Disneyland, and is the co-founder with his brother Roy O.Disney of Walt Disney Company. He created the most famous Mickey Mouse, wearing red shorts and yellow shoes, and the mouse has evolved from being simply a character in cartoons to become one of the most recognizable symbols in the world.

He became interested in personalizing animal’s character after carelessly killing a small owl as a young boy. He felt deeply sorry and guilty and vowed never again to kill a living creature. Disney worked as a paperboy as a youth.

At age 16, during World War I, he lied about his age to join the American Red Cross. He soon returned home, where he won a scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute. There, he met a fellow animator, Ub Iwerks. The two soon set up their own company. In the early 20s, they made a series of animated shorts for the Newman theater chain, entitled “Newman’s Laugh-O-Grams’.’ Their company soon went bankrupt, however. The two then went to Hollywood in 1923.

They started work on a new series, about a live-action little girl who journeys to a world of animated characters. Entitled the “Alice Comedies”  they were distributed by Margaret Winkler. Walt was backed up financially by Winkler and his brother Roy. Hundreds of “Alice Comedies” were produced between 1923 and 1927, before they lost popularity.

Walt then started work on a series around a new animated character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. This series was successful, but in 1928, Walt discovered that Margaret Winkler and her husband, Charles Mintz, had stolen the rights to the character away from him. They’d also stolen all his animators, except for Ub Iwerks. While taking the train home, Walt started scribbling on a piece of paper. The result of these scribbles was a mouse named Mickey. With only Walt and Ub to animate, and Walt’s wife Lilly and Roy’s wife Edna to ink in the animation cells, three Mickey Mouse cartoons were quickly produced. The first two didn’t sell, so Walt added synchronized sound to the last one, Steamboat Willie (1928), and it was immediately picked up. It became the first cartoon to use synchronize sound. With Walt as the voice of Mickey, it premiered to great success.

Many more cartoons followed. Walt was now in the big time, but he didn’t stop creating new ideas. In 1929, he created the ‘Silly Symphonies, a cartoon series that didn’t have a continuous character. They were another success. One of them, Flowers and Trees (1932), was the first cartoon to be produced in color and the first cartoon to win an Oscar; another, Three Little Pigs. The Silly Symphonies stopped coming out in 1939, but Mickey and friends, (including Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, and plenty more), were still going strong and still very popular.

In 1934, Walt started work on another new idea: a cartoon that ran the length of a feature film. Everyone in Hollywood was calling it “Disney’s Folly; but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was anything but, winning critical raves, the adoration of the public, and one big and seven little special Oscars for Walt. Now Walt listed animated features among his ever-growing list of accomplishments.

While continuing to produce cartoon shorts, he also started producing more of the animated features. Pinnochio (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942) were all successes; In the mid-40s, he began producing “packaged features; essentially a group of shorts put together to run feature length, but by 1950 he was back with animated features that stuck to one story, with Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Peter Pan (1953). In 1950, he also started producing live-action films, with Treasure Island (1950). These began taking on greater importance throughout the 50s and 60s, but Walt continued to produce animated features, including Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). In 1955, he even opened a theme park in southern California: Disneyland. It was a place where children and their parents could take rides, just explore, and meet the familiar animated characters, all in a clean, safe environment. It was another great success.

Walt also became one of the first producers of films to venture into television, with his series “Disneyland” (1954) which he began in 1954 to promote his theme park. He also produced “The Mickey Mouse Club” (1955) and “Zorro” (1957).To top it all off, Walt came out with the lavish musical fantasy Mary Poppins (1964), which mixed live-action with animation. It is considered by many to be his magnum opus. Even after that, Walt continued to forge onward, with plans to build a new theme park and an experimental prototype city in Florida. He never did finish those plans, however; in 1966, he contracted lung cancer. He died in December at age 65. But not even his death, it seemed, could stop him. Roy carried on plans to build the Florida theme park, and it premiered in 1971 under the name Walt Disney World. What’s more, his company continues to flourish, still producing animated and live-action films and overseeing the still-growing empire started by one man: Walt Disney, who will never be forgotten.

President Jimmy Carter once said, “Mickey Mouse is the symbol of goodwill, surpassing all languages and cultures. When one sees Mickey Mouse, they see happiness.” When Disney was in the fifth grade, he memorized the Gettysburg address (Abraham Lincoln’s greatest speech in the American history during the American civil war in 1863) and surprised everyone by arriving at school dressed as Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of United States. His costume consisted of his father’s old hat and a homemade beard. Little wonder that years later when his studio created the first fully functioning audio-animatronics human figure for the 1964 New York World Fair, the figure looked like Abraham Lincoln.

Walt Disney holds the record of winning the most Academy (Oscar) Awards: 32, a feat that is impossible to beat. The Mickey Mouse logo now identifies an institution whose $22 billion in annual sales make it the world’s largest media company. But it is important to remember what Walt Disney said once, “I hope we will never lose sight of one thing that it was all started by a mouse.”

Died    : January 26, 1932 (aged 70) in Phoenix, Arizona, United States

Occupation      : Confectionery Magnate

Spouse(s)         : Ada

Children          : Dorothy, Philip Knight Wrigley

Parents            : William and Mary A. Ladley

Chewing gum has been around for thousands of years. For a long time, gum was made from things like sap and wax. It did not always taste good. Today’s gum is sweet and comes in many flavors. William Wrigley Jr. is best known for his chewing gum, and his company today is the largest producer and distributor of chewing gum in the world. Wrigley single-handedly chewed up competition to remain on the top of the gum business, because as put it, “when two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.”

While the first chewing gum to be widely advertised was Adams’ Tutti-Frutti, it took the father of the gum, William Wrigley, Jr., to elevate the marketing of gum to an art. In the year 1891, Wrigley arrived in Chicago from Philadelphia. His father had been a soap manufacturer, and the new, would-be businessman initially started that trade by selling a washing soap. Wrigley sought to increase the business by offering vendors baking powder as a free item, and when the baking powder became more popular than the soap, he made that his primary product.

Wrigley then decided to give away two packages of chewing gum free with each can of baking powder. Once again the free item was more popular than the original product sold, and Wrigley entered the gum business. He contacted the Zeno Gum Company to manufacture his product. Zeno made paraffin gum, but Wrigley directed a change to the product. The first gums produced were Lotta, Vassar, and Sweet Sixteen Orange. In 1893 he introduced Juicy Fruit and Spearmint.

Wrigley had entered a competitive held There were at least a dozen companies at the time, and in 1899 the six largest, including Thomas Adams’ firm, formed a powerful ” Chewing gum trust “Wrigley refused to join, preferring his independence. Though he was a stickler for quality, Wrigley’s great talent was his advertising ability. “Anybody can make gum,” he once said. “Selling it is the problem.” His placards appeared in streetcars and subways, and he constructed electric signs, one of them in Manhattan’s Times Square ran up an annual electric bill of more than $100,000. He also sent free samples to millions.

Wrigley’s most impressive selling venture was the “mile-long” sign consisting of 117 linked billboards lining the tracks of a railroad between Atlantic City and Trenton, New Jersey. In 1915 he developed a Mother Goose booklet and gave away some 14 million copies. The brightly-colored volume featured Mother Goose rhymes rewritten to praise Wrigley’s gum (“Jack be nimble/ Jack be quick/ Jack run get your/ Wrigley stick!”). The gum magnate eventually became the largest purchaser of advertising in the United States.

By 1910, Spearmint was the most popular gum in the nation, and in Canada, Wrigley constructed the first of his many factories outside the United States. To boost his company’s image, Wrigley had Chicago’s best architects design “the house that gum built,” a beautiful, white, terra-cotta skyscraper that became one of the city’s great landmarks, and the company’s corporate headquarters.

The company currently sells its products in more than 180 countries and maintains 14 factories in various countries, including Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, France, Kenya, Taiwan, China, India, Poland, and Russia.

Wrigley was a much beloved figure, celebrated for his fair dealings with employees, which included free laundering of work clothes, free manicures for women workers, free life insurance, and a guaranteed annual wage. He was also the first employer in the United States to give the two-day weekend.

In addition to his salesmanship and energy, Wrigley’s success was surely based on his sunny view of life. To him, fear was the great destroyer of dreams.”Thousands are ruled by it,” he once said.”I’ve been broke three times since I started business. Nobody knew it except myself and it didn’t cause me loss of a minute’s sleep. There’s nothing in life that can really hurt you except yourself.” William Wrigley,Jr., died in 1932, leaving the business in his family’s hands.

In 2004 Wrigley company purchased the Life Savers (A traditional American brand of ring shaped hard candy, which are packaged in rolls of about 15 pieces) and Altoids (a popular brand of breath mints that have been in existence since the turn of the 19th century) businesses from Kraft Food for US$1.48 billion.

The William Wrigley Jr. Company today is the world’s number one maker of chewing and bubble gum. Its products include such popular brands as Big Red, Double-mint, Eclipse, Extra, Freedent, Juicy Fruit, Orbit, Spearmint, and Winter- fresh, as well as novelty gums and candies.

The gum trade has been and remains highly competitive and creative. Gums have been used to administer aspirin, nicotine, laxatives, and airsickness medicine. They have been produced in flavors ranging from cinnamon and watermelon to clove and ginseng. Gum has been made sugarless and stick-less (so it won’t pull out dental fillings), spicy and icy, and fruity and minty While chewing gum never won a war or altered the course of history, the sticky substance’s development remains a clever example of American ingenuity and innovation. And, all the credit for that goes to William Wrigley Jr.

Occupation      : Executive Chairman of AIC Limited, National Commercial Bank of Jamaica

Net worth : Above US$1.0 billion (2009)

You can’t be an investor unless you think like a businessman. And you can’t be a good businessman unless you think like an investor. Thus says Michael Lee-Chin, Chairman and CEO of AIC Limited, the company he acquired in 1987, and has over the years taken the organization from $1 million to more than $9 billion in assets under his management. Under his stewardship, the AIC also purchased percent of the National Bank of Jamaica in 2002.

Michael Lee-Chin was born in Jamaica in 1951, and migrated to Canada in the 1970s where he studied civil engineering at McMaster University. Interestingly, Chin personally convinced Jamaica’s prime minister to pay for his college degree. Actually, as a young man, he worked three jobs; one of them was helping his parent’s family store. He has also worked as bar bouncer. As the eldest of nine children, he acquired a sense of responsibility early in his life. He learned to take the leader’s approach to every task and project that he took on. Since then, he has felt that he needed to take charge of whatever situation he comes across.

He entered the financial services industry in 1977 as a financial advisor. He has distinct beliefs regarding wealth creation, and a unique investment strategy. AIC’s goal is to create long-term wealth for investors. To achieve this objective, Lee-Chin looked for role models – those business people who created wealth in society by owning one or more businesses. For this reason, Lee-Chin established AIC’s investment philosophy of buying new excellent businesses in long-term growth sectors and holding these businesses for the long term in order to help AIC investors prosper by preserving and growing their capital and minimizing taxes.

Five Laws of Wealth Creation

He understood that successful business people manage their finances in a specific way. AIC has analyzed and distilled that format to create five specific principles – better known as The Five Laws of Wealth Creation.

1. Set a Goal

Work with your financial adviser for the answers to these questions: Where am I today financially? Where do I need to be? How will I get there?

2. Use Other People’s Expertise

Use the wealth of knowledge and experience of your financial advisor, accountant, lawyer or role model in your planning for financial security.

3. Use Other People’s Money

Home ownership works with borrowed money, and investing too. Paying one lump sum for a home is beyond our means; just as saving large sums every month for investing is unachievable for most people. But there is an alternative, and that’s borrowing to invest. At AIC, they call this Upvesting. Think of it this way: Rather than using a $100 pre-authorized chequing plan to invest in a mutual fund you could qualify for an Upvest loan of $14,000. You could invest that $14,000 now and get the full amount working for you years sooner. Speak to your financial adviser about the risks and rewards of Upvesting.

4. Pay Yourself First

Very few of us will get rich quick, so we must be disciplined and consistent in our wealth creation approach. Save 10 per cent of your gross income each month and pay yourself first. It’s not how much you earn that matters, but how much you keep.

5. Buy, Hold, And Prosper.

True investors are those who concentrate on buying businesses rather than stocks. Their three common goals are to: Preserve wealth, grow wealth at an above-average rate of return, and minimize the impact of taxes. To preserve and grow wealth, true investors strive to own the highest quality businesses in strong, long-term growth industries. By holding these excellent businesses for the long term and ignoring the daily market, their wealth grows free of the ravages of tax.

AIC’s success has accorded Lee-Chin a position among Canada’s richest citizens and Forbes ranks him among the wealthiest people in the world. AIC’s success has also allowed AIC’s long-term investor to prosper through the AIC Advantage Fund, the firm’s flagship fund, which has consistently outperformed its benchmark index over the past 15 years.

The company won the Dalbar Mutual Fund Service Award in 2000, 2003 and 2004. In 2001, the AIC American Balanced Fund was named best global balanced fund of the year. And Michael Lee-Chin himself was named Entrepreneur of the Year in 1997. In 2002, he earned the Harry Jerome Award for a decade of achievement. The July 5, 2004 issue of TIME magazine named Michael Lee-Chin one of  “Canada’s Heroes”- representing one of  “the country’s most intriguing and inspiring citizens.”

Lee-Chin is also the founder of the Berkshire Group – three companies known as Berkshire Investment Group, Berkshire Securities and Berkshire Insurance Services. The Berkshire Group has 300 branch offices across Canada, more than 1,100 advisors and assets under management exceeding $11 billion.

Talking of his success, he says he has confidence in his native thoughts.”Once I fully tested my ideas, I’m steadfast in my convictions. Second, my discipline and character have allowed me to become successful. As I said often, I perform tasks today with the same rigor as I did fifteen years ago. Also, I preserve a long term approach to managing a business.