Work Life Balance

Time flies, Opps, I should say "rocketed" since start working. It had been 4 years working.

When looked back, how much things I had achieved for my 4 years in secondary schools, 4 years in University, but I hardly wrote out anything what I had achieved in 4 years time of working.

4 years in secondary school, I had my wonderful times in school, grew from a small young boy, too a matured teenager. Bulid life-long friendship with best friends, doing a lot of crazy/stupid things.

4 years in University, grew from a small kampung boy, to a hot-blood young man. Knowing how corrupt our country are, start care about others, etc. Build strong, good friendship with course-mates, while build my profession in career.

4 years working life, we got money, but in-exchange with our time. We had miss out so much of great things. Our life become machinery life, morning wake-up, go work, fight fight fight, at night back home, dinner, sleep. When schedule a meet up with friend, the schedule is by months. Even very close friend, we might meet up 6 months once, 1 years once. Everyone is busy.

So how to motivate ourselves during weekend, or maybe after work? If you work until 11pm everyday, you will slowly lost all your friend, because you are so hard to be invited, sooner or later, your friend will give up on you, and you had to spend your whole life in office.

Having a relax dinner with close friend helped. At least they remind you that, your life is not only work. You can talk about all things other than work, complaining to each other, talk about old sweet time.

Listen to some soft music. It helped to remind you that, you are not machine, you still have feel, you still know how to appreciate good music. My way of express thing is so terrible, and I guess nobody will able to feel what I wish to say now. Maybe is due to language, or maybe is due to I am really not a good writer. Just give me some times, I will improve.

中产游子的心境

康利给我发了这篇好文章。对我们这些在槟城，新加坡工作的外地人的心境，形容得入木三分。

一起分享。共勉之。

http://forum.esm-cn.com/FORUM_POST_1000010011_1200593843_0.HTM?BJTJLT20100825

NUS

Start study my postgraduate of Electronic Engineering at NUS. It is actually a Master of Science by coursework, so I just need to finish 10 module, by minimum CGPA 3.0.

The tuition fees is SGD 1990 / semester, and the is PR rate. For international student, I think the rate will be higher. So it depend how long you needed to complete it, for example, you take 2-3-2-3 course per semester, then you will need need 4 semester, but if you take 2 courses only per semester, then it would need 5 semester.

My classmate are mostly from India and China, most of them. Every year, NUS sponsored many scholarship for foreign student, mostly from China and India, to attract them to study at NUS. But they need to work at Singapore for > 3 years, after graduation, unless you can prove that you are unable to be employed.

According from my Singaporean friend, sometimes they felt like NUS is not build for them, but for all foreigner. In order to get into NUS, they either need to be high-flyer at JC (Junior College, A level, just like STPM at Malaysia), or they had to study at Singapore Polytechnic, and score a very high pointer. But for foreigner, the standard seems lower a bit. So it is not easy for Singaporean to get in to NUS, for those who get in, most of them are high-flyer during JC.

Sometimes I feel sorry about Singaporean, because the community is very competitive, and the government doesn't really have protective measure to protect them for all outsider. And they had to push themselves to be competitive, and this whole thing bring the small country up to 1st class country. So the government shape the people.

Failure

Just read a good magazine. "Frozen Thought". Is some sort like motivation magazine. But dun read it whole day, just read 1-2 article once, else will be boring. Some good phrase from this magazine, which I wish to put it here to remind myself.

Failure does not mean I'm failure:

It does mean I have not yet succeeded.

Failure does not mean I have accomplished nothing:

It does mean I have learner something.

Failure does not mean I have been a fool:

It does mean I had enough faith to experiment.

Failure does not mean I have disgraced:

It does mean I dare to try.

Failure does not mean I don't have it:

It does mean I have something to do in a different way.

Failure does not mean I am inferior:

It does mean I am not perfect.

Failure does not mean I have wasted my life:

It does mean that I have an excuse to start over.

Failure does not mean that I should give up:

It does mean that I should try harder.

Failure does not mean that I will never make it:

It does mean that I need more practice.

Failure does not mean that you have abandoned me:

It does mean that you must have a better idea.

共勉之。

2010/Q2 RIMM

RIMM is a good quote to trade strangle on earning, due to it's nature of price gaping when earning released.

2010/06/24 After market : 2010/Q2 report. 1.38(1.34).

Although it's earning beat forecast, but revenue missed. Market quickly react and gap down 5%.
Here is the option table before, day open, day close on 2010/06/25.
Straddle result.
And this is the day open/ day close data.

As we can see, how big the impact of implied volatility reduce before and after earning release, hurt straddle.

Another strategy, which gain profit from the reduction of implied volatility from the day open to day close. Only 52.5 pair earn, because RIMM price drop another 5% after the market open.

2010/05/21 HTZ

6th candle form a head on 5EMA. And pass OR. trigger.
Short on 7th candle.
Move SL to 0R on 8th candle.
Sell all on 11th candle @10.45. Earn 2R.

10.66,10.59,10.52,10.45,10.38...

Bullet proof strategy??

Let say SPY is trading at 109.27 now, and here is the price of its option chain.

		Strike Price
5.15	5.29	107	3.45	3.46
4.47	4.61	108	3.81	3.91
3.81	3.95	109	4.2	4.29
3.25	3.3	110	4.58	4.74

Lets assume this.
Long 1 107c, Short 107p = (5.29-3.45) = 1.84, similar to i buy 100 SPY @ (107+1.84).
Short 100 SPY @ 109.27
Profit = 109.27 -108.84 = 0.43

	107c @ 5.29	107p @ 3.45	SPY 109.27
100	-5.29	-3.55	9.27	0.43
105	-5.29	1.45	4.27	0.43
110	-2.29	3.45	-0.73	0.43
115	2.71	3.45	-5.73	0.43

So there are confirm profit 0.43.

But is it worth?
Let's calculate cost. Commision fees excluded.
Cost = Long 107c, Short 107p = 184.00
Short 100 SPY @ 109.27 = -10927.
Profit = 43.
Sound like we are using (10927+184) just to earn 43, which is 0.387% in 30 days, or 4.64% per anuum.

How if commision included?

While open the position,
Long/Short = 10+(0.75*2) = 11.50
Short SPY = 10
Total = 21.50

While close the position, there might be 3 scenario, (i) Stock price < price ="="> strike price.
Let's ignore scenario (ii), it is very unlikely to happen.
Scenario (i) and (iii) will have same cost, which is
one option expired worthless, one being assigned. = 20
Close SPY = 10.
Total cost = 30.

Total cost = 30 + 21.50 = 51.50.
Profit = (43-51.50) = -8.50.

So this does not work for 1 option, but what if 10?
Total cost = (25+10) + (20+10) = 65
Profit = (430-65) = 365

Return for the trade in %.
365/(1840+109270) = 0.32%, or 3.94% per annum.

3.94% per annum?
Sound like is the rate we can get if we put the money in the bank. Then why should we make our so difficult to trade on this, sort of 0% return trade?

As far as I knew, if we short a stock, we no need to pay for full amount. It just need 500 for each 100 stock you short. So actual cost u needed to open the trade is actually, 1840+5000 = 6840.
After Math, it would be 5.33%, or 64% per annum.

Wow, 64%........

Will we got margin call if the stock spike?
Nope. We will got margin call, when the account value is less than the amount we risk.
When the stock spike, although the value of stock is depreciating, but the value of call option is appreciate. It will offset the difference, and make your account value unchanged.

What's next?
With the bid/ask spread closer when the market open, the return would be more attractive.
The next thing I would like to confirm is, whether this strategy can be placed on real trade. I got to wait until Monday to do this. Let's see how.