A rebellion in the Stock Market?

It has never happened before. But the frustration and anger must be so high and waiting to explode that a petition has been posted asking for the resignation of Magnus Bocker. The usually quite, docile and hapless remisiers and retail investors must be really pushed to a corner.
 
This is the introductory paragraphs of the petition:
 
Petition to remove Magnus Bocker as the CEO of SGX due to his mismanagement.
 
We demand that Mr Magnus Bocker, CEO of SGX, step down from his post immediately.
Since taking over the helm from Mr Hsieh Fu Hua, Bocker has not been focused on building the capital markets. Instead, he has been putting in a lot of effort to build the derivative and commodities market to enhance the profits. This is almost similar to when SMRT decided to focus on developing their retail income to enhance profits and forgetting their role to provide a safe and reliable public transport system.
 
The breakdown of the SGX trading system yesterday for almost three hours is almost similar to the massive train disruption we experienced just a while ago. Given that hundreds of millions have been spent on the system since Bocker became CEO, such a breakdown should not happen.
 
The petition is at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/petition-to-remove-magnus-bocker-as-the-ceo-of-sgx
 
Why is this happening? Are there enough justifications to call for this petition? Would there be enough signatories to make this petition meaningful and for MAS to act on it? The outage on Wednesday appears to be the straw that breaks the camels back. Maybe, maybe not, as there are no talented Singaporeans to replace Magnus Bockers. They could not even find a Singaporean good enough to be the Chief Operations Officer cum Technical Officer.
 
I think both will be safe and will continue to run the SGX. They are the best talents that the SGX/MAS could find for the jobs. And SGX is doing very well, with all the measures introduced, SGX is well ready and well prepared to be the best stock exchange in Asia. Just give them time. Think long term.

Kopi Level - Blue, Thank you.

Dalit aspiration, to ride a bicycle

The new aspiration for Singaporeans are changing, and the latest is to aspire to own a bicycle, an expensive one of course. Cars are out of reach to many and will only get worst. So reconditioning the Singaporean Dalits in the making to think cheap, think low, have low aspiration, is a good start. Tell them to cycle to work or to go any where, go dating, go for dinner, just cycle.
 
Don’t look at Communist China and the Chinese. They have different dreams as rich Communists. They want all the best things money can buy, branded goods, good housing and of course to own and drive cars, luxury cars. We should aspire to own and ride bicycles. We must have reached a stage when luxury and material comfort is no longer important to us. Next aspiration is for the new Dalits to aspire to live like monks, give up all possessions and desires.
 
And there are many good pretensions to ride bicycles. Think green, tell your neighbours that you want to save Gaia. If they don’t know what that is, tell them it is the fashionable name for old Mother Earth. Tell people you do not want to waste natural resources like consuming precious oil. Oh, tell people cycling is good for health. It is a life style thing. Every Dalit is cycling and owning a bicycle. Just ignore those who drive Mercedes and BMWs and with a few top of the range bicycles sitting on the roof of the cars.
 
The best thing about cycling is that you can throw your temper around with rude motorists. You can dump your bicycle on the car’s bonnet. It is not crime. After venting your anger with the rich car owners, you can cycle away happily. The only catch is if the bugger is rich enough to hire a lawyer to sue you. If not, you got your chance to show your manhood for free.
 
And the Govt is all for cycling. There is a National Cycling Plan to turn more roads into cycling paths and make cycling easy and safe. With the hot weather and tropical thunderstorms, they may think of building a roof over all the bicycle paths. Now, wouldn’t that be good and thoughtful? But don’t ask too much and demand the cycling paths to be air conditioned. That is not acceptable.
 
There will then be no shortage of car parks when there are less cars on the roads. Car parks can be converted to bicycle parks. As for loss of revenue from COEs, this can be compensated in two ways. COE should start from $200k. And once there are too many bicycles, can introduce COEs for bicycles to make up. Of course it cannot be the same as car COEs. But with the numbers of bicycles on the roads, even at $1k could be quite a princely sum.
 
Yes, tell the Dalits it is a reasonable aspiration to ride bicycles. They will manufacture two seat bicycles for those datings. It is so romantic and so nostalgic, like in the movies. Grandpa and grandma also did the same.
There is no need for four seater bicycles as the family unit is getting smaller with some not wanting to have children. A two seater bicycle is just perfect.

Kopi Level - Blue, Thank you.

Sin City is a low crime city

When overcharging or over billing is no crime. When cheating customers buying iPhones with phony insurance scheme is no crime. When beating up motorists by cyclists is no crime, it is only natural that crime rates will be low. It is utterly disgusting to see rogue shop owners in Sim Lim Square, like those reported in the media, cheating their customers in broad daylight, and the authority could not do anything about it. And the poor customers would have to go down on their knee, at least one tourist did that, to beg for mercy. And when CASE intervened, the victim just got back half the money paid without the goods. And everyone thinks they have done a good job and the poor victim should be happy with half his money back and the other half still inside the pocket of the robber. Have they changed the meaning of robbery in the dictionary?
 
And no one is shouting vile in any of these instances. Over billing or overcharging by the millions or hundreds of thousands, not vile. Cheating a vulnerable old lady by the millions, not vile? Then what is vile? Oh, heckling Special Needs Children is vile.
 
But low crime is not no crime. We have serious crimes like making a nuisance in a Speakers’ Corner when demonstrating too loudly and disturbing other Park users. Six people have been charged in court for this serious crime. Another crime currently in process in the court is a Town Council headed by a democratically elected MP holding a small fair in her constituency and being charged for not filling a form properly, meaning no permission to do so. Luckily no one said this is vile also.
 
Victims of those cheating crimes at Sim Lim Square, or I may be wrong to call them cheating since it is not a crime, can only find their own justice by suing the ‘cheats’. And if they are lucky, the public will stand up for them, to raise fund to cover the money lost to the ‘cheats’. My apologies, I do not know how to call the shop keepers as I am not sure they are cheats. Some lawyers are out defending them and warning the public not to harass them emotionally. The poor Vietnamese victim that went down on his knee was not emotionally harassed for sure.
 
And the public spirited citizens are now resorting to taking matters into their own hands by shaming the shopkeepers. This is the best they could do to protect themselves. And they are warned not to go over board or they could run foul of the law. What kind of justice is this? The law seems to be in favour of the rogue merchants but anyone trying to take justice into their own hands would risk the law coming down hard on them. This is a Rule of Law state. I am still trying to figure out what this meant.
 
Has this Sin City progressed to Shame City of low crimes? Did anyone bother if this Shoppers’ Paradise is turning into a Pirate’s Cave? Does it? Rip Van Winke did not know that such foul practices have been happening for years. Just a few incidents only leh. No big deal lah. Who cares? Bo Cheng Hu is the best.
Isn’t it scary to think that these shops could cheat so openly with impunity and could continue to do the same after repeated complaints against them? What is going on? And shoppers are advised to take precautions themselves when shopping. How about hiring a couple of bodyguards and lawyers when go shopping to be safe?
 
‘China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has officially put up a notice warning their nationals to be careful when buying electronics such as mobile phone in Singapore.
A similar message is being shared around Vietnam as the news of the Vietnamese tourist being scammed then crying and begging on his knees for a refund made national headlines in Vietnam.’
 
The above quotes are posted in The Real Singapore.

Kopi Level - Blue, Thank you.

Stock Exchange down, hit by power outage

I thought it was the stock exchange of some 3rd World country. This is rare to happen in Singapore. Another one in 50 years incident. MAS is not looking too please and is following up closely with the SGX. The latter is investigating into the cause of this technical glitch that froze trading for 3 hours.
 
Trading was resumed after normal trading hours, from 5.15pm to 5.45pm for stocks and as for derivative tradings, it restarted at 7pm and closed at 2am. This looks like a trial run to align SGX with the European and American bourses. SGX and local traders should treasure this golden opportunity to trade at the same time as the western bourses, live trading man. Maybe 24 hour non stop trading is in the air.
 
The media also reported that the SGX invested in a $250m state of the art trading system that was the fastest in the world, running at 100 times faster than the old system or 3,000 times faster than the blink of an eye. Then yesterday it was hit by multiple power supply issues.
 
My thoughts, maybe it was under utilized as the high speed super computer was designed to run fast and with high volumes. And when the volume is so small there could be a mismatch, that the computer is unable to cope with low volume. This is like driving a Lamborghini on first gear in Singapore roads at 10 kph. Do it everyday and it is going to cause unusual wear and tear and will damage the machine that is made to go fast in free ways.
 
Anyway SGX is investigating the causes of this outage seriously. My wild guess is unlikely to be the cause. If funnily this is the cause, then they should sell off the super computer and go back to the old ones, if it has not been sold to the garang guni man by now. It would be a case of too good, too fast, too over power for an inactive stock exchange that is too small to match, and shrinking trading volumes. Maybe it is good to slow down and go back to the old system, and not to let the supercomputers take advantage of small and slow retail investors.
 
Speculation that it was a cyber attack was categorically denied.

Kopi Level - Yellow

Singapore property prices set to rise again

There is a new trend in property usage and this will create a storm in the property market. Luxury hotels will sprout everywhere to cater to the super rich, and the demand is rising. Bluebell and Boxer were checked into the best hotel available in town, into the Royal Suite that provides all the finest things in life that money can buy. Spa, manicure, scented room, room service for anything the couple need. They can eat as much food as they like, buffet style, with wines and champagne or ala carte room service. The hotel is equipped like 5 stars, swimming pool, gym, massage parlours, 24 hour CCTV security system, anything to make the hotel guests happy. Aromatherapy and facial masks are in things for the guests as well. Pipe in music, 40 inch Led TV in the bedroom are standard furnishing. I think their pyjamas must also be specially designed and of specially made material.
 
Bluebell and Boxer happens to be pedigree dogs. Their owners would want the best for them. Oh by the way, they sleep on the best leather pillows and lay under the finest linens. The in thing today is building luxury hotels for pets like dogs and cats. And this is taking off in a big way. Soon there will be hotels for other pets as well. And many property investors are jumping into the bandwagon to buy up properties, HDB also can I think, to be renovated into 5 star hotels for dogs.
 
They say it is a dog’s life not for no reason. Everyone is standing up on a stool to brag how they love dogs and animals. Ministers and politicians too. In the past you need to be a scholar general to be invited to join politics. The new niche credential is to be dog lovers or animal lovers.
 
Our dogs are going to live it up, if they have rich and powerful masters looking after them. Foreign dogs will do better as their pedigrees are more desirable than our pariah dogs. The famous hotels that are having high occupancy rate are The Waginton and Petopia, Tekka or Hougang Hotel. Both are bungalows and not HDB flats by the way.
 
Property savvy investors can smell the money and will know where to put their money to make more money. Now it is all about dogs and cats and animals. Senior citizens can move to Bintang, Batam and JB. We need the land for luxury hotels and their high end and high living guests.
 
Our taxi drivers are slow in not jumping into the act. They should redecorate their taxis for the comforts of dogs. And security agencies would also see a new business. These luxury hotels also need security guards to guard the dogs. Mmmm, what is happening? I thought they used to have guard dogs to guard the rich. Now we have security guards guarding the dwellings of dogs!
 
How about dog crematorium and columbarium in district 9, 10 and 11? They already have dog café and restaurants and all doing very well. The nail painting industry would soon have branches for dogs as well.
Dog’s live in hotel suites! Human beans live in dog kennels? Would that be the day? No wonder people are aspiring to be dogs and behaving like dogs.

Kopi Level - Yellow