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Part deux: Money No Enough 2

Though I dislike the movie by Jack Neo, I seriously like the very down to earth songs in the movie, sung mostly in Hokkien - the language of the melancholy (and crude). Why do I say that? Listen to those Hokkien songs, it's almost invariably about tragedies - personal or otherwise! Hokkien songs evoke the melancholic liquor of out everyone that other songs find it hard to do. If you don't believe, listen to Chen Lei's songs :P

The subject of the review, part deux, is more on the songs in the movie.

Here's the song that I like. This song sends goosebumps up my spine - a sign of a touchy mushy song :) It's about wife and the husband relationship, how the wife and husband will still be together, regardless of what happens.



The next song is closer to heart, it's also the main theme song of the movie. What if I have 1 million? What will I do? :) I really really like the chorus part of the song. The solo part is also quite nice. Not shredding, no wah nor any funny effects..but I just it fits the song pretty aptly :)

I just watched the greatest batman movie ever!

It's not really a movie, but rather it's a 6 part anime-movie, titled Gotham Knight. I dare say it's even better than the recent movie depicting the Joker, because this one is closer thematically and philosophically to the batman that I know and want to see. Each part consists of a series of thematically related but not necessary chronologically ordered short story. But before you dismiss it, do note that each series has a lot more depth than the movie can ever do. The following themes are explored in the 6 parter:

1. The impressions of Gotham citizens on batman
2. Batman's inner pain
3. Batman's refusal to use firearms

The series ends with the final 6 part and leaves me craving for more. Besides the great voicing and good music, the sounds are also top notched. Each part depicts batman in different art forms, so for true batman fans, you can ogle and drool at the various ways that batman is drawn. Each style is so unique! (I like the first episode's way of drawing batman - because it draws the impression of batman, seen through the eyes of witnesses, rather than the usual way. Hard to describe, have to see it to experience it)

Do pay close attention to the dialogue, because it is really full of wit. Which of these parters do I like best? It's number 5, titled 'working through pain'. The execution is simply superb! The next best is part 4, titled "In darkness dwells". I mentioned in my batman review that the movie should show the other intellectual side of batman, not just the brawns but the brains as well. Part 4 shows how good Batman's 'superpowers' is - his cold logic and good detective skills.

So where to see it? You can see it here. But you need to change it to part 01, as the link is for part 2. You can change which part you want to watch on the top of the link.

A trailer of this anime-movie can be found here:

Was nudged by millionairemind to do a little investigation into the total returns of STI should year 2008 fall by 20%. Since I have not been checking STI absolute value (I did check the daily relative % drop/rise though), I was quite surprised that since the start of the year, we've dropped a cool 20%.

I did post a table with the values of all the CAGR for different years from investing in STI, in this post. I think this time, I better list down my assumptions for calculating the values:


1. Most importantly, the data is taken from Yahoo! finance website. The price is adjusted closing price.

2. The CAGR (compound annual growth rate) is calculated like this:

To find the CAGR from period A to period B:

CAGR = (price at 31-dec of period B / price at 1st-jan of period A)^(1/(B-A)) - 1

If market is not opened on 31st Dec or 1st Jan, the price of the market days closest to the dates will be taken instead.

3. The AVERAGE CAGR is calculated by taking a simple average of all the CAGR of the same period i.e. sum of all CAGR of the same period divided by the number of CAGR taken.

Below is the table calculated for the returns on STI for different periods, assuming that 2008 closed on 31st Dec at 2769, a 20% drop from 1st Jan 2008:



For comparison, here is my earlier table posted, without taking into account 2008:



Here's what can be observed:

1. Average CAGR dropped across most periods. 'Most' is the keyword. Average CAGR for 5-yr, 7-yr, 10-yr actually increased. I don't ascribe any significance to this fact, because of the way I computed the CAGR. I took 1st Jan and 31st Dec as the price for each period of calculation, so I'm very sure that if I changed the starting and ending period to take the price (say, using 1st June to 1st-June next year), the whole data will change.

2. Adding data for 2008 still doesn't change the fact that after investing for 14-yrs, there is not a single year of negative CAGR. This means that based on historical data, if one invests in any year in the past, for 14 years starting from 1st Jan and selling on 31st Dec of the 14th year, you will not make any losses. But the returns are a pathetic 3.1% per annum (on average) for a period of 14 yrs.

Again, this would most definitely change should I change the dates where I calculate my CAGR for different periods.

3. This much I can conclude: Investment period and Average CAGR seem to follow a U-shaped curve. There is a period of declining average CAGR from 1-st year till around the 10-14th year, beyond which, the average CAGR increases with period of years invested. However, the shorter the period of investments, the more volatile the the returns are. Conversely, the longer the period of investments, the less volatile the returns will be.

4. Here's a very interesting observation when I break down the percentage of getting positive CAGR for different investment periods.

------Years----total number of samples----number of +CAGR-----% of +CAGR
-------1 yr-----------------21---------------------12---------------------57%
-------3 yr-----------------19---------------------14---------------------74%
-------5 yr-----------------17----------------------12---------------------71%
-------7 yr-----------------15----------------------10---------------------67%
------10 yr----------------12-----------------------9----------------------75%
------12 yr----------------10-----------------------9----------------------90%
------13 yr-----------------9-----------------------8-----------------------89%
---14 yrs onwards---------------------------------------------------------100%

It's quite obvious that the longer the period of investments, the lesser the number of years in which one gets negative returns, no matter which year they started the investment. As mentioned, on the 14th year onwards, all the sample data gave positive CAGR.

But all these mean nothing if the percentage of losses in sample data is greater than percentage of gains in sample data. What I mean is that even though, based on past data, there are greater chances of getting +ve returns no matter what investment periods I choose, I can still lose money if the % of losses in losing years are greater than the % of gains in winning years.

Let's see this table:

------Years----Average gains of +ve years^----Average losses of -ve years#
-------1 yr-----------------28.1%---------------------16.2%
-------3 yr-----------------12.3%---------------------10.3%
-------5 yr-----------------9.8%-----------------------5.2%
-------7 yr-----------------7.6%-----------------------3.8%
------10 yr-----------------4.4%-----------------------1.7%
------12 yr-----------------3.2%-----------------------0.3%
------13 yr-----------------3.3%-----------------------0.8%
------14 yr-----------------3.1%
------15 yr-----------------3.6%
------16 yr-----------------4.6%
------17 yr-----------------5.0%
------18 yr-----------------5.5%
------19 yr-----------------5.6%
------20 yr-----------------6.3%

^ average gains of +ve years means the simple average of all the gains made for that particular years of investment
# average gains of -ve years means the simple average of all the losses made for that particular years of investment
* There are no average losses data for 14th year of investment periods and beyond, because there are no -ve years.

I am quite surprised by the results. Not only are there higher probability of getting positive years, the average gains for every data for different investment years yield the same results - the average gains of positive years is much more than losses incurred in negative years. But of course, average doesn't mean anything. On average, each family in country X has 2.2 children doesn't really mean they really have 2.2 children. The same logic applies here.

I watched Jack Neo's Money No Enough 2 today.



To summarise, I do not like it at all. The summation of the cheap feel of the CGI, predictable plot lines and the usual ranting of pet topics makes it not worth the premium ticket price to watch this movie on a weekend. Fortunately, I watched it at a discount movie theater, which showed the movie at only $7, so it's not too bad to whilst one's time away for 2 hours.

It's rather ironic to see the cinema pretty crowded. The cinema, because of the rather uncomfortable seats, acoustically challenged sound system and the occasional hiccups (damn, I encountered the hiccups today when I watched the show; for a cool 5 mins, there are not sound at all) means that there are usually not many people in the theatre. To see so many people watching a movie titled 'Money No Enough 2' shows that people do have money to watch such cheap thrills.

The movie did not disappoint. Characteristic of Jack Neo's movie, it is a sequence of little skits not dissimilar to his past Comedy nights, aired on Monday Channel 8, shown every Monday. Despite the crowd's laughter, I do not find the show funny at all. In fact, it's quite a sad movie for me.

The movie showed all the familiar situations where Singaporeans are trying to earn money. I was a little taken aback when I watched that spending a night in ICU at private hospitals will set one back by 8k a night. I wonder how I can afford such expensive 'hotels' with or without insurance (specifically, H&S). Ouch...spending 3 nights will erode one's net worth by $24,000...scary thought.

I think I've said enough for this film. If you can, try not to watch it. Another irritating thing about the movie - when is Jack Neo's movie not a happy ending?