The stock is down 31.1% from its all-time closing high of $149,200 on December 2007.

Berkshire estimated that shareholder equity fell more than  US$8 billion in October, reflecting Very High Exposure to the derivative contracts and to other investments. It ended September with US$76 billion of stock and US$29.6 billion of fixed-income holdings.

Berkshire’s poor performances, and a weak earnings report for the third quarter, are prompting some talk that Warren Buffett has lost his Midas touch.

Look like the Greatest Value Investor stock is also NOT  Immune to The Global Financial Tsunami!

Warren Buffett is perhaps one of the Greatest Value Investor of all time. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, has grown from over $8 a share when he started acquiring its stock back in the 1960’s to over US$102,800 today, ballooning Buffett’s personal holdings to over more than $36 Billion.

Berkshire’s Class A shares sold for US$102,800 as of today, making them the highest-priced shares on the New York Stock Exchange, in part because they NEVER had a stock split. Shares closed above $100,000 for the first time 23th October 2006. Berkshire Class B shares have 1/30th of the economic rights of the Class A shares, and therefore trade roughly at 1/30th of the price of the Class A shares.

Berkshire’s CEO, Warren Buffett, is a very well respected for his investment insights, prowess and his very deep understanding of a wide spectrum of businesses and investment.

His annual chairman letters are read and quoted widely around the world. Barron’s Magazine named Berkshire the most respected company in the world in 2007 based on a survey of American money managers.

Omaha-based Berkshire owns more than 73 companies, and is best known for its insurance holdings such as auto insurer Geico Corp and Reinsurer General Re Corp.

I foresee Huge Market Volatility in the coming weeks till Middle of the Next Year at Least.

BE careful DO NOT Caught Up In The Biggest Financial Mess Of The 21st Century and KEEP CASH!

All Feedback & Comments are WELCOME below!

***********************************************

Latest Update: It CLOSED below $100,000 and never REBOUND! (Monday, November 17, 2008)

Today’s closed at $95,615 is a NEW Two-Year Closing Low.  The stock fell $5,385 today, a Sudden Drop of 5.3 percent. That’ll be the Biggest One-Day Point and Percentage(%) Decline in Three weeks, and the Fourth Biggest Percentage DROP of the Year.

***********************************************

Now do YOU know why standard mail is called Snail Mail.

What is a Google PIN?

In order to become eligible to receive payments for your AdSense account, all web site owner are required to enter a Personal Identification Number (PIN). PINs are printed on white 4.5 x 6 inch (11.4 x 15.2 cm) postcards and sent via standard mail.

Why Google send me the PIN?

PINs are necessary to verify the accuracy of my contact information and to help ensure that i can receive my payments.

When should I expect to receive a PIN?

Google will print and send the PIN via standard mail several days after my account balance reaches US $10 for the first time. PINs typically arrive within 2-4 weeks, but may take longer depending on your location.

I expecting my first Google pay check arrived on middle of December 2008. That will be my Year End Bonus! (Another Passive Income!)

My next project on Affiliate Niche Marketing. Do check my blog often for the more update. Comments is Welcome!

The volume of traffic is so far very Encouraging.

How about my income?

I get a lot of enquiries on how, what, when …etc on doing it.

So sorry i am unable to reveal much details on this.

I only can say The ideas come from reading some e-books and visiting some forums. You need to Learn before Earning some money. There is NO short cut!

Myth : To be successful, I have to invest and read as many e-books as possible

Most of the e-books in the market is Rubbish, Useless Outdated information or Bull Shit. So Don’t waste your hundreds of dollars and precious time buying tons of useless e-books. The only thing you will accumulate by doing that is a higher credit card debt, tons of information taking up unnecessary space on your hard drive and Information Overloaded.

Your minds will get jammed up and we CAN’T seem to figure out how to put everything together or where to start. Therefore always make sure you get good e-book by reading reviews done by others.

The FACT: You CANNOT make Money Online simply by investing on  tons of ebooks !

So the question next is What is the Best e-books to get to avoid the above pitfalls.

One of the recommend Good e-book is called Atomic Blogging 2.0 by Alvin Phang.

I have to say, I have never seen such detailed instructions in any ebook prior to reading this one on how to proceed from having nothing to be the webmaster of your own blog, including hosting, domain name registration, Google Adsense and a detailed “how to” on blogging itself. Atomic Blogging really does go into detail there and it is so easy that any newbie can comprehend the steps.

So what will you learn about blogging inside Atomic Blogging 2.0?

-How to Get Extremely High Traffic Domain Names With This FREE Simple Tool Most Internet Millionaires Don’t Want You To Know About!

-An Untold Secret Why 99% Of Internet Marketers Fail Online And How You Can Prevent This From Happening On You…

-A Secret Way of How Experts Find Domain Names That Give You Instant Traffic And Cash Within 24 Hours!

-Finally REVEALED! Tools And Step-By-Step Guide Revealing How To Discover The Right Niches And Products In Only 120 Minutes Or LESS!

-A Closely Guarded Secret To Set Up Your Website In Minutes That Programmers Don’t Want You To Know! (Yes! Even A Beginner With NO Computer Knowledge Can Do It In 10 Minutes Or LESS!)

-STOP Paying Others To Do Simple Tasks Of Updating Your Websites In A Flash! I Will Show You In Just 4 Pages With Detailed Steps To Upload Files The Quick And Easy Way

-How You Can Literally Exploit The Up And Coming Web 2.0 Trend (This alone will help you to outrank and rake in much more profits than other blogs!)

-The Wordpress Secret You Can Use To Quickly And Easily Boost Your Blogs Rankings!

-Finally Revealed—Secret Proven Steps Pro-Bloggers Use To Consistently Get Massive Amount of Traffic.

-Covert Techniques To Make Your Blog Irresistible To ALL the Search Engines.

-A Secret SEO Formula That Guarantees Top 10 Ranking In The Search Engines (It Took Me 16 Months To Research And Crack This Code!) When You Master This, You Can Start Charging People Thousands Of Dollars To Search Engine Optimize For THEM!

Click here now to check out Atomic Blogging

-One Tiny “Tweak” That Increased your blog Rankings From PR1 to PR4 Overnight (And How You Can Do It Too In the Next 15 Minutes!)

-How To Generate Thousands Of Real (This Has to Be Emphasized) Back Links To Your Blog And Website Without Much Hard Work And Start Increasing Your Technorati Ranking Within A Week!

-REVEALED: Free Personal Resources You Can Use To Get Hundreds Of Free Quality Content For Your Blog Instantly!

-How One Simple Atomic Blogging Module Got My Content Indexed Within 24 Hours In All Major Search Engines.

-The 5 Atomic Nuclear Traffic Strategies That Will Explode Your Traffic. The Same Strategies That Are Driving Over 50,000 Unique Visitors To My Blog Every Single Month!

-Advanced SEO Techniques I Used To Get Top Search Engines Rankings In Record Time (They May Be Advanced, But You’ll Know How to Do It In Only 15 Minutes!)

Not only that, in Atomic Blogging , there are lot more valuable bonuses. I really urge you to go and take a look yourself because there is too much for me to explained here.

It is product that I help me  to set up the blog and earn my first $203.59 passive income that  you are seeing now!

Click here now to check out Atomic Blogging

I can honestly say, that if you are looking to get started online, but have no or little  idea whatsoever on the HOW, then get the Atomic Blogging ebook. It will be a step by step implementation to get your website (blog) up in no time.

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance - Derek Curtis Bok

Do NOT  GAVE UP on the idea of making money on the Internet. It Possible even for Newbie - Alan Tan

Good Luck!

Can You Really Make Money from Internet? Bull Shit?

I Do NOT believe it at the first place until I make my first US$100 from Google AdSense in 16 DAYS using one niche Blog! A big achievement for me as a newbie.

Google AdSense is a pay-per-click and pay-per-impression advertising - meaning you get paid for valid clicks on the ads on your site. AdSense Site Owners are paid a percentage of the ad revenues earned by Google from clicks and impressions on that publisher’s sites. The exact percentage has not been disclosed. Payments are made on a monthly basis by cheque or by electronic money transfer.

I started my my Internet money making venture beginning of this year after DIY my own site www.KLTimesSquare.com. It was very plain and done using Microsoft Word. My friends comments the web site is not "professional" design. Anyway, I’ve develop more "professional" looking web site at www.TimesSquare-KL.com. I still learning to improve my web site to look even better.

How Did I make it?

By choosing a niche blog in Entertainment which is build on 11 October 2008.

My learning experience is You need to Promote your site to get Traffic. No traffic means NO Income. Like in conventional business You may have the Best product in the World but if No Marketing, Nobody will have a chance to Buy from You!

High Traffic = Potential High Income

My Capital Outlay is about US$40 which is spend on an domain name, web hosting and some tools. Everyday need to spend about 1-2 hours to update and  promote my niche blog.

Please do Not ask me more what have I have reveal here as a Internet Marketers you are NOT suppose to reveal your niche(blog) to other. Hope everyone understand on this.

I am not trying to show off or brag as I know many other Internet Marketers earns more than US$1,000 everyday. The reason I put this here is mainly because  to Motivate and Encourage other NOT to GIVE UP on your quest in Making Money in Internet especially to newbie. It’s much Less Risky compare to FOREX, Stock Market, Stock Options etc. There is saying High Risk High Gain. How True!

I Choose Internet!

YES…YOU Can Make Money in the Internet..  It’s POSSIBLE!  Not Bull Shit!

Everyday I still learning and explore to improve my Internet earning. So be prepare to have many late night sleep if YOU choose this Path. My plan next is to explorer Affiliate Marketing programs and may even sell off this niche blog in the future if my time do not permit.

So I’m waiting for my First Adsense cheque in my mailbox and will post a snap shoot photo in my blog here also.

Success requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you’re not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were.-David Rockefeller

KLCI closes below 1,000
The benchmark Kuala Lumpur Composite Index closed 19.86 points or 1.95 per cent lower at 996.84, dragged down by the downtrend in plantation stocks. Blue Chip companies like Public Bank Bhd, KNM Group Bhd & etc may saw further weakness.

Abdullah to announce decision within 2 days
Umno president ,DATUK Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said today he will announce tomorrow or on Wednesday whether he will defend the post of Umno president at the party elections in March next year.

CPO hits limit down on export fears
Palm oil slumps to near 2-year low. The benchmark December contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange dropped RM200 to RM1,800 briefly, a level unseen since Nov 20, 2006. This is due to fears of slowing exports and weaker global vegetable oil markets, possible fallout from a global economic slowdown and increased fears of a recession in the United States, spawned by its credit crisis. This very likely will also likely dampen crude palm oil prices to stay below RM2,000 per tonne level.

Asian markets fall on US economy worries
Asian markets started the new week on a weak note on Monday, with the local bourse also slightly lower in cautious trade as investors worried about the deteriorating fundamentals of the world’s largest economy despite the Congress approval for the US$700bil bailout.

Same advice: I would rather Keep Cash!

October is one of the Worst Months to Play the Stock Market. Other Bad Months are: July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August And February-Mark Twain

****Breaking News

Dow Plunges 400 Points to Below 10,000-The Dow Jones industrials skidded more than 400 points and fell below 10,000 for the first time in four years, while the credit markets remained under strain. -Monday October 6, 10:33 am ET

You probably know that Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft as the World’s richest man (although he was recently de-throne).

BUT DID YOU KNOW THAT……..

1. His name is William H. Gates III.
2. William Henry Gates was born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington.
3. When he was eight, he tried to read the entire Word Book Encyclopedia and made it through the letter P.
4. At around the age of ten. Bill marked “SCIENTIST” on a survey that asked him what he wanted to be when he was older.
5. He wrote his first computer program at the age of Thirteen.
6. His Scholastic Aptitude Test(SAT) score was 800(a perfect score) on the Math portion and 700 on the verbal portion.
   
7. He read a lot. Favorite books including biographies like the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte(1769-1821) and U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt(1882-1975)
8. He was arrested in New Mexico in 1997 for a Traffic Violation.
9. When Microsoft first began, he allowed his employees to work whenever they wanted!
10. He met his wife, Melinda French, in 1987 at a Microsoft press event in Manhattan while she was a worker for the company. They would go on to get married on New Years Day in 1994.
11. He is currently having a building named after him at Carnegie Mellon University, called the Gates Building of Computer Science.
12. He was a Multimillionaire before he was Thirty.
13. Today, he is an active part of the “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,” a philanthropic organization which is best known for arranging for vaccination of children in some developing countries.

Land Banking has become very popular nowadays. This investment is traditionally reserved for the very rich; as they are the only ones who can afford to buy hundreds of acres of land parcels that cost millions of dollars. However, through a unique joint venture program, Land Banking is now available to within the reach of everyone. Now a number of companies have opened up this investment to a wider audience.

Whenever you visit the property fair, for sure you won’t missed name like Walton International Group, Land International, Strategic Land Investment, UK Land International and many more.

I was invited by a mutual friend to attend a talk by one of the top Land Banking company last week at Kuala Lumpur . Here is what I gather for about half hour talk.

What is Land Banking ?

Land Banking simply involves the acquisition of land, which does not enjoy planning consent, in advance of expanding urbanization. The price of an open space plot, not immediately subject to urban development pressures is low. When urban expansion occurs the land rises in value when planning consent is granted.

Land Banking is an alternative form of investment in solid ground whereby the investors are purchasing a piece of land collectively in Canada or America or UK . Each investor is required to sign sales and purchase agreement with land office in the respective country.

The way to make big capital gains in land banking, involves buying land in specific areas in the hope of future development.

It is exactly like what a local developer is doing in areas for instance Puchong, Damansara and the Mines . Land price escalated over the period via value-added process as well as natural appreciation. Mutiara Damansara of Selangor for instance was purchased by SCB Developments at RM15.88 per sq ft in 2000. It was subsequently sold at RM157.00 per sq ft in 2003. Enormous return with Land-Banking with 10X growth in 3 years! ( 6 Oct 2003- The Sun,)

How Land Banking work?

Stage 1
2-3 years of research on a particular potential land will be conducted. At the same time, analyses the demand of the land for residential or industrial needs for further development.

Stage 2
Upon confirming the potential of the land, the land banking company will acquire the land.

Stage 3
The land banking company will convert the land title and develop a master development plan.

Stage 4
Actively look for potential developer / buyer and sell the land with development plan to yield return.

In short, Land Banking is the process of acquiring a parcel of raw land or undeveloped land and enhancing the status of the land by formulating the concept plans and submitting the plans to the authorities for approval.

As the value of the land increases tremendously once approval is received from authorities, the land will sell to developers with significant returns.

"Don’t wait to buy land. Buy land and wait." – Will Rogers

Advantages of Investing in Land Banking

Attractive Return - Walton International Group claimed their track record is above 10% pa(simple return). Many of Walton sales rep and managers are investors themself! Most of their sales are repeat sales and Asia region alone capture  50% of the sales total sales Volume.

Portfolio Diversification - land banking investment offers an opportunity that isn’t directly correlated or tied to the movement of other standard investments. This offers clients a unique opportunity to bring diversity to their portfolios

Minimum effort by Investor(Dummy Investing) - No Service or management charges to pay. Just invest one lump sum and wait for about 3-6 years to reap the expected return. It offers a hassle free investment because you pay your initial investment, and you don’t have to think about it until exit. Very suitable for who do not have the time/education/patience to study and do research

Land is a finite resource- The key to land investing is to buy in countries with a shortage of land and a growing economy and population that will make prime land locations rise in price as they are developed

Disadvantages of Investing in Land Banking

(What "they" prefer Not to Tell You in details)

Minimum Liquidity – You are expected to hold the investment minimum for 3-6 years for the land price to appreciate. Early exit will result loss.

No guarantee on Exit - Companies operating these schemes are seeking investors to buy plots of land in areas which HAVE NOT YET been granted planning permission. There is no guarantees on how soon developers will buy over the land. Estimates by landbanking companies range from a period of three to eight years, to five to seven years.

Basically the companies will apply to convert from agriculture to Commercial land status from the Government. Government may changed their policies anytime.

Land is located Oversea - You do not know the real value of the land, except the promise of the marketer that no investor had sold the land at a loss.

Land banking is unregulated , and thus falls into a legal grey area. This could pose problems if disputes arise between companies and individual investors. You cannot complaint to Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia) for dispute as land banking is not under its purview.

In November 2006, UK landbanking company, Land Heritage (UK) closed down after an investigation by the Financial Services Authority.  Its 700 investors were not refunded.

There is NO perfect Investment . Therefore Investors need to do their due diligence before investing. As my guru(Milan Doshi ) always say all is depend on your Unique Investment Profile!

For those who have experience in Land Banking , please share your feedback on the comment below.

With the hefty fuel price hike, I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind right now is how to improve your petrol consumption and save money on petrol.

Here are a few things I’ve been doing since the last fuel price hike to improve on my petrol consumption and minimize my petrol bill:

1) PUMP UP YOUR TYRES TO YOUR TYRE SPECIFICATION

Properly inflated tyres can bring you some petrol savings and improve your driving experience. Keeping your tyres inflated is one of the easiest and most important things one can do to improve fuel economy. The Tyre specification is stated clearly on it tyre Itself!

2) AVOID SPEEDING

Even if you drive very fast always keep to a certain speed limit. When you go above a certain speed limit, your car starts to face strong wind resistance. This threshold will depend on your car’s aerodynamics, but generally anything over 80 km/h means you are using up extra petrol just to overcome wind resistance.

Driving below the speed limit also saves money indirectly by avoiding traffic summons, and keeping you safe from accidents.

2) SWITCH OFF ACCESSORIES BEFORE START
Switch off all power consuming accessories like Radio, air-condition etc. before switching on the ignition so as to minimize battery load during the next start.

3) AVOID STRONG ACCELERATION
Eliminate strong acceleration (sudden acceleration from idle). It wastes fuel. Accelerate slowly when starting from dead stop. Accelerating suddenly, or jack rabbit starts will burn more petrol because you are using a lot of energy to get your car moving.

4) PUTTING YOUR CAR GEAR INTO NEUTRAL WHEN IN IDLE
When sitting at a set of traffic lights or in traffic for an extended length of time, put your car into neutral or park. This can save a significant amount of fuel.

5) SHUT ALL YOUR CAR WINDOWS.
Shutting all your car windows while driving will make your car more aerodynamic. This will improve your car’s fuel efficiency. Driving with them open drastically reduces your fuel efficiency. In highway driving, over 50% of the power produced by the engine is used to overcome aerodynamic drag.

6) TRAVEL LIGHT
Avoid carrying any unnecessary weight in your car. On the average, every 50kg added load in your car will increase fuel consumption by 2%.

7) PLAN AHEAD

Plan ahead so that you make a single round trip, instead of making many individual trips to do different errands. Traffic jams are terrible for fuel consumption. There’s a lot of starting, stopping, idling and excessive acceleration to prevent others from cutting into your lane. Take alternative routes to avoid traffic jams, or plan your trip to avoid rush hour traffic.

Accelerations and decelerations waste fuel. Braking and abrupt stops can be minimized by not following too closely and slowing down gradually when approaching a red light. It takes up to six times as much fuel to move a car from a dead stop than it does for one moving at just a few km/h.

PERIODIC CAR MAINTENANCE

Service your car regularly to Ensure it is in good condition all the time. A well maintained car will improve your petrol mileage.

9) SWITCH TO NATURAL GAS VEHICLE(NGV)

You can see that most of the cars queuing up at natural gas pumps are taxis. Now more and more cars joining the queue.

Do you have any petrol-saving ideas? Share your wisdoms in the comments below!

 It is a kind of insurance that provides coverage for consequences associated with journey. It is typically purchased when a person is going for booking of a trip. It usually provides coverage for the duration of a trip. But you can also purchase extensive or continuous policy from travel insurance companies, agents, or directly from operators. One drawback to buy policy from operators is that it does not provide good coverage as compared to policies offered by insurance companies. 

Major Coverage Provided

Major coverage provided by any policy includes Trip Cancellation, Trip Interruption, Lost Luggage, Default protection. 

Trip Cancellation

Traveler may need to cancel the trip due to unexpected conditions and illness. 

Trip Interruption

Trip may be suddenly terminated due to illness or unavailability of hotel. 

Lost Luggage

Traveler may lose his luggage and he has to face extra expenses. 

Default Protection

Trip cancellation due to sudden stop of services of tour operator. 

Who can get the policy?

It provides coverage for different kinds of travelers.

Traveling groups that can get coverage by travel insurance policies are as follows:

Student, Business, Leisure, Adventure, Cruise and International travel.

Risks Covered by Good Policy

A good policy must cover the following risks.

• Medical expenses
• Emergency evacuation/repatriation
• Overseas funeral expenses
• Accidental death, injury or disablement benefit
• Cancellation
• Curtailment
• Delayed departure
• Loss, theft or damage to personal possessions and money (include legal documents such as passport, tickets etc.)
• Delayed baggage (and emergency replacement of essential items) -Legal assistance
• Personal liability and rental car damage excess

Additional Coverage that can be purchased from Travel Insurance Company

Additional cost coverage is also provided by some policies. But this depends on the policy provider. Separate policy can be purchased for certain risks that are not covered in common policies. These risks include:

• Pre-existing medical conditions( e.g. Asthma, diabetes)
• High risk Sports (e.g. Skiing, scuba-diving)
• Journey to high risk countries ( e.g. war, natural disasters or terrorism)
• Common Risks that are not considered by Travel Insurance Policies
• Pre-existing medical conditions are normally not covered
• Pregnancy related expenses are also not considered
• Accidents or illness due to use of alcohol or drugs is left uncovered in most policies.
• War or terrorism is also not covered in policy but some plans also cover this risk.

Travel insurance companies offer their services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. These services include full staff support and emergency tour assistance. It comprises 5-7% of the total cost

By Celine Dan

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Celine_Dan