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Online Share Trading

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Hello fellow formites - Happy new year

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Well, I am back from the east and survived as usual ;-) Lnaded this morning
Hong Kong was impressive with their sky s*****ers etc and the efficiency of everything. Other than that, so-so. Some awesome sights to see but you can do almost every tourist thing in about 2 days....

Malaysia, KL now there is a city saying WOW too... Spent new year at PT towers and watched fireworks from my hotel room directly across from the Towers.

However I see there has been some good action, on thin volumes though, on a great many shares back here. MTX???? WOWee. I closed out way way to early, but heck.....

East the markets are crazy and everone is extremely upbeat in China, Malaysia and even Thailand, a poor country by every respect, but they are all very happy that the worst seemed to have past....

I read somewhere or was told that when the gold buying frenzy hits the streets, as in jewelry and small gold coins/bars its time to bail on gold...now I am noy saying it but looking at the volume of gold being bought by our friends in Hongkong and KL....I was chatting to a guy I happened to bump into at a dinner, and we got chatting about various issues and then came to gold. Now he deals in gold at street level, retail shops etc. In just two days he had completed 2 tonnes of orders for investors in bars and coins alone.....but he said alot of it could be for the comming chinese new year but did hit that time is ticking. He would not say much more but did say play a close hand in the comming weeks......

Also expect a huge eastern influx for 2010 world cup. When those guys find out you are South African in their country all they wanna know about is where the best places are for matches, whats transport like, whats the accomidation and food like and I even had offers to rent my properties for dizzy amounts of money for the month......;-)
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Hello, netnanny.. that is supposed to be skysc_r_a_p_ers ;-) Moerse high buildings....
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og
Frequent Contributor
@CPS welcome back. Agree with you on HK - you only need 2 days to do the tourist thing and the rest is up to the shopping (for Fong Kong specials that is). My take on KL is the same as HK - also enjoyed the New Year celebrations at TT in 2006 - quite a sp
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@og, tnx...Beijing is next trip. Platsak invited me already so I am hoping he will pay for the flights ;-) ..... HK...I actually found expensive compared to SA even though the currency is 1:1 food and general shopping was not so lekker. MOst street market
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janne
Frequent Contributor
Thanx, Happy a prosperous to you as well. Welcomed your Back-to-base report as well. I worked 3 years in Asia and visited most of the large cities on duty. People are very hardworking, but one problem overthere is congestion, heat and humidity in the summer months. Still, we currently benefit from their demand for all kind of metals, not only gold. Copper is sailing, as is nickel, aluminium and others. So I expect resource stox should be winners again this year and hope you shall be able to share your ideas here.
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Sorry, that reads badly. Tired I guess with this time difference. Food is abundant and you can eat really well if you eat like the locals and are willing to get your tummy into new delights, hit the back streets outside the tourist places and even go to the traditional "tea houses" what an experienec. ZERO ENGLISH until a local comes to your rescue in broken english and helps hehehe made some good friend over that dinner. No idea what they were saying but the table of 20 plus was amazing and the food, sharing and experienece with the atmosphere mind blowing. Restaurant food, IMO suc_k_ed, not only from price but quality and flavour. Did much better at a little seafood place we found in "ladies market" side of Kowloon. We ate ourselves silly for about R250 - 2 people. Also found a very very lekker bakery in Kowloon all the locals use (purley by accident as we turned down a road for a short cut). There they sold the most outstanding bakes for 1/10th th price of anywhere else and bigger portions as well.....Breakfast was a huge plate of yummy goods with coffee and savouries and sweet (cake buscusts redbean paste filled goodies) if you wanted for under R20 a person....
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Janne, agreed with you on the resources. The demand is massive out there and the infrastructure development and building is mind blowing. They barely comelete one project and the next 10 are underway. These guys seriously have a 150 year outlook on investment so what they are doing today will reap rewards for many many years to come. General demand for any type of commodity and raw material, cotton, wool, steel, oil products, manufacturing, IT development you name it, they are a hungry continent and internaly have enough demand to sustain their output for the immediate future by all I can see. Export seems to be a second thought at the moment, it is all about driving internal economics in Asia...
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og
Frequent Contributor
You right - food in HK is horrendously overpriced. KL is cheap when it comes to food and I enjoyed the Nandos espatadas there! Beijing is tough though - can't understand 99% of the menus and not much joy from the waiters. We stayed self-catering though and managed to weather the storm. When you there try the Pearl and Silk Markets - good for budget shopping. Please restrict your buying from the places that the tour guides take you to - highly overpriced and I was told by a cab driver in KL (who is a tour guide as well) that their (tour guides) percentage of sales is as much as 40 - 50%.
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ian_kotze
Regular Contributor
Good day, happy new year all. I have not been to the far east but am flying to the philippines next week. Will stay there for a couple of months or a year and see if i like island life. So wish me good luck and the best of trading to you all.
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Ian - I know I am gonna punt another website here but as OST does not do this type of chat and I think Simon is still away so we can get away with it for now.....if you look at www.tripadvisor.com and www.virtualtourist.com forums they will really help you out. Ask as many questions as you need and you will get the real inside situation to any destination.

I do most of my travel research here and get the great tips about the cities and places I am interested in.

But Good luck to you for choosing to go try island style. It sounds like a great life, but me I really get bored on beaches after the first 30 minutes of sitting doing nothing. So everytime I have been away to a beach resort I have returned stressed. Just cannot see the idea of sitting burning myself to a crisp and I dont drink so that keeps me away from the late night bar scene. A good hiking or adventure trip now that is more my style. My other half, shopping, shopping shopping.....
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ian_kotze
Regular Contributor
Thanks for the tips, agree on the beach thing but it is my understanding that there are plenty of adventure and off road biking going on, some cave and valcano exploration to be done and then the diving and sailing in some of the most beutiful places. I am also looking forward to see some of them thyphoons and other scary natural weather phenomena that one can not experience here in africa. Most of all i am looking forward to study and try my hand at some of the asian markets. My only concern is stable internet and powersuply for them aircons as i hear that may be a problem.
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