Most people who meet me would not immediately associate me with finance. When they hear about my blog, they’d immediately jump to fashion or writing. Even some of my closest friends and family can’t make the connection. My control freak tendency to plan to every last detail and organize things in the “perfect” order pointed towards event planning or even database management. But never quite finance. Indeed, it wasn’t something I grew up knowing I loved. It was something I naturally fell into through my education and surrounding environment. But having really thought about it recently, I really do feel like finance is the right path for me. And by finance, I mean investing.

Why? Because investing allows us to forecast the future. Not just about the future of the stock market, but about the world. That’s why Warren Buffet is called the Oracle of Omaha- he’s like a psychic! It involves the study of all things, from the technology developments, history, psychology, recent legislations to the latest fashion. All these factors come together to create the future. Investing allows us to study the world, place a bet  behind our convictions and be rewarded for being correct/punished for being wrong. Unlike most occupations where you repetitively do the same tasks to achieve the same means, finance appeases our natural curiosity of this ever-changing world and get paid for it. I’m not saying that finance is not repetitive- I’m convinced it is one of the industries that rely the most on copy and pasting- but the factors affecting the world are always changing and consequently so are the forecasts. It makes for an exciting, broad and enriching life-long learning experience.

Now that it has been a few months, I daresay that many have already forgotten about Haiti, with its lack of exposure in the media. But it was brought back on my radar this weekend when I heard the most bone chilling story from my friend that left me quite speechless. One of her friends had visited Haiti recently to see for herself what the situation was like there and was surprised to find that there was no signs of major improvements. It seemed that billions of dollars in donations are just floating around somewhere in corruption and inefficiency. She found that the aids were on one side of a barrier, while the people were on the other side just sitting there in desperate need of help.

Curious, she walked over to the other side to talk to the people and ask them why they were not coming over to get aid- they felt that they have nothing left besides the piece of land they’re sitting on, and if they move someone might come and take it. And so they were just sitting there, waiting for help. Then she saw a little boy of 4 or 5 years old just wandering aimlessly around. The boy stopped next to another little boy who had a cracker, and tried to take it away from him. Then suddenly, the boy with the cracker’s mother was there and literally punched the boy unconscious! She immediately asked the mother why she did it, and the mother said, “That boy has no parents to take care of him, he’s already as good as dead. If I had to choose between the survival of a stranger and my own child, I’d choose my own child.” Sadly, who can blame the mother? Many more such children are wandering the streets lost, looking for their parents with no protection, making them incredibly susceptible to human trafficking. Efforts to register and track these children are not proceeding nearly fast enough.

With the hurricane season coming soon, the situation is about to get worse. Where are the tents and supplies donated? Apparently they are in an island not far away, but they just can’t figure out a cost efficient way to transport them over without harming their charity ranking status.

Most people forget about a cause once they’ve donated money, thinking they’ve done their part. But hearing about these inefficiencies really gets one thinking, should we be doing more?

Here is a little something that will give everyone a good Friday laugh (provided you were not part of the thousands of people stranded at Newark airport that day). The things people do in the name of love……

Last week was a low for many. One of my friends got her wallet stolen at Borders (I know, how blatant is that?), many lost of lot of money in the markets and many more just feels blue for no particular reason. Even steak and chocolate failed to bring our spirits back up. Maybe it is because there hasn’t been any new TV shows out in a long time (where is Gossip Girl?) and they keep cutting the good shows (Lipstick Jungle, Dirty Sexy Money… and I hear that they might be cutting Privileged too!). Maybe it’s just that time of the year where everyone has the winter blues, because we have passed the holiday high, and there is still quite a bit to go before Spring. Or maybe it is everyone’s favourite excuse for feeling blue- the recession.

The market reached new lows since November last week. At the beginning there didn’t even seem to be any particular reason (very similar to how everyone just somehow felt blue). There was slight controversy when Berkshire’s portfolio was reported and it looked like Buffet had been selling America instead of buying it as he said he was doing. But I stand by that the argument that he sold J&J etc in order to raise funds for his GE and GS deal, which were obviously more lucrative (opportunity cost and all that). GM and Chrysler asked the government for more money again to survive. They should really just let them die. We will still need American banks in 20 years, but we can always buy Asian and European cars. There was also rumors that Citi (followed closely by BofA) was going to be nationalized this weekend, which didn’t seem like such an impossibility when Citi stock dropped below $2. As a result, all bank stocks plummeted like crazy Thursday and Friday morning (I watched Wells Fargo dropped from $12 to $9 in a few hours- seriously scary stuff!), until the government announced that they were all for the private bank structure and said that they were not looking to nationalize any banks this weekend. Since it would look pretty bad if the government DID nationalize Citi this weekend after that announcement, the market went back up a bit. Ironically, today (Sunday) there are rumors that Citi is pressing the government for another capital injection to increase their stake to up to 40% (or anywhere below 50%)- just short of a nationalization. Asia seems happy with this though and has rallied thus far.

This has probably all contributed to my winter blues (and consequently my writer’s block and thus my infrequent updates and completely random post about dying flowers). But one can only go up after reaching new lows right? Hopefully this will be a better week 🙂

I just wanted to say kudos to the Wall Street CEO’s (and their strategists). You got to admire how they handled themselves under the rapid fire at Capitol Hill yesterday. They were calm, smart, logical and amiable. We can all learn a lot just by watching!

Lesson number one. When asked a tough question, get nit picky with the details. When asked about the government loan to Citi and whether Citi expects to profit 100% from the upside while making the government share 90% of the downside, Pandit responded by getting really precise about the numbers and insisting that this arrangement is like an insurance. When the parliament member said that insurance was not mentioned in the documents, Pandit admitted not having enough time to read the documents properly since it was given to him over lunch (another smart move). And then time was up! I thought he played that out really well and he was actually very amiable throughout the whole grilling too!

When Pandit and Dimon were asked whether they were deliberately reducing loan in Michigan, because it was really hard to get a loan there these days, they both fell back on the general rules and said that they were not discriminating the State and that everything is treated on a case by case basis. This was very suave and diplomatic. If it were me, I would be tempted to point out that banks are now following a more stringent lending policy (as well they should) and citizens of Michigan are probably finding it hard to get loans because they don’t meet the qualifications, which is not surprising given the current state of the Michigan economy. The parliament complains about banks taking TARP money and not using it to lend money, but there is such a thing as lending responsibly.

Another important lesson is standing up and simply admitting that you made a mistake a la John Mack.

“I think the entire industry bears responsibility, and I’m sorry for it”

This is probably one of the oldest lessons of all, but it works every time. You got to admire someone (esp a banker) who will stand up and admit that he made a mistake and apologize on national TV. Morgan Stanley stocks went up!

The neatest trick of all though, is how they can go on for a long time talking very intelligently like they know what they’re saying, trying to be very cooperative and helpful, but at the end of the day, the audience is left wondering whether they were too dumb to understand what was just said, or whether their question was actually answered.  They are all such incredibly smooth talkers! I wish I knew how to do that.

It is no wonder that they are paid between $600,000 to $1.5 million a year in salary alone (not including bonus) to do their job. As for the whole public anger etc over the exorbitant salary/bonus that Wall Street recieves, I’m of the camp that people don’t go into finance to save the world (those people are called doctors). Besides, if you calculated how much they’re actually earning by the hour, you’ll realize that the regular banker is not really earning that much more than the rest of us. Considering how much tedious work they have to do to just put a pitch book together, I’d say they need their bonus.

Here I thought I was just geekily obsessed with my email. But If Becky Quick is right, and the secret to success begins with an empty email inbox, then it sounds like I will soon be tea-ing with the likes of Jamie Dimon and Warren Buffet instead. Do you prefer your tea with milk or sugar gentlemen?