Thinking Of Selling The Car
I’ve been thinking of selling the car last 2 weeks. The car, a Nissan have served me well for the past 4 years. I got used when the car was just over a year old. The Nissan has been fairly cheap to maintain, with no major problems until recently.There are 2 reasons why I thought of selling the car.
First, recently, we had fuel hike up by 40%! Yes, 40%. Fuel prices in Malaysia are government controlled and instead of slowing edging up, they tend to jump up drastically. So now, in order to fill up, it cost me almost RM 100 (US$1= RM3.5) what used to cost RM 70. So I’m feeling the pinch at the moment. Do realize that $28 can buy a very nice dinner out for 2 or less nice dinner for 4, with spare change to boot. With such drastic increase in gas as well as diesel, inflationary pressure really begin to bite.
Now, buying a more fuel efficient smaller car is not an option at this point as I’ll have to put in more money into the car. Based on what I see happening in the local economy and also elsewhere, I reckon stock prices will tumble a bit more. The housing crisis in the US as well as what I observe in markets in Asia plus the fact that we are reaching the 10 - 12 year cycle, makes the perfect storm in financial market. That the local government say they will help small and medium enterprise to weather further confirms what I think is a recession in the making. Disclaimer - I not an analyst nor do I follow the stock market that closely. I just observe what is happening in the business world and based on observations. If you make money, no need to thank me, if you lose money, please don’t blame me.
Reason #2 is since I think a recession is likely to happen, by selling the car for a smaller, cheaper car and invest the money when the markets are really down, I could potentially make some serious dough. All this is based on the assumption that the stock markets are going down.
What can go wrong? What are the pro’s and con’s.
If I guess correctly and the markets go down like what they did in 1997 - 1998, then, there is a potential to triple or quadruple what I invest in the market. If I choose stocks correctly. If I don’t make the correct choices, I could end up with paper that is worth nothing.
If the market don’t go down by that much, it means I’ll end up with a smaller less comfortable car. Buying small used cars tend to be trickier since they are more likely to be abused compared to higher end used cars. I could also end up with huge repair bills.
Writing this, I realize there is are quite a few if’s.
This decision is not easy to make since my current car is still serving me well except it need a major overhaul that will set me back $1000. That’s a bummer. And it just surfaced a few weeks back. It always happen when you want to sell a car. So still thinking….
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