My company closed down for Christmas Eve, giving everyone an extra day of paid leave. They're pretty generous that way. On the other hand, they gave a minimal 2% "cost of living" pay rise last year to most employees (when the official CPI in Australia was around 3% and the average wage increased by more than 4%) and this year they gave no "across the board" rise at all, citing the challenging economic climate and uncertain profit outlook for 2009. As I anticipated, they decided to give a modest bonus ($250) to all employees just before Christmas. They normally don't give bonuses to non-executive staff, and a one-off bonus means that they have locked in the wage savings gained from keeping the general salary bill increase to just 2% over the past two years.
Aside from the $250 bonus at work, I also received a 1-for-12 renounceable rights issue from Woodside petroleum. As the 19 new WPL shares I'm entitled to are priced at $42.10 and WPL is currently trading at $47.50, taking up my entitlement will result in a net gain of around $100 (assuming the share price doesn't drop too much due to dilution when the shares trade ex-entitlement).
Overall though, the "Santa Claus" rally in the share market in the past week was a bigger boost to my net worth than these little Christmas presents.
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