We are back from Chicago. Visited the Premium mall (near Aurora) yesterday, and was quite impressed. This was my first trip to the Aurora mall, and I was surprised to see so many premium brands and shoppers (esp. the crowds at Coach store). Judging by the size of crowds in the mall, it seems the economy is doing fine. But yesterday, the unemployed number announced by the gov (470,000) exceeded the expectation again. The market tanked again, although I think it has more to do with the July 4th US holiday, people want to play safe in this long weekend.
PT Cruiser
I rent the car from Enterprise near my home, this is a small rental office to serve the Lou Fuze car dealership. I booked an “intermediate”, and they offered the PT Cruiser to me. This is one small mistake I made, I should have booked “midsize” or “standard”. Usually Enterprise has a free upgrade in airport locations, but not this small office, as matter of fact they have to get the PT Cruiser from another office. Initially I was a little uncomfortable about taking this little car to Chicago, but the PT Cruiser turns out to be very good, except one minor problem: there is no guard/screen for the trunk.
GPS
In this trip, we tested out our newly bought Garmin Nuvi 755T GPS system. I have been to Chicago several times before, but thought it would be handy to have this device. It worked for us very well, my wife is especially pleased with the visualization portion. She think that gives her a lot confidence driving to a new place. I think this is largely true, besides one pre-caution: always pay attention to the car and the traffic. GPS is just a little electronic advisor. Process that piece of information along with other important info and make your decesion.
We came to the windy city yesterday, and today we visited quite a few places: Michigan Ave. (magnificent mile), Millennium Park, Art Institute (outside, no inside tour yet), Navy Pier, China Town. All with the 3 day CTA pass and CTA train/bus.
I did not totally forget about stock market yet. This noon when I was in Chicago Culture Center, I hooked up my Nokia 5800 with the Wifi network. Interestingly I saw Exelon (the utility company serves Chicago, also the company is trying to acquire NRG Energy) signs in couple places: the skybridge connects Millennium Park and Art Institute is sponsored by Exelon. Because I own NRG stock, and Exelon is in a proxy fight against current NRG board, I received both letters from NRG and Exelon. Not surprising I voted according to NRG board recommendation, and did nothing on Exelon letter. One thing I noticed is the proposed Exelon board candidate is not really qualified to run utilities companies, they could be the “friends of Exelon” board.
Network
Back to travel, we are staying at La Quinta Inn Schaumburg, most things are ok except this silly network (managed by LodgeNet, a Nasdaq listed company, ticker symbol LNET). One problem I encountered is Google map and Google finance don’t work all the time. It thinks I was doing something fishy and says “in next 10 minutes you will only have 56k speed”. It’s like punish a kid for doing something wrong. Pretty much the much publicized Green Dam project. One thing I am aware of is I am using Mac. But the behavior of network is annoying, to say the least.
GPS
Used once in early 2005. Helps quite a bit esp. on highway. But it does not mean a dummy can drive a car with GPS. To be continued…I will also talk about Chicago 2016 Olympics ambition, lots of condos in downtown (near Michigan Ave. or near lake Michigan), and my visit to Art Institute of Chicago (2nd trip, the 1st since the new annex opened)…
I was in Detroit last Wed and Thur. When I was leaving the client site, I heard famous actress Fawcett died from cancer. Shortly after I came back, I heard from NPR that Michael Jackson passed away. That was a shocker. I remember watching a lot Michael Jackson’s MTV back in early 1990s, when I just graduated from college, and when the MTV was relatively new to China. I am not a music freek, but I liked the design of MTV and his sound. Not to mention his move.
Anyway, back to Detroit. Interestingly I think the first record company Michael Jackson signed was Motown, which was found in Detroit (Yahoo Answer). I visited Detroit in 1999 and 2000, to do presentation before car companies (big 3) for automobile related research project. It was in early March, and I remember it was very cold. But I had very nice dinners at Fish Bone (downtown?) and another Italian restaurant.
1) The leaders such as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A, BRK.B) are retreating.
2) CIC is thinking about buying equities again, Renaissance Technologies is one option (last time CIC pulled trigger, it bought Blackstone pre-IPO at top).
3) Goldman Sach is selling. It sold a stake in ICBC recently.
China: it seems to me a lot of stimulus money flowed into stock market and housing market. Good for short term (bubble), but it did not fix any problem in the economy. BTW, China recently opened the IPO gate (Guilin Sanjin IPO in Chinese; English)
Ivan is the Chairman and CEO of Verizon. Verizon (with VodaFone) owns Verizon Wireless (VZ), the No. 2 wireless carrier in the US. VZ operates the nation’s most reliable network. Ian shared his thoughts on communication, wireless industry evolution, and healthcare (a topic in heated debate in the US capital these days).
I got to play more with my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (XM) phone in the weekend. The following are the things I tried.
1) Video playback: I found there are some Nokia sample videos and a .wmv video (transferred from my PC Windows media player). Both played without problem. However, when I copied some Apple Dev movie (mpeg-4 format?), it only plays the audio.
2) Game: the Bounce game comes with the phone is a bit challenging for me, as you may know I don’t play computer or smartphone game often.
I read two news this week, which makes me think this is coming. Keep in mind many local governments are upside down in terms of budget and debts, any tax revenue helps. Collecting tax revenue from online merchants in remote places like Seattle (HQ of Amazon) is a convenient choice.
Expedia (Nasdaq: EXPE) tax lawsuit (source: hotel-online): from my reading, basically the dispute is around the basis of tax, we know Expedia sells hotel room at discounted rates, but the local government (Columbus, GA in this case) think it should be the listed price. I am not lawyer but I lean towards the discounted rate.
Criteria
* 20% quarterly year-over-year revenue growth
* 25% quarterly year-over-year earnings growth
* Trades at a P/E ratio below 12
Apply it in Google finance stock screener (here is the link), it finds 134 companies (this number could change as the stock price, PE ratio changes daily).
"古人云，人不自信谁人信之." Others won't believe in you unless you believe yourself. --Chinese proverb
Hello, world :-) I am not another stock expert. I am an ordinary guy who believes: by lifetime learning, indepenent analysis and disciplined investing, little guys can achieve great return.
I grew up in China. Currently I am working toward CFA level II. Here I'm blogging about business, finance, stocks, other fun stuffs in the US and China. Comments and Email are welcome.
