Month: December 2006

Categories
Fun

Happy New Year from STLPlace

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Last Updated on January 3, 2007 by stlplace

Happy New Year to all the readers, whether you are from the US, or China (would be very hard these days), or Europe, or somewhere else,…

I started this blog about a year ago. My original intension is to share things related to my work and life experience in mid-west US, from software to things in St. Louis. This has been changed a bit since I changes focus to stocks, and personal finance lately. While I don’t think money is the most important thing in life, I do believe financial freedom is a dream for myself and many ordinary people. I hope we can all come close to that in the not too distance future.

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Categories
401k and Personal Finance

My 401K Lessons

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Last Updated on December 12, 2007 by stlplace

I did not put money into 401K right after I started to work in Fall 2000. Looking back this is my biggest mistake in 401K. Although I have some credit card debt at that time, I think I should at least put the money to get the company’s maximum match (free money, hehe). Not to mention the tax deferred effect; and the potential compound effect of growth. My friend who studied finance told me a “compound” story like this: if one puts $ 5,000 when he/she is 20, it’s like someone put $50,000 when he/she is 40 (the number may not be exact, but you got the idea).

I started my 401K in year 2002, a little more than a year after working. I was not familar with the mutual funds initially. I walked to one of my colleagues who is a stock lover and he told me “put everything in stock funds” because “we are not going to use the money for a while, and stock gives better return”. But I did not go 100% stocks. I attended the company benifits semimar; I also read the Vanguard Mutual Funds prospectus and learned about the fund types (value, growth, index), and morning star rating system. I put about 70% in stock fund and 30% in bond fund: thought diversification is my best friend. Looking back now I would not put money in bond fund. Because I have plenty of time until the withdrawl from 401K. The ups and downs of stock market in short term does not mean too much to me, and ultimately the stocks will have better return than bonds.

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Categories
Fun Stocks

Heelys Report Week Ending 29Dec06

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Last Updated on December 29, 2006 by stlplace

It seems Heelys had a very good Christmas season. From my store visit to Journeys and Sports Authority, each account for 11.6% and 11% domestic sales in the fist 9 months in year 2006, the sales are doing well. I did notice one week before Xmas, SA offered some discount, and Journeys started discount after Xmas, both of which are normal business practice to clear out some inventories. The eBay sales number is here:

          Heelys Faked
20Dec06 877 68
21Dec06 796 52
  
26Dec06 529 21
27Dec06 602 22
28Dec06 815 27
29Dec06 719 27

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Categories
Stocks

Year End Reflections

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Last Updated on December 30, 2006 by stlplace

I don’t have to work these days. Besides reading the Peter Lynch’s book, checking out Crocs and Heelys in the stores, I also had a little time to review how I did with my 401K and taxable stock account. The good news is my 401K is getting a 18% gain, and for the first time in 3 years, I did not lose money in stocks. Of course for 401K one year’s gain does not mean too much, because we are looking at 20 or 30 years down the line. But I think I did one thing right: allocate my 55% contributions to value fund, and 30% to international (value) fund. In year 2006 international fund was a big winner partially due to the weakness of dollar. And from my observation value fund outperformed index fund and growth fund in most cases.  For the year 2007 I will boost the international value fund to 35% for the reasons I mentioned above. This way I am putting 60% in the value funds. The following are the mutual funds in my 401K account.

Fund Name            Fund Symbol  Price as of      Average Annual Return
                                                12/29/2006     1-Year 5-Year

Royce Total Return Serv*   RYTFX 6394  $13.61    13.53%   na 
Vanguard 500 Index Fund  VFINX 0040 $130.59    15.64%   6.07%  
Vanguard Explorer Fund     VEXPX 0024 $74.71      9.70%   8.21%  
Vanguard Windsor II Fun*  VWNFX 0073 $34.75    18.25%   10.12%  
Vanguard Intl Value Fun*   VTRIX 0046 $ 40.34     27.37%   17.21%  

*value fund

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Categories
Business Fun

Chicken Prices Went Up

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Last Updated on December 29, 2006 by stlplace

I noticed the Chicken price went up a little yesterday. I have not bought the whole roasted chicken from Schnuck for a while because usually when I got there at 6:30 or 7 PM, they are sold out. But I got it yesterday evening and I realized they are charging $5.99; it was $4.99 last time I bought (a while ago). So I did a little google search on “chicken price”, and found out the main reason: the corn is becoming more expensive as more corn is needed to make ethonal (alternative fuel), and rising energy cost. Note chicken ate corn so that they can grow. So don’t rush to buy “chicken producer” stocks such as Tyson yet. Although they charge higher price for chicken, they are paying higher raw material cost (corn) too.

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Categories
China Technology

More Patience Needed for Internet Disruption

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Last Updated on December 29, 2006 by stlplace

Here is what I saw from eBay:

***Asia Internet Connectivity Hit by Taiwan Earthquake – Trading Advice*** 
  
December 28, 2006 | 12:28PM PST/PT
“On December 26, an earthquake off the coast of Taiwan damaged several undersea cables shared by international telecommunications companies. This has disrupted Internet connectivity in many countries in Asia, including Australia.
While repairs are being made, it may take several days for their Internet services to work as normal. If you are involved in an eBay transaction with a member in this area, we encourage you to be patient with them and to keep trying to communicate as their services are restored.”

And from Wang Jianshuo’s blog

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Categories
China

Reality Check on HMIN

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Last Updated on January 26, 2007 by stlplace

HMIN     
# of ADRs 32,283,906/2

Price (27Dec06) $35    
Market Cap (USD) $1,129,936,710/2    Note Google Finance has incorrect number
     
Rev (RMB)       Q1          Q2               Q3             Q4 
2005       109,405,488 (1st half)  77,733,825   98,722,199 
2006 110,671,567 138,386,977 160,352,229 170,000,000 
YoY                                                106%          72% 

Est 2006 Rev: $73,343,136 (assume 1 USD = 7.9 CNY )

Market Cap/Sales: 7.5 (it’s not totally out of whack 🙂

Note: # of ADRs is outstanding shares expressed in ADR , note one ADR = two ordinary shares   

Categories
China Stocks

Bubble in some China Stocks

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Last Updated on December 29, 2006 by stlplace

I am not good at predicting the top or bottom of stocks, so take it for what it worth…

First is the LFC, China Life Insurance, which went from 100 to 140 in a few days mainly due to the “back to China” IPO in Shanghai Stock Exchange. Note GSH and other China blue chip ADRs traded in NYSE also got a ride at the same time.

If you would argue blue chips are “safe”, here is the more speculative ones, FFHL, the little known Fuwei Film Holding from Shandong Province, went from 8.50 to 17 in a week. You could argue the stock was priced a bit low and I saw an article mentioned this. But this quick run-up of stock price reminds me of EFUT, another little known Chinese IT company.

I have neither of the above stocks. But today’s HMIN (home inns) 8% run-up after yesterday’s 6% up made me nervous: I did have positions in HMIN. I still believe this is a very good company but I decided to take some money off the table this morning. Just as you would expected (and this is one of Major’s rules): stock went up after I sold it @ 36.88, it passed 38 today.  

(29Dec06)PS, on second thought, I jumped into conclusion too fast on FFHL. I think it’s a better company than EFUT. Please read the article I mentioned and its S1 for more info.

Categories
Master Series

Peter Lynch One Up on Wall Street

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Last Updated on March 17, 2008 by stlplace

I heard about Peter Lynch and his book more than two years ago; I ordered his book from Amazon last week because I wanted to learn more about stocks and investing. I just got to Chapter 5 now, but I found his book to be educational and interesting: his humor can be felt in many places of the book. This is a much fun book than Ben Graham’s Intelligent Investing. By the way, both Ben and Peter are considered as the gurus of investment, Ben is the mentor of Warren Buffett, Peter managed Fidelity fund and had a sterling record. Peter is not a big fan of Business School although he graduate from Wharton, here is what said about B-school: Some Wharton courses were not rewarding, but even if they’d all been worthless, the experience would have been worth it, because I met Carolyn (his wife) on the campus.

Seriously, he proposed the three questions “mirror test” for investing in stocks:

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Categories
Business China

Internet Disruptions Due to Taiwan Earthquake

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Last Updated on December 28, 2006 by stlplace

It seems to me the Internet connection from China to the outside world was down, because I could not get to some of the sites from baidu news. I attached the official email from iTalkBB, my IP phone provider at the end of this post. For me it’s just some inconvenience, but how much effect it would have on the business depending on the Internet connection between China and the US? Oh well, maybe they will have a backup plan. Here is another article about the Internet outage.

From a smaller scale, I don’t know the effect on people trading Chinese domestic stocks (A shares) from the US, vice versa. In this case, a good connection means money 🙂 

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