June 2, 2007 – stlplace

How to Measure Performance of Investing ?

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Last Updated on June 3, 2007 by stlplace

We often heard story like that someone made $5,000 in stocks in one month. Cool. But that does not tell the whole story. Why?

There are a few questions I like to ask:

1) How much did he/she make the month before and after (that particular month)? Did he/she make more money (less money) or lose money in other months. We are looking for consistency here. Also in investing we typically measure performance in longer terms, e.g., by year, at least by quarter or 6 months.

2) More importantly, how much money did he/she started with? Is it $5,000 or $100,000. The return will be 100% or 5%, respectively. Big difference.

Name Change is Fashion

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Last Updated on June 2, 2007 by stlplace

I thought Chinese colleges like to change their names, such as my undergraduate alma mater, Huazhong Institute of Technology (HIT), changes its name to Huazhong University in Science and Technology (HUST) during 1987-1988, it changed its Chinese name again in 1990s (From 理工Li Gong to 科技Ke Ji).

It seems some US schools like name changes too. My graduate alma mater, University of Missouri at Rolla, is going to change its name to Missouri University in Science and Technology, so it will be a MUST for short. The main change is replace Rolla with S&T. I can understand the rationale behind this change, but I still prefer UMR to MUST. Although I have been in St. Louis for 7 years now, I miss my days in Rolla (the Wal-mart, Hardeer, Tokyo’s, and friends there).