Day: February 4, 2008

Categories
Stocks

Are financial journalists real experts?

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on February 5, 2008 by stlplace

Obviously most of them don’t know what they are talking about, accoring to Free Money Finance.

This is actually confirmed by Karen Blumenthal, the author of Grande Expectation: a year in the life of Starbucks stock. She said (before wrote the book), she has been financial journalist for more than 20 years, but she did not know what is stock split, what is earning, what is shareholder meeting etc.

Grande Expectation book cover

I read half of the book, and I’ve learned quite a bit from Karen’s learning experience 🙂

Categories
China IPO

A-share and H-share

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last Updated on February 6, 2008 by stlplace

I wrote about the bubble of PetroChina during its Shanghai IPO last Nov. I understand lots of people in China (San Hu 散户) are under water on this one. Obviously they bought into this “the most profitable company in Asia” slogan touted by some institutions that wanted to dump their shares during IPO.

Here I list some of the A share and H share price, and their bubble factor.

PetroChina: 601857.SS: CNY 26.39; 0857.HK HKD 12.27 (still lot of bubble !)

PetroChina gas station pic

On other hand, insurance companies and banks are more rationally valued.

Continue reading “A-share and H-share”
Categories
China Economy

Tax rebate, President Hu and work around

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Last Updated on February 4, 2008 by stlplace

US Tax Rebate
The US congress and president are on the same page for one thing: help every American buy an iPod (a.k.a. the tax rebate thing). For me while I am glad to get some of my tax dollor back (rather than been blew away in Iraq, or paying a Carribean trip for some congress members…). I think the mantra of quick fix is so prevelant in this country. Sometimes yours truely also fall into this. For instance:

*Got a headache? Take an Tylenol.

*Need some stimulus for work? Got a coffee. I did this every morning.

Continue reading “Tax rebate, President Hu and work around”