stlplace

Highlights
From its IR web site

Sales up 20 percent at constant exchange rates to $7.3 billion
Crop Protection sales up 21 percent(2) at $5.55 billion
Seeds sales up 15 percent(2) to $1.74 billion
Earnings per share(1) up 36 percent to $16.53
Earnings per share $15.93 after restructuring and impairment
Capacity expansion to meet longer term demand […]

Apple launched its first China store in Beijing last Saturday, with 2000 fans waiting outside, including some celebrity names such as Lu Yu (Phoenix TV), Cui Jian (China rock star) etc. You can see the scenes of Apple launch at Sina (Chinese), or preview pictures at David Feng. The Sina picture reminds me of the […]

(What a week, Yahoo Tech-ticker, link)
China’s role in the Fannie/Freddie mess
As Fannie/Freddie crisis deepens, people find China in akward postion because China is the largest holder of 2F’s bonds: total $376.3 billion. I don’t know exactly how China got into this mess, but I think one reason is decision maker in China must think 2F […]

GRE analogy problem
China GDP number: politicians vs.
Corporate earning: executives stock options
Hint: the local officials pump up the GDP numbers so that they can get promoted; the corporate CEO/CFO pump up the earning number so that their stock options will be more valuable.
Of course in an ideal world, when the law is enforced, those kind of […]

GSI Techonology
As I talked in my previous post (a while ago), this is the little semi-conductor (very fast SRAM) stock (Nasdaq: GSIT) I bought a year ago at its IPO. Since its IPO it reported two disappointing quarters at first, more recently it reported two decent quarters (Fiscal Q4, Fiscal Q3). But I sold it […]

The future of food
I watched the movie (documentary) The Future of Food in the weekend, via the NetFlix “instance play” feature. This 2004 documentary is about the genetic engineered seeds, and its effect on farmers and our daily food. I remember a few years ago there was a lot talk about genetic modified food, and […]

In last two days China Mobile (NYSE:CHL) and Syngenta (NYSE:SYT) released its Q1 results (Bloomberg: CHL result, SYT result). Both are doing very well lately. Today CHL got an upgrade from Zacks. But let’s not got too excited on the stocks, as a general rule. Also keep in mind sometimes we could use the analyst […]

Currency effects
While we are heading to $4 gas (partly thanks the weak dollar), not all are victims of this trend. Think Google or IBM. Google (GOOG) and IBM reported blow out earning, while cell phone maker Nokia (NOK) reported so-so earning (or outlook) last week. One key difference is the reported currency, Google and IBM […]

To be fair, Crocs reported a good quarter for Q4 2007. But, the outlook did not please the street, let me quote Reuters:
The company based in Niwot, Colorado, whose vibrantly colored shoes, clogs and boots have become a fad in recent years, also backed its 2008 profit outlook of $2.70 and revenue view of $1.16 […]

Crocs scheduled the Q4 2007 earning report on Feb 19. Couple things I anticipated and will pay attention to:
1) I don’t think this will be a strong quarter due to seasonality: it’s winter in Europe and Japan, and in winter they don’t wear Crocs as the American do.
2) Inventory: if the 1) holds, the […]