stlplace

courtesy of CNN UK (link here): translating financial jargon into plain English, CNN’s Jim Boulden tackles EBITDA and a classroom of children.
EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization.
Embedded video from CNN Video

Was listening to WealthTrack podcasting in the weekend, and Westwood Holdings CIO Susan Byrne mentioned some European dividend paying stocks (Nestle, Danone, Novartis etc), which reminded me one thing. Not all dividends are equal. As I recall, I bought Sygenta (NYSE: SYN), the Swiss agriculture stock last year, and my broker withhold some of the […]

(Update 2, May 20) Bought it back, looks like it has more room to run
(Update May 19) Sold out my WX positions. I had a second thought on the stock.
(Original) Formerly Wuxi Pharma Tech, the name change was to reflect the US based Apptec acquisition a year ago.
I have bought and sold […]

First Quarter earning reports for the stocks I own (as of this writing, it could change without notice). This is mostly for my own benefit, I want to collect them in one place rather than go to different IR web sites. Listening to conference call is a mixed experience, sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s boring. […]

This morning, Ingersoll Rand (NYSE: IR), the diversified industrial company makes procucts to air conditioner (Trane) to Schlage locks, reported its Q4 2008 earning this morning. Some highlights: it wrote down $3.7 billion (pre-tax, $3.4 b after tax) from Trane acqusition, or a loss of $10.56 per share. Interestingly, the stock went up about 15% […]

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 […]