stlplace

It’s the holiday season again, this weekend is the MO tax holiday for back-to-school season. Quote the MO state gov web site:
Section 144.049, RSMo, establishes a sales tax holiday during a three-day period beginning at 12:01 a.m. on the first Friday in August and ending at midnight on the Sunday following. Certain back-to-school purchases, […]

Olympics buzz at work place
As the Beijing 2008 only 8 days away, I am hearing quite a bit Olympics query from coworkers lately, mostly from curiosity and good will (wish Beijing and China will do well). As a Chinese living in America, I certain also hope things also work out well, amid all the security […]

My 2 cents on Cummins CMI (a while ago)
I have watched CMI for a few months now, have not pulled the trigger yet. There was a brief chance around March 17. I dare not to buy it after it went above 50. Like commodity, short term CMI has some selling pressure because:
1) It’s an infrustructure/transportation […]

401k
Last week my old 401k at Vanguard was merged to my new 401k. I don’t know if you paid attention to your 401k or IRA lately, not a fun thing to do. I did a quick calculation, my old 401k portfolio lost 7.56% of its value from Dec 31 2007 to July 7 2008 when […]

My wife used to joked with me: you always tout some stocks when you buy, then after it crashed, you will say it’s a crap (XFML, Heelys, LFT, Crocs).
I think I won’t say that for Mindray, and hopefully no hard feelings for BRK, either.
Sold Mindray MR
I sold my remaining Mindray (MR) shares just […]

(Update Apr 2) Another news to make myself feel better, Chinese A share mutual funds declined 22% on average (read this Chinese news from Money-Courier). For comparison, Shanghai Composite index dropped about 34%, from 5261.56 to 3472.71 in the period. Note that index is not a good benchmark index because it’s skewed by some big […]

I closed the Amazon Feb $65 puts last Wed, when I saw the stock dropped to around $68, which is the low point the day after it released Q4 earning.
Lesson learned:
1) short/put a stock is much harder than I thought. I started this trade because I saw EDU, AAPL, and VMW all dropped big […]

This is my very first option buy. After I “buy to open” on this $65 put, I don’t know how to realize the gain, if any. So I called the broker and asked for help online, both came back with answer “sell to close”. That made me more re-assured. The option terminology can make one […]

I thought about it early Jan. after reading from San Jose Mercury News that VMW is the No. 4 software company, in terms of market capital (about $30 b as of yesterday). But I put down the earning date (Jan 28) on my Google Calendar (not Yahoo), and it did not send out reminder email […]