Month: October 2006

Home Inns IPO Date

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Last Updated on October 25, 2006 by stlplace

I could not find the offical date for the IPO date. The only thing official is it will debut this week. Since now it’s 12:50 PM Eastern Time, I don’t think it will go out today. That means we only have 2 days left.

Sohu has an aritlcle which did mention it will go on Oct 26 evening Beijing time. But it also says it’s the Oct 25 US day time. So go figure.

Also, the yahoo Finance is up for “HMIN”, although there is no content.

Incidentally, the World Series game 4 is rained out today. My sympathy to those people who paid “pretty penny” for the tickets. I heard the tickets start from $500 on the market.

PS, according to Sohu, the price for Home Inns share is $13.80 and it will go out Oct 26. This thing is as intense as the baseball World Series 🙂

Tags homeinns, ipo

Site Info

Added tags

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Last Updated on May 28, 2009 by stlplace

I added the “tags” for this blog. There are two places you can see the “tags”: under the time in each post; the right side bar (under “tags”). So what is “tag” exactly? Using non-technical terms, tags is like “key words”. “Tag” helps organize and search the blogs.

To use it, you just simply click on the “tag”, and it will show the related articles which contains that “tag”. The “tags” cloud map in the right side bar ranks the popularity of each tag by the size of “tag”. The larger the font, the more popular it is.

If you are really curious about how to make this work in WordPress blog, here is the link for “Ultimate Tag Warrior plug-in”.

Believe it or not, although “Google search” is so good, in lots of cases the “tags” created by human beings are much better in organizing and searching blogs. I am also including the definitions for “tags” from the blog search engine Technorati here.

Tags plug-in, tags, wordpress

China Stocks

Bubble is building

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Last Updated on October 25, 2006 by stlplace

Home Inns (Rujia, ticker symbol HMIN), which is due to IPO this week, is getting $ 1.0 billion orders for its $ 95 million listing (7.9 million shares in the range of $ 10 to 12, with over allocatement option of 1.185 million shares). See the article from Reuters here. Does anyone has the order vs. offering ratio (a.k.a. supply vs demand) for Baidu (BIDU)?

As of now I still don’t know the exact date of its IPO. But I saw this lastest SEC filings. From most sources it appears Oct 25 Wed is the debut date.

If you know Chinese, here is the coverage from Sohu.

rujia home inns

Tags homeinns, rujia, stock

Stocks

Stock Lesson VI

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Last Updated on October 25, 2006 by stlplace

It’s the earning season again. Many companies already came out with their 2006 Q3 (July to Sept) earnings. Some are good (Apple, eBay and Google), some are bad (Intel, Motorola and Yahoo). Some people are happy because they bought Google before the earning; some people are not because they bought Yahoo…

I don’t know why people want to bet on the earnings. But I played exactly this earning game when I was new to stock market. And the results is not pleasing at all. Betting on earning is pretty much like “guess the coin toss” because we as outsiders don’t have any edge. But for those brave hearts who really can not resist the excitement, here is my lessons and suggestions:

Tags earning, lesson, stock

Saint Louis

Shopping for Shoes I

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Last Updated on December 12, 2006 by stlplace

Did quite a bit shopping lately. This all started one Monday evening I felt bored and went to shopping mall. I stepped into a “Sleep Solutions” store and the associate showed me the “personal computerized sleep profile analysis”. This reminded me of similar computerized thing in a shoe store. Basically it helps the consumer choose the right product and at the same time, it has some promotion effect (see, this thing is computerized so it must be advanced). Anyway, the old lady bragged about the mattress they got (the most expensive one is $2300!), and she told me she won’t be stingy on two things: the bed and the shoes. Because we as human beings usually spend much time on those two things. And the quality of beds and shoes can have big effect on our health. I think what she said is right. Since I don’t want to shell out that much money for the new bed, I decided to get a pair of new shoes right away.

There is a “New Balance” store near my home and I visited there and got some education about the sports shoes. Basically there are 3 main categories, walking shoes, running shoes and in-court shoes. The store has all kinds of things but it does not have my size. Also it’s full priced. My friend mentioned the Sport Authority to me so I visited them. And I found the Avia 2050 Running shoes which I bought. Here is a picture:

Another good thing is on sale.

One of my coworkers ran a full distance Marathon in the weekend. While I don’t expect run as much as him, I am going to run a little more now that I got a new pair of running shoes.

Tags running-shoes, shopping

Site Info

Changed Location URL

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Last Updated on May 28, 2009 by stlplace

I changed the location of this blog from http://www.stlplace.com/blog to http://www.stlplace.com/. I don’t expect anything to break because of this change. You should see some improvement on the web page loading time after the move.

Since nothing is perfect in life, do let me know if you see any problems. Thanks!

China Stocks

Analysis of Home Inn and Jin Jiang

Post author By stlplace
Post date October 22, 2006
No Comments on Analysis of Home Inn and Jin Jiang

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Last Updated on October 25, 2006 by stlplace

I saw this Chinese article about Home Inn and Jin Jiang. The author obviously did a good job here. For those who can not read Chinese, Jin Jiang Star is a competitor of Home Inn (Ru Jia). Jin Jiang Group started this economy hotel chain in 1997 (note Ru Jia started in 2002). From Home Inn’s F-1 Form, I saw Jin Jiang, Home Inn and Motel 168 had 20%, 18% and 16% of the China economy hotel market share, respectively. I stayed at both the Xing Ya Star (2002) and Jin Jiang Star (2004), and they are both comfortable.

It’s interesting to see, although Jin Jiang is the “first mover” in China’s economy hotel market, and they have lots of experience in the industry, they are not the dorminant position or even No. 1 brand. One reason it grew from the Jin Jiang group, whose main focus is the high end market. I think they are serious about this segment now since Home Inn is doing the IPO.

By the way, you can see Home Inn’s road show video from IPO home.

Tags homeinns, Jinjiang

Saint Louis

World Series T-shirt

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Last Updated on October 25, 2006 by stlplace

I saw lots of World Series T-shirt coming to the stores since Cardinals clinched a spot on Thursday night. Of course here in St. Louis most shirts are in red, the color of Cardinals. I found the following one at local Sams Club store, which is neutral, and the design is kind cute.

Being a Cardinals fan myself, I was happy to see them winning the first game. I hope they can still keep this underdog attitude and eventually prevail.

Tags worldSeries-tshirt-stlouis-detroit

Saint Louis

St. Louis goes to World Series

Post author By stlplace
Post date October 19, 2006
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Last Updated on October 19, 2006 by stlplace

St. Louis Cardinals won the NY Mets 3:1 tonight. It was a close game, and a good one. The only thing is I watched it at home just by myself, should have gone to some sports bar and seen some happy fans. I took a few pictures from TV screen.

China Stocks

Staples and Walmart

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Last Updated on October 17, 2006 by stlplace

Jim Cramer mentioned Staples in his Mad Money program today. He is talking about Staples (SPLS) traded at a discount although it’s the best in the breed among office supplies companies (vs. Office Depot and Office Max) . A caller asked him the international growth prospect. Interestingly, I saw an advertisement board of Staples along Yan An Road express way in Shanghai (note: unlike previous photos, the following photo is clickable).

Do you know the lady in the ad? Hint, she is a famous TV personnel.

Separately, Walmart China is in the news because they are buying Trust-Mart (好又多), there are many English news source on this. Here is a Chinese one.

It’s interesting to see, besides Yum Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut & Taco Bell) and Starbucks (SBUX), those two US retail giants are counting on China for growth.