Month: January 2007

Categories
Stocks

Ninth Annual ICR XChange

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Last Updated on January 11, 2007 by stlplace

I listened to some sessions the Ninth Annual Integrated Corporate Relations (ICR) yesterday and today. This is a series of company presentations to the investing community usually attended by financial analysts. I listened the web cast through this link (they put achive there too). I noticed this event from Yahoo Finance (CROX).

Besides learning more brands (apparel, footwear and restaurant), I also learned more about how business grows.  Most participating companies are young, growing companies. By the way, those kind of investor conference call and company quarterly earning calls are excellent oppertunities to learn what’s going with a company. We can not do “store checking” for every company like I did with Heelys and Crocs 🙂   

Categories
Business

Cool Teen Brands

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Last Updated on November 29, 2024 by stlplace

(Update 11-29-2024 Black Friday) A few months ago, my 14 year old told me the 4 brands and her feel (sports) about them.

Lululemon – tennis 🎾 || Personally I like its growth (stock: $LULU).
Nike – running 🏃
Aerie – pilates (note Aerie is a spin off brand from the American Eagle brand below)
Atheleta- yoga (note Atheleta is a spin off brand from Gap)

Also, recent shoe (sneakers) brands that teen likes: HOKA and On Cloud. To be precise, I saw older people are increasingly wearing those two brands too: in addition to the traditional brands – Adidas, Ascis, Brooks Running, New Balance, Nike and Saucony. I guess similar can be said about sports apparel in general, e.g., I saw a gentleman who is a bit older than me was wearing this brand provizsports yesterday at the Olivette Turkey Trot.

I am also aware of two luxury brands Alo and Vuori and they have stores in the Plaza Frontenac.

(04/04/2023 | 10:00:00 AM) Piper Sandler Completes 45th Semi-Annual Generation Z Survey of 5,690 U.S. Teens

(Original 2007) Got it from American Eagle ICR Xchange Investors conference call. Note Nike is the No. 1 brand in American teenagers, which made me recall the comment of salesman at Dick’s Sporting Goods “Nike, the best marketing company in the world.”

cool teen brands

Categories
Business

Can We See $2 Gas Coming?

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Last Updated on January 11, 2007 by stlplace

It looks like it. The unusually warm Winter in the US. The continuing cut of OPEC’s crude production. The change of hands in US congress (oil companies’ friends are no longer in charge). The emerging of alternative energy: solar is reality now, just by looking at the solar Panel manufacturers’ IPOs on the Nasdaq lately. Not surprisingly, some of those are from China.

I am not going to speculating on the oil price for the near term or long term. That’s not my specialty. But on a related issue, I am going to predict consumers are continuing to spend, whether in US or China. They will continue to buy cars, dresses, electronics, music, shoes, and going out for movies, latte and dinners. My problem is trying to figure out which company will get sustainable growth/profit out of this 🙂

Categories
Fun

The iPod Phone Drama Goes On

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Last Updated on January 10, 2007 by stlplace

Well, just a day after Steve unveiled the iPod phone (so called iPhone by many people, don’t know whether Steve actually used that name). Cisco obviously did not appreciate that its very own iPhone name being used…they filed a lawsuit. As we know, those kinds of lawsuits are about money, I bet there are some happy lawyers in Sillicon Valley today. Another picture from engadget.  

 

Categories
Stocks

Almost Angel

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Last Updated on January 11, 2007 by stlplace

I heard about the “angel investor” term a while ago, but I have not thought seriously about their profiles, their networth, etc. This is until recently I thought about doing this myself, I mean providing seed money for some Internet startup in China.

I think in general angel investors are rich people 🙂 As a minimum they should come up with 10,000 to 100,000 (USD? CNY?) to get a company started. My favorite “angel investor” story is when the two Google guys got started, one Sunday morning they went to the home of Sun Microsystems cofounder. The Sun guy listened to their pitch for a few minutes, liked the idea, but he needed to go to church. So he gave them a $200,000 check. We all know the rest is the history.

Continue reading “Almost Angel”
Categories
China Stocks

A Stock A Day

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Last Updated on January 10, 2007 by stlplace

I was on shopping spree on stocks lately. Since I bought the Panera Bread (PNRA) last Friday, this Monday I bought some Telestone (TSTC), a Chinese wireless equipment maker; on Tuesday I bought some Ninetowns (NINE), a China based software company not new to me because I lost money on it in the past 🙁

These are two speculative plays. Telestone recently moved from Amex to Nasdaq, and it is posed to benifit from the 3G services adoption and Olympics in China. Ninetowns’ software business is stablizing after one year and half’s transition period; it also is building up B2B services through tootoo.com and globalmarkets aquisition.

I only took a small position on these two as they are a bit speculative right now. As you may see from their stock prices (about $9 for TSTC, and about $5 for NINE). I am going to hold them for longer time. I was reading Philip Fisher’s “Uncommon Profits in Common Stocks”, one thing amazed me is Phil will hold a stock as long as its fundamentals are good. I guess great investors like Buffett and Fisher all have great patience 🙂 

Categories
Technology

Apple Raising the Bar

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Last Updated on January 9, 2007 by stlplace

It’s not the first time Apple jumped into the mobile phone party, they teamed up with Motorola and came up with this RAZR. Obviously Steve Jobs is not satisfied with that, and today at MacWorld show he unveiled the iPod Phone (or iPhone as people call it, although legally Cisco owned that name). If you are really curious, here are some pictures at engadget. It will be interesting to see how this will affect the Palm and Blackberry’s sale.

iPod phone picture 

Categories
China Stocks

New Oriental EDU to Report FY 2007 Q2 Earning

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Last Updated on January 9, 2007 by stlplace

on 8 am ET Jan 16. Here is link to web conference. And the dial in instruction can be seen here.  

I don’t have any EDU shares.

Categories
Business China

New US China Direct Flight

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Last Updated on January 9, 2007 by stlplace

It’s official, the United Airlines won the battle. It will fly from Washington Dulles to Beijing, connecting two capitals. It appears to me American Airlines was the front runner but their pilot union doesn’t want to fly more than 15 hours from Dallas to Beijing, and that basically pulled AA out of race. I was thinking Continental’s New York and Shanghai route makes more economic sense because they are financial centers of the two countries. But obviously politics played a role here. With two existing routes from North America to Shanghai (San Francisco, Chicago), UA will have the biggest presence in US China routes. 

Categories
China Stocks

Finally Some Rational Comments on Chinese Stocks Markets

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Last Updated on January 9, 2007 by stlplace

That’s from Andy Xie, former chief economist for Morgan Stanley (Asia), here is the link. The article is in Chinese. Basically he is saying the high PE ratio of Chinese domestic stocks can not be justified by the growth of economy. The profitability of company and the prosperity of economy are two separate things. Among the factors pushing up the stocks prices, he mentioned the growth of mutual fund industry and the slow housing market.