Berkshire B share (NYSE: BRK.B) traded heavily May 30 Friday.
(Full size picture here)
May be Bill Gates is selling on behalf of Gates foundation (USAToday article)? As you may know in 2006 Buffett donated large number of shares to Gates fundation (NYTimes article). I was wondering who is buying BRK.B on Friday? I know I could only afford 0.5 share at this time (hint: President Bush, could you speed up the tax rebate 🙂
Gas and Panera: more saving tips
Yeah, the $4 a gallon gas is finally coming, it’s $3.899 in recent 3 days here in STL. I tried to stretch the gas I put last time at $3.699 as much as I could, but it seems like I will need to put gas either tomorrow or Monday. Meanwhile, I tried to walk to and from Panera this morning and afternoon, maybe I saved a dollar or two on this 🙂
Seriously, I think my last car tune up worked in terms of improving gas mileage.
Coule day a ago I came across this BoA (NYSE:BAC) bought CCB (China Construction Bank, Hongkong 0939) shares at dirt cheap price story from my Chinese friend StrengthTrader (English news here). After that I read this one original written by 21cbh, titled The Mystery of 70% Off of CCB Shares, here is a faster link from baidu finance. BTW, I always bought and liked 21cbh when I was in Shanghai last year.
We all know the terrible earthquake happened in China, and the Chinese goverment and people are doing the best helping the survivors. There are many many heart touching stories since May 12 when the quake hit. NPR Melissa Block and Robert Siegal (read their Chengdu diary) did a good job from a foreign journalist perspective.
But I also noticed it is not free of controversies in this all out effort to save lives and help the needy. Notably, Wang Shi (王石), the chairman of Vanke (largest home builder in China), is inadvertly got into this “donation gate”.
I am not a big fan of Jim Cramer, and I watch his Mad Money show (CNBC) mostly for entertainment. But he recently comes out this new tech series, which is a kind interesting.
What is new tech?
According to Cramer’s definition, old tech means the traditional sillicon valley stocks: Apple, Cisco, Google are good examples. We all know old tech companies, solve problems for business and consumers. They make the business more effient (Cisco, Oracle), and make our lives more entertaining (iPod, iPhone). Cramer thinks, with the global energy, environment, and food problems we are facing, the New tech, which are mostly old industrial companies, are trying to solve those larger problems.
(Update May 26 11:35PM) Just found the Google finance has the wrong EPS and PE ((EPS 2.62, PE 29.92) for CHL. Yahoo finance has the right number for CHL: ttm EPS $3.08, PE 25.44 as of Friday May 23.
Market sentiment
GS downgrade (Bloomberg): the ladies at Goldman Sachs cut the rating of 0941 (China Mobile H share) from neutral to sell, and cut price target from 135 HKD to 105 HKD. I don’t trust Goldman rating blindly (no disrespect to people at GS), this downgrade combined with the share drop both in NYSE and Hongkong, signals the big boys are leaving the table. I don’t want to stick my head out at this time, so I am going to sell 2/3 of my CHL shares tomorrow morning (Tuesday May 27).
(Source: XinHuaNet)
More background of the re-org, 3G license
I did a little reading on China pork industry lately. I found 3 pork producers listed in Shenzhen, Hongkong and the US. There are Henan Shuanghui (000895 Chinese, English), Nanjing Yurun (1068.HK), and Henan Zhongpin (Nasdaq: HOGS).
I believe they are three major pork producers, and the sales of pork are also in this order (descending): Shuanghui, Yurun, Zhongpin. I remember I ate many Shuanghui sausages while in college. I also determined that was junk food (not much real good meat) recently.
Interestingly, as of Friday May 23, the PE (price earning, ttm) ratio of those three are also in this order: 44 for Shuanghui (000895.SZ), 22 for Yurun (1068.HK), and 13.4 for Zhongpin (HOGS, Yahoo Finance). Assume the companies has similar profit margin and financial leverage, the different PEs shows how different market values the similar business (pork/food) in mainland, Hongkong and the US.
The re-org of China telecom/wireless industry started officially, with the China Mobile Group acqusision of China Railway Telecom (Teitong), a small fixed line operator. The news drove down the stock price of China Mobile (0941.HK, NYSE:CHL) sharply lower today. Many pundits, speculators and short term investors are worrying the golden (monopoly) days of China Mobile will be over soon.
Not quite. I think about this question hard: will China Mobile lose its competetive edge in the Chinese wireless arena, with the widely expected next steps of re-org? In the re-org China Unicom will sell CDMA networks to China Telecom, and combines with China Netcom, the smaller fixed line operator with a footprint in North China; China Telecom will enter into wireless business with the Unicom CDMA acqusition.
(China Mobile restoring wireless service in Sichuan earthquake region, more pics here)
Warren Buffett is visiting Europe these days, mainly looking for acqusition targets (family private owned business). Here is an interview at IMD (Switzerland). IMD is a premier business school in the Europe (thanks to investmentpostcards). There is a link to webcast at the end of the post. It covered a range of topics, and the title was “How to grow wealth in a responsible and sustainable manner”.
On a side note, one of Buffett’s holding, Moody (NYSE:MCO) took a big hit recently because of mistake in giving out ratings. Interestingly, Buffett did not sell MCO shares in Q1 2008. He did sell some Well Fargo shares in Q1, this seems contradicts with he said in his annual letter: Moody probably lost intrinsic value in sub prime crisis, Well Fargo did not.
We all know the terrible earthquake happened seven days ago (May 12, 14:28 PM) in Sichuan province. Today the while country is mourning the loss of the lives in China. I belive many people in the world share the same loss too. After all, we are living in the same earth (global village).
I visited Sichuan Jiu Zhai Gou about 3 years ago. While mother nature is ruthless sometimes, we should not ignore that Sichuan is a beautiful place, same as her people. So don’t refrain yourself from visiting Jiu Zhai Gou or Sichuan in the future. I gurantee you will love it.
(Full size picture here, more Jiu Zhai Gou pictures)
(Update) I set the color of the header of this blog to black (#000000), as we mourn the loss of lives in this earthquake.
