stlplaceLast Updated on November 8, 2008 by stlplace
The thing I like her talk is not only she properly called the market when HSI was at 31,000; but her attitude on money and happiness. She talked in Cantonese, which is foreign to me, but it has English caption 🙂
Credit goes to trader1688. Don’t go there for trading advice though.
Last Updated on November 8, 2008 by stlplace
Berkshire Hathaway, a.k.a, Warren Buffett’s diversified holding company, reported a not-so-good quarter Friday after market close. Here are the results.
(full size pic here)
On the surface the result is not good. But I think the loss from derivatives is on the paper and will be temporary.
What do we learn from Buffett
Discipline, discipline, discipline (see the definition at Wesbster Dictionary). There is a new book about Buffett came out lately. Here is the link to Amazon. If you like, you can also help me out buying from my Amazon store. But this is not my point. My point is, among many attributes that contribute to the success of Oracle of Omaha, discicpline is probablly the most important.
Jason Zweig wrote an article about the secret behind Buffett’s success on WSJ. Here is the Chinese translation.
Buffett pretender award
Last Updated on November 15, 2008 by stlplace
Was on the road on election night. I left the training class at 4:25 at North Little Rock and headed to the LIT airport. When I listened to NPR at around 5:30 PM, the poll in east coast was about to close. When I got to Atlanta for transfer, it was 8:30 PM EST, so I watched CNN and got to know PA became Obama land. One more flight later, about 10:45 PM when the MD-88 plane landed at STL, and I turned on the radio immediately. Obama won and was about to give acceptance speech.
Direct flight between STL and LIT
Yesterday I found out Southwest does offer a direct flight between STL and Little Rock (LIT). Oh well, the good thing is I read the CFA stuff during the delta flight. Otherwise I will have more time to waste on TV and Internet.
The market reaction
The stock market already had a big run before the Obama win. The stock market decided to hold two sell off days on Wed and Thurs. In a way, that signifies the challenges lies ahead for Obama administration. The expectation is so high, from health care, to economy/jobs, to Iraq, to his ethnic group (African American, though theoritically Obama is mixed race, half black half white).
It’s hard to do many of these in a tough economy.
The margin call
Last Updated on November 2, 2008 by stlplace
At Little Rock now. One new thing about my new job is more travel. Because I did not have much travel in my past jobs, I am in the mood for more trips.
(source: http://littlerockarkansas.net/)
Little Rock, Akansas is not a big town, but it got famous because of President Clinton was from here, he was the governor of Akansas before the 1992 election. Interestingly, we are at the verge of another historical eleciton, similar economy crisis, a new guy vs. an old guy. Oh well, 2 days later, when I come back, we should all know the results of election.
If I have time (which is very unlikely), I may go downtown and see the Clinton’s presidential library. One thing I am not sure is I am driving a big Buick LaCrosse. The Enterprise guy let me choose between Buick and Kia Sportage, I picked Buick sedan because I don’t want to drive unfamilar SUV.
Last Updated on October 30, 2008 by stlplace
Happened to see this from CBS evening news today. The story is titled “Credit Crunch Takes New Face”, and it talks about the credit card crunch for average consumer.
“The average American has nine credit cards and owes more than $16,000, not including mortgages…This decade, real wages went up 4 percent while credit card debt jumped more than 75 percent.”
Savings rate
I also saw this from NBR at PBS, regarding the savings rate:
US: 1%
France and Germany: around 12-13%
Japan: 20%
China: 24%
Gas price
Happened to see the regular unlead gas is $2.29 per gallon at Shell station today. Time to get SUV again?
Last Updated on October 30, 2008 by stlplace
We all know GM is in trouble financially. Its stock (NYSE:GM) is around $6, a 50 years low. A lot pundits made fun of GM and its stock on TV or the web space. But I have a different feeling for GM. Among many reasons, I think of two:
1) In graduate school I worked in project for an automotive supplier (supplier for the Detroit big three GM, Ford and Chrysler). I went to Detroit and the Renaissance center twice because of the project. I still remember the GM engineer always asks tough technical questions.
Last Updated on October 26, 2008 by stlplace
Week in review 10/20 to 10/25
Bill Clinton visits Kirkwood
President Bill Clinton visit St. Louis this past Monday (10/20), and we got a peek at the popular former president. I always admired Bill’s speaking skills. He did the job well: he was making the case for Obama. His main talking points are: on key issues like economy, healthcare and international relation, Obama is much better than McCain.
That’s the first time I saw a US president. We did bring the “My Life” book but did not get the signiture.
New job
From tomorrow I will have a new job, a technical consulting job which allows me work from home. Last I checked, the regular unlead gas price is $2.48 at the station near my home. Not much gas money saving from “working from home”.
Cheap gas and economy
Seriously, I think the cheap gas means two things:
1) The US economy is weakening quickly, US consumes 25% of world crude oil, when US reduces demand, the crude oil dropped from $147 to $60s in 3 months;
2) Relief to US consumers, it is reported one cent of gas price decline means $1 billion money saved for consumer. So from $4 a gallon (3 months ago) to $2.50 we already had a $150 billion economy stimulus.
Last Updated on October 26, 2008 by stlplace
To be precise, it’s the G1 phone from T-Mobile, with the “G” software provided by Google. I did not visit the nearest T-mobile store by Panera, but I saw it from T-mobile web site.
The paradigm shift in Smartphone market
About 3 months ago we have seen the debut of iPhone 3G, now with the GPhone from T-Mobile/Google, suddently the smartphone market in the US became crowded, esp. considering we are entering a recession.
Last Updated on October 21, 2008 by stlplace
BUffett under water
Exelon put a bid for NRG yesterday, a bigger power (utility) for another smaller one, not all that interesting or surprising considering current market condition: the drop of share prices and the freeze of credit market (note the utility companies usually rely on bond market to finance its cap ex). But I saw a small twist: Buffett is still under water on his NRG share purchases, even after the Exelon bid. According to SEC filing, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, bought 3,238,100 shares of NRG at $42.4 per share, in 2Q 2008 (source: gurufocus).
Rouge trader at Citic Pacific
According to Bloomberg, the rouge trader in Citic Pacific, a subsidiary of all-mighty China Citic Group, is going to lose 2 billion USD on un-authorized currency trade. Adding to the injury, the daughter of Citic Chairman Larry Yung (wiki), appears to be involved in the scandal. How many poor Chinese kids can go school with that money???
Last Updated on October 20, 2008 by stlplace
I am talking about the attention it gets from the presidential candidates, their supporters and the media. We already had the biggest event for Obama (100,000 people) showed up on Saturday at Gateway Arch. Today Monday Oct. 20 we had McCain, he spoke in St. Charles in the morning and will go to Kansas city this afternoon. Last but not least, President Clinton, will speak at Kirkwood high school tonight.
Here is a Google map of Kirkwood high if you are interested.
The big news media, CBS Katie Kouric, CNN John King, are also in St. Louis today. Finanlly the show me state and St. Louis got some national attention 🙂
