Author: stlplace

Categories
earning

Weekend thoughts w/e Apr 19 2008

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Currency effects
While we are heading to $4 gas (partly thanks the weak dollar), not all are victims of this trend. Think Google or IBM. Google (GOOG) and IBM reported blow out earning, while cell phone maker Nokia (NOK) reported so-so earning (or outlook) last week. One key difference is the reported currency, Google and IBM reported results in USD, while NOK reported in Euro. We all know Dollar lost a lot ground to Euro in past year, since GOOG and IBM did a lot business in Europe (and internationally), their earning and earning growth is exaggerated by the depreciation of dollar. Nokia is hit by the opposite force. A more important question to ask is: can the dollar continue to slide vs. other currencies? Personally I would not bet on GOOG or IBM if their growth is mostly from the currency effect…

ICBC, Goldman Sachs, China Invest Co. and Blackstone

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Shanghai Composite

Shanghai Composite 52 week low

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Shanghai composite index closed new 52 week low today, at 3094.67 (down 12% compared to a year ago).

Shanghai composite index pic
(full size pic here, powered by Google Finance)

But I don’t think too much of it, other than the valuation of China A share market is more attractive now. The composite index itself is screwed up because PetroChina A share (601857) has more than 20% of weight, much bigger than its floating shares weight. In case you did not pay attention to PetroChina (NYSE:PTR, 0857.HK), 601857 was CNY 43.96 on Nov. 06, 2007, and closed CNY 16.02 as of today Apr. 18, 2008. That’s a whopping 63.56% drop!

My simply valuation tool for A shares
A more reliable indicator for A share valuation, a tool I found useful, is this AH spread sheet. As one can see from this spead sheet, some Chinese banks’ A share (include ICBC, 601398) is very attractive now. That is, assume the H share is fairly priced. One caveat of this approach, is we can only use it for companies have both A and H shares. But again, I don’t see many gems in the A share only companies in China 🙂

China index fund/ETF (FXI, PGJ, CAF)

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Categories
China

Boycott French products?

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There are lots of discussions (e.g., wang jianshuo) about boycotting French companies lately, after the Paris Olympics torch relay incident, and some France politicians unfriendly move. Now the France supermarket giant Carrefour, which has a large presence in China, will be boycotted on May 1, because (arguably) its main shareholder supports free Tibet organization. Baidu dedicated a full page to Carrefour boycott (Chinese).

My 2 cents on France and boycotting:

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Business

McCafe takes on Starbucks

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Last week I had the opportunity to try the latte at a new McDonald restaurant near my home, it was good. The middle size iced carmel latte cost $2.79 ($2.99 after tax), slightly cheaper than Starbucks. One caveats (as I understand), not many McDonald stores offer those espresso at this time, the new ones offering those are called McCafe.

The war on espresso is on.

Categories
IPO

The warning signs of Crocs

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Crocs (CROX) lowered its Q1 number yesterday. I sold all my CROX shares a while back after its Q4 earning announcement, because I thought the fundamental is still bad, not to mention the potential cash flow problem I talked earlier.

Since I am talking about the financial media lately, I think one really does not need to know accounting or finance to figure out CROX will fail. Just look at the following two things from media recently.

1) Crocs per capita (a fancy name for the average dollar spending per person), this is shown in its Jan. ICR Xchange conference. My initial thought was it is quote innovative for them to come up with such a cool name. But looking back, isn’t it a typical wall street trick to get people excited? We have heard the Home Inns said “China top 10 hotels has 6% of market share, US top 10 hotels has 60% of market share” back in Oct. 2006. We know what happened to HMIN now.

crocs_per_capita

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Shanghai Composite

Financial Media: I

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With the growth of web and blogging, there are more and more financial resouces we can turn to: we are not limited to the good old newspaper for stock prices, volume anymore. Don’t laugh at me, ten years ago I did precisely that in Shanghai. But the conveniece of data access does not come at no cost. One thing I noticed from my own behavior change is “overflow of mis-information”. Let me explain.

I remember a well known overseas Chinese web site started out with attention getting (not tasteful) news title and porn, things one would not like his/her kids to see. The motivations: attention, advertisment dollar and profit. In this “post newspaper and Yahoo”, “google and youtube are the kings” era, people are living a fast pace society, attention of pentential customers are more and more scare. The news editors/reporters are fighting for this, financial news is no exception.

Moral Responsibilty of news producer
As you may know, Chinese domestic stock market crashed lately. Shanghai composite index went from last Oct. highs of 6,000 to today’s 3,300. I think the media, the so called “experts” (from Jim Rogers to Yang Bai Wan) are also responsible for the bubble and bust in Chinese market, along with the regulatory, the mutual funds, and the naive Shan Hu (individual investors), etc.

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Shanghai Composite

ICBC released year 2007 results

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ICBC, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the largest bank in China (and arguably in the world), announced its year 2007 results recently. Here is the webcast (good stuff). And quote the Reuters news: ICBC earned 81.52 billion yuan ($11.56 billion) in net profit in 2007, compared with 49.3 billion yuan in 2006, a 64.9% increase.

Notes from webcast Q&A
1) Money management (fees) will not decrease as A share market goes down. There is potential in corporate customers; new products.

2) Subprime exposure was not significant. ICBC invested much more foreign currencies in US treasuries.

3) Credit risk, non-performing loan. Property dev loan 7%, personal mortgage 15%.

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Categories
Saint Louis

Olympics torch relay at Saint Louis in 2004

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Four years ago, I had the opportunity to witness the Olympics torch relay here in St. Louis. The city was chosen because it hosted the year 1904 Olympics here, the first Olympics in the US.

Olympics torch relay Saint Louis 2004
(The torch bearer was an old Olympian)

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Categories
Beijing Olympics

Disturbed by Paris torch incident

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  • >(Youtube) How did the Free Tibet protesters assault a DISABLED GIRL.
  • >(Sohu via Youtube) The Girl who protected the Olympic Torch 金晶：捍卫火炬的中国女孩.

    • I was deeply disturbed by the torch incidents on Paris and London. I think the local authority should do a better job to protect the torch carriers.

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    Categories
    Life Stocks

    Bread rice price hike, Memphis tiger’s loss

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    Wheat, Rice
    Couple weeks ago I noticed Panera raised its bagel price from 95 cents to $1.01, because of the sharp rise of wheat price. We all know bread flour is made from wheat. The wheat price has been up 50% in last 6 months, due to draught in key wheat producing country Australia. Interestingly Panera stock (PNRA) went up from last I look. I guess the ability to pass cost to customer is a signal of strength. We will continue to eat bagel for breakfast, and we can get the 6 cents from somewhere else 🙂

    I went to buy rice yesterday and found the price is also up. I heard about the Thailand new policy to control rice export and price hike, so this is not a surprise. I also watched CCTV news that Premier Wen is visting rice producing provinces, to encourage farmers planting more rice.

    Because I am long out of rice business, I have bought some Syngenta (SYT) to hedge the grain price (seriously, I hope to gain from the global ag boom).

    Memphis tiger’s stunning loss
    I was stunned to see Memphis lost the NCAA champaignship game last night. They were up about 10 points with 2 minutes left (story from CBSSports). Then they did something pretty stupid, something paper tiger would do: they pass on the balls to kill the time! One thing analysts liked to talk is “with 10 seonds left, Memphis let Kansas shot a 3 point and tied to overtime”.

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