Author: stlplace

Categories
Business

Smart buyback, iPhone China delayed

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Week in progress 11/25 to 12/01/07

1) Panera to buy back up to USD 75 millions (worth) of shares from a broker (see the news here). The is in contrast to Crocs panic buy back announced on Nov. 1, amid the sharp fall of its stock price after it announced Q3 result. Last I looked at its 10Q at SEC: “On November 7, 2007, the Company repurchased approximately 524,000 shares for a total of approximately $25.0 million”. That is $47.70 per share (currently CROX traded just under $40). Good shoes maker, not so good stock traders?

2) iPhone delayed in China. The main problem is Apple and China Mobile can not agree on the how big a pie each will get, according to NanFangdaily (Chinese). American expatriate entrepreneur (in Beijing) Billsdue predicted the outcome before hand.

3) J. Crew reported a good quarter. Here is a link to its conference call (webcast). I found its CEO Millard Drexler had good insights about fashion and fashion business.

4) China Ping An Insurance (sh601318) paid 1.3 b Euro for 4% stake in Fortis, a Belgo-Dutch financial group.

Categories
China

Shanghai housing market

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I read some interesting Chinese posts from soufun today. I just put the links here: thought we may get a better picture of Shanghai housing market by reading them all.

Pudong new housing one day tour 浦东看房一日游.

Songjiang overview 松江新城高品质公寓 (the author appears to be biased toward Poly since he/she is Poly West Bay 保利西子湾 owner); also post about lastest price at 保利西子湾.

Vanke housing buying experience 谈谈买房经历和体验 (this one is funny, in progress); another guy one month house hunting journey 一个月火速抢房日记.

Note I have not toured any of those properties, so use the reviews as your reference…

Categories
Fun

Free gift certificates for restaurants

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Since the economy is so bad, I am going to give away some gift certificates for restaurants.com. Just do my part to boost the US economy 🙂

Seriously, I am going to give away up to Four $25 gift certificates (valid in the US only), to the loyal supporters and friendly commentators of this wonderful stlplace. Note “this blog looks nice” etc. does not count. Tell me what you really think: you will likely to receive the certificate that way. Also note I do not decide this solely on the number of comments (you left). Or if you would like to give some practical advice regarding this blog, I will appreciate it very much too. You can find my email address at the right side bar under author.

This runs from now until Christmas Dec. 25. All the friends are encouraged to participate, but not family members. Note this is mostly for fun and my token of appreciation, as you can buy a $25 certificate for under $5 from eBay. Also some restrictions from restaurants apply.

For participating restautants in your area, click here.

Categories
Stocks

Longtop: update

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longtop logo

(Updated) I used the revenue number from company report and calculated the growth rate, using google spreadsheet. Revenue, in thousand of $, the following columns may not align right, click the G speadsheet above if you like.

FY ending
3/31/2007 3/31/2008 growth rate 3/31/2009 growth rate
Q1 9238 11530 24.81% ?
Q2 11204 20200 80.29% ?
Q3 11581 15500 33.84% ?
Q4 7750 10770 38.97% ?
Total 39773 58000 45.83% 80000 37.93%

Couple things:
1) Seasonality: the past quarter (ending Sept. 30) is the strongest. The company did say summer and fall are typical strong quarters. Note the seasonality is quite different from typical US software company, where Q4 (quarter ending Dec 31) is ususally the strongest.

2) Healthy growth overall. The recent boom can be attributed to the boom of Chinese banking industry. The question is can the company can sustain this 40% growth rate?

Continue reading “Longtop: update”
Categories
Stocks

Eye exam and add-on services

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zeavision pic

I went to do my annual eye exam today. I noticed they offer an add-on service named QuantifEye(R), which is a macular degeneration test cost $20 (not covered by insurance). Curious about the test, and because I worked a lot before computers (thought that would make my eyes aging faster than my parents), I did the computer test. The good thing is I got a good result (score 62) which is exceptional good. Interestingly, the test is developed by a St. Louis based company called ZeaVision.

I remember a short while ago, when I visited dentist, they offer a $60 (again not covered by insurance) oral cancer test. Both things made me to think that doctors (at small clinics) increasingly offer those small tests. One thing for sure this is a boom for the test developers (companies). And clinics, the distributors of test developers, can also make some money.

Think that relation smilar to the relation between ETS, Education Test Service, which develops SAT, ACT, TOEFL etc., and Prometric, the administrator of those tests…

Categories
Fun Life

New house

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The other day, I heard some interesting words on the TV:

If you want to be happy for a day, buy a lottery ticket; if you want to be happy for a week, buy a new car; if you want to be happy for a year, (don’t remember exactly) buy a new house; if you want to be happy for the life, find your soul mate.

While I do not agree everything been said here, I do think house is a very important part of people’s lives. Recently the slowdown of US housing market, and subsequently the sub-prime loan crisis has burned many home buyers and investors. At the same time, I have seen my family member and good friend moving into brand new houses. It may not the perfect or best time in terms of the housing market, but I think the happiness of “owning the home” is not over rated. This is further validated by my mom’s happy voice when she told me the news of “home buying”.

Town house
(an open house I visited a while ago)

Continue reading “New house”
Categories
Stocks

UGG boots

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I heard these UGG shoes (boots more exactly) from my friend Sophie not long ago. Today when I visited the west county mall, I stopped by the Journeys and Nord Strom, and I saw those boots were both displayed on the predominant spots. Not surprisingly, I also saw quite a few people are wearing those funky (fashion) shoes. Being curious about the stock, I looked at company Deckers (DECK) which owns UGG, and attributes its growth mainly to UGG boots lately. Here is the Q3 2007 report. While the recent growth is very impressive, I think:

1) Its sole dependency on UGG for growth could make it more vulnerable to the change of consumer taste;

2) It got majority of revenue from the US market, a slowdown in US economy could spell trouble for them;

I will add more comments if I got time to read its 10Q and 10K.

ugg boots pic

Categories
China IPO

VisionChina Media IPO on the deck

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“For every Focus Media, there are 10 AirMedia or VisionChina Media”.

I took bus and taxi from time to time when I was in Shanghai, because I don’t have my own car. One thing I notice is those LCD screens on bus, metro and taxi. There are news on the bus LCD, the ones in metro and taxi are mostly advertisement. Twice have I seen the NFL (American national football league) stuff on metro. Anyway, I think this LCD advertisement thing should make money, both for the transportation companies and advertisers.

Now one such company, VisionChina Media (proposed ticker:VLSN), is coming to Nasdaq. Here is the excerpt from Pacific Epoch: Out-of-home advertising network VisionChina Media Inc. set the price range for its planned Nasdaq initial public offering at US$9.50 to US$11.50 per share, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. VisionChina plans to sell 13.5 million American Depository Shares in the offering to raise up to US$155 million. Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch & Co, CIBC World Markets, and Piper Jaffray are underwriting the IPO. VisionChina generated net income of US$3.7 million in the first nine months of 2007. VisionChina uses real-time mobile digital TV broadcasts to provide content and advertising on mass transit systems in China. The company began operations on April 8, 2005. VisionChina plans to trade under the ticker “VISN”.

Continue reading “VisionChina Media IPO on the deck”
Categories
Stocks

Wang Shi: Vanke not endorsing house flipping

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vanke pic

“万科不鼓励炒房”, the original Chinese article is here at 21cbh.

<21世纪>:万科怎么看待炒房客?

王石:在高档住宅方面,万科占的比例很小,同时万科也不鼓励炒房。这不是说你要炒房我们就不卖给你房子,但是我们在合同当中是有一些限制,不鼓励炒房。我们有一条规定,买了万科的房子,在房产证交给你之前,你要办过户手续万科是不给办的。当然,办了房产证之后,你要炒那是你自己的事,跟万科没有关系。

<21世纪>:怎么看待外国人到内地炒房?国内房价高企多少应该归因于海外炒家?

王石:现在这种势头还是有的,尤其人民币升值吸引大量热钱往里进。海外购房者不可能成为中国购房的主力军,国内的房价也不可能是外资购房者哄抬起来的,就连香港这么国际化的地方,你能说香港的房价是外来投资者支撑的吗?中环的高档写字楼那些另当别论,光看住宅的话,更多的还是当地购房者购买,因为人口比例在那里摆着呢。

万科的开发是针对主流市场,当然我们开发的高档住房,外来投资者占的比例可能达到20%,但主流市场一定不是他们。举个例子,香港居民到深圳购房的比例都不超过8%。

My take: house flipping has been highly profitable in the past few years. Besides the famous Wenzhou housing flippers, I have heard brokage firm such as E-Housing (NYSE:EJ) has made money from this too. But Vanke is not interested in making this. They are focusing on their main business: build the homes that (potential) customers will love, crave or dream about.

Categories
China Stocks

IS Nov 8 the turning point?

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for Chinese stock market? It looks more and more like it, after two brutal weeks for many small investors/speculators in China. Here is an old article from ChinaTimes.cc (via JinRongJie). The title is 泡沫不死 挤压不止.

From my observation, it is very rare that a prime minister would comment the stock market directly. But again this is China. Borrow the marketing slogan from LiNing (sports wear) anything is possible, 一切都有可能.
===========
本报记者 吴君强 　　
　　11月8日，农历二十四节气“立冬”。仿佛是巧合，这天股市寒风凛冽，沪指重挫近5%，上千只股票下跌。沪指上周跌8%，创下9年来最大单周跌幅。中期调整终以暴跌的姿态确立。 　　

　　在接受《华夏理财》记者采访时，多位分析师认为，本轮中期调整中，大盘可能下探至5000点或4950点。一些更悲观的分析师则认为，在4700点—4800点区域，大盘才能得到有力支撑。 　　

　　他们说，一、二、三线股齐跌，再也没有什么“二八”、“八二”现象充门面，在趋势转向之后，现在有太多的理由，去看空A股市场了。 　　

　　该是“动手”的时候了 　　

　　一切都是有征兆的。 　　

　　11月3日，国务院总理温家宝在外访问之际，罕见地对目前的中国股市作出详细论述。 　　

　　“内地股市增长很快，防止股市泡沫，维持市场平稳健康发展，不要大起大落，将是十分艰巨的。”温家宝说，股市的波动牵扯国家的经济和股民的利益，政府随时关注。他还表态，政府将采取市场手段对股市进行调节，防止其大起大落。 　　

　　“温总理最近的讲话，表明中央对资产泡沫问题的重视程度明显提高。”南方基金一位基金经理说。 　　

Continue reading “IS Nov 8 the turning point?”