Author: stlplace

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China Stocks

Three ways to buy H shares

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With the Chinese goverment recent policy of “opening H shares to domestic investors”, there are three ways to buy H shares for China domestic investors, and people with different investment objectives and pockets can pick and choose.

1) QDII: there are many bank issued QDII products. Those products mostly invest in H shares, and it’s very likely the fund managers will buy something they are familar, the Chinese companies listed in Hongkong. This is indirect way of buying H shares; it carries modest risk and the return will also be moderate.

2) Open an account in Hongkong Stock Exchange directly: this is not officially endorsed by the Chinese regulators. But many people have done that, and I think those people at least enjoyed the recent “bump” after the “China life gate to H shares” news. In reality, I think those are “forward thinking” investors, and they usually have deep pockets. The down side of this approach is: it’s difficult to get the money in and out of China, because that’s not blessed by the goverment.

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Business China

Best buy in Shanghai

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Last Saturday we went to Xu Jia Hui, one of the better known shopping centers in Shanghai. I voguely remember there were not too much when my bro and I visited there in 1991. It was completely developed in last 15 years. There are many stores, including Gang Hui Plaza, Metro City, etc. We found the newest store in Xu Jia Hui, Best Buy, the US electronics and applicance retailer. I heard from Wang Jianshuo the Best Buy opened its first store in Shanghai. But when I stood at the sky bridge leading to Best Buy, I was still a bit surprised. The store has 4 stories and lots of people, both customers and store clerks. Here are some pictures:

IMG_5216

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Business Technology

AT&T and IBM

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I found some interesting articles about AT&T and IBM. They are written by Wu Jun, a research scientist at Google. I like Wu Jun’s writing style (humorous), and his business perspective of the two companies (very good).

Here is the link to AT&T articles; and here is link to IBM series. Both are in Chinese, and there are 6 articles for each company.

One thing I felt amazing about IBM is this (quote the article):

在小华生执掌 IBM 的二十年里，IBM 的平均年增长率高达 30%，这在世界上可能是绝无仅有的，他的父亲也没有做到这一点。

Translated in English: in the 20 years when Watson Jr. was the CEO of IBM, the average anual growth rate is 20%. No other company has done that. His father Waton Sr. did not accomplish that either.

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China Stocks

Shanghai Composites and second offerings

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The Shanghai Composites Index closed above 5000 the first time on August 23, Thursday. The interesting thing is, this time Chinese goverment is not as nervous as last time around (May 30), because this run up is largely drived by so-called blue chips: especially large banks where the goverment is the majority owner (ICBC, BOC,…).

For smaller investor like us, I think we should look beyond the market, and look at individual companies. By incident (what an incident), two large blue chip companies, Vanke (000002), and Citic Securities (600030). Here is the bloomberg news for Citic Securities secondary.

The Beijing-based company will offer as many as 350 million new shares at 74.91 yuan on Aug. 27, it said in a statement today. It would be China’s third-biggest stock sale this year. The shares jumped 5.9 percent to a record 94.95 yuan in Shanghai.

Citic Securities, after passing Japan’s Nomura Holdings Inc. in market value this week, is seizing on investor enthusiasm for stocks that made China the world’s best-performing market this year. Chairman Wang Dongming, who boosted first-half profit more than fivefold, plans to triple capital at the futures unit to extend his lead over local rivals…

Valuation Premium

Today’s share price gain values Citic Securities at $37 billion, higher than Nomura’s $35 billion. The stock has more than tripled this year. The firm trails only Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch & Co. in market value.

Investors pay a premium for Citic. The stock trades at about 35.8 times estimated full-year profit, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Goldman, the world’s most profitable securities firm, has a price-earnings multiple of 8.1.

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Business Stocks

Consumer series IV: China Youth Travel

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I am resuming this series as I am in Shanghai, and I got first hand look at the consumer spending here. Travel industry grew very fast in recent years due to several factors:

1) The golden week, where people got one week break in Chinese New Year, May 1, and Oct 1;

2) People have more money to spend in general, especially young people want to more DIY travel (freedom tour instead of the good old group tour);

3) More sites have been developed, e.g., Sanya, Lijiang (Yunan), etc.

But the travel industry is highly fragmented in China. The main players include: the scenic sites (Huangshan, e’Mei Shan etc.); the travel agency; the airlines; and the hotels. The profit margin of travel agency business is not high, especially the domestic travel.

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Life

Be careful won’t be wrong

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This morning on my way to work, I passed by an ICBC branch, seeing many people on the line, I turned around to take a picture. Then…I got hit by a bicycle. It’s nothing serious, but one won’t feel good about it. My point here is be careful about traffic when in China, the rule here is quite different from the west. It’s my bad that I forgot people ride bikes on the side walk. The other day I saw a bus ignored the red light. I’m not saying the traffic back in St. Louis is perfect, either. I still remember my car got hit by a woman who ignored the red light.

Another thing we need to pay attention is the escalator: those in the malls or metro stations. Especially with the kids wearing the Crocs. While the crocs are comfortable, it also has the anti-slip feature. It tends to stick on the surface. I remember tripped up myself couple times because of this, while walking in the malls. This could be dangerous for the kids while riding escalator, because the escalator itself is a dangerous thing already. I read some injury reports on this Manila newspaper. I personally think Crocs is not to blame, but parents please be careful with your “crocling kids”.

Categories
China Fun

New Oriental class break

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Found the following video clip at Tudou, the China’s very own YouTube. The content pushed the envelop a little so don’t play it before your boss, coworker or kids. I haven’t verified whether this is indeed from a class break of New Oriental.

This (in a very small way) reflects the entertainment of China generation Y (young people born after 1980, or 80后).

Categories
China

Shanghai Snapshot V

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I had some free time the other evening, so I walked around the Hongqiao Shanghai City (or Hongqiao Parkson as known to many people), and took some pictures.

Outside view:

IMG_5168

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Site Info

Can not get the time right

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There is an old saying “one can not teach old dog new tricks”. This exactly applied to me, I am talking about programming for my blog. More accurately, I could not get the time of this blog correct.

This blog is hosted in a hosting company at Utah (US Mountain time), and I normally live in St. Louis (US central time), that’s one hour difference from Utah. Also from time to time I visit Shanghai (Beijing time), which is 13 or 14 hours ahead of St. Louis depends on the daylight saving setting.

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China Stocks

Q and A on China A shares

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1. Chinese stock market has started in early 1990s and it has not done well until 2005. Why the China A shares market suddenly became so hot since then?
When the Chinese stock market started in the early 1990s, it’s a way for the state owned companies to raise the capital, and market speculators to make money. It’s not friendly to small shareholders because there are two types of shares in additional to floating shares: the state shares and Fa Ren Gu (legal entity shares); those shares can not be floated. Normally the majority shareholder is the goverment (or some Fa Ren) and they have no incentive to help the stock (floating shares) price go up because their shares can not float.

This all changed in 2005 in the Gu Gai (stock reform): during which the floating shareholder are compensated, and the state owned shares and Fa Ren Shares can be floated within a pre-arranged time frame, just like the share plan of big shareholders in the US stock market (unlock period). Now all the shareholders have aligned their interest. The big shareholder and management have incentive to deliver.

Of course another reason is people got lots of money: Chinese has a more than 40% saving rate; the emerging middle class; people made money in business and investing (housing etc.)

2. How can I buy the China A shares?
At this time the A shares are open to Chinese residents. For foreign investors, they can buy through the QFII (source: ChinaDaily), stands for qualified foreign institutional investors, e.g., Morgan Stanley etc.

3. Why some companies like to buy “shell”?
In China there is this listing requirement that a company needs to be profitable before it can list. Some companies that did not meet this req. but want to list, have decided to buy the shell of already listed companies. That will drive up the stock price of the “shell” company. It often triggered lots of insider trading. Buying “shell” is generally not as good as IPO. Lately the Chinese securities regulatory commission (CSRC, equivalent of SEC in the US) has tightened this “shell buying” activities. This makes economic sense to me.

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