Author: stlplace

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Life

777 and SOS

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Tomorrow, July 7, 2007, is a “triple seven” day, the winning number of slot machine. More importantly, some people claims this occurs once a century.

There will be a lot of people get married this day. Unfortunately the stock market will be closed. I guess you can always go to the gas station to get a lottery ticket.

Seriously, tomorrow is also “Live Earth” launch day. What is Live Earth? It is an organization to promote the environment protection and awareness of the climate change. There will be live concert on 7 continents: from New York to Shanghai (pearl tower). For those people like me can not go to live concert, we can watch it on TV, online or go to a house party.

Categories
China Stocks

China market cooled a bit

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The Shanghai composites went down 5% today (to about 3600), the biggest drop since May 30 when goverment increased the “stamp tax”. I heard one reason for today’s big drop is incoming new issues such as the IPOs from Bank of Nanjing, Bank of Ningbo.

Hello?! How many new shares are B. of Nanjing and B. of Ningbo’s issuing? Can they issue more shares than the Citic Bank, and Bank of Comm in late April, early May? Why the stock continued going up then? Excuse, lame excuse,…

It’s interesting to watch as the China market cools, we are seeing fewer posts about FXI and China market bubble at seekingalpha.

Separately, I swapped some Home Inns (Nasdaq: HMIN) stocks with Mindray (NYSE: MR) today. I sold HMIN at 34.50 and bought MR at 31.67.

Categories
Stocks

Discover Financial Services DFS

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(Update July 4) Did not see any filings at SEC web site but got Q2 2007 earning at Discover’s own web site. Quote below.

“Riverwoods, IL, June 20, 2007 – Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFSWI) today reported net income of $209 million for the quarter ended May 31, 2007, compared with record net income of $343 million for the second quarter of 2006. The second quarter of 2007 included approximately $20 million of pretax costs related to the spin-off from Morgan Stanley that will take place on June 30, 2007. The second quarter of 2006 benefited from low bankruptcy filings in the United States following the bankruptcy legislation that became effective in October 2005. Return on managed receivables for the second quarter of 2007 was 1.65%, down from 2.90% in the second quarter of 2006.

Managed credit card receivables were $51.4 billion as of May 31, 2007 reflecting growth of 6% over last year. Sales volume of $25.4 billion was up 6% from the second quarter of 2006. Total transactions processed on the Discover® and PULSE® networks grew 14% over the same period last year.

Credit quality remained strong with the managed over 30 day delinquency rate of 3.12% at an all time low reflecting record low U.S. delinquencies partially offset by higher delinquencies in the United Kingdom. The managed net charge-off rate for the quarter was 4.23%, up 93 basis points from the same period last year.”

I also read its outlook, I think we can wait it go down a little more (24?) to pull the trigger.

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Categories
Fun

Crocs 2.0

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The following is a promotional video for Crocs @ YouTube (the video is family and office friendly).

Categories
Fun

Bad experience, Good experience

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I don’t remember where I read this, but it says “losing 10% in a stock will make one feel 3 times worse than making 10% in a stock”.

I think same thing can be said for the recent iPhone activation fiasco (story 1, story 2). I am sure there are a lot more happy iPhone users than a few unlucky (and unhappy) users. Because at the end of the day, bad news spread much faster than good ones.

Interestingly, the software company Synchronoss Technologies (SNCR), who supplied the software and technology for iPhone order processing and activation, did very well in terms of stock. It has a PE (ttm) of 80, and $1 b market map with $78.1 M sales (ttm). Are we talking about another Baidu in the making 🙂

Categories
Stocks

My half year preliminary report

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I was very pleased with my portfolio’s first 6 months’ performance this year, while I don’t have exact number here (waiting for Scottrade to create June 2007 statement), my return is about 30%. My biggest winner is Crocs (CROX), which went up more than 100%, Mindray (MR) also helped a lot (went from $23 to $31). Some of the losers include: NINE, GSIT, SBUX (hate to say that because I think it’s a good company). And I made a mistake to let EDU go too early (sold at 37 and 40, it’s more than 50 now). So the No. 1 lesson is: keep the winners, sell the losers, not the other way around.

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Life

It’s a joke

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Here is what I saw from the Visa Bulletin, I expect lots of angry people, epecially those guys (gals) did not submit theie EB based cases in last 2 or 3 weeks.

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The sudden backlog reduction efforts by Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices during the past month have resulted in the use of almost 60,000 Employment numbers. As a result of this unexpected action it has been necessary to make immediate adjustments to several previously announced cut-off dates. All Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices have been notified of the following:

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Categories
China Life

Vaccine shot and Health care

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I am getting the Hepatitis B vaccine shot lately, already got two shots done, and will have the last one in about 6 months. Each shot cost me $35.00. Note this is the rate at County Health Dept, other places will be more expensive. Vaccination is not my favorite thing when I was a pre-school kid, I remeber I used to run around to avoid the village doctors giving me the shots. Because the doctors are friends of my mom, they used to laugh at me all the time. But I got all the shots regardless and continue to receive free shots in primary school, middle school.

vaccine pic

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Categories
Fun

iPhone first impression

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I tried the real iPhone this afternoon at West County Apple Store. Obviously the store is more crowded because of all the iPhone craziness. I played the “photo”, and “phone” functions, the Youtube and iPod seemed not working very well.

To use the phone to call somebody, I need to hit the only “home” button, touch the “phone” icon, then get the keypad on touch screen. Yes, I dialed my own cell phone. It worked. Interestingly, I found that demo phone’s area code is 408, the area code of San Jose 🙂

Keso had a good comment about Steve’s “iPhone stategy”, he said amid all the competitions (other cell phone makers add MP3 player to phones), the best defense is offense. I think Steve at least won the “most hype” award for this product launch 🙂

Categories
China Stocks

The Mystery of Xinhua Finance

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Here is a Chinese article talking about the history of the Xinhua Finance, Xinhua Finance Media Limited (Nasdaq: XFML), and its founder Ms. Fredy Bush.

Quote the article, Xinhua Finance claimed “如果你生活在中国，清晨醒来打开电视就能看到收视率最高的节目之一：《财富早7点》。乘车上班途中，可以收听到中国国际广播电台EasyFM的节目。路过报刊亭可以见到《经济观察报》、《投资有道》和《基金观察》。”

This is not necessarily true, I could NOT see the “Fortune Morning (7 AM)” in Shanghai on TV. If a Financial TV program can not being viewed in Shanghai (the financial center of China), can it claim the highest rating? Let me quote Greenspan “it’s possible, but unlikely”. I was a listener of EasyFM; and I read Econ Observer paper once. Keep in mind, XFML did not own any of those media outlets, they merely have contracts with the respective owners.

It’s also interesting to see Xinhua News Agency, officially cut the ties with Xinhua Finance. I guess they were embarrassed by the latter.