Author: stlplace

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Fun

Back to School

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No I did not go back to school for MBA or something. Actually I went to a nearby school for lunch with my coworkers this noon. I have tried a few places inside the Cloud Nine building. They are not expensive but not cheap if we consider the 1:4 ratio I derived a while ago. And I need to keep the Ajisen Raman as my last choice so that I would not get tired of it as I did with Panera or Fazoli’s in St. Louis. My coworkers have similar feelings. So we went to the school cafeteria (or canteen) and I paid 9 Yuan for a very decent lunch.

The school we went for lunch was very famous and has a western name before 1949. It is one of the top law schools in China nowadays. Maybe someone can guess its name? Hint: the school is near Zhong Shan Park. 

Categories
Fun

Harrah’s in Shanghai?

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Harrah’s is a large gaming (a better word for gambling) company in the US. It has presence in St. Louis and many US cities. Note gambling is still illegal in China. For ordinary Chinese citizens, since they can not fly to the famous southern town starts with “M”, they go for the cheaper options. The lottery and (dare I say) the stocks. Here is a picture taken at a stock broker house (Zheng Quan Gong Si) during lunch break. Unlike US market, the Chinese stock market has a “one hour and a half” lunch break. Good for the seniors who could get exhausted by the ups and downs of stocks. I am not in day trading or tape reading but I know this is not an easy task 🙂

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China

Economy Indicators

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Ever since I come back, one thing amazes me is how fast China has adopted the western economy indicator and system overall: CPI, PPI, central bank, China Security Regulatory Commission, China Banking Regulatory Commission, China Insurance Regulatory Commission, etc. These are all good, especially the regulatory committe are made of real smart people nowadays. Except sometimes people tend to over react to those indicators and the comments from the head of those committes.  

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China Web

GMail in China

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I wrote about GMail a while ago. In that post I complained GMail is not reliable in China. One reason I can think of is that Google has not moved its servers to China. It has no plan to do so in the near future according to CnAnalyst. In this Chinese post Keso says the China’s contribution to Google’s revenue is not material at this time. This could partly explains why they have not moved the servers. Google is still building traffic (not monetizing) in China because they have plenty of cash now. Another reason is they want to protect their IP (intellectual property).

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Categories
Stocks

GSI Technology IPO

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(Update 21Mar07) The revenue and net income for past 12 months are $50 m and $7 m respectively, according to IPOHome.  

I received this IPO offer from WR Hambrecht today. Since Xinhua Finance Media (XFML) turned out to be cold, I will be more careful here. Luckily I don’t see JP Morgan on the underwriter list. Besides Hambrecht, I saw Needham, Robert Baird. Both are respected regional investor bankers. A bit about the GSI tech, “The Company develops and markets Very Fast static random access memory products that are used primarily in high-performance networking and telecommunications equipment.”

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Business China

Chinese Business Newspapers

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Since I came back, I have read some local business newspapers. No more Xin Ming Evening news, my favorite back in 90s. I read newspaper to get information, and more importantly, get some analysis and local perspective. One may ask why don’t I just go to Internet, e.g., baidu, sina, yahoo finance china, etc. My answer is I can not get some of the anlysis from the web, also I am an old fashioned guy. I am sharing my observations for some of the paper I have read. There is an excellent discussion about all this in this Chinese article if you are really curious.

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China Stocks

Ajisen Ramen and E-House IPO

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I mentioned the Ajisen Ramen 味千拉面 a while ago, see this post. Today from what I read from China-CBN, they are going to do IPO in Hongkong, the symbol will be 0538.HK. Like the Huiyuan Juice, I think this will be a hot one. Please be aware I am not endorsing Japanese noodles here. As matter of fact, I found a better place than Ajisen Ramen near my work place, that’s a Chinese one.

Separately, I heard this rumor from Pacific Epoch that E-House is going IPO in NYSE this year. E-House is a real estate broker in China. Don’t confuse it with Jinfeng Investments (600606.SS), which has provided similar service in the past and has the 金丰易居 brand. Note the founder of E-House has worked for Jinfeng.

Categories
China

New Shanghai Library

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I visited the new Shanghai library the first time. Not sure whether the library was built before or after I left Shanghai in 1997, the old libaray was located near Nanjing Road, and People’s Square. Anyway, I was amazed by the number of knowledge hungry people in the library.

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China

Shanghai Real Estate Spring Expo

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I went to the Shanghai Real Estate Spring Expo, at Shanghai Expo Center on Yan’an Road. Again it has been more than 10 years since I visited Shanghai Expo Center last time. The expo itself is very crowded, and some developers offer free bus ride to and from the Expo Center to demo unit. I feel some people have to buy the house because in Chinese tradition, one has to buy the house if he is getting married.

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Categories
China Stocks

Bought Some Shares in Shanghai

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Finanlly I bought some A Shares in Shanghai Stock Exchange this afternoon. This is more than 10 years after my last purchase 🙂

I realized Chinese domestic stock market is still not widely open to foreign investors. There is a thing called QFII, stands for qualified foreign instiutional investors. Here is a good explaination for QFII from Havest Fund. I believe Morgan Stanley and others have QFII funds. There are also many mutual funds investing in Hongkong and asia pacific. You can ask them if you are interested. As an alternative, investors can look at Chinese ADRs traded in NYSE, Nasdaq, and H Shares in Hongkong Stock Exchanges. Personally I don’t think domestic market is mature enough for average joe in the UK, US, etc.