Author: stlplace

Categories
Saint Louis Stocks

Bought A Little Panera Bread PNRA

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I bought a little Panera Bread PNRA shares today. I have watched the stock for more than 6 months. This noon I went to the store at St. Charles Rock road as usual, and I saw the biggest crowd. After I ordered food, I can see and hear the associate calling the customer name (when food is ready) about every 20 to 30 seconds. It took me about 15 minutes to get my food, probablly a record for me. But I am not complaining here; I always see a large crowd during lunch hour there and today’s wait helped me make the decision to buy some stocks. I noticed this place is more popular than my old favorite lunch place  Fazoli’s and there is reasons behind that: better food; people always want to be in the “crowded restaurant”, whether in China or the United States.   

Here is a good introduction of Panera Bread.

Panera Bread Co. St. Louis

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Categories
China Technology

The Status of Internet Development in China

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Keso (Hong Bo), an outspoken blogger in China, summerized his views about the Internet in China in his blog. While I don’t 100% agree with his view, I think some of his points are well said. I am thinking current stock market in China kind reflect this “make quick money” theme.

By the way, Keso has some cool pictures on flickr.  

Categories
Business

Minimum Wage, Executive Pay and Jim Cramer

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This morning on my way to work, I saw some workers are on strike again at the Hilton’s construction site across street. I guess they are unionized workers fighting for the wage or benifits. Strike is nothing new to me, I remember during the UPS strike shortly after I came to the States in Fall 1997, the customers firmed long lines at Post Office. Couple years ago there was a big strike among Grocery Store workers, and I tried not to cross the picket line at the Shop N Save near my apartment: I bought grocery at Sams Club or the Chinese grocery store. 

Today is a good day for many workers actually, because the  pro-labor Democratic Party took the control of Congress, and there will a raise of miminum wage from $5.15  to $7.15 in 2 years. President Bush promised he will sign it. On the other hand, yesterday there was some news on Home Depot, the No. 2 retailer in the US. CEO Bob Nardelli was fired, or put it more politely, he resigned with $210 million severance pay. Obviously the Home Depot shareholders cried foul on his pay because the stock did not do well under Bob’s tenure. But what can they do? The pay was predetermined before he got hired.

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Categories
Business

Amazon is Going After Shoes and Bags

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Amazon have already sold those in its main web site. The only thing new here is they are going to launch a new site for this. The site is called endless. I don’t know too much about bags but I know the footwear sales through the web is increasing. As a testimony I bought two pairs of shoes through zappos last year. I am not worried about zappos, but I think traditional brick and mortar discount stores such as DSW will feel the pressure. Since I owned some footwear stocks, I checked out footwear stores from time to time. It seems to me consumers will be the ultimate winners here 🙂

zappos logo shoes online web

Categories
Technology

A Little Tip on Yahoo Mail and GMail

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All right, I received this tip from a credit card company, and I think it’s a good one. Sometimes Yahoo Mail will mistakenly put the monthly billing email from someone into junk mail folder. To ensure delivery, add the sender’s email address to your address book, that way it will always put email to your inbox.

Well, until spammers find a way to hack your address book 🙂

Categories
China Stocks

Symbols of US Chinese ADRs Traded in HKSE

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The following is an incomplete list of the Chinese blue chip (or red chips) companies traded both in NYSE and HKSE (Hongkong Stock Exchange). Some thinly traded stocks such as China Eastern Airlines (CEA) are not included.  

NYSE HK         Full Name 

ACH  2600.HK  Aluminum China

CEO  0883.HK  China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC)

CHA  0728.HK  China Telecom

CHL  0941.HK  China Mobile

CHU  0762.HK  China Unicom

LFC  2628.HK   China Life Insurance

PTR  0857.HK   China Petro

SMI  0981.HK    Semiconductor Manufacturing Intl

SNP  0386.HK   China Petro and Chemical

For more infomation, check out Yahoo Finance HK. Also I did not listed the number of HK shares each US ADR worth, it would be nice if someone compile a list of that 🙂

Categories
Stocks

Something Hard to Predict

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It’s the beginning of the year again. As usual people like to predict the markets, the economy etc. I don’t know how accurate will that be. But I know probablly half of them will turn out to be right 🙂 Predicting the general market and economy is not an easy job. But I think as individual investor we are not powerless either, at least we can do a few things:

1) Invest regularly (don’t buy all at once);

2) Do the homework, if we don’t have the luxury of visiting the company, at least we can read the 10Qs (quarterly report), 10Ks (annual report), pay attention to the product or services we used in our daily lives and work place;

3) From time to time, we can all summerize what went right, what went wrong;

4) Last but not least, be patient.

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Categories
Stocks

My Current Holdings

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I have the following stocks in my Scottrade account as of today Jan 3, 2007. I remember the beginning of last year I only have 200 shares of Symantec (SYMC)

Crocs (CROX): 46 shares, it seems people can not get enough of those funky shoes.

Heelys (HLYS): 62 shares, it seems everyone is skeptical of this except me 🙂

Home Inns (HMIN):  68 shares, +100% YoY growth, Chinese version of La Quita Inn (as I read the Peter Lynch book lately)

Mindray (MR): 111 shares, China’s No. 1 medical device maker, about 50% YoY growth, is opening a new facility in Nanjing, looking for expansion in the Yangtze delta region which is the economy center of China nowadays. Good move.

Categories
China Stocks

Is Home Inns HMIN too Expensive?

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Home Inns’ (HMIN) stock traded above $40 for the first time  today Jan 3, 2007. Since its debut on Oct 26, 2006, the stock almost doubled from its first day close price (about $22.50). From traditional valuation point of view, this is a bit insane. As a stock holder I am also nervous about such a fast run. So…why don’t we do a little PE price earning ratio analysis on this one. Let’s assume it closes at $40 today. The company earned $0.12 in the first half of year 2006, 0.10 in 3rd quarter (non GAPP, exclude one time share based compensation), and let’s say it will make $0.12 for the 4th quarter, which is quite reasonable. 40 divided by (0.12+0.10+0.12), and it’s equal to 117. This is high compared to Google, or Apple. But note the company is growing at more than 100% year over year and we can expect that trend to continue for a few years.

Note: as rule of thumb (or finger), the PE ratio should not exceed the growth rate too much. Say, for a PE 15 company, we expect it grow 15% year over year.

home inns rujia shanghai century park

Categories
China

Aluminum ACH Anyone?

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I happened to see ACH, Aluminum China, from grusinvestments. And I went to Yahoo Finance to get more info. But some of the data there are not accurate. For instance, the PE 1.96, and yield 12.90% should really be 8, and 3.2% respectively. I think the problem was caused by the split of their stocks (4:1). Now each ADR represents 25 ordinary shares (2600.HK). Note ACH is going IPO in Shanghai Stock Exchange this year (2007). I briefly read their 2005 annual report and 2006 interim (half year) report. The construction and transportation makes up 30% and 22% of the global market share in 2005. I believe China is a biggest consumer of Aluminum in the world. The Aluminum price rode high in the first half 2006. Since I don’t know about the demand, and the Aluminum price, I will be on the sideline for now.