Author: stlplace

Huntsman Corp

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Huntsman corp (NYSE:HUN) is a specialty chemical maker in the US, with operations all over the world. It was founded by Jon M. Huntsman in 1970.

Huntsman settles lawsuit with Apollo and banks
June 25 2009, SEC filing 8-K regarding settlement with banks.

Dec 15 2008, SEC filing 8-K regarding settlement with Apollo Group.

Matlin Paterson, who owns a big chunk of Huntsman stocks, sold his stake in 2007 (in hindsight, that’s a good price. Source: Yahoo Finance; Forbes). It seems he still has a significant stake though (source: MSN MoneyCentral, HMP Equity Trust).

Jon Huntsman (father, founder and chairman) and Peter Huntsman (son, CEO) on Fox Business News (link here)

Tags Apollo, HUN, huntsman-corp, specialty-chemical

earning Fun Video

EBITDA explained to children

Post author By stlplace
Post date July 23, 2009
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courtesy of CNN UK (CNN video link no longer available, here is a text link on LinkedIn, LinkedIn registeration needed): translating financial jargon into plain English, CNN’s Jim Boulden tackles EBITDA and a classroom of children.

EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization.

Tags amortization, depreciation, earnings, EBITA, interest, tax

Life Life Tips

A tragedy related to iPhone

Post author By stlplace
Post date July 22, 2009
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(CNET) Chinese authorities probe iPhone worker’s death

(PCWorld) iPhone Suicide Case Spotlights Tech’s Dark Side

Apparently many foreign media can not understand why a guy will jump off the building just because the iPhone he was in charge went missing? Well, it appears to me there are two factors:

1) It’s very very hard to get a good job for new graduates in China these days. Thus they join Foxconn, the “sweater shop” if you will. Not much rights once you join that shop. I suggest my western friends go there once and get some real world experience on sweater shop before express their views.

2) He was tortured. Again remember Foxconn is a “sweater shop” happens making iPhone.

Tags apple, Foxconn, iPhone, labor-relation, legal, psychology

Economy

My thoughts on US healthcare reform

Post author By stlplace
Post date July 22, 2009
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This topic is heating up in recent days. I think there are a lot of mis-understandings and mis-conception on this. One is a lot people think medicare is inefficient, I have not used medicare but it seems quite efficient in reality.

Obama healthcare reform pic
(Source: economist)

The bottom line is healthcare boils down to two issue:

Tags healthcare, reform

Web

Google finance new interface, dividend screener

Post author By stlplace
Post date July 21, 2009
No Comments on Google finance new interface, dividend screener

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Google finance released the new interface last week. I did not feel comfortable with it at first sight, but after reading its explaination and spent some time on it, I am feeling more comfortable with it now. One quick thing, those who are interested in financial statements may complain where is the good old financial statement for a particular stock? Again check top left panel (a lot goodies there), click on “financials” you will see the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow. In other words, they did not take away anything, my guess is they try to add new things and present the information better. Another minor feature is: they finally added the opening price of a stock, in the past, they only have stock closing price. This is not revolutionary, but something nice to have. On a related matter, now you can see their monthly stock chart in real fashion. In the past they merely connect the closing price of each day, which is still the case with 3 month (or longer) stock chart.

Dividend stock screener
Since I am talking dividend recently, I am creating this stock screener. Criteria:

Tags dividend, Google-Finance, stock-screener

earning

One caution note on dividend paying ADR stocks

Post author By stlplace
Post date July 19, 2009
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Was listening to WealthTrack podcasting in the weekend, and Westwood Holdings CIO Susan Byrne mentioned some European dividend paying stocks (Nestle, Danone, Novartis etc), which reminded me one thing. Not all dividends are equal. As I recall, I bought Sygenta (NYSE: SYN), the Swiss agriculture stock last year, and my broker withhold some of the dividend. Although I did claimed deduction from income in the tax return, I was not happy I did not receive the dividend at first place.

Barron’s had an article on some large European companies earlier this year, and here is the dividend table. Looks quite enticing:

Tags dividend, tax-withhold

gadgets

FStream is very good

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I was looking for an iPhone radio stream (particularly wma format because it seems middle kingdom likes this Microsoft audio format), and I found this FStream at iTune store to be good. After I set up the following:

北京人民广播电台首都生活 (Beijing Radio)
mms://alive.bjradio.com.cn/AM603
format: wma
rate: 64 k/sec

Tags FStream, Internet-radio, iPhone, Nokia-5800

Investing video

WealthTrack

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I found this program when doing research for Huntsman (NYSE:HUN). I found value investor Jean Marie Eveillard has a little of Huntsman stocks at gurufocus. Noticed there are some video clips for Jean Eveillard in this gurufocus web page, including one from YouTube.

So I looked around and found this program.

WealthTrack Podcast
Here is the web site: www.wealthtrack.com

Tags conversation, investing, PBS, podcast, talk-show

Economy

Should CIT Group be saved?

Post author By stlplace
Post date July 13, 2009
No Comments on Should CIT Group be saved?

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By the time of this writing, CIT Group (NYSE: CIT) fate is still unknown. A while ago (Apr 24 2009) I wrote about CIT Group because I traded it on that day. I felt the situation looked more an more like WaMu as that afternoon the rating agency downgraded the rating of CIT bond to “junk” or “default” (I can not remember exactly).

CIT Group NYSE pic

Tags CIT, CIT-group

Fun Video

Skating baby ad video

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First saw it via Yahoo (actually saw it on TV first). The TV program will mentioned other baby ads: E-Trade and Quizno’s (not in good taste). The following is a complete version of Evian’s skating baby Ad from Youtube.

Tags baby-skating