Category: China

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China Stocks

Buffett and PetroChina

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These days “Buffett sold PetroChina stocks” are all over the news, especially in the Chinese news media. After all, Warren has the best track record among stock investors in our time. But, what should we, average investor, read from this news? Or (on the other hand) can we simple ignore this news?

First let me correct the news headline. I think we should say “Buffett reduced his stake in PetroChina H shares”, from about 11% to 5.5% of floating PetroChina H shares. Second we should not discount Buffett’s move here. Unlike Greenspan and many others, he is the guy does real investing, and beat the market (S&P 500) consistently. Of course I’m not saying we should go to another polar: follow him blindly.

PetroChina gas station pic

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China

Got visa, air ticket

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Our visa applications finally came through, and I booked air ticket for my wife’s trip (PVG to STL, same itinerary as mine).

I already got the round trip ticket for myself, so the question is find a same ticket for her. I checked out flychina.com, aa.com and China-sss 春秋航空旅游网 (travel agency) and they all gave me a quote of about $1000. That’s not cheap consider my round trip ticket from STL to PVG cost about $1250.

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Business China

Introducing Vanke

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Vanke is No. 1 home builder in China. Today. Vanke A share (000002) went up 10% in Shenzhen, after it moved sideways for about two months. Note today is the first trading day after China national holiday break.

Real estate companies in China don’t get much respect these days. No matter how many new homes they built, how much tax they pay and how many jobs they create. This is similar to the US big oil companies. In this case it’s because the housing prices in China cities spiked again. The hot topic in China these days are “why the new home prices increase so fast”, “why those guys bid the land at such a high price (down the road, they will sell the homes at price even higher”. The “conclusion” is the developers must make good money off home buyers. This is certainly not accurate. I’m not saying the banks are making all the money, while the real estate companies are getting nothing. They certainly get a fair piece of the pie so that they can feed their families.

Front sign of Vanke Baima garden in SH:
Vanke_BaiMa_3

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China

Shanghai south railway station

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We went to the new (new to me) Shanghai south railway station yesterday. I was very impressed by the structure. It’s in deep constrast to the older Shanghai railway station (built in 1980s). The lights and landscape around the station are also very nice. Since I did not bring the camera, here are some pictures I found on the web.

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China Stocks

Buying house in Shanghai Series: II

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First a little background. Like the Chinese stock market, the Chinese real estate market has a brief history and I talked it a bit in my previous E-House post. Also, China is a big country and the real estate market varies by region, for instance, the Shenzhen market is cooling down lately while Shanghai market is becoming hot. Very much like in the US we could see Dallas and Seattle are still doing ok, while California, Las Vegas etc. are cooling down now.

Vanke_BaiMa_1

The picture above is taked from Vanke White Horse Garden in Shanghai (courstey of soufun.com, for more pics click here).

With that in mind, I am talking about my understanding the Shanghai housing market, in Q&A style.

1) Why the price went up so much lately?
It’s mostly supply and demand. The new supply is very limited in 2005 and 2006 because: the prevailing prices did not spur interest from developers to build new homes; the new supply of land is very limited.

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China Stocks

National day holiday

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National Day (the birth date of PRC) Oct 1 is coming. I saw lots of flags on the street. Pretty neat, huh?

IMG_5426

Seriously, this is a good time for the travel industry to cash in. Because people will have a week off. Many people are doing some tour: from Sanya, Li Jiang to Bali or Bangkok…This is also a big test for the airline and railway system, because they need to move millions of people: some go on tour; some visit family. We will be the latter group.

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China

Survey for new down-payment policy

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From Sina:

Q1: Do you like (agree with) the new policy which raised down-payment for 2nd or 3rd home? (My answer: Yes).

Q2: Do you think this policy can combat the speculation and contain the home price? (My answer: No).

Q3: Will this policy affect your home buying plan? (My answer: No).

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China

Another ditch to cool housing market

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It’s not the last ditch, but the goverment (China bank regulation commision, or CBRC) is raising the down payment for 2nd or 3rd time home buyers. They will need to put down 40% or higher (compared to 30% in the past). Obvioulsy we can understand the good intention of the goverment policy: contain the speculation in the housing martket. More importantly, I believe this move is to help the banks control the risks in the home loans. After all, most banks in China are owned by the goverment; and housing loans made up a large percent of bank lending and bottom line (profit). Nobody wants to see a “US subprime style” crisis in China. But can the housing market really be regulated? Or can this new policy be implemented to all the stake holders’ satisfication?

(The following is some home listings at a broker near Zhongshan Park. Full size pic can be seen here).

Shanghai home listing pic

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China Stocks

Recent Chinese IPOs in NYSE and Nasdaq

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From the bbs at world famous mit. Thanks to Author: capcase (gotmail). I’m putting my comments at the end.

Here is the original article in Chinese, the original title is “china IPO stocks”. For English, cnanalyst.com has a nice table which tracks Chinese ADRs YTD performance. So check out from there.

下面是一个简单的表格，列出了2006年12月20日至今在美国上市的中国企业的名单和大致情况。更详细的情况无法在这里列出，有兴趣的读者可以查询Bloomberg, Yahoo! Finance和China Analyst,即可得到比较详细的英文资料。

橡果国际(ATV), NYSE上市，融资1.19亿美元，IPO总回报9.5%，主承销商为美林、德意志银行；

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China Stocks

Crocs, Mindray and QDII

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The Crocs (CROX) stock is on a roll lately, as it’s closing 3rd quarter and holding two investor conference (link to webcast) in NYC and London. I added some more CROX last week when the escalator accidents is on the news. Another reason is I sold WX. I think both CROX and WX are good long term but I want to bet on “more sure” things.

Mindray (MR) has also done well lately. Incidently it’s also holding a conference in the US. At this time the fastest growth will from the US market. Chinese domestic market will also have some growth but the goverment still yet to roll out reforms in the health care (hospital) industry. Notheless I think (for the good or bad) Chinese patients still got to see doctors, so I’m not worried about MR’s prospect in China.

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