stlplace

Category: Life

  • Remembering Tim Russert

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    Don’t know exactly when I learned about Tim, most likely the Bush-Gore 2000 election. But I do remember watching Tim at Meet the Press on Sunday mornings after that.

    Tim Russert Meet the Press pic
    (source: CNET)

    The thing I like about Tim Russert is: he always asks intelligent questions, provide objective information for the audience to consume, not personal views; and at the same time I am impressed by his polite manner and smile, many ordinary people think he is “one of our own”. And indeed his uproots is working class: his book Big Russ and me talked about his father.

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  • At Jackson WY

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    Finanlly I got the free Wifi here at Jackson, WY, the foot hill town of Grand Teton National Park. The Anvil hotel has free Internet, which is better than the fees starting from $9.95 at Hilton at SLC.

    Back in STL, I noticed Chinese politicians, led by vice Premier Wang Qi Shan (note he is the son-in-law of former vice Premier Yao Yi Lin), are signing big trade deals with Missouri (news: STLToday; video: v.ifeng.com 凤凰网). Maybe a direct flight from STL to PVG in the near future?

    As to stock market, I noticed 600030 (Citic Securities) crashed, which is expected considering the US broker houses lost big lately. The sentiment on brokers won’t be good.

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  • Week in review 060108 to 060708

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    CFA level I exam
    It’s here. I have already sharpened the H2B pencils; prepared the backup battery for calculator. I will check out the test place today. Tomorrow I am going to spend the whole day for the test.

    NBA final and European championship soccer
    I don’t care too much about the NBA final these days. Although I like Celtics (KG, Allen, Paul) to win. The reason I don’t like NBA is the commericalization, and referees apprearent involvement. On the other hand, I have not watched European championship soccer for a long time, especially after I came to the US. This year ESPN will broadcast the soccer. Here is the TV schedule.

    Vanke May 08 sales, Wang Shi apoligize
    I have a Google speadsheet to track Vanke monthly sales. May 08 number was down compared to May 07. Also Wang Shi apologized more than 10 times in the annual shareholder meeting for poor choice of words in his blog.

    Hillary’s bill

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  • Things more important than stocks

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    (Update May 13) I put two links about Sichuan earthquake on the top of middle side bar: one in Chinese; one in English.

    Yesterday afternoon when I listened to NPR Melissa Block live report (click on listen: Melissa Block at a shattered school) from Chengdu/China, I was almost in tears. Melissa was in Chengdu for special report on what’s new in China, and was caught by the earquake.

    Sichuan eathquake, by Xinhua, Li Gang/AP

    Earthquake
    By now you may have heard the 7.8 earthquake happened in China Si’chuan province. The Chinese goverment and its people are doing their best to rescue the people being buried under the rubbles. A few weeks ago we had a 5.2 earthquake happened near St. Louis (the epicenter is about 100 miles away from STL, news in English, in Chinese). But this 7.8 is at the famous Tangshan earthquake level (1976), in which 250,000 lives were lost.

    When natural disaster like that happens, we human beings some times felt powerless. We also got opportunity take a deep breath, and ask ourselves, what is the most precious thing in life? I remember people asked this question after Sept. 11 world trader center incidents.

    On the positive side, amid the recent China snow storm (before Chinese New Year), I read 13 Tangshan farmers volunteered to help restoring power in Hu’nan. Volunterism is still new in China, but very refreshing.

    More later,
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  • Bread rice price hike, Memphis tiger’s loss

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    Wheat, Rice
    Couple weeks ago I noticed Panera raised its bagel price from 95 cents to $1.01, because of the sharp rise of wheat price. We all know bread flour is made from wheat. The wheat price has been up 50% in last 6 months, due to draught in key wheat producing country Australia. Interestingly Panera stock (PNRA) went up from last I look. I guess the ability to pass cost to customer is a signal of strength. We will continue to eat bagel for breakfast, and we can get the 6 cents from somewhere else 🙂

    I went to buy rice yesterday and found the price is also up. I heard about the Thailand new policy to control rice export and price hike, so this is not a surprise. I also watched CCTV news that Premier Wen is visting rice producing provinces, to encourage farmers planting more rice.

    Because I am long out of rice business, I have bought some Syngenta (SYT) to hedge the grain price (seriously, I hope to gain from the global ag boom).

    Memphis tiger’s stunning loss
    I was stunned to see Memphis lost the NCAA champaignship game last night. They were up about 10 points with 2 minutes left (story from CBSSports). Then they did something pretty stupid, something paper tiger would do: they pass on the balls to kill the time! One thing analysts liked to talk is “with 10 seonds left, Memphis let Kansas shot a 3 point and tied to overtime”.

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  • Vested in Amerca

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    Yesterday was a quite amazing day for stock market. The US market (Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq) went up the most in 5 years, after the dear friend of Wall Street (Mr. Ben Bernanke) cut the interest rate by 0.75%. Here are details in the news (Dow 416 points gain, Fed rate cut sends market soaring). This means the interest rate lowered from 5.25% to 2.25% since last Sept. That’s 300 basis points in 6 months!. While I was happy to see my little portfolio went up 4.8% yesterday, I think the US dollar will worth less and less (vs. Yuan), considering the reckless US economy policy and the fundamental problems underlining the economy (high labor cost, addition to consumer spending, etc.).

    Fed rate cut 031808
    (Source: Kansas City Star)

    Green Card
    Incidently (remember March 17 is St. Patrick’s day, the green), yesterday I received an email from USCIS telling me that my permanent residency application has been approved (after almost 6 years). I don’t think too much of this green card thing, at least that’s what I felt when I went to work this morning (see I still got to work).

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  • Nanjing Dec 1937 and USS Panay

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    I would like shift my focus away from the stock market, and dedicate this special day to Nanjing and Chinese people all over the world. Nanjing is the sister city of Saint Louis.

    Many Chinese people (e.g., my friend Wang Jianshuo) know the Nanjing Masasccre happened 70 years ago. Couple days ago I heard a story on NPR which talked about some Japanese and Chinese people got together at Nanjing Normal university theater to commerate. Note the place was an international sanctary which saved lots of Chinese refuge at that time.

    And many American people know that the US warships were bombed by Japan in Pearl Harbor.

    But for me until this morning did I know that a US navy ship USS Panay was hit by Japan on Dec 1937, in the Yangze River outside of Nanjing. They were doing some rescue for American at the time. The interesting part (for me) in this NPR story is a sailor got 1,200 USD from Japanese goverment and an apology from the emperor. Note at the time $800 can buy a new car.

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  • HUST, my alma mater

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    Read this post from WesternFord, and found those beautiful pictures taken in Wuhan Univ. and Huangzhou Univ of Science and Technology. It reminded me the college days at HUST. Hope to visit it again in the near future, last time I visited was year 2002.

    While Huazhong is mostly an engineering school, it also has a decent business (management) school and econ department. One of the rising star in Chinese goverment (fiscal policy advisor) is Ba Shu Song 巴曙松 (blog), he recently gave a Finance lecture to the leaders of CPC political bureau. I vaguely remember him while in college, when he was the head of (students) radio station.

    HUST pic

  • New house

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    The other day, I heard some interesting words on the TV:

    If you want to be happy for a day, buy a lottery ticket; if you want to be happy for a week, buy a new car; if you want to be happy for a year, (don’t remember exactly) buy a new house; if you want to be happy for the life, find your soul mate.

    While I do not agree everything been said here, I do think house is a very important part of people’s lives. Recently the slowdown of US housing market, and subsequently the sub-prime loan crisis has burned many home buyers and investors. At the same time, I have seen my family member and good friend moving into brand new houses. It may not the perfect or best time in terms of the housing market, but I think the happiness of “owning the home” is not over rated. This is further validated by my mom’s happy voice when she told me the news of “home buying”.

    Town house
    (an open house I visited a while ago)

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  • Thankful about…

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    Well, except Wall Street, I have plenty of people to be thankful about…

    1) My parents and my family members: without you I will not be where I am today. Or maybe I will be an investor banker (more likely a financial analyst) in Shanghai? Just kidding.

    2) My wife and her family members: there is something in life that could not be expressed by words. How about “same as above”?

    3) My friends over the years (Wuhan, Shanghai, Rolla, STL< =>PVG): you know who you are. For the friendship, understanding and sharing.

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