Category: Life

Life

Things more important than stocks

Post author By stlplace
Post date May 12, 2008
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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,

Tags China-snow-storm, Melissa-Block, NPR, Sichuan-Earthquake, Volunterism

Life Stocks

Bread rice price hike, Memphis tiger’s loss

Post author By stlplace
Post date April 8, 2008
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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”.

Tags grain-price-hike, Memphis, NCAA

China Life

Nanjing Dec 1937 and USS Panay

Post author By stlplace
Post date December 13, 2007
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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.

Tags Nanjing-1937, USS-Panay

Life

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.

Tags Huazhong, HUST

Fun Life

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)

Tags home-ownership

Fun Life

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.

Life Stocks

Travel, weather and stocks

Post author By stlplace
Post date October 29, 2007
No Comments on Travel, weather and stocks

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Stocks
Vanke (00002.SZ) expects a 100% to 150% profit growth in 2007 (vs. 2006). That translated to a 67% to 100% increase of earning per share. Chairman Wang Shi is saying the China real estate industry is still fragmented: Vanke has 1.25% of market share.

Longtop Financial (LFT), the new IPO, is under pressure today. Bought some more at $27.87. As one would expect, the stock went lower after I bought.

Weather
St. Louis is colder and drier than I thought. Not a warm welcome to my wife Ruixian, either 🙂

Afraid of all the fall leaves being gone soon, we toured the scenic Missisipi drive from Alton to Graftion yesterday afternoon. There are plenty of people at “loading docks” etc. Back to American way of leisure…

Tags jet-leg, longtop, Vanke

Life

Sweet osmanthus in the air

Post author By stlplace
Post date October 17, 2007
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I don’t know if you notice this is 桂花 sweet osmanthus season again. On my way to work, I can smell it. Such as this one (on Changning Rd. near China Merchants Bank). I liked 桂花 because in my primary school, we used to have one or two trees, and we can smell it during the fall season. Of course the dried 桂花 is an important ingredient to make “Jiu Niang Yuan Zi” too.

Tags Edinburgh, sweet-osmanthus, 桂花

Life Stocks

Xiao Ke and Kiki

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Xiao Ke is a German guy. His wife Kiki is my wife’s elder sister. They came back home to see the family, friends, and do some sight seeing. I think Xiao Ke is the first German guy I ever talked to. He has very good understanding of Chinese and Germany culture/philosophies.

I’m curious to learn how he think about the China, the economy development etc. Our conversation started when we saw the Starbucks at the mall. I said China is changing from a tea drinking nation to coffee drinking nation quickly. My point is China is taking (learning) everything from the west, good or bad. Xiao Ke did not agree with me fully. He said he was surprised to see how China blends western things into its own culture or systems. He talked it more from history point of view: after so many years, confucius, traditional holidays such as dragon boat and mid-autumn festival are still here. On the other hand, he thinks German are more “black” or “white”, they either take something or reject it fully. I think it’s a good thing to be precise on engineering: we want to make sure our cars, buildings and airplanes are safe, do we?

Tags balance, China, German