Category: Stocks

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Stocks

Sold the Heelys HLYS

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I placed a market order before the market open. The last time I did something similar is two years ago when the Ninetowns reported that their customers (Chinese goverment) would no longer pay them for the software. They would get a free version instead.

But HLYS did worse in terms of the stock. It closed at 21.99 yesterday, and opened 13.38 this morning. I lost more than $7 per share (bought it 20.95 about two weeks ago).

It seems I haven’t learned my lessons in 2 years. Seriously I felt lucky this time because the gain in other stocks covered the loss. Actually I did made some money on HLYS too (a while ago), today I gave it all back 🙁

Both the CEOs of NINE and HLYS are on my “CEO Hall of Shame” list now. We should all be careful when we put our hard earned money to the stock market: look for good CEOs, real good CEOs.

BTW, I saw 5 analysts downgrade the HLYS today. This time I agree with the analysts.

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Stocks

Heelys went off track

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Heelys reported a decent second quarter, at the same time it warned its second half will be more challenging. “Challenging” is a polite word, “go off track” is more proper in my mind. So I guess I will take my loss tonight when the market opens.

With Heelys report, all my 6 stocks reported earning. Two winners are CROX and MR; two losers are GSIT and HLYS; SBUX and SNCI did ok. I normally don’t bet on earnings these days; the reason I bet on HLYS was I thought the expectation is already low, and “back to school” seems did well. But…the wheels came off.

So, the lesson for me is, don’t bet on earnings. Especially demaged stocks like HLYS and NINE.

Heelys pic

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Stocks

Mindray reports a solid Q2

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Here are the results. The important thing is they beat the est. and raised the guidance again. I also listened to its conference call, some interesting information:

1) The company plans to increase its international sales headcount to more than 200 people by the end of 2007 and to open offices in Amsterdam, Mexico City, Moscow, Sao Paulo and Toronto.

2) At the end of the second quarter 2007, the company had more than 850 R&D staff and is on track to increase R&D headcount to more than 1,000 employees by the end of 2007.

It appears the international growth is the main theme for the company. The domestic growth is also good, but not as fast as US market.

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China Stocks

Hot market and smart money

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The China stock market is breaking new high again, after the May 30 “man made” crash, and amid the “housing and financial crash” in the US. Yesterday I heard from a family member, who was fairly cautious about the stock market, now thinking about put the money back to the market. This is confirmed by the warming up of “new account” opening in Shanghai and Shenzhen. After the raise of stamp tax, the interest rate, and bank reserve rate, the fearless Chinese stock investors (especially institutions) pushed blue chips such as China Merchants Bank, Vanke to their new high.

The million dollar question is: can this rally be sustained? Well, I will let the analysts and experts to comment on this. My job is provide the facts. In the weekend I saw a new newspaper named “Li Cai Zhou Bao“, or “financial weekly”, interestingly it’s being translated to “Smart Money”. Curious about its content, I shelled out 6 Yuan and got a copy. This is a title of No. 1 article “The stock most likely will go up to 100 in no time“. Well, I remember couple weeks ago, Cramer did this “80 to 120” series on his mad money, we all know what happened after his show (hint: Dow crash).

smart_money

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China Stocks

Shanghai report: income vs. spending

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Shanghai is an expensive city. I’m not talking about the red hot housing market, we all know the housing is getting very expensive here. I was talking about the relative income vs. spending.

Income
Yesterday evening an old friend of mine, who works for a investment research firm, told me a fresh graduate is paid CNY 3,000. This is actully fairly high pay for new college graduate, cosidering financial is a hot area, and the fresh graduate is from Tsinghua/Bei Da (think that as MIT, or Harvard of China), with very good spoken English.

Experienced people are paid more. I learned from anothetr friend who is a HR executive, about 10% of people makes more than CNY 10,000 per month. Note this is also the threshold of income tax.

In the IT arena, I know some senior developer positions at MSFT pays more than 20,000 Yuan per month. I believe other multinational companies should have equivalent pay.

Continue reading “Shanghai report: income vs. spending”
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Stocks

Starbucks Q2 earing report

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I read its earning report this morning (Shanghai is 12 hrs ahead of US EDT). They reported an inline quarter. In the past that could send the stock tank. Not this time, because the stock has been down 27% since Jan 1. The expectation is already very low. With a PE about 33, and revenue growth of 20%, and a superior brand, I believe its future in the long term.

Let me talk things beyond the earnings. In the Cloud 9 (shopping mall and office building, where I work these days) there are 2 Starbucks stores. Around Zhongshan park I’m aware of 4 stores total.

According to “Shanghai Metro” newspaper yesterday, Coca cola is the No. 1 brand in the world, it brand is est. valued at $65 b (I believe its market cap is more than $100 b). Starbucks is not on the top 10, but could it fetch $ 6.5 b? Note SBUX has a market cap of about $20 b lately.

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Stocks

Sonic Innovations SNCI Q2 report

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Here is the results from PR NewsWire. To summarize:

Net sales from continuing operations for the second quarter 2007 of $30.4 million were up 16.4% over the $26.1 million for the second quarter of 2006.

North American sales of $11.8 million in the second quarter 2007 increased 8.2% from 2006. European sales of $12.8 million in the second quarter 2007 increased 33.1% from the second quarter 2006. Rest-of-world sales of $5.8 million in the second quarter 2007 were up 3.9% from 2006.

I am listening to its conference call, it seems the Q3 and 2007 outlook are good.

On a separate matter, Ninetowns (NINE), the stock I traded a few times, dropped to $3 level as its operation continued to deteriorate, and its CEO and main shareholder (appears) cashing money at the expense of small shareholders. I’m glad I no longer have that. In my mind, management integrity is as important as management competence, if not more.

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Stocks

Crocs newest addition

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I read it from the Forbes, Crocs bought Bite Footwear. I checked out Bite’s web site, it looks they make sports sandals, which reminds me of the “Keen” branded outdoor sandals sold in Dick’s Sporting Good. Don’t know if they are comfortable or not, but the Keens are not cheap.

One interesting thing I saw is this running shoes. I don’t know if Nike will come up similar things or not.

Bite Shoes running

Besides selling more Crocs in China (and other international market), Crocs needs the diversification of products to keep growing. It appears to me the “jibbitz” buy already brought some fruits. This “Bite Footwear” buy seems better than OceanMinded buy earlier this year, as “Bite” appeals to a wider crowd.

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Stocks

A good quarter from CROX

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Here is the results (details from business wire). I will add more after listening to its conference call.

— Second Quarter Revenues Increased 162% to $224.3 Million vs. $85.6 Million Last Year (analyst expected 188.49 to 204.20)

– Company Reports 2Q07 Diluted EPS of $0.58 vs. $0.19 Last Year- (analyst est. 0.40 to 0.48)

— Company Issues 3Q07 Guidance of Revenues between $240 and $250 Million and Diluted EPS of $0.58 to $0.62 –

— Company Raises FY07 Guidance to Revenues of $810 to $820 Million and Diluted EPS of $1.89 to $1.93 –

Continue reading “A good quarter from CROX”
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China Stocks

Perfect World IPO

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I read this from Netease: Perfect World, a Chinese online game co., will debut in Nasdaq under ticker symbol PWRD tomorrow July 27.

Here is the prospectus from SEC. The company was not profitable in 2005, and 2006, but it turned corner in Q1 2007. It seems other Chinese online game companies are also coming because the market started to warm up to SNDA, NCTY etc, and the craziness of Wii.

I’m not a gamer, and I’m packing for back to home trip. So I will leave the analysis to experts.