Categories
Saint Louis

How to ride the MetroBus?

Reading Time: < 1 minute

This morning I need to drop my car at repair shop for the day. Not wanting to walk back, or disturb my friend, I decided to ride the bus. I did some research about the bus last night. I used the trip finder to find the route, schedule. I tried it: from “Olive Blvd at Lindbergh Blvd”, to “Olive Blvd at Tempo Dr.” It gives me the time, I found 8:04 AM or 8:45 AM bus will fit me.

Things worked out well as I expected. Shortly after I drop the car, I waited at the Olive and Manson, and I saw the 8:04 AM bus coming. I got on the bus and paid $1.75. The ride took about 10 minutes. To my surprise, there are quite a few people riding the bus.

I understand right now it’s still impractical for me to take the bus to work. But what if everyone started to ride the bus, amid the rising fuel price? As the Addidas ad says “Impossible is nothing”. Maybe this thing is possible.

Reference:
MetroBus map and ruotes

Categories
gadgets

iPhone vs. Blackberry Bold

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From YouTube, author: the iPhone blog

BTW, I found other blackberry videos at YouTube to be good (authors: phonescoop, crackberry).

Categories
Investing Shanghai Composite

Bottom fishing time?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Yesterday was another brutal day in the Wall Street, or the Bay Street (Toronto), or SSE (Shanghai Securities Exchange). According to the number, the Dow is now officially in bear territory. General Motor (NYSE:GM), a Dow component and an American icon, hit 53 years low. It closed at $11.43. So, should we go bottom fishing?

I am not a market timer, nor do I like to predict the market trend. But I noticed another interesting article from my friend Wang Jianshuo’s blog: Stock Market Big Drop. Note Jianshuo is not into stock market, a rare type in Shanghai. In other words, when people like Jianshuo started to pay attention to the market, things are either really good or bad (noteworthy). So, the 1 million dollar question: should we go bottom fishing? My answer is be careful, because if we don’t we will catch some falling knives instead 🙁

Some ideas for bottom fishing

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Categories
gadgets

It’s the software, smartphone?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I don’t have a smartphone, but I used to have Palm m100 (original), and Palm Tungsten E. I did not use it for power point, calendar or anything serious, the main functionality I used is its real player. It got 128 M SD card, so I can store about 30 songs on it.

Palm Tungsten E2 pic

Today’s smart phone is much more sohpiscated. Besides traditional voice capability, email, messaging (instant, text and multimedia), some phones also got web browsing, MP3/video playback, camera and video capturing, word/excel/power point editing. As I understand some blackberry can do SAP, IBM Lotus, or used as a remote control for home applicance (source: RIM June 25 conference call).

Market

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Categories
gadgets

RIM: bear case, bull case

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Bear case
RIM (Nasdaq: RIMM) missed both top line and bottom line in Q1, and issued not so strong outlook for Q2. Read news from Reuters for more details. Q1 revenue is $2.24 b vs. expected $2.27 b; earning was $0.84 vs. 0.85. While I think missing of bottom line is understandable because of spending in R&D, the revenue miss is not because its competitor iPhone was sold out going into the end of quarter.

Competition from iPhone will intensify. New 3G iPhone will be launched on July 11, and it is deceptively priced at $199. The reason I said “deceptively” is the real owner cost is much higher (see Christopher Null, How the half-price iPhone 3G actually costs you more).

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Categories
gadgets

The iPhone effect: I

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I did not take too seriously of iPhone when it was launched a year ago. But I was wrong. My initial thought Apple jumped into the mobile phone world with a touch screen smart phone, with way too much fan fare (remember the Ads on CNBC, CNN etc?).

Well, now I think it set a new standard for smart phones for consumers. Apple announced its new 3G iPhone recently, and there are interesting customer spending analysis (Christopher Null) and iPhone manufacturing analysis (iSuppli). Numbers aside, a more intereting phenomena is, since the announcement of 3G iPhone, Nokia (NYSE:NOK) stock continued to drop. Note Nokia mainly sells outside of the US, while iPhone sells mainly inside the US. Interesting? The perception must be iPhone is going to each Nokia’s dinner: its source of profit, the N series smart phones.

iPhone and the rest of the world
Here in the US, I have seen Sprint launched this Instinct (Samsung), Verizon already got touch screen Voyger (LG).

Continue reading “The iPhone effect: I”
Categories
gadgets

K-touch: from Shanzhaiji to darling

Reading Time: 2 minutes

K-touch (Tianyu 天宇or天语, benephon), a Chinese Shanzhaiji maker a few years ago, reached the top spot in domestic brands (in terms of sales). It sold 17 million handsets last year, beating all the big boys (Ningbo Bird, Xiameng Amoi, Lenovo Handset), and plans to sell 30 millions this year. Recently it also raised 530 m RMB from US private equity firm Warburg Pincus (Chinese news here). The following is a picture of upcoming Tianyu K-touch in series C800 8M camera phone. The MSRP will be CNY 2800 (about $400). A comparable phone from Nokia will cost twice, according to Tianyu. You can read see more C800 pictures at softpedia.

Tianyu K-touch in series C800 8M camera phone pic

In Chinese 天语 means voice from heaven. Romantic name, isn’t it?

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Categories
Fun

George Carlin talks about stuff

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Hillarious yet educational 🙂

See more my stuff @google.

Categories
Master Series

Buffett on courses in business schools

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We only need two, according to Buffett, at 2008 shareholder Q&A session (transcript at GuruFocus). Note Q5, WB answer, he noted the following two courses:

1) how to value a business;

2) how to think about stock market fluctuations.

I think the first one is obvious, all the accounting, financial and quantitative skills. The second, is less obvious, it’s more about psychology. Buffett’s sidekick Charlie Munger summarized in his Human Misjudgement speech. Buffett also said something like “be cautious when others are greedy; be greedy when others are cautious“. This is certainly not science or a rule can be applied easily. For instance, if one person bought SPRD last Friday (like yours truely), it fell more today.

I noticed Danbin, a China hedge fund manager admires Buffett very much, also has his own way. He is almost religous about holding his stocks these days, amid the recent big drop of China market. You can read this article at his blog to get a glimpse. I am sure many of his clients are thinking or asking to bail out.

Oh, well, whatever it works for him/her. The key is to make money in the long run.

Categories
Investing

Asset management in China: I

Reading Time: 2 minutes

When I say a mutual fund manager, what kind of personality (impression) appears in your mind? A guy or a lady in his/her 40s, with financial education, 10 years or more experience in investment field…

This is not the case in China. Due to the boom of China stock market in recent years, and the boom of the hedge fund, many experienced guys (like Danbin, more about Danbin later) started or joined hedge fund so that they could make more money. Here is a Chinese article titled “rookie fund managers in charge of trillons of Yuan, only 7 fund managers have more than 7 years experience in China mutual funds”. The following Chinese video below tells the same problem.

Continue reading “Asset management in China: I”