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Business

Greed: from Enron to Sub-prime fiasco

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(Update) I started this article a few months ago. Just as I complete it today, I heard the Elliot Spitzer’s scandal (possibly criminal prosecution) regarding his involvement in prostitution ring. How ironic. I hope people don’t discount Elliot’s relentless effort to clean up the Street, no matter what comes out of his case.

(Original) When the Enron scandal surfaced in Summer 2002, I just started to learn about US stock market. But I vaguely remember many other companies such as Worldcom, Tyco also exposed their problems later on. The CEOs of those companies are all prosecuted, and corporate governence of US companies are much improved since then. The congress scrambled to come up with the Sabane-Oxly Act, which helped to make the corporate accounting books more accurately reflect the reality of companies well-beings, and strengthen the investors confidence.

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gadgets

HiPhone and iPhone new SDK

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Did you hear about HiPhone? It’s a knockoff iPhone made in China, here is one I found through Google Product search. Since US consumers are in recession (as wisely pointed out by Buffett and Bill Gross lately), this is not a bad choice if a person wants to impress his/her friends but don’t have the kind of money to buy a real iPhone ($399) or sign up the AT&T plan (starting $59.99) . In this case, the HiPhone costs $240, and no plan is required.

HiPhone photo

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Stocks

Croc-less for now

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I sold the remaing few CROX shares today. Not because I was scared of the bad news from mortgage and banking industries, and general worsening US economy. It’s because I think the Crocs story is over, for now.

Lessons learned (this is related to my previous Stock Lessons series…)
1) When someone claims some new company is going to be next Microsoft, Google, etc. Run, not just walk away from it. On May 26 2007 our friend “expert” Georges Yared wrote a piece saying Crocs is the next Nike. Well, it looks more likely Crocs is the next Heelys 🙂

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gadgets

Why I think China Mobile is a buy: I

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First a bit background.

Re-org of China telecom industry
All the big players: China Mobile 中国移动 (CHL), China Netcom (CN), China Telecom 中国电信(CHA) and China Unicom 中国联通 (CHU), are majority owned by the state. In the widely anticipated re-org plan, the goverment will try to create more competition in wireless arena (right now CHL is much bigger than CHU); and save the fixed line operators, as CHA and Netcom are losing landline subscription to mobile phones. China Unicom, currently the smaller rival of China Mobile, will sell its CDMA network to China Telecom, and meanwhile CHU (with its GSM network) will merge with China Netcom.

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Business

Why Sprint Nextel merger failed

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Last week one of the news in wireless arena is Sprint Nextel wrote down all the book values for the Nextel acquisition (about $29.5 billion, see Bloomberg). Put it in perspective, this is one of the largest fiascos of corporate merger&acquisition in recent history. The magnitude is in the league of AOL and Time Warner merger in dot com days.

sprint nextel merger pic
(Mr. Forsee, left, shakes hands with Nextel founder in 2004. Source: USAtoday)

The following is from a financial advisor’s view about Sprint Nextel stock. The original source can be found here.

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Categories
Fun

Heavy snow, RIM

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(Update Mar 05) My wife Shanzi had a nice write up (and pics) about yesterday’s snow. In Chinese.

(Original) We had a 10 inch snow (huge by St. Louis standard) today. It took me more than 1 hour to drive from my work place to home, which usually takes 15 minutes. Of course I took a different route since I don’t want to take the highway, thought that would be a huge parking lot. There are less traffic on those side roads, but I almost got stuck in snow twice when I tried to go up-hill.

After one hour struggle, I did not make it to my packing lot, because I could not drive up on my drive way, so I left my car there (see below).

IMG_6168

Lessons learned: do not take unfamilar side roads (especially roads with slopes) in snow. My car got stuck in Schultz Rd. and couple side roads along Schultz when I tried to cut across to my home. I saw other cars on the roadside, stuck in snow on the way. I should be more patient (wait on Page).

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Stocks

Crocs released 10K year 2007

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Here is some interesting stuff I read (auditor’s opinion):

“We have also audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States), the consolidated financial statements as of and for the year ended December 31, 2007 of the Company and our report dated February 29, 2008 expressed an unqualified opinion on those financial statements and included an explanatory paragraph regarding the Company’s adoption on January 1, 2007 of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s Interpretation No. 48, Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes, and the adoption on January 1, 2006 of Statement of Financial Accounting Standard No. 123(R), Share-Based Payments.”

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Categories
Master Series

Why Buffett is not another money manager

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Buffett released his annual letter to shareholder last Friday, which I will discuss in next few days. First let me lay out my 5 year observations about Buffett and many other money managers.

1) Buffett will tell you his stock Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A and BRK.B) is expensive all the time (don’t buy it); while money managers will say anything you want to hear to manage your money (and earn the fees). They will do seminars, show their cool technologies, send you advertisement (Mail, TV, Internet), etc. All this reminds me of the promoters of stock trading software on Shanghai street 🙂

2) Buffett does not think too much of stock daily price, quote him “if you care about the daily fluctuations of a stock, you should not buy the stock at first place”; some money managers watched the market every day, every hour, every minute. This reminds me one thing: if somebody/something needs constant attention, and it’s not your baby, then something is wrong (notice Britney Spears getting media attention lately).

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Stocks

IPO and secondary offering: I

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I have written an article talking about why Chinese companies come to list in NYSE or Nasdaq a while ago. This is a topic warrants more than one article, amid the VISA filing for IPO and recent controversy of Chinese companies (Ping’an and Pu Fa) tried to do secondary in Shanghai. So let me talk about the reasons why companies go to capital market for money.

I remember Ken Fisher talked about the use of debt or stock for companies in terms of raising money, in his book “Only 3 questions that count“. To sum it up, a company will always look for a better way to finance its operation/growth, if the debt (borrow from banks) is available and cheap, they will do it. On the other hand, they will go with issusing stocks. He further explains why maturing companies (with low PE) finds borrowing is cheaper, and growth companies finds issuing stocks is cheaper.

China Ping an insurance IPO pic
(Picture above: CEO of China Ping’an insurance at IPO media event)

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CFA

Coffee, espresso, coke and investing: II

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The Coca Cola stock vs. Starbucks stock
In last 10 years (Mar 6 1998 to today Feb 28 2008), according Google Finance, SBUX went up from 4.93 to 18.78 (+280%, split adjusted, SBUX has not paid any dividend). That’s about 14% price appreciation annually.

On the other hand, KO went from 68.66 to 59.56 (-14.44%). But there is a caveat, Coca Cola pays out a cash dividend each quarter, so we should adjust the dividend when calculate Coke’s return.

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