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Stocks

The impact of US slowdown to China economy

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Will be minimal, according to People’s bank of China chief Mr. Zhou Xiao Chuan. Here is what he said during a visit to South Africa:

人民银行行长周小川21日在南非约翰内斯堡说，受美国次级住房抵押贷款市场危机影响，世界经济增长速度明年可能适当放缓，但这对中国经济影响不大。周小川说，受次贷危机冲击，美国消费者的消费热情受到一定打击，欧洲部分消费者也可能受到影响。受此影响，中国对美国的出口可能适当放缓，双方的贸易不平衡问题可以得到适当缓解，这种情况对中国经济的影响不会太大。

　　他说，今后两个月的形势发展十分关键，因为圣诞节前是美国人的消费高峰期，也是美国进口的高峰期。他强调，如果美国的进口严重下滑，受到影响的不仅是中国经济，整个世界经济都会受到冲击，但具体情况现在还难以判断。

　　周小川说，为了应对美国消费适度下降，中国出口企业可以在产品出路上尽量寻求多元化，多考虑世界其他市场，一些产品可以考虑内销。中国政府也可以多鼓励扩大内需，这就能较好解决对美国出口减缓给国内经济带来冲击的问题。

It appears to me Mr. Zhou is not very confident about his argument. He was saying China will increase domestic consuming, expand exports to other countries, when export to US slows. But he also said next two months, the Xmas shopping season in the US will be critical.

Categories
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.

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Stocks

Netflix IS good

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I mean the service, not the stock NFLX (I no longer kept up to date with its stock). I heard about Netflix couple years ago, but I just started to use its service recently. Some of the features I like about:

netflix pic

1) The queue: the customer could put up a movie queue. Once a movie is returned, the one on the top will be mailed.

2) Fast: here in STL it takes one day to ship. So if I return the movie on Mon, I will receive a new one on Wed. The design on reusable envelop is also impressive.

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IPO

Squeeze the bubble

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In last few days many new Chinese IPO listed in the US are under pressure, notablly:

E-House China (EJ), China Digital TV (STV), Wuxi Pharma (WX)

and last but the least, Giant Interactive (GA), the No. 1 online gaming company in China, owned by well known Chinese entreprenur Mr. Shu Yuzhu. According to CnAnalyst, GA also has the highest margin in all Chinese stocks listed in the US, with a gross margin 90% and net margin 70%. It sounds to me they are in drug dealing business 🙂 Because those numbers easily beat monopoly companies such as PetroChina (PTR) and China Mobile (CHL), or leading search company Baidu (BIDU).

All right, I shall be more positive in my blog: actually I like Wuxi Pharma among those new companies, along with the Longtop (LFT) I mentioned earlier. Because I think their business are more sustainable.

Wuxi Pharma Tech pic

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Stocks

GAAP is no longer mandatory

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for foreign companies listed in the US. But it IS still mandatory for US companies. Here are the news from MSNBC. Here is the Chinese version (from Caijing).

GAAP is the US General Accepted Accounting Principle, vs. the international standard (US always like to have its own standard, isn’t it). I think this could reduce the accounting expenses for many Chinese companies listed in the US. Not sure for Chinese companies, is this significant or not? So this is not good news for US educated accountants?

Just kidding. On more serious level, I think the most important thing of accounting, is to show the true status of the business of a company. Warren Buffett used an extreme example one time (in his annual report) to show exotic accounting can be used to show artificial good numbers.

As a side note, I noticed Longtop LFT has to expense 24 million USD for the shared transfered from its chairman to employees. I still think “transfer of shares” alone did not consititue an expense, but awarding of stock options does.

Categories
China Stocks

Premier Wen Talks about housing, stocks

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in Singapore, two of the most heated topics in China these days. Here is the Chinese excerpt from DFdaily.

Housing:
他在新加坡国立大学发表演讲后回答提问时说，应该说，中国改革开放30年来居民住房的条件有很大的改善，现在城乡居民住房面积人均超过20平方米，但是分布不均，特别是近些年来房价上涨较快，人民有很大的意见。

　　解决房地产问题，温家宝谈了四点考虑。他说，首先，政府的职责最重要的是要搞好廉租房，让那些买不起房或者进城打工的农民工能够租得起房、住得上房。为此，中国政府今年将安排49亿元用于廉租房建设，再加上地方财政，投入将达到几百亿。他说，明年我们将加大廉租房建设的力度。

　　其次，是建设经济适用房。他说，经济适用房大多数是面向中产阶级的，他们中有许多工资也不是很高。在中国，经济适用房户均面积90平方米是比较适当的，因为中国人多地少，“对廉租房和经济适用房，政府应提供和保障土地的需要，当然(这些)土地也要节约和集约使用”。他说，对于高档住房，主要靠市场调节，“但是也必须有国家的宏观调控，防止利用房地产进行炒作造成市场混乱”。

　　温家宝指出，要让全国人民懂得中国的国情，中国是有13亿人口的国家，要守住18亿亩耕地的“红线”才能养活中国人。中国每年新生人口要超过1000万，每年由农村进入城市需要解决住房的进城人员达到1800万，还有2100万流动农民工，也需要居住条件。所有这些问题，政府都要统筹兼顾。

　　温家宝说，这次来新加坡会有机会再看看新加坡的组屋。他说：“几年前，我曾经专门考察过，受到不少启发。”

premier wen jia bao pic

Stocks:
新华网新加坡11月19日电(记者张永兴李涛)中国国务院总理温家宝19日在这里从三方面谈了政府在股票市场应该做的事情。

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Stocks

Waiting for Longtop Financial earning

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longtop finance logo

(Update 2) Just listened to its CC, CEO Mr. Lian said fiscal 2009 (Apr 1 2008 to March 31 2009) revenue forecast is 80 m. Note they said fiscal 2008 revenue would be 58 m. I felt they are being conservative on the numbers here. The CEO was very bullish on the IT spending of Chinese banks, insurance companies and financial subsidiary of large companies. FENet will contribute 10 m revenue in fiscal 2009. Not too bad.

Just a little book keeping: CFO Derek said the fiscal 2008 earning will be 68 cents; outstanding shares will be 53 m by March 31 2008.

(Update) Just as I was writing, it reported its quarter. The number of this quarter looked OK. But the outlook for next quarter and the year were so so (45.7% YoY revenue growth).

I would be very interested to hear what CEO Mr. Lian has to say.

(Original) LFT is going to report momentarily. I still have all the shares bought since its late Oct. IPO (yes, under water now), and here are my impressions from reading its prospectus last night.

1) The revenue growth will be OK. They forecast a low 40s growth YoY.

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Fun Stocks

Chipotle Mexican Grill: 2nd visit

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We went to the Chipotle yesterday. This is my second visit (see my first visit exp here), and my wife’s first. It did not turn out to be a disaster, but it is obvious that my wife did not like Mexican food 🙁

On the other hand, the stock of Chipotle (NYSE: CMG) continued to do well in past 6 months, although they should have same “rising wheat and meat cost” issues as experienced by Panera, or (to a lesser extent), Starbucks. I think the main reason is, the consumers (black, white, Asian and hispanic) crave for the spicy Mexican food. Not the sandwich or latte from Panera or Starbucks.

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Stocks

Old horses in China Online Game

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(Update Nov 20) Grus had a good post on trader818 explaining the online games and its competitive nature. So I can shut up.

(Original) I have traded the three old horsemen among Chinese online game companies 2 years ago(unfortunately, lost money on all three): Shanda (SNDA), NetEase (NTES) and the9 (NCTY). I paid attention to them from time to time, and I think recent developments in those 3 companies are interesting, especially from business point of view.

First, the good news from Shanda. Two years ago SNDA stock is in a downward trend, because its main revenue source: lineage II was getting old. Since then SNDA did a few things: it sold Sina stock and took a big gain; it changed its business model from making money from subscription to making money from selling stuffs used in game; it also acted more like a VC, I mean it bought some popular game in its early stage, then leverage its distribution network to make money.

NetEase, the old game (westward series) are really getting old, the new in-house games are not taking the slack from westward. Other effects such as web search is too little too late. In my mind, Mr. Ding Lei was very lucky in the past, in terms get into the right field in the right time (email service, mobile value added service, and online game). Will he be lucky all the time?

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China Stocks

China to tax stock real estate gains?

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There are conflicting news about this hot topic. The initial news, according to Hexun, the Chinese tax bureau is going to collect tax on the gains made from stocks and real estate for people earn more than 120,000 Yuan per year. Note in China 120,000 Yuan is the threshold for people to file personal income tax.

personal income tax(source: xazr.com)

But according to Xinhua and Netease, the Chinese tax bureau is not ready to collect capital gain tax from stock sales yet.

My take: the personal income tax and especially the filing of personal income tax (for person earn over 120,000) are still fairly new. The Chinese stock market is also fairly new (compared to western markets). It IS good for China to align the tax system, encourage investing (in stocks) while keep the fairness of society (people from different income level). But keep this balance and how to accurately calculating taxes will NOT be easy for the goverment, and brokage firms.

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