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Career

Mindray recruiting new grads in Canada Germany

Post author By stlplace
Post date November 9, 2007
No Comments on Mindray recruiting new grads in Canada Germany

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Here is the link (see the left scrolling screen, in Chinese):

Many years ago, when I was a graduate student, I attended those information sessions in school (and ate many free pizzas). At that time all the companies are US companies, such as Emerson, GE, and Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) etc. Now a Chinese company are coming to Canada and Germany. One can argue that Mindray (NYSE:MR) can not pay as high salary as Microsoft, but Mindray would give stock options (see below) for significant contributors. Very much like MSFT did in 1990s.

Forget the big drop of Chinese stocks lately (including Mindray); think how much Chinese companies have done in past 10 years…

Stock options: my friend in Shanghai sent me this Chinese article about the stock options incentive for Mindray employee. Mindray CFO Joyce Hsu also said in Q3 conference call that Mindray may have the highest rate (among Chinese companies), in terms of awarding options to its employees.

Tags microsoft, Mindray, new-grad, stock-options

Stocks

CROX, retailer report and credit market

Post author By stlplace
Post date November 8, 2007
No Comments on CROX, retailer report and credit market

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Morgan Stanley Logo

CROX is halved from its pre-earning high of $75.00, and now it sells at around $37.00, about the same price as Mindray (NYSE:MR). I know I am comparing apple to orange.

On the news, sub-prime mess among big banks, $100 a barrel oil and today weak retailer report did not help. But more importantly, it appears to me the short sellers of CROX, are taking this oppertunity to make a killing.

But all these are short term issues. For instance, the sub-prime loan loss for big banks. Morgan Stanley said it’s going to lose $3.7 billion from this. Although the number could be bigger later on, I would think Morgan Stanley would recover from this, and continue doing their IB business? Similar things can be said for Citibank? I’m not saying go buy those financial stocks now, as I am no expert on financials. But I would think the financial institutions, as the foundation of US and global economy, will not all go bankrupt?

Tags credit-market, CROX, subprime

Stocks

Scary times

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The wall street had another big down day today. The Dow lost 360 points, or 2.64%. If Dow is not a reliable indicator of market, S&P 500 lost 44.65, or 2.94%. This is after last Thursday big sell off. The obvious reason, is the continuing deteriating of the US credit market (mortgage banks, commerical banks, investor banks); and the weakening of dolloar.

Chinese IPOs such as Agria (NYSE:GRO) can not come to US at worse time, following last week’s Giant Interactive (NYSE:GA). Long term, this may presents oppertunities, if we can differentiate good companies from pretenders. As I recall, when Shanda Interactive (SNDA) came to Nasdaq in Spring 2004, the market was also not doing well. Later on when market recovered, and more importantly, Shanda delivered a few good quarters, its stock price sky rocketed. Similar things can be said for Google (GOOG) and MasterCard (MA) IPO in August 2004, and May 2006, respectively.

In a day like this, it’s better to turn off the monitor. But if we have to work before computer (as most of us do for a living), I found Wang Shi’s blog to be fun. Nice pictures…

Tags Chinese-IPOs, market-sentiment

Stocks

Mindray investor day

Reading Time: 2 minutes

No I did not fly to Shenzhen, although I would love to be there. From the news, and the presentation, the developments are very encouraging. Too bad my account ran out of money yesterday, otherwise I was going to add my MR positions amid the across board sale of Chinese stocks.

Some highlights (I think) worth noting:

Mindary product pic

1) Change of products division names
In other words, this means broadening/expansion of products. Change Patient Monitoring Devices to Patient Monitoring & Life Support Devices; Diagnostic Laboratory Instruments to In-Vitro Diagnostic Business; Ultrasound Imaging Systems to Diagnostic Imaging Systems.

Tags analyst-day, Mindray, MR

China IPO

Alibaba debut in HK

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Alibaba logo

(Update Nov 6) Keso wrote an interesting piece about Ma Yun and Alibaba IPO. DBANotes also has an interesting article about Alibaba IPO. The author Fenng works for Ali.

(Original) The ticker symbol is 1688.HK. It opened at HKD 30.00, a big jump from the IPO price HKD 13.50.

I have not looked at its prospectus, as I am not interested in big name IPO, nor am I an expert in B2B. Andy Yu wrote a good blog about B2B, the business Alibaba is involved in.

On the other hand, I do like the other arm of Alibaba group, the Alimama, or Ali Soft. Alimama is an online ad platform for small business. I think at some point it will challenges Baidu and Google.

Alibaba and Alimama are separate divisions of Alibaba group, the group owned and managed by big mouth Ma Yun.

Tags 1688.HK, alibaba-IPO, alimama, alisoft, Andy-Yu, B2B

Stocks

Cheaper gourmet coffee

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Week in review 10/27/07 to 11/03/07

1) I found the coffee at On the Run (Mobile gas station) is as good as Panera. I used to get a cup of coffee at Panera every morning, it costs me about $1.70, now I’m paying $1 for similar thing.

Even at this price, I believe “On the Run” is still making money. Now I seriously think Starbucks is in trouble, at least in the US, because I think many Starbucks customers will do as I do: save the money. Note McDonald and Dukin Donuts also offer gourmet coffee at competitive prices.

Stocks

Saturday routine

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The Saturday morning at my STL home is much quite than the apartment I stayed in Shanghai. No more “冰箱, 彩电, 空调” noise from the old applicance collectors. No more street noise from cars, buses, and people. But I also miss some of the good things in Shanghai. The newspapers, the babi bum 巴比馒头, and 长沙米粉.

1) Babi bum 巴比馒头: they are inexpensive, only 1.00 Yuan for a bum, and 1.20 Yuan for the Soybean milk. The waiting lines could be long, but the waiting time is still acceptable, 10 minutes maximum. I like the 肉包子there.

2) Newapapers. Because I like business, finance and stocks, I read the following newspapers published on Saturday.

Tags 21st-century-business-herald, Capital-Week, Money-Weekly

China Stocks

Mindray Q3 report

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(Update) I also listened into its conference call, and it confirmed some of my thought: Chinese domestic market becomes more friendly; south America has strongest international growth, while NA has the slowest.

(Original) I went to Panera bread this morning. Here is what I saw: Bagel, 89 cents; coffee, $1.59 to $1.79. These prices haven’t changed from 3 months ago. No time to check out sandwich price (will do it later). By the way, its stock (Nasdaq:PNRA) closed under $40 ($39.28) yesterday! Sounds like a bargain?

Seriously, Mindray (NYSE:MR) had another good quarter. From its earning report, Chinese goverment finally step in and bought lots of diagnostic stuff. I think this was delayed by the anti-corruption movement last year. Also, the numbers from Europe and South America are quite strong. In other words, the US did not have a good number last quarter. Note US is supposed to be the growth driver this year. I am not sure is the purchase is delayed by the sub-prime crisis. Overall, Mindray is on the track. This is a stock one can own and have good sleep in the night.

Tags Giant-Interactive, Mindray, Panera

Stocks

CROX almost crashed

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(Update: 10pm Nov. 1 CDT) The Crocs board approved up to 1 million shares buy back immediately. See this news from Reuters. Crocs has about 80m shares outstanding as of now.

(Original 5pm Nov. 1 CDT) From yesterday closing price of $74.75, to today’s closing price of $47.74. It’s a $27.01 hair cut, or 36.13% loss. I was kind of caught off guard, as it had two spectacular quarters in Q1 and Q2, also due to I just got back from counting Crocs in Shanghai. Because I heavily weighted this stock before the earning, my portfolio had its largest loss in one day.

But in stock, we should look forward, not backward. There is no “what if”, “should have”, “would have”, etc. Fundamentally, the company and the business are still OK. But short term, I am a little reluctant to catch the falling knife 🙂

A better idea may be buy some of the new Crocs products, the Mammoth crocs looks pretty warm, huh?

crocs mammoth pic

Tags Crocs, falling-knife, mammoth