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401k and Personal Finance

Bounce back in my old 401k

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I did not do anything with my 401k when I left my old employer about one year ago. The past year was also a year of hugh up and downs. I managed not to do anything with it in the past year: no re-balance, no jump in and jump out, no rollover to IRA, and no withdrawl either. Here is the record in past year.

One Year
10-09-2008 to 10-08-2009: +16.90%

half year
03-09-2009 to 10-08-2009: +65.80%

YTD
01-01-2009 to 10-08-2009: +26.10%

Current asset allocation (100% equity)
39% US large cap, 23% US small cap, 30% Non-US developed market, 5% Non-US emerging market, 3% company stock.

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IPO

IPO: It’s Probably Overpriced

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That’s not my observation, that’s what Graham, the value investing guru, said in his book “Intelligent Investor”. I think this is especially true in the current IPO market. Two large recent IPOs, Shanda Games (Nasdaq:GAME) and Banco Santander Brasil S.A. (BSBR, SANB11.BR), showed exactly that. Both traded lower the first day it went public. I don’t have comprehensive statistics, but from my limited experience trading IPO stocks, most stocks traded lower the first day turned out to be a dog (lagger).

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Fun

It’s baseball time

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Forget about the stupid IPOs, stocks, economy,…it’s baseball time in this baseball town.

St. Louis Cardinals is playing NLDS (National League Division Series) against LA Dodgers. Here is the local (St. Louis area) TV schedule.

Gm 1 STL @ LAD Wed 10/7 9:37 TBS Chris Carpenter v Randy Wolf
Gm 2 STL @ LAD Thu 10/8 6:07 TBS Adam Wainwright v Clayton Kershaw
Gm 3 LAD @ STL Sat 10/10 6:07 TBS Vicente Padilla v Joel Piniero
Gm 4 LAD @ STL Sun 10/11 TBD TBS TBD
Gm 5 STL @ LAD Tue 10/13 TBD TBS TBD

(Source: http://www.midwestsportsfans.com/2009/10/cardinals-dodgers-nlds-preview-pitching-matchups-tv-schedule/ )

Categories
IPO

Vitacost: another recent IPO

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(11Nov09) The company announced Q3 09 results. Note the company had higher than expected expense on stock based executive compensation (related to IPO). Basically the company let the executive stock options vested upon IPO.

(Update Oct 08, 2009) I sold it this afternoon (ET) at $10, and got the new IPO Mistras (NYSE:MG). Like I did many times in the past, VITC went up after I sold it, and MG went down after I bought it 🙁 Did I sell it too fast? Maybe. But I felt Mistras has more potential.

(Original) Vitamin, anyone?

Prospectus (424B4 here)

My comment
One interesting point is as the US population aging, consumption of vitamin, other dietary supplements, sports supplements and fitness club memberships are all rising. This buckled the trend in recession. Convenstional wisdom is as we entering recession, people watch their discretionay spending more carefully, which is not good for those business I just mentioned. But we need to notice on the other side of equation, as people felt the economic and psychological effects of recession, they pay more attention to their health: both physical and psychological, hence comes the spending on those things. In this Vitamin and diatary supplements business, obviously Vitacost is a low cost provider which match the cost concious consumers’ need.

Other people’s homework (analysis)

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IPO

Echo Global Logistics

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(Update 2) Some employee reviews at jobvent.

(Update) Market cap calculation: the company issued 5.7 m * $14 = $79.8 m. According to 424B4: (principle and selling shareholders), 1,714,710 shares is about 8.0 % (last row). 5.7 /1.715 * 8% = 3.3241 * 8% = 26.59%. So the market cap is about:
$79.8 m / 26.59% = $300 m

Company has revenue of $203 m in 2008.

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IPO

Education Management Corporation EDMC IPO today

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(Update 2) It appears EDMC IPO had warm reception. After all, it’s backed by Goldman (both as investor and IPO underwriter). Also from Reuters.

(Update) BTW, I found Echo Global Logistics IPO to be much more interesting, will write it up soon.

(Original) Priced at $18 a piece (Reuters), quote:

EDMC (web site), a provider of post-secondary education, said on Thursday that shares in its initial public offering priced for $18 each, at the bottom of the range.

The private equity backed company sold 20 million shares and said it expects net proceeds of $334.8 million. (My comment: 20 m shares is about 17% of the company, this priced EDMC roughly at $2 b).

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Categories
Fun Video

Parade

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From YouTube.

Pretty nice, huh?

Categories
Stocks

China BAK Battery: another speculative play

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(Update Oct-01-2009) Sold all CBAK shares today. I don’t want to hold it in this market. Took a small profit (about 3.5%).

(Original) Some background
As of Sept 28, the big brother BYD market cap HKD 140.9 b = USD 18.18 b; annual revenue RMB 26.788 b (Google finance HK: 1211)

the little brother China BAK Battery (Nasdaq:CBAK) has market cap of USD 242.3 m; annual revenue USD 245.35. More information on CBAK can also be seen at Yahoo Finance.

Note: BYD makes car and fabricate cell phones in addition to its battery busniess. So this is not compare apple to apple exactly. I believe BYD is better positioned and has first mover advantage. But stock-wise CBAK could be a better value.

China BAK battery pic

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Business

Xerox: invented mouse and GUI, but jumping into BPO

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Today Xerox announced a $6.4 billion deal to buy BPO (short for busines process outsourcing, basically IT service) company Affiliate Computer Services (NYSE:ACS), refer to this MarketWatch article for more details.

Both companies are not new to me, because I know Xerox (Palo Alto Research Center, Wiki entry, PARC own web site) invented the computer mouse and graphical user interface (GUI) before Microsoft/PC makers, and Apple populized it. But Xerox did not make any money from those two products. They continue to make Xerox machines, and adding some features to those machines.

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Categories
Stocks

THQ Inc. my speculative game play

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Disclosure: I am not a gamer, my favorite computer game was played on Windows 3.1 in 1994/5. Don’t know the English name, we called it Pirates Ship, basically three guys (one has a shield, one has a knife, and another one can jump) have to work together to overcome the adversaries and achieve the final goal (get out of the prison something). With baby on the way, and the popularity of online games, I envision I may play online games with my kid some day (if you can not beat them, join them 🙂

Disclosure 2: previously I traded Chinese game stocks in 2006, I lost money in all cases (Shanda SNDA, the9 NCTY, Netease NETS). Currently I have some THQI shares. Keep that in mind when reading the following.

company of heros pic best game wallpapers
(source: bestgamewallpapers)

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