Categories
Travel

Visit Chicago: I

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We came to the windy city yesterday, and today we visited quite a few places: Michigan Ave. (magnificent mile), Millennium Park, Art Institute (outside, no inside tour yet), Navy Pier, China Town. All with the 3 day CTA pass and CTA train/bus.

I did not totally forget about stock market yet. This noon when I was in Chicago Culture Center, I hooked up my Nokia 5800 with the Wifi network. Interestingly I saw Exelon (the utility company serves Chicago, also the company is trying to acquire NRG Energy) signs in couple places: the skybridge connects Millennium Park and Art Institute is sponsored by Exelon. Because I own NRG stock, and Exelon is in a proxy fight against current NRG board, I received both letters from NRG and Exelon. Not surprising I voted according to NRG board recommendation, and did nothing on Exelon letter. One thing I noticed is the proposed Exelon board candidate is not really qualified to run utilities companies, they could be the “friends of Exelon” board.

Network
Back to travel, we are staying at La Quinta Inn Schaumburg, most things are ok except this silly network (managed by LodgeNet, a Nasdaq listed company, ticker symbol LNET). One problem I encountered is Google map and Google finance don’t work all the time. It thinks I was doing something fishy and says “in next 10 minutes you will only have 56k speed”. It’s like punish a kid for doing something wrong. Pretty much the much publicized Green Dam project. One thing I am aware of is I am using Mac. But the behavior of network is annoying, to say the least.

GPS

Categories
Travel

Visited Detroit this week

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I was in Detroit last Wed and Thur. When I was leaving the client site, I heard famous actress Fawcett died from cancer. Shortly after I came back, I heard from NPR that Michael Jackson passed away. That was a shocker. I remember watching a lot Michael Jackson’s MTV back in early 1990s, when I just graduated from college, and when the MTV was relatively new to China. I am not a music freek, but I liked the design of MTV and his sound. Not to mention his move.

Anyway, back to Detroit. Interestingly I think the first record company Michael Jackson signed was Motown, which was found in Detroit (Yahoo Answer). I visited Detroit in 1999 and 2000, to do presentation before car companies (big 3) for automobile related research project. It was in early March, and I remember it was very cold. But I had very nice dinners at Fish Bone (downtown?) and another Italian restaurant.

Categories
Life video

Remembering Michael

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This Is It, the offiical Ad/Promo video of the scheduled London concert (YouTube link)

Beat it (YouTube).

More videos (powered by YouTube, complied by Trader1688).

Pictures: Michael Jackson Life and Times by Life Magazine.

Categories
Shanghai Composite

Mr. Market turned face

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Some signs of the stock market is cracking:

1) The leaders such as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A, BRK.B) are retreating.

2) CIC is thinking about buying equities again, Renaissance Technologies is one option (last time CIC pulled trigger, it bought Blackstone pre-IPO at top).

3) Goldman Sach is selling. It sold a stake in ICBC recently.

4) Last but not least: US CEOs still pessimistic about economy.

Two leaders in this globe

Categories
video

Ivan Seidenberg with Charlie Rose

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Ivan is the Chairman and CEO of Verizon. Verizon (with VodaFone) owns Verizon Wireless (VZ), the No. 2 wireless carrier in the US. VZ operates the nation’s most reliable network. Ian shared his thoughts on communication, wireless industry evolution, and healthcare (a topic in heated debate in the US capital these days).

The link to Charlie Rose interview here.

Categories
Investing

Eaton Corporation

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Eaton Corporation (Wiki entry; NYSE: ETN)

Secondary offering April 2008 (24x7wallst). They offered 17.5 millions of shares at $84, and the proceedings is about $1.43 billion.

Business Overview (diversified manufacturing)
Electricity power equipment; truck powertrain & fuel systems; aerospace fuel and hydraulics systems

Categories
gadgets

Nokia 5800 XM: video playback, game, bluetooth and podcast

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I got to play more with my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (XM) phone in the weekend. The following are the things I tried.

1) Video playback: I found there are some Nokia sample videos and a .wmv video (transferred from my PC Windows media player). Both played without problem. However, when I copied some Apple Dev movie (mpeg-4 format?), it only plays the audio.

2) Game: the Bounce game comes with the phone is a bit challenging for me, as you may know I don’t play computer or smartphone game often.

Categories
Business

Sales tax on online shopping coming?

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I read two news this week, which makes me think this is coming. Keep in mind many local governments are upside down in terms of budget and debts, any tax revenue helps. Collecting tax revenue from online merchants in remote places like Seattle (HQ of Amazon) is a convenient choice.

Expedia (Nasdaq: EXPE) tax lawsuit (source: hotel-online): from my reading, basically the dispute is around the basis of tax, we know Expedia sells hotel room at discounted rates, but the local government (Columbus, GA in this case) think it should be the listed price. I am not lawyer but I lean towards the discounted rate.

Amazon may stop doing affiliate business. Quote WSJ Amazon Threatens Cuts Over State Taxes:

The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) may stop doing business with some of its marketing affiliates over state taxes.

Categories
Web

Google finance stock screener II

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Yahoo tech-ticker

Criteria
* 20% quarterly year-over-year revenue growth
* 25% quarterly year-over-year earnings growth
* Trades at a P/E ratio below 12

Apply it in Google finance stock screener (here is the link), it finds 134 companies (this number could change as the stock price, PE ratio changes daily).

Categories
gadgets

iPhone is two years old

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Not exactly, but close enough (here is a post I wrote on June 29, 2007 when iPhone started). Today the new iPhone 3G S is on sale at AT&T store, as I understood. This time iPhone did not generate as much buzz, but I heard my favorite tech writer Walt Mossberg was also standing in line (he already has a free iPhone from Apple for review, maybe he is buying another one for his wife/girl friend). Here is his tweets:

“Just gave up on iPhone line. Have to get to work. Should have ordered online. But scored a free bottle of water.”