Week Sept 17 - 21

S&P 500: 1525

Bernanke surprised Wall Street with his 0.5% drop in interest rate. It looks like there will be a new round of rate cutting going on. I believe this move is too short term focus and will cost the Americans in the longer run. The Fed is trying to bail out people who didn't deserve to own a house at the expense of everyone else. This rate cut will not only affect the US, but also other countries which currency is pegged to USD. Because it seems like every country outside the US is doing great, it puts a lot of inflation pressure for countries that are pegged to USD. Saudi Arabia, for the first time, didn't follow US and cut rate because it is having a great inflation pressure already. If anything they should raise the rate not lower it. Maybe Bernanke's intent is to depreciate USD to make it more competitive in world trade I don't know. But I think it is a bad move.

Week Sept 10-14

S&P 500: 1484.25 rose 2.1% this week

Investors aren't willing to put in big bets one way or another before the Feds meeting next Tuesday. The only thing worth mentioning is that CFC said that they have $12 billion line of credit from various sources lined up in case of emergency. That's a pretty good news as it shows that several investors/institutions believe that the housing crisis is not as bad as some people thought: they are still willing to invest when the terms are attractive. Let's see what Bernanke will do next Tuesday. My guess is the Fed rate will drop by 25 basis points.

Interesting article about how China can move the yuan:

Rising Euro Is What China Needs to Dump Dollar: Andy Mukherjee

By Andy Mukherjee

Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Juxtapose China's latest trade statistics with a strengthening euro and you get a very real possibility of significantly quicker appreciation in the yuan against the U.S. dollar.

It isn't the 33 percent jump in the August trade surplus that leads one to that conclusion. That was hardly a surprise; analysts had expected a wider gap.

What was more interesting about the statistics this week was that they confirmed a geographical reshuffle in China's exports, away from the U.S. and toward the euro area.

And that shift may have an impact on how far the yuan is allowed to rise against the dollar.

The bloated trade surplus, by itself, may not be a strong enough reason to make China move. If the authorities had wanted to address that imbalance, which is causing a liquidity glut at home and fueling a bubble in the equity market, they would have done so much earlier.

They have deliberately chosen to live with all the consequences of an undervalued currency, including the threat of a full-blown trade spat with the U.S. So what has changed now?

For a start, inflation in China is looking ugly at 6.5 percent, the highest in almost 11 years.

To the extent a stronger yuan lowers the cost of imported commodities, especially for the ``three F's'' -- food, feed and fuel -- it might have a sobering impact on prices.

That isn't all.

With more Chinese goods now landing in the European Union than going to the U.S., the authorities will probably put a greater premium on retaining export competitiveness in Europe.

Exports to Europe

So if the European currency continues to rise against its U.S. counterpart, China can afford to let the yuan appreciate against the dollar. As long as the yuan manages to depreciate -- or even hold steady -- against the euro, the country's export engine won't stall.

For a second straight month in August, the EU trumped the U.S. as the biggest market for Chinese-made goods.

Strong consumption demand in the 13 euro-area economies -- not to mention the 10 percent slide in the yuan against the euro since mid-November 2005 -- has resulted in a 31 percent jump in China's exports to the EU so far this year.

That's almost double the pace at which Chinese shipments to the U.S. have grown in the first eight months of 2007.

This may have important consequences.

Dump the Dollar?

The dollar fell to a record low against the euro yesterday, as traders expected the U.S. Federal Reserve to cut interest rates in an effort to head off a recession caused by the subprime crisis.

China's motivation to keep the dollar propped up, by channeling its trade surpluses into U.S. government debt, is probably not as strong as it was even a year ago.

``As the most vocal group calling for yuan appreciation are the Americans, it suits China to have the euro go up,'' says Charles Dumas, a director at Lombard Street Research in London. ``The yuan can then be floated up gradually against the dollar while actually declining against the euro -- making Chinese goods more competitive in what is now both their largest and fastest-growing major market.''

The Chinese currency is selling for about 7.51 to the dollar. It has risen almost 6 percent against the U.S. currency in the past year while falling more than 3 percent against the euro, leaving the overall competitiveness of China's exports little changed.

Domestic Demand

Exports and investments are powering the Chinese economy, which expanded 11.9 percent from a year earlier in the second quarter, the fastest in 12 years.

Domestic consumer demand is tepid.

Once the official statistics on retail sales are stripped of the intermediate business expenditure masquerading as final consumer demand, the picture that emerges isn't very encouraging. ``Real'' retail sales grew 11.5 percent in July, their slowest pace of expansion since January, the World Bank said in a report this week.

China needs to pare the trade surplus to curb domestic liquidity and control inflation. It also must rebalance its economy and spur domestic consumption. Both these objectives will be well-served by a strengthening of the yuan against a basket of currencies. However, the authorities are unlikely to set about that task before the 2008 Summer Olympics are out of the way.

For now, all that one can reasonably speculate is that if the dollar goes down the tube against the euro, the yuan will probably not follow it.

Source: Bloomberg

Comment: While China wants to keep the economic growth by controlling the appreciation of yuan, they should realize that if they don't let yuan appreciate, inflation would only go up even more. That would only hurt the poor people even more. It is proven that an out-of-control inflation is a lot more dangerous for the economy than a slower-growth GDP.

Week Sept 3-7

S&P 500: 1453.55 dropped 1.4% this week

The market still doesn't really know what to do. One day some bad news about the economy comes out, the market views it as good sign because there is more evidence that the Fed is going to cut rate. The next day some more bad news come out, the market treats it as a bad sign and the stock market tanked. I believe that from now till Sept 18th, the market would stay somewhat flat and investors would wait till the Fed's decision and act accordingly. Unemployment rate is still 4.6%; people are still making money, they are just deferring the spending. Stocks are still only 7% off historic high; people can't really say that the US is heading to a recession.

"Why Bernanke's Critics Have it All Wrong" by Jeremy Siegel, Ph.D.

http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/futureinvest/43359

It talks about Bernanke's move and analyzed what's going on in the capital market and overall economy. He said that Bernanke's moves are right and would remind investors that real liquidity lies in stock and old fashion bonds, not in hedge funds and asset backed securities. I agree to what he says and feel that Bernanke's move is painful in the short term but will make the capital market more efficient in the long run. By providing liquidity to banks and warned speculators the government would not bail them out, Bernanke is placing a good balance between saving the economy and controlling inflation.

Week Aug 27 - 31

S&P 500: 1473.99

The market is flat for the week, however, there are still a lot of volatility - it dropped by more than 2% on Tuesday and then gained everything back and more on Wednesday. Looks like investors don't really know how bad the subprime crisis is, and they just followed the herd buying or selling securities. The economic data (orders to factory, personal income and spending, and purchase manager index) all show signs that the US economy is still strong. Bush and Bernanke also said that "It's not the government's job to bail out speculators, or those who made the decision to buy a home they knew they could never afford.'' This solidifies my point that Bernanke would disappoint Wall Street about lowering rate. If the Fed keeps bailing out mortgage companies, those companies would keep making risky loans knowing that the government will bail them out. The mortgage business went out of hand in the last few years, and the tightening rules enforced were just a regression to the mean.

Week Aug 20 -24

The S&P 500 rose around 2% this week despite the subprime worries. IMO the subprime effect is largely priced in to the market already. After all the US and world economy are strong right now, unemployment is low, housing data is beginning to show improvement as new home sales finally went up. Investors and fund managers who bought CDOs deserved to lose money on this crisis. It was obvious to them the party couldn't last forever. The Fed is not going to drop rate either because the economic condition is still good. HK stock is even crazier, rising almost 9% for the week. Just as I thought the sell off was overdone and the market has recovered quickly. Now stocks went from cheap to not so cheap in just a week. The volatility is as great as I've seen (at least HK stocks). My view to the market still haven't change: always stay fully invested because it is difficult to time the market.


QDII's effect is over-hyped. HK market volume isn't just going to increase by how much mainland Chinese invest in HK stocks. Because of market effect, as the demand for stocks go out of hand, other investors are going to sell their stocks. If for example mainland Chinese put in $20B per day in HK stocks, the market volume is not going to increase by $20B. Foreign investors are going to sell their stocks on profit taking. So I believe that the QDII effect is exaggerrated by the media. The most important factor affecting stock prices is still the companys' fundamentals. It is true that the policy helps strengthen HK's position as the world's financial center because more trading = more efficient market = more firms willing to issue equities via HKEX = larger market, but how much does it going to affect stock prices in general?

Week July 23 - 27

S&P dropped 4.9% this week. Worst week in 5 years. Wow this is happening sooner and quicker than I thought. The earnings aren't that great but it is not that depressing either. So what justified the selling? The credit market. Banks can't sell Chrysler's 12b loan, they have to sell the bonds at a higher yield (which means lowering the bond's price). This is foreseeable but how does that relate to my stocks? In my portfolio, only FMXL.pk has a high debt/equity ratio. All other companies have a clean balance sheet. So in a downturn, my stocks can probably absorb the shock better than most of the other companies. My stocks are pretty undervalued right now I believe, but I don't have new money to get in the market!

My portfolio dropped from +10% at around 2 weeks ago to -7%. A drop of 17% from top to bottom...wow! One good thing happened is that I didn't panicked this time as opposed to March. I guess I have a bigger stomach now. I am still confident my stocks can outperform the market.

NTRI: Dropped 20% in 2 days because 3q guidance was lower than the target. People completely ignored the strong 2q they posted. Even at the lower range of the 3q which I think is unlikely going to happen because management said that the estimate is convervative and they have a history of sandbagging their guidance, their YOY profit would still rise 22%. With no debt, no way the company's value justifies a 20% drop. NTRI's quarter is actually quite similar to that of AAPL's (strong 2q and relatively weak 3q), but AAPL's stock rose 9%? It doesn't make sense at all. With P/E of under 18 right now, it is now cheaper than ever IMO. When will people start giving credit NTRI deserves?

TDW: Dropped 8% because earnings didn't meet the street. YOY EPS rose 26% which is not impressive but not bad either. Management was pretty stupid as they gave empty optimism to investors prior to earnings release and then couldn't beat the estimate. Something concerns me: there was a class lawsuit brought on by its employee? Talk about employee morale. This is something I miss, I need to check that in future as well. Right not their P/E is 10.75, pretty close to a 5 year low. I think it is a buy right now despite the supply exceeding demand problem some analysts were worrying about. TDW is still the industry leader, they know what they are talking about.

More earnings next week! Stay tuned!