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Vivian Lewis is editor and founder of Global-Investing.com, the daily blog newsletter for Americans and others seeking to internationalize their portfolios. She brings unique experience and competence to the business of picking foreign stocks.
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Nationalist Communist China
A series of Chinese actions over the last few days mark a resurgence of nationalism in Beijing. First there was the murky saga of the Yves Saint-Laurent auction at Christie's in Paris, over Manchu animal heads made in Europe for the Summer Palace, which are hardly Chinese treasures, and which the country could have bought before the auction for a lower price.
Then there was the standoff in international waters with a U.S. surveillance ship keeping an eye on Hainan Island. The U.S., which I trust in these matters, says China was violating international law.
And on Monday, there was a huge selloff in the final moments of trading in HSBC Bank, which is British, but also a part of the Hong Kong establishment: issuer of banknotes; key to the index; operator of the index (throgh its Hang Seng subsidiary); and investment touted by the city's Mir. Big, Li Ka-Sheng. Read more »
The Nifty Fifty Are Back
We're back to the early days when I first started investing and bought GE and ATT. Yesterday's upbeat market responded not just to Vikram Pandit's optimism on CI, but also to probable legislative changes to restore the uptick rule against short selling after a prior short sale. And a change in the rules of marking to market.
I am rather fed up with the Oracle of Omaha for talking down the U.S. economy, because I feel he wants to continue to do what he does so well, bottom-feed. Warren Buffett wants a buffet of high-yielding desperate companies he can gobble up cheap. But read on. Read more »
Making Money in This Market
It is not necessary to go to unheard of lands with exotic accounting standards, and different mores, to find bank shares which rise. Thanks to a seemingly upbeat report by Vikram Pandit today about Citicorp, of which he is CEO, every bank on earth has seen its stock rise. When I last looked, Barclays was up 21%. And in case you are not aware of it, the British banking group has a rather different regulatory and profit outlook than CI.
My reason for this remark is defensive. I do not want to buy a banking stock in Dubai, as Mark Hake, the errant analyst, and at least one reader think I should. I have trouble enough interpreting the accounts of banks in normal countries where the avoidance of 'ribah' (usury) does not lead to contortions. Given the perils of normal Western-style banking, I do not need to invest in its Islamic variant. Read more »
LIFO or FIFO?
LIFO and FIFO are accounting terms, for how inventories exiting are booked, first or last in, first out. But some analysts are using these terms to predict when the global economies will emerge from the downturn. The main optimistic view is that because the U.S. was first into the mess, it will be first out. FIFO in fact.
Since we never have been in a comparable economic downturn in my lifetime, I hesitate to make predictions. But I am sure of one thing: the stock market will not sink to zero. And the U.S. will come back.
In the interval, a good place to park your money (along with General Electric, which is up over 7.5% since I bought some last week) is Canada. The loony touched a new low for the 21st century today. GE was favored because this money was from an environmental stock position and GE is big on wind power along with everything else, although it is not part of my Global Investing universe of stocks. I think I invested in GE because it sounded ridiculously cheap for a company whose health is similar to that of the USA. Read more »
Friday's Child
Today I am writing my blog directly on the Global Investing site for the first time. I am unable to find the font we use traditionally, courrier new, so this is something else. Traditionalists will have to forgive me. Also, for the first time in days, I am not having to run my copy past my lawyer before being allowed to post it. He is too busy filing a fraud complaint with the Attorney General of Florida and a Federal identity theft claim in New York.
I am also using the old HTML codes I thought were left behind in the 20th century, which this hotshot site requires. It was set up by some Russians whom, I fear, have not yet overcome the scorn for customer service that they were raised with. Markets are not what technical experts respond to anyway, and these guys also have a political bias against helping me out.Being a Friday child, I still have far to go, but I assure you I am doing my best. Read more »
Warning Label
Warning label: Rightside Advisors as of today, Thursday, are still continuing to solicit credit card payments for subscriptions and renewals for 47 newsletters, including Global Investing and Global Investing Pro.
Among the newsletters for which RSA is soliciting subscriptions is Dick Davis Digest, whose editor may not be aware of it. She has just asked to trade subscriptions with us.
My nightmare
I woke up in the night with a horrible thought: the reason Rightside did not deliver to my firm the subscription liability they had agreed to turn over was in order to fraudulently continue to use your credit cards to collect money for subscriptions to former Rightside publications. I have no evidence but given the cast of characters I described, it is possible. Please contact your credit card companies (or your bank if you have a standing bank order). If need be, change your account number.
Dorothy Parker Meets Bernard Madoff
By a letter (expensively) negotiated between our corporate counsel and Rightside Advisors, RSA agreed to transfer to my company the subscription liability, meaning the list of subscribers and the amounts they paid and the dates of their subscriptions running out. Then they failed to do so. They never agreed to transfer the money people had paid, by the way, as they had spent it. Read more »
How Business Is Done: Not a Harvard Biz School Case Study
This message is based on information I know and updates received from James Brown, the respected editor of Option Advisor. Today many of his staff quit because the payments for 2009 that had been promised them by Rightside Advisors did not arrive last Friday. This message is for the record.
For those of you that don't know, I sold the publications Global Investing and minutewoman.com to Rightside Advisors in Dec. 2006 for a percentage of revenue for 5 years. My company had a relationship with Rightside that went back.