Getting Into Top Colleges, LinkedIn Learning From Netscape, Startups In Europe, and The Best Show on TV

It should be said it seems like the credit agencies like S & P, Moody's, and Fitch make tough situations even tougher- downgrades at the worst times- after every0ne knows things are bad- way to help the cause.

Interesting article on how far some chinese students are willing to go to get in to top colleges- I say, very astute and makes one think how serious students are going to have to be to achieve their goals-

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/business/global/30college.html?ref=business

Some advice for the social networking winners about learning from Netscape-

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2015160107_linkedin29.html

The current status of startups in Europe:
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/05/30/breakfast-with-butcher-in-berlin-come-meet-techcrunch-europe/

If you want to see a great show, and as someone very familiar with the joy of the L.A. Unified School District it strikes near the heart, watch the "Food Revolution" on ABC Thursday or Friday at 8 and 9 pm- worth your time: http://abc.go.com/shows/jamie-olivers-food-revolution?cid=showsitelinks_search

As always, on any company mentioned here, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. One should research any investment and make sure it is suitable with your objectives, risk tolerance, risk profile liquidity considerations, tax situation, and anything else pertinent to your financial situation. Also, the CFA credential in no way implies investment returns will be superior for any charterholder.

Yale Bock, CFA
President, Y H & C Investments

Google's New Mobile Payment System, Ashton Kutcher as a VC, Tivo for Radio?, and Amazon's Sales Tax Issue

Google's new mobile payment system, using NFC technology, was unveiled today- many analysts believe the mobile wallet using NFC will replace debit and credit cards- we shall see:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/26/google-wallet-offers/

Who knew Ashton Kutcher was a VC, and a pretty good one as well?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/technology/26ashton.html?ref=business

New service being dubbed as the TiVo for radio- interesting idea:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/technology/personaltech/26pogue.html?ref=business

Looks like Amazon is going to eventually have to pay sales taxes, especially if the fed's regulate out of state sales. There are two parts of running an efficient operation, increasing revenues and decreasing costs. Government always has problems with the second issue- finding more revenue sources makes sense, but the second part matters too. In my opinion, from a cost point of view, every level of government should have every service possible on line, especially for cell phones. Most people, including lower socio-economic areas, have access to cell phones and the proliferation of services using mobile devices via the government would help government find revenue faster- a big if as government is the least efficient sector ever. Hope everyone has a great long weekend- here is the amazon link:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015116166_amazon22m.html

As always, on any company mentioned here, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. One should research any investment and make sure it is suitable with your objectives, risk tolerance, risk profile liquidity considerations, tax situation, and anything else pertinent to your financial situation. Also, the CFA credential in no way implies investment returns will be superior for any charterholder.

Yale Bock, CFA
President, Y H & C Investments

The Wisdom Of Charlie Munger, More LinkedIn IPO Controversy, Meredith Whitney and Her Municipal Bond Predictions, and SNL Roasts the IMF Chief

For those of you not familiar with Charlie Munger, he is the right hand man of Warren Buffett, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Mr. Munger is incredibly wise and has experienced all kinds of ups and downs in life, a bad marriage, the loss of an eye, was Summa Cum Laude at Harvard, started the best law firm (still to this day) in California, made money in real estate and was a great investment manager on his own before he joined Mr. Buffett- it is worth your ten minutes to get some of his wisdom because one does not know how long legends like him will be around:

http://www.ipolitics360.com/videos/CharlieMungerInterviewflv-alsaYAEiWjs.htm

Great piece on the LinkedIn IPO Controversy- critics claim too little of the company was released to the public and the moonshot result will hurt the market. There are always two sides to the story:

http://epicureandealmaker.blogspot.com/2011/05/jane-you-ignorant-slut.html

One of the reasons I am skeptical of analysts is they are always trying to make headlines with outrageous opinions- more proof with the Meredith Whitney Municipal Bond situation:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-19/meredith-whitney-trips-over-her-muni-default-tale-joe-mysak.html

A hysterical parody of the IMF chief by SNL:

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/dominique-strauss-kahn-cold-open/1329159/

Had to get a copy of a police report the other day from City Hall in Las Vegas, NV. Dealing with the City of Las Vegas government is like dealing with a third world country- 6 booths, 2 open, 1 officer who did not help anybody and was on the computer the whole time- took an hour- could have taken 2 seconds on line- State does not allow it- no regard at all for the public's time. Now they want to raise taxes on business services- wake up! Hopefully one day things will change. Have a great week.

As always, on any company mentioned here, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. One should research any investment and make sure it is suitable with your objectives, risk tolerance, risk profile liquidity considerations, tax situation, and anything else pertinent to your financial situation. Also, the CFA credential in no way implies investment returns will be superior for any charterholder.

Yale Bock, CFA
President, Y H & C Investments

Linked In Goes Public, Is The Private Placement Market A Bubble?, and is AIG Selling Tainted Goods?

LinkedIn goes pubic this week and I have to say I think they have a great service. As for the IPO, I will only reiterate what Ben Graham and Warren Buffett say about IPO's- anytime investment banks take something public, you can be pretty much assured a buyer is not getting a bargain. The real important issue for LinkedIn is can they go from 200-250 million and 20-30 million in profits today to 1 billion and 150 million in profits 5 years from now? Should be interesting to observe- here is a nice article on LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman-

http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/18/attn-entrepreneurs-mark-zuckerberg-isnt-the-role-model-reid-hoffman-is/

Is there another bubble in the making- the private placement market?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703509104576329540363889356.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_tech

Could AIG be selling investors a bill of goods- sure looks like the government wants out:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-18/government-prays-a-bigger-sucker-is-out-there-commentary-by-jonathan-weil.html

Anyone ever notice that during the course of a week, markets go down X, up 1/2X, down 1/2X, up X, and flat and the net of it is nothing happens most of the time, except middlemen make lots of money.

As always, on any company mentioned here, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. One should research any investment and make sure it is suitable with your objectives, risk tolerance, risk profile liquidity considerations, tax situation, and anything else pertinent to your financial situation. Also, the CFA credential in no way implies investment returns will be superior for any charterholder.

Yale Bock, CFA
President, Y H & C Investments

Trump and Cramer, Patience As A Strategy in Markets, New York Is the Next Silicon Valley, and An Unloved Way to Hedge Real Estate

Does any one else find it interesting the New York Times runs articles on the business ethics of Donald Trump and the popularity of Jim Cramer on the same day? Birds of a feather maybe, or maybe just typical NY Times journalism (used loosely)?

Always have thought Trump was hard to believe, and looks as though the real estate boom proved it. Cramer is a different animal, but I do believe he tries to help people get interested in and learn more about finance.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/43021608/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/magazine/jim-cramer-hits-an-all-time-high.html?_r=1&ref=business

Nice article by Noah Kass on patience as a strategy-

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11117400/4/the-dangers-of-market-multitasking--ask-noah.html

Looks like New York City is really an attractive place for startups and venture capital- look out Silicon Valley:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-09/new-york-startups-rise-with-wall-street-talent-bondage-earrings.html

A way to hedge real estate values goes unused-

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704681904576321550230318740.html?mod=sf2tw

I hope everyone had a good weekend.

As always, on any company mentioned here, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. One should research any investment and make sure it is suitable with your objectives, risk tolerance, risk profile liquidity considerations, tax situation, and anything else pertinent to your financial situation. Also, the CFA credential in no way implies investment returns will be superior for any charterholder.

Yale Bock, CFA
President, Y H & C Investments

Going Public Ain't So Great, How Accounting Rules Affect Acquisitions, and the Pros and Cons of Groupon

Nice article in CFO magazine about the difficulties of going public for companies and how investment banks (naturally) affect the process-

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/14570187/c_14570395?f=magazine_alsoinside

Same magazine, different story about how accounting rules affect acquisition timing, especially when buying undervalued assets-

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/14570170/c_14570395?f=magazine_alsoinside

A very good pro and con debate on the business model merits of Groupon:

Pro-http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/05/04/grouponomics/

Con-http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/05/why-does-groupon-work/238706

Finally, doesn't the whole commodity complex seem like deja vu of a few years of when we saw 150 dollar oil, then it collapsed to 30 bucks- my take is the hedge fund and investment bank worlds just love the volatility and low financing rates- the margin increases by the commodity exchanges seem like they are having an effect. Commodities are very volatile due to the leverage used- be careful when investing in something like that.

As always, on any company mentioned here, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. One should research any investment and make sure it is suitable with your objectives, risk tolerance, risk profile liquidity considerations, tax situation, and anything else pertinent to your financial situation. Also, the CFA credential in no way implies investment returns will be superior for any charterholder.

Yale Bock, CFA

U.S. Presses China on Yuan, U.S. Retail Sales in April, SEC Looks at High Frequency Trading, How Regulation Affects Poker Players, and How Hoops Resem

Great article on a legendary Stanford class that built facebooks apps- who says education is not profitable

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42948537

The U.S. wants the yuan to appreciate faster (same story for the last 10 years)- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704681904576311093851810736.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

A look at U.S. Retail Sales in April- http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-08/retail-sales-probably-rose-showing-u-s-consumers-bearing-higher-prices.html

The SEC is going to take a hard look at high frequency trading-

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-07/high-frequency-traders-to-face-more-sec-scrutiny-chairman-schapiro-says.html

How government regulation affects poker players- http://www.lvrj.com/business/shutdown-of-internet-poker-hurts-players-121460779.html

The Dallas Mavericks, in a completely unexpected outcome, sweep the 2 time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers 4-0 in the Western Conference Semifinals. Many predicted the Lakers would win the title this year and those predictions are now proving incredibly inaccurate. Markets are similar in that it seems the more obvious a prediction is, many times the end results is completely opposite, which is why one has to stay away from predictions.

As always, on any company mentioned here, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. One should research any investment and make sure it is suitable with your objectives, risk tolerance, risk profile liquidity considerations, tax situation, and anything else pertinent to your financial situation. Also, the CFA credential in no way implies investment returns will be superior for any charterholder.

Yale Bock, CFA
President, Y H & C Investments

Osama vs the U.S., the U.S Military and Technology, Apple and the Apps Market, and Facebook Leads the Way for Small Businesses

The United States government, through its special operations Navy Seals division, killed Osama Bin Ladin on Sunday. There is an old saying in betting, when it is time to place your money, you bet on the biggest, strongest and deepest group. In the war on terror, my money is on the country with the best technology, the most resources, and the best military. Comparing 18th century courier messaging versus an integrated hi tech system with GPS, and satellites, wiretapping, databases, etc is absurd. It was only a matter of time before we got the bastard, and lets hope the military uses all the intelligence they gathered to get all their top leadership (murderers).

Here is a great article on the U.S. military starting to explore the use of smartphones and more video games for increased simulations on the battlefield-http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/technology/02wargames.html?scp=1&sq=May%202,%202011%20Edition,%20Military%20using%20video%20games%20&st=cse

Another stunner- Apple leads the way in the app market-http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-03/apple-google-nokia-rim-may-generate-3-8-billion-in-app-sales.html

Facebook leads the way for small business in social networking:

http://blogs.wsj.com/in-charge/2011/05/03/facebook-is-tops-for-small-business/

Finally, we are in the meat of earnings season- results are all over the map, as always. One quarter does not make a good investment, or a poor investments. Keep that in mind if a company of yours misses its earnings estimate.

As always, on any company mentioned here, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. One should research any investment and make sure it is suitable with your objectives, risk tolerance, risk profile liquidity considerations, tax situation, and anything else pertinent to your financial situation. Also, the CFA credential in no way implies investment returns will be superior for any charterholder.

Yale Bock, CFA
President, Y H & C Investments