Good reading
I found John Bogle’s 6 Lessons for investors (WSJ op-ed, Jan 8 ) to be good. A few years ago I read John’s Little Book of Common Sense Investing, and was not impressed by it because at that time the market was very hot. Now it all makes sense to me. John is the founder of Vanguard group which is famous for its low cost and index fund.
Back to coding
New year also means doing something new, so I went to my first computer related user group meeting for many years (Lambda Lounge). Interestingly, the meeting location Appistry is just 5 minutes walk from my home.
BTW, I decided to take up the Objective C these days (in my own time).
In the news (week in review Jan 06 to Jan 11)
All mighty Wal-Mart finally missed street estimate, stock tanked; Apollo group (the parent co. of Univ. of Phoenix) stock went up nicely, on the other hand.
Palm Pre: Palm is pulling probally the last rabbit out of hat, to counter attack iPhone and Blackberry. Palm was a pioneer in PDA and smartphone (Treo), but lost in competition in recent years.
Citi’s trouble is not over yet: on Thursday Citi allowed bankrupcy judge modify mortgage, quite significant news for housing martket.
Then on Friday the news broke that Citi was in talk with Morgan Stanely on merge its Smith Barney brokerage with the latter’s Dean Witter. From the WSJ it appears to me the US gov is not willing to put money into Citi indefinitely, without seeing the light at the end of tunnel. So they want Citi to find its own fund source, and slim down if possible. Obviously Smith Barney is one of the best pieces remaining at Citi.