Reading Time: 3 minutes All right, now the Chinese regulatory (People’s Bank, China banking regulatory commision, China Securities Regulatory Commission,…) got what they wished for this Christmas: after the cool down of the doemstic stock market, now housing market started take a turn (according to many experts including Vanke CEO Wang Shi). This is reflected in the sharp declining

Reading Time: < 1 minute Week in review 12-09 to 12-15 1) China central bank, along with China Banking Regulatory Commission, defined “what is second home” for the lending purpose: it will be measured against a family (husband and wife), not individual. See this NetEase news. 12月11日，央行、银监会联合发布《关于加强商业性房地产信贷管理的补充通知》明确规定，以借款人家庭为单位认定房贷次数。另外，如果首套住房人均面积低于当地平均水平，再贷款购房还是按照首套标准执行。业内人士解释，以家庭为单位来界定，就相当于夫妻双方无论任何一方有向银行申请房贷的记录，另外一方再贷款买房，都要按照房贷新政执行，即提高首付比例的同时，贷款利率按照现行贷款基准利率的1.1倍来计算。 For more info, check out Baidu. A smart move to contain the housing

Reading Time: 2 minutes Stock Price Shares of Vanke (sina, Google Finance) has gained more than 200% YTD, but it is taking a hit lately. A while ago I read these two interesting articles (21cbh, sina) about the valuation of Vanke share. The key question is whether it is over priced, considering its growth potential. Of course no one

Reading Time: 2 minutes I would like shift my focus away from the stock market, and dedicate this special day to Nanjing and Chinese people all over the world. Nanjing is the sister city of Saint Louis. Many Chinese people (e.g., my friend Wang Jianshuo) know the Nanjing Masasccre happened 70 years ago. Couple days ago I heard a

Reading Time: < 1 minute came to the US (NYSE) today. One is VanceInfo, which I mentioned earlier in an earlier post. Quote myself: “Also, I noticed the first Chinese software outsourcing company, VanceInfo, is going IPO in NYSE. Here is the prospectus. One word of caution: from my own experience, the Dec IPO ususally is not going to be

Reading Time: < 1 minute For a Chinese 中文 version of this, click on my wife’s MSN blog. The 2nd round of ticketing booking just got started. Here is the offical web site for Beijing 2008 tickets (Chinese, English). I understand they only take Visa (official sponsor of Olympics), and fund from Bank of China 中国银行 acct. Actually they sell

Reading Time: < 1 minute Roll over IRA In early Nov. I received a letter from Vanguard, it says I am eligible to transfer some of my 401k to an IRA account. I thought about it, the pros and cons, and decided to do it yesterday. Here are my rationale: 1) Ideally I like to keep all my retirement in

Reading Time: 2 minutes (Update Dec 18) The company raised its IPO price range: now it’s between $16 and $19. I am NOT bidding it. WR Hambrecht sent me an email about Open IPO. This got me to read its prospectus. NetSuite is a new kind of software company co-founded by Larry Ellison, the founder and chairman of Oracle.

Reading Time: 2 minutes If you used your credit card (MasterCard, Visa, Diner) overseas during 1996 to 2006, you may be eligible for a settlement refund. 1) CCF settlement: I received a form from CCF settlement, which stands for currency conversion fee anti-trust litigation. I remember I used my MasterCard in China in 2005 for my Ctrip booking. Now

Reading Time: < 1 minute The loyal visitors of my blog may notice the face lift of this blog. I am using simplicity-10-widgets theme from solosteam webstudio, courtesy of Michael D. Pollock. It is fairly easy to set up but it did take me some time to upgrade my wordpress from 2.0 to 2.2, and get side bars working. I