Difference between ICBC's A share and H share

ICBC, finally, got listed, after a month's hard work of my colleagues and me. The first trading day, interesting things happened, A share in Shanghai increased by 5 percent, while H share in Hong Kong rose by 15 percent. (A share and H share were priced same) People asked why, and I asked too to SH fund managers. They have different answers, and I quoted them as well. But I got one simple answer for myself(not for newpaper, nor for anyone else) is like this:

Compare the average consumer price in SH and HK, SH is lower than HK of course. Then how come could the stock to have the same price between SH and HK?

So the trading different is natural to me. Then I got the question: so what will be the relations between stock market and consumer price? Will the stock market in HK with many mainland stocks same with SH lead the SH consumer price finally? or SH stock price will tend to be lower than HK for the same company?

terrible BJ transportation

Hong Kong could always be a financial center, just because of its efficiency: this is what I think most when my taxi met with traffic jam during the past days in BJ. For my working 12 hours in a day, almost a third was on the way, or on the way to get a taxi. So many transporation lights, so many traffic jam in every minute(even in the noon of Friday). I am kinda of used to it as I learnt that it will not become better even I become angry.

So HK, the city with no jam, will always be the place for the efficient work. In one second, you could reach everywhere without waiting in a taxi.

BJ is still good for politics, SH is catching up with BJ in terms of traffic jam(see how long it takes to go from Pudong to Puxi during the busy hour), while HK, smaller, is the most efficient. That's the advantage no one could catch up in five years, or maybe ten years.

Wikipedia's ban got lifted

After I just complained on the wiki connection, I found the story from my professor Andrew Lih's blog on a comprehensive research of wiki's connection in every province in China. In fact, the ban on the wiki's english website was already lifted. Congratulations. China has another channel to communicate with the world la.

Speaking of wikipedia, it grows so fast. Every time I search something via google, link to wikipedia will always appear among the top five, which is quite impressive.

I always want to write some tips on how to make use of different search engine. With a computer background, I always use three search engines:

Google: good for direct search in english and Chinese for the specific websites. always good for search in english

Baidu: good for search the most popular info in Chinese. you will always know which article people read most. but bad for searching the right websites.

www.iask.com: created by Sina.com. it is kind of hidden behind the big name Sina, but I suggest sina.com seperate it as single searching business. This website is so good at searching on news archives, especially good for journalists and PRs. you could find all news for certain topic in the time sequence from the website which is backed up by the fantastic news database of Sina.com. really a waste when Sina.com doesn't promote it much.

what happened to Wikipedia accessed in China?

In one second, it worked suddenly for wikipedia's english website after I accessed to it from google searching link; then, suddenly, in one minute, everything stopped working.

I am using the internet connection in Beijing right now. Such a strange behaviour.

Chinese voice in the blog world

The 2006 Chinese blogger world will be held on Oct 28 to Oct 29 in Hangzhou soon. I believe the conference this year will attract more people from last year dut to the fast growth of the number of Chinese bloggers. Company employees and students are the most active groups in the blog world, while the joining of celebrities, such as their blog in Sina.com, also added more exposure to the blog. I hope it will become a successful conference in which attendees will get what they want. For examples, I overheard that some venture capitalists will attend to look for their investment target....


P.S. Hiking picture last weekend. The Peak in Hong Kong is always fun, no matter when you go and who you go with.

Wealthy Chinese feel no safety

I talked with an assistant of a rich Chinese businessmen on Thursday. He told me his boss is going to finalize his business in Hong Kong at last as the city is more safe. I keep wondering what the businessman is afraid of right now?

Two guess: first, his money is illegal, but from what I know, his business is pretty legal without involving many politics and state-asset stuff. Second, he may be concerned on the safety of his millions of yuan asset, which may be under danger when the whole society lost balance. Seems the second answer is more close to the right answer.

President Hu Jintao has talked for several times on the social harmony. It is a right direction, but needs more solution. This is a target, but behind the social harmony, we should see people's scare. A shanghai financial controller of a state-owned group told me that there is so many bubble in the economy right now, and he wonders how the country will go in the future. His worry does reflect the concern of a lot of people, especially among wealthy class. They have seen their peers fall down and lose their wealth, even their lives, in one night; they also have also sensed the jealous group which hadn't made as much money as them. When Deng Xiaoping allowed a group of people to become richer, he may, or may not, predict that the conflict between the group and the others will be harder and harder.

Under those conflict, China is kind of wandering between the two groups: it could try to stand at the side of the still-poor people, or it could try to protect the already-rich people. It is a hard decision-making process, while no answer has been given out yet. That's why wealthy people ended up in the huge worries.

Glenn Hubbard, a senior economist working with U.S. Federal Reserve and the Dean of the Columbia Business School, said in a recent speech that China's fast growth is highly boosted by the enterpreneurship, rather than from the companding heights. I agreed partly: I agree the commading heights are not well structured to give all transparent policy, but some of them did try to protect the enterpreneurship. Hope more and more officials will be aware of this in the future.

Youtube is fun

It's my first time to try the Youtube.com, which was just bought by Google in the stock valued at US$1.65 billion. The website is really funny. Plus, the speed is really good. I always believe a good video website should have fast downloanding speed. The most annoything is to wait the downloading for ten minutes.

Compared with Google with a market value of over US&130 billion, the deal is not that big. Google used this opportunities to add a strong subsidiary, while increase its exposure when every newsppaer makes it the headline. Good marketing strategy.

Does TOM really need Eachnet?

Tom Group is said to be in the preliminary talk with Eachnet, the 100 percent owned online auction website owned by Ebay. Though both side declined to comment official, Tom's website already has a link of "Auction", marked in the red color, which forwards visitors to Eachnet. They may have the off-the-table relations for a while, I have no doubt.

As one of the biggest media group in China, Tom group, with the biggest shareholder of Li Ka-shing family, already covered several fast-growing areas in China, including Internet, Outdoor advertisting, Sports, TV and film, and Skype. With its strong capital backup, it is good at M&A to strengthen itself in various sector. For example, it spent US$10 million, half in cash and half in covertible bonds, to get 27 percent to Huayi Brothers, the company making films including the recent-showing The Banquet, and The World without Thieves.

However, it is a question for Tom, already with a online shopping part but without experience on the Eachnet, to help Eachnet to outperform its strong competitor Taobao.com. Last time, I said Eachnet is out of the style because it already among the popularity among sellers. For instance, compared with the laptop sector of the two side, Taobao has over 11000 laptops on sale, over three times than Eachnet with 3600 units. How Tom could beat Taobao, when Ebay couldn't succeed?

I stay concervative on this deal, however, Tom may need a channel of real money, while Eachnet could provide one. Tom's Skype website definitely wants to attract Eachnet's users who already have accounts. The Merge may help consolidate the users, but don't always forget users are also easy to go away after the consolidation.

Good luck, Tom, Ebay and Eachnet. Not sure which investment bank is advising on the deal right now, but please make some good point first.

Warm Springs_a brave president

I am honored to attend the first screening of Warm Springs in Hong Kong this Saturday evening. The producer HBO will show it from October 2. The film tells the story on how Franklin Delano Roosevet, the only U.S. president to serve three terms in U.S. history., win his fight with paralytic illness and finally succeeded. He is brave, optimistic, funny and firm. During the resting period in Warm Springs, the peaceful small town, he learnt his responsbility as well as knew his weakness. A leader would never be perfect, but he will always perfectly know his strength.

The film moved me. Watching together with many people suffering from paralytic illness and the charity gentleman who sponsor the event, I felt the charity event like this is really inspring. Luckily, I am still healthy, but I should be responbile to help those non-lucky people. They are trying their best, and I should try my best to serve them. The world is never perfect, but we should know perfectly what we could do.

Shanghai Media Group_My Shanghai Experience_Part two

Shanghai, as the most fabulous city in the eye of foreigners, should have its own big media group.

Shanghai Media group, set up based on four TV stations inthe city, has about 5200 staff with the asset of 11.7 billion yuan. Big number, isn't it?

As the second-largest biggest media group just following CCTV, the official media group led directly by central government, SMG is trying to expand as a full media corp covering print, radio, Internet, newswires and TV stations. TV is its strongest part right now which contributes all the profit, I guess. They has the newspaper named China Business News, which is also trying to make money though hard. Also do its radio and website. The group also tried to buy a news wires, while unfortunately, no target is available as news wires are so few in China.

Could Shanghai Media Group become really big? the question depends on if Shanghai's strength in media could outperform Beijing. As the international city, Shanghai should try to diversify its media into different fields to meet the needs. For example, Shanghainese, which are always used by Shanghai-origin anchor on the screen, should be banned. People living in Shanghai is from every corner of China and Shanghai should learn the culture of Beijing to accept everything.

Luckily, Shanghai Media Group is trying its best. At least, it has more freedom to expand itself. But how to get rid of the geography restriction is still a question, at least they should change their english website address www.smg.sh.cn/english into something without the "sh".