my terrible mathmatic skills

I was reviewing my mathmatic skills these days and then suddenly I forgot how to use the derivatives of a function in my statistics course during college. I was once very good at all the mathematics course, but now seems I forgot to calculate the value of the derivatives of ln(x). How terrible it is!!!

It keeps me wondering how much we miss mathematics, one of the best brain exercise. I became lazy since I have calculator and Microsoft excel. But I still remember the chidhood time when I could easily tell the total number of money my mother should pay for a bunch of goods she bought in the supermarket, much faster than the salesman could tell.

When people grow up, it is easily to assume things based on the previous experience or the tools in the hand, instead of really looking into the problem and figuring out themselves.

Market is the same. We all think Hong Kong market is a grown-up or mature market(everyone thinks it is much more advanced than Shanghai market, to my knowledge). But in fact, is it true? Here is just one example happened days ago when several big Chinese telecom carriers, all of which listed in Hong Kong, annouced a reshuffle in the senior management. Some top securities firms issued analyst reports saying this reshuffle showed the sign of a possible 3G license granting very soon. And the market responded positively.

However, if they could do more research on this, the reshuffle is among the senior management who is in charge of due dilligence or anti-corruption, which means it is more of a sign of bureaucratic move before the 17th National People's Congress later this year. So to the market, it is nothing, at least nothing related to 3G.

A short example shows how Hong Kong and mainland stock analysts have different opinions on certain news, which directly decides on different stock price move. Hong Kong, as a grown-up, should practice the basic skills better to have a view of an insider, instead of an outsider.

So let's do our math harder.