Of product pipelines, leaking and broken

Research in motion earnings results are coming out soon. Really soon.
It feels to me like waiting on the results of an exam you are sure you flunked.
Part of you is looking to move on to learn from failure, the other half is hoping for a miracle.

Yes I am referring to buying shares in research in motion, banking on the belief that they would have plans to
battle the mighty apple. They got market share right? They got corporate customers?

What they don't got is a product pipeline worth waking up for.

Well at least it's not spewing oil into the gulf now is it?

Funny how I still regret my rimm purchase more than my bp purchase.

Come on earnings results. Show me the money!

Or at least show me some promise.

The market has bottomed (I think)

TODAY I CALL THE BOTTOM OF THE MARKET.

It's time to rush in!!

I was kidding. Continue your dollar cost average.

If not now then when?

When?

When?

When?

Echo............

Time to build a house (with BRIC's of course)

I need to resist my urge to put more into Legg Mason Value Fund. Go Bill Miller!. What with US dollar looking like it is going to strengthen against the sing dollar and financials (and hence housing) looking like it is nearing a bottom. How many write downs before some big non-investment bank finally goes under and we touch bottom? Who cares it's close enough for me. But alas I cannot because adding anymore would mean that I have more than 5% of my total portfolio in this fund , which incidentally is putting more than I am comfortable with into one country.

So where else?

China. Because although almost all the bulls have turned to bears it's still going to grow at high single digits and would be a great long term story. The 'crash after the olympics' like any predicted correction happened BEFORE it was predicted to happen. (The sub prime correction was not widely predicted and thus caught us all with our pants off). Now we FINALLY realize that beijing is but one part of china and olympics is but one gear in a giant engine.

Russia. Because no matter how much we write them off, one attack on Georgia reminds us that energy and Russia can never be seperate. The world tells Russia "business WILL NOT be as usual" but we know we don't have a choice unless we start walking. No cars. No Energy dependency. Fat hope.

Brazil because people need to eat. We now like to fill our cars up with food too now that oil prices are no longer cheap. Not going to get much cheaper either.

India because it basically has no where to go but up. (Yeah i know weak argument. But whatever)

Since I don't like any one of them individually, why not all of them together? Ah the wonders of flexibility. And since there is no hurry. I am going to switch some of my dollar cost averaging over.

Stay Tuned for results. (Update you in 10 years)

The lack of retail New energy Funds

So hard to find a retail fund that invests in alternative energy.

Most of them have mandates I don't like. "Investing in companies that profit from global climate change" is hardly the same as investing in alternative energy. So why is everyone releasing a global climate change fund? (The answer is fad. Investment is extremely faddish and fund houses like to copy cat each other)

Dear fund houses. Stop flooding us with commodities funds already.

ME WANT MORE RETAIL ALTERNATIVE ENERGY FUNDS!

For once in your lives help us look at future trends. Not trends that are well under way.

Meanwhile thank God for small mercies like higher cost private banking funds to satisfy my alternative energy hunger.

Bill Miller, should we write him off?

The bear market is officially here. Which means i'm officially excited. Not that I haven't been excited for a while now. I've been excited since I started my portfolio in october at perhaps one of the worse possible times. Thank God I don't rely on market timing cause I definitely suck at it. It's time to accumulate but where?

After googling for ideas I realized that I would really like to own a piece of google, at whatever price it was trading at. I also vaguely remembered reading in a book about google's success about how fund manager Bill Miller was one of the first few to notice google's potential. Now that's a fund manager I want on my team.

But alas. After beating the market for 15 years in a row. He's been down lately an to a huge extent. In fact his recent bets were major failures. Bear stearns. Oops. Property. Oops. Missing out on commodities surge. Oops. There are people who are saying his success was a fluke, a lucky streak.

Not everyone is lucky. How many lazy people do you know get lucky and successful. .

I'm betting on his comeback. I hope i'm right. But even if i'm wrong. His fund is already down 30% so I'm buying at a discount and since it's only a small part of my portfolio, I'm sleeping easy at night.

Who took my kway chap - Why rising oil prices is good

Today while having lunch I realised that my kway chap, although still at an affordable $3 was looking suspiciously skimpy. After I poked around a little, I wasn't shocked to find that someone had taken my kway chap. Mr Oil leads to inflation, inflation leads to missing kway chap, which leads to suffering!

Is there a bright side to rising oil prices you may ask. Of course. In fact it would serve well to have oil (and food prices) remain at a high level.

Here are some reasons why

High oil prices means less people will buy cars. We all know how much cars add to assets. Nothing. (higher oil prices is also my best excuse now when someone asks me the irritating question of why I did not get my driving license)

Higher prices means people will think twice about driving. Environmentalists stop your camping in trees. Horde oil now!!

The push to alternative energy gets a leg up. Nothing motivates people to be creative about alternatives like expensive oil.

Higher food prices = thinking twice before snacking = less obesity / appreciating food more.

Higher food prices will shift profits to nations that actually PRODUCE something and away from nations that repackage stuff. Agricultural nations rejoice!

Higher oil prices leads to governments removing oil subsidies. Subsidies screw up actual demand. People should be exposed to the full "pain" of the lack of supply. Otherwise they will just be demanding the same in a climate where there is less.

Of course no one wants oil prices to remain high. Just let it stay there for long enough to make people wake up, consume less, think more, save more to beat inflation (which most people have been assuming does not exist), invest more in our future.

I still want my kway chap back though.