Table of Content of this blog

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Note. Order the book The Art of Investing for most updates from Amazon.com
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Contrary to what you're thinking, my primary reason of blogging is not because of the plenty of free time in my early retirement. English is not my native language and being an ITer I have not written much during my career. I have never taken courses in social science and investment besides the required in college. It has to be the fun of trying something different and I enjoy it so far.

I find a lot of newspaper and on-line articles particular on China look right but are totally wrong. I try to use common sense to argue against them.

As I'm not using my full name, I'm not blogging for promoting myself and I have nothing to sell you. You may feel offended sometimes as I blog honestly and I do not care about political correctness and popular opinions (I'm not running for a political job).

Click the highlighted to access the blog. Hence, this blog serves as a rough table of content of the better blogs I wrote for last several years.

My contributions.
* The reason of secular stock market. As indicated by many articles, we've secular market about 20 years interval. My contribution is the cause. It is most likely due to wars for secular bear markets (Vietnam and the two current wars) or lack of for secular bull markets. The next, new bull secular market could start in 2015.

* Coconut Theory on why some natives are lazy naturally. So far no one objects or they're too lazy to defend themselves.

* Global Aging Demographics. I blogged years ago that India's explosive population growth is no good for India and the world. However, even today the popular belief of a larger and younger population is better for India including an article by a professor in a prestigious college.

* How Hong Kong gets so wealthy? A Stanford professor in a syndicated article (it means it has been published in most newspapers that Sunday) told the world that the British rule could make a poor country prosperous using Hong Kong as an example. I argued it was totally wrong and the primary reason for Hong Kong's wealth is its closeness to China then and now.

* Debunking some of Buffett's preachings. I only blog if my views are different to popular beliefs/opinions as I do not want to waste the bandwidth and electronic ink not counting  wasting your time.  Actually most investing heroes are not doing good recently.



Defending China.
The politicians cannot fix our problems and use China as a convenient scapegoat. Many newspapers, TV stations... want to sell their stuffs by giving what you want to hear/see by twisting the facts.

As a Chinese American, I am naturally biased but I'll not let my dumb nationalism to cover my eyes or yours. There are Chinese bashers and US bashers who do not convince us as they're not using facts. They promote distrust, confrontation, ... that I try to avoid.

Tibet. This comment has over 350 'likes' in an Economist's article. I estimate there are  3,500 reads (using 1 'like'  to 10 readers) on this long comment. Initially I faced many resentment from folks esp. from Tibetans in other articles.

Human Right. This blog has ignited discussions and scored some points for China. This one and the last one change the image of China for some.

China is a victim instead of an aggressor for last 250 years. A MUST read for Brits and Japanese.

Economy: Currency,  Rare Earth, Quality. Space Station, Tariff,
                 Wealth, 

Social topics:  Intelligence Property,  Environment, Africa, Hong Kong, Child Labor ,
                        India, Politics,

What China should do in next 5 years.


US and socially speaking.
A Nation of No Losers. Quite popular. You can laugh and cry at the same time.
Trade War with China.
Our trade with China
Conflict with China
 
Lessons from Wars.
US and Wars
Efficient charities.
How to solve the trade imbalance
Dear recent college graduates,
Socialism could lead to self-destruction.
Why the wealth gap widens
Is Social Security going to survive?

Should we blame all our ills on China.
Is China friend or foe?
Extremes of Two Nations
 

Fixing the economy.
Why China is so poor and US so rich.
Effective Health Care Delivery.
Education by example
iGeneration 
God of Gods
Defining freedom
Political parties and the economy
Corruption, American style

Our problems, solutions and implementations
Efficient Charities
Good music


Stock Market.
Market Top. My crystal ball in April is quite right.
Market Timing.  II
Spotting big market plunges
Market timing on asset classes
Strategies for secular bull and bear markets

Recovery or W-shaped recession?
A prolonged recession

When stock is over-priced


Invest Responsibly.
The mysteries of P/E.
Diversification.
Sell shorts.
Covered calls.
Should you hold a stock forever.

Newsletters/subscriptions.
Hedge Fund 101
2011, when stock pickers die

Advice for retirees.
Dividend stock problems.
Sectors you want to avoid.
Stop Loss.
Refining Dogs of Dow Strategy.
Looking for a multi bagger


Technical Analysis.
Bonds.
Modern Portfolio Theories.
Investment Psychology 101. 
Retirees, take notice.
The evils of QE
Housing recovery?
Identifying Earnings Season Overreaction Opportunities
Different strategies
Volatility and Momentum
Distorting indexes


Fun and Jokes.
Even if you do not agree everything I said, hope some jokes would give you a laugh. If you get offended, you should check in your closest clinic esp. the humor department. It is not easy to write jokes that are totally unoffensive.

A + B
My day as a farmer.  A real story to be told to my grand children.
Diets that always work. Offensive to fatsos.
No Nativity Scene. Offensive to politicians.
Women.
Politicians and prostitutes

How to save the airline industry. PG 17.
My stupid name is Boris.
Celebration of Olympic Bronze.
Lady missing a fight.
Playing lotteries.
Lady missing a flight


Misc.
One paragraph could change your health and life
The best in life
Religion

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The following are the best blogs from my other blog. It is a collection of good articles/jokes circulated to me.

Jokes:
The new student from India. Very funny!
Break the promise PG 17
The 11th husband PG 17.
 Living in 2009
 Funny Acronyms
 Dear Employees

Graduation pictures from China, USA,Japan PG17. Does not work all the time.
Gift for mom
Bishop goes to Hollywood
Sex for seniors
How Staten Island got its name
How 'America' got the name
Who actually is Jesus. 
 
China:
The Yellow Flower Uprising.
Letter from a patriot

Health

6 Great Foods 

50 health hints (in Chinese)

 

 Misc. 

Amazing picture

(c) 2009-2014 Tony Pow

Incredible coincidence

My best man knew the maid of honor in my wedding and they got married. My best man is my fifth grade classmate in Hong Kong. The amazing coincidence is I met him unexpectedly in a Greyhound station in Albany at 3 am when I was coming to Mass. for grad. school from Cal. and he was changing bus on his way to Toronto. The chance could be less than hitting the lottery.

Hong Kong according to a Russian

Hong Kong has more billionairs per 10,000 in the world.

Hong Kong's longevity is on the top 5.

Now, from the roof,

http://ontheroofs.com/hong-kong-2/

One voice

After a brief walk and a big lunch in Wagamama (recommended to go there once only), I found a nice, breezy bench seat  in Boston Garden yesterday to sit down and relax.

A guy dropped by and played his guitar. The melody was very beautiful and the Beatles' songs fitted my taste. His singing was quite close to the Beatles as the Beatles' songs are quite easy to sing without the very high and very low notes. I sat almost face-to-face with the musician and appreciated the high fidelity of the music.

I clapped my hands for every of his beautiful songs and even donated money (not much to you but a lot to me :)) for encouragement. Beatles made millions if not billions and this guy did not make much. I believe for every famous singer, there are millions like this guy. If money is the only objective in life, there will be no folks playing such beautiful music to entertain us and enrich our lives.

Art of Investing

I merged my two books, "Debunk the Myths" and its sequel "Investing Strategies" into one. Inspired by the title Art of War, I searched amazon.com and ISBN and found no one use the above title. It took about 3 hours to merge the two books, designed the cover and loaded it to amazon.com - thanks to amazon.com e-publishing. The cover is quite artistic and the book is about 555 pages.

Click here for the book.

The cover.
The spider depicts how we buy stock: Time, Find and Score. For the spider, it is Wait, Aim and Bite. Actually its availability from the free clip art library is the sole reason for my choice and the rest is makeup. :)

Art of War.
This book was written about 2300 years ago (my estimate). With some minor interpretation (such as the titles of the officials, capital names...), Chinese text can be read from that long ago. I believe they're craved on bamboo. It has 13 chapters. I believe there were more books from him and got lost from the long history. This book could be the official recording from the emperor.

Japanese business men use this book a lot. The US army adopted this book as the required reading for their officers. I do not think it would be useful in today's warfare except the urban wars that we lose most of the time. I will try to see what and how are relevant to investing.

The story.
The emperor asked the author to demonstrate his technique of training an army. He asked the emperor's ladies to learn how to drill. After several laughs, two leaders of the drill were beheaded and then everyone was serious and he had trained sucessfully the most beautiful army in world's history. 

Tony for President!

My plan to win the war without a single arrow is to send iPads, fast foods to our enemies. The children will be too fat and so dumb that they will have no desire and strength to fight us. I was nominated for a Nobel Prize and the president of the USA. I gracefully turn it down for the following reasons.

1. I'm too honest (stupid but honest). I'm not stupid enough to lie on the cherry tree when my father is holding an axe.
2. I'm too ugly (ugly but clean).
3. I'm too coward. I cannot do what Clinton do (Just do it) with the intern.
4. I have better taste than Clinton.
5. I'm not black enough like Obama. I'm yellow.
6. I was born in the wrong country.
7. I cannot speak and write good English.
8. I have no ambition except winning all arguments in Seeking Alpha.
9. I do not know how to steal money with my power as a president.
10. I do not know how to buy votes at the expense of our country. Legalizing 1 million illegals would gain me 1 million votes. Could be far more if they bring in the parents and grand parents for free welfare.
11. I do not know how to do something opposite to what I preach.
12. I do not want to lower my social standing as it is already low.

http://bit.ly/rVuXDo

Calgary Stampede

From my classmate Fiona in BHJS, Calgary Stampede officially starts tomorrow with multicultural parade (all whites the time I was there about 20 years ago) downtown.

I was there once on a business trip. I have to find the photo of me riding a bull in a three-piece suite. Nothing funnier than that! The airline stewardess hurrying the passengers to leave the plane like cattle was hilarious; today it could be on the web.

Free pancakes on those wagons in downtown. Folks were friendly. We crossed the main street illegally and the driver stopped and said "Good morning folks.". What a nice country! I and a white female co-worker were in the fair. Everyone starred at us as some kind of UFO; it could be my ugly look and her beautiful look or most likely the reverse :).  They may never see one before (20 years ago). The air was fresh. No bugs as they do not survive from the tough winter. That's the reason you want to visit this beautiful city this time of the year. When I see the electric outlet in a parking meter, it would be too cold for me.

Random comment 7/3/14

Inflation is here. Check on your supermarket bills. The market should be adjusted to inflation too. For simple illustration, if the market increases its  value by 100% and the cost of bread also doubles, in reality, the market is flat (but Uncle Sam still wants to share with you the hefty capital gain).

The problem is excessive printing of money to drive the interest rate to zero. It encourages consumption but not production (unless the money is invested in factories and infrastructure). The money easing has to end some day and some how and the non-correlation of the market and the economy cannot last forever.

Talking about taxes, I paid a lot last year due to the Roth conversion. The poor want the rich and the middle class (I'm) to lose money in the stock market. They do not realize that without the market gain, we do not pay taxes that help them in welfare. It is funny that the parasites accuse us parasites. Yes, we do have parasites on the other end of the spectrum - those greedy bankers to name a few.

Some poor are not parasites especially those losing job,  due to illness, losing in investment... Our capitalism punishes us not to work hard, take chances... But, the generous welfare discourages us to work. I believe to share the wealth but we need to encourage and/or train folks to work.

S&P rating, AAL, my article

* Do we need any rating agency to give us rating after-the-fact? They should warn us earlier. I can predict 100% correctly that we have a raining storm today when I open the window and see one.

* AAL is my biggest win not including those stocks I sold this year such as BSX and CAMP... I bought LCC two times and they merged with AAL. Fundamentally it does not score high and airline is not a good business when you compare the fare flying from one city to another 5 years ago. They need to charge you every thing like Frontier Airline (to enrich me, the stock holder :)). The next frontier charge is the rest room, a guarantee profit esp. for long distance traveling. Now I understand why they call themselves "Frontier".

* If you have not read my article 6 Signs of a Correction, please do so. It could be served as a test on future detection. I included several signs that are not important today, why I switched my IT career to investing and my challenge to our past heroes Buffett and Peter Lynch that would surprise you.

http://bit.ly/1lq0whW

Good English or good investment advices?

• If you want good English, there are many good books. Check out how many investment pointers you can get from my posts and how many you can get from any book by Shakespeare. I rest my case.
  
  Some readers buy more than one of my books (I do not expect them to buy more than one) and I have many thanks from them. Here is one review and there is another one from amazon.com among many.
  
  “Tony, I just finished reading your 2nd edition. It’s my pleasure to report that I found it most interesting. You’re welcome to use this blurb if you like:
  Debunk the Myths in Investing is an all-encompassing look at not only the most salient factors influencing markets and investors, but also a from-the-trenches look at many of the misconceptions and mistakes too many investors make. Reading this book may save not only time and aggravation but money as well!”
  
  Joseph Shaefer, CEO, Stanford Wealth Management LLC. 11/2013.
  
  I do not know Joseph and any of the reviewers.
  
  Your bias will not help you in investing. I bet my English is better than your Chinese. Good luck to you.es

More random comments

Since most auto parts (except the engine and the transmission) are from China, I do not know whether China has anything to do with all our recent problems.

I enjoy the good old days more when we can change motor oil and tune the engine. I do not need all those fancy stuffs for basic transportation. My beloved tank in college looked awful than all my girl friends except one (sorry Mary, honesty is a virtue). It could not run faster than the speed limit (saving me tons of money for my big foot), and its ugly appearance was the best anti thief device money can buy. Besides the gas consumption and the poor A/C (actually it was a good strategy for the dates), there was nothing else to complain.

My friend asked for the basic model as advertised. They could not find one and finally gave him those options such as power window... FREE

6/24/2014

Comment on 6/26

* A loophole from the word 'refined' oil. It reminded me of the time of the embargo on  Chinese products. The entire shirt was made in China except two buttons and the Made-in-Hong Kong label. Actually the labels, the buttons and the thread were made in China. Every one benefits: the US consumers, China and HK. Nixon took out the embargo for playing Chinese card against Russia. Now, the seats have been reversed.

* Chinese take more gamble in life. When the bet fails, they disappear or kill themselves. With the suppressing of corruption, do not bet on companies making luxury goods, Macau and HK as less corruption money is available. You hear it first here.

* PM is a sin stock targeting to Russia and China. I made some money but tried to avoid trading it along with the new legalized drug companies, offense companies... If I invested on companies that could kill us via second hand smoke or third hand smoke (for the unborn babies), making more money is no good. I had a hard time to convince a doctor investing heavily on PM. It is 100% against his initial objective to be a doctor. The doctor is counting his filthy money with his hands dripping in blood.

* Sign of the time. My book Marketing Timing: Profitable, Predictable and Preventive has been my top seller among 30 books. Statistics never lie.

Random comment on 6/27

* My former enemy is my friend. The logic is my enemy's enemy or in maths two minuses is equal to a plus. Logical?

* Should we reward Michael's management for running the company deeply into debt? It reminds me of my article A Nation of No Losers, a political satire I wrote years ago. Have a good laugh. I need to update the list for Michaels and the current events.

http://bit.ly/uerul1

* Some one at SA mentioned my Coconut Theory. It explains a lot of today's events in a macro view. I wrote it to convince my fellow commenters on sth I forgot now.

http://bit.ly/1qgPxiP

Radio Shack going down?

First retailing is a tough business. Find out what happens to the top 10 retailers 10 years ago. The sole survivor is Macy's which was almost bankrupted and rescued by the late Run Run Shaw (Hong Kong). The others were bankrupted or were acquired.

In every sub category, we need only one major player. BestBuy is one for electronics and Circuit City was not.

Staples is one and Office Depot is not. ComputerUSA is not. However, it may change as Office Depot is merging with another company to fend off Staples. Staples made several fatal errors including the investment in China.

Radio Shack is one but Game Stop is catching up. They're late to move into games which should give them higher profit margins. They have the same model as CVS. However, it fails as the products are quite different. Most CVS's products such as shaving creams need to be replenished every month.

JC Penny may be saved by firing the CEO who was highly presentable but preaching the older concepts that had been proven not workable by Sears.

Amazon is not making good profit today. I only buy them in their bottoms with turnaround potential. Otherwise I do not touch them even with a nine-yard pole.

Do we care what Canadians think about us?

I understand what Canadians think about us. We have big mouths that turn into a 7-11 operation (hint: never close). At least our president got a Nobel Prize without doing anything. It either reflects how great is our president or how stupid is the Nobel Prize committee.

I really enjoy the acts of your Toronto major. It provides us so much comic reliefs that most majors should follow. A few laughs a day could extend our life for years. What a smart leader!

If Quebec were not land-locked, it would be independent. Larry, a radio show host, suggested to buy the entire Canada by giving a million to each Canadian citizen. It would work then when one USD was equal to 1.4 Canadian dollars and the natural resources were cheap. I would add to add a 99.9% tax for this windfall revenue of the 1 million after the acquisition. :)

Freedom has a price

Are we saints or stupid when they do not want to fight and die for their freedom and we let our children to die for them?

My great escape

I was enjoying the great profits on tech stocks in 2000 and it was hard to ask a lottery winner (me) not to buy lottery tickets. On early April, 2000, I read an article that you could fit the entire workforce of an internet company in a conference room of a S&P500 company. That's my catalyst to rotate almost all tech mutual funds to traditional industries (smarter to move to cash).

My new car

I ordered my 2050 model that will come with a beautiful female robot driver (handy for those commute lanes) for half a million (could be a bargain as they forgot to put inflation into consideration).

The only worry is the car is too low so my food from Burger King drive-thru would drop on my head from the tiny sun roof :)

Yes, I know I can use my books to cover my head.

Good suggestion to try

The algorithms are difficult for me to use successfully over time, but I do quite well simply following the trends and using Simple Moving Averages with a Momentum indicator as a double check to verify the trend is solidly moving in one direction.

You might keep the method in mind for a double check of your own. At the very least, it is worth some thought.........

Prejudice

First I should say the prejudice against me is seldom.

When two debate, most likely both are right in their own perspectives. We learn from each other. The number of 'likes' in Seeking Alpha sometimes shows racial discrimination, self admiring, or bias. After I pointed it out, they used shamelessly all kinds of excuses. Give me a break please and I was not born yesterday. I never want to use the 'racism' card to argue, but I do to mention it here once and only. It has happened too many times.

When both sides have good arguments, the number of 'likes' cannot be one sided. I recommended the debater to change his last name to a Chinese name and experience it first hand. From my experiences, there are at least 2 types of racists.

1. Old folks. They see Chinese with pony tails. Personally I know a lot. I never want to correct them. Hopefully they will bring their bias to their graves and hopefully they will not pass their bias to the next generation knowingly or unknowingly. I saw many losing their jobs and opportunities for speaking out from the hearts without realizing the consequences. Actually I argued for them as I do not think the punishment fits the 'crime'.

One time I was in the supermarket on Monday (a day most small restaurants close) in a neighborhood with a lot of Chinese, an old gentleman talked loudly to his wife "Why there are so many welfare cheaters here?" I was there to prepare my trip to NYC to fix some problems. Do I have to explain to this gentleman and ask for his permission to shop on a Monday afternoon?

2.  Uneducated folks. Many experiences and from my children too. One 'educated' teacher was eventually fired. He said he could not pronounce Chin's last name.

Discrimination is a bad human nature. I do not walk after night in a ghetto. It is based on past experience and not based on the color of the skin. There are too many real experiences. Check out my articles in Seeking Alpha and the comments and compare them to similar articles written not using a Chinese name.

That's why I enjoy investing. There is no bias, no discrimination, no office politics, and your success in the long run depends on your home work and techniques.

Enjoy the better things life offers without dealing with these biased folks.

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Most of my initial buyers of my books have foreign names. The white do not think a foreigner can offer investing advices. It motivates me to improve my books as it is my weapon to fight discrimination.

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Check out the following articles and you will identify folks are biased from the reactions to the two articles. My performance is doing far better than the stocks recommended by other article.

My article.
 http://seekingalpha.com/article/1095671-amazing-returns-velti-alcatel-lucent-alpha-natural-resources

Another article on stock recommendation.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/259680-a-simple-retirement-portfolio-for-the-next-3-years?v=1304773650

Be your own judge. To me, folks are wearing color eye glasses.

Conclusion of my SA article on Correction

• Since the shelf life of an average SA article is about 2 days to me, now is the time for me to draw conclusions.
  
  There are two camps: one who believe and one who do not believe. It is as expected. I will not take credit if there will be a correction within a month, or take the blame if there will be none in the next 3 months. From my record, I have more rights than wrongs. Here is my summary:
  
  1. I did think of other signs as mentioned by some of you: interest rate, oil price, current events… I expect interest rate will start rising by the end of the year. The recent rise in oil price is due to the turmoil in the Middle East. The current events including Ukraine and the Middle East seem not to be a factor as our leader does not want to participate.
  
  2. Corrections are harder to detect than market plunges, which has a lot of interest. After I detect a plunge, I will spend most of my time in protecting my portfolio. Most likely I’ll not have time to write an article. I have full description in my books if you’re interested.
  
  3. I expect a correction, but not a market plunge as I do not see any bubbles (those bubble stocks are too few). My prediction: They will be half the peaks achieved in 2013 by the end of this year. To me, all stock trades are predictions. Some materialize and some do not.
  
  4. The two links have been interesting to many (one claimed ‘opened the eyes’). There are over 300 clicks on the two. One deals with how to detect the market plunge and one deal with profits even from a correction predictions not fully materialized. They are actual numbers and transactions.
  
  The number of page views exceeds my expectation. Thanks for reading and comments. There are two articles I wrote that you can find the links at the end of this article

No more body bags

The ego and the dumb nationalism cover the eyes of our leaders.

We did not learn from the French on Vietnam. Does today's Vietnam threaten the world?

We did not learn from the Russians on Afghan. Are we protecting the opium supply to our addicts?

We are talking to return to the Pacific so Vietnam, Japan, Philippine can fight China. That could lead to the worst global recession. First, China would withdraw all the debts from us.

Solve our basic problems, not diverge our attention to new problems that we cannot afford to solve or cannot possibly profit from them. We need jobs, not body bags returned.

Why I write

These are several reasons:

1. Kill time during retirement.

2. Share my investing experiences, good and bad.

3. Help my investing. An informal (or a big notebook) book will not do the job.

4. A challenge. Not in investing as I beat the professionals routinely. Besides English is not my native language, I have not written much during my entire IT career.

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Today's e-publishing is virtually free. I have written 2 books and at least 10 more which are derivatives of the two main books.

Initially most buyers are from Seeking Alpha. The readers know me via my comments. I have written 3 articles. Now, it is from many other forums and amazon.com. Without amazon.com, my life could be wastefully spent in fulfilling orders, which is quite boring to me.

I also comment on some articles in Seeking Alpha, particularly in their Wall Street Breakfast. It is like my English literature teacher gave me topics to compose. Those good old days in high school!

Here is my recent article.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2291605-6-signs-of-a-correction