Corp info: China Mobile 2008

		2008	2007	%
# of New Subscribers
Jan		7,044	4,859	45.0%
Feb		7,971	4,905	62.5%
Mar		7,783	5,124	51.9%
Apr		7,411	5,276	40.5%
May		7,491	5,456	37.3%
Jun		7,550	5,526	36.6%
Jul		7,105	5,596	27.0%
Aug		7,175	5,586	28.4%
Sep		7,246	6,103	18.7%
Oct		7,194	6,603	9.0%
Nov		6,870	6,517	5.4%
Dec		7,071	6,556	7.9%
YTD		87,911	68,107	29.1%
ITD Open		369,339	301,232	22.6%
ITD Close		457,250	369,339	23.8%

Wells Fargo 2008 results

the 2nd largest bank in USA by mkt cap. or the 3rd in the world after HSBC & JP Morgan

• Bad - 4q08 interest income down 6% vs prior year, other income down 34%, loan provision up 223%, EPS down 68% to $0.76 or down 68%;
• Good - Exclude $3.9B de-risk due to merge & acquisition, 4Q08 EPS is in fact $0.42 or down 7% only, beat analysts expectation by 25%;
• Fair but the best among peers - 2008 interest income down 1% vs prior year, other income down 7%, loan provision up 224%, EPS change from $0.41 to ($0.79);
• Good - 2008 Return of equity 5.2%, lot better than JP Morgan (JPM)'s 2% & Bank of America (BAC)'s 1.8%
• Excellent -4q08 Net interest margin 4.9% also better than JPM's 2.9% and BAC's 2.9% and loan provision rate is only 2.69%.
• Good - Book value ran up from $14.14 in Sep 30 08 to $23.43 in Dec 31 after the merge, once again beat analysts expectation by 64%
• Good - Dividend paid remain @ $0.34/qtr and management don't expect additional TRAP are another 2 good news.
• Bad - The only concern is the Tier 1 capital ratio is only 7.9%, lower than peers. Excluded merge impact, it is in fact 10.2% (historical high) close with peers;

Stock price rise by 30% after 08 result announcement.

Conoco Phillips 2008 results

It is the 3rd largest integrated oil & gas company in USA

• Bad - 4Q08 revenue down 17.3% due to lower oil price, EPS down from $2.75 to ($21.37);
• Good - Excluded E&P goodwill & impairment write down, 4q08 EPS is in fact $0.49 or down 82% instead of a deep loss;
• Good - 2008 revenue up 27.7% due to higher oil price, EPS down from $7.32 to ($11.16), but excluded the one time adjustments, 08 EPS is in fact $10.7 or up 46%, meet my expectation.

Oil price down a lot since July 15/08 from US$146/bbl peak to +/-US$35/bbl, analysts are waiting for OPEC to announce # of output cut in order to evaluate what is the reasonable price should be in 09 & 10.

Corp info: Canadian Pacific 2008 results

It is 2nd largest dominator railway company in Canada

• Bad - 4q08 revenue up 9.4%, EPS down 42% but exclude 1 time tax benefit in 07, the EPS is in fact down only by 4%, which beat analysts expectation by 4.5%.
• Fair - 2008 revenue up 4.8%, EPS down 34% but exclude 1 time items & FX gain/loss, the EPS is in fact down only by 6%
• Fair - Revenue down mainly due to fuel cost up 35% in 08, as fuel price drop, CP Railway's profit margin should increase, whether it will offset the FX impact & volume decline due to weaker economy is another issue.
• Good - CP will reduce capital spending by 20% to 0.8B in 2009.

Econ data: 09 week 5

This week, economic data is bad, but lots of them are better than expect. As what I mentioned in Aug 08, situation is not as bad as the media interpret.
However, bad data will continue till at least mar/apr (which will reflect jan/feb's results). Unemployment rate will very likely to rise further, um.....8 - 9% in 2009 la.

• US 4Q adv GDP down to -3.8% (better, -5.5%) prior -0.5%. This is the 2nd continue quarter of GDP falling, USA finally entered into technical recession. I will expect 1q09's GDP to go down too.
• US Dec existing home sales up to 4.74M (better than expect 4.40M) prior 4.45M
• US Dec leading indicators up +0.3% (better, -0.3%) prior -0.4%
• US Jan consumer confidence down to 37.7 (worse, 39.0) prior 38.6
• US Dec durable orders up to -2.6% (worse, 2.0%) prior -3.7%
• US initial jobless claims @ 01/24 remain high at 588k (worse, 575k) prior 584k
• US Dec new home sales down to 331k (worse, 397k) prior 388k

Econ data: 09 week 4

This week is very quiet, nothing special has been announce other than Obama became US 44th president safely.

• Dec house starts 550k (worse than expect 605k), prior 651k
• Dec building permits 549k (worse, 605k), prior 651k
• 01/17 initial jobless claims 589k (worse, 543k), prior 527k
• Bank of England lower interest rate by 100 bps
• Bank of Canada lower interest rate by 50 bps

Data still doesn't look good, but as what I said, it is kind of expected, bad result in Jan & Feb.
Um.....let's see how's march & April's result, if it stay flat and didn't get worse, that's means the bottom of the economy should be near, if not, further analysis will be needed to see what's the worse situation.

Corp info: China Mobile Dec 08

Dec new subscribers 7.1M or 8% higher than prior year, 2008 total new subscribers 88M or 23.8% higher.

Corp info: China Life Dec 08

Dec premium up 16% vs prior year (better than industry +5.5%), 2008 total premium up 50.3% (slightly better than industry 48.3%).

2008 market shares stay at 40.3% (pretty strong).

It sent out an earning alert that 2008's earning fall more than 50% compare to 2007.

Which is great & awesome news, cuz that means it did not even have a loss in such bad economy and bad stock market environment.

Google 2008 results

Despite the fact of weak economy, it's 4Q result once again beat expectation.
4Q08 revenue up 18%, EPS down 68%, excluded the fact that the company write off almost the entire value of its AOL & Clearwire investment, EPS is in fact up $5.1 or up 15%.

2008 revenue up 31%, EPS looks flat (due to equity write off mentioned above).

Cash and short term financial assets position getting even stronger, once again with no long term debt.

So all the analysts whose originally adjusted the growth down will have to adjust it back again, which may trigger a change of their consensus target price from $500 to say $550.

To me, Google should worth $1,000 in 6 years time by the end of 2014.

General Electric 2008 results

4Q08 revenue down 5%, EPS down 47%, but even its finance sector manage to have profit in tough time, I will say it meet the low range of my expectation.

2008 revenue up 6% EPS down 19% (drop mainly due to Finance segment, if I exclude Finance, GE's revenue & profit up 8.8% & 5.3%), thanks to high growth in its infrastructure segments.
The company will keep its dividend at $1.24 and it still has a AAA credit rating.

Cash position remain strong, debt to equity ratio looks high just cuz it has the Finance segment, by split the Finance & non-Finance segment, debt equity ratio actually looks great.

Wal-Mart 2008 results

4q08 sales up only 1.7%, net income down 7.7% and EPS down 6.8%.
2008 sales up 7.2%, net income up 3% and EPS up 6% Sales were strong in 2008 if exclude foreign exchange impact on international sales.

Current price is reasonable, but not that attractive unless it fall another 5-10%.

Econ data: 09 week 3

• US Nov trade balance improve to -$40.4B (better than expect, -$51.0B), prior -56.7B
• US Dec M/M retail sales - 2.7% (worse, -1.2%), prior -2.1%
• US Dec M/M retail sales ex-auto - 3.1% (worse, -1.4%), prior -2.5%
• Core PPI Dec +0.2% (better, 0.1%), prior 0.1%
• Core CPI Dec 0.0% (worse, 0.1%), prior 0.0%
• Weekly Initial claims +524k (worse, +503k), prior 470k
• Industrial production Dec -2.0%, (worse, -1.0%), prior 1.3%

Worse economic data is kind of an expected fact, so I won't be too worry about it at this moment.
Also, ppl concern & become so worry about 2009 USA government will run to a huge deficit year (more than $1T for sure), because they don't understand accounting.

This time the deficit is being used to buy assets instead of spending them.
If T-bill interest rate is only 1% while the government will get a return of at least 5% in return on the preferred shares and bad bonds it purchased.

So u can treat the high deficit as leverage instead of expenses.
But for an non-profit organization financial statement, that's how they always present.
That's the reason why ppl still willing to lent $$ to USA government, because those bonds in certain degree back-up by assets.

Econ data: 09 week 1 & 2

- Dec US unemployment rate rise to 7.2% (worse than expect, 7.0%), prior mth 6.7%
- Dec US job cut 524k (same, cut 525k), prior cut 584k
- 09/01/03 US initial jobless claim down to 467k (better, 545k), prior 491k
- Dec US hourly earnings up 0.3% (better, 0.2%), prior 0.4%
- Dec Canada unemployment rate rise to 6.6% (worse, 6.4%), prior mth 6.3%

To me, the data is slightly better than my expectation, my personally estimate 7.2% unemployment rate and 650k job cut.

Corp info: Wal-Mart Dec 08

Wal Mart Dec sales up 1.7% but lower than expect. It also lower its 4Q earning forecast by around 10%. Regardless, Wal-Mart's business remain and still the strongest among all retailers.