Here are scenes in the stock market that are becoming common — you beat your forecasts, you increase earnings by 31 percent, and then when you can’t increase it as much as they think you should, they pummel you.

The pain of becoming public is that even if you are the CEO, you hardly own or can dictate anything anymore….

Apple 3Q profit jumps 31 percent but stock drops: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Macintosh and iPod sales helped boost Apple Inc.’s fiscal third-quarter earnings 31 percent, beating Wall Street’s expectations Monday, but investors pummeled the stock after Apple issued soft guidance for the current quarter.

Here are the most sought after jobs, even when economic times are bad.

People who are good at what they do are still very much in demand.

one thing stood out — because of advances in technology, ironically, we need more nurses — simply because people live longer, and those with many terminal illnesses also survive longer….

Recession-Proof Jobs - Forbes.com

Jobfox examined its database of about 4,000 job postings from November 2007 through July 2008 to see which professions have the most openings monthly. The most recession-proof are those with the highest median monthly rankings over this time period.

Sales representatives top the list–and, unlike other professions, not because there’s a shortage. Rather, in tough economic times, a good sales force is a critical way to pull a company out of a downturn.

How can you do business in a country when you need Z$500 billion a day just to fulfill your basic needs?

You have to be at trillionaire just to survive!

It goes to say that the number 1 enemy for social stability and economic well being is keeping inflation in check…

BBC NEWS | Africa | Zimbabwe introduces Z$100bn note

Zimbabwe is to introduce a bank-note worth Z$100bn in response to rampant inflation - but the note will barely cover the cost of a loaf of bread.

Some Zimbabweans are already calling for higher denominations in a country where the official annual inflation rate has exceeded 2,200,000%.

The other day, we were in a session with our city mayor who recounted a folksy tale which was quite relevant (I’ve changed some details to make it more techie).

“John has always been uneasy…. He believed he has worked as long as Peter in the company, and worked even longer hours, but Peter was getting better pay.

At length, he went to see his manager, and asked for a raise.

While they were talking, a truck drove up in front of the office building, and the manager asked John to ask what they have onboard.

John came back and said it was a delivery of computer supplies from XYZ Trading.

The Manager asked John again to go back and ask what was being delivered.

John came back and said it was 100 pcs of HP ink cartridges, and 200 units of HP inkjet printers that the company has ordered.

The manager then asked John to check who ordered the stocks and for what reason.

John checked and came back that the inks was an order from customer ABC, and that the 200 units HP inkjet printers were for stocking.

As they were talking, Peter came in.

The manager then asked Peter to the delivery person to ask why there was a truck parked in front of their office building.

Peter came back and answered.

“The truck is from XYZ trading, and they are delivering to us 100 pcs of HP ink and 200 pcs HP inkjet printers. This was ordered by Maggie, and the ink was for delivery to ABC, which whose account started buying from us 3 month sago, and was handled by Matt. The inkjet printers were for stocking as there is a special promo which allows us to get it 5% cheaper if we can order 200 pcs, but there was no worries since at current run rates, that can easily be sold within 3 weeks. “

“And by the way”, Peter added,” while I was talking to the delivery guy, I noticed there was a lot of Lexmark printers in the truck, and he told me that was ordered by competitor B who have been selling it pretty well. I checked and noted that there was a new model of Lexmark just came out, and I believe we should start to order and promote it. I called the supplier, and he said he could give it to us at special x price which is a 3% discount if we can order 150 untis, which I think we can confidently sell in 2 weeks time.”

As John listened, he started to understood why Peter was earning more than him.

This is a great article.

If you are having a hard time keeping up, because your competitors may be pursuing a very aggressive growth strategy in anticipation of rapid growth, many of them may be facing the incoming slowdown with too much inventory, or too many people with less cash.

It is always a good time for a prudent company, especially those who have been conservative, and therefore goes into the recession with lots of cash and efficiency to start to actually ‘catch up’ and win points.

Bain & Company: “Taking advantage of a downturn” < Articles < Publications

Recessions are famous for breaking companies. But what few people realize is that recessions are in fact more likely to make a company’s reputation.

A recent study by Bain & Company found that twice as many companies made the leap from laggards to leaders during the last recession as during surrounding periods of economic calm.

I think we all sort of expected that business would not be good… but with car sales plummeting like that, it does not look good…

HOnda was the only one that did not g down, it increased by slightly over 1 percent, but that was because of their cars. Their trucks were down 24 percent.

Nissan was off 18 percent, Ford 28 percent, Chrysler 36 percent.

Chrysler has an innovative offer.. It guarantees to pay the difference between $2.99 and the pump price for 12,000 miles …. but despite that, it seemed like it did not do much.

Ford’s F series trucks was down 41 percent, and it did not even do half the number of Explorer SUVs compared to a year ago.

When consumer sentiment is down, it does signal that there is still a way to go before business will pick up.

June car sales plummet for nearly all automakers - Yahoo! News

Toyota, with its flexible, efficient factories, couldn’t make the shift from trucks to cars as quickly as American drivers. Its sales for June shrank 21 percent.

The overall market fell 18.3 percent, according to Autodata Corp. It
was the worst June for the industry in 17 years, said Jesse Toprak,
chief industry analyst for auto information site Edmunds.com, who predicted more misery ahead.

This is an excellent article and gives us pause to think and rethink accepted principles on how to lift people out of poverty and generate progress for all. Here are some gems of facts and questions in the article:

- Globalization does improve standards of living, and World Bank will report that the proportion of people living on less than $2 a day has shrank from 67% in 1981 to 47% in 2004. However, 59% of the planet’s population lives in countries with widening inequality, while only just 5% of the countries have the disparity declining.

In short, the gap between the haves and the havenots is worsening.

- People are threatened with this globalization, and this could well slow it down. A 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Survey said that a majority in every country except Japan, South Korea and the Palestines now want immigration reduced.

- Pretty soon, hopefully, and yet with challenge, the battle may soon be less about the black-white divide as it will become a battle of the have vs have-nots.

Poverty Trap - TIME

One of the defining phenomena of our age is migration. As the world shrinks and economies integrate, national boundaries become less important. At least, that’s the theory. In reality, there is an élite of international professionals who do live comparable and seamlessly connected lives, whether they be in New York City or New Delhi, Johannesburg or Tokyo. But among the world’s poor, things do not go as smoothly.

I am just going over this interesting Fortune magazine article about America’s hottest investor - Ken Heebner.

When we think of investment funds, the standard is Warren Buffet.

However, apparently Ken has been doing really well, and has been called the Barry Bonds without the steroids. Since 1998, he has had an average annualized return of 24%, the best record of any US mutual fund, compared to only 4% of S&P 500.

Last year, he soared 80%, as compared to only 5% of the S&P.

While that is still shy of Peter LYnch’s gold standard - Magellan recorded an average return of 36% from August 1977 to August 1987, in some ways, he is better than Lyunch. While compartively speaking, Lynch beat the market by 17 percentage points, Ken Heebner beat the market by 20 - in short, the only reason he is behind from Lynch is because the market was less good during this period, but he beat it by more points.

He has some similarities with Warren Buffet, and also much differences. Both are famous for shying away from tech stocks, but while Warren Buffett advocates holding stocks for a long term, he is extraordinarily hyperactive.

The Turnover rate of his investment fund ( which typically holds 20 to 30 stocks) was a whopping 384% last year, which in theory means he traded his entire portfolio nearly four times. ( He could have traded and changed stocks more in a year than Warren would have in his lifetime).

Which just goes to show that there are many roads to wealth, and one style that suits you is as good as another….

This is an advice I may think about, and could be good advice… I usually prefer time like lunch to basically eat alone, and have time to think. But if you constantly eat alone, then people may think that you are anti-social, or you don’t have a lot of friends in the company…. Maybe if it is about thinking, do it some time else. Focus on socializing and discussing issues and be with more people during lunch!

I just read that you can use the following to gauge whether a potential management hire is a good hire.

Use the “Tokyo Test”.

Basically, you just imagine if the way the person works and responds, you would be ok to be sitting next to him/her on a flight of Tokyo. That means you are beside him for a couple of hours!

If you are an applicant, then try to imagine how you would present yourself that your interviewer would not mind sitting beside you for long periods of time!

Are you a pleasant person to talk to? Do you have knowledge of enough topics to carry an intelligent conversation? Good manners? Know how to carry yourself?