I hope this is useful reference for most who want to do some trades with their HSBC shares and rights during the rights period. If you decide to act now however, I have no advice for you. All I can say is the current HSBC share price is the subject of much speculation and arbitrage, and hence is a bad time for trade (for layman) as the market quote is highly distorted. Things should become clearer once the stock has gone ex-right and more so when the rights start trading on their own.

There's really no way to predict how different currencies will act in this on going crisis, just as nobody could really see it coming or foresaw its magnitude (perhaps except Doctor Doom & the Black Swan). Therefore I can only list out the underlying forces at work. You are welcome to contribute what additional signs to watch out for.(1) USD buying pressure to ease when de-leveraging is completed

This isn't my favorite topic for obvious reason - one pays no interest and the other barely pays interest. But since most people can't be convinced to buy stocks perhaps it's good time for a change of topic Have you ever noticed that American dollar is only currency that is called 'gold' in Chinese when it's not? You never hear (in Chinese) British Gold or Euro Gold. It seems the USD is the next best thing to gold.

I remember it wasn't long ago, maybe in late November or early December, that the 3 month US T-bill yield hitted zero. This sounded absurd as why would anyone invest in something, mind you all investments entail risk, for no return. So now somebody rightfully dubs T-bill as the great 'return-free risk', as opposed to 'risk-free return'.

Early last year I looked at COSL and found out it's less a service company but more an utility with old equipment. Subsequently to my amazement its price rocketed from $5 to over $20 in Oct 07, then it was sold all the way down to a little under $3 last month (i.e. one year later). Now the price is around $4.6. One peculiar thing was that share price this year pretty much moved against the rise in profits and the oil price until July, then it moved further down with the oil price and then entered a free fall zone like every other stock in Sept and Oct.

Last month I was in an accounting standard update seminar and the speaker, who might have lost a lot of money and thus turned a complete cynic, kept making lame jokes every few minutes about mini-bonds, Citic Pacific, HSBC, and other names I've forgotten. But he repeated more than once, in a serious tone, of his gloomy prediction of HSI falling by 90% and reaching 3,200.

This is taken out from quamnet after yesterday's trading, which was probably a typical falling day.Best performing HSI members#1 Sino Land 1.1% down#10 HKE 3.2% downBest performing midcap members#1 Lifestyle 3.8% up#10 Chinese Estates 1.5% downBest performing smallcap members#1 Samling 5.2% up#10 K. Wah 4.3% downSo far so good, all HSI members were down and some mid/small caps went up, not too unsurprising. Below is the more interesting bit.Worst performing HSI members#1 Pingan 12% down

Below are a list of high yield plays I've looked at these few weeks. I think it's wise to hold a certain percentages of one's portfolio in this sector as these are fundamentally stable businesses with good distribution, a nice complement to the high flying chips that you plan to profit several times over cost in the eventual rebound (if there is). Fat dividends also keep one's mind sane in a protracted down market.

Around this time last year there were plenty of stock market experts sprung out from everywhere in town. We all heard and read about how they picked the right stocks and made fortune out of it. They were maximum bullish and they put money where their mouth was. They were the stars of the time with huge followers.

Watching all major central banks are busy printing money and lowering interest rate, injecting more and more money in the market, this reminds me like in a game of monopoly, when one player is about to go bust, he would usually suggest 'why don't we all get $500 each so I can continue the game and everyone is $500 richer?' Except that this time the sum is a lot more than $500 and everyone is asking for it at the same time. Well the lucky break is unlike in Monopoly there's unlimited supply of $500 notes in central banks.

Chalco (2600)I had expected Chalco to have an average year but 2008 turned out to be much uglier. Profits dropped from $6.6b in 1st half 2007 to $3.3b in 2nd half 2007 to only $2.4b in 1st half this year. This drop in profit contrasted sharply against the expansion last year as Chalco took on more aluminum plants and enlarged its alumina capacity. The culprits: falling selling prices and increased costs.

Recently I got some experience travelling in Europe with Finnair and Air France. Here are some interesting contrast to share with you. It tells you a bit about the airline and the people behind too.Finnair - Scandinavians are very time conscious and efficient. When I arrive at the HK airport a little less than 90 minutes before take off time, there's no queue at the counter. I thought the flight must be pretty empty but in fact everyone had already checked in, and the ground staff was already waiting to close the counter!

I've bought and sold some auto makers for a few times over the last few years without much success. I don't know the reason why but I was never quite able to catch the price movement. Since I never treated those as investment, I wasn't particularly concerned. My limited experience in Canada taught me that most, maybe except Toyota, auto makers do not seem to enjoy prolonged success as the industry is too cyclical and worse competitive. At one time Chrysler was the favorite as it invented the minivan, then it was Ford with the SUV, but now it was Toyota with the hybrid.

My new grown fondness of mathematicians.I recently finished two books about math and mathematicians by William Poundstone. I don't know how to classify these books but I'd say it's not boring at all. It's like 'Freakonomics' in math and written in a more serious manner.It covered topics like atomic bomb, world war strategy, game theory and moral dilemma, binary code, casinos, stock market, and private lives of mathematicians, the last bit which turned out to be most interesting and surprising.

Part ii is about the relatively small but interesting cement business (45% owned JV with French Lafarge).

There's been a change in the business mix of SOC, as it has been selling down its Shui On Land (272) holdings. The SOL shares were part of the original attraction of buying SOC because SOL was itself undervalued in my view, and indirectly buying it via SOC gives an additional holding company discount.

Here's the long overdue review of the final results of Chalco, so late that it's even after the company's 08Q1 results. My apologies, as I had a conclusion quite some time ago but couldn't find the time to put it down. And my neck pain led to further delay.So let me start with my conclusion 1st to save you reading time, Chalco is still a good investment but unlike when I recommended it in Jan last year, I don't think it can outperform the index (2828) this year. So if you have a fair share of money in the index already you need not bother adding Chalco.

Tomson (258)There was some progress in the selling of a smaller luxury housing project in Pudong. Proceeds were $1 billion or thereabout and delivery should happen in 2008. This should bring in some decent profit but overall valuation of Tomson still hinges on Tomson Riviera, which takes up at least 2/3 of the company valuation, with the remaining 1/3 composing of smaller developments, commercial buildings, and a golf club.

Things happened so fast during the last few weeks that I ended up holding some Datang before I looked at the final results, atypical for me but it wasn't a typical March either.Huaneng's results came up slightly ahead of my estimate while Datang was slightly below, both by about 10%. So it seemed the coal factor had gotten bigger since the 4th quarter, for my estimate was based on 3 quarters of results.SIZEDatang vs Huaneng (YOY growth in bracket)Asset size: $122b (34%) vs 124b (9%)Power generated: 118b kwh (27%) vs 174b kwh (13%)

I know I've been late in updating the final results of many companies. I've looked at most of them roughly but haven't really done any analysis in depth. Progress has been very slow as I've been bothered by neck/shoulder pain a lot lately, this has forbid me from spending too much time at the desk. In fact, for all this time I have visited a doctor, an acupuncturist, a bone-setter, and a physiotherapist, with chinese massages in between treatments. After nearly a month of intense treatment I'm feeling much better now and ready to start this blog again.