Purposive without Foresight

想起一个本地 community 里的相识。七十年代末出生的德国人，在一家巨型德资公司的 treasury 里供职，照看上亿的养老金资产。这位小哥只用了总共一年半时间就考过了 CFA L1 L2 L3。一起吃饭的同学们都把他惊为天人。大家问他是怎样用功的。他说，他也没怎么用功。人家看足球赛的时候他也一起看。还有一个女朋友，该约会就约会咯。考试前一天提早到达慕尼黑，晚饭还有出去喝啤酒。总之生活没有太大不同啦。他大学念的是微观经济，虽然说考 CFA 的基础知识不错，可是这个考试里还是有许多细节，够折磨人的，哪怕他是微观经济背景。他说他没有看原版教材，买了一套业界有名的速成笔记，篇幅比教材要小得多。

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I wanted to refresh some content I’ve learnt when preparing for my CFA L1 exam and found an online course “Introduction to Finance” that is hosted by Prof. Gautam Kaul from University of Michigan. As I watched the introductory video, I fell in love with Kaul’s teaching style and immediately enrolled in his course. Every [...]

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Sniff On 2012 June 16th, the Friday before the latest Greece election, DAX closed at 6229.41 points. Today, 33 days thereafter, DAX closed at 6758.39 points. That’s beefy 8.45% up in 33 days! What have happened during the 33 days? Greek people have chosen a new government, which saved the EU from falling apart too [...]

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On June 6th I took the CFA Level 1 exam in the test centre in Shanghai. First of all, the level 1 exam itself, to be honest, was not extremely difficult. I finished reading volume 1 and 2, and about half of volume 3 of all the CFA L1 curriculum, and worked all the exercises [...]

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Since last year I’ve been buying mutual funds and stocks. Now it’s time to check their performances. Prior to knowing something about stock investing, I bought some 5-star ( ranking given by morningstar.com ) stock funds out of insecurity. I thought the fund managers are professionals and I could count on them. Later after some [...]

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Sniff: I’m impressed by Google China’s features that are currently unavailable in Google elsewhere. In Google China’s map service, one can search how to travel from place A to B with public transportation. Yes Google US has that too, but it covers simply too few cities. In Europe, such kind of service is already very [...]

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Well, the market has been wildly bloody these days. But for those who have never got their hands dirty with equities (most Germans are such people), I can only say, you only get great chance like this once every 30 or 40 years. It’s time to build a long position in equity market. The financial [...]

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Sniff: Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) becomes the newest most profitable bank of the world (source: bloomberg.com) Last year, the champion was Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC). Below is a list of the top ten largest banks by market capitalization (rank, bank name, country, market cap in billion dollars): 1. Industrial & [...]

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I watch ARD’s Börse report (equity market report) at around 19:55 almost everyday. Today a gentleman in the program said, in countries like Sweden and the Netherlands, 30+% citizens hold stocks. In Germany, only around 5% citizens are shareholders. The gentleman said this is not a good sign, the Abgeltungssteuer (capital gain tax) for long-term [...]

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Disclaimer: the main purpose of this note is to help myself distill and internalize the information from the investment books, mags and websites I read. If you feel it’s informative, I’d be very glad. But please do not take it as your investment guide. People have different personalities, what appears very right to me, might [...]

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Disclaimer: the main purpose of this note is to help myself distill and internalize the information from the investment books, mags and websites I read. If you feel it’s informative, I’d be very glad. But please do not take it as your investment guide. People have different personalities, what appears very right to me, might [...]

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Disclaimer: the main purpose of this note is to help myself distill and internalize the information from the investment books, mags and websites I read. If you feel it’s informative, I’d be very glad. But please do not take it as your investment guide. People have different personalities, what appears very right to me, might [...]

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A while ago I started to work as a software engineer for a company in Hannover. I spend about one hour per day on trains between Hannover and Hildesheim. My father sent me some cash for getting a new car. I got car magazines, did some homework and made a schedule with a car dealer. [...]

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Disclaimer: this entry is only my personal opinion, it should not be taken as investing guide. Please do your own research for your investing choice. This entry tries to study the possibilities of protecting personal income in a period of high inflation. This topic actually can be discussed in a thick book if we really [...]

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The Wise: Helmut Schmidt, ex. Chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. The talk below was on 2008.05.20. When I get time I’ll try to translate it into English. The complete interview can be found here. If only Angela Merkel were as half as wise as Helmut Schmidt is, Germany would have much less [...]

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