10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job

This article by Steve Pavlina goes along the line of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but this one is soo funny:

"Many people treat their jobs as their primary social outlet. They hang out with the same people working in the same field. Such incestuous relations are social dead ends. An exciting day includes deep conversations about the company’s switch from Sparkletts to Arrowhead, the delay of Microsoft’s latest operating system, and the unexpected delivery of more Bic pens. Consider what it would be like to go outside and talk to strangers. Ooooh… scary! Better stay inside where it’s safe.

If one of your co-slaves gets sold to another master, do you lose a friend? If you work in a male-dominated field, does that mean you never get to talk to women above the rank of receptionist? Why not decide for yourself whom to socialize with instead of letting your master decide for you?"

One interesting side note is that the author makes $ 9000 a month generated through advertisement with his site.

Books recommended by Charlie Munger

Investment Master Mind and Warren Buffett side kick Charles T. Munger's recommended reading list.
First list is from Amazon and I guess taken from his book.

This other list is compiled from annual meetings. Don't know how much they overlap, but the second list has lots of additional comments.

Actually it seems both lists are from the same person. Anyway...

Here is a quote from Munger:

>>"The number one idea," he said, "is to view a stock as an ownership of the business [and] to judge the staying quality of the business in terms of its competitive advantage. Look for more value in terms of discounted future cash flow than you're paying for. Move only when you have an advantage. It's very basic. You have to understand the odds and have the discipline to bet only when the odds are in your favor."
...
Munger quit practicing law in 1965 after 17 years, because "sometimes you're on the wrong side. Often you're dealing with unreasonable people where you can't fix things fast. It's inefficient. I like the discipline of backing my own judgments with my own money. It suits my temperament better. Of course, I also realized that the upper potentialities were better outside of law."<<

Swissquote Second Quarter 2006

Second quarter 2006 results.

Second quarter was not better than first, profit wise, but:
- net new money and number of clients is still growing 5-6 % every quarter and
- if you extrapolate profits over the whole year, their P/E is under 12!
Damn damn cheap!

Also, revenue in 6 months was CHF 37 mio while profit was CHF 18 (net margin almost 50%), if that isn't a fixed cost business, then I don't know what is.

Google Integration

From the Google Code FAQ:
>>Is Google Code going to integrate with other Google products? To some extent it already does. For example, it uses Google Accounts for authentication, and the issue tracker uses Google's search technology. Look for more integration with other Google products as the site matures.<<

Some day google will host not only your data, web pages, emails, videos, source code, but your whole web application/service on their servers. Of course, then look for more integration of your (or third party) apps with more Google products.

Tages-Anzeiger: Swiss Onlinebroker

See the article (in German) here.

Winner is Trade Jet, which I have never heard of before. More interesting, it is lead by former Swissquote CO CEO Alfred Möckli (till 2002-03-01). He owns 25 % of Trade Jet, over 50 % is owned by EUWAX (Börse Stuttgart). They are pretty small, just 900 customers:).
UBS on the other hand wasn't even considered to be tested because they are too expensive.

IBM, Microsoft, Google

             2q05        2q06        market cap
IBM          $ 2.02 B    $ 1.83 B    $ 117.02 B
Microsoft    $ 3.70 B    $ 2.83 B    $ 233.10 B
Google       $ 0.34 B    $ 0.72 B    $ 117.33 B

indexplus

Had an interesting conversation yesterday with Roland Ranz from indexplus. Their product combines index investing with a timing strategy.

SWX Market Data Page

Yesterday got a tip for swiss stock quotes to check the SWX market data page.

Here is an example for Zehnder. Unlike UBS Quotes it is delayed data, but it has an order book, a dividend history under "shared details", and I like especially the registered and issued share capital under "issuer details"! They also have links to the company home and news pages, similar to google finance.

CS: Tagi Kiehlholz Interview

From Tages-Anzeiger CS-Präsident Walter B. Kielholz interview:

Wieso haben Sie Ihre Kunden nicht frühzeitig über die CIA-Überwachung informiert?

So, wie wir informiert wurden, waren die Details dieser Geschichte nicht vollständig transparent. Wir wussten nicht, welche Daten wie überwacht wurden. Dass international Finanzströme als Mittel der Terrorbekämpfung überwacht werden, stand ja in jeder Zeitung zu lesen.

Wurde das Bankgeheimnis tangiert?

Von uns aus gesehen nicht.

Zapf: Fahnder ermitteln gegen Ex-Finanzchef

Zapf is the company behind the Baby Born puppet. Here is the German Manager Magazin article.

>>Winning werde momentan als "einziger Beschuldigter" geführt. Winning war im vergangenen Jahr von seinem Posten zurückgetreten. Später war bekannt geworden, dass die Bilanzen des Puppenherstellers offenbar über mehrere Jahre hinweg gefälscht worden waren. Im Mai hatte sich das Unternehmen auch von Eichhorn getrennt.
Seitdem hält vor allem der Übernahmepoker um das fränkische Unternehmen die Belegschaft in Atem. Ursprünglich wollte der japanische Spielwarenkonzern Bandai den Hersteller der Puppe "Baby Born" übernehmen. Der Zapf-Aufsichtsrat hatte das Angebot Anfang der Woche aber überraschend abgelehnt. Dagegen hatten sich der Vorstand sowie der Aufsichtsratsvorsitzende dafür ausgesprochen.<<

Puma/Italy ist Weltmeister

Puma on Friday at 298.8 EUR. Just won the world cup, let's see on Monday...
Puma's Zeitz in the Bilanz interview below:
>>Sie sponsern zwölf Teams, die Grossen des Fussballs sind aber bei Ihrer Konkurrenz. Schmerzt Sie das?
Das Schöne am Fussball ist, dass er immer für Überraschungen gut ist. Warten wir mal ab, was unsere Italiener machen.<<
UBS Wealth Management Research did also bet on Italy. More for fun, thought.

Mark Bürki, CEO Swissquote

The advantage to have no client advisors and just IT:

>>Wir sind teilweise in einem Fixkosten-Business, der zusätzliche Kunde generiert also nur marginale Zusatzkosten für unseren Betrieb. Das hohe Kundenwachstum hat zu dieser guten Profitabilität geführt.<<

Otherwise not much new information in this German interview from May:

http://moneycab.presscab.com/de/templates/?a=17940&z=27