He is not Happy

Thursday, May 29, 2014 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

Here is a pic taken with my i-phone in South Africa in Lion Sands. I love the safari there is no regulator/compliance there. You have to be smart or die. No one will bailout you.


0 comentários:

Equal opportunities is a must , equal results is communism.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

Big Get Bigger

S&P and DAX just made all time highs in the last 2 days. These are the only 2 Country indexs that are at the all time highs. Germany & USA are the biggest winers from the Globalization game. Big get Bigger is the name of the game. And the biggest companies in each sector many times ate in Germany & USA.


Financial Times economics editor Chris Giles says French economist Thomas Piketty's best-selling "Capitalism in the 21st Century," about rising inequality in the West, contains serious errors that undermine his conclusion that wealth distributions are widening.



I don't intent to check Mr Piketty numbers but i think it's obvious to say that capitalism is a system where the winner takes all. More than capitalism Globalization makes the winner win big. I haven't read the book but it's obvious that when you own the stock of a company and that company does well you make millions of times more money than your employees! That is the system.

Should we twist things to prevent the inequality. Of course not, everybody can be a boss and that possibility we should guarantee. Equal opportunities is a must , equal results is communism.


0 comentários:

The cost of doing one digital copy of a book is the same of doing 1 million copies!

Tuesday, May 27, 2014 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

From the FT

Ford chief Alan Mulally warns on European overcapacity

Alan Mulally, chief executive of Ford, has warned that European carmakers need to cut back further the numbers of cars they can build as excess capacity on the continent remains at dangerous levels.

Idle production lines and underproductive factories have plunged almost all of Europe’s major carmakers into billion-dollar losses in recent years after annual sales on the continent fell by about 4m cars between 2007 and 2013.

Why people should invest if there is already overcapacity in many industries? The cost os setting up a production line is huge but to produce more 10,000 cars it's easy.

The cost of doing one digital copy of a book is the same of doing 1 million copies! This is very deflationary.

I think automation and digitization are very deflationary and very economic people wise. Unemployment is not going down soon. 



0 comentários:

A Good day of Work in NY

Monday, May 26, 2014 Francisco Carneiro 2 Comments


2 comentários:

Clean people are taller!

Thursday, May 22, 2014 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

Well if you want your kid to be taller than you, to beat the genes that he inherited he must avoid infection & diseases until he reach the end of puberty.

From the Atlantic

"If Joe is taller than Jack, it’s probably because his parents are taller. But if the average Norwegian is taller than the average Nigerian it’s because Norwegians live healthier lives." ........

We eat food to keep our inner engines running. Our bodies then use those calories to lengthen our bones and multiply our cells until we reach the end of puberty. But when we’re ravaged by infections or deprived of nutrients, growth takes a back seat to keeping the heart and organs functioning. If we’re struck by too many diseases and deficiencies, we stop short (literally) of the height we might have achieved.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/how-we-get-tall/361881/

0 comentários:

Reputation + No surprises = Big Profits

Thursday, May 22, 2014 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

Nothing new here, if you can build a reputation people with do business with you without extensive due diligence & comparison with the competition. If you have a good marketing person build a reputation and don't disappoint the customer. 
A good reputation & a good execution without surprises is enough to make a lot of money.
To build a good reputation is the difficult part. 


Suppliers and especially manufacturers have market power because they have information about a product or a service that the customer does not and cannot have, and does not need if he can trust the brand. This explains the profitability of brands.

Peter Drucker 


The ‘power’ of brands has grown substantially since the recession, that is, more consumers are purchasing solely based on the brand,” says Mr Walshe. “There really is something different about this top 100.”
Mr Walshe points out that those joining the list for the first time – such as Twitter and PayPal – have more than two-and-a-half times the ‘brand power’ of an average company. “Newcomers are really playing the branding game,” he says.
“One of the themes is that these brands are becoming part of our lives,” says Elspeth Cheung, head of BrandZ valuation at Millward Brown Optimor. “The other big theme is globalisation as western brands are coming back this year.”
Despite the new entrants, the names at the top are familiar. Technology companies dominate the top 10, although their order in terms of brand value has shifted.
Google has bounced back as the most valuable global brand, with a brand value of $159bn, up 40 per cent since 2013. Google held the number one slot from 2007 until 2010, but fell to second or third place in the years since 2010.
Apple, in turn, has slipped down to second place. Its brand value of $148bn has fallen by a fifth over the year, while the brand value of the technology sector as a whole has grown by 16 per cent. “Different brands have different strengths,” says Ms Cheung. “Google performs particularly highly on being meaningful to consumers.”
She argues that the more powerful a brand a company has, the greater a premium it can charge for the same product compared with competitors.


From FT
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/d8ea4e6e-da79-11e3-a448-00144feabdc0.html#axzz32Qu3tbAR


More on the same subject

http://thoughtmeme.blogspot.pt/2013/10/put-marketing-people-in-charge.html


http://thoughtmeme.blogspot.pt/2013/10/something-unique.html



0 comentários:

Everybody is better off

Wednesday, May 21, 2014 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

Just came from 1 week of meetings in NY with Hedge Funds

some impressions

America is Cheaper than Europe
Americans work much more than we do
Take less holidays
Roads are a mess with many potholes
Traffic is a mess
Garbage is at the open in the streets to be picked up later
In many meetings people order sandwich & salads. The size of the servings is huge. Enough for 15 people in Europe.
Everything is old but works fine

I came across this yesterday from WSJ,  By NEIL GILBERT

When households are then divided into five equal income groups, the data reveal that average disposable household income has increased across all groups since 1979. The average household income grew by 40% for the middle quintile and increased by 49% for the bottom quintile...............

But consider everyone else on the planet: The American middle class boasts the fourth-highest disposable household income in the world. The U.S. finishes behind only Luxembourg (a country of 500,000 people), oil-rich Norway, and Switzerland, which stayed out of both World Wars and imposes the strictest immigration laws on the continent. The average U.S. family has 38% more disposable income than a family in Italy, 25% more than a family in France and 20% more than a household in Germany, when adjusted for purchasing power, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Inequality in the U.S. is not a struggle between the "haves" and the "have-nots," but a social friction between those who have a lot and others who have more.








0 comentários:

Without costs you can't go broke!

Thursday, May 08, 2014 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

Rule nº10 is so true, without costs you can't go broke. I believe many businesses don't have time to succeed. They have so many fixed costs that they have to succeed fast. If you have almost no costs you can have time and with time the probability of success goes up big time.



Check out Jorge Paulo Lemann’s 20 Commandments To Succeed In Business:
1. Good people working as a team and with common goals is the most important and differentiator asset of a business.
2. Finding, training and keeping good people around are a constant and permanent struggle for all shareholders.
3. People’s earnings should be stimulating, fair and balanced with the general interests of the company.
4. The assessment of people is an essential and constructive item for the business.
5. The main function of the heads of a business is to choose people better than them to keep the company going even without its leaders.
6. Leadership is exercised by clear ideas and by the daily example in the smallest details.
7. To debate is important, but everything to be considered requires someone responsible for it, and at the end someone must make a decision.
8. Common sense is worth a lot and more than complex ideas. Simple is always better than complex.
9. A good business is always looking to improve. Whatever degree of success, there is always room for improvement. This ensures a lasting competitive advantage.
10. Always reduce costs. That’s something that is under your control and ensures survival.
11. Innovations that create value are useful. But copying what works well is way more practical.
12. The improvement and continuing education of  people must be an ongoing effort incorporated into businesses’ routines.
13. Only appear in the news with concrete goals.
14. Focus, focus, focus. Focus on the essential.
15. Communication and transparency with key data circulating help educate, pulling in the same direction and create a competitive advantage,
16. Appreciate the rearguard.
17. Always being ethical is essential.
18. It takes a lot to build a reputation that can fade away quickly.
19. In order to get to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow you have to go all the way through the rainbow, but do it at a profit along the way.

20. A big, challenging and common dream is essential, and it helps everyone to work in the same direction.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andersonantunes/2013/09/11/20-commandments-to-succeed-in-business-by-the-conqueror-of-american-iconic-brands/

0 comentários:

Is It Still Worth Going to College?

Wednesday, May 07, 2014 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

YES 

Earning a four-year college degree remains a worthwhile investment for the average student. Data from U.S. workers show that the benefits of college in terms of higher earnings far outweigh the costs of a degree, measured as tuition plus wages lost while attending school. The average college graduate paying annual tuition of about $20,000 can recoup the costs of schooling by age 40. After that, the difference between earnings continues such that the average college graduate earns over $800,000 more than the average high school graduate by retirement age.

From  Is It Still Worth Going to College?
Mary C. Daly and Leila Bengali



I guess it's better to study than not to study! the statistics are out and from a reliable source, the San Francisco FED. I know that companies use college grades to pick & choose candidates. 

The point for me is the following: If colleges make tests, GMAT and other, interviewees etc... to choose students before admission it might be possible that the best people are the ones that enter the best colleges. They were already the best before they entered. So companies think that the people with a diploma are the best not because of what they learned in College but because of passing the admission exams. They were tested.

As long as companies use college degrees to pick, the best will attend college and it pays to attend.


More on the same subject:

0 comentários:

3 old posts

Wednesday, May 07, 2014 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

1.http://thoughtmeme.blogspot.pt/2013/12/small-wins.html

The idea behind this book (i am not finished yet) is that if you change something in your life, one habit one process one routine it can have some powerful side effects.

2.http://thoughtmeme.blogspot.pt/2013/10/something-unique.html

Well the best way to make money is to have no competition. When you have competition you can't make serious money.  How to have barriers to entry or something Unique?

3.http://thoughtmeme.blogspot.pt/2013/06/what-is-formal-education-for.html

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

0 comentários:

3 Ideas from China

Tuesday, May 06, 2014 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

3 Ideas from Yuan Yafei, Chairman of Sunpower in an FT interview

1.Only Strange people can succeed

2.If you can live past 100 years...you are doing something right

3.I usually drink Lafite. Since I know nothing about wine, I just drink the most expensive stuff

About the third observation from Mr.Yafei i just think perception is reality so when most people see the most expensive wine when they drink it they experience the best. When someone tells you are going to taste the best wine in the world if feels much better than when someone tells you it's just a regular one. The power of suggestion is big.


About Perception


http://thoughtmeme.blogspot.pt/2014/04/perception-is-reality.html




0 comentários:

Small is not beautifull

Monday, May 05, 2014 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

Excellence and size are fundamentally incompatible. 
— Robert Townsend


I am not sure this is still a fact. In the Globalization era a big company like Apple or Amazon can develop & offer things that the small player can not keep up with. The cost of the marginal product to Amazon is zero. The cost of 1 million or 2 million downloads is the same for a software company. In the new world the economies of scale are huge.

If there is a human component, some personalized service i guess Size & excellence are incompatible but except this Bigger can do better & cheaper.


0 comentários:

How to beat the easy way

Friday, May 02, 2014 Francisco Carneiro 0 Comments

A capitalization-weighted index explicitly links the weight of a holding to its price, so the more expensive a stock gets, the bigger its weight in your portfolio, says Research Affiliates' Rob Arnott. 

I have read some years ago a good and easy way to beat the stock indexes.

Here is the logic that i copy from Rob Arnott. In a hypothetical world there are only 2 stocks and both have a real value of 1. 
Stock A is overvalued (expensive) and it's trading at 3. Stock B is cheap and is trading at 0,5. In our world stock A has a index weight of 86% (3/3,5) and stock B has a weight of 0,5/3,5=14%. 

If stock A and stock B slowly drift back to their value of 1 our index has a lousy performance because stock A has a big weighting.

This is the reason why S&P equal weight beats S&P in the last 14 years


0 comentários: