Mad Hedge Fund Trader

Technology, Media and Telecommunications: News from Asia

vvc ) My guest on Hedge Fund Radio this week is Ed Merner, CEO of the Atlantis Japan Growth Fund (LSE-AJG), who has long been rated the number one stock picker in the Land of the Rising Sun. Ed’s fund, which trades on the London Stock Exchange, is up a stunning 54% from the March bottom. When the ink was barely dry on the US Japan peace treaty in 1950, Ed’s father uprooted his family from rural Truckee, California, and moved them to Tokyo Japan. That gave him a front row seat to the economic miracle that followed in the fifties and sixties. Ed started managing money in Japan just a few years before me, in 1970. He toiled away as a portfolio manager at Schroeder’s & Co. in Tokyo for 25 years and then launched his own firm in 1995. Ed, who is a fascinating individual and a genuine nice guy, will discuss the long term opportunities for investing in Japan and Korea. Hedge Fund Radio is broadcast every Saturday morning at 12:00 pm Eastern time, 11:00 am Central time, 9:00 am Pacific Coast Time, and 5:00 pm Greenwich Mean Time. For pilots and the military, that is 17:00 Zulu time. For the online link to the live show, please go to bizradio.com or click here at www.bizradio.com/home.... , click on “Listen Live!”, and click on “Houston 1110 AM KTEK.” For archives of past Hedge Fund Radio shows, please go to my website by clicking here at www.madhedgefundtrader... .

Asian Tech Stock Weekly Review (November 23–29, 2009)

inss ) My guest on Hedge Fund Radio this week is Ed Merner, CEO of the Atlantis Japan Growth Fund (LSE-AJG), who has long been rated the number one stock picker in the Land of the Rising Sun. Ed’s fund, which trades on the London Stock Exchange, is up a stunning 54% from the March bottom. When the ink was barely dry on the US Japan peace treaty in 1950, Ed’s father uprooted his family from rural Truckee, California, and moved them to Tokyo Japan. That gave him a front row seat to the economic miracle that followed in the fifties and sixties. Ed started managing money in Japan just a few years before me, in 1970. He toiled away as a portfolio manager at Schroeder’s & Co. in Tokyo for 25 years and then launched his own firm in 1995. Ed, who is a fascinating individual and a genuine nice guy, will discuss the long term opportunities for investing in Japan and Korea. Hedge Fund Radio is broadcast every Saturday morning at 12:00 pm Eastern time, 11:00 am Central time, 9:00 am Pacific Coast Time, and 5:00 pm Greenwich Mean Time. For pilots and the military, that is 17:00 Zulu time. For the online link to the live show, please go to bizradio.com or click here at www.bizradio.com/home.... , click on “Listen Live!”, and click on “Houston 1110 AM KTEK.” For archives of past Hedge Fund Radio shows, please go to my website by clicking here at www.madhedgefundtrader... .

Chinese Tech Stock Weekly Summary (May 18 - May 24, 2009)

love BIDU. If you need further proof of where the future growth in the global economy is coming from, take a look at Bidu (BIDU), the Google of China, which I strongly recommended on March 6 (www.madhedgefundtrader...). It has jumped 280% from the lows to $280, and has been one of my better calls of the year. In the meantime, our Google (GOOG) rose by only 48% to $435, just 8% more than the S&P 500. These hedge fund darlings are best of breed companies, but the Chinese one outperformed the American counterpart by a factor of 6:1. This is the consequence of the US economy making a permanent shift from a 5% growth rate to 1.5%-2%, and is a pattern you can expect to see repeated around the world for the next decade. The cruel truth here is that American companies, with the drag of a mature economy, will never command the same multiples of Chinese ones. When looking for long equity exposure, always look for Chinese ones first. Expect huge growth of the four horsemen of the Chinese Internet sector-Netease (NTES), Sina (SINA), and Sohu (SOHU), and BIDU- who are going to eat our lunch.

Chinese Tech Stock Weekly Summary (Feb. 9 - Feb. 15, 2009)

If the Chinese think they are going to get 8% growth in 2009, then they are smoking their former largest import, Opium. I think they are totally unaware of the ton of bricks that is about to land on them in the form of the extinct American consumer. China has spent 30 years building a giant export machine, for which there are currently no buyers. Take a look at Japan’s statistics, which are far more reliable than China’s, which show exports falling off a cliff, machine tool orders evaporating, and once a half century losses for leading exporters like Toyota. These are numbers far worse than we saw during the depths of their lost decade. Of course, China has the money, and certainly the need, for a massive domestic infrastructure build out that can offset the disappearing exports. But this is not an economy that can exactly turn on a dime, and the transition will be painful. China can always report 8% GDP growth this year. Another problem is that modern China has never faced a recession, and defensive business strategies are essentially unknown. One of the advantages of a centrally planned totalitarian economy is that if you don’t like the economic numbers you are getting, just make up some better ones. Personally, I think 5% growth is more realistic, but then you have always known me as a shrinking, subdued, conservative kind of guy. If I wanted headlines I would be shouting 2% growth, or perish the thought, negative growth, from the rooftops, as some China watchers are. The implications for the global economy are huge.