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Audition for Who Wants to be a Millionaire in New York. It's better than the lottery.

Nigeria's near future

Yar'adua campaign video. He is to succeed as the next President of Nigeria.
Part One: Power supply is #1 priority.           Part Two: Focus on eradicating poverty.
     
Good politics articulates the desires of a people. We've seen clear articulation in the video!
Better politics focuses resources (people/institutions, money/materials, technology) effectively to meet set goals. Is this a good time for optimism?

Forum Announcement and more friends

The Stanford Africa Business Forum is this weekend, at Stanford University in Northern California. Thank you, Wilson for your enthusiasm, and welcome to UpNaira.

A very hearty welcome also to Patricia. Welcome to this blog and welcome to Nigeria!

So very excited to learn from you.

Naija Elections and CNBC Contest

Currently in the top 15% (with 9.12% return) of the competition not bad for being 100% in cash! The market hit new highs on Friday and I bailed. So I am now waiting for an opportunity to get back in, and the 42 points decline so far today is not it.
I do have a lot of ideas to research though, which should enable me to get back into the market soon, here are some of them:

Top 20 most volatile stocks:
WFMI,SNDK,NVDA,SANM, AV, DYN,AMZN, GTW, HAR,NOVL, HSP, ADCT,WMB,YHOO, ANDW, BRCM, CTXS, CTSH, TLAB and SHLD

Short Squeeze or Insider buying:
TWX,JAS,AVID,UTEK,PRST,ESIO,USMO,CVO, CACC,BHS

Other ideas and other people's portfolios:
MOT, TM,SLG,FD,CYBX,SYMC,REGN,IMCL,GS,COF,FWLT,SGR,C

Naija Elections:
Feel, like I should comment on the Nigerian elections, although my interest is strictly economic as opposed to being political. Y'ardua has been declared the winner of Naija's election. However, I would like to call on the loosers ( I meant guys lucky enough not to win) e.g. Pat Utomi, to expend their passion for Nigeria in other ways. Ways that can go a long way in actualizing their vision for the country outside the purview of the government. Our people needs to learn that our "saviour" is most likely not going to come from the realm of politics. Politics as we know it is simply too dirty as played our society.

Therefore instead of becoming jaded, let us see business the path to Nigeria's freedom and the creation of economic value as the path to Nigeria's greatness.

NEPA

Click the picture to watch the video (<4 minutes)
Ki le nwi nipa NEPA (What are y'all saying about NEPA?)

Found on radioabeokuta's site, abeokuta.org
This is real! Whatchyu gonna do?

P.S. I still have a sense of humour :)

Remember the Two Cows jokes?

The ones about Corporations

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.

FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
(more...)

The ones about Governments

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows..
(more...)

There is Two Cows for Finance:

BOND MARKET: You have two cows. One is Brazilian, one is Australian. They yield 25 quarts of milk per day. That's half as much as three years ago, when you traded your less-lactiferous German and U.S. cows for them. You are thinking of swapping for a pair of Namibian cows. They only have three legs but, hey, they produce 26 quarts per day.
...
DERIVATIVES: You have two cows. You repackage five of them into a Collateralized Lactating Obligation, pay for a AAA credit rating, slice the CLO into 10 pieces and sell it to investors, skimming the cream from the milk for yourself. Three of the cows fall ill, and the credit rating plummets. You get to keep the cream.

INTEREST-RATE SWAPS: You have two cows. You pledge one of them to me as collateral in a swap for some of my pigs. I pledge the cow to my neighbor as collateral in a swap for some of his sheep. He pledges the cow to his cousin as collateral in a swap for some of his cousin's goats. Better pray the livestock market doesn't crash and we have to try and round up that cow.
(more...)

I like this basic one:

SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to someone else.
COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and gives you a share of the milk.
CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
NAZISM: You have two cows. The goverment takes both and shoots you.

Find A LOT more Two Cows madness at Uncyclopedia

Post a Comment: Write your own Two Cows poetry or share your favourite.

Poverty isn't solved with donations

Business is a means of raising our collective consciousness,and it has the power to change social ills especially in Africa. Not only does business raises up the business person, it raises the community up as well.

Currently in the news is the information that Carlos Slim of Mexico has surpassed Warren Buffett as the second richest person in the world.
However, beyond the news more interesting is the man.

Carlos Slim doesn't believe in handouts.., however he has infused $1.8Bil into his moribound foundation
He thinks business can solve the ills of society
He has been accused of being a "monopolist" however he is surely a tough business man
The basis of his wealth included buying a goverment owned monopolist

Lessons
Ignore the goverment, and use business as an element of social change
Business is hard and tough however it can bring "good' to society
Capitalism is not near perfect or even fair, however it is the best the world has know so far, for economic properity - unless Cuba proves Russia or China wrong :)

The BBC has a series of stories with pictures talking about the real plight of Nigerians living on less that $1 a day. For example -
1. The roadside chef from Markurdi
2. The barber from Abuja
This I hope will make the statistics real and motivates us to change the world with business.

CNBC Recap- Top 16% with an 8.1% return on investments.

Learning requires focus and attention

CNBC Contest
With a return of about 7% in 6 weeks, the return on this contest is not bad, however, it is the lack of focus and concentration that is preventing me from optimizing my learning. Hence, let professionals manage your real money or you can get burned easy.

Currently I am in the top 18% with a 7.68% return.

Sold a bunch for violating the 3% loss rule, so with about 500K in cash, I had to shop. Now having the time and inclination to do serious research, I chose the following for the following reasons:

AUY ( Gold is a measure of safety, when high oil prices leads to inflationary pressures)
DVN (Possible takeover target in the energy sector)
GT (Tyres is a sector, I wish I have stayed in since the beginning)
? - I need a biotech stock, so I will look around for something I like today.

Lessons Learnt

It is week 4, of the CNBC stock contest, and although not close to the leaders by any stretch of the imagination, it is time to take stock of lessons learnt so far.

1. Invest, with professionals - except one develops discipline in terms of time and approach to the stock market, my level of interest will vary a lot. Hence, real money is better of with a professional, even if you think you can beat the professionals.
2. Invest play money yourself and use it as a benchmark against the professionals managing your money. With a return of 4.7% in 4 weeks, if my real money works that hard, I will be happy.
3. Have a clear strategy, be disciplined and follow your own compass, sticking to my rules, have produced consistent, if not spectacular returns and most importantly they have allowed me not to loose money.

Sure, there are many more lessons to come and I will keep y'all posted.
current return 4.7%, ranking -top 22%.

Help - If you are aware of leading indicator of how the market will do in the next week or so timeframe, please share it with me. Including ideas like measuring overall options play etc.