Yieeeeee, you Day Trader you!!!! I suppose you don’t have to be smarter than the WHOLE market to make money, just smarter than most. I don’t have the, ummm . . . courage . . . for your style of investing.

I don’t want to sit around and wait for dividends, exactly, but I want to be confident that I can hold and grow as the company grows. The reason China makes sense is, okay, the government has a hand in everything, but, bottom line, they want the investors to invest, so they assure a measure of stability and growth so that investors achieve their goals. In the Philippines, it seems to me the company moguls run everything and they have no such need or desire to operate for the benefit of the broad range of investors. Knee-jerk management is not consistent management, for sure. Good for day traders, but not for me.

Joe

If this is not available where can we get this information?

That information would and could go along way in determining the true state of market pricing in the equity market in the Philippines.

Look at Meralco the big boys own huge blocks of shares. The little guy has no chance.

Now the GSIS that uses the pension funds of government employees should be banned from investing in the equity markets here and abroad.

It should simply invest in government debt paper.

The most insidious form of graft in this country is allowing the government access to entitlement taxes which are the source of the funds of SSS, GSIS, Pag-Ibig and PhilHealth.

Financial markets are for those who are professionally competent either at the retail or wholesale level. Not counting the dirigist economies in Europe, The U.S. and Canada do not allow their government run pension funds to invest in equity markets. The Social Security trust funds are simply lent to the Federal Government.

Trading in the financial markets is completely based on an individuals appetite for risk taking. Public funds should not be used in the casino economy.

Getting IPO allocations before IPO’s are sold is a perfect example. Favored groups take the bulk of the “fresh cut” The drum beating and limited number available for the general public will tend to cause prices to rise. Holding on too long will create paper loses. By the time the general public gets in it is the time to sell.

I personally prefer the forex markets here. Simply guess the correct fixed band that the BSP is working on and you can almost time the interventions of Rey Tetangco. Watch the prices of the oil futures and you can almost see the moves Tetangco allowing the peso to gain a little. There are a few long term futures contracts going out 5-7 years at $100 a barrel for WTI already. Plus we save on our dollar based interest payments leaving more money to steal by the government.

Increasing physical demand (mainly from Asia) plus declining production from old established oil wells will force Asian economies to allow their currencies to gain versus the dollar. Otherwise bubbles will be created in the asset markets.

Such scheme of things is well within the bounds of shareholders being part of the ownership on the one hand and their corporate managers being part of the control on the other. Just a simple case of symbiotic relationship I would suppose to at least reflect the semblance or resemblance of the integrity of the corporate capital base, just maybe – assuming that indeed it is meant to solidify Meralco’s existing equity base.

Sale or no sale, the debt route as they call it that is not, I think intended to wreak havoc to a viable corporation like Meralco unless by too much political infestation of an interventionist government, Meralco does nothing but refund to end-users awesome tons of money – each and every time.

Sometimes, Meralco is a highly viable corporate business operating against the better interests of a very large population of end-users since it collects 15% of systems loss from a consuming public solely dependent upon this giant corporate monopoly.

Maybe indeed, extending credit is a short-lived ritual of “sharing the loot” as Meralco continues to rake profits from an equally profiting government ‘clearinghouse’, call it that. Infestation is always symptomatic of a zealous or jealous government wanting to get its share of the profits.

I have some associates who are in town to discuss wind turbine acquisitions.

Am aware NPC has already identified Ilocos Norte and some other spots as viable for windfarms.

Date of agreement: 28 March 2002
Planned commissioning: March 2005
Output: 42MW
Plant type: Wind farm
Location: Ilocos Norte Province of the Northern Luzon Island, Philippines
Estimated investment: Around $400 million total
Power corporation: NAPCOR (National Power Corporation of The Philippines) grid

Has this project pushed through?

Also

Negros Occidental and Bais City, Bayawan, Tanjay and Pamplona in Negros Oriental.

The DOE has expressed optimism that with the passage of the Renewable Energy Bill, the country will attract more projects on wind energy.

The Philippines is looking at around 200 MW of wind power projects in various parts of the country with potential investments of around $500m. A study conducted by the World Wide Fund said the potential wind power capacity is 7404 MW in 1038 surveyed sites nationwide.

Likewise, the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the Philippines reported that the best wind resources are in Batanes, Babuyan Island, Ilocos Norte, Mindoro, Samar, Leyte, Panay, Negros, Cebu and Palawan.

I have a couple of friends who’d like to be in on the action.

Having said that, I’d like to take the discussion offline and discuss business matters in greater detail.

You can provide an email address where I can reach you – or you can email me here

I am not a Prophet. But, I am a good student of History. It is what I see in the future. Our sources of energy is like a shoe that does not fit us anymore. It has created too many problems: political, social and economic. It has created wars,
conflicts, cartels, greeds and religious extremism.

There is a source of energy. Better than nuclear and electrical
energies. It is the energy of this Universe. It is the Creative Force of this Universe. We have not known it yet.

Same as we have known the Newtonian Physics. The Newtonian
Physics was incomplete. So, the Atomic Physics by Albert
Einstein had to complete it.

I worked for two American energy companies in Manila. The first was Enron. We made our money and I was pirated long before they entered Chapter 11 in the States.

The second company was Ogden Energy, a generator out of New Jersey. Ogden turned into Covanta Energy a few months after I left. And exactly a quarter after Enron closed (it was December I remember, because some of the girls I knew from the company posed for the holiday issue of Playboy), Ogden followed suit on April Fools Day.

Mirant, a succesor of Southern Energy and Mission Energy that operated the dams that overflowed recently have both left the country. Mirant was bought by Marubeni and Tokyo Electric.

All four were American. All were either coal or bunker-fired generators.

Meralco is a utility. Its affiliated generators are indigenous gas-fired, hydroelectric or renewable. It is likely to stay albeit with new owners. Union Fenosa, a Spanish partner of the Lopezes has divested and the Lopezes, while still in control, are in the minority now.

As you predict, the landscape is quickly changing. Alas, not always for the better.

As MB hints at, the fat man is in the picture.

Dean

the symbiosis is such that a breakdown in one is reflected in the opposing symbiont.

Yes. From the time that I had allocations prior to IPOs when I was still an investment banker. These include Jollibee, San Miguel and ABS-CBN. But I’ve also lost big-time. When I say big-time, those are in amounts that could have bought a nice house in the villages in Makati.

One should not be passive investors simply waiting for dividends. I actively traded and had a monitor right on top of my desk that was directly linked to at least three traders in real time. It was nerve wracking, but the minute-by-minute peaks and lows was where money was to be had.

Dean

It is because mankind needs a new form of energy in order for its civilization to survive. The new energy will be pollution free, and available readily. Not monopolized by certain countries.

In the 18th century. Who would think of nuclear reactors, computers, internets, information technology, and our trip to the Moon and Mars…