Pullback in Singapore shares fails to generate bargain-hunting as investors unsure how Europe’s sovereign debt problems will pan out following Standard & Poor’s rating downgrades, says Dow Jones.
The STI down 1.5% at 2,947.02 midday, barely above last week’s low of 2,943, which still stands as immediate support. All FTSE ST sub-indexes remain negative, with market breadth at six decliners for every gainer.
“What we saw yesterday on the news of Greece’s downgrade is a sudden shift from risk appetite to risk aversion. Akin to someone shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded cinema, it provokes a ‘run first, think later’ reaction,” says Phillip Securities analyst Phua Ming-Weii.
On brighter note, volume light at 906.9 million shares, suggesting selling pressure contained. Rig builders, Singapore Exchange (S68.SG), Fraser & Neave (F99.SG), Jardine group lead decline among blue chips.
I’d be happy if that happened and someone wrote about it,” Mr. Rubin said. “With openness comes less secrets.I wonder what will happen or had happened to the poor guy who lost Apple's iPhone 4.0 prototype phone in a pub weeks ago.
If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.
To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.
Even though some commuters may find that they do not benefit from distance fares immediately, the travel patterns of all commuters may change over time as people change their homes and places of work and new MRT lines are built. The new fare structure will therefore benefit all commuters as they will have greater travel options that include transfer journeys when their travel patterns change in future.
When the value of the CDO plunged shortly after it was issued, Paulson walked away with $1 billion, while investors lost the same amount, the SEC said.
'The worry is whether it could exclude someone from progressing in his educational pathway even if he did well in other subjects,' said Dr Ng in an interview with The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao.
UBS has raised SMRT’s (S53.SG) target price to $2.50 from $2.15, based on discounted cashflow model, to reflect higher rail ridership with second phase of Singapore Circle Line opening from April 17 and more people turning to public transport as cost of vehicle ownership escalates, according to Dow Jones.
The broker expects Circle Line’s daily ridership to increase to 211,000 commuters from 38,000 currently when new stations open, which also expected to boost rental, advertising revenue.
UBS adds that Singapore government’s move to cut number of vehicle certificates of entitlement will aid SMRT as public transport becomes more attractively priced vs private modes of transport.
Keeps “buy” call. Shares +0.5% at $2.17.
A general term describing a financial ratio that compares some form of owner's equity (or capital) to borrowed funds. Gearing is a measure of financial leverage, demonstrating the degree to which a firm's activities are funded by owner's funds versus creditor's funds.
Mr. XYZ PMP,Should I pay an additional US$119 for the 1-year renewal?
Your PMI membership expires on 30 June, 2010.
Cash and bank balances 42,974
Cash and cash equivalents at end of a financial year 40,852
Cash and bank balances 42,974
Restricted cash (750)
Bank overdrafts (1,372)
_______
40,852
The coolest feature of Plink Art is instant art identification. Just snap a photo and if the painting is in our database our visual search system will recognize it and tell you all about it. Currently Plink knows about tens of thousands of famous paintings
Simply by analysing audio recordings of keyboard clatter, computer scientists can now reconstruct an accurate transcript of what was typed—including passwords.Loose clicks sink ships [via]
The new system is much smarter: it not only uses more sophisticated topic ranking algorithms but also continuously optimizes by learning which topics have the most appeal to the visitors of your site. The results are overwhelmingly positive -- topic quality, user response rate to topics and ads, and monetization metrics have all improved in significant, measurable ways.Inside AdSense: Link units revamped [via]
...The words tumble so fast, enwrapped in alliteration, clogged with onomatopoeia, choked with assonance, bursting with bombast, snarled with metaphor, tangled with simile, submerged in verbiage that the bombarded audience (and reviewer at a critics' preview) missed about three out of every four...Though the use of such bombastic words may make one sound poetic and of high intellect, everything will just go down the toilet bowl and choked without anyone comprehending them. There is really no point perpetuating elitism by justifying pomposity in the common language. In writing, I strongly feel one should restrain yourself and keep it lean, targeting the common public, especially if the objective is to reach out to the majority public. There's really no point throwing ammunition of torrential vocabulary to create an illusion of intellectual form over substance.
Five or six years ago, I had a number of meetings with some of the big PC manufacturers. I suggested they take a close like at Danger and the innovative interface used for the company's Hiptop handset. At the time, most cell phones had very simple e-mail interfaces. Very few even attempted to connect to the Internet. But Danger had a clear vision of what phone could become, creating what I would consider the granddaddy of today's smartphone interfaces.
By that point, it was becoming clear to some of us analysts that smartphones were actually small computers. If PC companies were going to stay ahead of the curve, they would have to add a handset to their line soon. At the time, I was very intrigued by Danger's interface. It was so well designed that it could be deployed on a TV, PC, smartphone, or just about any other digital device. Such a UI could help one of these companies deliver a similar experience across devices. And people would only have to learn to use the interface once.
Ironically, Microsoft ultimately purchased Danger. To date, the company has not employed this smart UI on any of its products. The genius behind Danger was a guy named Andy Rubin. He left the company before it was acquired by Microsoft, in order to begin working on a secret phone OS that would eventually get Google's attention. Google bought Rubin's small startup. The mobile OS eventually became Android, which, as you know, has since become the hottest OS in the smartphone space, having been adopted by dozens of handset vendors around the world.
I was reminded of Android's power while walking the CTIA show floor in Las Vegas. The show should have been called Android World. A good number of the handset companies I met with had some version of Android on their smartphones, and a number showed me new product behind the scenes that use the OS. I also saw at least five tablets (most behind the scenes) running Android that are set to come out in the next six months.
The most innovative products I saw at the show were based on Android. Take the Samsung Galaxy S, which runs the OS and sports a four inch AMOLED screen. It's the best screen that I have ever seen on a smartphone. Images on the phone are crisp and bright and are even clear out in the sunlight. Samsung won't say when it is coming to the US, but it could be one of the more important Android phones to launch this year.
The Motorola i1 is a new rugged and sleek push-to-talk handset that runs Android. At the press conference, Motorola let people play shuffleboard with the handset to show just how rugged it is. Kyocera also announced an Android handset—the ZIO. The phone has a beautiful 3.5 inch screen, 3.2 megapixel camera, and stereo Bluetooth. It will cost $250 unlocked.
If CTIA had a Best of Show award, it would have gone to Sprint's EVO 4G WiMax phone. The handset has a 4.3 inch screen, 1 GHz SnapDragon processor, 1GB of internal storage, WI-FI, HDMI out, and the ability to act as a WI-FI router for up to eight devices. It's a stunning phone that uses a version of Android that looks more like a Pocket PC OS than a cell phone OS.
Dell debuted the Mini-Tablet 5, the company's first Android tablet for the US. It has a five inch screen perfect for Web browsing. However, even though Dell says that the device will fit in your pocket, it's really not a smartphone. You wouldn't hold it up to year ear to talk. A Bluetooth headset makes more sense for conversations. The product is what I call a "tweener." It's not really a smartphone, and it's not really an iPad-like tablet. I'm not really sure who the audience will be on this one. On the other hand, the tablet has a really cool design and its light weight, compact design could be of interest to some users.
Android is steadily becoming the go-to OS for smartphones and tablets. It's even showing up on some set-top boxes and smart Blu-Ray players. But it's in the smartphone and tablet spaces that the mobile OS will have its greatest impact. Although Nokia and RIM were well represented and Microsoft and Palm each had booths at the show, most other major handset manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, and LG were in the Android camp. It's clear why many market research firms believe that Android will be the number one or two smartphone OS in the next two years.
It's also clear why Android is at the heart of the Apple/Google battle. Apple should be keeping at Windows Phone 7, sure, but it's Android that is likely to be the biggest threat to the iPhone OS in the near future. When Steve Jobs invited Google CEO Eric Schmidt to join Apple's board, he likely didn't expect Schmidt to go to school on Apple's strategy by launching its own iPhone challenger. No one Jobs is upset at Google.
The new chief executive of Singapore's DBS , who joined in November last year, received S$4.2 million ($3.02 million) in his first two months in the job as his pay package was boosted by bonus shares.DBS CEO, who joined in Nov, earned $3 mln in two months [via]
Q: "Do you feel satisfied that that's moving along quite well? Or do you worry?"
Mr Lee: "I think for the next ten years, with this team in charge, it is going to be fine. Whether they will do well for the next 10-15 years depends on whether they get a younger team in place, well imbibed into the methods of the government, integrity, ability, and making decisions for the public good, and not for your personal benefit. That's all. It is difficult because it means sacrificing privacy and sacrificing pay. Now we solved the pay problem or semi-solved it by giving them 80 per cent of the average of six major salary earners."
Q: "Is that how you arrived at it?"
Mr Lee: "Yeah, but we are always lagging behind because whenever there's a downturn, we don’t give the rise. Whenever there's an upturn, the private sectors goes up, shoots up suddenly and we can't keep pace because the public says no, this is too much."
Q: "Well, when people are getting US$16 billion bonuses for bringing the country into the ground, it is hard to keep up."
Mr Lee: "I was once asked about the enormous, the best paid ministers in the world. I said you should look at the wives. The lowest-paid ministers have wives who are glittering with jewels and with big mansions."
Q: "So that means they are corrupt."
Mr Lee: "No, I didn’t say that."
Q: "That was pretty way to be said."
Mr Lee: "But it's true. So Singaporeans have to decide. Do you want to underpay a minister and you have the kind of shenanigans as you have in the British Parliament? You know they repair their homes in the country and in London and charge it to their account. Or you pay them a proper wage and said after that, look after everything. Nobody gets any special perks. That's your salary, you buy your car, you do what everything is yours. Official entertainment, you have got an expense account. Your secretary monitors it and audits channel clears it. So everything is above board and the public knows that. So whatever they grumble, they know that they are not being shortchanged."
Q: "There are grumbles but there are always grumbles."
Mr Lee: "There must be. Singaporeans are champion grumblers."
Q: "Thank you so much.
Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).
The Finnish philosophy with education is that everyone has something to contribute and those who struggle in certain subjects should not be left behind.
The system's success is built on the idea of less can be more. There is an emphasis on relaxed schools, free from political prescriptions. This combination, they believe, means that no child is left behind.
Even before the date for the next General Election has been announced, a poison pen letter has surfaced in Sengkang.Poison pen letters hit Sengkang [via]
Written on a piece of A4-size paper in both English and Mandarin, it has been stuffed into the letter boxes of residents there, apparently since last week.
In it, the anonymous author accuses the People's Action Party (PAP) of being responsible for the high cost of living and the 7-per-cent GST, among other complaints.
IT’S ALL VERY SIMPLE.
We at Noble read with interest Peabody's long and convoluted defense of their "indicative offer" for Macarthur.
Wow.
Their explanation of the merits of their deal went on for paragraph after paragraph and sure was hard to follow.
It reminds us a bit of Shakespeare in Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2,
"Peabody doth protest too much, methinks."
They went on and on and on, but in fact, it is quite simple:
1. Take their cash if you don't believe in the future of coal. Keep in mind, if they weren't buying it cheap, even at 14 bucks a share, they wouldn't be doing it. We believe that coal is in a once in a multi-decade bull run. So do Peabody, which is why they are trying to get you to give them a great coal operation for their rapidly depreciating dollars.
2. If you believe in coal for the long-term, and want to stay in a company that intends to develop into the largest independent coal producer in Australia, vote for the Gloucester-Macarthur merger on Monday, April 12.
It really is that simple.
Function BoxMullerTransformation() As Double
'Make use of BoxMullerTransformation to calculate a Random Number from a Normal Distribution
'http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Box-MullerTransformation.html
Randomize
BoxMullerTransformation = Sqr(-2 * Log(Rnd)) * Sin(2 * PI() * Rnd)
End FunctionFunction PI() As Double
PI = 4 * Atn(1)
End Function=NORMINV(RAND(), mean, standard_dev)
=SQRT(-2*LN(RAND()))*SIN(2*PI()*RAND())
I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, though they die, yet shall they live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.-- John 11:25.26
=NORMDIST(x, mean, stdev, cumulative)
=NORMSDIST(z)
=NORMSINV(p)
In probability theory and statistics, the normal distribution or Gaussian distribution is a continuous probability distribution that often gives a good description of data that cluster around the mean. The graph of the associated probability density function is bell-shaped, with a peak at the mean, and is known as the Gaussian function or bell curve.
Any Google Buzz post can turn into a lively discussion. Sometimes these conversations can gather lots of new comments very quickly, turning them into "skyscraper" posts that can dominate your entire screen, especially if you don't check Buzz for a few days. We've heard from many of you that these big posts can be a lot to skim over.
Today, we’re making some changes to how comments get collapsed in Google Buzz. In the past, old comments were sometimes collapsed, but new comments (posted since your last visit to the Buzz tab) were always expanded. Now, if there are enough of them, new comments may be collapsed as well.
