Scenario Analysis

Do you have a boss who keeps asking you to make decision based on scenario analysis?

Our recommendation are rated as 1 as strong sell to 5 as strong buy, we are constantly being asked...
You have a 4 on the stock, why it is not a 5 given the % of upside?
You have a 3, which is neutral, on the stock, how much more downside do you see and why not upgrade to a 4?
You are positive with the long term growth, why a 2 but not a 4?
Share price has risen a lot, what are you going to do, why not downgrade to 3?
You have a 4, if the stock reaches your target price, are you going to revise up your target price, or downgrade, any room for earnings surprise?
You have a 4, but the share price dropped a lot, are you going to upgrade to 5 to show your conviction?
You have a 2, how much downside can there be, are you going to upgrade to 3?

You would have thought these are simple questions to be answered... but no, every above-mentioned questions require clear and straight-forward arguments to back your decision. My boss likes to challenge your logical thinking and make sure you think through all the scenario cases..

Because I am being forced to answer so many scenario questions, I am taking the revenge on the sell side analysts:
Your fair value for the stock is only 5% away from the current share price, why downgrading to reduce given the limited downside? Are you going to upgrade if the share price hit your fair value?
You are downgrading based on your expectation on poor results for this quarter, is this quarter the trough of the business, do you see improvement in the latter half, why downgrading if you think things are going to improve after this quarter?
Your target price is only 10% away from the current price, why this is your strong pick but not the other one with 20% upside?
Why do you have a neutral but not a sell, if you think the share price is going to underperform?
You have a sell, do you see further downside or deterioration of the business, are you going to upgrade if you see downside is limited?

I am wondering if this habit will spread to my daily life...
Why you are going to the bathroom now but not later?
If you are spending this $ on this, are you going to spend xx more on the other?
If you choose black over white, are you going to choose blue over white as well?
Based on what do you think this will go up? Why not selling if you see more downside to the current level?
Why do you buy this if you know the other one is cheaper?

So my friend, please don't complain why I am constantly asking "why", this is the world I am living in, the world of question marks and explanations for every step to take.

Panna Cotta

Panna cotta is one of the easiest dessert on earth. It comes with thousands of variations, and the most common one is vanilla flavor.

This time around, I made a slight twist to my favorite vanilla panna cotta, adding a top layer of orange jelly on top to create a combination of yin and yang.

With the combination of jacob chocolate crackers

My first time visiting moon gei at sai kung.

Mango pancakes - to be honest, I really like the pancake but not the filling. The skin is soft and smooth and very eggy, it almost feels like a soft pillow that you want to sink your head in. You would have thought that moon gei brand reputation should resemble impeccable preparation of all ingredients... I suspect they don't make the cream themselves but using the low-end packaged whipped cream instead. The mango is nice, but they just put too much cream inside and ruin everything..
Yeung zi gum lo with tofu fa - hum... interesting combination.. but I wouldn't order it twice.

Spanish dinner

Many people spent their Sunday sleeping in, seeing movies, watching tv, or playing wii....we like to go grocery shopping at the wet market and make ourselves a scrumptious dinner from scratch and enjoy our wine at the dinner table.

Starter: Gazpacho made with tomato and melon. I reckon I put too much melon in it, but the soup is still very tasteful and sweet and refreshing. The basil gives a kick and spice up the soup base with earthy fragrance.

Starter: Mixed mushroom and asparagus with herbs de provence. The dried mixed herbs combine nicely with mushroom, asparagus is well blanched with a bite.
Entree: Catalan style paella with lots of seafood... including king prawns, scallops, white clams and calamari. Just a little bit of saffron goes extra mile... hum.. I love paella.
Missing pics - another entree of steak and citrus panna cotta as dessert.

Weirdo

Have you ever come across some guys who are pretentious, socially impotent, and ugly looking?? basically they are the "tram men" in nature but playboys wannabe. Unfortunately I did so happen run into one, and it was absolutely hilarious....Not all hk guys are like this.. but he did represent a certain segment of hk male population..

Event: poolside bbq
People: 20s-30s-40s
Time: after dinner
My friend and I = HC
The guy = X = est 5'7", >180lbs, small eyes with glasses, round face, bad english, sweaty hands

HCs are talking to each other, and suddenly being approached by X, who we first acquainted just awhile ago.
X: Hey, how's everything up to?
HC pulling back our long hairs, wiping sweat off our face: It is getting so hot....
X: It is in fact such a waste for not using the swimming pool.
HC : Oh, you want to use it? I don't think you can really use the swimming pool here...
X thinking he might have said the wrong thing: I am not saying I want to use it, I wouldn't use it...but i want to see other people use it. You should go in, I want to see other people using the pool.
HC starting to think he is nuts and watches too much girls gone wild: Haha.. I don't want to use it, but you look hot! (seeing him sweating nonstop and dripping all over his shirt)
X: OH THANK YOU for the compliment, nobody describe me this way, you are the first one.
HC: ?????????????????????????????? (rolling up our eyes and have nothing to say)
X: OH, you mean literally...... I thought you mean I am hot... (and we slowly walked away)

Japanese cookout

It's cooking time again! This time around the theme is Japanese home cooking. We've made quite a lot of food this time.. and we barely be able to finish everything..

What we have made as starters:
Saba shio yaki - simple grilled saba
Mixed mushrooms with tarragon
Cabbage and bacon salad
Entree - Japanese style eggplant curry. I reckon Japanese curry is really not spicy enough.. I wish to add more chili pepper into the curry paste.
with lots of minced pork.....
For dessert, too lazy to think what to make so made a simple combination of sesame ice-cream with red beans, kuromizu and kinako.
Next theme is Thai.. my first time making thai food.. that's what I am talking about, we need some spicy food to sweat off the heat.

A rush to finance

It seems to me now everybody is rushing to finance, no matter what're their current backgrounds, they think finance is the only way out, they envy people who make seven or eight figures per year and drive a Lamborghini to work and being surrounded by all these pretty and young girls...

Indeed it is an evil place to be, when your friend tells you that he/she makes hkd700k this month just on currency trade, or a base salary of hkd2mn for a junior sales role, or a friend of a friend made 3yrs bonus last year at a hedge fund, or figured a friend of a friend of a friend had three sports cars in his garage, or having all sort of prestigious club membership and kept paying the monthly membership fee without a blink but never stepped a foot there....

When a mid-aged person who has a professional career tells me he/she wants to get a cpa, I respond with a puzzling face.

When another girl switched from a professional career to an operational role in a financial company, I think she is out of her mind.

When all the engineers from silicon valley moved back to hk and landed with back office support roles at financial companies, I think it is not justified.

Everybody wants to work in finance in HK because they were not told the other side of the story. They didn't know that person lost 500k a month on currency trade, or a friend of a friend didn't get any bonus the year before or the year after, or a friend of a friend has left jobless because the bubble has gone busted.

Although the picture in financial world is still rosier than the other industries in hk, but money is not made as easy as other people think. Let see how the market performs in the next 2 years and how that would change people's mentality.....from what i've learnt, quite a few hedge funds have folded because of down market.....

What a loser

Last week, I managed to gather 13 people from my office to have a spicy crab dinner at cwb. We did have great fun at the dinner table as we all joked around and started revealing secrets of others.. even my boss was mocking one of our people for having a weekly top ten list and it was totally hilarious..

The dinner was not the main thing for me to write about....well, the story started with me wanting to plan a group dinner for our investment team, especially we had some newcomers we wanted to have some fun outside of work since we were working like crazy lately. I invited almost everybody from the investment team and started branching out to the marketing and compliance depts and we ended up having 10+ people committed to the dinner. Remember the smelly guy (SG) I briefly bitched about earlier? He joined for almost half of a year already, and obviously we didn't see him contributing anything in due course..well, that's another story. I felt guilty for opting him out since I invited everybody... so I asked him the day before if he wanted to join, and he quickly responded yes of course.

It really isn't my prejudice, for the time he has been in my office, he didn't really developed any fondness among my team, and the following is the reason why:

At the dinner table last week

Scenario #1
New Colleague SA (not HK native): Does anyone know how can I get to Lo Wu?
SG quickly jumps in: If you want to go to Lo Wu, there's numerous way to get there, you can take the MTR, bus... what you can do is to use the train !$#$@#$# (start not making any sense to us...)
Me to cut in: well... the most convenient way is taking the KCR by making a connection at TST.
SA: Oh really? But how does the KCR works...?
SG jumps in again: OR, you can take the ferry, you know it would be nice to take the ferry from hk island to kowloon.....$%$%#$%#$ for another 2 minutes...
SA started making a puzzling face with loads of information..
Me wants to shut his mouth: But which part of Lo Wu do you want to go? Are you going to China or what? Lo Wu is huge..
SA: Yeah.. I am actually going to go to horse riding.. there's a riding school in Lo Wu.
Me: Really?! Then you can only take a cab....it's kinda remote from the city.
SG keeps on going: What I suggested you to do is to visit Sai Kung, there's really nice seafood there, amazing aquarium and seafood restaurants by the shoreline....$@%$#%$#
Me can't stand him anymore: Wait a minute, why does she want to go to Sai Kung, she was asking about Lo Wu.
SG: Well, I was making suggestion on places she can go...
My other colleague laughing nonstop: Where have you been for the past 5 minutes, we were talking about horse riding in Lo Wu!
SG kicking the lid of the pot: Well... you can also go to Shatin, there's an arena there every weekend there's a game..
My other colleague feeling annoyed also: What are you talking about? She wants to go horse riding not watching horse racing???!!!
And he finally stops...

Scenario #2
SG like discovering a new continent: you know what I found amazing, this rubber thing to cover the phone (we call it the silicon casing) you can throw it around without breaking your phone..
And then he demonstrated by throwing his phone onto the floor.
And we all stared at him thinking why bother to talk about a silicon casing as we don't use it anymore...
SG trying very hard to sell his silicon casing: you know you can also talk on the phone while showering, with your wet fingers punching the keypad you wouldn't get your phone wet, it is totally amazing...
My other colleague starts to challenge him: But why do you want to talk on the phone while taking a shower???

Scenario#3:
SG talking about Sai Kung again: What I found interesting is these restaurants with the fish tanks, you can choose the ones you like an they will make it for you, it's totally cool..$#%#$#%$#% praising how interesting the place is...
My colleague nodding with patience:.. yes yes.. but the place is really overpriced...
SG switching topic: Yeah.. you know the lockhart road all these bars and pubs these are the good ones.....with sooo many people, it is truly a happening place..#@$#@$#@
We all squinting our eyes thinking he must have gone there to hook up with a filipino.

Sometimes it's funny to have people like this around.. but most of time I feel annoyed by having an alien working in my team..