Month: March 2013

Book Review 7. Market Place 3.0

I have rarely seen the books written by Japanese in the book store in the U.S. I was proud when I found this book on the shelf in the book store because I would like American to know there is quite a few great business man in Japan. They don’t talk or write themselves too much, especially in English. However, as for service business, they have best knowledge and ideas in the world, I believe.

The author Hiroshi Mikitani is the founder and chief executive of Rakuten, the third largest e-commerce market place company in the world. You know, the largest e-commerce market place is Amazon. The difference between Amazon and Rakuten is, Amazon concentrates on direct selling to costumer but Rakuten seeks for co-prosperity of merchant and costumer. So Amazon is interested in sales but Rakuten is interested in distribution.

This is famous story in Japan. He decided to ‘Englishnize (from the book)’ his company. He designated English as the official languages in his company. Almost all Japanese top company said he was ridiculous but he had done. After that, the diversity of human resource in Rakuten has vitalized, which is good for future of this company. And his company quit Keidanren which is strongest economic lobby in Japan. The member of Keidanren consists of top Japanese companies, like Toyota, Canon. They themselves think they need to change themselves, but only his company quit it to claim.

On this book, he also describes his policy about management. He has strong faith in ‘Kaizen’, but not as a manufacture, as a service business. He also emphases the speed. The speed of changing, action. I strong agree with him. One of virtue of Japanese is perfectionism but he asks his employ “Don’t think, then act, think to act”.

He is business man so that he is not my role model but I respect him on my own way. I admit he is one of the greatest Japanese.

As a Physicist.

Today, I gave a talk at American Physical Society meeting at Baltimore convention center. As for me, this presentation has special meaning. I have lived in the U.S. for about 1 years. I can not imagine what I have done from what I was 1 years ago.

Firstly, this is my official English presentation in Public place. Throughout my career, I have made several presentation but only this time I could do better than my standard level of presentation which physicist should make. I think. And I start to have capacity to listen other person’s interest in Physics.

Of course, without good Physics, there is no good presentation. So, to enjoy presentation, I would love to keep working hard to find something interesting in Physics. As a physicist, I would like to study beyond what physicist already knows. It is always hard because no textbook can write about it. We need to struggle to prove new findings and construct the future Physics.

In the 21 century, the presentation is one of most important skill. This time, I have learned about presentation skill from several books and getting feedback from several person when I practiced. I actually could not try all technique or advice they provided. I need to try a lot in the future presentation. But I just realized that presentation is fun.

This blog is also part of my project to improve how to convey my idea. I have to say thank you later, but my friend told me that there are several grammatical error in this blog, If you have noticed something on this blog, could you please tell me? For example, my grammatical error? confusing structure? whatever. Constructive criticism is very welcome. I think you can find my email address somewhere on this blog. Maybe. or leave comments.

I thought I would feel kind of satisfying after my presentation, but I do not feel that now. I focus on what I should do to go ahead.

Why I am writing this blog.

I am at Baltimore this week to attend American Physical Society meeting at Baltimore convention center. Baltimore is a nice place, I have enjoyed this city and the meeting. I am going to give a talk tomorrow. So, I am a little bit nervous now. Haha.

I have just started my blog about one and half month ago. One of my policy for this blog is writing something everyday. It is because I believe the habit is very important. Ultimately, the reason why I am writing blog is to think what I am thinking and Practice English. That’s all. But, because I am using a public space, I try to write something worth reading.

Recently, I knew several Japanese bloggers. Someone is going to start the blog. Others keep writing blog. Others just end writing blog. Each person has each points of view. Whatever the other people do, only I can do is thinking what should I write here. I am writing to think what I can contribute to the world as a Japanese.

I have written 44 articles and I usually write at least 300 words. But I actually am not sure, what I would like to write to next, but several topic is starting to fix.

Review Books : Since I love reading books. I have just reading books in English. To help my understanding about book and I will keep write the review. You may find some knowledge or the book you read next.

Review DVD lecture I took : When I have free time, I am watching the Great Course DVD lecture, which enable me to expand my idea and help understanding English. When I watch the good courses, I will share this lecture on this blog. Now I am writing about understanding the investment. Next, I am going to write about The art of writing.

Japanese lectures : I am trying to explain Japanese systematically in English.

Music : This is one of dream, I would like to show you Japanese music, which has different rhythm, tempo, lyrics, style and sound from American. You will be able to find your favorites.

ESL English as a second language : Since I am not native English speaker, I would like to share my understanding about English with nonnative speaker.

Economy : I love reading the Economist which always broadens my mind. I don’t know why Japanese can’t publish this kind of Journal.

On the other hand, I am thinking of writing about Physics especially history, Japanese culture, American culture, running and so on. If you want me to write. Feel free to leave comments.

Japanese lecture 8 : The word of demonstration 2.

The interrogative words that have been listed in the table on following figure. These formations, like those of the demonstrative table, are entirely regular. Particles are added to interrogative words,

ka か : indicates indefiniteness

mo も : indicates negation

de mo でも : indicate inclusiveness

Kosoado2

With this table, the donata どなた forms are considered to be more courteous than the dare だれ forms; nan なん is more colloquial than nani なに. Dochira どちらindeicates ‘which’ in the choice between the two object, while dore どれ indicates ‘which’ in the choice among three or more.

How is your learning so far? Feel free to ask me. Now I started understanding the structure which Japanese has. Japanese is complex, but has few exception. Next several chapters, we are going to go through verb, adjective, adverb, You know, these are very important but let’s go slowly.

Understanding Investments (3/24) 2

This is later part of 3. Starting with stocks.

There are 2 types of intermediaries in the financial market.

One type is broker who is simply helps buyers locate sellers and vice verse and arrange the sales. Broker may also help buyers and sellers agree on a price. The buyer or sellers pay a fee, or commission, to the broker for these services. If you want to invest in individual stocks, you will need to set up an account with a broker. There are human brokers, and there are online brokers that let you do almost everything yourself, at your convenience, or you can have some kind of mixture.

The other type of intermediary is a dealer, who also connects buyers and sellers but does so indirectly. Dealer announce to the market that they will a specified security to anyone who is willing to pay the dealer’s asking price, or the ask-price for short. At same time, dealers also announce that they will buy a certain security from anyone who is willing to sell at the dealer’s offering price, or the bid-price. When the dealers buys a share of stock from someone and then sells it to you, he or she earns the difference between the ask price and the bid price, which is called the bid-ask price.

We tend to buy things in standard quantities, called lots, and most financial investment have standardized lot sizes. For stocks, the size of round lot is 100 shares.

There are several different types of orders you can submit to the market.

A market order is an order to buy or sell at whatever the current market price is.

A limit order places an upper limit on the price you are willing to pay or a lower limit on the price you are willing to receive.

A stop-loss order is on order to sell shares that is triggered once the price of the shares falls below a certain level.

Understanding Investments (3/24) 1

3. Starting with Stocks.

I am going to divide this chapter the first half and the latter half.

Stocks can be pretty risky investments, but they serve as a great model for learning about individual investments and how to use them because the basic ideas behind stock investment are clear and easy to understand. In addition, the stock contract itself is very simple . Furthermore, the detail of stock investing are very similar to the detail of other types of investing.

When a firm issues stock, it divides the ownership of the company into thousands of equal part, which are individual share. Each share has an equal claim on the firm’s profit and an equal say in the management of the firm. The more shares you buy, the bigger the slice of company’s profits you receive, and the more influence you have on company decisions.

IPO (Initial public offering) : When a company sells its shares to the public for the first time, in a special sale called the initial public offering (IPO), it usually uses investor’s money to expand its business and start new projects.

Additionally, when one company buys another company, it often pays for this purchase by issuing new shares. Otherwise, firms are reluctant to sell shares; there are usually cheaper ways for firms to borrow form investors than selling share of stock. Therefore, most investors buy their stock from other investors not directly from firms.

The term Primary market describes the market buy directly their borrowers who issue them.  The term Secondary market describes the market for used.

Dividends are the profits that companies pay out to their shareholders. While it is true that stockholders are entitled to a share of the company’s profits, the company is not under any obligation to actually pay them out. Many corporations do not pay any dividends. When a firms earns profit, it has a choice.

1. It could pay the profit out to the shareholders.

2. It could hold onto the profits and reinvest them into new project.

Japanese lecture 7 : The word of demonstration.

In Japanese, the demonstrative and interrogative pronouns and adjective are very closely related in formation to the adverbs that carry similar ideas about the place, manner, and sort. All of these words are formed from four root こそあど, to which regular endings are added, to form a constant and logical pattern.

Ko, こ  : hereness, nearness

So, そ : thereness, not far off, near person addressed

A, あ  : thereness, but at a distance

Do, ど : question or doubt

From htese roots are made demonstrative pronouns, demonstrative adjectives, phrases of type, adverbs of manner, adverbs of location, adverbs of motion, indefinite pronouns, nagative pronouns, and many other forms.

re れ : to indicate a thing

no の : to indicate demonstrative adjective

nna んな : to indicate type of thing, “such a, this kind of ”

ko こ : location

chira ちら : direction, motion towards, or preference.

The table below shows how simple this process is. These words do not change to indicate singular or plural, nor do they have different forms to indicate gender, sex, or the role of the word within the sentence. For example, “Kore” may mean “this” “these” ” them”.

Kosoado

When you are referring to persons, it is considered courteous to use combination of hito (meaning “man”, “person”) or kata (meaning “side”) with Kono この sono その ano あの dono どの

The forms with kata are more courteous than hito

この方が鈴木さんです。Kono kata ga Suzuki san desu. This is Mr. Suzuki.
これが娘です。 Kore ga musume desu. This is my daughter.

Book Review 6 : 2001 Space Odyssey.

This is classic Science Fiction written by Arthur C. Clarke. This story was made into the movie by Stanley Kubrick. This story was rare case, book and movie came out almost same time, actually movie appeared before the book.

This book was published July 1968. Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969. Imagine if we could landed on the moon in 1969, what would happen at 2001? People who live at that time think that 2001 should be more advance world than we are. We couldn’t go to Saturn or Jupiter in 2001, even in 2012. However, the story was well prepared and tried to be realistic and plausible based on scientific fact.

Sometime in the future, there was the basement on the moon. The geologists found the strong magnetic anomaly on the on the moon. They dogged that place, then they found TMA-1 which was made just when human being was born which had been 3 million years ago. TMA-1 was a like signal to notify that the human being reached the moon. The destination of signal was Jupiter. So human being knew they are not alone. But, the others would be us or them?

To survey the others, human being launch the space ship to get to Jupiter.

Human being sent 5 people. 3 were sleeping during journey. 2 were operating for space ship. During the journey, unexpected things happened.  The supercomputer HAL killed the 4 people.(HAL was derived from IBM by displacing one letter.) Why? You should read book to know in detail, but in short, HAL was smart enough to confuse between his enthusiasm for mission and actually being taught (programmed). Unfortunately, HAL decided to kill the people on board to reach his goal. Only one man Bowman survived. Interestingly, this book was carefully described the future. But, there was no concept about internet or networking. HAL was super smart but was alone not connected, which is unlike our world.

But finally, Bowman could get to Jupiter  What did he face? Did he become first man to meet the others? What were they like? What would happen to him?

I like this phrase form preface of this book.

But please remember: this is only a work of fiction. The truth, as always, will be far stranger.

Clarke, Arthur C. (2012-12-10). 2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke Collection: The Odyssey) . RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.

Understanding Investments (2/24)

2. ‘How investors Make money’ from the Great course lecture.

What I learned in 2nd lecture is simple, ‘We can’t beat the market’

Every investors dream is ‘beating the market’, getting more return that the market does. Here are 2 big questions,

Can anyone beat the market?

If we can beat the market, how do we do it?

Professors and investors have been arguing about these questions for decades.

For the investment, the ultimate source of any investment advantage is information.

1. Material information ; Highly desirable and profitable information that affects the market price of an assets when it’s revealed to the market. (for example, the information about new trade, order)

2 Private information : Information that is known only to a few people and isn’t widely distributed or shared. Private information is not inside information usually combines observation with analysis. (for example, With accumulation the information about the company, we can have private information. Everyone can know that information via media, but we need to observe and analyze. )

If you understand information, this is most important theory in 2nd lecture.

Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) : An economic theory that suggests that market prices fully incorporated information that is known now and that new information is incorporated very quickly into the market. 

Do you agree this hypothesis? It depends on you. We have 3 different version of EMH base on its efficiency.

1, Weak EMH – EMH is correct with respect to past financial prices. Not efficient. 

2. Semi strong EMH – The current market prices reflect on all publicly available material information. Efficient

3. Strong EMH – The current market prices incorporate all material information whether it’s publicly available or private. Very efficient

No matter what you believe about market efficiency, If you think that market is efficient, you can buy buy your own slice of the entire market. (I will tell you later) On the other hand,  If you think that market is inefficient, you may get a higher return than market, but you need to put in the time and effort to know what market prices are right. We can build up private information and may beat the market.

I recommend the strong EMH at first anyway, especially for novice investors.

I just believe semi-strong EMH, I mainly aim to buy the slice of the entire market because I could not find anytime to compare to professorial. If I can accumulate the private information, I will buy something. But this is not main strategy. I would like to spend more time to live my life, with family, and science. You can not beat the market without any effort.

Understanding Investments (1/24)

1. ‘How to stop worrying and start Investing’ from the Great course lecture.

I started the investment when I became 27 years old. The younger is the better for investing. If you are younger, you have little money but you may lost little. And time is an important factor for investments. If you have start younger, you have more time to spend for investing.

This title is fanny, must be parody of the book ‘How to stop worrying and start living’ written by Dale Carnegie. Let’s get started!!

What is investment?

Investing is spending your money, time, or other resources to create or acquires assets. An assets is anything that holds onto its value over time. Financial assets are documents that entitle their owner to receive something of value, generally a set of cash payment.

What makes you worry? There are top 4 threats,

1. Market Downturns.

Market downturns are extremely difficult to predict. During a market downtown, you may worry about your loss. But remember, the price would be back to normal. We have to be patient, and we have to have the time to spare. We need to see the investment in the long term.

2. Bankruptcy

Another risk of investment is the risk of bankruptcy. a firm, the government, or a person can go bankrupt. It almost always means that your asset will lose value. By being alert and proactive, investors can take effective steps to limit bankruptcy risk. For example, if we learn how to read the financial statements of the company, we can know the financial state of the company.

3. Inflation

Inflation is a general increase in prices.There are many ways to measure inflation, but most people are familiar with the consumer price index (CPI), which measure the price of a set of goods and services that a typical household consume. To combat inflation, find investments that keep up the inflation. The stocks seem to be one of them, however the assets that tend to do better at keeping up with inflation also tend to be the riskier ones.

4. Human nature

The biggest threat to investing is human nature. In many ways, our own psychology and emotions do far more damage to our investing success than the market crashes do. Know yourself

These are top 4 threats. The first step to making sure that we don’t inadvertently sabotage our own investments is to become more familiar with investing ‘basic idea’ ‘tools of investing’ ‘know yourself’. And then, make a investment plan.