Fontainebleau

According to Reuters, Icahn takes over Fontainbleau asset for $100 million. The construction of this project is stopped now. The project has already spent 2 billion for present halfway building. Icahn needs a few billion dollar to complete this project.

Frankly I am not optimistic about the future of Las Vegas. But it sounds interesting for me that a famous investor, Icahn, put billion dollar in this town.

I don't know what he are trying to do, but I hope the construction will complete as soon as possible and will be open soon.

Gaetano's Ristorante

Last night we went to Gaetano's Ristorante, italian restaurant located on Eastern Ave. This is the first time for me to go into this restaurant. That's was more than what I expected.

Foods are really great. Service is also good. What upset me is that waiter recommended too many foods. I couldn't remember which foods is which. I told him if they had any vegetarian food. The waiter explain that the chef is quite flexible about our vegetarian request. That sounds nice.

I am really happy to know such a great italian restaurant is close to our home. I want to come again and enjoy the great foods again.

Trip to Sedona

We went to Sedona Arizona on Feb 12-15. This is the first time for us to visit here. Sedona is really impressive place. I didn't feel anything special at Vortex point, but it is certain that every Vortex point is really beautiful place.

We enjoyed hiking in many places. I didn't know how fun hiking is! Sedona made our family become hiking lover. It is very hard for me to choose the best place in Sedona, but Doe Mesa is really good place. I can't forget that spectacular view from the top of Doe Mesa. It takes just 40 minutes for our family (including 8 years daughter and 5 years old son) to climb to the top. Doe Mesa is not so famous trail, but it worths challenging!

Devil's bridge is also really great place. I didn't see the picture of Devil's Bridge in advance. I was really surprised to see that natural arts! It definitely worths trying! I must tell one thing to those who are interested in the trail. Certainly it is just 1.1 mile from the trail head to the Devil's Bridge, but it is 1.4 miles from the car parking to the trail head. First I thought the car parking is the trail head. I was really exhausted when I figure out we were going to the trail head, not Devil's Bridge yet.

This trip is a good start for our family's hiking. I really want to go to Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire State Park for hiking. Death Valley is also good place for hiking.

Kingman

We will leave Las Vegas tomorrow afternoon to travel to Sedona this holiday weekend. Tomorrow we will stay at Kingman,which is 2 hours drive from Las Vegas. We have been to Kingman before on the way to Grand Canyon and had a dinner at the park. All I know about Kingman is one of town related to route 66.

Previous plan is to drive to Flagstaff tomorrow, but I changed my plan today because road condition on I-40 is unknown. I don't want to drive on slippery road in the dark.

Bankruptcy

Today a subsidiary of Station Casino, which operate Green Valley Casino, filed for bankruptcy. The parent company, Station Casino, already filed for bankruptcy last summer. Today's files is just a part of reorganization of Station Casino, which has no impact on day-to-day operation of Green Valley Casino.

Another news. Lehman Brothers sues a borrower of Fontainebleau project to get the part of lending money back from them.

What was the credit bubble? I still remember a blog. The blog introduce the private equity guy' s comment that all listed companies would be owned by private equity in the future.... I don't know if that guy really thought so, but the comment indicate that it was hard for even smart guy to predict what would happen tomorrow. When most of people are not aware of being in bubble, bubble economy is growing. Today nobody believe bubble economy come back again because a lot of people learn from the experience and will be smarter next, but bubble will repeat when nobody is aware of it.

UNLV Rebels Basketball

Tonight I went to UNLV basketball game. UNLV vs New Mexico.

UNLV lost this game, but I could enjoy the game very much.

The local people here is excited about college sports, which is really nice thing.

American like watching many kind of sports.

Close of Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas

Ritz-Carlton released yesterday that the hotel will be closed by May. The property owner, the arm of Deutsche Bank, decide not to keep injecting money to the property any more. The Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas operation must have been losing a lot of money.

This is very sad news. The developer of Lake Las Vegas was bankrupt. The Reflection Bay Golf Course was not open to public under bankruptcy procedure. What will happen to Loews hotel next?

Last December we went to Lake Las Vegas to enjoy the ice skating there on Saturday afternoon. Just a few people were seen on the Village close to Ritz-Carlton even on Saturday. I was a little concerned about the future of Lake Las Vegas as well as the future of Las Vegas. The property owner had to make a tough decision since the economy didn't come back early.

I really feel sorry for the residence here. I understand how sad they are.

English or Japanese

I am writing blog in English at least once a day. I listen to English as much as possible. I feel my listening skill gets better than before. I want to keep working hard. I don't have enough time to write ameba blog in Japanese and watch Ohmae Live in Japanese. I want to keep doing them but I don't want that to kill my precious time.

Roughly right is better than precisely wrong

Today I spent most of time on translating Japanese questions to English. Their questions are in details. Japanese like details. The more details it is, the more precise it looks. But that's not necessarily truth. Japanese should know the old saying that "roughly right is better than precisely wrong."

The person in charge in Japan is just one of department manager. What's important for him is to report what is going on here to his higher management. On the other hand, what the management here is doing is to manage the company, which includes so many things such as human resources, long term strategy and customers .... The priority here is totally different from that in Japan and I think that's right. I wouldn't a management, if he spends a lot of time on thinking of how to explain to a shareholder.The budget is not as important as what Japanease think of. But it doesn't mean their management is loose. They just focus on the more important issues.

Tsucany Golf Club

I played a golf with co-workers today. It has passed more than 4-5 months since my last play. My score is 56-53. It's as usual. First 2 holes are devastating.

Every time I play a golf, I really think I will practice for next time! But I did nothing so far. It may be a time to change my attitude for a golf. I will take a professional golf lesson to change something.

Rock Arts

I saw native american rock arts at Valley of Fire State Park first time. I was really impressed. Certainly it is hard to identify how many years ago that was drawn, but no doubt that was at least hundreds years ago. Such a old and precious rock arts can be seen everywhere. If that was found in Japan, the part of rock with rock arts would be covered by glass case or the rock would be cut and moved to the museum. Here I can see the sign saying vandalism should be reported. That's it?

I borrow rock arts book at the henderson library. I know there are so many rock arts in this country. It's historical and should be preserved, but it's not so rare. That's why rock arts is kept as it is. I know there is the place where I can see many rock arts near Laughlin. I want to go there somewhere!

Market Correction

I watched IBD video. This video summarize the day's market and analyze the daily pick-up stock. I can catch up with the daily stock market and I learned the public company one by one. This video suits me. Because so many stocks are listed in NYSE and NASDAQ. It is hard to pick up several stocks among them. I just know a very few US companies!

I learned one thing. I should not buy stocks in market correction. 3/4 stocks follows downward market trend. All right. I won't buy stocks right now. I keep watching a few stocks and wait and see in a couple of weeks !

Charlie Palmar Hotel

I read the article in Las Vegas Sun that the city of Las Vegas gave the developer of Charlie Palmar Hotel grant to 2 years extension of construction. The developer will wait and see the Las Vegas tourism market in next 2 years. They might extend up to 4 years.

The Charlie Palma hotel was the boutique hotel designed by the famous chef Charlie Palmar, non-gaming hotel with more than 300 rooms. This hotel is expected to give Las Vegas a new type of luxury hotel.

If it's just 2 years extension, it would be ok. That's the matter of time. The worst case is that the developer withdraw and cancel this project. The Smith Center for the performing arts project broke ground last May. The part of Symphony Park project start the construction. If Charlie Palmar hotel project ends up cancel, what would be in front of the performing arts center? The big parking might be added on the performing arts center.

What I learn for investing stock

Most commonly used selling rule is that if your stock fall down to 7-8% below you buy point, you must sell all the stocks. This rule is unbreakable. There are two reasons. The first is to reserve your capital for next chance and the second reason is to keep confidence. If you lose your confidence, you can't control your emotion and it gets hard to make an intelligent decision.

Buy rule is that if stock is going up, you follows the trend. Average down strategy is very dangerous strategy. Average up is OK.

What's important is to have a plan before investing. Otherwise you are trading emotionally.

What is the "intrinsic value"? I saw this word a few years ago, but I am not sure what it means. Is this a company's real value?

Fundamental strategy : Major items are on performance, debt and cash , liquidity.

Fundamental analysis is always necessary. The point is "what is the company's worth?"

Earning growth and sales growth.

View Anthem

I am really impressed with the article "The gift of life" in View Anthem 02-02-10.

Jerry, resident in Henderson, decided to donate his kidney to 63 years old lady who are looking for a donor and the operation was successful.

Why did he decide to donate his organ to somebody? He used to work at the camp for children with muscular dystrophy. He met 17 years old boy there. The boy was old enough to understand the life expectancy when he has muscular dystrophy was around 21 years. He did a lot of talking with Jerry. He told Jerry how much he wanted to go to school, have a job and start a family... He passed away while Jerry could do nothing to him. Since then, that experience stuck with Jerry.

When Jerry knew the 63 years old lady was looking for the donor, he thought if he had an opportunity to help somebody, why not?

He is really really brave. I believe I can donate my kidney to my family but I can't do the same thing to other people. I can't take my heath risk to help somebody before my lovely children grows up. This story makes me appreciate how happy we are now thanks to everyone and I am willing to help somebody as much as I can from now.

From iphone

DUI

I don't get the ticket of DUI. This is my friend's story.

He was caught by the police because of DUI two years ago.

I don't know the details so much, but it seems he has been doing the petition at court.

At the end of 2008, he was already transferred to Japan at the end of 2008. His attorney has been taking care of the case since then.

He was supposed to complete the court requirement by today because today is the judgement day. The court is supposed to pick up his case on 2:00 today. If he doesn't finish them by then, he could get arrested.

Last night I reminded him that he was supposed to complete online school. He understood he needed to finish it. He promised he would definitely get it done by this morning. This morning I got an e-mail from him with the certificate of online school. He could make it ! My other friend contacted the attorney and sent the certificate to her.

But the attorney's reply was "OK, then how about the other court requirement?"

What ? What is the other court requirement? We thought the court requirement is just completion of online school. We knew there is the other court requirement at 9:20 am in Pacific Time, which is 2:20 am in Tokyo time. Oh my goodness, he couldn't make it. He might be arrested !

We ended up finding what the other court requirement is. That is the completion of Victim Impact Panel. It's also online course. Luckily, FAQ in the homepage of Victim Impact Panel says it takes an hour to finish the course! He still have 3 hours to do it. I called him and waked him up to let him finish this online course. And then, 3 hours later, I got the call from him that he could finish the course! He had to send the certificate with his signature to me as soon as possible, but he was not in place to make pdf file. I logged in the site by using his password and printed out the certificate here and copy his signature on the other paper and cut & paste it on the Victim Impact Panel certificate.

I don't know if the attorney did a good job at court or not. But I did whatever I could today. I hope things go well.

What we learn from e trade

What important to start trading is to start with plan. Investing sucess will not come from your head, but come from your heart. Before you trade, you need to set the limit to get out of the trade. It would be hard to lose money by getting out of trade, but it would be much much better to lose more money in the future.

1% rule of risk management

First step is calculate 1% of your total amount. Let's say you have $100,000 in the account, 1% of that is $1,000. This is the amount you can lose for one trade. Second step is to determine exit point. If you buy stock at $55 per share and decide $53 is exit point, you may lose $2 per share when things don't go like you expect. Third step is to divide 1% of the total account by 2$. 500 shares is what you can buy in one trade.

Fundamental anaylsis indicate you what to buy and sell. Technical analysis indicates you when to buy and sell. Fundamental data is every week, month and quarter. You keep wathcing fundamental data and ratio and need to keep your portfolio updated.

Keep It Super Simple

Price & Volume

Don't over analyze

Moving average is just smoothing the trend. The longer it is, the more smooth it is.

Role reversal

Resistance broken through become support.

Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort

We went to Spring Mountain to enjoy snow slide on Jan 31st. We have been to Mt. Charleston in summer and know temperature here is 10-15 F lower than Las Vegas Strip. But Spring Mountain has a lot more snow than we expected. We couldn't believe this mountain is just 1 hour drive from Vegas. It's really really fun place to enjoy winter sports.

We arrived there around noon. There are a lot of cars. It was hard to find parking space, but we were lucky enough to find the place close to the slide area. Afterward I saw a lot of cars got violation ticket because they were parked on the pavement. It seems critical if the car is on the pavement or not.

We bought two slides at Sports Charlet on that day morning. It was $25 per each. When I bought, I thought I wouldn't be able to let my kids get on slide alone. it must be too dangerous. However, once we try to slide a few times, we know we should have bought 4 slides for everybody. My kids would't let parents enjoy slide. They really enjoyed slides very much. A few weeks ago they tried ice skating and enjoyed to some extent, but they prefer the snow slide to the ice skating, because th snow slide is much easier than the ice skating. That's the case for me too.

We enjoyed the snow slide for 3 hours and left for Vegas around 3:30. February is going to be busy month and probably hard to find the time, but we would like to come back to Spring Mountain with 2 more slide before spring comes !