Good and bad news on PHL economy

Ateneo Professor on Entrepreneurship

From Satur Ocampo's column "At Ground Level" by Satur Ocampo

The good news:

l.  Moody's has upgraded PHL debt from Ba2 to Ba1 (one notch below investment grade)

2.  Goldman Sach's has considered PHL as one of the 11 emerging economies (the others are Bangladesh, Indonesia, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Korea and Vietnam)

3.  PHL ranks 4th (moving from 6th) in terms of most favorable environment for micro enterprise, according to Economic Intelligence Unit.

4.  According to Nielsen, PHL ranks third in consumer confidence given the expansion of business at BPO

The bad news:

l. At 7% rate, PHL has one of the highest unemployment rate in the region.  Most countries have moved from heavy dependence on agriculture to manufacturing to industries and services sector.

2.  PHL has continuously slid down in WB list of doing business from l36 to 138.  What is the public sector doing. (And yet PHL is improving on its competitiveness)

3.   PHL has failed in 4 out of 7 MTD of the UN

What can we do to improve our country?

Did you buy Facebook stock? He thinks it is only worth $7.50@ not even $22.00@

Do you agree?

His article is litany of Facebook negatives (the harsh reality)  Are they correct?

What do you say about the Facebook business model?"

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From: Money Morning <customerservice@moneymorning.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 6:38 PM
Subject: The Clever Folks are the Ones Who Already Sold

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August 7, 2012 Sorry... Facebook is Still Only Worth $7.50 a Share By Keith Fitz-Gerald, Chief Investment Strategist The technorati took me to task. So did Wall Street. They were agitated by an article I wrote in May explaining why the world's most hotly anticipated IPO, Facebook (Nasdaq:FB), was worth a mere $7.50 a share at best. "Out of touch," one of the critics said. A "luddite" charged another. "Doesn't grasp the significance of so many users," one Wall Street insider opined--who happened not coincidentally to work for one of Facebook's investment bankers. Since then the social media darling has fallen another 31% to nearly $22 a share. Ten weeks later, Team Hoodie hasn't done much to merit an upgrade either. Sorry guys...Facebook is still only worth $7.50 a share - likely less. Here's why. The Cold, Hard Facts for Facebook At the time I reasoned that Facebook's valuation simply didn't merit the 100 times earnings IPO price of $38 a share based on comparable figures from Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- How About A Little Gas Pump 'revenge' For years, we've gotten gauged at the gas pump. Thanks to this little known "loophole" it's your turn for 'revenge...' You could even use this "trick" to make Big Oil pay you to retire! Click here now for all the details. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- But there were a host of other factors as well. I cited falling revenues, a lack of control over the mobile market channel, increasing distrust from customers who were voting with their feet and the concurrent departure of major advertisers like GM which will cost Facebook an estimated $10 million a year in revenue alone. I also posited the assumption that Facebook would be unable to maintain the 100% plus growth that many investors believed was baked into the proverbial cake. Google couldn't. Apple couldn't. And both of them are real businesses. That's the key...real businesses. Fact is, Facebook still hasn't figured out what it wants to be when it grows up. Despite the fact that CEO Mark Zuckerberg does have some excellent advisors, the company isn't going to be able to hide the fact that its "business" is nothing more than a colossal time-wasting collection of personal interest items for much longer. Other problems abound, too. All of them point to a lower share price. For instance, Team Hoodie seems more intent on creating new applications than they do on making money from customers. There seems to be a disconnect between what's cool and what actually makes money. Take the recently unveiled tablet-based Facebook application for example. Sure, it gets Facebook on a mobile device but there's no plan I can discern for how the application creates a different experience nor how it will generate money from all those eyeballs. Then there's the Facebook phone. First it's happening, then it's not. This suggests that Team Hoodie may have serious internal strategy battles and be fraying around the edges. Facebook's "Fiscal Cliff" Call me crazy, but I think Facebook's numbers reflect this already. One quarter into its public life, Facebook's net income dropped by $295 million to a loss of $157 million. The cost of customer acquisition is going up so that's clearly digging into its bottom line. So is the way the company chose to account for stock-based pay in adjusted earnings. Had management not chosen to exclude stock-based pay, the loss may have been orders of magnitude worse. And finally, Facebook has its own fiscal cliff of sorts. The 91-day lock up period imposed on employees and company insiders following Facebook's IPO expires later this month. That means another 268 million shares could come up for sale further depressing the value of the 2.1 million shares already outstanding. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Are We Being Lied to About American Energy Independence? Big energy has donated $606 million to both political parties to make sure that you aren't told the real story of a secret energy crisis that may be about to strike. This investigation may open your eyes just in time for you to protect your wealth and future from what's coming. Click here to see the controversial video that is causing an uproar. ------------------------------------------------------------------- With the stock now off $16 from its $38 IPO price there's definitely an incentive to sell. A large number of employees are probably anxious to get out before the markets destroy their windfall gains. I know I would be. As the chart below shows, former employees have already hit the dislike button and sold. Figure 1: Source: SecondMarket, Inc. Call me a skeptic but I find it especially convenient and more than a little coincidental that 79% of the total Facebook-related market volume comes from former employees and 86% of the total Facebook-related transactions come from the same group. Investors are the next biggest group of sellers by total dollar volume accounting for 12.4% of the total and 4.8% of the number of sellers. Perhaps they haven't given up the ghost yet. Either way, the chart is kind of scary when you consider the exponential growth associated with Facebook stock sales because the old adage certainly applies. What goes up, must come down. Don't get Zuckered again. The clever folks are the ones who already sold. Best Regards, Keith Fitz-Gerald, Chief Investment Strategist Money Map Press Further Reading... On the heels of the Facebook IPO fiasco, many investors we left to wonder how they could find the next big thing and avoid getting "facebooked" in the process. In this article Keith offers five ways to separate the winners from the losers. Leave your comments Forward to Friend Print The Real Story Behind the Knight Capital Trading Fiasco By Shah Gilani, Capital Wave Strategist Oh, you are going to love this. That whole Knight Capital fiasco last Wednesday, when a software glitch caused them to flood the market with thousands of unintended orders, it ain't exactly what you think it is. Sure, they tripped over themselves in the dark pool where they were trying to compete. But somewhat interestingly (okay, a LOT interestingly), the competitor that drove them to "upgrade" their trading software, which malfunctioned and caused them to actually bid-up share prices erroneously and then buy them at inflated prices, was none other than, wait for it... The New York Stock Exchange. That's not the whole story, or even the good part. Oh, it gets better. A lot better Knight claimed a $440 million trading loss on Wednesday resulted from their computer glitches and sunk the company (at least for now; I'll get to that). Well, according to Nasdaq (this was on its site: nasdaq.com), it wasn't a trading loss at all. Knight paid Goldman Sachs a $440 million fee (commission?) to take the errant shares Knight had bought on Wednesday morning off its hands. Now, I don't know what Goldman did with those shares, but my guess is they held most of them and sold them on Friday when the market soared a few hundred points. Of course, that's not a "prop" trade. Knight is a customer of Goldman's (it is now...). But who cares? Goldman Sachs ripped a customer for a $440 million fee, virtually bankrupting it in the process, flipped the shares it bought from Knight to "help" them (and first of all, probably overly hedged itself... as in enough to be net short... the large stake it holds in Knight's convertible preferred) for a tidy profit, and then probably shorted the stock (before "helping" them, and themselves to their little fee) before the stock collapsed, then probably gave it its "lifeline" (that's a guess, and I'm being sarcastic, but it's possible). And maybe we'll find out where that lifeline Knight got on Friday really came from) before buying a ton of Knight's shares back on Friday before hearing (of course... before) that several big firms were looking at buying Knight. What's my point in the above LONG sentence? Who cares! That's all business as usual at the Golden Vampire Sachs. That's after-the-fact stuff. What's more interesting is why all this happened in the first place. Here's what you probably don't know... To subscribe to Shah's free newsletter, Wall Street Insights & Indictments and continue reading click here.... On Air Now Why AMZN Stock is Soaring The Lesser of Two Evils: Facebook vs. GM It's Time That We Update This 100% Winner Login here >> Today's Top News Summer Slump in Silver Prices Closer to an End Silver prices ended higher in July and have pushed up in the beginning of August, but will the climb continue? Here's what to expect for the rest of 2012. Read More... Fiscal Cliff 2013 Fears Already Stifling U.S. Economy You're likely already worried that the "fiscal cliff" could bring you a bigger tax bill, but did you know it could cost you your job? Here's how. Read More... What EROEI is - and How to Use It To profit from oil prices and other energy market moves, investors need to know one key metric and how to use it. Dr. Kent Moors explains. Read More... Our Experts Keith Fitz-Gerald What 700 Million People in the Dark Says About Investing in India Dr. Kent Moors The Problem with Renewable Energy is the Price Martin Hutchinson Try as He Might, Mario Draghi Cannot Save the Euro William Patalon III We're Not Saber Rattling, We're Simply Connecting the Dots Shah Gilani Q&A: Shah Gilani on Financial Regulation, Central Banks and More... Michael A. Robinson This "Lab" is So Fast You Get Results Before You Leave the Doctor's Office Peter Krauth While Banks Crumble, The Next Leg Up For Gold Prices Draws Near Key Economic Reports This Week Date Release 8/6 Senior loan officer survey 8/7 Job openings (6/12); Consumer credit (6/12) 8/8 Productivity (2Q); Unit labor costs (2Q) 8/9 Weekly jobless claims (8/4/12); Trade deficit (6/12); Wholesale inventories (6/12) 8/10 Import price index (7/12); Federal budget (7/12) Money Morning - a free e-service of Money Map Press. 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Philippines Could be a N-11 Economy by 2020

An Ateneo Graduate School of Business Advantage

First it was the HSBC that predicted that Philippine could be l6th biggest economy by 2050;  this time is Goldman Sachs. ( Some say that HSBC has been bullish/optimistic, and sometimes overly for the Philippines)

According to a recent business news (PDI Jan l7, page B1) Philippines could be an N-11 economy.  It includes the BRIC economies plus Mexico, Korea, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Nigeria, Bangaladesh, Vietnam and of course Philippines.  The year covered in the forecast is from 20ll to 2020.  Philippines could be one of the  "growth countries"  ie country that contribute up to l% of total global GDP.

Is it a possibility?

What are the opportunities for entrepreneurs?

How does this create a climate for international entrepreneur?

How can we be a truly global economy?

Some Bright Spots in the Philippine Economy

I am not an economist;  I will just mention what I have read regarding the Phil. economy.  These should make us proud and inspire us, despite all odds. Some bright spots:


Philippines is now number 2 in BPO, second only to India.  Phil is now number one in call center (voice business)The BPO is projected to bring in up to $25 billion in total revenues by 20l6 (Enhance Online News)

Other interesting stats:  Phil is l2th largest economy in Asia 32nd  in the world based in the purchasing power parity frim IMF report in 20l0.  Goldman Sachs predicted the Philippine economy to be the l4th largest economy in the whole word by 2050 (that is a long long time to go.

So much for the doom gloom prophets and tongue lashing vs the Philippine President.  Let us stay united behind him, aspire to be one of his KKK (buddies). We are getting there.  Let us just keep our acts together.

"Every generation needs a revolution an ENTREPRENEURIAL REVOLUTION."