Another roller coaster week for the stock market – S&P tagged its all time high before the outbreak and then suddenly turned south after learning that US Federal Reserve is not as accommodative as people want. Even though the sentiment and market breadth turned bearish, thanks to the strength of the big five tech companies, Nasdaq 100 (or should we call it Nasdaq 5) recovered.
This is definitely not the time to have a strong opinion about the market. Those who take it one day at a time can do fine.
Fun read about Max Brooks, author of World War Z and his takes on the pandemics plus other things.
One more fun read about Japan, KFC and Christmas.
Lately I was asked by many people from Hong Kong of my opinion about leaving Hong Kong to live in UK using their BNO passports. Since I don’t know much about the subject, I turned to my friends who are living in UK for more information. Well, the information I gathered tells me that it may not be a good idea.
Several factors I learned:
- The basic cost of living too high
- The near impossibility to land professional jobs because all the professional licenses in Hong Kong are not recognized in UK
- As a foreigner staying in UK means no support / government aids on education for children and no medical health insurance
- Next to impossible to become a UK citizen as you burn through so much money there for 5 years
So it looks like UK is really doing lip service to those people in Hong Kong. All UK wants is some high net worth Hong Kong people to stay there and spend a lot of money to stimulate their economy. It is not a surprise though …
If you really want to leave Hong Kong, I would suggest Canada. For those people who do not have a lot of money to immigrate by investing or opening a new business, there are a number of places in Canada looking for simple labor with no qualification whatsoever. One such destination is Yukon. Due to its extremely harsh weather, no one want to stay there and it is always in need of workers. It is easy to land a job there as a foreigner. After staying there for several years, you will be able to apply for your immigrant status and ultimately citizenship.
Comparing this to the BNO bullshit, which is kind of sexy on the surface, of course it is not appealing. But it is a simple honest way to immigrate. For my Hong Kong readers, think about it.
Just watched a video on the Brooks Brothers. As usual, CNBC does not catch the point why a brand really struggle. In essence, as long as a business serves the middle class or middle-upper class clientele, it gets destroyed during the past 50 years as that part of the population dropped to insignificance. For any consumer goods businesses to survive nowadays, it has to be either mass market focus, or ultra high-end focus. There is no in-between market for a long time.
Time to wrap things up and head for my cottage!
Have a wonderful weekend all!
