"God of Stocks" tells of pain

The stock markets can really humble a person....the more you learn, the less you know. You can even ask an "experienced" old timer like the god of stocks, Mr Lee Shau-kee; he will agree. The billionaire investor Lee said in May this year his investment strategy will switch to aggressive from defensive in August, and forecasts the Hang Seng Index to hit 30,000 by that time. However, in an actual scenario during that period, the Hang Seng tumbled from 25,000 to 21,000 in August and fall again to 11,000 by end October. It has since recovered to 15,000. Here is what Asia's Warren Buffett or Asia's Master of Stocks has to say now ....

TheStandard: Lee Shau-kee, even after an impressive surge in the stock market yesterday, wants everyone to forget he is known as the "God of Stocks," admitting that followers have lost money after listening to his advice. The Henderson Land Development (0012) chairman, previously tagged as "Asia's Warren Buffett," said he will not predict what level the stock market can go.

"One time, I received letters from investors who followed my opinions. One of them said he lost much money in stocks and asked me to compensate him for some losses," said Lee after the company's annual general meeting yesterday. "That person said he was so pathetic that he borrowed money from relatives to buy stocks and had to repay them. He asked me if I could lend him money."

After an investor asked Lee about his stock picks for next year, he refused to respond. The company's vice chairman, Colin Lam Ko-yin, said: "Lee is not an investment consultant."

Earlier though, the veteran investor said "bliss will come out of the depth of misfortune" for the stock market next year and he hopes it will recover soon. "The market is not as strong as before. I am neither buying nor selling now," Lee said. "Warren Buffett is buying stocks now."

Lee said he has lost much because of the financial tsunami and, even though "the recession has yet to come to an end" in Hong Kong, he expects the property market to improve next year with limited ups and downs. "The property market will remain sluggish in the first half of next year and the market will hopefully recover slightly in the second half if the global economy improves." Lee said the property market now is still better than the market during the SARS period in 2003.

* YahooFinance: Congressional Democrats and the White House worked to resolve their last disputes Monday over terms of a $15 billion bailout for U.S. auto makers -- complete with a "car czar" to oversee the industry's reinvention of itself -- that's expected to come to a vote as early as Wednesday.

* Bloomberg: Japanese economy shrinks by -1.8% in the 3Q (2Q -0.5%) as recession worsens.

* BT(Singapore): The Australian government delivered more than AUD8B in cash payments to families and pensioners from yesterday to stop the economy from sliding into recession and urged people to spend the money ahead of Christmas.

* WSJ: Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley will not pay bonuses this year to their CEOs and other top officials.

* Obama to spur the US economy with the nation's largest infrastructure spending in the last 50 years noting the state governors have such projects that are "shovel ready".

* China Daily: China car sales continued to fall in November as the passenger/sedan sales slip by almost 11% year on year. Apparently, the good old days of 20% growth rate has been "driven" away!