Chinese Stocks: Capitalizing on the 41% of Chinese that Eat Fast Food Once a Week

Over the last week, I’ve eaten McDonalds food twice. And as someone who works out regularly and tries to keep a tab on how many calories I’m putting into my body, every trip to McDonalds turns into a self-induced guilt trip.

I’ve seen SuperSize Me and I’ve read Fast Food Nation… and I’ve even successfully kept myself from eating fast food for months. But sometimes I have to admit that the stress of the day and the busy lifestyle I lead makes me hang my head in shame and pull into that drive-through, order a Quarter Pounder meal and make sure it comes with a Diet Coke.

I might as well deprive myself of the liquid calories if I’m splurging!

And while I may feel guilty about eating fast food a few times every month, we’ve got nothing on the rest of the world.

Building on the passion for anything Western in current Chinese culture, the Chinese are more likely to order and eat takeout meals than Americans. A whopping 41% of Chinese eat fast food or takeout once a week, compared to only 35% of Americans, as surveyed by ACNielson Corp.

In Hong Kong alone, 61% of the population eats fast food at least once a week; 59% of Malaysians and 54% of Filipinos go to carryout restaurants at least once a week.

To put it all in perspective, only 11% of Europeans go to a fast-food restaurant on a weekly basis.

This just reiterates where fast-food corporations are going to see the biggest growth -- in Asia. The demand is there, and the supply has yet to be capped.

by Ann Sosnowski, Editor, Diligent Investor

This $900 Million Bet Has Global Traders Talking…

By Keith Fitz-Gerald

Contributing Editor

Article from Money Morning

Insiders trade when they know something. They’re not supposed to, but they do anyway. It’s just a fact of life.

Most of the time, it’s pretty petty-ante stuff, but occasionally a trade comes along that makes even jaded professionals like me sit up and take notice.

Just such a trade surfaced last Wednesday when anonymous parties agreed to buy and sell 120,000 SPY September call options using deep-in the-money strikes ranging from 60 to 95.

If you’re not options savvy, don’t worry. SPY (AMEX: SPY) – also referred to as a “Spider” in trader parlance – is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that mimics the performance of the stock market’s closely watched Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (INX). These strike prices equate to a SPY trading between 600 and 950, or roughly 35.81% to 59.46% below where it was Monday.

Any way you cut it, this is a monster trade because it controls 12,000,000 SPY shares. In fact, at a blended price of $7,500 per option, this works out to a $900 million bet that will play out by Sept. 21, when these options expire.

Why haven’t you heard about this on your favorite cable TV money show, or read about it in the business section of your favorite newspaper? Simple: There are just so many possible explanations for this trade that your head would spin. The chances are good that the current lot of reporters just aren’t able to make heads nor tails out of this deal; and with nobody talking, there are simply no warm bodies to interview.

But that hasn’t stopped the professionals in the trading community from trying to figure it all out. In fact, since the trade first came to light about a week ago, the professional trading community I’m a part of has been abuzz with conjecture. That alone makes this a highly unusual trade because – like any small, professional community – we can usually figure out who’s doing what to whom and why – without even having to rely on more than one or two educated guesses. We just know.

But this time around, nobody’s talking.

Naturally, this silence has put the conspiracy theorists on edge and set the blogosphere aflame. Most of the theories are outrageous, but there are a couple that – quite frankly – aren’t so far-fetched and even make some sense. But I have to stress, once again, that nobody who’s actually a party to either end of this transaction has been identified or is talking, which makes this all the more noteworthy – and maybe even a little spooky.

So absent the “who,” let’s take a moment and see if we can’t focus on, and figure out, the “why.”

Pushing aside anything that has to do with UFOs, the “third gunman” on the grassy knoll, the Philadelphia Experiment, or the Soviet K-129 submarine’s failed nuclear strike on Pearl Harbor, my experience as a longtime global-capital-markets trader tells me that there are actually some very real and very rational possibilities amidst the wild hypotheses circulating on the Internet. But, they’re just that – possibilities. And even with my admittedly conservative analysis, the scenarios I provide here could be wrong … either completely, or in part. Conversely, there may be an element of truth to one or more of these.

TAX MINIMIZING SOLUTIONS

Every action by a rational man is motivated by profit!

This may not be a “profit” in terms of money necessarily, but a profit gained in other ways. It could be a feeling of having done the right thing, the emotional high you get by helping someone or a lift in self esteem you feel when someone praises your work. This is what motivates rational people, not just money.

I am motivated not just by money, but by the thought my readers are attaining their financial dreams with my help. Do you have any idea how good that makes me feel?

It’s Tax Time in Australia
It’s nearly June 30 and that means that in Australia it’s the end of the financial year and if you haven’t already done so you should consider a few last minute adjustments to your tax situation.

How’s this for a list of things you should have a think about….

• Increase Superannuation Contributions to take advantage of the changes
• Superannuation Splitting
• Transition to Retirement Benefits
• Salary Sacrifice arrangements
• Defer Your Income
• Defer Sales of Assets
• Accelerate Your Deductions
• Make Repairs to investment properties
• Write Off Bad Debts
• Write Down Trading Stock
• Prepay Bills
• Write Off Non-Commercial Losses
• Add Any Home Office Expenses
  
• Get Your Depreciation Up To Date
  
• Sale of Investments
• Income Splitting
• Child Care Rebate Claims
• Eliminate Capital Gains Tax
• Rebalance your SMSF

These are just a few things you can put in place almost right away. Plus of course, now is the time to consider some strategies for next year that will reduce your tax bill even further, with some careful planning. If you would like to know about the strategies that WILL reduce your tax
CLICK HERE NOW