Singapore to ensure property market stability

SINGAPORE, March 3 - The Singapore government will do "whatever it takes" to ensure stability in the property market, a government minister said on Thursday.

Mah Bow Tan, minister for national development, told parliament that recent cooling measures have prevented prices from rising sharply, but he added the government could increase land sales.

"We will be supplying even more in our land sales programme," he said.

Singapore earlier this year introduced new measures to cool home prices that have continued to rise despite earlier efforts to put a lid on a red-hot property market.



[ Reuters - Thursday, March 3 ]

Hyflux named preferred bidder for desalination plant in Singapore

SINGAPORE, March 7 (Reuters) - Singapore water treatment firm Hyflux said on Monday it has been chosen as the preferred bidder to build and run the city state's largest-ever seawater desalination plant.

The plant in Tuas is designed to produce 318,500 cubic metres of water per day, the firm said, adding that the water will be supplied to Singapore's national water agency, the Public Utilities Board, at S$0.45 per cubic metre for the first year.

It will be the second such plant in Singapore. Hyflux said it will also be constructing a 411 megawatts power plant to supply electricity to the desalination plant and excess power will be sold to the power grid.

The total cost of the desalination and power plants is S$890 million (US$703 million), and the project is expected to start operations by 2013.

Hyflux had requested a trading halt earlier. (US$1 = 1.266 Singapore Dollars)


[ Reporting by Eveline Danubrata; Editing by Rachel Armstrong ]
[ On Monday 7 March 2011, 16:25 SGT ]

The Power Of Three, Threelogy

The Power Of Three, Threelogy


+ Product Development: Cheap, Good and Fast
+ Bible: Son, Father and Holy Spirit
+ Influential: Brainie, Rich and  Powerful
+ Woman: Beauty, Brain and Body
+ Disruptive Innovation: Technology, Business Model, Market
+ Chinese demi-gods: 福,禄, 寿
+ Stock: 准, 胆, 钱
+ Cooking: 色, 香, 味
+ China leaders: 党, 政, 军

+ Project: Time, Quality and Cost

+ Missile: Speed, Range and Accuracy
+ Maths Solution: Elegant, Speed and Accurate
+ Lateral Thinking: Choices, Alternatives and Possibilities
+ Smart: Wisdom, Experience and Memory
+ Agriculture: Land, Water and Sunlight
+ Technologist job: Make it cheap, Make it easy to use and Make it ubiquitous
+ Computation boundary: CPU-bound, Memory bound and I/O bound
+ Computing resources: Transistors(Processing), Storage and Bandwidth
+ Tech TriplePlay: Processing, Storage and Bandwidth
+ Communication: Bandwidth, Range, Interference 
+ Types of machinary: Machine that help people makes money, Machine that help people saves money AND Machine that help people wastes money
+ Money Path: Grow, Save or Waste
+ Web browser: HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript 1.6
+ Modern Economy Driver: Brain, Information and Energy
+ Corruption falls: Sex, Money and Power
+ Popular comm: SMS, Email and Voice
+ Successful: Look, Luck and Smart
+ Modern crop: Rice, Corn and Wheat
+ Marketing: Value, Benefit and Advantage
+ Bowling: Speed, Power and Accuracy
+ Kungfu: 狠, 快, 准
+ Discredit Opponent: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt
+ Machine Vision: Lense, Lighting and Camera
+ Property: Location, Location, Location
+ Renewal/Green Energy: Wind, Solar, Hdyro
+ Today's Energy: Crude oil, Natural Gas, Nuclear
+ Fossil Fuel: Oil, Gas and Coal
+ Fight force: Army, Navy and Airforce
+ Accounting: Income statement, Balance Sheet and Cashflow
+ Infrared Camera: Short Wave IR, Mid Wave IR and Long Wave IR
+ Camera Spectrun: Ulta Violet, Visible spectrum and Near infrared
+ Visible Light component: Red, Green and Blue
+ Print color: Cyan, Magenta and Yellow
+ Computer Memory: Cache, DRAM and Hardisk/Flash
+ Transistor: Emitter, Collector and Base
+ MOSFET: Gate, Source, Drain
+ Residential housing: HDB flat. Condominium, Landed house
+ Precious Metal: Gold, Silver and Copper
+ Business Input: Capital, Labour, Material
+ Asia Food: Rice, Noodle and Bread
+ Getting it done: Drive (physical), Desire (mental) and Direction (plan)
+ Innovation Driver: Constraint, Problem, Incentive
+ Motivation Factor: Wealth, Lust, Health
+ Public Land Transport: Train, Bus,Taxi
+ Land Internet: ADSL, Cable, Fiber-Optics
+ Human Communication: Written, Verbal and Pictorial
+ State Transition Criteria: Event, Action and Condition (Guard)
+ Photography: Shutter speed, Aperture and ISO setting
+ Statue of state: Parliment, Court, Govtnment
+ Championship: Gold, Silver, Bronze
+ Cooking essential: Garlic, Onion and Ginger
+ Seasoning essential 2: Salt, Sugar and Pepper
+ Maths: Combination (unordered), Permutation (Ordered), Factorial

Five Investing Tips From Warren Buffett

 
What does 's message to stockholders mean for you and your money?

Every year Mr. Buffett, the world's third-richest man and arguably the most successful stock-market investor in history, writes a letter to stockholders in his investment company . The latest came out this weekend. There are usually some nuggets for all those who haven't invested in Berkshire, and this year's letter was no exception. Here are five:

1. Watch out for stock-market valuations.

Mr. Buffett's company is now sitting on a cash hoard of $38 billion. "That's among the highest levels it's ever been," says Stifel Nicolas analyst . While Mr. Buffett says he is looking for a big acquisition, and has his "elephant gun loaded," the high cash pile also suggests he's having a challenge finding really good deals. If Mr. Buffett is cautious, investors might want to take note: It's another sign that many valuations on the stock market may be looking a little stretched.

2. Coke is it.

Mr. Buffett rarely makes predictions, but in the case of —a long-term holding—he issues a remarkable one: Dividends will probably "double ... within ten years," he writes. That would take them from last year's $1.76 to $3.52 per share. If Coca-Cola stock didn't move over that period, it would raise the dividend yield from 2.5% today to above 5%. Berkshire owns 8.6% of Coca-Cola stock.

3. Some of his favorite stocks are still cheap.

While the stock market overall has boomed, and it's a battle to find cheap stocks, one thing does stand out: Many of Warren Buffett's favorite stocks remain at, or around, the prices he paid for them. As Mr. Buffett only likes to buy stocks for a lot less than he thinks they are really worth, this suggests you can get a bargain or two—although, as always, there are no guarantees.

They include French drug maker . Berkshire Hathaway has accumulated about $1.8 billion worth of the stock. Sanofi's share price has come under pressure lately as a result of its acquisition of biotech giant Genzyme. At $35, its American Depositary Receipts are now about 12% below the average price Mr. Buffett paid.

Or look at . Mr. Buffett owns 97 million shares, a hefty 5.6% of the company, for which he paid an average of $33 each. Today the stock is just $32. It has been held back, in part, by the costs of the takeover of Britain's Cadbury. But the stock yields a decent 3.7%. It is a reasonable 14 times forecast earnings, and just over 1.1 times annual revenues.

Mr. Buffett also owns 45 million shares in health-care behemoth , a stake valued at about $2.7 billion. He paid about $61 for the stock: It's now $60, 12 times forecast earnings, yielding 3.6%. A cheap stock.

And what about ? It's tumbled in recent weeks to $52. That's just 12 times forecast earnings. And the dividend yield, 2.3%, may not be huge, but it's the highest it's ever been. Today's price is just a few dollars a share more than Warren Buffett paid: Berkshire Hathaway accumulated a $2 billion stake at an average of about $48.50.

4. Berkshire stock isn't expensive, by Mr. Buffett's own calculations.

No one knows exactly what a share in Berkshire Hathaway is really worth. Mr. Buffett himself told investors over the weekend that if you ask him and his veteran co-manager to calculate the intrinsic value of the stock, "you will get two different answers. Precision just isn't possible."

However, he says, "book," or net asset value is his preferred "understated proxy for intrinsic value." Mr. Buffett writes, "To be sure, some of our businesses are worth far more than their carrying value on our books.... But since that premium seldom swings wildly from year to year, book value can serve as a reasonable device for tracking how we are doing."

So it's intriguing that Berkshire Hathaway stock today trades at $128,000, or just 1.3 times that book value. Stifel's Mr. Shields says the historic average is about 1.6 times. If the "premium" between book value and the intrinsic value doesn't swing that much from year to year, one might conclude that Berkshire is looking a little cheap.

Naturally, as a big company, it has a lot less growth ahead of it. And as Mr. Buffett is 80, his years of producing spectacular investment returns are nearer the end than the beginning. Nonetheless, in a market where so many investments seem to be trading at lofty valuations, it is notable that Berkshire is below its average.

For those who wish to invest, and who don't have $128,000 in spare cash, the economy-class "B" shares trade for $85.

5. Get ready for a dividend hike at Wells Fargo.

Mr. Buffett's favorite bank, San Francisco-based , has had its dividend levels held back by the Federal Reserve, along with other banks, during the financial crisis. "At some point, probably soon, the Fed's restrictions will cease," he writes. "Wells Fargo can then reinstate the rational dividend policy that its owners deserve. At that time, we would expect our annual dividends from just this one security to increase by several hundreds of millions of dollars annually."

Berkshire Hathaway owns about $11 billion worth of Wells Fargo stock. It added a small amount in the fourth quarter. At $32, Wells Fargo is just 11 times forecast earnings, and less than one and a half times book value—compared to nearly three times book value five years ago. The dividend yield under the current regime is a paltry 0.6%. Five years ago it was around 3%.

 



French drugmaker = Sanofi-Aventis
Company who take over Calbury = Kraft Foods
Health Care Behemoth = Johnson & Johnson
2.3% dividend yield = Wal-mart Stores
Favorite banks = Well Fargo & Company

[ Write to Brett Arends at brett.arends@wsj.com ]
[ Brett Arends, On Thursday 3 March 2011, 4:12 SGT  ] 

Patenting may not be helpful if it cannot be detected for enforceability.

Patent Revocation

Revocation 

Any party, on application to the Registrar, may seek to revoke a patent on grounds including the following:

• the invention is not a patentable invention;
• the patent was granted to a person who is not entitled to the grant;
• the specification does not disclose the invention clearly and completely for it to be performed by a person skilled in the art;
• the matter disclosed in the specification extends beyond that disclosed in the patent application as filed;
• the amendment or correction to patent application or patent should not have been allowed;
• the non-disclosure/inaccurate disclosure of prescribed material information;
• the patent was obtained on any misrepresentation;
• the patent was obtained fraudulently;
• the patent is one of two or more patents for the same invention having the same priority date and filed by the same party or his successor in title.

Patent Claim consideration

Novelties and Inventive step of the invention are necessarily, and sufficiently manifested and accurately described.

The novelties and the invention step described in claim 1, the main claim is to be relentlessly reinforced and further deliberated in the subsequent dependent claims from claim 2 to claim xx or any other dependent claims that the patent attorney deem fit.