Sales Going On.. Spring 2009

Just got really awesome clothes at Club Monaco. 1 beautiful lilac dress with ruffles, 1 lilac python skinny belt, 1 long grey cardigan, and 1 blue and black floral full skirt. Everything I got was already marked down (except the belt), plus you get an additional Student Discount of 20% off at Club Monaco, if you just show them your Student ID! It's the first time I got clothes at Club Monaco and I LOVE IT! I will be returning.

Also got the YSL Volume Effet Faux Cils Mascara (French for Volume Effect Fake Lashes, I suppose?) and the YSL Touche Eclat. I know the Mascara is definitely awesome, I've tried it and all of my friends rave about it. I've heard good things about the Touche Eclat, which is apparently the #1 selling cosmetic item in all of Bloomingdales. Also got the Mac Liquid Eyeliner.. because I've been using the Mac Fluid Line, but I feel like it's just not dramatic enough.

Anyway, enough about myself and my purchases... I wanted to tell you all of the sales going on now!

Macy's Friends and Family Sale



Bloomingdales is having a presale for all regular priced shoes: Buy 2 pairs and get 20% percent off!

Bloomies is also having a handbag event, with all already discounted bags for an extra 40% off. I saw this really cool Lambskin Leather Lilac Coach bag at the SOHO Bloomies for only $150. I don't love Coach so I didn't get it. There's a lot of other cool Coach stuff, some Botkier, some Felix Rey actually.




Lastly, Bloomies is doing $25 off for every $100 online, with code SAVE25 good through May 10, 2009. It's supposed to be a mother's day promotion, so get something for your mommies!!

SAKS is supposedly having this legendary sale... some are calling it Sale of the Century. You sign up for more details at http://Saks.com/areyouin. Supposedly, it will start at 40% off, and then go up to 70% off. I'll definitely keep this on my radar and update this as I find out more information. I do think it will feature Chanel, YSL, Christian Louboutin, and other high end lines which NEVER go on sale.

BCBG is having 20% off all full-priced items, online with code BCBGSTYLE09, and in store with a copy of People Style Watch May 2009. There's also other random places with sales in the People Style Watch May 2009 issue, but I don't find any of the stores super nice or anything.

Valuations for Dummies Part 2

This post is continued from Valuation for Dummies

So in the first entry, I basically explained how to value a project, the value of a firm, the value of equity, or the value of a stock (which is just equity per share). I will go into more details in this entry about the WEIGHTED AVERAGE COST OF CAPITAL (WACC), or simply the Cost of Capital.

Companies need to raise money to undertake different projects or for plans of expansion. They can accomplish that through 2 main financial instruments: Equity and Debt. The capital they raise of course come at a cost, as no one will lend out money for free. That cost, which is an interest rate (which would be a percent) is the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC).

The WACC, or the Cost of Capital, is the average of the (1) THE COST OF EQUITY, and (2) THE COST OF DEBT. It is a percent at which you are discounting all the cash flows by, because it is how much it will cost for the firm (or the project) to get capital. Basically, an interest rate for the company. To think of it, you can think of the credit card APR for a company. Obviously, it will be a lot lower than our individual APR we get on our American Express card, because banks and investors believe that a company can pay back its debt better than individuals. The more likely you are able to pay back your debt, the lower the interest on capital is. For you and me, we have our credit score.

For corporations, there is something called Beta, which reflects how risky the company is. The lower the Beta, or the less risky the company is, the lower rate they will have. This is reflected in the COST OF EQUITY.

Corporations also have a rating, given by a rating agency (which can be Moody's, S&P). It is very similar to our individual credit score, except they are rated on different scales. For example, investment grade S&P ratings range from AAA to BBB. Depending on what rating the company has, it will have a different cost of debt. Each rating has a corresponding spread, that you add to the risk free debt (which is usually the 10-year U.S. Government bond), to get an interst rate for the COST OF DEBT.

Using the Cost of Equity and Cost of Debt, you can get the Weighted Average Cost of Capital by take the weight of equity times the cost of equity, plus the weight of debt times the cost of debt. Sounds complicated, but it's simply just the weighted average. Once you get your WACC, you can discount your cashflows by this interest rate! Next, I'll probably go into how to get your free cash flows.

ACL Update

Ok so my MRI results came back... Completely tore my ACL, partially tore my MCL, and tore my LCL. WTF, didn't even know there was a LCL. I hate my life. I want to die. I wished I had the swine flu so I could die.

This is probably the worst thing that happened to me... I mean nothing horrible has ever happened to me and this is definitely the worst. I was watching some videos on ACL reconstructive surgery and it's gross. They basically graft muscle from your shin, meaning they cut up your shin, cut out the muscle, sew it back, and use that as the graft for an artifical ACL. To get the ACL into the knee, they drill through the bone, and the screw it in on both sides of the knee. It's seriously the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life.

I'm so scared I can't stop crying. People say it's the most painful thing they have ever gone through. I guess I can deal with the pain, but I don't think I can deal with the inconvienence, and not being able to do what I want to do. Crutches suck, and I live in a 3rd floor walk up. How the hell am I supposed to get home? I can't deal with the fact that I won't be able to go to school or go to work for a few weeks. It's like my life completely on standby for a few weeks. And after that, it takes 6 months to recover, so it's like half a year out of my life for nothing.

Looked into non-surgical methods, but that still means that I can't run or play basketball ever in my life. I don't have a lot of vices or hobbies or whatever, and basketball is one of them, and I can't even do that. Not to mention I'm getting fat sitting on my ass not getting cardio from running, which I used to do everyday. There's this thing called PRP, which most likely will not work, especially on a completely torn ACL, which isn't even covered by my insurance.

Again, i reiterate.. I want to die..

Torn ACL

So last Tuesday playing basketball, I tore my ACL. I got the really amazing rebound over this 6'5 guy, but I when I landed, my right knee bent to the right, and it sorta popped out and popped back in. I didn't think it was a big deal, was on the floor for a minute, but got up and continued playing. Hurt it again, while running, so I decided to take it easy and just shoot around. I hurt for the 3rd time taking a jump shot and thats when I realized I should stop altogether.

Everything was fine, until I woke up the next morning and had to roll out of bed. My knee was sooooo swollen. Friends finally convinced me to see a doctor and the doctor drained the fluids out of my knee. It was a red color, containing blood and pus. The doctor said if I didnt get it taken out, the blood cells would rot and eat up the cartilage in my knee. He did an anterior drawer test, which basically rest the knee at 90 degrees to see if there is movement in the knee. I tested positive for a torn ACL.

Also saw a physical therapist today, who did the Lochner test which is pretty much the same thing and he told me that I probably have a grade 2 ACL tear, which is worse than grade 1, better than grade 3. Basically, I would need to get surgery, or as an alternative, I can quit basketball and running and all other sports I so dearly love.

I know I'm being bratty, but I can't even bear to think of surgery. My life is hard enough as it is.. I have class from 8-12:50, go into work until 7:00pm, and then go to the gym to work out a bit and then head home. I'm always around everywhere, I can't bear to think what my life would have to be like with crutches and limited mobility.

There is this thing called prolotherapy, which is a injection of dextrose and a local anesthetic, which encourages blood flow to the ligaments. Ligaments don't usually heal because of limited blood flow to the area, and the injection promotes local inflammation of the area.

I guess I'll know when the MRI comes out Friday... moment of truth. In the meanwhile, I cant even think about it... :(

The Most Accurate Quiz I Ever Took...

The world is your oyster. You are confident -- or at least, confident in your self-expression, and this often leads to confidence in all things. You love your friends and hate your enemies, and when you want something, you go out and get it. You are both bold and friendly, sunny and perspicacious. You laugh frequently, smile even more, but are not a sucker and will always fight for yourself.

Valuations for Dummies

Ok.. So what exactly is finance and investment banking? Here I'll attempt to give the basics of what it is I'm learning in school and what I'm going to be doing upon graduation in investment banking...

A business (or an investment project) is essentially a money generating entity. How valuable a business is, is based on the amount of money the business will generate. Basically, the value of the sum of all the cash flows. Essentially we are just adding the cash the business will generate every year. The only problem is that there is a rate at we must discount the cash flows. This is because $1.00 today is not the same as $1.00 in 50 years. We need to take that into account.

Therefore, we must take the free cash flow that the business is generating every year. What number do we use for the free cash flows? It will be basically the cash that the firm is generating. The free cash flow will include the earnings of the business, adjusted for tax paid to the government, adjusted for expenses that accountants have subtracted from earnings, but not actually a cash outflow (depreciation and amortization), also have subtract the change in net working capital, and lastly, subtract the capital expenditures.

From there, we need to figure out the free cash flow every year. Obviously we can't tell the future, so we will try to predict what the future cash flows will be. We can look at the company's history and predict a growth rate, and we can use this growth rate to predict the next year's cash flow, the year after, and so forth.

Lastly, we can't simply just add all the cash flows together because $1.00 today is not the same as $1.00 in 50 years. I'm sure we would all agree that we would rather take the money today. Therefore, we have do, what you call "discount" the cash flows at a rate. How we discount something is to divide the cash flows by 1 plus an interest rate, and take it to the power of the number of years we are discounting it by. This interest rate, we call WACC, or the Weighted Average Cost of Capital. We are discounting the cash flows for the opportunity cost of the cash flows. Essentially, what it is saying is that there is an interest rate for debt (called the cost of debt), and there is an interest rate for equity (known as the cost of equity). Depending how the company is set up, (debt to equity ratio), we will have different weights for the interest rate for equity and debt. If we know the weights, and the cost of equity and debt, we can find the weighted average cost of capital.

After discounting every cash flow, we can then add them all together to get a firm value!

Using the discounted cash flow valuation, we can price how much the company is worth, and if another company is thinking of taking it over, we can find out the price to pay for that company.

On the investment side to value a stock, we find the value of the firm, and subtract the value of debt to get a total equity value. From there, we divide that by the number of shares, and we get a price per share for a specific company. This is what is quoted in the newspapers, when they say for example Apple is trading $110 per share.

Topshop...

So the Topshop frenzy has official entered Soho. I lived in London for 4 months, so I definitely have a fondess for Topshop... Was excited initially when I heard Topshop was coming to NY, but not so much anymore. First of all, Topshop does not feature some of the brands they sell in London. For example, they do not sell Lipsy in New York as most of the things I buy from Topshop are the featured brands they sell. The regular Topshop stuff is very H&M level, and I might as well buy from H&M.

My biggest issue with the Topshop in Soho is that the exchange rate they are using is a $2 for 1GBP. The current exchange rate for Dollars to pound is $1.45 to 1GBP. That means everything is close to 40% more expensive buying it here than in London! So therefore, Topshop, I will not be worshiping you like all the other girls going crazy who camped outside for the grand opening.

Steak Guide

I love steak, so here's a steak guide to go with the wine guide.

First lets start off with a diagram of the parts of a cow:




The most common cuts of steak I will go through is the filet mignon, Strip steak (New York strip), Sirlion Steak, Ribeye Steak, T-Bone and Porterhouse, and Prime Rib. Just to clarify before I start, a steak can be judged on its tenderness and its flavor. The tenderness depends on what part of the cow it comes from and if the muscle has been used by the cow while he was alive  The flavor comes from the fat of the steak. Usually, the more flavorful steak has pieces of fat embedded in it, which causes the fat to melt while cooked called marbling. This creates the flavor and the juiciness of the steak.

1. The Filet Mignon, (also known as tenderloin steak, fillet steak, chateaubriand) is the most tender part of the steak, taken from the tenderloin area (in light green color). There is low fat content, so there is less marbling when cook and it does not have a lot of flavor although still good. It is usually a big piece, although not flat, very high.
2. The Strip Sirloin Steak, (also known as New York Strip, Kansas City Strip) comes from the sirloin part of the steak (in neon green color). This part of the muscle does no work and therefore is very tender. It is the most flavorful part of the steak.
3. The Top Sirloin Steak, comes from the top sirloin part of the cow (in peach color) or the tip short loin (in green color). This fat is removed, so there is only meat so it is not as flavorful. However, the steak is very tender and therefore very delicious.
4. Ribeye Steak which is known as the filet of the prime rib, comes from the rib part of the cow (in orange). It is from a tender and fatty piece of meat, usually the most popular of red meat selections. The flavor is from the marbling of the fat. It can be severed boneless or bone-in.
5. T-Bone and Porterhouse is a combination steak with a lot of fat, so therefore a lot of marbling. This is from the center of the short loin where the bone separates the top sirloin and the tenderloin. The difference between a T-Bone steak and a Porterhouse steak is that a Porterhouse usually has more meat on it.

Wine Guide

So turning 21 and my trip to Argentina having wine with every meal sparked an interest for me in wines. By no way am I an expert, but I’m attempting to learn about the basics of wine, through actually writing a wine 101 guide.

So what is wine? It’s essentially fermented grape juice. There are three major classification of wine: white, red, and champagne (four, if you count rose). White wine doesn’t necessarily come from green grapes and red wine doesn’t necessarily come from red grapes, since the flesh of all grapes are white. The color of red wine comes from the skin of the grape, which infuses the red wine with tannin, the ingredient that gives red wine its distinct flavor. Most champagne are made from red grapes, but the color of it is white.

Non-European wines are usually classified by the wine or the grape type for example Pinor Noir or Merlot. European wines are usually classified by the region for example Bordeaux, which is from the Bordeaux region of France which can include Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petite Verdot, Malbec, or Merlot.

There’s also the vintage, which is essentially the year the grapes were harvested. The older does not necessarily mean better. It depends on the specific vintage year as some season it will be warmer producing riper grapes, and a poorer growing season will produce grapes lower in sugar. If you really want to get technical, here is a chart of vintage years by region. Some wines are better when aged, such as some red wines especially Bordeaux. Carbernet can benefit from aging of 10 to 15 years, Pinot Noir of more than 5 years, Merlot 5 years.

The general food paring with wine says that white wine usually go with a light meal (seafood), and red wine of a heavier body usually go with heartier foods (red meats). This is only the basics, but there are also other ways to pair wine with food such as dry/sweetness it is.

Champagne is sparking wine produced from the carbonation in the secondary fermentation process. Under international law, Champagne is usually made exclusively from the Champagne region in France. Other sparking wine made not from the Champagne region usually do not have the name “Champagne” on the labels.

Although France and Italy had been the traditional winemakers, new world wines that are produced out of Europe has received much acclaim. These regions include Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.S. I had some of the best Malbec (from the Mendoza province) in Argentina, and it goes great with their really great steak. California’s wineries are famous for Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, and Chardonnay.

Now we have the basics on how to understand a wine label. This is something I took from an article from askmen.com



1- Alcohol Content
2- Appellation or Growing Region
3- Bottle Volume
4- Name of Wine
5- Producer
6- Quality of Wine
7- Type of Wine
8- Variety
9- Vintage