Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Luce fall tasting menu

Luce fall tasting menu by etslee
Luce fall tasting menu, a photo by etslee on Flickr.
I recently dined at Luce, the restaurant in the slightly out of the way Intercontinental Hotel. Both my friend and I were satisfied with the meal and service (at about $80+ for tasting menu) but nothing stood out as extraordinary. I think the consistency of the quality was notable however, and looking at these shots, you can see that the presentation was just as nice.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Tech earnings befuddle me

Earnings season is here for the 3rd Quarter and I just wanted to track the results for the 5 "biggest" tech companies right now. Just doing a little research and reading the financial sites, I get the sense that Facebook (FB) is beaten down but getting a bounce, Google (GOOG) is losing steam, Amazon (AMZN) is the teflon company with astronomical P/E that I can't understand, Microsoft (MSFT) is trying desperately to catch up, and Apple (APPL) has moved from media darling to punching bag. But the numbers don't lie:

GOOG: sales of 11.33 billion, earnings 2.18 billion, P/E=21.22
AMZN: sales of 13.8 billion, earnings of minus 274 million (yes that's a loss), P/E=279.4!!
MSFT: sales of 16 billion, earnings of 4.47 billion, P/E=15
APPL: sales of 36 billion, earnings of 8.2 billion, P/E=14.5
FB: sales of 1.26 billion, earnings of 311 million, P/E=246

Monday, October 22, 2012