Is NOVA OK?

As I mentioned, I’ve been a NOVA student for about 12 years. The system is suitable to my way of English learning, and there are lots of NOVA schools all around Japan, so I have been able to continue the school even if I was transferred 2 times during the period.

As you all realize, Nova is now at stake of bankruptcy and share price of the company dropped sharply in recent one month. However there is an interesting phenomenon that occurred recently. That is even though the issued number of stocks is around 65 million, there were more than 60 million trades of NOVA stock in one day. It is an amazing number, because it is said about 80% of issued NOVA stocks are owned by the Saruhashi family who started NOVA. In other words, there must be only about 10 million floating NOVA stocks in the market. Does this sound strange? I’m now keeping my fingers crossed that Nova doesn’t conduct illegal stock trading in the market. In addition to that in the latest 2 weekdays NOVA’s stock price surged more than 2 times.

How to analyze this phenomenon is very difficult. However it is clear the rich group or corporation wants to manipulate the Nova stock price to get huge benefit. Behind the scene, the investment group might have some information which we can’t get, such as NOVA’s affiliation with HIS or other companies.

If Nova can get a partner that can support NOVA financially, I think NOVA can revive in a strong and rapid way. There are lots of factors to backup my theory. One is that NOVA has a lot of knowledge how to run the English conversation curriculum. Secondly, Nova’s TV online teaching named “Ginga-net” is nationwide and it is said there are about 200,000 online learners. Thirdly, Japanese education has become to emphasize English conversation and even in elementary school, there are mandatory English lessons. Fourthly, by using Ginga-net, NOVA can teach English, Chinese and other languages to all over the world, especially China has a lucrative market. The estimated number of Chinese English learners is more than 10 times of the number of Japanese English learners.

From now on I’ll continue the close observation of NOVA’s share price and the latest news announced by the NOVA. Once there are some hints of buying Nova shares, I won’t miss them.

America’s sub-prime loan

It is surprising America’s sub-prime loan gives so much effect on world economy. Especially last week Japan’s stock market suffered huge plunge. Nikkei 225 selected stock price average plunged by more than 800 yen which is the biggest in recent five years. I don’t know much about the sub-prime loan, but does it really affect Japanese economy? I doubt it. This is because main banks including World Bank infused a lot of money into the world’s markets, and Japanese export to other countries doesn’t seem to be affected by the lone. America’s big companies, which import Japanese goods, will not stop importing those goods.

Many stock analysts say that this Japanese stock market plunge is due to strong yen against Euro and American dollar. However, I have a little bit different opinion. Of course, strong yen is not good for big companies that have huge market abroad. But the biggest reason for the plunge is rather due to the people who got into panic when they saw the rapid plunge. Those people sold their stocks because they didn’t want to lose money any more.

Of course, sometimes it is indispensable to sell stocks in order to minimize the loss of investment. However it is important to believe your own theory and to judge the stock price from reasonable statistics and future prospect of the stock.

Summer vacation

I’m now in a summer vacation. During this vacation, I’d like to come up with a new proposal for my research regarding the field of network management for the future optical network. But there are so many temptations such as internet Shogi game, and cartoons and major league baseball games on cable TV.

In addition, I’m now planning to have a drinking party with my old friends who graduated from the same university with mine. If this plan is realized, it is a lot of fun to talk about the stock trading which is our common interest and interesting anecdotes in our good old days. In addition, if more than four members gather, we might play mah-jong which we played a lot in our university days and even after we became business men.

I think friends are very important. Of course money and health are important too, but they can’t replace the joy and comfort which we can get from our friends.

Anyway, I’ve make up my mind to start reading papers related to my research.

Everybody! Have a great summer vacation!