What Kate Stalter says about CTRP

Ctrip.com By Kate Stalter
Posted 11/25/2009 02:22 PM ET


Chinese travel agency Ctrip.com (CTRP) recently cleared a long cup-with-handle pattern. After making a strong upside move, it appears to be consolidating gains well above its 10-week average.

•CTrip.com is a mid-cap. It trades a million shares a day.
•Fund ownership has grown in each of the past two quarters, a good sign of support from professional investors.
•Funds own 27% of shares, a healthy number.
•CTrip’s Earnings Per Share Rating is 99. Quarterly profit growth accelerated in the past three quarters.
•Return on equity is excellent, at 35%.
•Its group, Leisure-Services, continues to be a strong performer.
•CTrip has an outstanding Composite Rating, 99.


Chart Analysis
•Emerging from its bear-market correction, CTrip made several successful pullbacks to its 10-week average (Point 1). None of these, however, were long enough to constitute proper bases.
•Its most recent pullback (Point 2) could be viewed as a handle to a long cup-shaped pattern that began in May 2008 (Point 3).
•However, the handle was somewhat flawed, correcting about 16%, a little more than you see in an ideal handle.
•It cleared the high of that pattern (Point 4) in heavy volume earlier this month, after a better than expected third-quarter earnings report.
•It’s now consolidating those gains a bit. Watch to see if it goes on to form a proper base.
•With the current outlook being Market Uptrend Under Pressure, be very cautious about any new buys.


Stock Checkup
•CTrip.com has the best Composite Rating in the 43-member Leisure-Services industry group.
•It also has the group’s best SMR Rating, thanks to a strong return on equity and accelerating sales

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The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was the first book of the speculative fiction genre I have read. I found some of the information about the alternate world a bit jarring in places because my thought of "I don't remember it that way" took me out of the story rather than hooking me deeper into the world-building the author was doing.
The author created likeable characters and a truly-dastardly villian to keep you entertained. I'm willing to recommend it to acquaintances who have not tried reading this genre before because the telling of the narrative encourages your curiosity.

View all my reviews >>

A Dog Named Christmas by Greg Kincaid


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The book is an easy and enjoyable read. It has the best structure and craft of writing of the last three Christian-genre books I recently read.

I'll recommend it those readers who enjoyed Marley and Me.

If you don't want to read the book, watch the Hallmark Presents A Dog Named Christmas on CBS, Nov 29 9-11 EST.

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Just when you think it will ...

Killer Cuts by Elaine Viets


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I recommend this to cozy mystery readers who also watch Split Ends and Tabitha's Salon Takeovers.
I can hardly wait for the next novel in this series because the action in the last chapter really thwarted Helen Hawthorne. Darn you, Elaine Viets and your dastardly plotting!

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The Completion of Downsizing Our Collection of Books

Done! Done, done, done!

The task of downsizing our collection is finished. I suspect that many normal people think I have a long way to go if I were to ever put this house on the market. Donna and Shannon Freeman would be telling Clive that our collections of books is "too taste specific" and "has too much of our own personality still in the house for potential buyers to see themselves living here."

I mentioned in a previous blog we have eight bookcases filled with collections of Harvard Classics, Library of America, local history, books we bought while traveling, Civil War history, fantasy series, cozy mysteries for entertainment, National Geographic and Time-Life books for armchair travel, and reference books for investing, Photoshop Elements, and genealogy. This project is finished because I added the titles of six boxes of books in garage storage to the to-read shelves of my husband and I at goodreads.com AND I offered the titles of books in eight boxes to my Half.com listings.

My husband and I have more than 400 books to-read. I don't expect to be done with That Project for another 4-6 years. Hikerdon began his collection of some fantasy series in the early 1990s. He did not feel the need to rush to read them because he liked to read a series one after another without waiting a year or more for the next installment to be released. Confusion about the many different series from a same author have led him to purchases that did not complete a series. Goodreads.com is a useful tool for keeping series straight. My project of reading all the books I bought on our travels (project started in 2007) will not be completed in 2009 as I thought it might when I finished The Best of Edward Abbey. I found more books for that project in the box marked "Western books. "

Guess what we DON'T need for Christmas!

my to-read bookshelf

Hikerdee's to-read book montage

Hikerdee's favorite books »

Hikerdon's to-read shelf

Hikerdon's to-read book montage

Hikerdon's favorite books »

The Thirteenth Tale

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The story was creepy and the family history of the twins was weird enough to give me shivers--Just what you want in a gothic novel! The author does an excellent job of pacing and revealing just enough information with Vida Winter's storytelling. The author pauses to give Margaret Lea time to reflect and and make notes and this feels as if it were a shared conversation about what we were both told.

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Downsizing Our Collection of Books

We began downsizing the volumes of books in our home library in 2003 when my husband and I changed the use of that room. During the redecoration, we boxed the books we had bought as a family of readers since 1973. Our children had already taken their collections to their own households. The time was right to downsize our collection because some books we would never need again. We donated the read books from our membership in The Literary Guild and Quality Paperback Book Clubs. Books bought for reference for the school projects of our children were given to the school library. Altogether, car-trunk-loads of books were gone. We looked at what remained to go back into the three bookcases our interior designer imagined would be sufficient for a couple of readers and collectors. Three bookcase units? Obviously we were working with a man who saw books more as a design element to complement sculptures and photography. At that time we had 23 boxes of unread books in storage in our garage. Even we had to admit that was too many books. Yet they all went in the Keep pile which was subdivided into Keep-because-it's-a-favorite-worth-reading-again-some-day, Keep-as-reference, and Keep-because-we-want-to-read.

This is where I stored our keep piles. When the three new bookcases were in place, the Harvard Classics library books and the books from our charter membership in Library of America found their places in our high regard. High regard means they are stored as collections and not as design elements. Books about investing are scattered between reference shelves and garage storage. Five sets of shelving storage were placed in our garage to give our stored books protection from the wet floors of winter. More interior bookcases were purchased and put where the designer would have shuddered at our lack of taste and disregard for his plan. We had a bookcase for my husband's books about the Civil War and a bookcase for fantasy series. Local history books and books published by National Geographic and Time-Life for armchair traveling filled two more bookcases.

Six years later, I must still wonder, "What else do I want to keep, what can I sell on www.Half.com or eBay or what shall I donate?"
I documented our Keep-because-we-want-to-read library as "to read" at www.goodreads.com
my yet-to-be-read Library
Husband's yet-to-be-read Library

The project now extends to the books stored in our garage. Good news! In the last six years, the 23 boxes of unread books has been whittled down to 18 boxes of books. Most of these have been read. Choosing to offer for sell or donate a read book may appear easy. No, the choice is not easy once the book enchanted this reader with its spell. Now many boxes are labeled Favorites. These are books I didn't loan for fear they wouldn't be read or returned. Instead, when I recommended them, I suggested where the books could be found (library or bookstore) so that the intention to read would be strengthened in the act of locating them. Does my reason for keeping them six years ago still remain? If we move, is the cost of shipping worth the value of this book to me?