As far as R&D Spending, China swaps places with Japan! (Closes in on USA)

Well, I guess you might have seen it coming when you looked at the graph to the left....even though the numbers reported there look small for those years, the trajectory of growth is one that should be scary. (According to an article, in 2001 the USA spent $282 billion and Japan $104 billion)

So how has all this progressed....well, I am not sure it is going to be clear from the way money is spent since the world currencies are fluctuating and some say the Yuan is not properly set to the dollar. (China apparently fixes it and it is supposed to currently be undervalued)

But this article in 2003 clearly indicates that China is a distant third in R&D spending. Then
this 2004 article talks further about the advances in R&D spending in China, and their steady increases as a percentage of GDP. (this and the steady growth in technical education make it clear that this is a plan, not a fluke)

Then in 2005, this article simple asked the question directly in it's title, "Is China the next R&D Superpower?"

So last night we see this article that is yet another in the series.....this time we see that China has eclipsed Japan in R&D spending, and according to other articles I read is spending about 41% of what the US is in R&D. (That's $136 billion for China vs $330 billion in the USA...but that about that devalued Yuan...could they already actually be spending more than we calculate?)

What does this all mean.....well when a person at the Organization of Coorperation and Development is quoted as saying the development is "stunning", we might want to stand up and take notice. (and work to maintain our lead)

We will see if the news organizations in this country even report this. (I think it should be front page news)

Half of my VG turns into CHU!

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Well, about two months ago I decided I wanted to think about getting rid of my Vonage stock. I started by setting up a Scottrade Account ($7 internet trades) and having my Vonage stock transfered there. Then I sat and waited for the stock to rise a bit.

I had bought the stock at something like $9.00 a share when I thought it was an absolutely great buy. I do honestly believe that VoiP is the wave of the future, and I thought that Vonage was going to cash in on it by being there FIRST and biggest in the market. (They may still do that, but given their current state of disfavor, I don't think the stock is going up very soon.)

But at about the time I invested, the IPO buyers were all bent out of shape because they felt that had been taken. Then there were bits of bad news about companies takign Vonage to court for patent infringment, and several other negative news things came up...the stock quickly tanked to below $7.00 a share.

I still think Vonage is an OK company, but people think of it as a damaged stock....so I wanted out. But what to buy?

I started looking around, and I was always taught to invest in things you understand and believe in. In my travels, I have heard the stories of how the cell phone will be the dominent "appliance" in the world...NOT the computer. I thought of growing areas....and India and China came to mind. So I searched for mobile phone telecommunications companies there...and found good things being said about China Unicom LTD (CHU) and China Mobile Limited (CHL).

CHL is a big player, and CHU the smaller....and people were saying good things about both. I decided to sell half my VG and buy CHU, and I never looked back. (I liked the numbers behind CHU a bit more, but both seem like interesting companies.)

I sold the VG at about $7.20/share and bought the CHU for about $10.25/share. The VG has since sunk to about $6.56/share, and CHU is up to $11.49/share. I missed the latest high with VG, and should have just sold it all rather than being greedy. Next time is goes up, I'm out of VG for good!