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Sage absent but son tells borrowed wisdom like it is
Where is Asian stock god Lee Shau-kee when we need his investment advice?
Yesterday Lai See went to his  76th-floor office at International Financial Centre for two hours in the hope of  receiving his words of wisdom, but he was not there.
So we moved on to his elder son Peter Lee Ka-kit to shed some light on the current market turbulence.
'I have not seen  [my father] today,' said Mr Lee. 'But let me borrow the words of the next door Mr Li [Ka-shing]: 'don't borrow money to buy stock'.
'You should only buy based on what you have. If you have holding power, you'll make your way back.
'So invest, but do not speculate. That is how my father did it. You know people in his generation preferred long-term investments, but we tend to trade stocks and switch to the one with higher returns.'
When we asked about his short-term view, the Henderson Land vice-chairman said even George W. Bush seemed to have run out of ways to handle the financial crisis, and as a result the bad news  has not been fully reflected. Watch out for the  earnings season in March when major European banks  announce bad results.
Sadly, this time we couldn't get him to give a bullish forecast  for the Hang Seng Index,  or any stocks.
Bold  predictions
Lee Shau-kee's buddy, New World Development chairman Cheng Yu-tung,  is not known as  a man of guts for nothing.
Yesterday he boldly predicted that the Hang Seng Index was close to the bottom. He advised investors to consider buying back into the market and tipped the Hang Seng Index  to return to the 30,000-point level by year-end. He  expressed favour for mainland financials, mining and insurance stocks.
Mr Cheng also said he expected the  United States  to cut  its benchmark interest rate by 100 basis points very soon. That was also the prediction yesterday of Bank of East Asia chairman David Li Kwok-po.
Don't worry, be happy
What, me worry?
Yes, we worry.
Former Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp  chairman David Eldon  employed these two  phrases to describe the mood  in the shadow of the global equity meltdown.
In his bi-weekly blog, he  said the subprime  crisis might be painful, but it was not life-threatening.  Not too much to worry about then.
However, he was  concerned  credit card defaults  could reflect the subprime market, which could affect trade, particularly with Asia. And yes, that's worrisome.
The mainland will feel the heat, but there will be no natural disaster.
'While we would, of course, rather have neither, most people I know prefer the fact that you can make preparations for a typhoon that you cannot make for an earthquake,' Mr Eldon said. 'I think we need to consider those preparations now to stand a chance of weathering whatever storm might come.'
Like his fellow Scottish HSBC bankers, Mr Eldon grasps the art of managing people's expectations.
Hidden messages
If you are looking for an excuse to sell, how about this one:
Bear Stearns analyst Mohan Singh, nicknamed 'Mr Unlimited Upside' in Chinese,  fell sick this week.
'The US sneezes and I catch a cold in Hong Kong,' he said.
Last year the  ever-bullish analyst joined a not-so-bullish company, and from that move, some of his followers might have gleaned a subtle message about the state of the market.
Giving back
Back to where we started, Peter Lee yesterday dropped a little hint about what his father  has in mind for this year.
Tycoon Lee Shau-kee is in the process of setting up his third charity project in addition to his Warmth Project  on the mainland and the Peu Hua Education Fund, which  specialises in expanding water sources in places like Gansu province.
The Lee family had  humble  beginnings.  With  just HK$1 in his pocket when he  arrived in Hong Kong from Shunde, Peter Lee yesterday recalled how  his father still rented an apartment in Towning Mansion, Causeway Bay, some 40 years ago.
The rest is history. Hong Kong's third-largest landlord and a cash-rich tycoon is sitting on  substantial profits from the  mainland share market, and is now ready to open up his wallet to fund water projects  on the mainland.



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Lai See