Source: Brokerage China Author: Qu Hongyan Recently, China Yangtze Power hit a historical high and once again showed the slow bull stock trend of "tripling in ten years". The slow bull market has left behind many passers-by and brought good returns to the steadfast investors. It is "rare for those who triple in one year to be like carp jumping over the dragon gate, while those who double in three years are few and far between." On the other end of the investment world, however, violent collapses are also deafening, with many financial products suspected of "Ponzi schemes" ceasing payments, leaving investors with no hope of recovering their investments. Both positive and negative cases illustrate the importance of forming a suitable mentality towards money in one's lifetime; otherwise, sooner or later, you will divorce yourself from your money. "I call this the money mind, a person's IQ can reach 120, 140, or even higher levels, and perhaps some people's minds are good at doing one thing, while others are good at doing another. They can do things that most ordinary people can't do. But I know some very smart people who make very foolish decisions because they lack the money mind." Buffett once said so. The so-called money mind refers to believing in common sense, believing in compound interest, being cautious and rational, thinking independently, prioritizing security over return, not dealing with people with questionable character, not easily guaranteeing for others, not believing in windfall profits, and not trying to cross legal norms for extra benefits. In today's world of ubiquitous information, everyone's wealth may become the "prey" of those with ulterior motives. Only with the money mind, can one form good behavior habits and shield oneself from separating from one's wealth. Do not entrust your wealth easily. Wealth is easy to lose but hard to accumulate, and trust is a vital reason leading to the rapid loss of wealth. "Do not allow anyone else to manage your business unless you can watch their every move closely and understand their behavior; or you have strong reasons to believe in their character and ability. For investors, this criterion determines when you can let someone else make investment decisions for you." Graham's criterion written eighty years ago is so clear. Almost all the investors who lost their wealth in the financial products have violated the above two criteria. They did not have the ability to closely supervise the whereabouts of their funds, nor did they have sufficient reasons to believe in the character of the product issuers. They easily invested their own wealth solely based on others' glib tongue and a piece of commitment paper. They did not act as gatekeepers of their own wealth and ended up with nothing left even if the government punished the wrongdoers. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." This is a phrase Munger often says. Destiny must be in one's own hands, and investors with a suitable money mind will try their best to find suspicious points in their investments to protect the safety of their principal. For example, whether the manager is trustworthy, whether the underlying assets are profitable, whether oneself can timely monitor the risks in the investment process, and whether the sales staff is obtaining large commissions. As long as any unreliable signs are found, these investors firmly will not invest their money. Do not desire to get rich quick. As in the capital market and anywhere else, making money is not easy, and desiring to get rich quick will lead to quick loss of wealth. In the capital market, the desire to get rich quickly often leads to investors over-allocating specific stocks, industries, or assets at the worst time. For example, buying high-risk stocks that can gain huge returns once an adventure succeeds, but the chance of success is very small, also known as "whispering stocks" by legendary fund manager Peter Lynch. "They often tell investors a story with explosive effects. These 'whispering stocks' have a hypnotic effect on people, and it is easy for you to believe that the story the company tells has an emotional appeal that can easily confuse you." This is like hearing a very tempting "sizzling" sound, making you salivate, but you did not notice that there is no steak on the grill. In the eyes of investors who lack the money mind, stable yield provided by blue chips such as China Yangtze Power cannot meet their demands. However, historical experience clearly shows that buying stocks lacking in safety solely based on imagined high yields is unwise. The long-term average investment return of general stocks is 9%-10%, which is also the average investment return of stock indexes in history, a benchmark to measure one's investment performance and the benchmark to measure fund investment performance.
Author: Zhang Da

From December 24 to 25, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development held a national housing and urban-rural construction work conference, systematically summarizing the work for 2024 and clarifying the key tasks for 2025.

The meeting reviewed the key tasks for 2024. It pointed out that there will be positive changes in the Real Estate market in 2024. Efforts will be made to stabilize the Real Estate market and accelerate the establishment of a new model for Real Estate development.

First, the departments worked together to implement a policy combination of "four cancellations, four reductions, and two increases". Local policies were tailored to each city, and targeted measures were taken. The Real Estate market showed signs of recovery, with new Commodity housing transaction net signed area increasing year-on-year and month-on-month for two consecutive months in October and November.

Second, the focus was on continuing the fight to ensure housing deliveries, with 3.38 million housing units delivered, achieving the set target.

Third, efforts were made to resolve risks faced by Real Estate companies, promoting the establishment of Real Estate financing coordination mechanisms in all prefecture-level and above cities, and expanding and enhancing the efficiency of "white list" projects.

Fourth, a new mechanism linking housing elements with money was established, with major cities developing and implementing annual housing development plans for 2024.

Fifth, the transformation of villages in the city has expanded to over 300 cities, implementing 1,790 transformation projects in the villages and constructing 1.617 million units of resettlement housing, while transforming 74,000 units of urban dilapidated houses.

Sixth, a total of 1.72 million units of supply-type security housing, guaranteed rental housing, and public rental housing have been constructed and allocated, solving housing problems for a large number of new citizens, young people, and migrant workers.

Seventh, support is provided for 20.5 million contributors nationwide to withdraw 240.2 billion yuan from their housing provident fund for paying rent, with more than 1 million flexible employees covered by the system through pilot programs.

Eighth, the construction of good houses is being advanced in an orderly manner, with the China Construction Technology Expo held to showcase 167 new achievements, technologies, and applications in digital, industrial, and intelligent development, focusing on displaying model good houses and renovated old houses. The "Good Housing Technical Guidelines" have been released to guide real estate companies to actively build good houses.

The meeting emphasized that 2025 is the final year of the "14th Five-Year" plan and a crucial year for laying the foundation for the "15th Five-Year" plan. The significance of doing a good job in housing and urban-rural construction work is profound. Next year, the overall approach to housing and urban-rural construction nationwide is: to release the enormous potential for stable growth in housing and urban-rural construction more fully, strengthen the guarantee and improvement of people's livelihood more effectively, systematically prevent and resolve risks and hidden dangers, and comprehensively promote the "Four Goods" construction of good houses, good communities, and good urban areas, stabilize the housing market, accelerate the construction of a new model for real estate development, vigorously promote urban renewal, facilitate the transformation and upgrading of the construction industry, resolutely complete the target tasks of the "14th Five-Year" plan, and strive to promote high-quality development in housing and urban-rural construction.

The meeting pointed out that in 2025, five key areas of work should be focused on:

• First, the real estate market should be continuously promoted to stop the decline and stabilize.

• Second, promote the establishment of a new model for real estate development.

• Thirdly, actively implement urban renewal;

• Fourthly, create an upgraded version of 'China Construction';

• Fifthly, build safe, comfortable, green, and smart good houses.

In continuously promoting the stabilization of the Real Estate market,

Firstly, focus on releasing demand. Firmly implement the 'four cancellations, four reductions, two increases' stock and increment policies, and vigorously support rigid and improved housing demand. Effectively utilize the role of housing provident funds. Increase efforts in transforming urban villages and old dangerous houses, promote monetary resettlement, and continue to expand the urban village transformation scale based on an additional 1 million units, eliminate safety hazards, and improve living conditions. Key support will be provided for projects where the community has a strong desire for transformation and the conditions are relatively mature.

Secondly, focus on improving supply. The construction of commercial housing must strictly control increment, optimize stock, and improve quality. Build according to demand, increase the supply of Indemnificatory Apartments, and put more effort into ensuring that a large number of new citizens, young people, and migrant workers achieve stable housing.

In promoting the construction of a new model for Real Estate development,

Firstly, focus on optimizing and improving the housing supply system, accelerate the development of Indemnificatory Housing, meet the rigid housing needs of urban low-income groups, and support urban governments to implement policies according to local conditions, increasing the supply of improved housing, especially good houses.

Secondly, promote the establishment of a new mechanism for element interaction, with the formulation and implementation of housing development plans and annual plans as the focus, using people to determine housing, housing to determine land, and housing to determine funds, to promote the balance of supply and demand in Real Estate and market stability.

Thirdly, vigorously promote the reform of the Commodity housing sales system, effectively and orderly implement the sale of existing houses, and optimize the supervision of pre-sale funds.

Fourthly, accelerate the establishment of a safety management system for the entire lifecycle of Residences to provide strong protection for housing safety.

Fifthly, improve the comprehensive supervision of Real Estate, rectify the order of the Real Estate market, and effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of the public.

In terms of vigorously implementing urban renewal,

firstly, adhere to "first Physical Examination, then renewal; no Physical Examination, no renewal," and establish an integrated promotion mechanism for urban Physical Examination and urban renewal.

Secondly, deepen the reform of the urban construction, Operation, and governance system, and establish sustainable urban renewal models and policies.

Thirdly, plan and implement a batch of urban renewal and transformation projects, fully complete the renovation tasks of old urban communities built before the end of 2000, basically complete the renovation tasks of aging gas pipelines that have been identified, and fundamentally eliminate black and malodorous water bodies in built-up areas of county-level cities. Encourage localities to explore residents' independent renovations of old Residences.

The fourth is to establish a new model for urban management, improve the "one committee, one office, one platform", promote the integration of urban management into grassroots governance, create a new system for intelligent and efficient governance, and enhance the scientific, refined, and intelligent level of urban management.

The fifth is to use "New Urban Construction" as an engine to create a high-level "Digital Residence Construction", systematically promote digital homes, smart residential areas, intelligent building management, urban operation management service platforms, and the smart transformation of municipal infrastructure, fully enhancing the level of digitalization, networking, and intelligence.

In upgrading the "China Construction" version,

Firstly, comprehensively deepen the reform of the construction industry, transform construction methods, reform systems such as project supervision, project costing, and completion acceptance, improve the engineering quality and safety assurance system, and vigorously develop the modern construction industry.

Secondly, stimulate the strong vitality of construction enterprises and practitioners with higher quality institutional supply.

Thirdly, overall enhance the engineering construction standards, national standards raise the bar, industry standards correspondingly improve, encourage and support the formulation of group standards and enterprise standards, to lead the upgrading of the construction industry with standards.

Fourthly, promote intelligent construction, green construction, and Prefabricated Buildings on a larger scale.

Fifthly, cultivate green buildings into a new economic growth point. Achieve the goal of comprehensively executing green building standards for new buildings by 2025, promote energy conservation and carbon reduction in the building sector, and carry out pilot projects for high-quality development of building photovoltaics.

In the construction of safe, comfortable, green, and Asia Vets quality homes,

first, improve the standards for Residence construction and publish the newly revised "Residence Project Specifications" and other Residence standards.

second, build a system to support the improvement of housing quality, vigorously develop quality homes that align with the new expectations of the people.

third, support real estate companies, especially large real estate companies, to create a batch of model quality homes, making Indemnificatory Apartments high-quality first.

fourth, promote the renovation and updating of old Residences, and promote Prefabricated Buildings renovation to transform old and outdated homes into quality homes.

fifth, vigorously implement actions to improve Property Service quality.

编辑/jayden