The trillions of dollars that Washington is throwing at beleaguered American industries could have unforeseen consequences in the longer term viability of domestic investment opportunities. Washington’s handouts may come at the expense of funding important R&D projects that could give the U.S. a long-term competitive edge that it appears to be losing to Asia.

If in fact this scenario plays out, emerging markets in Asia could prove to be the superior play in the coming decades as they surpass America’s R&D investments.

R&D is the cornerstone of sustained growth. For example, China recognizes this by launching a branding campaign that turns the pejorative “made in China” to a higher value added “created in China.”

While some of the R&D numbers coming out of Asia today still may pale compared to the U.S., the important criteria is the percentage of GDP and overall growth that these emerging markets are investing in innovation.

For example, South

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Today, Amazon.com announced that the 2008 holiday season was its “best ever” with more than 6.3 million items ordered and 5.6 million units shipped during its peak day on Dec. 15. The company’s upbeat announcement was quite different from most brick-and-motor retail locations. Amazon’s bestsellers included the Nintendo Wii, Samsung’s 52-inch LCD HDTV, the Apple iPod touch and the Blokus board game.

Let us hear your thoughts below:

Satcon Technology Corporation, provider of renewable energy power conversion solutions, today announced a three-year agreement with Samsung to supply the power inverters for Samsung’s worldwide solar power plant projects. Under the agreement, Samsung will use Satcon PowerGateTM Plus inverters, and will also have the exclusive right to market and sell Satcon solutions in the rapidly growing Korean renewable energy market. Samsung will also provide maintenance and warranty services for Satcon in Korea.

Samsung America President, K.D. Kim, said, “We have worked closely with Satcon on several utility scale solar projects, and we believe they provide the best quality and most reliable power conditioning solutions on the market.”

Satcon’s President and CEO, Steve Rhoades, commented on what the agreement means for the future. “Together, the companies are committed to delivering the industry’s most efficient and reliable renewable energy production. Satcon looks forward to significant growth as a result of this partnership.”

Satcon

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Electronics retailer Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) slashed its full-year outlook today, saying it was “the most difficult climate we’ve ever seen.” But Paul Moore says Best Buy isn’t likely to head the same way as mismanaged Circuit City (NYSE:CC). In fact, BBY should even get a lift from the bankruptcy of its main rival just before the holiday season.

This from Smart Profits Report:

Here in the U.S., the mess continues unabated. The government had to reshape its bailout for AIG, including forking over an extra $40 billion. But despite the floundering company’s fourth consecutive negative quarterly report, the markets reacted positively to the story.

That didn’t help avert the crisis other areas, as Detroit’s automakers repeated their increasingly desperate pleas for some financial

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The structural aspects of making a market economy work are not necessarily something that most investors pay attention to. For the most part, an investment is usually made in a company or financial product that already exists and is producing some good or service. There are, however, some investment vehicles that remain hidden so that a good or service can be moved forward through the combination of companies or ideas. These “shell” companies, as they are often called, sometimes take on a negative connotation, but if they are used properly they can become a nice profit vehicle.

Middle Kingdom Alliance Corp., a shell company created with the intent of forming a transaction, for the purposes of doing business in China, is currently in the process of doing so. The resulting company will be formed through the merger of Middle Kingdom Alliance Corp. and Pypo Digital Company Ltd. The merged company

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Samsung dropped its $5.8 billion bid to buy SanDisk because of its deteriorating business. Sales dropped by 21% and the company lost $155 million in Q3. Smart move by Samsung. The flash memory business has turned into a low margin commodity business.

Wednesday October 22, 2008 Navivest

Samsung, which on August 9, 2008, made a $26 unsolicited offer to acquire Sandisk (SNDK) for $26 a share, retracted its offer yesterday, one day after Sandisk (SNDK) posted its third quarter 2008 earnings results.

Sandisk (SNDK) had on September 15, 2008, already rejected the offer in a letter to Samsung that reflected “the board’s unanimous conclusion that the proposal is inadequate in multiple respects and not in the best interests of SanDisk’s stockholders.”

According to Sandisk (SNDK), both companies had had several meetings before Samsung made public the offer, and on one such meeting on May 22, 2008, “Samsung had expressed a willingness to pay a significant cash premium over the then $28.75 price of SanDisk’s shares.”

Samsung withdrew the offer in a letter to Sandisk (SNDK), in which Samsung CEO Lee Yoon-woo wrote that “Your surprise announcements of a quarter billion dollar operating loss, a

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Wednesday October 22, 2008 Navivest

Samsung, which on August 9, 2008, made a $26 unsolicited offer to acquire Sandisk (SNDK) for $26 a share, retracted its offer yesterday, one day after Sandisk (SNDK) posted its third quarter 2008 earnings results.

Sandisk (SNDK) had on September 15, 2008, already rejected the offer in a letter to Samsung that reflected “the board’s unanimous conclusion that the proposal is inadequate in multiple respects and not in the best interests of SanDisk’s stockholders.”

According to Sandisk (SNDK), both companies had had several meetings before Samsung made public the offer, and on one such meeting on May 22, 2008, “Samsung had expressed a willingness to pay a significant cash premium over the then $28.75 price of SanDisk’s shares.”

Samsung withdrew the offer in a letter to Sandisk (SNDK), in which Samsung CEO Lee Yoon-woo wrote that “Your surprise announcements of a quarter billion dollar operating loss, a

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China 3C Group (CHCG) announced it will be opening its first mobile phone retail counter, after signing an agreement with the China Intime Group. China Intime operates a chain of 11 department stores in China. The CHCG retail location is in the high-end LiQun Department Store, in Hangzhou City.

“Our agreement with China Intime is our first with a high-end retailer,” said Zhenggang Wang, China 3C Group Chairman and CEO. “We believe our penetration into its flagship store can further diversify our customer base and maximize sales of our leading mobile phone brands.”

China 3C will sell about 20 brands and 100 models of mobile phones, including those from Nokia, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson and Motorola. The company, overall, is a retailer and wholesale distributor of consumer and business products in China. Its goal is to become the number one retailer of communities, creation and connectedness (3C) products in China.

“It’s a pleasure to work

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Trident Microsystems (TRID) is a leader in integrated circuits for Digital Television. While its products are used in all kinds of displays, LCD television is its most important growth market as LCD televisions take share from plasma in the market for larger screens as well as traditional CRT television sets of all sizes. Trident has design wins with major television manufacturers, including Sony (SNE), Toshiba, and Sharp and has added Philips (PHG) to the list.While there have been concerns of late that the market is slowing, we feel very confident that the market will grow very rapidly over the next few years. Trident expects to have greater than a 60% share at Sony and claims that its share at Samsung could reach 80%.The LCD TV market continues to grow, but the poor economic environment and the normal price declines has reduced the ...