China Financial Markets

I don’t have time to do a long entry today, but in my June 30 entry I marveled at the huge explosion in new lending, and claimed that credible rumors suggested that total new loans for June would be an astonishing RMB 1.2 trillion.  That would bring total new lending for 2009 to RMB 7.06 [...]

“China’s overall surge in credit in the first half of 2009,” an article in yesterday’s People’s Daily assures us, “is normal and healthy; however problems still exist in the structure, quality and flow of credit. China should continue to optimize credit structure and guard against potential risks.” Credible rumors suggest that new loans in June [...]

Today is the second day of the dreaded gaokao, the national college entrance exam that more than half of all Chinese kids in their age cohort will sit to determine whether or not they will go to university (just over 60% of the test takers will start college next September) and, much more importantly, which [...]

Replenishing bank capital One of the students in Peking University’s Guanghua Students Monetary Policy Committee, a group for which I am an advisor, put together last week a summary of plans to raise capital adequacy ratios for Chinese banks.  I thought it would be useful to reproduce his numbers.  According to him, Shenzhen Development Bank, [...]

After several rallies in the past month I said it was just a question of time before the Chinese stock markets tested their recent lows, and today the SSE Composite closed at 1896.  It’s become so easy to be skeptical after every surge that I don’t want to fall into the trap of just assuming that [...]

On Friday the Chinese stock markets had their second up day in a row (a rare occurrence this year), with the SSE Composite trading up 2.0%.  Today, however, the markets reverted to form, and the SSE Composite dropped 2.9% to close at 2327 which is, I think, the lowest point they have reached since February [...]