Because of the lunar New Year festivities when I wrote my newsletter little had happened in China besides the 25 bp interest rate hike on Tuesday, not counting of course the never-ending stream of fireworks and the several really great jaio zi dinners I have managed to snag from my students and their families. I …
Read More…Category: Stock market
The Shanghai market calls the tune
The Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets are still hogging the spotlight. Although down 18.0% from its recent peak exactly one month ago, the past three days have been good for Chinese stock market investors. After rising 0.60% on Tuesday and 1.17% on Wednesday, the SSE composite was up a very smart 4.79% today. So what …
Read More…Yet another discussion on the Asian savings glut hypothesis, and why it matters
The Shanghai stock market was up 4.5% in very nervous trading today but down 16.3% since its recent peak at 3478 on August 4, and still trading at more than 30 times earnings. All this turmoil is triggering all sorts of worried comments about the sustainability of the fiscal stimulus package and whether it has …
Read More…Markets surge, but little has improved
As everyone by now knows, a massive intervention Thursday by the Fed and the US Treasury, which the Financial Times calls “the most extensive peacetime expansion of the role of government in the financial system since the Great Depression,” and seemingly coordinated world-wide, caused a huge rally in global stock markets. Chinese markets were no …
Read More…Market temporarily breaks below 2500
The Chinese stock markets declined further today, with the SSE Composite punching its way through the psychologically important 2300 in the first hour of the day, to trade as low as 2248 in the later afternoon (with 2500 often cited as another important “barrier”, below which the government was presumed to intervene) for a total …
Read More…Making sense of what comes after the Olympics
The Olympics are finally over, and with a spectacular ending that reportedly had Jimmy Page performing “Whole Lotta Love”. I didn’t see the performance – I was in a park just south of the Olympic Stadium with three friends, trying to get a glimpse of the fireworks – but I am definitely curious to know …
Read More…Anticipation about the opening ceremony doesn’t impress the stock market
The Olympic opening ceremony Friday was truly a spectacular event and left a lot of people here, at least among my students, with a sense of nearly euphoric pride. I watched the ceremony on television at D22, my music club near Peking University, and during the ceremony I received dozens of phone messages from current …
Read More…Shanghai seems to discount the fight against inflation
Today was a very good day for the Chinese stock markets and a wonderful start to the week. The SSE Composite rose 4.6% to close at 2792, after reaching a high in the later morning of 2802. Of course it is worth noting that in the last month we’ve seen other very good days – …
Read More…Shanghai seems to discount the fight against inflation
Today was a very good day for the Chinese stock markets and a wonderful start to the week. The SSE Composite rose 4.6% to close at 2792, after reaching a high in the later morning of 2802. Of course it is worth noting that in the last month we’ve seen other very good days – …
Read More…Administrative measures trump market measures (for now)
In a sign of how worried the authorities are about rising speculative inflows, in a report released yesterday SAFE said it would step up the monitoring of foreign capital inflows. Yesterday I wrote about the policy paralysis that seems to be occurring as different groups within the government have some fairly radically different ideas on …
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