Icbccss&p500usd Discussion Threads

[briarberry] 11/6/2007 00:43

" Shoppers lined up for more than a kilometer at a supermarket in southern Guangzhou city last month to buy discounted pork, a staple of the Chinese diet, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Prices climbed 43 percent in the first three weeks of May from a year earlier.

Food accounts for a third of the consumer price index and meat alone for 7 percent. "

"M2, the broadest measure of money supply in China, probably jumped 16.9 percent in May from a year earlier, exceeding the government target for a fourth month, according to the Bloomberg News survey. The central bank may release the figures as early as today."

[knowing] 04/6/2007 08:42

HONG KONG (XFN-ASIA) - Share prices closed higher on the back of capital
inflows as some institutional investors shifted funds into Hong Kong from the
mainland due to extreme volatility there, dealers said.
The Shanghai bourse's benchmark index fell over 8 pct today amid worries of
further government measures to cool the markets following last week's hike in
stamp duty on securities transactions.
Besides improved liquidity, which boosted blue chips as well as H-shares,
the local market was also supported by continued gains on Wall Street and upbeat
US jobs data, dealers said.
The Hang Seng index closed up 126.72 points or 0.62 pct at 20,729.59, off a
low of 20,638.70 and high of 20,821.91.
Turnover was heavy at 67.1 bln hkd.

[briarberry] 01/6/2007 13:25

June 1 (Bloomberg) -- China's manufacturing activity rose in May to the highest level in more than two years after a surge in bank lending, according to a survey by Hong Kong-based CLSA Asia Pacific Markets.

The Purchasing Managers' Index climbed to 54.1 from 53.3 in April, CLSA said today in an e-mailed statement. That is the highest since April 2005. A reading above 50 reflects an expansion in manufacturing.

Premier Wen Jiabao wants to stop the flood of export cash that drove foreign-currency reserves to a record $1.2 trillion from fueling inflation, asset bubbles and spending on factories that will stand idle in a slowdown. The central bank has raised interest rates twice this year and ordered banks to set aside more money as reserves five times to cool lending and investment.

[briarberry] 26/5/2007 10:58

Interview about China on FSN - some good background info...

Peter Navarro, Ph.D. - The Coming China Wars

(10mb)

[knowing] 18/5/2007 12:49

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - China's central bank said it is raising bank deposit
and lending rates, effective tomorrow.
It said that benchmark deposit rates will be raised 0.27 percentage point
while lending rates will be increased by 0.18 percentage point.
It also said in a statement on its website that it is raising the bank
reserve requirement by 0.5 percentage point to 11.5 pct, effective June 5.
The bank said the actions are aimed at strengthening liquidity management in
the banking sector, maintaining reasonable growth in money supply and investment
as well as maintaining stable price levels.
The central bank said that the one year bank deposit rate will rise to 3.06
pct from 2.79 pct while the five-year deposit rate will rise to 4.95 pct from
4.41 pct.
It said the one-year lending rate will rise to 6.57 pct from 6.39 pct while
the five-year lending rate will increase by only 0.09 percentage point to 7.2
pct from 7.11 pct.
Analysts said that the bigger increase in deposit rates than lending rates
suggested that China is more interested in cooling off the nation's red hot
stock markets than fighting inflation.
The nation's main stock market index has climbed more than 50 pct this year
on the back of a 130 pct gain last year.
The consumer price index rose 3.0 pct year-on-year in April after a 3.3 pct
rise in March..
The bank also said that it is also raising rates on government-managed funds
for individual mortgages to 4.41 pct from 4.32 on credits of up to five years.

[briarberry] 17/5/2007 21:44

May 17 (Bloomberg) -- Li Ka-shing, Asia's richest man, said China's stock valuations ``must be a bubble'' and prices are likely to decline.

``As a Chinese, I'm worried about the stock market in China,'' Li, 78, told reporters in Hong Kong today. He joins central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan in saying China's stock prices are excessive and spoke a day after Premier Wen Jiabao warned of ``problems'' for the economy.

China's benchmark CSI 300 Index rose 2.1 percent today, bringing gains this year to 85 percent. The measure closed at a record as the government said investment in factories and real estate jumped 25.5 percent in the first four months. The economy grew 11.1 percent in the first quarter

``Domestic investors are getting too sanguine about investing in the market,'' said Teo Joo Wah, who helps manage about $2 billion at Fullerton Fund Management Co., a unit of Singapore's state-owned investment company Temasek Holdings Pte.

[briarberry] 12/5/2007 13:48

Hong Kong's HSI, PE just over 15

[briarberry] 11/5/2007 23:47

China to Let Banks Buy Stocks Overseas for First Time

China will let its banks buy shares overseas for the first time, diverting some of the country's 35 trillion yuan ($4.6 trillion) of savings from a local stock market where trading has surged sevenfold.

Hong Kong's stock market may be the biggest beneficiary

[briarberry] 11/5/2007 19:27

yes interesting site BritishBear :)


I wonder if the smog will effect the Olympics ?


Beijing's smog (November 19, 2006)

When we first arrived here three years ago, my throat was scratchy for the first four or five months. Now, I think I'm used to it. It doesn't bother me at all. Scary.

[britishbear] 11/5/2007 08:53

briarberry - another potential source of information and they mention this thread with pictures.

There is a stockmarket category.

[shoggoth] 10/5/2007 23:27

*Sounds* like scaremongering. "Now it is May 10th" alluding to May 11th last year.

[briarberry] 10/5/2007 17:11

Goldman Sachs issued a China Warning this morning ...

Now it is May 10th., and this morning, Goldman Sachs Group just announced that, "China's stocks may face a "correction'' as valuations have exceeded earnings prospects after the benchmark index almost tripled in the past year."

They went on to say ... The Shanghai is valued at 42 times reported earnings, more than double the Morgan Stanley Capital International Asia Pacific Index's 19 times.

[briarberry] 10/5/2007 09:36

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- China is on another U.S. shopping spree that appears to be as much about salesmanship as the country's rapidly growing purchasing power.

Hoping to ease tensions raised by the massive trade imbalance dividing two of the world's economic powers, China has periodically come to the United States on so-called "buying missions" to demonstrate the country's willingness to import more goods and services.

China's previous shopping sprees in the U.S. have had little impact because of perceptions that the country's companies were merely bundling together deals that were going to be made anyway, said Nicholas Lardy, a China expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C.

[britishbear] 01/5/2007 12:23

Good posts briarberry - keep up the good work.

[briarberry] 30/4/2007 17:41

Fit to Burst
2007-04-19 18:22:17 South China Morning Post - By ANDY XIE

China's stock market is now a full-blown financial mania. If left unchecked, it could mushroom massively in the coming months. Its subsequent bursting may destabilise the society and complicate economic development. Government should intervene to cool the market by cracking down on market manipulation, increasing leveraging cost, and imposing tax on short-term capital gains.

College students are putting their tuition money and living expenses into the market. White-collar workers trade until the market close and then begin to work for their paying job. Stroke-stricken retirees get wheeled into branches of securities firms to trade. Some even mortgage their apartments to put money into the market. From 18-year-olds to 80-year-olds, from doctors to janitors, it seems that everyone is playing the market.

As making money in the stock market appears so easy, many companies are abandoning their core businesses for financial games. Businessmen who have become rich in the economic boom are putting their working capital into the market.

Market valuation is getting out of control. Most stocks appear to trade above 40 times earnings. Further, earnings are exaggerated by the stock market itself. Banks make money from selling funds. Insurance companies book capital gains. Regular companies are also making big profits playing their own capital. A stock-market bubble usually gets into trouble when it trades above 60 times earnings. China's is getting close.

When the bubble bursts, there are serious social consequences. College students who lose their tuition money will certainly cause social instability. Pensioners who have lost everything will add to the social welfare burden. As the bubble is a redistribution game, the losers are sure to resent the winners who usually have inside information.

China is bubble-prone for two structural reasons and one cyclical. First, it is experiencing capital surplus. Its one-child policy is a major reason for the high savings rate. This factor will keep China bubble-prone for another 20 years until the baby-boomers born before the one-child policy are mostly retired.

Second, China's public psychology is very buoyant due to rapid industrialisation and urbanisation that generate rapid productivity growth. The visibility of the cake expanding leads to greed and speculative fervour.

Third, and cyclically, appreciation expectation for China's currency is keeping local money at home and foreign money flowing in. The hoarding of China's currency is keeping interest rate and, hence, speculation cost low.






In February, M1, or cash in circulation and deposits, increased 21 percent year on year, a record high for the past 37 months, indicating increased liquidity pressure.

Meanwhile, banks have accumulated 11.1 trillion yuan ($1.44 trillion) of idle funds that can be used for lending.

In January and February, domestic banks extended new loans of 982 billion yuan ($127 billion), about 260 billion ($33.6 billion) more than a year ago.

[briarberry] 29/4/2007 19:44

The deposit reserve ratio for depository financial institutions will be raised by 0.5 percentage point to 11 percent starting on May 15, the People's Bank of China said in a statement on its website.

[briarberry] 23/4/2007 10:06

China's runaway investment boom has not responded to repeated tightening actions by the monetary authorities. That's certainly not for any lack of trying. During the past year, bank reserve ratios have been increased seven times while domestic lending rates have been hiked four times. But these actions haven't put a dent in bank lending growth, which was still surging at a 16% y-o-y rate in March 2007. That shouldn't be so surprising. Despite a long string of increases, bank reserve requirements stand at just 10.5%, well short of the 14.4% level of actual reserves currently maintained by Chinese banks. At the same time, even though short-term interest rates are over 100 bps higher than a year ago, at 6.4%, one-year lending rates still remain too low relative to the vigorous rate of underling expansion in the real economy.

[briarberry] 23/4/2007 07:44

Market Mania In China

China today has some 81 million trading accounts, up from 61 million six years ago. In January alone, 341,000 investors-retirees, housewives, government officials, professionals, students-opened new accounts, vs. just 11,000 accounts added in January, 2006 (year-over-year growth of 3,000%.)

"The stampede into equities has set China's markets on fire for the past 12 months. The Shanghai A-share index (which tracks stocks largely restricted to Chinese investors) is up 120% in the past 12 months. And although the Shanghai exchange is now trading at around 35 times next year's projected earnings (compared with 15 for the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index), Chinese continue to rush in."

"By some estimates, individual investors make up two-thirds of the market. That's partly because they have few other options: Local banks pay around 2.5% interest on deposits, and property prices in many cities have soared so high that real estate is beyond the means of many. These greenhorn investors "are momentum players who tend to jump on the bandwagon when the market is going up," says Jing Ulrich, Chairman of China Equities at JPMorgan Chase & Co."

[briarberry] 22/4/2007 18:57

April 18 – Bloomberg (Wang Ying): "China, the world's second-biggest energy consumer, plans to build uranium stockpiles by 2010 to ensure fuel supplies for its nuclear power plant expansions. The country will build 'strategic uranium stockpiles' and commercial storages of the fuel as China wants to boost nuclear usage in its power generation, the Commission of Science and Technology and Industry for National Defense said..."