China’s stock market bubble: A goring concern
economist.com
economist.com
> A hotel group rebranded itself as a high-speed rail company, a fireworks maker as a peer-to-peer lender and a ceramics specialist as a clean-energy group.
I've heard of pivoting, but this goes way beyond that. Doing a complete 180 on what you're producing/selling and changing your name? That's both fascinating and scary at the same time. As a customer, how do you know whether the company you're buying from will still be around?
http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/14/5209622/google-has-bought...
Conglomerates like GE do anything and everything, but the companies cited in the article appears to be relatively small, e.g.from making only floorboards to online gaming is quite a shift in operational requirements.
So it's not really a "pivot" and I feel that the article is slightly misleading on this front.
E.g. for Kemian Wood see: https://zephyr.bvdinfo.com/version-2015528/FullEditorialNews...
This is quite common in Australia, I hadn't realised it was a thing in China until now.
In Australia there are fair number of zombie listings from mining / prospecting ventures that didn't pan out. Often they're wound back to basically being a P.O box. It is very, very common for tech companies to list by doing a reverse merger with a zombie.
See: http://www.afr.com/business/banking-and-finance/investment-b... for more details.
I always find it a reassuring read, in the sense that well-written, well-researched, persuasive articles that I disagree with are a sign that I haven't been completely engulfed by my own little information bubble, but take it with a pinch of salt.
This will deflate the Chinese market bubble(and property bubble) almost immediately, you'll see this happen however when pigs are flying to the moon.
A look at the ownership structure may explain the shift - The Economist is now 50%-owned by big business interests
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist_Group
BTW, they endorsed B. Obama for president twice, in 2008 and 2012, who has been, despite all the populist rhetoric, very friendly to Wall Street and big business (not a single Wall Street criminal has been indicted)
I still like them, for the excellent writing, but I find myself agreeing less with them over the past several years.
Given their supposedly liberal (old-school) leanings, you'd expect a criticism of large businesses which you don't find anymore.
"After double-digit growth for much of the past decade, sales have slumped" - you don't say... or perhaps they expect that rate of growth to continue without end? Yes, it was a bubble.
-.. and in general [2]
-For carbon tax [3]
(all imho: ) They are traditional liberal, and / but with a realist approach to economics. Massive market failures exist and need work. Market failures more often originate in government, than that new market failures need more government.
[1] http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21638179-jokowi-abandons-...
[2] http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21639501-fall-price-oi...
[3] http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21580146-world-will-on...
Because less market regulation is not a value by itself, its a policy, a means to an end. My interpretation of kenny-log_ins' post was the hidden accusation that the Economist doesn't properly seperate the two, and thus falls victim to ideology.
They also tend to be fairly 'practical' in their support for candidates. I recall some years ago when they absolutely laid into Silvio Berlusconi and recommended the left-wing candidate despite Berlusconi being, in theory at least, the more 'business friendly' candidate. They rightly argued that he was mostly just friendly to his own businesses.
So, yes, they are 'liberal' in the European sense, but not necessarily 'libertarian' in the US sense.
Edit: their about page is informative: http://www.economist.com/help/about-us#About_Economistcom
I seem to recall they were rather taken with the unelected technocrat Mario Monti, as prime minister.
Yes, he - in theory - was in tune with their values. He did manage to accomplish a few things like liberalizing store opening hours, and this: http://blog.therealitaly.com/2015/04/16/fixing-italy-a-littl... but didn't really accomplish as much as many had hoped.
The fact that he was unelected is part and parcel of how the system works in Italy, as the prime minister is not directly elected. For that matter, Matteo Renzi wasn't either.
You should read the Economics of the Colonial Cringe. I think you'd enjoy it.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/1991/10/-quot-...
their stance on various wars is often questionable though. supported the second iraq invasion.
I'm quite confused by this statement -- if the shares on both exchanges are equivalent, this seems like an insanely good arbitrage opportunity. Are China's capital controls really tight enough to prevent Chinese nationals from finding a way to invest in the same stocks on the HK index for a 30% discount? And even if they are, I'm not clear why the Chinese government would do this -- it's like charging a 30% premium to domestic investors just for being Chinese.
The answer has to be yes - otherwise, as you say, it would be arbitraged away. It's still a bit leaky, but when it leaks it seems that investors much prefer to diversify into ownership of overseas property.
Why capital controls? Because China is more nationalist than globalist. It's also critical to keeping the industrial policy working by forcing local re-investment and preventing capital flight. Chinese growth depends on cheap money, which in turn relies on forcing people not to charge a risk premium for the percieved confiscation and rule-of-law risks in China.
ADDED: combine that with little to no social safety net, and the One Child policy which most? often results in 4 grandparents supported by 2 children supported by 1 grandchild (not quite so bad in the rural areas, but still inadequate, especially if a child dies), and you have the worst social planning mess outside of outright genocide (which the PRC did a lot of through the Cultural Revolution) that I'm aware of.
Then the banks loan out this savings to the party's preferred business partners (still at negative real interest rates) which can be incredibly profitable (cheaper-than-free money will do that) and spend their wealth on a privileged few.
Some day it's all going to come crashing down (and if push comes to shove, the property rights of foreign investors will probably be pretty low on the priority list).
Then I suppose it's good they don't let us invest very much in the country!
This makes it unlike e.g. Greece, where we're told there are a number of European banks outside with dangerous exposure, although there's been plenty of time to mitigate that. So conventional contagion might not be such a problem, I myself am worried about various goods and raw materials that the PRC has a current lock on. E.g. lots of pharmaceutical precursors.
Obviously, there's an associated higher risk, but that's the game.
I thought non Chinese investors were not allowed to "buy in" anyways
That said, if China's market goes under it may be pretty gory. :)
Similarly, people are also replacing the correct "used to" with "use to".
The spark that started it all?
This is crazy:
> Credit Suisse estimates that 6-9% of China’s market capitalisation is funded by credit, nearly five times the average in the rich world.