I am still working on my piece on the global savings adjustment and will probably post it in the next week or so. The main point is to discuss what the implications are for China if we see simultaneously over the next few years an increase in US savings and a reduction in global investment. [...]
Jun 8th, 2009
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 [...]
May 3rd, 2009
Things have been so busy this past week with various writing commitments and with the celebration of the third anniversary of my music club (four amazing shows with some of Beijing’s greatest artists and a lot of support and coverage from local music scene participants an the press) that I have been neglecting my blog. [...]
Apr 25th, 2009
One of the few areas in which the Chinese fiscal stimulus package is unquestionably having a positive effect is on growth forecasts – although mainly because forecasts seem to be coincident indicators more than leading indicators. In the past couple of week Morgan Stanley raised its 2009 forecast for Chinese GDP growth from 5.5% to [...]
Mar 16th, 2009
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, [...]
Oct 22nd, 2008
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 [...]
Sep 23rd, 2008
While Monday’s stock market, led by the banks, continued Friday’s big bounce back, rising 7.8% to add to Friday’s 9.5% surge, leaving us at a 2-week high (largely on buyback talk, I think), worries about the banking sector actually seemed to be deepening. Today, perhaps in response, the stock market was a lot more confused, [...]
Sep 1st, 2008
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 [...]
Aug 18th, 2008
Today’s unexpected withdrawal by hurdler Liu Xiang from participation in the Olympics – because of a leg injury – has been a real emotional blow to many of my friends and students in China. Condolences to all. It is a disappointment to see such a great athlete unable to defend his title in his own [...]
The stock market started out badly today, dropping 1.8% during the first two hours of the trading day, before a press conference by Hu Jintao, stressing the need for growth, brought back optimism over government-engineered policies to boost growth. From its low the market surged 2.8%, to close at 2802, up 0.9% for the day. [...]