Feb 24th, 2009
The LA Times came out Saturday with a widely-noticed article on Beijing real estate, which features my friend Jack Rodman. Jack, who runs a firm called Global Distressed Solutions, is a bad-loan and distressed real-estate expert who has spent the last several years in China, and somehow has the energy to poke around among all [...]
Jan 15th, 2009
I think if I were an economic policymaker in China I would be spending most of my time thinking about the money supply and how it works. There is a small but growing possibility that Chinese monetary conditions are going to go wrong at exactly the wrong time, and policymakers will need to have a [...]
Dec 30th, 2008
I suspect most of my readers outside China are more interested in enjoying the holiday season than in spending much time following my blog, while most of my readers inside China are focusing on upcoming exams, but anyway my recent writing commitments are so intense that I haven’t been able to post much recently. For [...]
In all the worry about the trade numbers I haven’t discussed another data release last week which, until recently, would have been the most important piece of economic news for me. It was only a few months ago that we were intensely debating the cause of rising inflation in China. Now, inflation is clearly receding. [...]
Aug 4th, 2008
The stock markets had a bad day, with the SSE Composite dropping 2.1% to close at 2741.7. Part of the reason for the decline was concern that a roughly $1 billion upcoming share sale by China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corp. will draw a lot of liquidity from the market (stock sales tend to [...]
Jul 15th, 2008
After a decent day Monday (up 0.7%) the market today took a beating today, with the SSE Composite closing at 2779, down 3.4% for the day. The decline was probably partly caused by mortgage fears in the US (insurance companies and banks, who may be big holders of Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae, led the [...]
Jul 3rd, 2008
Sorry for posting two longish entries on the same day, but I wasn’t able to post yesterday’s entry until this morning, and both days have had some important events worth writing about. Last night SAFE came out with an announcement that I think many of us were openly expecting and secretly dreading. According to today’s [...]
Jul 2nd, 2008
I was too busy to post anything Tuesday, but there wasn’t a whole lot new to say except to bemoan the stock market’s performance, again. The SSE Composite dropped 3.1%. Today after a rocky start it seemed to find its legs, trading up 1.8% by lunch, before giving it all up to end the day [...]
Sorry. My blog site was down so this Wednesday entry was posted Thursday, one day late. I was too busy to post anything Tuesday, but there wasn’t a whole lot new to say except to bemoan the stock market’s performance, again. The SSE Composite dropped 3.1%. Today after a rocky start it seemed to [...]
May 22nd, 2008
After yesterday’s stock market excitement, the government “quashed” rumors today that they were going to relax prices on refined oil products. According to China Daily, “the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s economic planning agency, said rumors that the authorities plan to relax domestic oil and gas price controls are baseless.” The Shanghai Securities News, [...]