As is by now widely reported, China stocks have been on something of a tear in the past few weeks, with the CSI300, for example, up by around 20% in that time. The usual suspects have been at work as the PBOC has encouraged a renewed money flood into being and those desperate for an income – and possibly with little else to do, at present – are enticed back into what is merely the latest in the nation’s rolling series of mania and speculative booms. Continue reading
Category Archives: China
A Crack in the Dam?
Back in 2017, a minor diplomatic spat erupted when seemingly credible allegations were made that billionaire Xiao Jianhua had been abducted by agents of Chinese state security from the Four Seasons hotel in Hong Kong where he was staying. Indistinct video showed the figure, said to be Xiao under the blanket covering his head, being spirited away in a wheelchair en route to being smuggled back to the mainland for interrogation. [First Published May 28th] Continue reading
A Long March to the Bottom
Last week, as the Trade War with the US worsened – and as the assault on China’s flagship telecoms company, Huawei, was intensified – President Xi Jinping, accompanied by his chief trade negotiator, Liu He, made a highly symbolic visit to Jiangxi, the starting point of the Communist Party’s fabled ‘Long March’ in 1934. [First published May 27th] Continue reading
China Banking: Pigs Might Fly
There must be something in the air this winter – something that is besides the whiff of climate cant and manufactured eco-hysteria emanating from Davos and all the other organs of bien pensanterie. For, everywhere you look, someone is going less than quietly insane, either cooking up or Swedish chef rehashing glaring errors of economic idiocy or sweet-shop window socialism. Bork, bork, bork!
[This article can be heard as a podcast on Soundcloud under ‘CantillonCH‘ or iTunes under ‘Cantillon Effects‘] Continue reading
Trade Wars: Those damn’d torpedoes are OURS!
For many an age, a principal element of Britain’s strategy in its frequent wars with its Continental rivals was that of the naval blockade.
Throughout the long years of increasing mastery of the High Seas, the nation’s fleet admirals, frigate captains and often forcibly-impressed jack tars were frequently to be found, hovering just beyond the enemy’s horizon in order to deny their French, Dutch, or Spanish adversaries any freedom of navigation, whether for commercial or military purposes. Thus they aimed to limit their foes’ operational reach and slowly to bleed their economies dry.
Indeed, the one great defeat suffered by the British in a quarter of a millennium of oceanic predominance was partly the result of the fleet’s rare inability to secure its grip on the coastline of the Crown’s rebellious subjects in the American colonies – a failure partly due to sheer logistical difficulties and partly to the confusion of purpose which the simultaneous defence of the then more highly-prized Caribbean sugar islands entailed. Continue reading
Trade Wars: Blue-on-Blue
The so-called ‘war’ over trade being conducted by the US & China has given rise to much ill-informed commentary about its supposed benefits, its prospective victims, and China’s putative responses. Continue reading
The Turn of the Tide
Have we finally reached the high-water mark of the current bull run? Is all the good news in – and the last, most shaky, marginal buyer along with it, inveigled in by the bounce from February’s brief Vol-au-Vent? If so, what are the implications? Where are the trigger points? How will any weakness manifest itself? Continue reading
How the VIX Seller Lost his Shirt (updated)
Previously featured by the good folk at Real Vision, my look at how the narrative we construct around the events of the market is all important in determining how we react to it and, hence, what further ramifications these might involve.
Breaking China
For some months now, we have been warning of the stresses building in China’s credit structure and warning that, if unaddressed, they would lead to pain in asset markets and potentially to weakness out in the real economy. Here, we lay out the arguments in detail.
Once through with feeling
Some readers may be interested in putting a voice – and even a face – to the author. Below are links to three recent audio-visual publications in which I discuss US & Chinese macro as well as the interrelations between the three great asset classes of stocks, bonds, an commodities. Following on is a wider sampling of my views. Continue reading