Remember the old days when the U.S. and Russia battled it out for space superiority? In the not-to-distant future, the rest of the world may be trying to catch up to China.
China is preparing to launch the first module of its space station, called Heavenly Palace. From there, China has plans to land a man on the moon in 2012. I bet that China will come away with a lot more than just Tang from its space missions.
{ 0 comments }
I’m glad we sold Shanda Interactive when it was near $50.
Shanda Interactive reported a 49% increase in sales but only a 13% increase in profits. That tells me two things: (1) the online gaming market is still a great business to invest in but (2) SNDA is not the company to buy.
{ 0 comments }
Two different surveys showed that the Chinese manufacturing sector is still healthy and growing.
The HSBC Purchasing Managers Index hit 55.8 and the The China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing survey was 52.0 in February. Any reading above 50 is considered to be healthy.
{ 1 comment }
Fidelity has a new closed-end fund to offer its U.K. customers: a $950 million China fund.
The Fidelity China Special situations will invest in a portfolio of China and Hong Kong-listed securities and will be managed by the U.K. version of Warren Buffet, Anthony Bolton (no relation to Micheal).
I’m not suggesting that anyone invest in this fund. What I am pointing out is that another billion dollars of investment money is going to be pouring into Chinese stocks.
{ 0 comments }
Boy, we owe the Asians lots of money.
The #1 largest holder of U.S. Treasury bonds: China with $894 billion. Number 2? That would be Japan with $768 billion.
{ 0 comments }
Profits at the #3 (Heineken) and #4 (Carlsberg) beer companies in the world were sharply higher. Do you think that profits at the #5 beer company (Tsingtao 0168.HK) will also be on fire? I think so.
{ 3 comments }
This number may make your eyes pop out.
The Taiwan economy grew by an amazing 18.2% (annualized) rate in the fourth quarter of 2009. Taiwan has China to thank for the robust demand for high tech components.
The fourth quarter wasn’t a fluke, Taiwan grew by an impressive 8.2% in Q3 of 2009 too.
Look for some Taiwanese stocks to report kick-butt profits this quarter.
{ 0 comments }
Last week, I told you that China was starting to reduce its vast holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds. That money has to go somewhere else and I expect a lot of it to go into gold. This interesting article looks at the options and makes a strong case for gold.
{ 0 comments }
Phillip Lowe, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s assistant governor of economics, said that China’s economy will continue to grow for “some decades.”
“I am quite optimistic that story has some decades to run and that underlies much of the positives for the Australian economy. It is going to be a good 20 years for China and us.”
This guy gets it. Do you?
{ 0 comments }
I’ve warned for months that China was going to cut back on its enormous holdings of U.S. treasury bonds. According to the U.S. Treasury’s latest numbers, China’s holdings fell by $34.2 billion to $755.4 billion from November to December. That is a record one-month decline.
I think the drop is for a couple reasons: (1) Our runaway spending is going to ultimately doom the dollar to even a bigger decline, (2) China is very unhappy with Obama’s foreign policy toward China, and (3) it really wants to diversify its $2.3 billion war chest of cash into key strategic assets that it needs to fuel its future growth. I’m talking about oil, coal, copper, etc.
Dollar denominated, long maturity bonds are one of the worst investments you can own today.
{ 1 comment }
