Chinese walker

he US dollar and the Japanese yen maintained a strong tone in the past fortnight as risk aversion flows continued to dominate trading in financial markets. Investor sentiment was hit by a slew of bad news, including weaker than expected reports and poor earnings at major global banks. In addition, the downgrades or potential downgrades to sovereign ratings of some of the euro zone and other economies, including Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and New Zealand due to their deteriorating fiscal conditions also hurt confidence.
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The stock market is a place where stocks, bonds, or other securities are bought and sold. When you buy stocks or shares in a company you gain part ownership in that company.

Assorts of stocks in stock market:
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Here we are yet again in the midst of another “global economic crisis.” From the hilltops of Davos, Switzerland, Morgan Stanley’s permabear Stephen Roach has shouted warnings of potential economic “Armageddon.” Superinvestor George Soros designated the current state of the global economy “the worst market crisis in 60 years.” Bill Clinton labeled it “the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression” —— even as global stocks responded by slumping 7.7% in January —— the worst start to an investing year since Morgan Stanley began publishing data in the 1970s.

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    US Treasuries closed higher in February on renewed economic concerns, which centred on the housing market as mortgage defaults rose sharply. Weaker than expected data also added to the upward pressure on prices and pushed the yield on the 10-year Treasury down to 4.56%. The German bund closed the month with a modest gain on market expectations that a weaker US economy would impact global growth, which in turn would slow the pace of interest rate increases from the European Central Bank

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  China shares fell in February with the H share and MSCI China indices down 3.3% and 1.7% respectively. Concerns that the central government may introduce measures to control speculation in the domestic stock market in anticipation of the annual National People’s Congress meeting triggered the selloff. China financials underperformed the market on profit taking and the People’s Bank Of China’s decision to absorb excess liquidity by increasing the reserve requirement ratio by 0.5% to 10% just before the week-long Chinese New Year holiday. Commodity stocks went up in February on global price rebound.Investors’ focus remained on the newly listed IPOs.

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A confluence of macro factors and events succeeded in taking the Asia ex Japan equity markets sharply lower. They included the following:
• Weak US durable goods orders and renewed concerns about the outlook for US growth
• Correction in the Chinese domestic equity market, and a tightening by the People’s Bank of China ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday (hiking of required reserve ratio for banks)
• Yen strength on the back of the BoJ’s interest rate rise, which created fears that the Yen carry trade (and source of global liquidity) was about to unwind.
• Sub-prime mortgage lending would spread to a housing collapse in the US. Further de-leveraging and tighter lending standards would lead to wider credit spreads

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   The much anticipated decision from the Bank of Japan, which increased interest rates rise from 0.25% to 0.5%, saw Japanese equities move sharply higher for most of the month as investors considered the move a vote of confidence from the central bank in Japan’s economy. The decision followed news that annualised fourth quarter Gross Domestic Product hit 4.8% against a forecast of 3.8%. Corporate results were also positive during the month, as retailers gained on hopes that a stronger economy would boost consumer spending. Over the month, the Topix index rose 1.8%, although much of the earlier positive performance was wiped out at the end of the month by the concerns centring on other Asian equity markets.

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The National Meeting on Commercial Works which lasted two days was held in Beijing on December 23 and December 24. The meeting emphasized the general requirements on the commercial requirements of 2009, which are: fully implementing the spirits of the 17th CPC National Congress and the Third Plenum of the 17th Party Congress, taking the Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thoughts of “Three Represents” as guidance, deeply implementing and fulfilling the scientific outlook on development, taking “expanding of domestic demands and maintaining steady development of foreign trades” as the focuses, improving the policies, enhancing the services, wholly planning both the domestic and international markets and resources, accelerating the structural readjustment and transition of development modes, and achieving a effective and rapid development of commercial businesses.

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Commerce Minister Chen Deming said on Tuesday that he expected China’s foreign trade to grow about 18percent to 2.6 trillion U.S. dollars for 2008 as a whole, despite the downturn in foreign demand during the second half.

He also estimated that foreign investment had exceeded 90 billion U.S. dollars, up about 20 percent.

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Chairman LIU’s speech at the Caijing Magazine Annual Meeting

The year 2008 is an eventful year in the world financial history. The US subprime crisis has evolved into a global financial storm, which, in turn, has caused a downturn in the real economy that has reinforced the strains in the financial system. So far, the negative impact is universal and China is not immune to it. One year ago, when there was a huge debate on whether China could decouple from the world, I said it was only a myth. Now, the Caijing Magazine is offering us a valuable opportunity to look from the hindsight and lay a solid foundation for the future.

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