Is there a great bubble of China?

China’s credit crunch. It is more like 2006 than 2008

It is not often that we get a chance to test theories, at least not when it comes to the economy. But we have such a chance right now, and it relates to China, and whether or not China is experiencing its own credit crunch, or something altogether less serious.Read More

Was investment guru struck by regression to the mean?

Anthony Bolton was an investment star. When he turned to China, the investment community waited with bated breath. They are still waiting, and now Mr Bolton has announced his planned retirement.

If you had invested £100 into Anthony Bolton’s UK Special Situations fund, and left it there for 28...Read More

China: is the recovery over before it has got started?

One of the key rationales for rising stock markets earlier this year was the hope that China was over the worst. In particular, rising Purchasing Managers’ Indices relating to China’s manufacturing were on the up. “Phew!” said the markets, and went out and bought.

The latest flash Purchasing Managers’...Read More

China’s financial crisis in the making

“You don’t get it.” “You are trying to apply Western ideas to China, and it doesn’t work.” That is what supporters of all things Chinese say when western economists talk about a bubble in the making in any one area of China.

That may be right, but does that...Read More

China sees growth disappoint as India sees some promise

Earlier this year, the runes pointed to a much needed improvement in China. That’s a relief said the markets, which went out and bought.

Over the last couple of weeks things have not been looking quite so rosy on the other side of the Great Wall.

Take the...Read More

Doubts cast on latest Chinese trade figures

Caxton FX Analyst Richard Driver is suspicious.

He said "There is definitely something suspicious about this Chinese trade balance data – waning exports to the US and eurozone doesn’t stack up with relatively solid export growth.

"We are in the dark a little bit here, the Chinese authorities really need to crack...Read More

The most important change in half a century will occur in China

China’s problem is that it needs its consumer to do more. If it relies on exports, China is vulnerable to the problems in the West. If it relies on investment, it risks seeing a bubble. In some ways such a bubble already exists, and will burst imminently.

But at least China’s...Read More

China runs out of breath and commodities sink

You can’t grow on the back of investment indefinitely. Sooner or later you get overcapacity. That is why many say China’s government created a bubble during the late noughties. It tried to insulate itself from the problems in the West, and as a consequence has created a whole new set...Read More

The dangers of unrest in China

China’s leaders are worried, very worried. The very thought of social unrest leading to some kind of new cultural revolution scares them, and so it should. It should scare us too. The last thing we want to see in China is some form of Arab Spring. The consequences could be...Read More