"Bubble watchers point out median earnings multiples for Chinese technology stocks are twice US peer valuations at their dot.com peak. More worrying perhaps is a health-goods-from-deer-antlers producer on 70 times, the seamless underwear manufacturer on 90 times or those school uniform and ketchup makers on 330 times"
China curbed the flood of money going into real estate, trying to prevent that market from over-heating and crashing (which has led to a falling real estate market).
That money has redirected into equities. China saw three million new stock trading accounts opened in just the first two weeks of April.
China has been flooding their economy with truly massive sums of liquidity and debt the last five years. It will continue to redirect into available assets until it gets destroyed in a crash (which will be in the form of a huge stock market crash, soon).
This is end of the line for China's boom phase. They're almost perfectly repeating what Japan went through as their growth boom came to a halt, including the mistakes (extreme debt, asset bubbles in real estate and stocks, etc), and other signals such as demographic decline and 'deflation.'
These China bubble stories on HN are very amusing. I can remember a few in the past suddenly filled with commenters writing in broken English that there was no bubble for X, Y, Z reasons. While I did not at the time, I now wonder if some of our commenters here are employed by the Chinese government.
I've been following Michael Pettis quite closely. Great analyst, understands and explains the global balance of payments very well, lives in China, etc. His opinion has moved from 'China needs to rebalance' to wording that sounds like he's not sure there is going to be much growth for a long time.
China's growth for some time has been the result of malinvestment on a massive scale. At minimum since 2008, possibly even before that. The factories that we think could be productive and producing things people really want at the right price could be in that position because of very negative inputs (unaccounted for pollution, interest rates being subsidized by someone else, etc.) Fundamentally, when you have an economy growing at a rate above the interest rate, many companies can just overgrow their debt while taking on new debt. Unprofitable operations can be hidden for decades.
It is now within the realm of possibility that China could see 1-2% growth for decades ahead. In short term, I would expect negative GDP growth. Based on what has happened to the price of oil (and other raw materials), and the drop in high end consumption due to a 'corruption crackdown' this could already be underway.
In general this should be a good thing. Certainly it is for the environment and climate change.
filled with commenters writing in broken English that there was no bubble for X, Y, Z reasons.
This is one of the biggest misconceptions. What we think of as "shills" do not and would not speak in broken English. It would run completely contrary to their ultimate goal of "swaying public opinion". Being unable to communicate efficiently would not be effective propaganda. It would be so obvious and that's precisely what they're trying to avoid.
Hell, A country could (and some probably do) outsource the work to 'reputation management' companies who employ people that are native speakers of a particular language. Subcontracting the work out would also provide a layer of separation if they get caught. The government has plausible deniability, "We didn't know that's what they were doing! We thought they were doing this other thing!".
Digg.com had to send a cease and desist letter to one Chinese propaganda wing to get them to stop mucking up their website. Those individuals were not speaking in broken English. They may not have even been Chinese according to a couple people I knew that worked at digg at the time. One of my friends believed them to be an Australian company (shilling for China for a paycheck). Source on the Digg issue here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Water_Army#Legal_probl...
I now wonder if some of our commenters here are employed by the Chinese government.
Say anything critical of the Chinese government's policy towards Tibet and/or the Dalai Lama, and watch the broken English "rebuttals" pouring in like the flood.
As often as this line is said, I don't think its really as bad as Western media depicts it.
I think it'll be a massive hit that will level them out when it happens, but I don't think it'll be a "New Japan" with deflationary problems and a truly stagnant economy. They'll probably end up more like the US with a steady growth rate over a long time horizon that will fix things in 10 years or so. Which, if we are being honest, is really not that much longer than its taking the US to fully recover from the Great Recession.
You need to adjust for market size, competition and GDP growth.
US at dot.com peak was already very competitive market. Chinese technology sector and markets are still undeveloped. Even decreasing GDP growth is almost double what US growth was during the bubble. This increases profit potential.
Comments
Some interesting take on this from Deutsche Bank:
"Bubble watchers point out median earnings multiples for Chinese technology stocks are twice US peer valuations at their dot.com peak. More worrying perhaps is a health-goods-from-deer-antlers producer on 70 times, the seamless underwear manufacturer on 90 times or those school uniform and ketchup makers on 330 times"
China curbed the flood of money going into real estate, trying to prevent that market from over-heating and crashing (which has led to a falling real estate market).
That money has redirected into equities. China saw three million new stock trading accounts opened in just the first two weeks of April.
China has been flooding their economy with truly massive sums of liquidity and debt the last five years. It will continue to redirect into available assets until it gets destroyed in a crash (which will be in the form of a huge stock market crash, soon).
This is end of the line for China's boom phase. They're almost perfectly repeating what Japan went through as their growth boom came to a halt, including the mistakes (extreme debt, asset bubbles in real estate and stocks, etc), and other signals such as demographic decline and 'deflation.'
These China bubble stories on HN are very amusing. I can remember a few in the past suddenly filled with commenters writing in broken English that there was no bubble for X, Y, Z reasons. While I did not at the time, I now wonder if some of our commenters here are employed by the Chinese government.
I've been following Michael Pettis quite closely. Great analyst, understands and explains the global balance of payments very well, lives in China, etc. His opinion has moved from 'China needs to rebalance' to wording that sounds like he's not sure there is going to be much growth for a long time.
China's growth for some time has been the result of malinvestment on a massive scale. At minimum since 2008, possibly even before that. The factories that we think could be productive and producing things people really want at the right price could be in that position because of very negative inputs (unaccounted for pollution, interest rates being subsidized by someone else, etc.) Fundamentally, when you have an economy growing at a rate above the interest rate, many companies can just overgrow their debt while taking on new debt. Unprofitable operations can be hidden for decades.
It is now within the realm of possibility that China could see 1-2% growth for decades ahead. In short term, I would expect negative GDP growth. Based on what has happened to the price of oil (and other raw materials), and the drop in high end consumption due to a 'corruption crackdown' this could already be underway.
In general this should be a good thing. Certainly it is for the environment and climate change.
This is one of the biggest misconceptions. What we think of as "shills" do not and would not speak in broken English. It would run completely contrary to their ultimate goal of "swaying public opinion". Being unable to communicate efficiently would not be effective propaganda. It would be so obvious and that's precisely what they're trying to avoid.
Hell, A country could (and some probably do) outsource the work to 'reputation management' companies who employ people that are native speakers of a particular language. Subcontracting the work out would also provide a layer of separation if they get caught. The government has plausible deniability, "We didn't know that's what they were doing! We thought they were doing this other thing!".
Digg.com had to send a cease and desist letter to one Chinese propaganda wing to get them to stop mucking up their website. Those individuals were not speaking in broken English. They may not have even been Chinese according to a couple people I knew that worked at digg at the time. One of my friends believed them to be an Australian company (shilling for China for a paycheck). Source on the Digg issue here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Water_Army#Legal_probl...
As the saying goes, nobody's perfect. It could easily be that they hired someone to do this and they did an imperfect job of it before being replaced.
Say anything critical of the Chinese government's policy towards Tibet and/or the Dalai Lama, and watch the broken English "rebuttals" pouring in like the flood.
As often as this line is said, I don't think its really as bad as Western media depicts it.
I think it'll be a massive hit that will level them out when it happens, but I don't think it'll be a "New Japan" with deflationary problems and a truly stagnant economy. They'll probably end up more like the US with a steady growth rate over a long time horizon that will fix things in 10 years or so. Which, if we are being honest, is really not that much longer than its taking the US to fully recover from the Great Recession.
You need to adjust for market size, competition and GDP growth.
US at dot.com peak was already very competitive market. Chinese technology sector and markets are still undeveloped. Even decreasing GDP growth is almost double what US growth was during the bubble. This increases profit potential.