China: economy and finances are still very connected Country report 15 October 2015 , No hay comentarios The Chinese economy is living an unstable situation after decades of continuous strong growth, with some years over 10%. Suddenly, there was an earthquake in August. Since then, the Chinese economy slowed its momentum depending on the world. This time all moved at the Chinese speed. The unexpected decision of the People’s Bank of China of devaluating the yuan three times in August was a shock in the world markets, as in the developed ones as in the emerging ones. The consequences were so strong, as we already explained in a former post, that the US Federal Reserve delayed its decision of hiking the interest rates due to the financial instability. What was at the beginning the end of the Chinese stock exchange bubble, it is now the start of a possible economic crisis: several figures are warning about the evolution of the second largest world economy. For instance, exports and imports go down, the inflation moderates and industrial prices slow down, the World Bank prospects for the next years speak about a deceleration (around 7% of GDP growth, when the figures were over 9%-10% in the last decade). As The Economist comments, China is a giant in trade and direct investment, but in finances and financial markets is still weak. There is still a long pace till China will play a stronger role to substitute US as the first player. The immaturity of its financial markets is clearly showed in this chart: This is the evolution of the Shanghai composite in the last 5 years. The evolution was weak between 2011 and 2013 linked to the global crisis, but suddenly a bubble was created this year and exploded violently. Chinese authorities reacted late and could not control the hard effects. The YTD gains around 40% till August are now around 1.8% (it was negative till the last week). The volatility is very high (38%) and trend is very bearish (-1.87%), as T-Advisor models show. However, investors who entered this market in October last year have registered 40% benefits. What are the results of ETF linked to China? T-Advisor database show global negative results YTD, but most of them are improving its results in the last month: And the final question is: what will it happen in China? We have models, figures and charts, but no crystal ball, but we can say that it will depend on the evolution of the economy. It is still very linked to financial markets and the decisions of the government. In any case, let’s say welcome to China as very influential player in the world markets.