Month: July 2015

Shenzhen Stock Exchange (2010) byLeon Petrosyan. Via Wikimedia Commons . Defenders of the free market faith tell us that price conveys a great deal of information, enough that you can base an entire economic system on it without any central planning or coordination whatsoever. Whether extreme devotion to this principle is wise may not be so important to determine this week as whether free market prices are actually available in many markets. Recent events surrounding the precipitous decline of the Chinese stock market are illustrative of this problem, but I’ll come back to this a little later. Years of suppressing the cost of credit through central-bank imposed near zero interest rates has led to the mispricing of anything that depends on credit. The list is long and includes real estate because mortgages are central to its purchase; oil because cheap bank loans and low bond rates financed otherwise uneconomic […]

Click here to view full article at www.resilience.org

China’s coal imports, including lignite, thermal and metallurgical coal, totaled 16.6 million mt in June, up 16.5% from May, according to preliminary data released Monday by the General Administration of Customs. "Coal trade data showed a positive reversal with imports picking up in June. They have been on a steady decline since hitting a high of 35Mt [million mt] in early 2014," ANZ analysts wrote in a note to clients on Monday. China’s June imports were, however, down nearly 34% year on year. ANZ analysts noted that weak hydro output in June partly supported demand for coal. Article continues below… Platts Coal Trader International is the only daily publication where you can access Platts proprietary price assessments for coal trading in the Atlantic and Pacific markets, including FOB Newcastle 5,500 NAR; CFR South China 5,500 NAR; and FOB Kalimantan 5,900 GAR. Every Friday, CTI includes a weekly biomass supplement […]

Click here to view full article at www.platts.com

Photo An investor monitored stock prices at a brokerage house in Beijing. Chinese officials promoted stock rallies and intervened when prices plummeted. Credit Ng Han Guan/Associated Press SHANGHAI — At the height of the frenzy for Chinese stocks, just about every company was a winner. An online gaming start-up was valued at $7 billion. Shares in a fireworks company that had moved into finance shot up 300 percent. A struggling property developer was transformed into a stock market darling, just by changing its name to suggest it was an Internet company. Then there was the case of Beijing Baofeng Technology, an online video company whose stock price soared 4,200 percent in the three months after it went public early this year. The company’s shares climbed by 10 percent — the maximum amount allowable under exchange rules — nearly every day for more than 30 days. Viewed through the lens […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

China shares led Asia higher Monday, as Beijing’s efforts to reverse a massive selloff appear to be holding up, though trading for hundreds of stocks remains halted. The Shanghai Composite Index ended up 2.4% at 3971.14. The index has gained 13.2% since Wednesday’s close, the start of a three-day rally, though remains down 23.2% from its high reached in June. The smaller Shenzhen Composite Index rose 4.2% and the small-cap ChiNext gained 5.8%. Both are down about a third since June peaks. In Hong Kong, stocks rose 1.3%, lifted in late trading by news that eurozone leaders had reached a unanimous deal on Greece’s bailout . A gauge of Chinese companies listed on the city’s stock exchange, known as H-shares, ended up 1.2%. Despite the gains, investors are cautious after four weeks of volatility. Trading suspensions remain a frustration for investors, who might otherwise have sold stocks for cash. […]

Click here to view full article at www.wsj.com

China’s crude imports rebounded last month to near a record as the world’s second-largest oil consumer began filling tanks at a new strategic petroleum reserve site. Overseas shipments rose to 29.49 million metric tons in June, a 27 percent increase from May when shipments were the least since February 2014, according to preliminary data released by the Beijing-based General Administration of Customs on Monday. Oil imports last month were equivalent to about 7.2 million barrels a day compared with a record 7.4 million in April, Bloomberg calculations show. China’s crude imports rose as it began filling the second phase of emergency reserves in the eastern city of Qingdao that have a capacity of 3 million cubic meters (about 19 million barrels). Oil imports may climb in the third quarter from the previous three months as another storage site in the southern Chinese city of Huizhou is scheduled to open, […]

Click here to view full article at www.bloomberg.com

A truck drives past shipping containers at a port in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province January 23, 2015. China’s export sales unexpectedly rose for the first time in four months in June and imports fell again but posted their best performance this year, causing some optimism tepid trade flows are picking up. Yet hopes were offset by a realization that China’s trade sector had a poor second quarter, with volumes contracting significantly from a year ago, further dragging on an already stuttering Chinese economy. With China set to publish its second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) data on Wednesday, some analysts warned that lackluster trade is the precursor for disappointing economic growth. "The soft trade data in the second quarter suggest that China’s second quarter GDP will underperform," ANZ economists said in a note, adding that the figure could fall to 6.8 percent from the first quarter’s 7.0 percent. Given the headwinds […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

In the oil world, just like everywhere else, the sun rises in the East. Oddly, it may set there, too. Friday sees the release of the International Energy Agency’s monthly oil-market report. Many will focus on what the IEA has to say about supply, particularly from U.S. shale. But in a week where China’s stock market showed all was far from well in the world’s emerging market-in-chief, oil investors shouldn’t forget demand. In the July report, the IEA will release its first monthly forecast of what oil demand will be in 2016. In February, when the agency released its annual five-year outlook, it projected global demand next year at 94.47 million barrels a day, up from 93.34 million projected for 2015. These numbers move around a lot. A year ago, the IEA’s first forecast for demand growth in 2015 was 1.41 million barrels a day. By January, that had […]

Click here to view full article at www.wsj.com