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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – We Don’t Need No Education – Is the U.S. at Risk of Losing its Edge in Higher Education to China?

The issue of higher education in China is one I have no push-back on to the view that it’s poor, globally not competitive and showing little signs of improvement. I’ll argue happily about the soundness of the financial system, the track record of the Chinese Communist Party or the long term value of infrastructure spending; […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – How Rich Will China Become ?

The authors of this paper are at pains to point out that nobody, themselves included, can give a categorical answer to the headline question. However Jingyi Jang and Kei-Mu Yi, in this recent paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, have a stab based in part on the Japanese and Korean experience. Bears will […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Commodity Price Shocks and Financial Sector Fragility

In financial markets a not understood pattern of behavior is often dismissed as a product of other operators’ foolishness. Why do people like penny stocks?  They’re naive. Why do people think stock splits increase the value of a company? They can’t do basic math. Why do people buy gold? They don’t understand asset valuation; and […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Gauging the Strength of Chinese GDP Growth

A number of people have approached China’s GDP figures via the backdoor of coincident indicators, most notably Premier Li Keqiang. Partisan work has been done concluding official GDP numbers must be a multiple of reality but in the very brief (a merciful 3-pages) paper highlighted this week from Jun Nie of the Federal Reserve Bank […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – The Relation Between Intelligence and Religiosity: A Meta-Analysis and Some Proposed Explanations

It’s been widely reported that large numbers of ‘evangelical’ Christians in the U.S. are supporters of a racist, misogynistic, self aggrandizing, bully running for the Republican Party’s nomination as their Presidential candidate. How do we explain this apparent conundrum? I wondered, as I’m sure many do, so started some digging… Studies going back as far […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Stop Bashing: Chinese Firms Have Better Financial Reporting Quality

Notwithstanding the fact that some of the biggest corporate frauds in history have been perpetrated in the U.S., and that accounting irregularities come up with a proven frequency more in U.S. companies than elsewhere, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, on June 9th 2011, issued a warning to investors about (effectively) Chinese ‘reverse-merger’ companies (we […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – The Age of Secular Stagnation; Larry Summers

I had the privilege of meeting Lawrence ‘Larry’ Summers a little while ago (OK, me and a roomful of other investors). I was rocked; sometimes you just know you’re in the presence of genius. Ever since I’ve thought he’s worth paying attention to. Since the GFC he’s been on a crusade to try and get […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Liquid Betting against Beta in Dow Jones Industrial Average Stocks

Would you give money to a manager who said their strategy was to buy dull stocks? You probably should; but the conundrum here is that no manager will advertise such a strategy as they’ll raise little money if they do. There is now however clear and growing proof that it’s a very sound course of […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Causes and Remedies for Japan’s Long-Lasting Recession: Lessons for the People’s Republic of China

Monetary policy is based (in part) on the theory that interest rates affect the level of savings and investment and produces a so-called ‘IS Curve’ (IS for Investment Savings). In theory this line should slope down from left to right on a chart where interest rates are the left hand side and GDP is along […]

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Thoughts

Hong Kong – A Golden Era Ends

This is a longer note than I usually write but as I expect it’ll be the last piece I write on Hong Kong for some time I wanted to be thorough. Events in the last couple of years have convinced me the views expressed here will not need much revision. A self-destructive die has been […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – A Tale of Two Styles: Do Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors Have an Edge Over Domestic Funds Managers in China?

A study published in 2014 reached the comforting conclusion, for QFII operators, that foreigners bested local managers when returns in the domestic A-share market were compared. The study though wasn’t especially rigorous relying on annual observations which, since we’ve only had QFII since 2003, was a very small data set. In the paper I’m highlighting […]

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Thoughts

We Refute Mr. Bass (And Friends) Thus

If you have more than a passing interest in China no doubt somebody has brought to your attention a recent letter from Mr. Kyle Bass to investors in his fund Hayman Capital Management? [A friend sent me the link to the full text posted at ValueWalk which you can access here Kyle Bass Letter] Sticking […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – A Portrait of the Individual Investor: Survey Evidence from 17 Different Provinces in China

You’ve seen this image a lot in the last few months, or some version very similar. Bewildered (old or middle aged works best) retail investors with their heads in their hands. ‘What’ it seems to imply ‘were we thinking?!’. Or ‘I should have stuck to the ponies’ (which, BTW, you can’t in China). Yes folks, […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – The Making of an Economic Superpower – Unlocking China’s Secret of Rapid Industrialization

You’ll need to print this out and read it carefully; but it’s worth the effort. In this 180-page tour de force Mr. Yi Wen of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’ Research Division and Tsinghua University deconstructs the British and American Industrial Revolutions to see what this tells us about China and it’s prospects. […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – ISIS as Revolutionary State

Why is the West, and America in particular, so disliked, by so many in the Middle East (ME)? Constant meddling since oil was first discovered in large quantities has a lot to do with it. [Giving China a rest this week as I think we’ve had rather enough of it of late!] Over the Christmas […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – China Travel and Tourism

A twofer today. Not so much papers, more pamphlets. The first, from the World Travel and Tourism Council, highlights how important to the Chinese economy tourism is. They estimate by 2025 3% of China’s workforce will be employed in the travel and tourism business and that it could account for 10% of GDP at that […]

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Thoughts

Understanding Recent Events in China’s Domestic Stock Markets: Threats and Opportunities

Summary Conclusion China’s financial market’s problems are home grown. As such weakness caused in other markets, especially China shares listed in Hong Kong, is unjustified. China will take time to fix broken systems; but that shouldn’t blind investors to the opportunities fumbling is producing. Preamble Complete understanding, of any market, isn’t possible; the knowledge would […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Is the Price Elasticity of Demand for Coal in China Increasing?

The answer matters if you’re trying to predict how enthusiastically China will likely pursue alternative sources of energy and/or act to curb coal usage. In the paper highlighted this week, from Paul J. Burke of the Australian National University and Hua Liao of the Beijing Institute of Technology, they reach an encouraging conclusion. The price […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – China’s Investment Rate: Implications and Data Reliability

China invests badly; and the situation is getting worse. With nearly 50% of GDP invested each year this is an unprecedented level compared to Japan or Korea at similar points of development who were rarely investing more than 40%. Calamity is the inevitable end-game as the system ultimately collapses under the debt burden associated with […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Superstition and ‘Lucky’ Apartments: Evidence from Transaction-Level Data

Who doesn’t know* in Chinese culture the numbers six and eight are considered ‘good’ and the number four ‘bad’? Certainly not property buyers as this study of transaction details for a particularly warm spell in the Chengdu real estate market between 2004~2006 reveal. Particularly granular data is available for this period and Matthew Shum of […]