hillfronter83

Many signs are pointing to an epic pump and dump organized by the government. Why do they think it's a good idea is beyond me.

not familiar with US government pension plan so i asked ChatGPT: "The average pension for a federal retiree varies depending on several factors, including years of service and salary history. As of recent estimates, the average annual federal pension is typically around $40,000 to $50,000. As of 2023, the average Social Security payment for retired workers is about $1,800 per month, which translates to roughly $21,600 annually." So an average government retiree will get about $70K (pension+SS) vs $20K for an average Joe with no other retirement income sources. That is 3.5 times at the worst, VS 42.5 times in the Chinese data above.

This is the statistics of retirement fund distribution in 2023 from a local county in China. It basically says: RMB785 million for 8778 Government retirees at RMB89428/person; RMB369 million for 13220 SOE retirees at RMB27912/person; RMB251 million for 119400 other retirees at RMB2102/person. There is a reason the Chinese system collapses every a few hundred years.

It seems that FT reported data from ITJUZI and the founder got a call from government :). Of course the data is probably not complete. But there is no doubt it is the trend for the last a few years. Jack Ma is still not back in China. Bloomberg reported some bankers got detained and passports are taken away from bank employees. On top of that, I saw some places real estate price is back to more than 10 years ago and there is no sight of bottom. Things will get worse before they get any better.

https://www.ft.com/content/1e9e7544-974c-4662-a901-d30c4ab56eb7

Oops, did it again.

Jay Chou in Chinese Music world is like Jay-Z in USA. Now imaging a "fake Jay-Z"'s concert ticket sells more than the real guy's! https://www.zaobao.com.sg/entertainment/story20240610-3881645

a pretty balanced view (IMO) from an expat:

The big difference is that the interests of Chinese government and its people are not aligned. Chinese people (shareholders) get a much smaller piece of its GDP. Here is a good thread for understanding the fundamental issue with Chinese economy. And here is the link to the original article in Chinese. http://m.xugaoecon.net/nd.jsp?id=16

No idea. Can't find any news or disclosure. Someone dumped 280m shares (about 1000 times average daily volume or 10% of shares outstanding) in about 10 minutes yesterday before closing bell.

how often do we see billion$ market cap wiped out in 10 minutes? https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/1252.HK?.tsrc=fin-srch

Just came back from my two-week trip to China. It's the first time seeing my family and friends in more than four years. Stayed in a small city near Shanghai and travel around in the region. Here are some observations: Overall economy is very challenging, although some high end restaurants seem to be doing fine. real estate will be doomed for years to come according to a real estate company executive friend. Even rural areas have a lot of high rise apartments (around 30 stories). I suspect these will be very costly to maintain and most Chinese are known for their frugalness. Don't feel good about the value of these building in 20 years. and most people i know already have multiple apartments. world class infrastructure everywhere, ie high speed rail, subway, etc. some of those projects were built to increase land value. While they look great, I'm not sure about the economic soundness. They are also very costly to maintain. e-commerce is very active, many people do grocery online nowadays. It's hard to increase consumption. most wealth is concentrated in people born in 60s, 70s. They grew up frugal and most people don't feel the desire to consume. The biggest spending is on food, but you can only eat 3 meals a day. secondly, the income decease is very real. a few years ago, local government employees were making over RMB300k, now it's about half, sometime lower. most people are stressed except the retirees. rich people (some centimillionaires) are worried about their shrinking net worth. and poor people are working 10-hour days to make their mortgage payment. although national birth rate are low. people i know are still having kids. but it could be they are local in a small city that is more affordable. most of the wealthy people's kids are living/studying in US or Europe. some of my friends, who used to drive BMW, Audi, are now driving Chinese made EVs.

about 37% across several accounts.

Certainly not a small fry. This is the founder of QIHU, which he took private from US exchange for $9 billion in 2016 and relisted in China for about 300 billion RMB, which is worth about 70 billion RMB.

Ludashi is a Chinese software company trading in Hong Kong (ticker 3601). It's a net net with about 300 million RMB market cap and over 500 million cash and no debt on its BS. On 9/11/2023, it announced a board meeting and a special dividend. In the following week, Stock surged >70% from HKD1.1/share to HKD1.9/share. On 9/20/2023, stock price suddenly plunged more than 40% to HKD1.2/share with heavy volume. On 9/21/2023, the company announced that its major shareholder with over 30% shares had just dumped 12.77% of shares to the market. And then on 9/22/2023, the company announced that the board meeting is canceled and there will be no special dividend due to "unusual fluctuation in the price and trading volume of the shares of the Company". Well played, insider!

Did people forget Hu Jingtao got hauled away in front of the whole world not long ago? To think any elder can pressure Xi is just laughable.

"Too young, too simple. Sometime naive!"

Name me a western political party that has similar influence on AMZN as CCP on BABA.

In the picture is the entrance to the Zhongnanhai, where high Chinese officials live and work. It's not an accident that the slogans on the wall are from culture revolution era (Long live CCP! Chairman Mao's thoughts are invincible!). CCP is the same party as decades ago. The main goal is and always will be to stay in power. So the "reform" and "regulations" are all means for achieving such goal.

As long as those slogans are still on such landmark in Beijing, nothing fundamentally changed for CCP.

https://themarket.ch/interview/george-magnus-china-will-not-be-able-to-de-dollarize-under-xi-ld.9180

I work on one of the most conservative investment products. In the last few years, many pushed for longer duration and lower quality just to receive a few more basis points a year. That is a few hundred dollars for every million$. But these a few basis points means a lot in rankings. And executives need to justify their fat salaries and consultants their fees!

This guy is one of the most influential banker in China. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/china-renaissance-says-it-is-unable-contact-chairman-bao-fan-2023-02-17/

About break even. GLTA!

Hi, Can anyone recommend a broker that can trade convertible bonds? They are not available on Interactive Brokers. Thanks!