The ups and downs of Chinese stock markets

Chinese stock markets are on a roller coaster ride at the moment. There’s been a huge rise in private middle-class investment pumping more money into stocks and plenty of alleged misinformation too. James Surowiecki has a great piece in the New Yorker about some of the billion dollar companies that don’t seem quite right.

I was in Beijing a couple of weeks ago for the first time in three years and you could tell that the economy and wealth had grown and at a local level business was booming. On the train into the city we also saw masses of solar power. The smog was bad but somehow not as bad as it used to be. It felt like a lot of old trucks and cars had been replaced by new models.

Whether the Chinese economy is stable at a macro level I don’t know, but compared to just a few years ago it felt like China was no longer emerging, it had emerged. There was far greater self confidence in the air, and a little less pollution. One thing I’m certain of is that what happens in China will have huge implications for us in the UK.

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