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Showing posts from March, 2012

China - Housing bubble about to burst or already bursting

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I heard this very interesting but near prophecy-like podcast by Peter Day of BBC in the program "By our own correspondent" yesterday. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00pjgll What struck me the most was the almost unstoppable boom in China is showing signs of just slowing but possibly bust. Can you believe there is already a ghost town with many flats in several apartment buildings which doubled in prices recently are unoccupied in Mongolia in a town called Ordos. Several shops are empty and local money lenders are out of business and financiers have either ran away or disappeared. See the picture below: This audio-documentary is quite a earful. Not sure if its an indication of the near future of China, atleast you can't say no one told you.  

Wow...markets above their 2008 highs in less than 2 months....?

I have to admit the market upswing was more than anyone expected, leave alone my prediction in January 2012 end. Not all analysts agree that this will be the trajectory stock indices will take for the rest of the year. Some fear the following probable negatives could derail the upswing: 1) a possible Iran conflict, 2) continued current Chinese slow down and 3) Greek crisis & European contagion. At least we can say with relative confidence that the double-dip recession is not a threat. Stocks are a leading indicator and from the way it looks we are going to be in the thick of business activity within this year end. Usually presidential election years are a positive year for stocks. Already several pockets of the US are beginning to have full bookings of hotels, resorts, etc. and skilled labor force is busy till the end of the year. If the summer does not scorch the stocks for any reason, we should well be seeing the economy rebound in strength. After all, these boom and bust cycl