Although relatively small by US and China standards, Australia is taking a beating economically. They were one of the main beneficiaries of China's growth and now are feeling the problems the most. This is because of Australia being China's primary raw materials supplier of metals.

The old saw, "when China sneezes, Australia gets pneumonia" is quite true.

(07-08-2015 11:40 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  China hsd a literal meltdown last night. NYSE suspended trading about 30 minutes ago

The China Syndrome...

(And, wouldn't it be ironic to Jane Fonda and her fellow Mao sympathizers that the real China Syndrome tunneled through the core of the earth in the opposite direction)

(07-09-2015 06:34 AM)miko33 Wrote:  I saw on the news this morning a story about the Chinese markets. According to the story, 80% of the participants are regular citizens who were encouraged to jump into the market by the communist gov't. First off, it's striking how capitalistic China is yet still has a communist party. But more germane to what's unfolding now is the fact that the communists manipulated their own people into pumping up their stock markets. Talk about a gov't having little regard for the welfare of their own people.

Communist? Hardly, In Name Kind, or *****

edit: really? The bad word filter struck the acronym?

I wish I understood investing more

(07-09-2015 02:42 PM)dfarr Wrote:  I wish I understood investing more

Good luck. I don't think anybody really gets it... or at least VERY few REALLY get it. I just invest all I can to my 401k, for the max employer match and diversify that as much as possible. I have a little bit of property too. Next up is opening a Roth IRA and I'll use my 401k philosophy. My experience has been to keep it diverse but not redundant, don't panic and it WILL grow over time. I'm averaging an 11% return with that philosophy.

I suppose you can do the day trading thing but I don't know many folks that have that kind of time or attention to detail to keep up with it. It's like a mentor once told me, by the time the talking heads are talking about how we "need to invest in X, Y or Z" it's too late for guys like us.

(07-08-2015 03:29 PM)VA49er Wrote:  

(07-08-2015 12:45 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  

(07-08-2015 12:40 PM)VA49er Wrote:  

(07-08-2015 11:40 AM)WMD Owl Wrote:  China hsd a literal meltdown last night. NYSE suspended trading about 30 minutes ago

Wonder if politics had anything to do with the govt halting trading on the Chinese stock market?

Let's see if they liquidate their foreign debt holdings to raise money for the Bailouts.

The Chinese market appears to be as disconnected from economic fundamentals on the way down as it was on the way up. However, it's a small part of the overall Chinese economy so I don't think this drop is all doom and gloom. I have a feeling the govt halted trading for political reasons seeing as the govt has pushed people to invest and then the market crashed that would create public dissent in that the public would feel it had been sold a bill of goods that was actually not as good as advertised.

The wealth inside the government in China is unbelievable. They have more billionaires in their politburo / congress than any all time. They make our Congressmen look like paupers. They want to sell before the real sellers can sell. Government blames short sellers and arrested a few last night.

China has had an EXPLOSIVE growth in debt. In February they open 4 million brokerage accounts! China can get crazy. Market force discipline is not a concept they understand or are willing to accept.

They will have a great unwind of debt (deflation) as we have experienced the last 7 years.

I think the Chinese real estate bubble has burst or will burst soon. The rest of the economy will follow. I don't see how we can get by without feeling the effects.