China

In his weekly letter, John Mauldin provides us with more signs of stress in Chinese property markets. 

As if documentary material of what happens when China builds one ultramodern city in the middle of nowhere (hint: it exists in a ghastly void, where it remains completely empty - but that's ok: at least it kept a few million Chinese construction workers employed and "boosted" the country's GDP courtesy of another trillion in underwater loans) was not sufficient, Reuters has prepared an exhaustive special report on how China plans to move forward with the next leg of its housing market titled: "China bets future on inland cities." It is a stunner, and it demonstrates that far from tackling its housing bubble, which as we disclosed previously has already resulted in about 65 million vacant homes, is pushing on blindly without regard for the consequences, and is on the verge of taking bubble mania to a whole new, previously unseen level.

A potential new addition to the lineup of Chinese public transit system - the straddling "3D super bus" (????), proposed as a cheaper, greener and fast alternative to ease traffic jams and air pollution.

Jim Quinn's has penned a good post on the "mother of all bubbles" in which he analyzes the impact of cheap credit and surging money supply on Chinese real estate, hot on the heels of recent Zero Hedge disclosure that nearly 65 million homes in China lie vacant. Using data from The Casey Report depicting the explosion in monetary aggregates, it is rather easy to see just where all the "excess" credit and easy money has gone. In many, if not all ways, the experience China is about to undergo with respect to its real estate bubble is comparable to that of the US, and simply the lack of an overlap of bubble peaks in 2007/8 is what helped China experience an all out economic rout, which due to how its socio-political structure is intertwined, may have well led to a domestic revolution and/or civil war. Yet the longer China avoids looking in the mirror, and continues to "feed the monkey" the worse off it will be when no amount of incremental cheap money can forestall the collapse. Which in itself is a very comparable predicament faced by our own administration and central bank. But before we present the Quinn article, we will take a brief detour into Michael Pettis' recent observations on the pitfalls association with a monetary heroin addiction.

In pursuing an answer to the most elusive question around these days, namely just what is going on in China's real estate market, Standard Chartered has conducted the first phase of an exhaustive survey analyzing precisely what the real estate trends in Beijing, Shangai, and other Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities. The survey attempts to answer such key questions as: "What is really going on in China’s real-estate sector? Are prices falling – and if not, will they? Are developers’ finances
getting tight, and if so, will they be forced to cut prices? Confronted with the State Council’s stringent cooling policies, are developers postponing project starts and stopping construction? And if they do stop building, will this derail the economy and thus force the State Council to loosen policy?" For all curious to learn more about the truth behind the hype regarding China's real estate, which has more polarizing opinions than pretty much any other issue, this is the presentation for you.

Stop the presses. The United States is no longer the world’s biggest consumer of energy.

After topping the energy consumption charts for more than a century, the U.S. has been left behind as China leapfrogged past. According to the International Energy Association’s (IEA) latest report, China burned its way through 2,252 million tonnes of oil equivalent last year – about 4% more than the U.S.

The moment many gold bulls have been waiting for - the Chinese Central Bank has just released a directive informing everyone it is commencing the development of a healthy gold market. In the release (below), the PBoC stressed the need to develop the market to serve the overall situation of China's gold industry, based on improving the competitiveness of China's financial markets, effectively strengthening innovation, and promoting the formation of multi-level market system. The PBoC has asked the Shanghai Gold Exchange, Shanghai Futures Exchange and commercial banks to become actively engaged in developing a national gold market. With China owning a mere 1,064 tonnes of gold (sixth in the world and well behind both France and the GLD ETF in terms of holdings), which represent just 1.6% of its reserve holdings, there is only one way to interpret this borderline revolutionary press release. China has now officially entered the gold market.

Earlier we highlighted a very sternly worded anti-US essay on the front page of the primary communist party daily. Some thought it was merely yet more posturing. Alas, they may have been very wrong. Associated Press reports that Google has now been completely blocked from mainland China access, with few if any details coming from Google itself, meaning this was another unilateral muscle flexing exercise by China. However, as far as Google is concerned, and judging by BIDU stock after hours, it may well be game over for the great Chinese decoupling experiment.

A disorderly unwinding of China’s credit and property bubble may well be the principal global macro risk today. While
all eyes are on Europe, it would certainly have the potential to catch investors by surprise. But such an unwinding is not
necessary to have a noticeable impact on its largest supplier. In macro, what happens at the margin matters most. Many
argue that a slowing of Chinese GDP growth from 12% toward 8% still represents an exceptional growth rate for the
world’s second largest economy. We suggest that investors focus instead on the 33% decline in the rate of growth, which
will have a comparable effect on China’s demand for (Australian) commodities. Any significant reduction in said demand
could easily provide Australia’s property bubble with a Chinese Pin. Then again, bubbles of this magnitude often collapse
under their own weight as gravity pulls valuations back to earth over time...Today, the consensus remains whole-heartedly in the bullish commodity camp based primarily on China’s insatiable and uninterrupted appetite for resources. We have invested considerable time
exploring cheap hedges to profi t from a speed bump in Chinese demand and another deflating property bubble (or two). While we remain constructive on the long term prospects for commodities and other real assets, buying a little insurance in the face of near term cyclical risks seems like the prudent thing to do, particularly since market participants have again
forgotten that prices are capable of moving in a direction other then up.

It has been a while since political bickering over who can piss the farthest was an issue of global concern. Today, China communist party's mouthpiece People's Daily has released an essay in which the country once again resorts to thinly veiled threats against the US, and demands that not only the country's territorial demands in the South China Sea be uncontested, but that the US accept China as a global power , as the alternative could promptly generate the appearance of rocky relations between the two countries and "no one would like to see the negative effects rocky relations would bring to China, the United States and possibly to the world as a whole." Of course, with China the world's biggest creditor nation, and holder of anywhere between $800 billion and $1.2 trillion (assuming all that London flotsam is really Chinese stealth accumulation), Beijing can rest assured the essay has been duly noted. Of course, with the administration doing one wrong thing after another, it would not be at all surprising if the president's advisory henchmen seek to push the tenous relationship as far as it can go, and truly test the decoupling (this time it IS different, Jim O'Neill said so) hypothesis, however with nothing but downside if decoupling is finally proven true (breathholding not advised).

One of the odder stories of the day comes from Dow Jones, which reports that the Chinese Sovereign Wealth Fund (China Investment Corp, or CIC), has sold $138.5 million worth of Morgan Stanley shares in the past week, after dumping 4.53 million shares at $27.17 on Wednesday and 575,000 shares at $27.13 on Thursday. CIC began accumulating a massive Morgan Stanley stake in 2007, when it purchased its initial shares in the then troubled investment bank, and followed up with a June 2009 $1.2 billion investment, The reason for the sale, DJ speculates, is for the fund to avoid "additional disclosure requirements." Yet as a filing as recently as June 18 disclosed, the fund's Morgan Stanley stake was openly disclosed to be 11.64%. Surely the CIC administrator, the PM and everyone else in the front and back office were all too aware of this number. Which is odd since per both initial and follow up purchase agreements, CIC had stated it would not own more than 9.9% of MS' shares, and would remain a passive investor. That the firm would blatantly purchase 16% more than this threshold in the open market by mistake in the past year seems somewhat ludicrous. Worth recalling is that in June CIC disclosed a 10% MTM loss for the month of May, or roughly about the time it announced its above normal MS exposure. Are the two related? Has the CIC been covertly liquidating assets? It is unclear, as the one and only 13F for CIC is still the original one filed from February (covered here). One would imagine there would be at least some SEC requirement that a filer that has issued at least one 13F would be so kind to follow it up with at least a second one... eventually. In the meantime there is no official statement on the transaction: "A spokeswoman for CIC said she was unaware of the reason for the sales. A Beijing-based Morgan Stanley spokeswoman declined comment."

Last Friday we reported that the most important (and most underreported) story of the week was Bloomberg's disclosure that Chinese banks may struggle to recoup about 23 percent of the 7.7 trillion yuan ($1.1 trillion) they’ve lent to finance local government infrastructure projects, and that only 27 percent of the loans to the financing vehicles can be repaid in full by cash generated by the projects they funded. As this is a topic that deserves much more attention, we present the views of Goldman's Ning Ma on this critical issue, which when combined with Fitch's recent disclosure that the CDO market is ramping up in full force halfway across the world, and that China has 66 million vacant homes, should all come together in a nice and tidy confluent package of a combustible real estate-cum-credit explosion. Of course, this being Goldman, guess which way the spin is pointed: "We continue to believe systemic risks associated with such loans are limited. Key to watch: The results of restructuring and NPL recognition in 2H10 (mainly from unrecognized social projects and misused loans, but likely far less than 23% NPL ratios), and credit cost allocation among banks and local gov’ts." In other words, ignore the biased conclusion, but certainly focus on this most recent unravelling of the Chinese bubble.

Don’t missing the biggest economic opportunity of our lifetime. Quality growth Chinese stocks can be bought for price earnings multiples at 4-5 times, compared to an average 13 multiple for the S&P 500. You are already investing indirectly in the Middle Kingdom whether you realize it or not. Rising share prices fueled by the steroids of an appreciating Yuan can create a “J” curve effect for profits . An exclusive Interview with Jim Trippon of the China Stock Digest on Hedge Fund Radio.

Here's the scary part ...

And now, for today's real news: "Chinese banks may struggle to recoup about 23 percent of the 7.7 trillion yuan ($1.1 trillion) they’ve lent to finance local government infrastructure projects, according to a person with knowledge of data collected by the nation’s regulator. Only 27 percent of the loans to the financing vehicles can be repaid in full by cash generated by the projects they funded, the person said. The China Banking Regulatory Commission has told banks to write off non-performing project loans by the end of this year." Got China CDS? Because this is the point where one follows Hugh Hendry's advice about that whole panic thing.