Are China stocks not traded in mainland not investible?

[anitya]

(I had posted the following in a catch all sundry thread which may or may not exist for very long and the post may not be on topic for other current threads, and so posting here as a thread of its own.  Sorry for the repetition.) 


I did not expect President Xi would become King Xi. When I was little, someone told me "converts are always more zealous (or zealots in some cases) than the originals and watch out for them." That statement has rung true every time I checked. When you deal with converts, I guess always expect extreme outcomes.  I clearly had a mental lapse and did not apply this to Xi before I went into China investments only a year ago or so.

My losses in BABA and Tencent are not much greater than those in things like Intel but the amount of losses have no value in evaluating future prospects of an investment on an absolute or relative basis (i.e., deploy that capital else where). My original investment was about 1% of PV. So, if I were not to sell, it seems I am taking a lottery in these but hate to lose any amount of money for being lazy / inaction.

Both these companies do not trade in main land China. Does Xi care if these stocks go to zero, as long as the businesses keep making money and pay taxes and the like? Main land Chinese are not affected by these companies' stock prices.



Should I take my lumps and get out of BABA and Tencent?

[Capital]

anitya, I don't own those directly or indirectly at this point. I am an EFT guy and I have moved what I had in IEMG into EMXC. I am as ex-China as I can be without going to all cash.

[retiredat48]

Oct 25, 2022 21:41:50 GMT Capital said:

anitya , I don't own those directly or indirectly at this point. I am an EFT guy and I have moved what I had in IEMG into EMXC. I am as ex-China as I can be without going to all cash.

+1.  One of best decisions i made during my investing lifetime was concluding, about 18 months ago, to divest of all holdings with any meaningful China exposure. I had held FSEAX since fund inception...so not easy to depart from.

An investing guru named Kyle Bass (on CNBC often, incl. today) was a major influencer in my decision.  Google his appearances.

R48

[roi2020]

Here's my quick take on investing in China:

President Xi is concerned about holding power, and by extension, avoiding social unrest.
He and the Chinese Communist Party will interfere in the economy to facilitate the party's political goals.
Needless to say, return on equity will not be prioritized.
Expanded state control of the economy may lead to unsatisfactory investor outcomes.

[anitya]

Hate to open a new thread on China.

Why are China stocks / indices up big today?

[johnsmith]

May 15, 2023 18:31:32 GMT anitya said:

Hate to open a new thread on China.

Why are China stocks / indices up big today?

Dollar weakness - makes international stocks go up in dollar terms.

in addition this headline from Reuters - China central bank to keep liquidity ample, support economic recovery.

---------------------------

IMO, and I could be wrong, the Chinese are interested in making money, though not at the cost of their sovereignty and geo-political interests. The US regime has been upping the ante by banning Chinese goods, harassing Chinese firms operating in the US and by supporting Taiwan overtly.

The Chinese have been taking steps to counter this threatening behaviour from the US.

As far as Xi and the actions taken against tech firms and other businesses around China - I don't see anything wrong, a little strong arm tactics though, Alibaba, tencent and other corporations were creating monopolies, preventing retailers from selling their products on other competing platforms - which is bad for Chinese Consumers. Xi ended that.

Other actions taken:

Ended Gaming for Chinese kids during large swathes of the day. Do you want your kids playing games on their phones or focused on studying, sports etc?

Real Estate Businesses were getting too leveraged and the government would have to bail them out, put an end to that, had to still bail out some of them.

And IMO the US government will do exactly the same things that the Chinese government will under the same circumstances.

China throws their population in Xinjang into concentration camps for fear of terrorism from Islamic fundamentalists.

US throws their japanese population into concentration camps for fear of terrorism during WW2.

China kicks and batons "pro-democracy" demonstrators.

Trump gassed peaceful protestors outside the white house; Obama handcuffed all the Occupy Wall Street protestors in NYC.

China refused to share info about Covid19 tests, positive results etc.

Trump wanted to refuse Cruise Ship docking in San Diego - because it would make his "covid numbers" look bad.

Same thing both countries did. No Difference.

The US media is not the best way to get International news, because they are basically propaganda arms of the US Government and Big Business. Pretty close to all major media in the US toe the 2-party line, with some room for dissent, which is generally either buried under a heap of propaganda or manure-chucking on the media/authors (ex - Seymour Hersh).

US Media has been all gung-ho about calling Putin a war criminal; well Bush faked a war in Iraq, War Crime? Reparations?
Obama attacked Libya/Syria, war crime? reparations?
Trump suggested we steal Syrian Oil, War Crime?
No we are promoting "democracy", well until we are supporting "Augusto Pinochet" or the Coup leaders of Brasil/Argentina to keep those "Communists" out.

So when you read international news or local news for that matter, have your bullshite antenna on high sensitivity, because 95% of the political news is plain rubbish.

[richardsok]

May 15, 2023 18:31:32 GMT anitya said:

Hate to open a new thread on China.

Why are China stocks / indices up big today?

Tencent and Alibaba are expected to report strong earnings this week.   After falling to previous support, last week I started to pick up bullish technicals on BABA.  Holding a large block in it and in EWJ (Japan).

Also, as john mentions, dollar weakness/strength are always an influence on Asian trends.

[anitya]

richardsok,

Re dollar weakness, our consumer based society that buys what it consumes from overseas producers depends on a strong dollar. That is one way to keep inflation down and a semblance of social order. Strong dollar also makes funding of fiscal deficits easier. So, I do not plan for a weaker dollar. Agree that temporary changes in dollar provide trading opportunities.