Several days ago, we explained how China's bizarro M&A scramble was nothing more than a rushed attempt to park as much capital in the US (and offshore) as possible before Beijing gets wise enough and cracks down on this latest loophole to evade Chinese capital controls, we had this to say about the farcical, and now pulled, $14 billion Anbang offer for Starwood, owner of the W Hotels, Sheraton and St Regis brands:
Having bounced miraculously off the early January lows - despite no significant fundamental shift - scrambling all the weay up to its 200-day moving-average, copper prices have been tumbling for the last 7 days, the longest losing streak since early Jan. "Worries over Chinese demand is still weighing on the market," warns one analyst and rightly so as, just like the oil complex, copper inventories (in China) just hit a record high.
Miracle ramp...
Is fading now as stockpiles soar...
In the latest revelation of just how far China, and its central bank, are willing to go to prop up its ailing local stock market, on Thursday the official Shanghai Securities News reported that China's foreign exchange regulator has bought mainland stocks worth over 27 billion yuan ($4.18 billion) via three low-profile investment firms it controls.
“[It] contains exaggerations.”
That’s what Guosen Securities (China's eighth-largest investment bank) had to say when asked about FT’s assertion that the investment bank’s Hong Kong affiliate has defaulted on a dim sum bond. Apparently, an affiliated SPV issued the debt back in 2014 and according to Bank of New York Mellon (the offering’s trustee), Guosen HK is in violation of some part of the bond’s keepwell agreement.
Ripley's believe it or not world continues. Earlier today, Hong Kong's Hang Seng market entered a bull market, rising 20% from its February lows, just as Hong Kong retail sales plunged 20.6%, the bigest drop since 1999...
... and then moments ago, in a move that pushed the Chinese Yuan stronger at least initially, S&P revised its Chinese outlook to negative, saying , the economic rebalancing is likely to proceed more slowly than had expected over next 5 years.
Among the report highlights: