Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
All the phantom wealth piled up in China's boost phase is now melting down, and the China Syndrome will trigger a meltdown in global phantom assets.
The 1979 film The China Syndrome took its name from the darkly humorous notion that a nuclear reactor meltdown in the U.S. would burn straight through the Earth to China. (wikipedia: The China Syndrome)
In late September, India “surprised” 51 out of 52 economists by cutting rates a larger than expected 50 bps.
Despite RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan’s penchant for catching markets off guard and despite the fact that exports had fallen for eight consecutive months, economists still failed to predict that anything more than 25 bps was in the cards.
One week ago, many were shocked when an in an exclusive interview with China's official mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, an "authoritative insider" offered his interpretation of the details of China’s supply side structural reform.
Once again, China was faced with the unpleasant task of deciding which asset class to intervene in: its plunging stock market, or its currency. It chose the latter, and as a result after a turbulent start the Shanghai Composite sank by 5.3% to close just above 3000 and down 15% in just the past 11 days, suggesting that the PBOC is increasingly seeing the CNY1.8 trillion (at least) spent to stabilize stocks as a sunk cost.
China have suspended their banks from the Foreign Exchange markets and ordered them to stop buying U.S. Dollars. China’s foreign exchange regulator has ordered bank’s to limit the purchases of U.S. dollars for at least one month in an attempt to stem capital outflows. Superstation95.com reports: The move comes as China reported its biggest annual drop in foreign exchange reserves on record in 2015, while the central bank has allowed a sharp slide in the Yuan currency to multi-year lows, raising fears of more capital flight.