Chinese inflation came in over estimates with the national CPI up 2.8% in April from the prior year level. Moreover, the hot-hot real estate sector saw inflation at 12.8%, another record figure. The banking sector boosted houing lending to $113 bn (yuan 774 bn) despite attempts by Beijing to rein it in. There will be more attempts to close the spigot.
But I still retain my quirky taste for housing stocks in China, despite the measures being planned. In China as elsewhree, when people become more prosperous they want to live like normal lives in attractive apartments big enough for their families. Most apartments are paid for from savings by those who live in them, and are not part of the speculative buy-to-let (or buy to keep empty) frothy market based on mortgages. So the real real estate market is not going to suffer as the crackdown holds back 2nd and 3rd and 4th home purchases, which no longer can get financing (at least unless you cheat. Chinese banks do cheat.)
More on this for paid subscribers today.
The idiocies of the Internet never cease to amaze me. Last Friday I headlined my blog “The Morning After”, referring to the awful selloff on Thursday. Would you believe that Yahoo blocked clients’ emails because this headline was viewed as “suggestive”?
Since my webmaster (Nancy but who was still the webmaster rather than webmistress) has resigned, I cannot deal with negotiating with Yahoo and other Internet Service Providers. So I recommend that paid subscribers just sign in and visit the website daily. I will try to restrict my headline inventiveness to avoid shocking Mrs. Grundy.
I was going to comment on the new Supreme nominee’s opposition to late-term abortion but will excercising self-censorship. It is arguable that aborting a baby who is viable outside its mother’s body is taking women’s right to choose a step too far. If the baby is not viable for some reason discovered late of course that is not the same thing.
Around the world in a dozen paragraphs. More for paid subscribers from Canada, India, China, Chile, Haiti, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, South Africa, South Korea, Japan, Britain, Brazil, Mexico and Israel follows. Join them. Your heirs will be grateful if you do. And if one of them is already kicking healthily inside you, please think hard before cutting the number of your heirs.
