Well, that was certainly a well-timed, centrally-planned, market bounce by the Chinese! If you:
- Aren’t allowed to sell and/or
- Could go to jail for doing so, that’ll work
The Shanghai Composite Index bounced +5.8%, its biggest daily gain in six years. (It only needs another +37% to get back to 1-month breakeven.)
Meanwhile, the Veep of Public Security in China (Meng Qifeng) actually called the people who sold at 59X earnings “hostile short sellers.” Huh? We have a feeling the guys without high-school educations really aren’t that sophisticated.
My take is simple: China was a pump and dump. Period.
In other news, China's economic data? It still stinks. Producer prices -4.6% y/y in June.
On a final note, hats off to Allstate CEO Tom WIlson who appeared on Maria Bartiromo’s show with me this morning. Here’s what he had to say about Beijing:
"The problem with China is nobody believes the numbers. I think sometimes they just make it up."
#Agreed.