Wednesday, July 8, 2015

It's 1929 all over again on China's stock exchanges


As a reminder, on Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked at 381.17 on September 3rd, 1929.  After the crash, on November 13th, 1929 it sank as low as 198.60 - a loss of 182.57 points, or 47.9%, in 40 days.

On June 12th this year, the Shanghai Composite Index stood at 5,166.  Today it stood at 3,507.19 at the close.  That's a loss of 1658.81 points, or 32.11%, in just 26 days, averaging 63.8 points per day.  If losses continue at that rate, by the time 40 days have passed they'll total 2,552 points, or a loss of 49.4% since the start of the crash.

Forget all those trying to tell you that the Chinese stock market crash is nothing much to worry about.  This is 1929 all over again, right now.  It's a disaster for China.  Anyone who thinks this won't impact markets and economies all around the world is living in cloud cuckoo land - even without taking into account the current crisis over Greece and the European Union, or the massive debt problems affecting every major economy in the world, including the USA.

Brace yourselves.

Peter

5 comments:

Eaton Rapids Joe said...

It is not my intention to saddle you with extra work, but is the Shanghai Composite Index the full equivalent of the New York Stock Exchange (circa 1929) or is it more like the Vancouver Index? It is a fair question...What percentage of the Chinese Economy trades on the Shanghai exchange?

Chuck-K said...

Actually I been expecting this it just happened 5 years earlier than I expected.

lemmiwinks said...

I think I just discovered the perfect metaphor for this. I'm Oddball, tanks are the economy (local, national, global, it doesn't matter), the explosions are the various crises, and Big Joe is all the doomers/preppers/everyone who's freaking out about things beyond their control and manipulated for the benefit of others.

https://youtu.be/f5cL-h3Pj1o

kurt9 said...

http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/07/chinas-market-has-lost-us3-trillion-in.html

It appears that the effects of China's stock market crash will be relatively muted as there is very little international investment in China's stock market. The real problem is long-term and is rooted in the issues of crony capitalism as it is practiced in China.

I consider Brian Wang's (nextbigfuture blog guy) analysis to be sound.

Peter said...

@kurt9: Don't just think of the problem in terms of the stock market. It affects commodity markets and many other aspects of the economy as well, both in China and worldwide. See my latest post for examples:

http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2015/07/about-that-economic-impact.html