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发表于 2007-8-5 08:37:05
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原文:Feeding frenzy
May 17th 2007 | SHANGHAI
From The Economist print edition
Share prices are exploding in Shanghai
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IN THE West when share prices go up, you are told to “fill yer boots”. In China the advice might be “fill yer face”. A new measure that Chinese retail investors use to justify entry into the booming stockmarket is that share prices in nominal terms are still cheap—at least compared with the price of a plate of pork.
But what's odd about that? Even standard measurements, such as price to earnings, have a surreal feel to them. Many companies trading on the Shenzhen and Shanghai bourses are at ratios last seen during the internet bubble of the late 1990s, or, closer to home, the Japanese and Taiwanese bubbles of two decades ago. Bank of Communications, China's sixth-largest bank, began trading on May 15th with a 71% leap on its first day. Its shares are now priced at 42 times expected earnings, a staggering level even given China's heady growth rate. One of its attractions is a stake held by HSBC, a global bank. HSBC trades at a meagre 13 times earnings.
High valuations do not deter punters. Five million new Chinese brokers' accounts were opened in April, two-thirds more than during the whole of last year. Retail demand, a result of individuals facing the simple choice of low-yielding bank accounts or booming stockmarkets, has helped push the market up by half this year and 250% in the past two years. Even housekeepers are reported to be leaving low-paid jobs to play the market.
Companies, too, are piling in. Earnings of Chinese-listed firms are being jet-propelled by “investment income”, observes William Liu, head of China research at CLSA Securities. That makes market movements blissfully self-reinforcing—higher share prices mean higher earnings—although of course it could work just as strongly in reverse, too.
China's government knows that a crash might well bring social upheaval, so it is gingerly trying to impose order. On May 11th a handful of politically connected institutions were granted permission to invest domestic funds outside the mainland, principally in Hong Kong.
Of far more weight would be for the authorities to open the country's capital account, and to allow short selling, which would wipe out the share-price discrepancy between China and Hong Kong. The government could also give retail investors more access to commercial paper, or high-quality bonds, so that they have an alternative to low-yielding bank accounts. However, it will permit only a trickle of each, because it fears cutting into the fat margins that banks earn from paying depositors next to nothing and lending at high rates—a margin that is needed to cover for the banks' bad loans.
Perhaps the most important change would be to allow investors more access to information on company performance. Western investment banks could play a role here; unlike their American counterparts, they restrict the amount of information they convey to the public. As it is, retail investors have little to go on except price movements; and if you are not sure what the earnings are, no wonder you compare prices with the cost of your last meal. |
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