The Great Debate UK
from Global Investing:
Buyer beware or beware the buyers?
Hundreds of Bangladeshi investors have rioted on the streets of Dhaka in recent days over stock prices that have plunged nearly 18 percent since the start of the year. Police used batons and tear gas to break up protests that blocked roads around the country's main stock exchange.
If this sounds familiar, rewind back to 2008 to another part of the Indian subcontinent, when angry investors rampaged through the Karachi Stock Exchange after a series of precipitous share price falls.
In less developed markets, retail investors often bear the brunt of losses as they tend to account for the bulk of total investment rather than institutional players.
Seen to have greater resources to make more informed decisions than private individual investors, institutional investors account for roughly three-quarters of equity investment in the United States. Compare this to the leading emerging economy of China where they account for about half of the market.
from The Great Debate:
Time for China to act on foreign listings
-- Wei Gu is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are her own --
China has talked about plans to allow foreign companies to float on its domestic stock markets for at least a decade, but that's all there has been: talk.
Now would be a good time to convert some of that talk into action. Beijing has been struggling with its own investment strategies: the state gets feeble returns on the U.S. Treasury bonds it owns, and its equity stakes in foreign financial firms are well under water.
from The Great Debate:
Myths around China’s revitalization plan
-- Wei Gu is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are her own --
China investors should care about three major numbers this year: 8 percent economic growth, its 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package, and the 10 industries revitalization plan.
The first is the government's economic growth target and the second is a spending plan to shield the economy from the global financial crisis.
