Over the past week, I’ve seen China’s past, present and future. In central China’s Xi’an, I saw high-tech metallurgy that western science only caught up to within the past century. In Shanghai, the Bund district and its European-style architecture stand just across from the world’s biggest financial hot-spots.
Within the past couple of years, the Shanghai composite has taken on the dynamic of Chinese fireworks, zipping upwards by nearly 500%!
Down in Shenzhen, home to China’s second major stock exchange, shiny new buildings tower in triumph over the mainland’s first free market experiment, the Special Economic Zone (SEZ).
When I arrived in Shenzhen, I followed arrows through the train station directing me to Hong Kong, less than an hour’s train ride away. Having seen the brand-new look of Shenzhen and knowing that the municipality is considered to be behind Hong Kong in economic might, I anticipated a gilded metropolis once I got here to the former British colony.
What I got was a gauntlet of Indian tailors and fake watch peddlers–you know, the kind of vibrant mercantilism that comes with being a longstanding part of the Commonwealth.
Tomorrow though, I’ll hit the city’s financial district to meet with executives of one of my top Orbus Investor picks , and with a Chinese clean energy maven who is keen to help out subscribers to Jeff Siegel’s and my new Green Chip International service.
As I crunch my notes and research I’ll be delivering more China plays directly to readers, and I assure you that with the greenback plunging against every major world currency, you can’t miss this opportunity to go global.
Even individual Chinese investors are keen to invest abroad. Well, kind of . . . You see, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange is treated as a foreign market. Passing from Shenzhen to Hong Kong, you get your passport stamped, pass through customs, and even see the signs change from China’s simplified Chinese print to the traditional characters used in other Chinese-speaking lands.
On the trading floor, the rip-roaring Chinese bull market story of Shanghai and Shenzhen translates into a more sedate version in Hong Kong, but as we see here the absence of millions of new Chinese retail investors hasn’t kept the Hang Seng composite from tallying a 50% jump over the past year, compared to the dopey Dow’s 5.5%.
Orbus subscribers are up well over four times the Dow average since last autumn, giving us some serious reasons to celebrate this Thanksgiving. Plenty of Americans who invest abroad will be carving turkey on Thursday and smiling as they feast on profits they’ve made in local currency, despite the sub-prime woes eating many households alive.
As I brave culinary oddities over here in the Far East and relish telling my colleagues back in Baltimore that for me it is already “tomorrow,” I wish you and yours a happy and successful Thanksgiving week.
Regards,
Sam Hopkins
PS. I recently closed one Orbus Investor China play with a 145% gain in less than 24 months (we just racked up another triple-digit gain the past week, and my new Japanese recommendation from one week ago is already a winner). To sign up for Orbus Investor, click here.
