The Coming Crash (no later than 1H2012)?

[Behappyalways]

HKSE broke 21,500....

http://www.asiachart.com/hkchina.html

[newborn1000]

Some stocks are rocketing eg venture.......some stocks are not even moving eg, challenger

STI looks stuck below 3000-3100 at the moment, should be taking time or price correction.....

[Behappyalways]

Hong Kong-listed companies trade at a price-to-earnings ratio of about 9.8, among the lowest valuations in the Asia-Pacific and down from 14.6 a year earlier, according to Thomson Reuters data. By comparison, shares in the Philippines main stock index trade at a regional high of 16.4 times and in India at 16 times.

From The Business Times

HK shares rallying but IPOs in worst start since 2009
Bankers are pinning hopes on US$700m oil sands company offering



(HONG KONG) Hong Kong's IPOs have suffered their worst start since 2009, failing to ride a stock market rally and forcing bankers in Asia's main centre for new issues to pin their hopes on a US$700 million oil sands company offering to throw open the floodgates.



Little activity: Companies with offerings on the docket remain on the sidelines. The few that are proceeding are planning deeper discounts and resorting to 'shadow books' to make sure the deals are infallible
A nearly 16 per cent rally in the local stock market since the beginning of the year should have given executives confidence to proceed with stock listings, and allowed bankers to clear their deal backlog and sign up more clients to hit the IPO track.

Instead, companies with offerings on the docket remain on the sidelines. The few that are proceeding are planning deeper discounts and resorting to 'shadow books' to make sure the deals are infallible.

The lack of activity is both a grim sign of CEO confidence and also a potentially dire warning for investment bankers in Asia, where equity capital market fees make up about two-thirds of the investment banking revenues at most firms, according to Thomson Reuters data.

'Investors are very choosy and will continue to be very choosy,' said Philippe Espinasse, a former investment banker with Nomura and UBS in Hong Kong and author of IPO: a Global Guide.


The IPO pipeline in Hong Kong could reach nearly US$8.4billion in the first half of this year, according to IFR.


Nearly half of the up to US$700 million IPO of Sunshine Oilsands, a Canadian oil explorer, has been sold to powerful Chinese state-backed entities, leaving little room for the deal to collapse.

However, a truly thriving IPO market is one where retail and mutual fund investors queue up to buy shares, something that is still missing in Hong Kong because of lingering concerns over Europe's debt troubles and a slowdown in China's economy.

Besides signing up so-called cornerstone investors, who commit to buying a chunk of the IPO and keeping their stake for a minimum period of time, bankers will sometimes also run a 'shadow book' when the market is weak, such as now.

The term refers to a roster of potential buyers that gives an early indication as to what demand will be before banks finalise a price range and launch the IPO. The 'shadow book' gives banks and the IPO company some comfort to go ahead, or not, with the deal, as was the case with Sunshine Oilsands.

'It's particularly important in a market like this. In a bull market you just launch and go,' said the head of equity capital markets (ECM) at an international investment bank in Hong Kong who was not authorised to speak publicly on the matter and thus requested anonymity.

The slump in issuance is a particular cause for concern in the financial industry after estimated fees on Asia-Pacific offerings tumbled 21 per cent to US$4.9 billion last year from 2010, prompting companies, including Royal Bank of Scotland and Samsung Securities Co Ltd, to slash jobs or pull out altogether from the equities business in the region.

Still, there is no dearth of companies wanting to list, with more than 80 active IPO applications in Hong Kong through the end of January. London-based high-end jeweller Graff Diamonds joined the ranks of IPO candidates in Hong Kong, filing for its up to US$1 billion offering last week.

Others such as China Everbright Bank and construction giant Sany Heavy Industry Co Ltd revived their listing plans buoyed by the jump in the benchmark Hang Seng index this year.

The IPO pipeline in Hong Kong could reach nearly US$8.4 billion in the first half of this year, according to figures from Thomson Reuters publication IFR, if demand for new issuance improves.

But that is a big 'if' at this stage.

'Sentiment is good, but as we all know, valuations for shares that are already listed in the mainboard are still attractive to investors,' said Patrick Yiu, a director at Cash Asset Management in Hong Kong, who is a regular investor in new offerings. 'I haven't put my focus on IPOs at this moment yet.'

Hong Kong-listed companies trade at a price-to-earnings ratio of about 9.8, among the lowest valuations in the Asia-Pacific and down from 14.6 a year earlier, according to Thomson Reuters data. By comparison, shares in the Philippines main stock index trade at a regional high of 16.4 times and in India at 16 times.

A slow start to IPOs comes despite a good ride enjoyed by the limited number of companies that went public this year. Six of the eight offers are trading above their IPO prices, with air freight company ASR Holdings and construction company Vision Fame both up about 88 per cent since their debuts in mid-January.

Admittedly, the deals this year have been small with the eight offers in total raising just HK$1.58 billion (S$256 million), the lowest volume since 2009 when HK$1.42 billion of deals were done through mid-February. Still, a strong performance hasn't inspired the bigger offers to get off the block. - Reuters

HKSE broke 21,500....

http://www.asiachart.com/hkchina.html

[Behappyalways]

How China could fail the world economy

http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2012/02/....cnnmoney/

[Behappyalways]

Punk Economics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5z0rQRds...r_embedded

[Bibi]

Punk Economics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5z0rQRds...r_embedded

That is a very interesting and nice video clip. Thank you.

[Behappyalways]

A new recession seems inevitable
http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/24/news/eco...?iid=HP_LN

[Behappyalways]

these probable experts are much more worried than the general market.

while those few who look like experts on this crisis are pulling out their hair in fright. As I said, this is just a theory. But it is scary.

This type of sovereign debt-regulation-political-monetary mess is absolutely not our forte. When I read the 120 contradictory bits of advice in the Financial Times alone, I find myself asking the question: who is an expert? To the extent that anyone has profitably specialized in this type of problem, I suppose it is George Soros. There are also, in my opinion, one or two investment management groups that seem to talk sense (which groups will go nameless for weasely competitive reasons). This is the problem: these probable experts are much more worried than the general market. This fact is giving rise to a new, tentative but definitely uncomfortable theory: perhaps the default assumption when dealing with ignorance or lack of confidence and skill is to assume everything will muddle through okay. Certainly we were amazed by this attitude generally displayed by the world (and most competitors) in the build-up to the 2000 and 2008 bubbles. Now we at GMO are calmly sitting around playing equities by the numbers, which are not too bad, and the market in general seems quite relaxed, while those few who look like experts on this crisis are pulling out their hair in fright. As I said, this is just a theory. But it is scary.

http://www.valuebuddies.com/thread-1846-...l#pid19775

[Behappyalways]

Why China Will Have an Economic Crisis
http://business.time.com/2012/02/27/why-...ic-crisis/


A Euro Sabbatical
http://www.project-syndicate.org/comment...42/English

[Behappyalways]

European Central Bank's cheap money has just turned toxic banks into zombie banks
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/finan...banks.html


ECB's Mario Draghi raises the stakes with trillion euro gamble
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comme...amble.html