China

The ramifications of Google's decision to leave China are deep: China's leadership, be careful what you wish for.

Some good research from China Knowledge this week. About how southeast Asia is becoming China's trading partner of choice.

China's trade with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has grown from just $8 billion in 1991 to $2.1 trillion in 2009.

Oil Market Summary 03/08/2010 to 03/12/2010

Crude oil prices tread water for the week as uncertainty about demand continued to weigh on the market. Prices were down slightly on the week, with the benchmark West Texas Intermediate settling on Friday at $81.24 a barrel, compared with $81.50 a week ago.

The China Containerized Freight Index has bee-lined upward in 2010. The index tracks shipping prices for goods sailing from China to 11 different regions around the world.

Between January 15 and February 26, the index rose 17%. During the same period, the Baltic Dry Index (which tracks average shipping prices globally) fell 18%.

Thanks to an unprecedented concentration of wealth, the World’s supply of Billionaires jumped 27% in 2009 and the 1,011 people in the club accumulated an AVERAGE of $500M more Dollars EACH! Isn’t that great? That’s $505Bn or 65% of America’s TARP spending handed over to 1,011 people who are, according to Forbes (The Capitalist’s Tool), clearly better than us.

U.S. equity markets are expected to open weaker this morning but off their lows. Last night’s news that China’s inflation was higher than expected, fueled speculation of a rate hike which helped drive down demand for higher yielding assets. The lack of follow-though to the downside has triggered a short-covering rally which is helping to boost equity prices from their overnight lows.

China’s consumer-price index spiked higher in February, leading to speculation that its central bank will raise interest rates to curb economic growth. The inflation report showed an acceleration from the year-earlier month, to a greater-than-expected pace of 2.7%. The higher growth was tied to greater-than-expected gains in fixed-asset investment, bank lending, and industrial production.

Now that the S&P rallied over 60 pct since last March 2009, and pretty much all other markets except housing and real estate have also rallied (anything connected to financial markets that received the half of the several $trillion of US and other central bank emergency money infusions beginning big around March 2009) it begs the question when there will be a correction. Or a crash.

He said benefits of a growing economy - expected to expand by 8% this year - should be distributed more fairly.

Iraq announced a $318 million contract with a unit of Turkish Petroleum to drill 45 wells in the supergiant Rumaila oilfield as the country strives to regain and even surpass pre-war production levels.

It’s a truism that the 21st century future of not just Asia, but the entire world, will be significantly determined by the relationship between the globe’s two fastest-growing large economies, China and India.

As most observers know, there have long been kinks in the political military relationship between the two countries, most notably their direct armed confrontation in 1962.

China is the key to the metals markets today. And there are some important signals about this market registering in the last few weeks.

China appears to be slumping under late-stage signs of overcapacity with the South China Mall only 1% occupied and the entire city of Ordos vacant along with 50% of the office space in Beijing standing empty, China is now a country that has 30Bn square feet of construction in progress for a country with "only" 1.4Bn people.

Crude oil prices took a dive on Friday after a week of gains from U.S. blizzards were undercut by another move in China to tighten monetary policy.

The U.S. Dollar is soaring as China surprised the Forex markets with a 50 basis point hike in its bank reserve requirements. This move by China is an attempt to cool credit without tightening interest rates. The intention of China’s central bank is not to derail the economy but to preserve its expansion.