The meltdown started in China – China is concerned about the rampant speculation occurring in their stock market – poor farmers are hocking their few belongings so they can ‘invest’ in the stock market (can you say ‘bubble’ or ‘mania’?) – China is taking active steps to curtail this behavior
Here are a few quotes from Stratfor’s Global Market Brief today:
> In January, the number of total traders on the Chinese exchanges grew by 1.38 million, an increase of 134 percent from a month earlier
> Third, trading in 800 of the 1,400 stocks on the Shanghai exchange was suspended during the sudden drops Feb. 27; they have a lot farther to fall, even without any engineered drops caused by panicky selling
~
Note in the first quote that the MONTHLY increase was 134%
That last quote makes me expect more declines in China’s market – trading was halted in 57% of the stocks today but there was still a 8.5% decline – what do you think will happen when trading resumes in those stocks?