Thursday 1 January 2009

China Bull Prefers Mainland Shares Traded in HK, Singapore

Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, said he has been buying shares of mainland companies even as growth in the world’s fourth-largest economy slows.

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Guanyu said...

China Bull Prefers Mainland Shares Traded in HK, Singapore

Bloomberg
1 January 2009

Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, said he has been buying shares of mainland companies even as growth in the world’s fourth-largest economy slows.

Mr. Rogers started buying mainland shares in 1988 and is now favouring equities traded in Hong Kong and Singapore that are cheaper than yuan-denominated stocks in Shanghai. Hong Kong’s H-share index climbed 1.36 per cent yesterday.

The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.66 per cent and the Shenzhen Composite Index retreated 1.27 per cent.

The mainland is slowing but “some parts of the Chinese economy will be totally unaffected by what happens in the west”, Mr. Rogers said yesterday. “I started buying in October again. I’ve never sold any Chinese shares.”

The global credit crisis has dragged the world’s largest economies into recession this year, denting demand for Chinese products.

Mainland exports fell for the first time in seven years in November.

The People’s Bank of China has cut interest rates five times in three months to lend support to a 4 trillion yuan (HK$4.54 trillion) spending package intended to revive an economy that grew in the third quarter at the slowest pace in five years.

Hong Kong’s H-share index plunged 51 per cent last year, the biggest annual decline since at least 1994. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 65.39 per cent last year.

Mr. Rogers, who correctly predicted the beginning of the commodities rally in 1999, has written a number of books including A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World’s Greatest Market.

He said he had been buying mainland agricultural stocks amid government measures to bolster economic growth.

Other industries he favours are mainland infrastructure, and water and tourism in Asia. He did not name any specific stocks.