Terrible numbers from China's Manufacturing Industry led to rumors of more stimulus from Beijing for Q4 and that propelled Asian markets higher this morning. The HSBC PMI report fell to 50.2 (barely expanding) for August and China's "official" PMI fell from 51.7 to 51.1.
The manufacturing slowdown adds to signs that China's "economy still faces considerable downside risks to growth in the second half of the year, which warrant further policy easing to ensure a steady growth recovery," said HSBC economist Hongbin Qu.
Back to China though. As you can see above, we have a cool chart of collapsing housing prices leading one analyst to say: "The way prices have fallen, it's as if there is a global financial crisis." Ha Ha Ha – silly analyst! That's the way things would look if we were in the REAL World but this is not the real world, this is the Central Bankster's Paradise!
United Overseas Bank, Singapore's third-biggest lender, reported a doubling in its bad debt charges for the second quarter, saying a group of investors was struggling to service high-end property loans. The number of residential properties being put up for sale at auction by banks after buyers defaulted on mortgages, known as mortgagee sales, quadrupled to 64 in the first half of this year from 16 in the second half of 2013, according to real estate agency Colliers."The rental can't even cover the mortgage for these high-end investments – they want to offload but there are no takers."
OK folks, move along – nothing to see here. What crisis? Please don't say crisis – thank you…
Meanwhile, we need to fiddle while Rome is buring if we're going to keep up with our indexes, which are stubbornly pushing to new highs despite all the actual news. We're still 100% bullish in our Long-Term Portfolio, which closed Friday up 22% for the year and we've gotten more bearish in our Short-Term Portfolio which, despite being wrong so far, is still up 33.6%. With our added protection in place – it's time to hit the Buy List, which we updated this weekend with 15 new long-term trade ideas.
We'll be reviewing our 5 Member Portfolios, along with the new Buy List, this afternoon in our live Webinar (Members Only - Join Here).
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