Friday, October 21, 2011

On the Other Side of the World

While world stock markets are being whip-sawed by every announcement out of Europe, it is easy to miss what is happening in the Chinese stock market.  Take a look at this:




If China is the growth engine of the world, the world could be stalling badly!

Of course, we don't know how much to trust this graph.  In the U.S., we believe our stock market predicts our economy six to nine months down the road.  The Chinese stock market is too new and too state-controlled to trust any such prediction.

Still, this is probably not a good time to buy cooper or other industrial commodities.

For the last century, the U.S. has been the growth engine of the world.  Our economy is certainly doing better than Europe.  It may be holding up better than China, relatively speaking.  But, wouldn't it be wonderful for us to still be the world's growth engine.