The year 2018 was the year of the dog in China, so they got that right. Everyone in the Chinese stock market is stuck with real dogs.
The total decline in value of the stocks on Chinese markets in 2018 was $2.3 trillion. That's roughly 10 times the GDP of Finland ($253 billion) and almost equal to the GDP of Great Britain ($2.7 trillion).
China’s benchmark Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 Index closed for the year by 23.64 per cent. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 14 per cent, the US S&P 500 was down 8 per cent and the UK’s FTSE 100 fell 13 per cent.
China's economy is a combination of free market sectors, severe cronyism, crazed central bank money manipulation, and outright flaky distortions. This all has a lot to do with their supposed spectacular growth rates.
Up next, the year 2019 in China is the year of the pig. This coming year, it may be the year the pig gets slaughtered and served up to the bears as bacon.
-RW
Yes, the year of the pig may be bad for China, unless it decides to do something constructive with those thousands of tons of gold the state and the people own. (Around 20,000 according to Alasdair Macleod's calculations)
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